Spec check please - Multi-tasking Office + TV card

[SimonM]

Hi guys.

The last desktop I speced up was in 2004, so I'm a little bit out of date. Any suggestions you can make would be very welcome.

My usual approach is to move up from the most basic spec, but not to pay silly money for the very latest (& expensive) tweak that returns little real world benefit.

I don't do anything very fancy, but I do do a lot of it. Intensive multi-tasking of otherwise pretty standard stuff. Email, browser with maybe 20+ tabs open, various office type applications open, maybe music being streamed - you get the idea. This PC will run 24/7 & everything else will revolve around it.

I'm not a gamer, although I might be tempted by a Flight Sim. at some point. I will be fitting a TV card.

I currently use a twin monitor setup, a digital HP LP2065 1600x1200 & an analogue HP L1706 1280x1204. I like the 1200 vertical resolution on the larger display, but might swap to a 1920x1080 HD screen at some future point, probably keeping the LP2065 as No. 2. That means I ought to change the chosen graphics card for something with 2 digital outlets.

I need to run the 32 bit version of Win 7 for now, because I have some office software that still uses some 16 bit elements. That restricts the amount of RAM that it's worth putting in. I might delete the OS altogether & get a retail copy, so I could swap to 64 bit later & add some more RAM. No one program needs the RAM, but altogether they might.

I'll put any other thoughts under the relevant items below.

TIA for any contributions. Please ask if you need to know anything else to be able to make recommendations.

Simon


Case
COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE

Office doubles as a study etc. I spend a lot if time in there, both working & not. Could do without too much background whine.

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics

I don't think anything I'm doing would benefit from anything fancier, but open to guidance.

Motherboard
ASUS® P8P67: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, CrossFireX™ SUPPORT
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GT430 - DVI,HDMI,VGA - DirectX® 11

See note above about 2nd DVI output. Know very little about graphics cards!!
Main pressure will come from the TV card, I would think.

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)

Thinking in terms of RAID Mirror. Any advice on RAID controllers - I gather motherboard based ones can be a bit suspect. Not sure what the P8P67 will support natively, if anything.

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)

Not a lot of overhead left in this. Would the Corsair be noticeably quieter?

Processor Cooling
INTEL SOCKET LGA1156 STANDARD CPU COOLER

Any additional cooling needed?

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
TV Card
PCTV SYSTEMS DUAL TUNER TV CARD & WINDOWS MEDIA CENTRE REMOTE

Any thoughts on the relative merits of the 3 cards offered, or suggestions for a completely different one?

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 32 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Quantity
1

Price: £862.00 including VAT and delivery.

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-sandy-bridge-pc/

 

[PCS]

Welcome to our forums

Nice spec you've put together there - you've obviously done your homework!

The GT430 has DVI,HDMI, and VGA. Therefore you could convert the HDMI port to DVI (via dapter) to give a decond our put if needed.

The Intel RAID controller on the P67 chipset should be more than adequate. I always advise RAID 1 and never RAID 0.

The PSU will be suitably quiet - no need to shell our for a Corsair model here, although you should order a Triple Copper Heatpipe cooler if silence is important to you.

 

[Sleinous]

The GT 430 should indeed battle through nicely, HOWEVER if you did want to give a flight sim a spin, a GTS 450 would be a nice little step up with very little extra cost involved.

The CPU is spot on for your needs as is the RAM.

I wouldnt go over 4GB anyway because 2Gb and 4Gb modules should fall a bit soon (8Gb single module release) and price of ddr3 may start to drop soon too.

With all that 24/7 computing I hope you'll be folding@home

Good choice on teh 1year collect and return for £5 more.

If you go for teh GTS 450 i'd bump your PSU up to a 600W for good measure especially as the output will not stay the same forever as PSU degrades over the years.

Good choice on teh 64mb cached Caviar Black drives.

As for RAID, sorry cant help you there as I dont 'do' RAID

 

[SimonM]

Thanks for the welcome (& the appreciation of the homework )

You have both picked up on the areas where I thought the spec might be a little weak - the graphics card & the PSU. Mind you, it is a step up from the 128MB GEFORCE FX5200 that is struggling to cope with the same job at the moment!

