Found a 'spare' 80GB SATA hard drive - from an old pc and installed this. Plus a IDE DVD drive. The IDE power and signal cable do get in the way -- SATA is so much nicer to work with - but managed to thread them round so that airflow from inlet fan to out is not too obstructed.
Insall Windows XP to test things out, and eventually got it all working fine.
Bit of an anti-climax, as nothign special. Boot time is quicker but not lightning. LIkewise application like IE8. Oh well. Hard disk is noisey, so soon as can will start with W7 on the purchased 1TB disk.
Fans also a tad distracting ...mostly I think the CPU fan so maybe investigate better cooling for that. Looking for a WIndows utility that will tell me the CPU temperature.
Wednesday, 29 July 2009
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Delivery and assembly
Arrived with next day delivery -- not bad from a 2pm order, and not much extra to pay for postage (£8 I think).
Started on assembly immediately and all farily straight forward. Only thing I dont like about the case is that it only came with 6 riser screws for the motherboard ... could have done with a few more, but apart from that no problems.
I'd note the following:
- put the backpanel cover in the case before screwing in the motherboard
- put the cpu and memory in the motherboard, again before screwing into the case
- check which dimm slots to use ...6 on this mobo and 3 were blue, 3 were white. I picked white but then read instruction booklet and this was bank 2 and it recommends bank 1 when only half populated
Then disaster ...no graphics card! I'd just assumed I had one spare and indeed I have plenty of spare cards, however they are all AGP and this mobo is PCIe. So quick trip to pcworld and bought an PNY 9200GT ...not the cheapest at £45, but nearly (the cheapest) and it does support dual screens and directx 10 (which some even cheaper cards do not).
Back home, insert the card and power up. Amazingly it works first time ... although no OS or anything but the bios has got a lot of stuff to look at!
Started on assembly immediately and all farily straight forward. Only thing I dont like about the case is that it only came with 6 riser screws for the motherboard ... could have done with a few more, but apart from that no problems.
I'd note the following:
- put the backpanel cover in the case before screwing in the motherboard
- put the cpu and memory in the motherboard, again before screwing into the case
- check which dimm slots to use ...6 on this mobo and 3 were blue, 3 were white. I picked white but then read instruction booklet and this was bank 2 and it recommends bank 1 when only half populated
Then disaster ...no graphics card! I'd just assumed I had one spare and indeed I have plenty of spare cards, however they are all AGP and this mobo is PCIe. So quick trip to pcworld and bought an PNY 9200GT ...not the cheapest at £45, but nearly (the cheapest) and it does support dual screens and directx 10 (which some even cheaper cards do not).
Back home, insert the card and power up. Amazingly it works first time ... although no OS or anything but the bios has got a lot of stuff to look at!
Bought it!
Settled on that configuration and bought it! Total came to £677, including £16 for their scansure insurance. Delivery should be tomorrow.
Case fans
The case doesn't come with built in coling fans. So we need a couple. Selected Scan £7.69 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/120mm-AK-183-L2B-Akasa-Amber-Case-Fan-3-Pin-2-Ball-Bearing-Ultra-Quiet-and-Long-life. A few punds more than others but got the best combination of low noise (18dB) and high flow (44CFM -- whatever a CFM is I dont know, but this was higher than other fans around £5).
Check Power Requirements
Just to double check the power requirements of all the components I estimate they need as follows (thanks to lambda-tek for these numbers)
Processor 130W
Motherboard 50W
Memory 20W
Hard disk 15W
Total 215W
So 500W should be enough to also allow for whatever graphics card I use (which I forgot about below!)
Processor 130W
Motherboard 50W
Memory 20W
Hard disk 15W
Total 215W
So 500W should be enough to also allow for whatever graphics card I use (which I forgot about below!)
Configuration so far
For the final configuration, all from Scan, we have:
CPU Intel i7 920 £208.35
Motherboard £172.70
Case £30.92
Power supply £68.64
Memory £88.67
Hard disk £64.52
Grand total is £633.80 ... not too bad.
