New Computer Critique

[spadnos]

Hi folks. Long time no me

I'm putting together a PC for my nephew, and wanted to run his selections by you folks to see what he and I may have missed. It's been a while since I've built a gaming PC or a Windows PC, so I assume things have changed.

A couple of general questions first:
1) He wants 4GB RAM, and he wants to play games (FPS - Crysis, older ones like Wolf, Doom3 ...). Last I knew, 64-bit drivers on Vista were a problem. Is that still true? Of course, he wants 64-bit so he can use the full 4G RAM.

2) I'm buying the parts here in the US, but he lives in Germany. I know he'll have to change the region of the DVD player - can anyone think of other problems we may encounter from moving the computer from the US to Europe? (I also know he'll need to get the right IEC power cord, and he's buying Vista in Germany so he gets the correct localization)

So, here's the system:

Motherboard: Asus Rampage Formula LGA775. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131284
He wants DDR2 because DDR3 is still more expensive without much (if any) performance gain. I suggested that a DDR3-based motherboard may be better, since the cost of DDR2 should increase as it becomes "legacy" hardware. There's an X48-based board from AsRock that supports DDR2 and DDR3, and it even seems to get pretty good reviews and benchmarks (a little like their 939dual board, with AGP and PCIe). He doesn't plan to overclock, so I'm not sure he needs to spend the extra $$$ on this board.

CPU: Core 2 Quad Q9550 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115041
It's $5 more than the C2Q 9450, so what the heck. I tend to like AMD, but I know the Cores have been stomping the Athlons for a while. That said, there's a motherboard+Phenom CPU combo that costs about as much as this CPU alone, so I'm not sure where the best value is now.

Memory: Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 4GB (2x2GB) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145194
It's got rebates, it's got 4-4-4-12 timing, and according to Corsair, that's as good as DDR2-1066 at 5-5-5-15. I don't have any sense of whether DDR3 might be better, or if you have to spend twice as much to get a 2% benefit, so I'd appreciate comments on memory/motherboard/chipset combos.

Video card: Some form of Radeon HD 4870 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814129113
That's inexpensive at the moment, and I have no experience with the various ATI manufacturers (my youngest ATI card is a Radeon 8500DV ) I was also considering the Diamond model that's clocked a bit faster - the price span over all the manufacturers is pretty small, like $50 or so.

Hard Drive: WD VelociRaptor 300 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136260
Not much to say here, it's supposed to be the fastest drive you can get for workstation and gaming use.

Optical Storage: Lite-On 22x DVD+-RW yadda yadda http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106265
Chosen because it's inexpenisve, has software included (adds $6 vs. the OEM version), has LightScribe, and the specs tell me what I want to hear. I'm sure some of you have more recent experience with DVD drives than I do, and I'm definitely curious to know if this particular drive sucks, if $5 more gets a drive that's effectively twice as fast, if this is a coaster machine ...

Power Supply: SilverStone OP-1000E 1000W. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817256043
I just selected that one because it had a good special at the time, no particular reason to use it. I think that even with planning for eventual Crossfire with two 4870s, 100W is overkill. I'm betting that 850W is enough - I'll show my calculations later

Case: RocketFish Aluminum Full-Tower case http://www.rocketfishproducts.com/pc...ase-black.aspx
I have a couple I got for $50 each at Best Buy, apparently just before it was discontinued. It's small enough that I can just barely get a box around it and not get charged for oversize baggage

Here's the power budget, as I see it:
CPU rated at 95W, call it 100W
Two video cards eventually, at 250W each = 500W
Storage: 50W
Motherboard and RAM: 150-200W (maybe this includes the fans and whatnot)
Total: 800-850W, assuming that he actually does get a second video card at some point.
It seems that a high quality supply rated for 800-900W should be fine, and may save $50-100.

So, overkill, stupid combo, $5 more gets double the performance??? Any and all comments welcome.

Incidentally, he's got a monitor, mouse, and keyboard, so no need to tell me I forgot those
Thanks
- Steve

[UtwigMU]

You can go with plain P45 chipset, pick one of P5Q ones depending on the features you need (PCIe slots, number of SATA ports...)

CPU: If it's only for gaming get E8600, dual core spanks quad core in games. Of course fast quadcore is only slightly slower and has other benefits (video encoding, rendering, virtualization...) but he probably won't using this.

Memory: Just get namebrand PC800, no need to pay for XMS, correct in not wanting DDR3 now.

Videocard: OK, look in nV 260 GTX unless you plan on going crossfire.

HDD: add another Terrabyte drive for storage beside Raptor.

PSU: Seasonic or Corsair, also PC Power and Cooling.

[Nowhere]

And aren't LiteONs "only" ok now, in the era of DVD-RW? (thought they were the best in CD-RW era). Pioneer seems to be consistently great for some time...

[spadnos]

Thanks for the comments, folks.

It seemed that the most I could save by going with P45/non-XMS/etc was ~$100 or so.
I placed the order today, and lucked out because an Antec 1000W power supply was the "Shell Shocker" at the time, so it saved $100. The whole thing ended up being almost exactly $1500, which was under the expected budget.

I'm still curious about the DVD drive - I really haven't kept up, and the only review site I know sucks now (CDRinfo.com - impossible to navigate or get any good comparisons)

Also, I'm thinking about putting a rig together for myself now (jealous of my 15-year-old nephew? Of course not! ) so any other recommendations would still be appreciated. I've got different requirements of course, and I already have a Quadro FX3500. I may end up using virtualization so I can maintain a Windows install (silly engineering apps like Altium Designer don't have any Linux variants).

Anyway, enough rambling - thanks for the help.
- Steve

[Nowhere]

Well, it so happens that the only notable/good PC hardware review site in my country is the one dealing with optical drives (though the content is in Polish, so I'm not sure how linking it will help...)

What's important - they haven't encountered Pioneer drive worse than "good" for a long, long time (and actually the latest one is fenomenal, especially when burning DVD+Rs)

BTW, as I understand the parts are bought by you in the US but the whole thing will be used in Germany...isn't putting it together before transport a bad idea? (or at least - shipping it in "fully assembled" state)

[spadnos]

Actually, I'm taking it as luggage when I fly there next month. I'll get the $1000 of excess insurance ($50), and re-seat all the boards after I get there (and of course travel with the CPU cooler not attached).

A Polish site would be - err - not so effective for me I do have a friend who could probably translate it for me, though I'm not sure she's technical enough for it to be useful.

The DVD burner is actually something that I added for him - he basically just wanted a cheap DVD-ROM, but I figured he'd want to be able to move data around (if nothing else).

- Steve

[Nowhere]

ok, here you go

http://cdrlab.pl/

list of tests: http://cdrlab.pl/article_lista_1.html (as you can see they are very, VERY thourough)

oh, and basically google translate works almost ok for PL -> EN (and if in some summary (basically the only non obvious part of articles - without graphs, numers, etc.) there'll be some senselles transation, feel free to ask)