Discussion Forums > Technology
New PC - Xeon or Opteron?
Lillymon:
Handy list earlier in this topic. I'll be putting it here to clear my head and because I could do with some help.
--- Quote ---1) What will you be doing with this PC?
--- End quote ---
Mostly anime viewing, YouTube, and a fuckload of torrenting. Also hoping to do a decent amount of video encoding and at least a bit of low-to-mid range gaming (I've never been a huge PC gamer). I've found before that RAM and hard drive space tend to be the main bottlenecks for me.
--- Quote ---2) What's your budget?
--- End quote ---
A 'hard' £1000. Which actually means a soft £1000, i.e. up to about £1100-1200 if that's what it takes. Ideally though, sticking to £1000 would be best.
--- Quote ---3) Which country do you live in?
--- End quote ---
United Kingdom. Specifically, I recently moved to Stoke-on-Trent.
--- Quote ---4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? (Do not put all, please be specific.)
--- End quote ---
Motherboard, RAM, CPU, video card, hard disk drive(s), fans, chassis. Effectively an entire tower unit. I could reuse the current chassis but I'd rather keep my current PC intact until my new one is fully up and running.
--- Quote ---5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing?
--- End quote ---
Fortunately, all the peripherals (monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse, external FDD) are newer than this PC, so they can all be kept. It's just the tower unit that needs replacement.
--- Quote ---6) Will you be overclocking?
--- End quote ---
I never have before and I don't intend to start now.
--- Quote ---7) What is the max resolution of your monitor?
--- End quote ---
1920x1080
--- Quote ---8 ) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
--- End quote ---
Maybe later this year but I would prefer to wait until after Christmas, if my current (five year old) PC will oblige.
--- Quote ---9) What features do you need in a motherboard?
--- End quote ---
This is a problem. I've been asked this question before and my response was a blank stare. I really don't know. I want a high-end Core i7 CPU and I want 16GB RAM but I don't know what motherboard I'll need for that. So I could do with help on this one as it just stumped me I'm afraid.
--- Quote ---10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
--- End quote ---
I use Debian GNU/Linux. I'll burn myself an install DVD grab the applications I need from the repositories. Unless I have hardware support issues (I'll ask other Debian users before making a final decision on components) or this new Secure Boot crap gives me trouble, the OS shouldn't be an issue.
Saras:
--- Quote from: Lillymon on November 01, 2013, 10:18:44 PM ---
--- Quote ---1) What will you be doing with this PC?
--- End quote ---
Mostly anime viewing, YouTube, and a fuckload of torrenting. Also hoping to do a decent amount of video encoding and at least a bit of low-to-mid range gaming (I've never been a huge PC gamer). I've found before that RAM and hard drive space tend to be the main bottlenecks for me.
--- End quote ---
You haven't written anything that would warrant anything on the scale of an i7. An 8320 should do you just fine if you want to rely on the CPU to encode, if you're willing to go OpenCL/CUDA go with an APU and a slightly higher than midrange discrete card.
In either case, what you described doesn't really warrant a tower that'd cost 1000GBP.
What concerns torrenting, use your old system for that. Hell, if my Athlon 3000+ is good enough for that, your system will be too. Chuck in a few hard drives and make a nas out of it to boot.
Honemi:
Use PcPartPickerUK
You want your memory at 1866MHz or more (assuming Haswell). Just pick the cheapest you can find from a reputable site and manufacturer. You should be looking at motherboards with B85 or H87 chipsets. They'll lack some features you don't need since you're not overclocking (like overclocking). A good cheapie is to look at is the ASRock H87M Pro4. Good onboard sound, 6 SATA3 ports, 4 USB3, and 4 DIMM slots. Everything you need?
You probably don't need a R9-280X/7970 or 770 for what you're planning to do. Heck, even a 760 or 7950 may be overboard. I'd take a look at the price of the 760 or 7950, and if it looks like something you could abide, get one of them. Otherwise, look at the 7850 and 650Ti Boost and find the best price among them.
