Ayu's new computer

[Joy]

Ayu asked for some advice regarding a new PC. I've selected a list of components close to what I would use to build a mostly-for-WoW PC right now.

Intel Core i5 750 Tray
Sockel 1156, 2.66GHz, Lynnfield 45nm, 95W TDP, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE4.2, Enhanced Speedstep (EIST), Intel 64, XD-Bit, Intel VT, Turbo Boost

MSi P55-GD65 Sockel 1156 ATX
903477595, DDR3 1066/1333/1600*/2000*/ 2133* (OC), 2x PCI, 2x PCIe, 7x SATA, 1x IDE, RAID, 2x GB-LAN, 8x USB2.0, 1x FireWire, eSATA, keine Grafikkarte, SLI, CrossFire

Cooler Master Hyper TX3
für Sockel 775/1156/754/ 939/940/AM2/ AM3, 92mm Lüfter, 800-2800rpm, 26.3-91.8m³/h, 17dB, 3 Heatpipes, 4pin PWM

be quiet! System Power S6-SYS-UA-450W
450 Watt, ATX 2.2, 120mm Lüfter, aktives PFC, 20/24pin, 8pin EPS12V, 4pin ATX12V, 6pin PCIe, 4x SATA, 4x IDE, Floppy, 80Plus

DR3 4GB Kingston ValueRAM Kit
1333MHz, CL9, 256Mx64, 240pin

Sapphire Radeon HD5750
ATI HD5750, 1GB DDR5 128bit, PCIe, 2x DVI, HDMI, Displayport, HDCP, ATI Eyefinity Dual Slot Fan Cooler, 700MHz GPU, 1150MHz memory, DirectX 11

Samsung SpinPoint F3 1000GB
3.5", SATA2, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9ms

Cooler Master HAF922 schwarz
ATX, 5x 5.25" extern, 3.5" extern, 5x 3.5" intern, 200mm Lüfter (vorne), 200mm Lüfter (oben), 120mm Lüfter (hinten), eSATA, 2x USB2.0, Kopfhörer, Mikrofon

Total cost: € 788,20

This list is mostly based on the endless advice offered by tweakers.net, one of the biggest nerd communities in Europe

Excluding: keyboard, mouse, screen, don't think I forgot anything else?

Possible savings: cheaper no-brand case, 2 GB ram, cheaper mobo maybe.
Wanna spend moar?: easy to spend more on a graphics card, but of little benefit to WoW. Bigger HD, solid-state HD.

All these components are currently IN-STOCK at http://www.computeruniverse.net/, from what I've read, one of the top German computer webshops, and it shows in their range/stock. It's often possible to find individual components cheaper in seperate stores, but this is often not practical/worth it.

Posting here instead of PM so other knowledgeable people can chip in, and Ayu seems to have gone offline now anyways

 

[Careface]

This is just a lot of interchangeable words that makes no sense

 

[Gink]

Your everyday typical Joyma-post, in other words. <3

 

[Jazende]

I think going for a Solid State disk is going a bit overboard. There's no reason he'd need it and it just cost redicilously more then normal hard disks. Better of getting a bigger one then a small SSD.

 

[Ayu]

Man, haven't had an Intel in ages. Is this a dual core now or wut?

 

[Ayu]

Eh btw, no soundcard? Is internal that good nowadays?

 

[Ayu]

Also if I were to go to the full 1000, what parts should I upgrade? Not gonna buy a new rig anyone soon so want something that will last. Could I also fraps with that PC?

 

[Joy]

Intel is best value for money now, and this is a quad-core.

 

[Joy]

On-board is easily good enough now, rarely the bottleneck in your total audio picture, not worth spending cash on.

Spending more cash, I would almost definitely spend it on a better graphics card, namely the Radeon 5850. This is a very popular component and often not in-stock, I would advise ordering that where it's in-stock, can just do that separately.

 

[Joy]

http://www.hpm-computer.de/product_info .... 024MB.html for example, albeit not clear if it's in stock, says call them

 

[Joy]

Looked around, man that chip is really difficult to get, here as well, I would call that shop and beg 'em to send you one

Good sign otherwise

 

[Merlijn]

What I always do is buy a mainboard with SLI. Get 1 2nd or 3rd best video card since they're often best price / quality wise and add a 2nd one about 9 months - 1 year later. It's a cheap upgrade and allow you to keep it for a longer while. Also imo the most important thing running WoW will you your RAM. I'd suggest taking 4Gb at least but bare in mind that you need a 64-bit version of Windows if you want to go over this

Also get a more powerful Power Supply.... if you want to add a 2nd video card at a later point the 450W Joy suggested might be cutting it.. I'd play it safe with around 750W

And as Best Buddy pointed out, Solid State disks are a bit overkill

P.S. I don't recall WoW even uses more then 2 cores unless I've missed out on a change at some point

 

[Joy]

I think I listed 4 GB? In any case do not waste money on more unless you are planning to get into heavy heavy multitasking, I'd say 4 is perfect.

Power supply wattage is surrounded by loads of hype and nonsense, when it actually comes to measuring the wattage your PC draws when at full load, it really never ends up taxing even smaller supplies. Of course the industry loves you to believe otherwise Anyways, it's also not a big extra cost to get a bigger one, but ONLY if you want to use SLI (2 graphics cards), and realize this is again pointless for WoW. Still, not a bad idea to get that cheaper GPU, it's already great for WoW, and you can plug a 2nd one in down the line.

I would suggest this 650W in that case: http://www.computeruniverse.net/product .... tx-2-3.asp

I don't recommend Ayu getting an SSD, they are a bit expensive for what you get, but trust me, once you go SSD, you never go back, especially when you dislike HD rattling :<

Regarding multithreading, WoW is multithreaded, hence it can already uses multiple cores, and it's not limited to just two either. Then there's the gazillion threads being run by Windows and other background applications. However, as Braque mentioned, the main WoW thread takes the brink of the load, can't do much better backporting multithreading into the game.

Edit: Very good article on PSUs: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page1.html

 

[Ayu]

What is the difference between tray and boxed again? I thought boxed was with a cooler but it makes no sense than boxed seems cheaper than tray, does it?

http://www.computeruniverse.net/product .... -boxed.asp
http://www.computeruniverse.net/info.as .... nner=&pos=

Is everything else the same?

 

[Ayu]

Also, how important is cache? http://www.computeruniverse.net/product .... -boxed.asp seems to look better than the Intel one since it has a higher CPU clock but lower L3 cache (but double L1/L2)?

 

[Ayu]

Aaaaaaand, another question after googling that Intel CPU. It says it doesn't support HyperThreading. Is that really bad?

 

[Braque]

Generally speaking, L1 cache is "better" than L2, which is "better" than L3. Payoff from the processor cache depends a lot on the application, not sure if anyone had benchmarked WoW for cache use, but I expect it'd be a medium win. I suspect once you have enough CPU/GPU the biggest payoffs are more ram and faster harddrive.

 

[Braque]

Aaaaaaand, another question after googling that Intel CPU. It says it doesn't support HyperThreading. Is that really bad?

Hyperthreading is a kind of task switch lite where the instruction pipeline can interleave and reorder instructions to keep the cpu busy more of the time. It was important before dual core was mainstream, and a cheep way to get better multthreading. Given your looking at quad core, it's irrelevant.

 

[Ayu]

Alright, so the Intel one it is. Time to check the mobo's.

 

[Ayu]

Could someone explain me what SLI is or why I need that? ><