Suggestions for new work computer

[admin]

I'm getting a new work computer at the end of the month. It will be mainly for work (HTML editing, graphics editing, some movie conversion ... but nothing too stressful, maybe only F@H), and some gaming. I'm not looking at overclocking or anything.

Here's what I'm looking at:

AMD Phenom 9950
Gigabyte GA-MA790X-DS4
Corsair 2GB 8500 C5D Twinx
2 x Samsung 750 GB SATA II
Asus 512 MB 4850
(no monitor or drive as I've already got those)

Any suggestions?

[UncasMS]

although you may work with a 32bit os i'd still double your ram.

rest looks more than fine to me.

[admin]

Thanks for the tip. Would there be any problems getting 4 sticks of 1 GB, rather than 2 sticks of 2 GB (about $60 cheaper)?

Also, is the 9950 that much faster than the 9550? One's nearly double the price of the other here.

[UncasMS]

go for 4x 1gb if it's way cheaper

some benchmark will show slight difference but then your ram has a cl 5 anyway so we're not talking about a speed demon in terms of memory

talking about real applications i doubt you will notice a difference concerning speed of 2 vs 4 ram slots

BUT talking about graphic editing with some more multitasking i know fairly well that 2gb can be eaten up but photoshop with ease and i'm not talking about poster size editing



comparing an 9950 to an 9550 benchmark show some 15-20% overall increase in favour of the 9950 but 15-20% more power vs 100% price increase would make me turn to an 9550

btw: the 9950 is ~50% more expensive than the 9550 but not double the price over here



i'd consider the TDP a more important argument if i were in your shoes

the 9950 is available in two flavors: 140w + 125w
then there is a 9750 with only 95w and the 9550 with the same tdp of 95w

take a look at these aspects as well


+++++++++++++++

p.s. this FRENCH site compares some 100 cpus!

[admin]

Thanks for that, I'll have to do some more thinking. The 9950 isn't double the price, I exagerrated a bit, but it's about 80% more expensive than the 9550. Prices are in flux here at the moment because our currency has just dropped in value by quite a bit (from 1 of our dollar to 95 US cents, to only 65 US cents), and so almost everything has gone up in price suddenly (about 10% increase in cost over just a week, mostly in CPU/GPU pricing, more price rises are probably on the way).

[admin]

Just one more question on the RAM, what's the ideal speed to get for the 9550/9950? Haven't done the proper research on the latest FSB speeds and such ...

[Chewy]

Generally speaking amd cpu's have an onboard memory controller, and a shorter memory pipeline, lower cas ram offers a significant performance boost

it gets complicated as fsb and mem bus speed has to be synched with dividers

[admin]

Ended up getting a totally different system due to price and parts availability:

Intel E8500
Gigabyte EP45T-DSR3
4 GB OCZ 1333 C9
2 x 640 GB WD6400AAKS
Asus 512 MB 4850

Works out about $28 more expensive than the 9950 system I originally posted (except with 4 x 1G 8500 RAM or 2 x 2 GB 6400 RAM) due to recent price rises (which seems to have affected AMD systems more than Intel for some reason, 9950 + Mobo up $35 while E8500 + Mobo down $15). Would have liked a quad-core, but probably don't need it for the typical type of use this computer will get.

Will be using XP Pro + Vista Home Prem. 64-bit in a dual boot config until I can live without XP.

[atifsh]

thats what we call suggestions going to dust... nice system though

Will be using XP Pro + Vista Home Prem. 64-bit in a dual boot config until I can live without XP

its not U it depends on how long xp will live
funny post by microsoft somewhere .... "windows 7 will run on most hardware that runs vista "

[admin]

I was going to go with a DDR2 MB (EP45 - no 'T') + 2 x 2GB 6400 RAM, but was given a special deal on this DDR3 combo (probably due to excess stock, plus falling $AUD forcing up prices on new stock for popular items).

[admin]

I'm picking up the new computer tomorrow. And right on cue, the computer I'm replacing broke down today (bad P/S).

[doctorhardware]

At least you can replace the power supply and give it more life.

[admin]

So I got the computer on Monday, the store is called Computer Parts Land (www.cpl.net.au). My past experience is that the computer store usually does do 24/48 hour stress tests on systems before they release it to the customer, to ensure the computer works fine.

So I got it home and had a look in the BIOS. The DDR3 memory (OZC 1333 Gold) was using the SPD settings, which didn't look right because the voltage was too low (1.5v - should be 1.7v), so I adjusted it to the right value. Not a good sign. Started to install XP, and that went okay after I slipstreamed the right SATA drivers (no floppy). Then the system would random restart and crash, which reminded me of my old computer when it had memory problems. So I run memtest86+, and lo and behold, memory faults show up, always at the same 2 addresses (around 2940.8 MB).

Changing the memory settings, even lowering the speed to 800 MHz (for the 1333 MHz rated RAM), and playing with the voltage didn't help, as it would always give an error at the same place. So had I bring the machine back to the store on Wednesday to get the RAM replaced, and only got back the computer today (after waiting for nearly an hour). Faulty RAM was the issue.

I'm running memtest now, and it looks good so far. But it looks like the store did no testing at all prior to handing the computer over, and several days of wasted time could have been prevented if they had just run some basic tests. Worst of all, this is one of the stores that place warranty labels on the case, so that you can't even open it up yourself and have a look without voiding warranty (after which, they may charge a handling fee for RMAs).

So the moral of the story is to build the system yourself, or to get it built by a store that does proper testing. And also to run memtest and other diagnostic tools before installing software, just to avoid wasting time.

[Chewy]

So the moral of the story is to build the system yourself

I haven't seen a shop do it right in a long time

[soup]

Same person built all 4 of the computers running in the house, of course he had the most enthusiastic helper in the world. He tests everything before he will hand it over.