after yesterday's little disaster I don't trust my work machine any more
and on top of that its getting on a bit (its a Pentuium D 930 on a crap LGA775 board)

I'm going to have a go at building it myself this time, I've done my home ones for years so it shouldn't be a problem
(the boss normaly uses an outside IT company but I recon a monkey could do a better job)

it needs to be cheap(ish) but decent quality parts

it'll be running 32bit XP pro (no choice)

it needs to as much memory as possible (the 32 bit OS doesn't help) so 2Gb of decent RAM should be just enough

and needs a 512Mb graphics card, Quadro FX for preference (8800 GTS min. but I can nick one of them from another machine here)

and a 320Gb+ HDD (as fast as possible)
1Gb LAN and a parrallel port (I can find a PCI one if need be)

so what would you all recommend ?

are the LGA1156 boards worth a look ?

cheers
-Robert

Novatech do some decent bare bones bundles...either with or without case...

www.novatech.co.uk

quote:

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Originally posted by stevebubs
Novatech do some decent bare bones bundles...either with or without case...

www.novatech.co.uk

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Ebuyer

http://www.ebuyer.com/

I should have said - its not were to get it thats the problem (we have accounts with quite a few places now) - its what to get thats the issue.....

should I be looking at these new LGA1156 i5 / i7's ??
or should I stick with the old LGA775 cpu's - anyone had much experience with them yet ?

(I've got a LGA1366 i7 at home thats been great, but the budget won't stretch to that )

I'd like to stick to ASUS or Gigabite MB's (always done me well in the past)
and I will check the compatability of the RAM etc...

quote:

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Originally posted by mcerd1
I will check the compatability of the RAM etc...

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robert,

the days of saving siginificant money on desktops by self-building is long gone (sound familiar?).

Zoostorm pcs supplied by ebuyer would be very difficult to match for example.

quote:

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Originally posted by cd.thomson
robert,

the days of saving siginificant money on desktops by self-building is long gone (sound familiar?).

Zoostorm pcs supplied by ebuyer would be very difficult to match for example.

---

When i worked for Novatech i realised how bad their computers are. 80% of their cheap bundles are CR@P.

Obviously, you get the branded bundles as well which turns out to be exactly the same price as buying them individualy but they assempled them.

Does the software you use support proper multi-threading? That could help you decide whether you are best going for a quad-core or would be just as well off with a fast dual-core like an i3 or i5 6xx series. Could also go AMD to reduce costs further. If bang for buck is really important you could also consider overclocking, either yourself or by buying a pre-overclocked bundle. Intel are best in that respect - my 2.66GHz i5 750 runs at 4GHz without a hitch 24/7. I personally wouldn't go back to LGA775 as even the entry level new stuff is better.

All I really know about the 'pro' lines of GPUs is that they are essentially the same as the consumer versions - you're just paying for the support with the pro versions. I've seen you can 'hack' a geforce into a quadro, for example. May as well just use what you've got, though, and spend cash on the other bits.

It's pricey, but you might also consider a smallish SSD for the OS and your main applications, as that can speed things up amazingly.

the most demanding program will be tekla structures the new versions claim to fully support win 7 / x64 / multi-threading
which is fine, but I also need to be able to run older stuff which doesn't aat teh same time... (I normaly have 4 or 5 programs running at once)

I've seen the i5 650's at a fair price, how do they compare with the likes of your 750 ?

I'll see how far the boss will stretch the budget on graphics - I recon a 250GTS should do the job (and I see some of the older models are getting quite cheap now)

the main disk would need to be too big for the SSD's that are in my budget
Is it worth thinking about a raid array ?

Intel's new lineup is as clear as mud. Whilst both called i5s, the 7xx series is quad core and the 6xx series is a dual core with hyperthreading. Only difference between i5 6xx series and i3 is the i3 doesn't support turbo boost. With the i3 and i5 6xx series, you're paying for an integrated GPU which you wont use. Where I shop (overclockers UK) the new i5 760 quad core is on offer this week and only a tenner more than the i5 650 dual core, so I'd go for that in a heartbeat myself.

They also have a GTS 260 on offer this week for a steal. Loads better than a 250.

Dont have much experience with raid myself. You can get a reasonable 'free' speed increase with raid 0 but your risk of data loss is higher. Maybe not such a good idea for a work machine unless you backup regularly.

thanks that saved me alot of working out
it was alot easier back when I did my i7 920 (they only had the first three 1366 ones ouyt at the time)

and cheers for the heads up on the deals, got a oc'd GTX285 at home and its a beast and I know a 260 isn't far off


btw - has anyone ever delt with the SAS drives, are they worth the extra ££


[Edited on 31/8/2010 by mcerd1]

Is money an issue? If not I'd get one of those solid state drives

It's on my list anyway