That doesn't include extra fans (still deciding on that), dvd drive (got spare elsewhere) and operating system (will re-install exiting OS until Windows7 is actually released) plus the delivery charge and I'm thinking about installation insurance from Scan ...depending on how much that costs I might go for it, just for some piece of mind.
CPU Intel i7 920 £208.35
Motherboard £172.70
Case £30.92
Power supply £68.64
Memory £88.67
Hard disk £64.52
Grand total is £633.80 ... not too bad.
That doesn't include extra fans (still deciding on that), dvd drive (got spare elsewhere) and operating system (will re-install exiting OS until Windows7 is actually released) plus the delivery charge and I'm thinking about installation insurance from Scan ...depending on how much that costs I might go for it, just for some piece of mind.
Memory and disk
Memory doesn't seem to difficult to decide on. I want 6GB in 3x 2GB units and the best options seems to be eithe rof these two...
£82.92 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/6GB-(3x2GB)-CorsairXMS3-DDR3-PC3-10666-(1333)-240-Pin-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-9-9-9-24
£88.67 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/6GB-(3x2GB)-Corsair-XMS3-DDR3-PC3-10666-(1333)-240-Pin-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-7-7-7-20
which seem identical except the slightly more expensive memory is rated at 7-7-7-20 versus 9-9-9-24, so for £6 more I'll go for that.
Hard disk is very easy. I've got spare smaller capacity disk all over the place. Maybe I'll use one of them, but I also want one of these for large storage and low power (they claim)...
Scan £64.52 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1TB-Western-Digital-WD10EADS-Green-SATA-300-32MB-Cache
£82.92 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/6GB-(3x2GB)-CorsairXMS3-DDR3-PC3-10666-(1333)-240-Pin-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-9-9-9-24
£88.67 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/6GB-(3x2GB)-Corsair-XMS3-DDR3-PC3-10666-(1333)-240-Pin-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-7-7-7-20
which seem identical except the slightly more expensive memory is rated at 7-7-7-20 versus 9-9-9-24, so for £6 more I'll go for that.
Hard disk is very easy. I've got spare smaller capacity disk all over the place. Maybe I'll use one of them, but I also want one of these for large storage and low power (they claim)...
Scan £64.52 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1TB-Western-Digital-WD10EADS-Green-SATA-300-32MB-Cache
Case, psu
There is a Coolermaster case for £50 from Scan inclusing a 460W PSU. Was going for that but decided it's too cheap! The PSU wont be the best, possibly <500W is too small and there's no details on the PSU so I dont know it's efficiency rating (as I want to go to >80%).
So settled on the same stanalone case and a separate power supply.
Scan £30.92 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Coolermaster-Elite-340-Black-MicroATX-Case-w-o-PSU
This one is modular (I think this means it has pluggable leads and thus does not clutter the interior of the case) and has more connection options than slightly cheaper models and it stated as being 80% plus efficiency.
Scan £68.64 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/520W-Coolermaster-Real-Power-M520-Modular-PSU-2xPCI-E-80-Efficiency
So settled on the same stanalone case and a separate power supply.
Scan £30.92 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Coolermaster-Elite-340-Black-MicroATX-Case-w-o-PSU
This one is modular (I think this means it has pluggable leads and thus does not clutter the interior of the case) and has more connection options than slightly cheaper models and it stated as being 80% plus efficiency.
Scan £68.64 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/520W-Coolermaster-Real-Power-M520-Modular-PSU-2xPCI-E-80-Efficiency
Motherboard
Has got to be micro ATX as I just dont want a huge ATX tower monster and smaller mobo's just wont have any space for any expansion. Given I've settled on an i7 there isn't a load of choice.
The best seems to be ASUS Rampage II GENE which I can only find good comments about.
eBuyer £176.75 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/162039
scan £172.70 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-ROG-Rampage-II-GEGE-uATX-x58-Mobo
Not for sale at dabs, but there is a MSI S1366 X58M (Dabs £153) but it's not in stock and not reviewed.
The ASUS is well commented on, on the purchase sites, and reviewed here on Hexus which reads well.
