Re: Advice on a new system please

In <46818c05$0$31690$db0fefd9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Chris <none@all> wrote:

I'm looking for reasonable price/performance, but the machine will have
some demanding uses (including games, serious programming, and graphics and
multimedia editing) so the balance is towards performance. Quiet components
would be a welcome bonus.

I will probably want to dual boot Linux and Windows XP, with Linux for
on-line things, Windows for gaming, and some combination for programming
and multimedia work depending on software available. Future-proofing is
desirable, but I have no intention of putting Vista on any system I own any
time soon.

Here's my thinking at the moment:

Core 2 Duo, probably an E6600 for price/performance
Asus P5B motherboard

Looks like all the bits on that have Linux drivers.

4GB DDR2 RAM from a decent supplier

Is 2GB really insufficient if you're not going to run Vista?

WD Raptor 150GB as system/software drive
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (16MB cache) 500GB as data drive
Enermax Liberty 620W PSU
+ a decent case, optical drive, etc. etc.

I'm open to suggestions on a graphics card. DX10 support is desirable for
future-proofing, as is a decent amount of video RAM, but I don't need kit
that no game will use until you could upgrade to it for half today's price
anyway. I don't have a strong preference between ATI and nVidia; as far as
I can tell, neither is particularly reliable these days when it comes to
writing good Windows drivers or supporting Linux. :-(

If your budget is nearer £200 than £100 then an NVidia 8800GTS seems to
be good value ATM, otherwise DX10 support is probably a waste of time if
you don't want to use Vista yet, and you'll get more bang per buck with
an older card. I recently chose to get a 7900GS instead of an 8600GTS
because it's cheaper (even with a quiet Zalman cooler) and a bit faster
in most games.

NVidia drivers are still better than ATI's AFAIK, especially their
proprietary Linux drivers. And ISTR someone complaining here recently
about ATI's Windows driver being a monstrous memory hog. Although ATI
and NVidia both theoretically supply enough of an open source stub that
you can get them working with your own kernel, IME this nearly always
works with NVidia and nearly never works with ATI unless you're prepared
to stick to a kernel no newer than the previous SuSE or Red Hat release.
ATI cards traditionally have better support in the open source X
drivers, but they almost certainly won't give you OpenGL on a recent
model. Also ATI cards seem to be using more power than NVidia lately.

I'm also open to suggestions about good combinations of exact CPU,
motherboard and RAM. I haven't put together a PC for about four years, and
am not up to date on the various timings and how they relate in practice.

The PSU is determined by having good experiences with Enermax kit in the
past, the fact that it seems powerful and quiet enough, and the fact that I
hate having lots of cables around inside my case so their modular design
has a lot of appeal.

Enermax are highly regarded. They're not the quietest, but quiet enough.
620W is overkill though, you won't need more than 500W and even that's
probably OTT with such a good make.

--
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk
.

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