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Need Advice on some parts

M

Mikonotsu

n00b
Joined
Nov 9, 2008
Messages
9
Hello, I am looking to build a SFF PC and need some advice.

1) What will you be doing with this PC?
Internet, Light Gaming[NFS: Most Wanted, GRAW 2, FarCry 2], Movies.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$500~540. Not really.

3) Where do you live?
Indiana

4 What exact parts do you need for that budget?
Case
Motherboard
CPU
HDD [Around 160~320GB HDD]
RAM
PSU
Video Card [Preferably NVIDIA]

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing?
Monitor, Mouse/Keyboard, 40GB HDD, Vista or XP 32/64 Bit.

6) Will you be overclocking?
Maybe in the future when I figure out how. Lol.

7) What size monitor do you have or plan to have?
20", already have, and a 32" TV, already have.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
This month or next.

I fixed my eye on the Thermaltake Lanbox Lite case as it was smaller than my current Raidmax Scorpio 868 case, but don't know if I should get it. Anyone know if cooling is an issue?

Also, I saw an ASUS P5Q-VM, and what are the benefits of it to the EM? Good mobo for my budget?

To those of you who are a bit confused, my current specs of the PC I am using are:

Case: Raidmax 868 Scorpio

Motherboard: Socket 775 ECS

CPU: Pentium 4 506 Prescott 2.66 GHz

RAM: 2GB (2x1GB) Kingston PC3200 200MHz

HDD: 30GB[XP Pro SP3] 40GB[Backup]

PSU: 420W Raidmax[STOCK, Came with case]

Video Card: GeForce4 MX 4000

Yes,a s you can see, this is going to be a big upgrade. It's been with me for a little over 4 years, but it's time to pull the plug.
 
The EM has RAID, the VM does not. Cooling with the Lanbox will greatly depend on the hardware you install and types of fans and speed you run them. I have no experience with the Lanbox so I can't comment on it beyond the basics.

For light gaming usage, a 4850 is a screaming deal now though if you have to have a nVidia 8800GTS will do you well or a GTX 260 192 if you want to spend a bit more. Memory is 4gigs minimum if your running Vista, especially 64bit, how much you wanna spend on RAM depends how how high you wanna OC. Keep in mind the lower budget ASUS boards won't be as high of OCers as like the P5E-VM HDMI or the DFI LanParty JR T42, but they also cost more.

CPU will greatly depend on what you wanna spend. The E7000 series is a good bet if your on a tight budget, the E8000 series for more power and great OC, quad if have programs that can utilize it

Seagates and WDD 640gig drives are currently the best bang for the buck and fast, so theirs no reason to reuse that tired old 40gig. PSU you can get a 400-500watt for a screaming deal on newegg, look at Antec, Corsair, Enermax, Silverstone and PC Power & Cooling for top quality.

I finished my first SFF build last week with the components below, my 3 year old Athlon 3700+ was on its last legs, so I can't imagine a 4 year old setup. Its built on the SG01-F case which I like alot.

EDIT: Gawd damn, that setup needs to be burned, a Geforce 4 MX? A 30gig main drive? Seriously? I haven't run such specs since 2001-2002

completed.jpg
 
A few questions, if you don't mind.

That 40GB is OLD, an IDE to be exact. Will SATA be better?

For the 4850, what is better about it than a 8800GTS? I'm just used to NVIDIA that I never thought of using an ATi.

I'm not planning to OC, but if I was, it'd be about 3.2~3.3GHz. Will an ASUS P5Q-VM be better than a P5E-VM HDMI? What do the chipset differences do? IGP and that's it?

For Vista, I used to run it on 2GB before switching back to XP, and it seemed to work somewhat fast. Not the games.

What would be the best PSU wattage if I used an 8800GTS? 4850?

Is that SGO1-F a sturdy case? When I say that, I mean, is it tight if I were to put a 4850 or an 8800GTS? and what are the cooling?

Could you recommend some parts and hopefully some links to them?

Thanks. Yeah, this is 4 years old, it was the b**** when I built it, but now they have Quad-cores and stuff. So new to me.
 
Mikonotsu said:
A few questions, if you don't mind.

That 40GB is OLD, an IDE to be exact. Will SATA be better?

For the 4850, what is better about it than a 8800GTS? I'm just used to NVIDIA that I never thought of using an ATi. A 4850 will outdo a 8800 in most cases as well.

I'm not planning to OC, but if I was, it'd be about 3.2~3.3GHz. Will an ASUS P5Q-VM be better than a P5E-VM HDMI? What do the chipset differences do? IGP and that's it?

For Vista, I used to run it on 2GB before switching back to XP, and it seemed to work somewhat fast. Not the games.

What would be the best PSU wattage if I used an 8800GTS? 4850?

Is that SGO1-F a sturdy case? When I say that, I mean, is it tight if I were to put a 4850 or an 8800GTS? and what are the cooling?

