Building a PC, Part IV: Now It's Your Turn

Any recommendations for good monitors? For a 3 screen set up do you do a wide screen in the middle and two traditionals on the sides?

Dump the 680i for a P35 board.

Unfortunately I do not get to build my new work PC but I do get to spec it out. We are getting Dell M390’s for development and to suuport multiple VM’s simultaneouly.

The Primary specs are:
Q6600 processor
4x1GB Ram
2x 146GB 15,000 RPM SAS (I did not choose the drives. I am not positive of the performance increase we will see in comparison to the Raptor 150GB 10,000 rpm SATA which is available from DELL as well). I am quite sure however that we will pay the cost with a loder machine as well as a higher price tag.

Yes, ‘piqued’, not ‘peaked’.

More on piqued:

http://nih.blogspot.com/2003/06/im-sorry-i-have-to-say-this.html

Great series Jeff!

I’ve been following it closely as I’m about ready to spring for a desktop. Rumors of a redesigned 24" iMac have kept me from building a PC, but then I went back and read your plug of the triple monitor setup which had me quite interested in that avenue. So now I’m curious what monitors you would recommend? I guess an all widescreen setup would be a bad idea because you lose a lot of vertical space. Any comments would be much appreciated.

No worries about the OS. Just buy it from my town’s local computer shop. You will get pirated copies of Windows Office for no extra charge.

Thanks for the run down of packages to choose from. I am currently in the midst of trying to figure out what to buy for a new PC (mine is near unbearable now). And I have have the equipment, I really need the PS, MBD+CPU, Cooler, and memory — and your basic listing is perfect and within my budget!

Thanks for the list…if nothing else it is a GREAT starting point for my research. I’ve never been an overclocker but the entire series was great to read. Thanks!

Simon, I prefer Tech Report’s system guide:

http://www.techreport.com/etc/2007q3/system-guide-0707/index.x?pg=1

Although my list is a bit different fom both of those sources; I think you should invest in the system core, even in a budget system: motherboard, case, and memory.

I would recommend this Lian-Li case (I’m a happy owner of one myself) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112059. It’s a bit pricier, but well worth it. It’s not made of cheap plastic like the Antec cases. Inside panels are insulated with sound-absorbing foam, and the air flow is maximized to keep the system cool. I also like how they made the HD compartment.

Jeff

Why the change from the Scotts MSI MoBo and Graphics?

But $165 (and that’s the price only after rebate, which is also annoying) is a lot to swallow for many folks.

A “craftsman” who won’t spring for an additional $45 (vs the $120 drive) should probably rethink his “passion.”

I think the comparison to chefs visiting farms is instructive, if a bit off base. A better analogy would be for a programmer to assemble his software stack from scratch. That will expose him to filesystems, device drivers, compiling the OS, etc. Naturally, this means no Windows or OS X. But a programmer who can’t navigate the oldest OS family around has a serious hole in his knowledge.

A “craftsman” who won’t spring for an additional $45 (vs the $120 drive) should probably rethink his “passion.”

It’s not just 45 dollars extra, you are giving up 45 dollars and 350GB of storage. Most “craftsmen” as you put it can’t get by for long with only 150GB of storage. That means the REAL cost of buying a raptor is 45 dollars PLUS the cost of another drive.

Fixed peaked/piqued.

A “craftsman” who won’t spring for an additional $45 (vs the $120 drive)

Yes, but to be fair, the $120 drive isn’t just cheaper-- it also offers almost 3.3x the storage, too.

What about OS?

Just install a copy of OS X! But seriously, I recommend OEM licenses; Vista Home Premium OEM is around $120.

I saw the same difference between the memory scores on Vista 32 vs. 64. I’d get a 5.8 on 64-bit Vista and a 5.3 running 32-bit using the same 4 x 1GB Corsair XMS2 (DDR2-800) with no clock tweaks other than to set the mobo voltage and timings to the Corsair specs (4-4-4-12 @ 2.1v). Really strange.

I had to give up on Vista 64 because I couldn’t find any drivers for my TV/FM card (that I stole from my ‘retired’ media center PC and which Vista 32 picked up on first boot). Going to 32 meant I could’t access all 4GB of my RAM so I suspect that probably has something to do with the difference.

