First Time System Build

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 6:35 pm

I'm just an ATI fan, and am not sure exactly what your point is.
I do like the fact that NVidia has gotten much better about releasing drivrers, but my X850 XT running at PE speeds works awesome for me.

jtm55 · Post by **jtm55** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 6:47 pm

Hi Guys'

I'm not sold on SLI either, I was just keeping my options open as you can run those boards with 1 Video card.

Which makes ask as we are talking about the Nvidia chipset, wouldn't the Nvidia Video cards be the better solution, both being from the same manufacturer?

teqguy · Post by **teqguy** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 9:24 pm

I'm just an ATI fan, and am not sure exactly what your point is.

My point is graphical quality is more important than performance when it comes to enjoyability.

Since ATI did nothing but raise the bar for performance, I really don't see why an avid gamer would prefer an X8 over a 6 series.

However, if you were building a system strictly for benchmark bragging rights, then it's entirely understandable.

Which makes ask as we are talking about the Nvidia chipset, wouldn't the Nvidia Video cards be the better solution, both being from the same manufacturer?

There's absolutely no difference performance or compatability wise.

The only benefit would be that you would only have to go to one site for driver updates.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 9:30 pm

Well, I disagree in the sense that there comes a point when you aren't going to see much or any difference betwen what the two cards offer. I've run a variety of setups and personally feel the X850, while about even with two 6600GTs in SLI, provides a great gaming experience...but you seem to be the expert on everything, so I'll let you preach on to us simple folk.

teqguy · Post by **teqguy** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 9:41 pm

capper5016 wrote:Well, I disagree in the sense that there comes a point when you aren't going to see much or any difference betwen what the two cards offer. I've run a variety of setups and personally feel the X850, while about even with two 6600GTs in SLI, provides a great gaming experience...but you seem to be the expert on everything, so I'll let you preach on to us simple folk.

Try playing a game that supports Shader Model 3.0. You'll immediately notice a difference.

Here's a quick graphical comparison between 1.1 and 3.0:
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Njc4

And a written comparison:
http://www.elitebastards.com/page.php?pageid=4136

Furthermore, the PureVideo extension of the onboard video processor makes watching DVDs and HD content that has been scaled to full screen look just as clear as they are at their default resolution.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 9:42 pm

Okay, Shader model 3.0....lets think about this, a technology embraced by one company, not the other, so who says it is the standard, and why didn't ATI decide to support it?

teqguy · Post by **teqguy** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 9:51 pm

capper5016 wrote:Okay, Shader model 3.0....lets think about this, a technology embraced by one company, not the other, so who says it is the standard, and why didn't ATI decide to support it?

Well, actually it's inherent in the DirectX 9.0C API, featured in HalfLife 2, Doom III, Far Cry, UT2k4, Unreal 2, SWAT 4, and will predicate in every game following.

ATI's GPU features Shader Model 1.0 and 2.0, but hasn't included SM3.0 simply because they needed to push out the X800 quickly to beat the Geforce 6800 Ultra at benchmarks.

Here's more on it from Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/winhec/pa ... VIDIA.mspx

Oh, and one last note, Shader Model 3.0 is absolutely required by the Unreal 3 Engine, and these screenshots will definitely show why:

http://www.unrealtechnology.com/html/te ... ue30.shtml

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 10:03 pm

well, to me it really comes down to personal preference and opinion. And if everything was so NVisia, then there wouldn't be so many ATI fans out there.
This is really getting off the topic of helping J find the components he wants for his system, so we need to get back to that

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 8:27 am

infinitevalence wrote:The one thing i can say is you may think your not an overclocker now, but just wait... as soon as you get a decent board, chip and memory the demons will tempt you. I mean why not you just paid all this money why not get the best performance out of it you can. So if you even have the slightest inclenation for tinkering then i would buy stuff that lets you.

Which is exactly what happened to me. He speaks the truth!!

As far as the rest of this thread is concerned:
It looks as though you are planning on getting the DFI NF4 Ultra D so SLI isn't really an issue. The Ultra D (not SLI) is what I would have recommended anyway.

I think nVidia has ATI beat in the mainstream and high end department but ATI has the upper hand in the middle area with the X800XL (which is the card I would recommend). If you can't afford the X800XL, then a 6600GT would be the next best choice. If you want better performance than the X800XL, a 6800 Ultra would be a great choice if you have the $$ to spend on it. The X850's are also great cards too, but the SM 3.0 on the nVidia 6 series cards is always a nice thing since games are starting to support it.

Which leads me to my next point about SM 3.0. As of RIGHT NOW, SM2.0b or whatever ATI's X8xx series cards have can "do everything SM3 can do" (as loosly quoted from ATI). but SM3 is obviously the future so there is no reason why you shouldn't buy a card that supports the latest technology. ATI will undoubtedly include SM3 in their next gen cards, nVidia just beat them to the punch this time. But don't get me wrong, I also tend to be an ATI fan because I feel that thier image quality with AnitAliasing is implemented much better than nVidia's. Although nVidia's 6 series cards are MUCH MUCH better than their previous line at AA, I still feel that ATI has the slight edge there. I'm really excited to see what both companies roll out with in their next gen cards!