Could you recommend some parts and hopefully some links to them?

Thanks. Yeah, this is 4 years old, it was the b**** when I built it, but now they have Quad-cores and stuff. So new to me.
Click to expand...

SATA is noticeable faster then IDE and if nothing else SHIT LOADS faster to clean up cabling, especially if your going SFF. Ditch IDE once and for all and never go back.

The 4850 is currently the screaming performance/deal/bang for your buck card out. It some cases, it nearly matches a GTX 260 in some benchmarks while using less power, single slot design and only 1 PEG power connector.

The P5E-VM HDMI is a better choice the P5Q. Its much more OC friendly and has better features. IGP stands for *Integrated graphics processor* meaning it will have onboard video, no big deal as you will disable it when using an add on card.

XP can't reconized beyond 3.5 gigs, same with Vista 32 bit, if your doing 64bit, you WANT 4Gigs or your gonna have a thrashing system.

Again, a 450-600watt PSU will give you plenty of power for now and down the road.

The SGO1-F series is made of steel, their is another version that is all aluminum. It has plenty of room for almost anything cept a dual SLI setup of course or a big RAID.

Whats your budget as that greatly determines what parts I can recommend. NVM: Found it....

You can pretty much rule out getting a i7 setup as its gonna be WAAAY beyond your price range at this point.

Core 2 Dual
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115052
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037

Core 2 Quad
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017 *VERY popular model and OCable*

Mobos *one I and many others run*
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131237
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130177
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136055 *popular among OCers*

4gig G.Skill DDR2 800 *kick ass memory for price* With prices today, theres NO reason not to run 4gigs
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122

WD and SG popular HDD's
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148335

PSU recommondations
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371011
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703015
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817256027

Video Cards
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129112
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161244
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161236
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143119
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127361

Popular mATX cases
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133035
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163051
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163112
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163085
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163115
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112151
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133044

Phew, well that gets you started anyway
 
I was thinking of an E7200, since the E8400 is just a waste of money and I don't see much improvement other than 3.0GHz and an extra MB of Cache. If the ATi 4850 is good, I'll get it since you say it nearly matches GTX 260 and is cheaper. Can it handle movies in HD content any well?

I was thinking of 4GB of RAM to just start off and maybe 6GB down the road.

Will the P5QL-EM be any better or is it far worse than both the P5Q-VM/EM and P5E-VM?

As for case, the SG-01 looks good and as you say spacious.

Sorry if I have so many questions. 4 years has been quite a while for technology to upgrade, my last upgrade took place with 2GB of RAM.
 
- In terms of performance, yes SATA will be better. Go with the WD6400AAKS 640GB hard drive if you can fit it into your budget
- The HD4850 is significantly faster than the 8800GTS. So I recommend getting that card instead
- Better in terms of what? Performance would be the same. But other features aren't
- Ok, don't buy a PSU by wattage because not all 500W PSUs or any PSUs of a similar wattage are the same. There are some 500W PSUs taht are shittier and provide even less power than some 380W PSU. So you really have to do your research when it comes to PSUs.

Remember that wattage doesn't mean as much these days. What matters most is where those watts are being delivered. For current rigs, it's all about how much amps are on the +12V rail since most PC parts draw their power from there. The more amps you have, the more upgrades (hard drives, video cards, PCI cards, etc) you can add. You determine the amperage on the +12V rails by first finding out what's the total combined, max load, combined or max wattage aside for the +12V rails/section alone. Then divide that total by 12 and you get how much amps the PSU has on the +12V rail.

That's the correct way to find out how much amps a power supply has. Don't add up the amps on the +12V rail to figure out the amperage. Doesn't work that way. If the total combined or max wattage can't be found on the power suppply, check the manufacturer's page for that PSU for that info. If the manufacturer doesn't provide that information, it's generally a good sign for you to drop that power supply from consideration.

However, amperage isn't the only consideration when buying a power supply. You should also look at quality. Though amperage does sometimes help determine the quality of the power supply.

Anyway, here's a build list:
Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 CPU - $83
Asus P5E-VM HDMI Intel G35 mATX Motherboard - $125
G.Skill F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ 2 x 2GB DDR2 800 RAM - $50
Sapphire 100245L Radeon HD 4850 512MB PCI-E Video Card - $160
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 320GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $60
Antec Earthwatts 500W PSU - $50
Silverstone SUGO SG02B-F Black mATX Case - $50
----
Total: $578 plus tax and shipping

Yes it is out a bit over your budget but it is totally worth the extra cash. The HD4850 is one of the best bang for the buck video cards out now and can handle HD content well. The 4GB of RAM (technically you'll only be able to use about 3 to 3.5GB of RAM due to 32bit OS limitations) should help out a lot for multi-tasking. The Seagate 7200.11 320GB is one of the fastest 320GB drives out there while that SG02B-F is currently on sale for $50 (MSRP is $70). Yes the SG02B-F isn't as good as the SG01B-F but because of your limited budget, that $50 SG02B-F is your best bet for a SFF case. The Antec EA500 500W PSU has 35A on the +12V rail which should be enough for your current system. Finally that motherboard will allow for some decent overclocking.
 
