the karblog: System Builds

Whoa, dragon!

2006-04-13T09:22:00.000-07:00

In the past few months, there have been waaay too many advances in the consumer/office computer market. This is just a summary:

CPUS - the Intel side

Intel will be releasing the new 'Conroe' chip (featuring Intel's "next-gen" architecture, which is really the 10-year old P6 core (probably Intel's best design to date) with more of ... everything). Baseline specs indicate clock speeds of about 2.0-2.66 GHz upon launch, dual cores or four cores, and a whopping 4 MB (some slower variants will have 2 MB) cache shared between the cores. It still uses Intel's archaic FSB design (known as the GTL+) from the Pentium Pro era, except this time its clocked at either 1066 MHz or 1333 MHz. For the most part, it'll be competitive with AMD's HyperTransport on the desktop side, though the four-core part may be starved for bandwith in the end. It'll still use the LGA-775 socket introduced with the 90nm P4s and a variant of Intel's 945/955/975 series of chipsets.

Intel-supplied benchmarks show the 4 MB, dual-core 2.66 GHz part beating an overclocked AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 (a dual-core Athlon 64 at 2.8 GHz, 1 MB cache per core, with HT operating at 1 GHz) by about 20-40%. Real world gains should amount to at least a 10-15% increase clock-per-clock in the end (I would take the Intel benchmarks with a grain of salt).

What's impressive is that this new chip will have an estimated TDP of 65 watts - a fraction of what single-core P4s consume and far less than the Athlon chips.

CPUS - the AMD side

AMD won't release a new architecture in 2006, instead relying on the K8 architecture (introduced with the Opteron in 2003). AMD instead will release a new socket called AM2 for the new microprocessors. The new interface will allow AMD to use faster DDR2 memory (though not really impacting performance any) but won't really increase performance any (though it's not bad to be future-proof, right)?

The TDP of the highest-clocked dual-core parts should be about 125 watts; all dual core and the fastest single-core parts will be 89 watts; and mainstream single-core parts will be 62 watts. What's interesting is that (from Anandtech.com) some of the parts will be certified to have even a lower TDP, though it's likely that a premium will have to be paid for obtaining the efficient chips. AMD has, on its roadmap on Anand's website, a 35-watt Athlon 64 X2 3800+ part. If that claim is true, some of these new AM2 chips (which are made on the 90 nm process) will consume about as much power as Intel's new Core T-series (Intel's new laptop chip) do at 65 nm.

Video Cards - all hail nVidia!

Although ATI clearly has a foothold on the upper-end of the market (ATI X1800-series was competitive with the nVidia 7800-series, and the X1900-series is much faster (though much noisier) than the spanking new 7900 series and is competiitve with SLI'd 7800-series GPUs), its midrange GPU (the X1600) could be considered a weak processor. Despite having 12 pipelines and ridiculously high clocks, it's still bested by ATI's old-school X800 GPUs and even nVidia's GeForce 6600GT chip. ATI clearly has a lot of work left in the midrange, though its new GPU (X1700) should be competitive with the nVidia's new 7600 series.

Speaking of nVidia, the 7900 is a fast chip (though not as bleeding fast as the X1900) that runs cooler and quieter than ATI's equivalent. The 7600, nVidia's mainstream chip, however, is a whole another story: the performance version (the 7600GT) is faster than the 6800GS while consuming far less power and having a lower price tag. The mainstream-of-the-mainstream, the 7600GS, is as fast as the 6600GT and can easily be passively cooled, making it a great choice for HTPCs (or quiet environments). Passive-cooled versions of the 7600GT do exist, too, so the 7600 series seems to have the best noise-performance-price ratio out of all of the new video cards out there.

nVidia's SLI implementation is also improved over the previous generation (6xxx-line). Peformance gains of about 75% are common (compare to roughly 50%).

All of the 7600 chips can be SLI'd. Two 7600GS chips are about as fast as the 7900GT - impressive for a passively cooled setup! That said, it doesn't make much logical sense to go with 2 7600s and sacrifice upgradeability . . .

College Gaming Box

2005-11-12T16:48:00.000-08:00

Let's face it - the need for a powerful and quality gaming computer is apparent with new games (AOE 3, BF2) already out with more on the horizon. For college students, reliability, power, and most importantly, price, are the most important factors (or should be) in choosing a new computer - and the build highlighted here will focus on the above three. The CPU should be inexpensive, but powerful; components don't need to be cutting edge, but powerful and reliable enough; data storage should be big enough to house large collections of music, movies, and games.