My quad build: MSI P6N Diamond mobo (on-board X-Fi audio), Intel Q6600 (o/c to 2.8 GHz), 4x1GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 RAM, 150 GB Raptor (system), 2x 500GB Barracudas (RAID-0 for data drives), Zalman 9700 CPU HSF, 2x MSI-NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC vid cards (great cards for us triple-head junkies, I use 2 20.1" Dells to bracket a 24" Dell Widescreen), 2x Lite-on 20x DVD Burners (IDE), one used AVerMedia TV/FM card, and a Cooler Master RS-850 PSU stuffed into an Antec Nine-Hundred case (I wish I’d have gone with the P182 though, that beasty non-modular PSU was a PITA to install and keep the cable routing tidy).

And yes, it does sound a bit like a Harrier Jet (10 fans in all), but it stays nice and cool and that’s what my 7.1 speaker setup is for anyway…

Hi, Jeff. I’m not sure if I have the whole story or not, but as for the mobo change from the MSI in Scott’s build to the EVGA 680i (Model # 122-CK-NF63-TR), it looks like quad core overclocking is a little squirrely on the EVGA. I’m building a system myself now, and was going to order the MSI P6N that you used in Hanselman’s build, when I changed it to the EVGA mobo after reading this post. I just received the EVGA mobo, and it has printed on the back of the box that quad core overclocking is not supported. After a bit of googling, it seems that this revision of the board was succeeded by an updated (and slightly pricier) version that does support quad core overclocking. I’m not sure if a bios update can fix this, as I got conflicting info from a little searching. Hope this helps.

About the memory score issue:

I didn’t see where you actually tuned the memory timings. Doing so on my box maxed my score to 5.9 on 32 bit Vista.

Here’s a link that does a pretty good job of explaining the various memory timings, and a quick Google will find you plenty of community support for tweaking memory timings on your particular system:

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/AMD/memory/131

In addition to tightening the “big 4” (CAS, tRCD, tRP, tRAS), getting memory that runs at 1T Command Rate (Command Per Clock) instead of 2T has made significantly dramatic improvements on my system.

As usual, be very careful and do your research and test, test, test, because it’s very easy to destabilize your system with the wrong settings.

I didn’t see where you actually tuned the memory timings. Doing so on my box maxed my score to 5.9 on 32 bit Vista.

The original “low” Windows Experience memory score of 5.3 has nothing to do with timings, and everything to do with Quad-core CPU running under 32-bit Vista. Try it yourself if you don’t believe me.

Which of the “PC quieting magic” steps

Most of the work was already done because we started with quiet components. Really I just slowed down fans, and adding eggcrate foam and damping foam.

Why the change from the Scotts MSI MoBo and Graphics?

The 680i has come down in price and is the big brother of the 650i. As for the graphics, I recommend going with one of the passive options on the 8600GTS. It does cost more, but it’s easier than modding the card…

Which of the “PC quieting magic” steps did you end up doing for Scott’s rig, Jeff? Did you end up changing the configuration of the fans included with the P182 case?

Jeff,

I took your advice (and seized the sudden price drop on the 6600) and put together my quad core rig yesterday.

http://www.pdsys.org/blog/2007/07/23/GoingQuadcore.aspx

I haven’t made a followup post yet, but I plan on pointing out some “gotchas” I ran into:

  1. The CPU cooler you guys chose works great, however the method it “clips” onto the board is a little scary. I finally figured out that you have to have the knobs swivelled in the opposite direction of the arrows in order to “lock” it in. I’m still afraid it will fall off someday, though…

  2. The RAM you originally purchased doesn’t seem to be the “correct” speed; it should match the 1066 bus, right? I ended up buying the 800 stuff, but will be RMA’ing it to NewEgg in exchange for the mushkin 1066 ECC stuff. We’ll see if that improves the memory score, even under 32 bit Vista.

  3. I cannot get the rthdribl demo to run, for whatever reason. The window comes up, slightly “blurs”, and then freezes. I have to force the program to stop. Guess I can’t use that to stress the GPU. Everything else worked great, though… PRIME95, PCMark and 3DMark, not a hiccup.