By the time I'd bought an adapter, I'd be half way to the extra cost of the 450, so it's temping to upgrade. Anyone point me to a source of an adapter, by the way? Is this the sort of thing you mean?

That does put pressure on the PSU though - & again, if I'm going to upgrade the PSU at all, then the temptation is to go the whole hog & go for the Corsair.

While I'm not tied to an absolute budget, I am already around the sort of figure I had in mind. But, 'haporth of tar & all that.

Yes, by Raid Mirror I had intended to imply Raid 1. It's the redundancy I'm after, not the space. Both my last 2 machines have suffered HD failures (including a PCS machine - just out of warranty!!). It's not that I don't do backups, it's the time & tedium of the recovery process.

Noted the Cooler comment.

Anyone any experience of the TV cards?

 

[Sleinous]

Ive had an idea on a different spec:

Rather than going for the latest sandy bridge i5 ive gone for the i5 660. I set up an i5 650 for my family in France and its not a sluggish beast at all at 3.2ghz so the i5 660 at 3.33ghz can only be better!

With the money saved you can put the money towards more useful things, (gts450 & 650w corsair) plus 2x 1tb caviar black hdd's instead of the 640gb's:

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-660 Dual Core (3.33GHz, 4MB Cache) + HD Graphics + Turbo Boost
Motherboard
ASUS® P7P55 LX: USB 2.0 & SATA 3.0Gb/s, CrossFireX™ SUPPORT
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTS450 - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - DirectX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£78)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 32 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £870.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[SimonM]

Hmm. Interesting idea.

I must confess, the Sandy Bridge route was more accidental than intentional - I picked my starting point on the configurator as 'Top Spec Core i5/i7' because of the reference to 'serious multitaskers', which I am, probably to a ridiculous extent. It was only later that I realised that had I been 2 days earlier, I would have got a different spec!

I assume you started in the 'Performance Core i3/i5' section? I can't get the same price as you by that route - mine comes out at £854 on your spec, (lower than your £870), but you missed the TV card, which takes it up to £949. If I add in the original quiet case I started with, it climbs to £959.

I also lose the 3.0 USB ports. I haven't really looked to see what's coming up to support 3.0, so I don't know what I'll be missing over the next year or so. Probably easy enough to add later on a card though, or I could just notch the m/b board up a level now.

I'll have a think.

Simon

 

[SimonM]

Oops - matched your price now - I'd hit the i5-650 rather than the 660. Pushes my final price up another £16.

 

[Sleinous]

Ye the i5 650 is what was present on said family pc Its deffinatly no slouch!

Apologies on the tv card, forgot that!

With your multi tasking im thinking RAM is going to be the most important thing, and 4GB will cover you comfortably with room for future RAM modules.

As for usb3, theres a few external HDD's, means u lose the bottleneck of usb2 but not of converting from one standard to the other.

Your motherboard has space in its expansion slots for a USB3 pci-express x4 card anyway Easy addition to make later. (remember usb3 doesnt only come on the motherboard's i/o panel but also in the form of expansion cards that would slot in under or above your gpu and tv card

 

[Sleinous]

Oops dodnt see where u said easy enough to add a usb3 card on, well yep its easy peasy

 

[SimonM]

Sandy Bridge or not?

Should I go the Sandy Bridge route or not?

Against:
1. Standard buying rule: never be the first to buy new technology - let some other mug iron out the early bugs first. (But a BIOS update should fix software bugs, leaving only problematic components to worry about.)
2. It's more expensive.

For:
1. I don't change my machines very often. If I don't get the latest technology available at purchase time, it restricts my options to repair or upgrade later.
2. Although I haven't researched it properly, my impression is that the step forward delivered by Sandy bridge is quite a good value for money option.

I don't have the time to do the proper research, but my gut feeling is to stick with the newer technology, maybe tweak the graphics card up a notch to the GTS450 & go up a size on the PSU, although just to the 600W Quiet 80 Plus rather than the 650W Corsair (unless someone tells me it's an extra £19 very well spent.)

 

[Phoenix]

Sandy Bridge is worth buying into however if you can't afford to then the AMD and previous Intel chips will be fine.

