Building a Pentium Extreme box, need some advice (edit: rethinking for AMD) Scroll down to page 2, guys, for the AMD setup --Original Post-- ok first, here are the parts I intended to use: Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840 Smithfield 800MHz FSB LGA 775 Dual Core, EM64T Processor Model BX80551PGH3200F - Retail ASUS P5ND2-SLI Socket T (LGA 775) Nvidia nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail Model #: P5ND2-SLI With a couple of these in SLI: eVGA 256-P2-N516 Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail Model #: 256-P2-N516 RAM I intended to stick in it: pqi TURBO 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5400) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model PQI25400-2GDB - Retail For HDDs, I chose a Raptor for the main games drive and a 7200RPM for the main storage. Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200KS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM The case: Thermaltake XASER, Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum/Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail Model #: VA8000BWS Now first of all, this'll all work together right? I'm a bit rusty, so no cackling if I pulled a stupid human trick and am trying to stick incompatible stuff together! Secondly, I would like some advice on which PSUs to look at. Preferably consolidate the stuff to NewEgg unless you guys know a much better place to check. The case doesn't have a PSU built in, so that option's open. I also would like to watercool or phase-shift cool this box, so any suggestions? I realize the list is incomplete. (No optical/floppy drives listed, etc..) Just looking for general advice here. Edit: Looking at this for the PSU: ENERMAX Liberty ELT620AWT ATX12V 620W Power Supply - Retail
Buy an AMD FX-60 if you're going to spend the money. Butt loads better performance than Intel EE. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103608
oh man do not buy an intel cpu amd is way better than intel for that price you can get a amd fx-60 which is the best and its dual core trust me I know what I'm talking about
Not to be rude, but I am asking for advice regarding the setup of the Intel EE with THIS board and THOSE vidcards. It is not a debate between Intel and AMD. I'm not here to argue whether Intel or AMD makes better/faster/cheaper CPUs. If anything, I'm leaning towards Pentium D instead of EE, due to the huge price range and (perhaps) negligible performance swing. Not sure about that though. But no, I am not even considering AMD. Save your breath, guys.
Looks good to me. Did you check the asus forums as well though? I'm sure an asus moderator would be able to show you any flaws. I'm not sure if they have the same deal as dfi, but the dfi-street forum helped me out a great deal, getting advice from a legit dfi employee paid to give advice is the way to go.
Oh dear..... Not to be rude back but most people on this forum are running Athlon 64's for a reason. There is more than just a negligible difference between the performance of a Athlon 64 and a Pentium 4 in any program. The performance difference in games is huge!!! The only time a pentium 4 has a hope is DVD encoding and then the EE is no better than the normal P4 at the same clock frequency. The 8XX smithfield is also not a good choice. The 9XX p4's are alot better but even the top end EE falls behind the lower end dual core Athlons which are a damn sight cheaper. I am not bashing intel as I have a laptop based around the centrino processor but for a high end gaming / multimedia system where money is no object then its AMD all the way. Other than your processor choice everything else is ok.... Although waiting for the G71 qould be better than going for dual 7800gt's.
Okay, fanboyism aside. If you had trouble with either AMD or Intel in the past, your taking the same chances at some rare defect in any chip now between the 2 companies. Well... more chance NOW with an intel chip. I mean, they did just anounce that they are only going to fix 4 of the eratica problems of the known 41. Thats a slap in the face if you ask me. AMD of which have 0, so software doesnt need to be written to compensate.
well first of All a question, which chipsets did you have problems with for AMD machines? if its Via or Sis, i understand, but a nvidia chipset will rule (in fact that NF4 chipset you are looking at was based on the amd version of the nf4) and if you go pentium, get a 9xx series cpu, they are 65nm, and are less hot then those dual prescot monsters, and will OC better
trust me intel sucks here have a look and here is an AMD FX-60 reveiw http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-fx60.html but its you call
SiS before, Via in the box beside me. I'm looking for stability here. That means more to me than pure speed/power. On my current Athlon 64 system, I have to underclock it in order for World of Warcraft to run stably. (Athlon 64 2800+) At stock speeds, WoW crashed 10-30 times daily, for no apparent reason. Even after upping the RAM to 1.5gb, though it ran much more smoothly, it still crashed just as much. I had similar issues with the SiS in other applications. Didn't have close to as many problems with Intel systems, so I lean towards them for stability. The fastest processor on the planet is useless to me if I crash at inopportune times. That said, people running Dual Core Athlons can't even play WoW right now. Intel people have similar problems, but not so much as AMD users. If you guys know for a fact that the FX-60 doesn't have that problem, I'll look into it. Maybe. Now what about these video cards? Somebody recommended the 7800GTs in SLI for this, but what is this I hear about the G71 and the radeon x1900xtx? If the G71 is leaps and bounds better, I'll wait a couple of months on this (which I might do anyway to see if Dual Core WoW issues get ironed out).
Thats gonna be one slick setup,I have the same mobo no problems for me.I would really look at a water cooling setup for that monster,Its gonna get very Hot!:speed:
I've seen those graphs before, what site are they from? Toms hardware? It's interesting because the other graphs i've seem confirm what is commonly thought, the intel does very well on video encoding but amd64 comes out on top on every game they tested. Depends what you want then.
That WoW problem is most likely caused by bug in NVIDIA drivers (in early dual core "enhanced" driver). If you want stability buy A64 and mobo with NVIDIA(/ULi) chipset.
sounds like the crashing could have been due to bad ram too, you should check it with memtest at stock speed, also could be a temp isue anyway, i can understand what you are coming from and why you dont like the idea of another AMD machine, but your isue sounds like a one off, and its more then likely your ram of mobo is somehow faulty (i had a stick of ram which would error on 200 but run fine on 166 mhz) so you should check that out first before blaming AMD what im saying is, a intel 940 or something wont be slow, but a fx60 or x2 4800 will be faster, and if you spend some time on selecting a quality mobo, you shouldnt have any problems, and im sure the WoW isue will be worked out soon Intel cpu's arent that bad, its just that AMD offers more for less money
If you really must have Intel, instead of paying ~$1000 on a CPU based on Netburst, wait for Conroe. These processors should offer some good competition to Athlon64 if Intel gets it right, and should offer good value. I personally would go FX-60 without even thinking. Better performance at a cheaper price in the majority of applications compared to P-D 840 XE.