If you got with the 7850/650Ti Boost, you'll only need something like a 450W PSU. Rosewill Capstone, any SeaSonic (and the rebrands of it like XFX's units), and Antec Green Earth series are good. The Corsair RM series looks nice, too. Pick any of them.
If you want one of the higher cards like the 760 or 7950, pick up something at +550W. The above series are good.
Most harddrives have similar performance, but if you do a lot of encoding, WD Blacks may be worth it. Otherwise, anything with 7200RPM is going to be decent.
Pick up a SSD. Look at 240~256 models. The Samsung 840 EVO is the preferred drive at the moment. It offers good performance at a good price.
The Deep Silence 1 is a good case, but if you do a mATX motherboard, you can try looking at mATX cases, too. The Define Mini seems to be a good case.
Lillymon:
--- Quote from: Saras on November 01, 2013, 10:45:02 PM ---You haven't written anything that would warrant anything on the scale of an i7. An 8320 should do you just fine if you want to rely on the CPU to encode, if you're willing to go OpenCL/CUDA go with an APU and a slightly higher than midrange discrete card.
--- End quote ---
Well I was going with standard practice of a high-end CPU early on to keep the system relevant for a long time (it's worked twice for me so far), but it's nice to know about other options. What would the price difference between an i7 and the more modest CPU you suggest be do you think?
--- Quote from: Saras on November 01, 2013, 10:45:02 PM ---In either case, what you described doesn't really warrant a tower that'd cost 1000GBP.
--- End quote ---
If I can get away with less than £1000 that would be very nice, but I had expected my new system to cost about as much as my last one. If it does turn out to be possible though, my mum will love you for it.
--- Quote from: Saras on November 01, 2013, 10:45:02 PM ---What concerns torrenting, use your old system for that. Hell, if my Athlon 3000+ is good enough for that, your system will be too. Chuck in a few hard drives and make a nas out of it to boot.
--- End quote ---
I don't want to keep my current system running indefinitely, space and noise concerns are pretty prohibitive. I'd like to be doing everything with one system, as I currently am and retire this system (being built in summer 2008 and running almost continuously since with only one minor upgrade and no repairs, I figure it doesn't owe me anything). I do hate just getting rid of old technology, I'd rather reuse everything, but this current system just feels like it's had enough.
--- Quote from: Honemi on November 01, 2013, 10:48:28 PM ---Use PcPartPickerUK
You want your memory at 1866MHz or more (assuming Haswell). Just pick the cheapest you can find from a reputable site and manufacturer. You should be looking at motherboards with B85 or H87 chipsets. They'll lack some features you don't need since you're not overclocking (like overclocking). A good cheapie is to look at is the ASRock H87M Pro4. Good onboard sound, 6 SATA3 ports, 4 USB3, and 4 DIMM slots. Everything you need?
--- End quote ---
Certainly seems like it. I was hoping to switch to onboard sound (I'm currently on a Sound Blaster X-Fi, which seems superfluous to my needs) and the rest is comparable to what I have now, which has proven suitable.
--- Quote from: Honemi on November 01, 2013, 10:48:28 PM ---You probably don't need a R9-280X/7970 or 770 for what you're planning to do. Heck, even a 760 or 7950 may be overboard. I'd take a look at the price of the 760 or 7950, and if it looks like something you could abide, get one of them. Otherwise, look at the 7850 and 650Ti Boost and find the best price among them.
If you got with the 7850/650Ti Boost, you'll only need something like a 450W PSU. Rosewill Capstone, any SeaSonic (and the rebrands of it like XFX's units), and Antec Green Earth series are good. The Corsair RM series looks nice, too. Pick any of them.
If you want one of the higher cards like the 760 or 7950, pick up something at +550W. The above series are good.