Mikonotsu said:
I was thinking of an E7200, since the E8400 is just a waste of money and I don't see much improvement other than 3.0GHz and an extra MB of Cache. If the ATi 4850 is good, I'll get it since you say it nearly matches GTX 260 and is cheaper. Can it handle movies in HD content any well?

I was thinking of 4GB of RAM to just start off and maybe 6GB down the road.

Will the P5QL-EM be any better or is it far worse than both the P5Q-VM/EM and P5E-VM?

As for case, the SG-01 looks good and as you say spacious.

Sorry if I have so many questions. 4 years has been quite a while for technology to upgrade, my last upgrade took place with 2GB of RAM.
Click to expand...


Pfff 4850 will handle anything you throw at it for years to come. Just keep in mind the GTX 260 does pull ahead in games depending on quality settings and rez, read some reviews to get up to speed on graphics cards, alots changed
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3437
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3408
http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTU1OCwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0
http://xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/force3d-hd-4870.html
http://xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/sapphire-toxic-hd4850.html

The P5QL-EM has a HORRID track record for not working when installing add on video cards, stay away from it.

Look at the cases on Newegg and see what you like best, google reviews and get up close shots and check the SFF gallery in this section. Everyones got their own taste

No worries, I was way behind on PC tech back when I started planning my build in Sept, I did more hours of googling, thread searching/posting and review reading then I wanna think about
 
Danny Bui said:
while that SG02B-F is currently on sale for $50 (MSRP is $70). Yes the SG02B-F isn't as good as the SG01B-F but because of your limited budget, that $50 SG02B-F is your best bet for a SFF case.
Click to expand...

Technically, they are the EXACT same cases interior wise, only the front panel is different. The SG02 is cheaper cause the front is plastic rather then aluminum and 2 less USB ports. Just FYI ;)
http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/p_contents.php?pno=SG01-F&area=usa SG01-F
http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/p_contents.php?pno=SG02-F&area=usa SG02-F
 
Okay, thanks guys. I think I have found a few to consider now.

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ - Retail

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

ASUS P5E-VM HDMI LGA 775 Intel G35 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

That's all I can think of now. Generated by your reviews of the P5Q-VM's crappiness, the P5E-VM sounds better and worth the money for it.
 
Okay, I'm having a bit of a hard time choosing cards.

Can someone point to which is better in terms of performance/price ratio.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127365

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102804

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161249

They all look the same in the specs, but I just want to be sure.

As for case and PSU, it's still anyone's choice. The SG-01/2 look good and are cheap, but the Lanbox/Lite is bigger so space is better? I'll have to find some comparison reviews between the two. PSU is still a tough one, as again the +12V rail thing kinda scares me into buying something that will blow up the parts.
 
Get the EA500. No worries about the +12V rail and you definitely won't need much more power considering your budget for parts.

Video card wise, I'd go with the HIS HD 4670 512MB. The extra 512MB on the Sapphire HD4670 won't help that much since it's not fast enough to take advantage of that much VRAM. The 9600GSO should not cost that much. $80 is a good price for it.
 
if you have a frys around where you live, they have an e7200 for 79 dollars, that would fit into your budget and build nicely.
 
Danny Bui said:
Get the EA500. No worries about the +12V rail and you definitely won't need much more power considering your budget for parts.

Video card wise, I'd go with the HIS HD 4670 512MB. The extra 512MB on the Sapphire HD4670 won't help that much since it's not fast enough to take advantage of that much VRAM. The 9600GSO should not cost that much. $80 is a good price for it.
Click to expand...

FYI, I finally decided on a GTX 260 192 to replace this aging 7800GTX. I really hope it performs alot better for the money, I cranked up Fallout 3 and damn, outdoors its a pertty slideshow even without any AA *which I never use* only AF* Plus I get a free copy of Far Cry 2, 3dmark Vantage and rebate to boot :D
 
Freezebyte said:
FYI, I finally decided on a GTX 260 192 to replace this aging 7800GTX. I really hope it performs alot better for the money, I cranked up Fallout 3 and damn, outdoors its a pertty slideshow even without any AA *which I never use* only AF*
Click to expand...

Good choice.
 
I do live next to a Fry's Electronics store, vertigomhs. It's about 20 minutes away from me, and I did not know that they sold E7200's for $80. Their site's crap. They never bother to update it. I will go tomorrow to check it out since they close in about 40 min. There is no point going there now.

But, thanks. If I can get it so cheaply there, that would save me about $120 for something else.
 
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