Hope all that rambling on helps a little bit. Be sure to let us know what you finally decide to order!

What PSU are you going with? (I would suggest an OCZ powersteam 470w or 520w or a Fortron "Blue Storm" 500w)

What RAM are you going with? (Since you don't plan to overclock right away, I would go with some low latency PC-3200 RAM based on the TCCD chips like the Patriot XBL stuff so that way you get good DDR400 performance with tight timings and have the opportunity to overclock the heck out of it later on if you want)

What Hard Drive(s) are you going with? (I would suggest a HDD with NCQ as the NF4 chipset supports SATAII with NCQ. Seagate has a nice lineup of 7200rpm SATA drives that support NCQ and are a very nice choice. I believe they are the 7200.8 series drives that come in 80, 120, 200, 250, 300, and 400GB versions!)

jtm55 · Post by **jtm55** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 4:44 pm

Hi All,

Here's some of the components I've decided on

AMD Athlon64 4000+
DFI's nF4 Ultra-DR
Silverstone Zeus 520 Watt Power Supply
EVGA Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT
Plextor PX-716A
Mitsumi 3.5 Floppy
Coolermaster ATC 101 (Already purchased at a computer show)
Pioneer DVD-120S 16X
1 GB Corsair XMS PC 3200
SoundBlaster Audigy ZS
Sony CPD-G520P 21" CRT (Also purchased at same show)

Still not sure about which Hard Drives to go with.

Is there a difference between NCQ & SATA II?
If i'm not mistaken, SATA II Supports speeds up to 3 GB Per Sec where as NCQ processes commands in a more orderly manner.

But which is the better choice?

Anyway, let me know what you think about what I have in mind to build.
Before I forget, should I go with a after market CPU Heatsink or is the retail one sufficent.

Again Thank You to all of you who have been so kind to have help me.

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 5:02 pm

Well, first off, NCQ (Native Command Queing) is a feature that is a part of SATAII; so if you get one, you essentially have the other. So basically, getting a drive that supports NCQ (like those Seagate 7200.8's) would be faster than a regular comparable drive without NCQ; so you might as well get a NCQ drive

As far as heatsinks are concerned, you should be just fine with the stock heatsink, if you are not overclocking. I would suggest a better heatsink (like the XP-90) if you want to test your luck at overclocking or find the noise of the stock heatsink too loud (you can pick which fan you put on the XP-90 so you can ultimately make it as quiet or as loud as you want). There are also many other HS/F's available for s939 but Thermalright without a doubt makes some of the nicest heatsinks around!

teqguy · Post by **teqguy** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 5:24 pm

jtm55 wrote:Silverstone Zeus 520 Watt Power Supply
Pioneer DVD-120S 16X
1 GB Corsair XMS PC 3200
SoundBlaster Audigy ZS

You might save some money by going with a Rosewill 500W PSU, Lite-On SOHW-1673S or whichever you prefer, PDP Systems memory, and a SoundBlaster Audigy Gamer.

jtm55 wrote:Is there a difference between NCQ & SATA II?
If i'm not mistaken, SATA II Supports speeds up to 3 GB Per Sec where as NCQ processes commands in a more orderly manner.

While NCQ is more practical than SATAII right now, neither are going to provide additional performance.

If you partition your drive(OS, programs, storage, temp all seperate) and keep it defragmented, you're basically eliminating the purpose for NCQ on the desktop platform. The only reason it makes more sense on the server platform is because drives are constantly fragmented and tasks are time critical.

As far as SATA is concerned, the reason SATAI doesn't provide any additional performance is because the internal bandwidth of hard drives hasn't caught up to the point where it can even use the bandwidth SATA offers.

So, I would opt for a RAID0 array. All it requires is two identical drives and a motherboard that supports it.It'll provide you with double the I/O bandwidth of a single hard drive.

jtm55 wrote: Anyway, let me know what you think about what I have in mind to build.
Before I forget, should I go with a after market CPU Heatsink or is the retail one sufficent.

If you're planning on overclocking, the more cooling the better.

Just don't fall for the heatpipe gimmick and get a heatsink that depends solely on heatpipes to remove heat from the base.

gvblake22 wrote: Well, first off, NCQ (Native Command Queing) is a feature that is a part of SATAII; so if you get one, you essentially have the other. So basically, getting a drive that supports NCQ (like those Seagate 7200.8's) would be faster than a regular comparable drive without NCQ; so you might as well get a NCQ drive

They're two entirely different entities.

The only reason you see them packaged together is because it just makes more sense than to offer them seperately.

As far as performance is concerned, refer to what I said above.

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 6:00 pm

teqguy wrote:While NCQ is more practical than SATAII right now, neither are going to provide additional performance.

Well, I'm gonna have to disagree with you. If you read THIS REVIEW it is clear that even the first generation Seagate drives with NCQ perform better than those without it in practically every aspect!

toms hardware wrote:In sum, we must state that all Command Queuing enabled drives have an advantage over those that do not support this feature.