--- End quote ---
This is a lot of jargon at once, you might want to slow down a bit. :)
--- Quote from: Honemi on November 01, 2013, 10:48:28 PM ---Most harddrives have similar performance, but if you do a lot of encoding, WD Blacks may be worth it. Otherwise, anything with 7200RPM is going to be decent.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, I think I want to prioritize capacity and reliability over speed. I'm currently using a pair of 1TB HDDs and was looking at a pair of 4GB HDDs for my new build. Some may call it excessive, I say there's no such thing with HDDs, especially with 100-150GB torrents at this site.
--- Quote from: Honemi on November 01, 2013, 10:48:28 PM ---Pick up a SSD. Look at 240~256 models. The Samsung 840 EVO is the preferred drive at the moment. It offers good performance at a good price.
--- End quote ---
Everyone seems to say this. Everyone. I've been sceptical so far but if this build does prove cheaper than I'm expecting then I'll have some money left over for this. Why are SSDs such a good idea? What improvement would I see with one? I'm open to the idea, but I need a good reason to make the leap.
--- Quote from: Honemi on November 01, 2013, 10:48:28 PM ---The Deep Silence 1 is a good case, but if you do a mATX motherboard, you can try looking at mATX cases, too. The Define Mini seems to be a good case.
--- End quote ---
Small is good I suppose. The case is really unimportant. I keep my tower unit in a closed cupboard in my desk so I hardly every look at. It's very much a case of functionality over looks.
Saras:
--- Quote from: Lillymon on November 01, 2013, 11:05:53 PM ---
--- Quote from: Saras on November 01, 2013, 10:45:02 PM ---You haven't written anything that would warrant anything on the scale of an i7. An 8320 should do you just fine if you want to rely on the CPU to encode, if you're willing to go OpenCL/CUDA go with an APU and a slightly higher than midrange discrete card.
--- End quote ---
Well I was going with standard practice of a high-end CPU early on to keep the system relevant for a long time (it's worked twice for me so far), but it's nice to know about other options. What would the price difference between an i7 and the more modest CPU you suggest be do you think?
--- Quote from: Saras on November 01, 2013, 10:45:02 PM ---In either case, what you described doesn't really warrant a tower that'd cost 1000GBP.
--- End quote ---
If I can get away with less than £1000 that would be very nice, but I had expected my new system to cost about as much as my last one. If it does turn out to be possible though, my mum will love you for it.
--- Quote from: Saras on November 01, 2013, 10:45:02 PM ---What concerns torrenting, use your old system for that. Hell, if my Athlon 3000+ is good enough for that, your system will be too. Chuck in a few hard drives and make a nas out of it to boot.
--- End quote ---
I don't want to keep my current system running indefinitely, space and noise concerns are pretty prohibitive. I'd like to be doing everything with one system, as I currently am and retire this system (being built in summer 2008 and running almost continuously since with only one minor upgrade and no repairs, I figure it doesn't owe me anything). I do hate just getting rid of old technology, I'd rather reuse everything, but this current system just feels like it's had enough.
--- Quote from: Honemi on November 01, 2013, 10:48:28 PM ---Use PcPartPickerUK
You want your memory at 1866MHz or more (assuming Haswell). Just pick the cheapest you can find from a reputable site and manufacturer. You should be looking at motherboards with B85 or H87 chipsets. They'll lack some features you don't need since you're not overclocking (like overclocking). A good cheapie is to look at is the ASRock H87M Pro4. Good onboard sound, 6 SATA3 ports, 4 USB3, and 4 DIMM slots. Everything you need?
--- End quote ---
Certainly seems like it. I was hoping to switch to onboard sound (I'm currently on a Sound Blaster X-Fi, which seems superfluous to my needs) and the rest is comparable to what I have now, which has proven suitable.
--- Quote from: Honemi on November 01, 2013, 10:48:28 PM ---You probably don't need a R9-280X/7970 or 770 for what you're planning to do. Heck, even a 760 or 7950 may be overboard. I'd take a look at the price of the 760 or 7950, and if it looks like something you could abide, get one of them. Otherwise, look at the 7850 and 650Ti Boost and find the best price among them.