The best seems to be ASUS Rampage II GENE which I can only find good comments about.
eBuyer £176.75 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/162039
scan £172.70 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-ROG-Rampage-II-GEGE-uATX-x58-Mobo
Not for sale at dabs, but there is a MSI S1366 X58M (Dabs £153) but it's not in stock and not reviewed.
The ASUS is well commented on, on the purchase sites, and reviewed here on Hexus which reads well.
Monday, 27 July 2009
CPU
The cpu choice has got to be an Intel i7 920.
Older Intel's, even quad-core's seem just so 2008, and although I dont know exact numbers for performance comparision everything I've read suggests they are a generation better - due to onboard memory controller maybe, rather than just bigger/faster than before.
The 920 seems the best choice - about £200 - which is a bit steep, but the high models creep up to £1000 just for a few more Hz hardly seems worth it.
There is talk of an i5 series being released soon and the top end of that replacing the botthon end of the i7 range (i.e. the 920). I dont know if it's worth hanging on for that.
Here's a good article http://www.slashgear.com/intel-core-i5-750-i7-860-and-i7-870-coming-september-6th-2149859/. The i5's dont have hyperthreading but lower power.
I'll stick to 920 with the LGA1366 socket as that should have more upgrade options for future processors with more cores (read this)
So, best price for processor is creeping up to £210 (especially on scan.co.uk it seems to change daily, maybe they have some exchange rate factor?) but today Dabs seem to be the cheapest (normally they are a few pounds more than scan)...
Dabs - £206.65 http://www.dabs.com/products/intel-nehalem-i7-920-s1366-2-66ghz-5CC9.html
Scan - £208.35 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Intel-i7-920-D0-(SLBEJ)-Socket-1366-(B)-Nehalem-266GHz-QPI-48GT-s-Cache-8MB-130W-Retail
eBuyer - £209.36 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/151477
Older Intel's, even quad-core's seem just so 2008, and although I dont know exact numbers for performance comparision everything I've read suggests they are a generation better - due to onboard memory controller maybe, rather than just bigger/faster than before.
The 920 seems the best choice - about £200 - which is a bit steep, but the high models creep up to £1000 just for a few more Hz hardly seems worth it.
There is talk of an i5 series being released soon and the top end of that replacing the botthon end of the i7 range (i.e. the 920). I dont know if it's worth hanging on for that.
Here's a good article http://www.slashgear.com/intel-core-i5-750-i7-860-and-i7-870-coming-september-6th-2149859/. The i5's dont have hyperthreading but lower power.
I'll stick to 920 with the LGA1366 socket as that should have more upgrade options for future processors with more cores (read this)
So, best price for processor is creeping up to £210 (especially on scan.co.uk it seems to change daily, maybe they have some exchange rate factor?) but today Dabs seem to be the cheapest (normally they are a few pounds more than scan)...
Dabs - £206.65 http://www.dabs.com/products/intel-nehalem-i7-920-s1366-2-66ghz-5CC9.html
Scan - £208.35 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Intel-i7-920-D0-(SLBEJ)-Socket-1366-(B)-Nehalem-266GHz-QPI-48GT-s-Cache-8MB-130W-Retail
eBuyer - £209.36 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/151477
Sunday, 26 July 2009
Build your own Windows 7 PC?
With the imminent release of Windows7 it's time to get a new PC. The old PC is cr*p, running XP and seems to get slower to do anything everyday. It could not run Vista - and even with the much publized performance improvements in Windows 7 it wont be able to handle the new operating system.
So it's time for a new PC. I could buy a beefy, top-range one from Dell for £1000 plus or build a better one myself for less. The requirements are generally to have high performance, but not extreme cost. I also want as low power and small form factor as possible. And to justify doing it all, it's got to come in well under a £1000.
Not much to ask! More posts to follow.
So it's time for a new PC. I could buy a beefy, top-range one from Dell for £1000 plus or build a better one myself for less. The requirements are generally to have high performance, but not extreme cost. I also want as low power and small form factor as possible. And to justify doing it all, it's got to come in well under a £1000.
Not much to ask! More posts to follow.
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