So I can't stand idle and let you say that NCQ does not provide any additional performance.

teqguy wrote:So, I would opt for a RAID0 array. All it requires is two identical drives and a motherboard that supports it.It'll provide you with double the I/O bandwidth of a single hard drive.

Again, I'll have to disagree. After reading THIS REVIEW I cannot reccomend implementing a RAID array in a single user desktop enviornment because it just does not offer enough performance to even come close to compensating for the huge extra cost associated with buying twice as many drives for very little performance improvement. As far as I'm concerned, RAID0 on the desktop is as much of a hype as SLI

Anandtech wrote:If you haven't gotten the hint by now, we'll spell it out for you: there is no place, and no need for a RAID-0 array on a desktop computer. The real world performance increases are negligible at best and the reduction in reliability, thanks to a halving of the mean time between failure, makes RAID-0 far from worth it on the desktop.

I'm sure there are many more reviews out there outlining both RAID0 on the desktop and the advantages of NCQ but those are the only ones I could think of right off the top of my head. I however have yet to see any reviews/benchmarks/reasons for why NCQ is not beneficial or why RAID0 is worth the extra cost and decreased reliability for a single user desktop environment; maybe you could help me out here teqguy...

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 6:10 pm

The Fortron Blue Storm 500w is a nice PSU that you should consider because it has good power over the DUAL 12v rails (a total of 30A) and has the necessary 24pin ATX power connector and PCI-Express power connections that the DFI LanParty NF4 Ultra-D (or any PCI-Express motherboard) needs. As far as I could see, the Rosewill PSU's don't offer the ATX 12v 2.0 standard.

teqguy · Post by **teqguy** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 6:26 pm

NCQ only improves latency, not bandwidth.

At this point, unless hard drive latency can get into the nanosecond range, any attempts at improvement are futile.

So, it's easy to say that the 1-2ms NCQ shaves off is negligible.

As far as RAID is concerned, it strictly depends on what you use your desktop for. For HTPCs, hard drive bandwidth is critical for video capture and encoding, not to mention accessing video files up to 4GB in size.

Anandtech obviously doesn't realize that single hard drive bandwidths already surpass the neccessary requirements for gaming.

The Rosewill's PSU headers are not a problem... they make adapters for that.

What is important are the amperages on the rails, and nothing comes close to the Rosewill for that wattage and price.

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 8:01 pm

NCQ is part of the SATA spec, its a hold over from SCSI where que depth is a common issue. It will not help all that much with performance because its really designed for enviorments where you have multiple requests for non cached data that is not sequential. As the vast majority of data being accesd on a DESKTOP is sequential NCQ provideds little improvement over pure rotatioal speed and buffer size.

I would strongly suggest you stay away from RAID0 its dangerious and expencive. You will reach comperable performance using a single drive with either a 16mb cache or 10,000 rpm spindle. IE get a Maxtor DimondMax10 (or maxline 3 they are about the same ) or a western digital raptor. I would opt for the maxtor as they are much quieter. But thats persoal preference.

As for the power supply STAY AWAY FROM ROSEWILL!!!! they are a sticker company and you have no way of knowing the quality of the build. Just read our thread on the Skyhawk and you can get an idea of what you could end up with. Stick with a brand name PSU figure your going to spend $100 on it, its worth it trust me i do this stuff for a living. Remember you get what you paid for....

teqguy · Post by **teqguy** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 10:15 pm

Most "brand name" PSUs with decent amperage and wattage cost over $100.

For the same price, you could get two Rosewills and use them with a relay. That's a gigawatt for $100.

As far as sticker companies are concerned, I don't see anyone having a problem with Corsair, Crucial, Kingston, GeiL memories or ThermalTake PSUs.

Brand isn't everything, especially if they have nothing more to offer than their name.

Post by **Apoptosis** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 2:39 am

when it comes to memory i assure you it is more than just a sticker.... Corsair and Kingston are companies I have spent many a day in. They actually screen IC's and build quality parts unlike many companies. If you mention sticker companies becareful who you mention, because some are not.

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 10:06 am

Look you can go ahead and use two rosewill PSU's i know i NEVER will. they are cheep crap built often by Deer, they never even come close to the specs posted on the box. They do not handle overclocking well. look at it like buying used balld tires for a corvett versus new racing tires, yeah the used bald ones work but im not about to puta $45,000 car on $25 tires, same goes for computers if he wants to spend close to 1k then for the sake of his investment he should get a decent PSU.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 10:24 am

I look at it this way...marketing will only get you so far...if you are selling crap, no one will remember you or buy your products again......"Brand names" are usually companies that put out a quality product over a period of time and build up a reputation.
When it comes to PSUs, they are often the most underappreciated and overlooked component in a system build...don't skimp here, you'll only end up regretting it. I just finished helping a person who was having video card issues, while he originally thought his 430W PSU was more than adequate, he quickly found out that it was the root of all his problems.

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