If you got with the 7850/650Ti Boost, you'll only need something like a 450W PSU. Rosewill Capstone, any SeaSonic (and the rebrands of it like XFX's units), and Antec Green Earth series are good. The Corsair RM series looks nice, too. Pick any of them.
If you want one of the higher cards like the 760 or 7950, pick up something at +550W. The above series are good.
--- End quote ---
This is a lot of jargon at once, you might want to slow down a bit. :)
--- Quote from: Honemi on November 01, 2013, 10:48:28 PM ---Most harddrives have similar performance, but if you do a lot of encoding, WD Blacks may be worth it. Otherwise, anything with 7200RPM is going to be decent.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, I think I want to prioritize capacity and reliability over speed. I'm currently using a pair of 1TB HDDs and was looking at a pair of 4GB HDDs for my new build. Some may call it excessive, I say there's no such thing with HDDs, especially with 100-150GB torrents at this site.
--- Quote from: Honemi on November 01, 2013, 10:48:28 PM ---Pick up a SSD. Look at 240~256 models. The Samsung 840 EVO is the preferred drive at the moment. It offers good performance at a good price.
--- End quote ---
Everyone seems to say this. Everyone. I've been sceptical so far but if this build does prove cheaper than I'm expecting then I'll have some money left over for this. Why are SSDs such a good idea? What improvement would I see with one? I'm open to the idea, but I need a good reason to make the leap.
--- Quote from: Honemi on November 01, 2013, 10:48:28 PM ---The Deep Silence 1 is a good case, but if you do a mATX motherboard, you can try looking at mATX cases, too. The Define Mini seems to be a good case.
--- End quote ---
Small is good I suppose. The case is really unimportant. I keep my tower unit in a closed cupboard in my desk so I hardly every look at. It's very much a case of functionality over looks.
--- End quote ---
Here. For all intents and purposes, that's pretty much a high-spec gaming rig. http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1W6Vn
To add to that, I don't really see any real reason why'd you'd need the 7950, a 250 gig SSD or 16 gigs of ram.
The haswell i7 costs about twice what 8320 costs. What concerns encoding, the only thing your system will do that's CPU intensive. The difference in performance is less than 20%. Current intel motherboards are also more expensive.
The 7950 is pretty much a gaming card that will max out everything at 1080p. For "light gaming", you can basically cut down to something like a 7850/650ti without any real worries. Saving about 100 quid again.
An SSD doesn't add anything at all, what concerns performance. What it however does, is make you less pissed off at your system for it feeling slow. You're not going to get a single extra FPS out of it, what you will get is the feeling of a computer that's running really fast and is responsive. If that is not important to you, feel free to chuck it out altogether and get some 4-6 tb of space instead. You can also cut back down to a ~120 gig model. Now that I think about it, you probably should, as it doesn't seem like you'd be keeping a lot of games on the os drive. However, you should keep the 250 one if you feel like gaming a lot.
16gigs of ram, is imo, overkill. Especially if you do stick with the SSD, quite frankly it's fast enough to where using a bit of page file if by the off chance you ever do run out of the 8 gigs won't be too much of an issue. Halving the price again.
Feel free to use the extra cash on space. Feel free to chuck out anything for a cheaper alternative.
To be perfectly honest, for what you described. You could pretty much get something that's good enough for less than 600 quid. If you aren't going super enthusiast. There really isn't that much of a reason to go for a really powerfull system nowadays. The rate of progress in a lot of the things has slowed down quite a lot. Quite frankly, a pc built three years ago with a 2600K and something like a 580 is still basically top of the line, what concerns the average user.
Also, final thing. What concerns performance. You're better off building a 600 quid rig now and another 600 quid one 3 years down the line, rather than spending a grand now. An extra 40% over that is not going to give you an extra 40% in performance.
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