 

[Sleinous]

Yep its a bit more expensive though obviously

 

[SimonM]

Ok, thanks for your thoughts. I think I'm going to stick with Sandy Bridge. It's not so much a cash limited budget - just a question of value for money & not spending more than necessary to get the job done. Equally, one as to avoid the false economy of not spending enough to get the right kit for the job in hand.

It maybe slightly overkill, but what the heck!

 

[SimonM]

Just to complete the story, this is what I ordered.

No OS, because I need the full retail copy & PCS can only supply the OEM version. Full story here for anyone interested, including how PCS have helped me out.

I've taken the advice offered & upped the graphics card spec & the PSU. Although I know I could get away without either in the current configuration, it leaves me more scope for future mods & additions. I've also added the quieter CPU cooler.

This will replace a low spec stop-gap PC I got from PCS back in 2004, not all that long after PCS started trading. Hasn't done badly for a stop-gap! It's run pretty much 24/7 ever since - partly because the PSU fan rattles for hours after a re-start. It's needed a new hard disk & the PSU is now on the way out, but otherwise it's done pretty well.

Added a new headset at the last minute because the handset I use at the moment has been dropped once too often.

Thanks to all for the suggestions made - both in this thread & elsewhere.

Case
COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8P67: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, CrossFireX™ SUPPORT
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTS450 - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - DirectX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
RAID
RAID 1 (MIRRORED VOLUME - 2 x same size & model HDD / SSD) (£9)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£59)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
TV Card
PCTV SYSTEMS DUAL TUNER TV CARD & WINDOWS MEDIA CENTRE REMOTE
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Headsets (VOIP)
Logitech® PC Headset 960 USB Digital stereo with in-line volume control (£17)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Price: £865.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[SimonM]

My previous post started 'Just to complete the story'. Well, it didn't, quite - there is a bit more.

After a bit of debate I changed to a Fractal R3 case for an additional £25. I won't ever be able to make a personal comparison, but there is no more than a quiet hum from beside me. It's a bit unnerving compared to the death rattle I had grown used to.

The final spec in the previous post included the uprated graphics card. I'd gone for this primarily to get the 2nd DVI output, although the extra capacity may be a bonus over time. So I was a bit disappointed to find that there wasn't a 2nd DVI output on the card when I got it. A call to PCS revealed that all the GTS450 cards did indeed only have one DVI output, so there appears to have been a mistake on the configurator. (I see it's been corrected now). PCS have supplied me with a HDMI to DVI adapter & I'm told that this card wouldn't have supported two DVI outputs & the HDMI output all being used simultaneously anyway. So in a way I'm sorted, but if I'd known that at the outset, I would have saved my cash & ordered the GT 440 & an adapter. I've probably got more graphics processing capability than I am ever likely to need.

I was one of those affected by the Sandy Bridge problem, which delayed things a bit. I went for the PCI Express SATA card option, although the new motherboards arrived faster than most people expected, so maybe I should have had a bit more patience!

I introduced a few more days delay after reading so many moans about DHL. I was due to visit family in Sheffield anyway, so decided to go a bit further & pick up the PC myself. So having ordered on the 19th Jan, I eventually collected the PC on the very last day of Feb. I didn't change the case until mid Feb, as the R3 wasn't available when I placed the original order, so I wouldn't have got that if it hadn't have been for the Sandy Bridge delay.

The only other problem was that the headset I ordered wasn't put in the box, but PCS sent that on once I pointed out it's absence.

The build looks good - thanks go to Adam Kirby. Cable management is neat, although if I'm being picky, one of the fan cables is pulled tight under the graphics card with no slack & so it blocks the top expansion slot. I'll have to sort that somehow if ever I need that slot.

This isn't really the right board, but I'll attach some pics. Lousy phone camera quality, I'm afraid - it doesn't focus very well on close-ups. You can see the tight cable on what should be the 2nd pic., if I manage to get them in the right order! There isn't much point in posting a case exterior shot. The R3 is square & black, with a flat black door on the front, covering the drive bays. So it's a square, black box. Very minimalist, but not very photogenic.

Hmm - having a problem with the pictures. I'll add them later if I can work it out. I suspect they might have exceeded the file size limits. It just said 'Upload failed' without giving a reason.
[Edit: No, it's not the size. Back to head scratching]