So, here is the new build - the College Gaming Box:

CPU

AMD Sempron 64 2800+ ($75.50)

AMD's budget line has just gone 64-bit and to the 90 nanometer core, but still uses the socket-754 interface (allowing for only single channel memory versus dual channel). The Sempron 64 is nothing more than an Athlon 64 with half the memory bandwith (3.2 gb/sec versus 6.4) and half the cache (256 kb versus 512 kb), but still has 64-bit capability and an on-die memory controller along with an 800 MHz HT link. The 2800+ runs at 1.6 GHz, and the 90 nanometer core keeps the internals running very cool (peak power should be well under 62 watts, about 60% as much as the Prescott-based Celeron Ds). The Sempron is a fine chip for gaming, as it's easily overclockable (thank the low, low power dissipation); the HT and on-die memory controller contribute greatly to its gaming prowess, making it nearly as fast as the 2.8 GHz P4 in gaming.

Motherboard

eVGA 115-K8-NF31-AX ($70)

Socket 754, nVidia's nForce3 Ultra chipset, USB 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, 8-channel audio, and SATA (rev 1.0) round out the feature set of this motherboard. It doesn't support the newer PCI Express interface, but 8x AGP already provides more than enough bandwith for even the most powerful video cards. 4 USB 2.0 ports and 5 PCI slots provide adequate expansion, but the mainboard only has two memory slots and no firewire. Overall, it's still a solid board with good quality and reliability (eVGA has a good reputation for building high quality nVidia video cards, and this motherboard is no exception).

Memory

Corsair 1GB stick ($89.90)

One stick of 1 GB RAM is all you need - just about any PC3200 184-pin DDR module will do. Corsair is a reliable company, although the memory it sells at this price can't overclock worth anything (not that it matters).

Video

eVGA 256-A8-N340-TX ($113)

AGP 8x, 256 megabytes of DDR memory, and nVidia's GeForce 6600 video processor. The 6600 (clocked at 300 MHz) is a powerful card for a gamer on the budget and can easily handle all of today's gaming tasks; the 256 megabytes of DDR video memory (clocked at 250 MHz - effectively 500 - and a 128-bit controller for an effective bandwith of 8.0 gb/sec) is great for memory-intensive games like flight simulators and AOE-3. The board supports DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 1.5 natively through hardware, and the quality and reliability of the company make it a good pick.

Hard Drive

Western Digital 1200SB ($83.50) or Seagate 120814A ($80.00)

Choose your poison here - both Western Digital's 1200SB (marketed as the Caviar RE) and Seagate's 120814A (marketed as the Barracuda 7200.9) are ridiculously reliable 120 gigabyte drives with 8 megs of cache, 7200 RPM spin speed, fluid bearings, PATA/100 interfaces, and class-leading 5-year warranties. Although Seagate doesn't release reliability data, its 5-year warranty should speak volumes about the quality of Seagate's drives. Western Digital rates the Caviar RE as an enterprise-class drive suitable for medium-duty servers / network storage with a million-hour MTBF rating. In any case, both drives have a reputation for being quiet, fast, and running cool, so they should be great for any well-meaning and reliable machine.

Optical Drive

NEC 3550A ($42.99)

Parallel ATA/66 interface, 16x DVD writing speed, 48x CD-R writing speed, dual-layer writing support, and buffer-overload protection round out this excellent drive. Reliable and a steal for less than $50.

Case and Cooling

Antec Sonata ($99.99)

Antec's jet-black ATX case is stoutly constructed and quiet. It comes standard with a 380-watt power supply (Antec's True380-S, the -S meaning that it's engineered with low noise in mind), a 12 cm exhaust fan (an Antec 75003), and other goodies such as sound-dampening material on the sides, rubber hard drive mounts that reduce vibration, and a dust-trapping washable air-filter (required for those uber-dusty dorms!). Antec also has a reputation for building high quality power supplies and cases, so it's a solid recommendation many DIY-ers make.

Antec 75003 ($11.99)

Antec's case doesn't come with an intake fan (it supports 12 cm fans), so one is necessary for establishing adequate airflow in the computer. The Antec 75003 12 cm fan is quiet (less than 30 db), powerful (moves almost 80 cfm), and reliable (has ball bearings)

Swiftech MCX64-V ($44.99)

Swiftech's high quality aluminum/copper hybrid heatsink is lightweight (under a pound) and ultra efficient, able to keep Athlon FX's at low temperature (and should be able to keep the Sempron cool enough so that it can literally be run at full load 24 x 7). The included (and replaceable) 8 cm fan is quiet at 28 db and moves about 32 cfm of air.

Total Price (not including shipping): $627.86

Karblog Builds - 1st post

2005-08-01T13:16:00.000-07:00

Of late, I've begun to post guides (mostly for my own reference) on the Karblog, but I think a dedicated blog for posting system builds is more appropriate. Hence, I bring to you ...

the karblog's SYSTEM BUILDS!!!

Of course, the main inspiration for this blog comes from ARS Technica's System Guides (check the link on the right side).