Building your own Computer!

[The_Aleman]

Oh yeah here is my old work horse I be typing on now.. Still a hotrod by todays standards.

A Pentium 4 is not a hotrod at all by today's standards. No way at all. It's a single-core that was a step backwards architecturally from the Pentium 3. Don't let it's clockspeed fool you, the Pentium 4 does SSE in 2 cycles. Everything after does it in one. The Pentium 4 is an absolute terd by today's standards.

It's probably perfectly adequate for a non-power user tho. I'm on a PC I built in 2007 and it has 8x the SSE processing power of a 3GHz Pentium 4. Mine is even considered slow by today's power users! Well, everything that came after my CPU's architectural generation has been just more overkill

You say your PC is 4 or 5 years old? Heh. The Athlon 64 was a better processor than yours and that came out in 2003. I had a few.

 

[Goat Herder]

After watching windows 8 do everything way too slow on my freinds comp. That had a quad core. I agree with you and disagree. That old comp ran a Huper labs video dvr. The north brige on my Gigabyte mother board makes a great differance.

To buy a hot rod comp just to tun windows is backwards logic to me.

Just refebished 4 old dell laptops. Linux went on them all. Most of those were victoms of Vista. Every body that got there comp back said never ran so good. Even better than their recent win8"s.

Yeah I agree not a hot rod by todays standards. Especially carring the weight of windows. It out runs a fat lot right off the shelf tho..IMHO.

A brand new comp opening pages slow will never impress me.

 

[KCvale]

Regarding Win 8.1, considering the parts cost it was free.

After watching windows 8 do everything way too slow on my freinds comp. That had a quad core.
I agree with you and disagree.
That old comp ran a Huper labs video dvr. The north brige on my Gigabyte mother board makes a great differance.

I see the same slowness, and I have an 8 core CPU and 16GB DDR3 memory.

My guess is it's all the BS running in background and I'll get to that, for now I'm a kid with a cool expensive new toy ;-}

 

[The_Aleman]

To buy a hot rod comp just to tun windows is backwards logic to me.

I disagree. Most games and productivity software require Windows. NT-based Windows is far more robust and easier to set up on a wide variety of PCs than any Linux distro for the average user. While Windows is not required for games, photo/video editing and CAD, it sure makes it a lot easier.

I can easily get my Linux fix by running a VM, too. I could run 10 Linux distros at once if I felt like abusing my RAM lol. Not that I would need to, my system tri-boots XP, 7x64, and SUSE 10.1.

Just refebished 4 old dell laptops. Linux went on them all. Most of those were victoms of Vista. Every body that got there comp back said never ran so good. Even better than their recent win8"s.

I could have done the same thing with a slipstreamed, nLite'd Windows XP. I have a Pentium 3 laptop with 256MB of RAM that runs a stripped XP like a champ. I had run Linux Mint and Slax Kill Bill on it for awhile, but wanted easier access to certain software - and games. I've even installed an nLite'd XP on a Pentium 200 with only 64MB of RAM and it ran okay lol

Yeah I agree not a hot rod by todays standards. Especially carring the weight of windows. It out runs a fat lot right off the shelf tho..IMHO.

A brand new comp opening pages slow will never impress me.

I'll one-up your Pentium 4 one further, my friend: my Soundblaster X-Fi sound card has a processor that is more powerful than your Pentium 4, and it doesn't require a heatsink. Oh, and it came out in 2005

I totally agree Windows has gotten extremely bloated. Heck, you prolly remember when Windows installed was under 100MB. I have every version of Windows since 2.03 (1988), and those early ones were well under 20MB. It wasn't until Windows 98 that they passed the 100MB mark. Part of the problem with Vista and later is that they have to carry all the legacy-friendly code and drivers so that the huge variety of PCs - new and old - can even start it up. When Vista came out I was astonished to see that, installed, a Vista Ultimate x64 was nearly 16GB after a new installation! That's 10x the size of XP! A stripped-down XP is about 800MB tho, and it runs scary-fast - just like most Linux distros.

I have no love whatsoever for Windows 8. Windows 9 looks like it'll be more of the same crap, too. It might be that Windows 7 is the last great Windows we'll see for a long time.

 

[Goat Herder]

I don"t have much interest in video games. Prolly never will? Waiting for a page to open. Heck no! Yes I know a win os can be stripped down. I have used them all for the most part.

 

[The_Aleman]

Found an old pic I took back in October 2007, a few months after I built this PC:



I was re-coding 2 movies, running 10 VMs, and running Rome: Total War simultaneously on Windows XP. I made this pic to counter some guy on a PC tech forum who said his dual-core AMD was more powerful and ran cooler than my Intel. This pic shut him up quick, he was obviously still on the Intel Netburst-era thinking. Funny thing tho, I ran AMDs from 1999-2007, this rig was my first Intel since the 90's.

Unfortunately, while AMD had the lead in CPU processing power from 2003-2006, they have not come close to regaining it.
AMD does however, offer awesome performance for the money these days.

 

[Goat Herder]

Whats your best linux compiz picture? I had a good one! Can not duplicate it as I have lost one important background picture.

 

[gaffo]

My advice on monitors is don't by a TV unless that's what you are going to use it for, a TV, as no 1080 HDTV is going to give you the up close clarity a real monitor or my case pair of real monitors give you.

Oh I don't know. I had one of those expensive 21" CRTs (nearly 2 grand) in 1995, used it at 1260x1600 rez until it blew in 2007. Immediately "downgraded" to a 32" 1080x1920 refurb LCD TV sized Monitor - black levels kinda sucked compared to the CRT (even today the best LCD's suck at black-levels OLED is suppose to fix this weakness (assuming it ever arrives). Three years ago I bought an cheapo "Element" brand 60" TV at walmart for 1300 bucks. I'm using this monster now posting to you - I also have it hooked up to a Bluray player via another HDMI input (it has three).

**** I "Cut Cable TV 15 yrs ago, and since 2010 or so YouTube has gotten so much great movies and good-obscure TV shows (geat stuff like Callan/Survivors/UFO/SecretArmy/Colditz/Strange Luck/nowhere Man -just kewl TV shows I have never heard of when they were on TV, and if not for youtube would have still.

I get to watch them on my TV! - so it is in effect TV.

.....................

recommend Grace Radios - if you are looking for a "internet radio" - that looks and acts like a radio (and not a computer). Their Victoria model is sweet as **** - 40's made of wood-ish stuff 40's retro style weighs a trillion pounds as if it is a real 40's radio and sounds great too!

 

[gaffo]

Good specs/price.

Good luck with AMD and win8....I hate theses.

There is a neat little program you can download to make Win8 work more like win7 some 'Shell' thing.
After win8 makes you crazy..

ya - no intention of ever going win8 - I bought a "3-pack" of 7 right before 8 came out (after it was leaked how aweful 8 is - summer of 2012).............and if 9 is like 8, I'll just use a "Crack" and reuse 7 if I run out of legal copies in 2020.

All those random restarts and glitches you can thank AMD for...

not a fan of Bulldozer - slower than their theories told them (Pentium-4 netbust anyone?), but Athlon was a solid chip and kicked Intel's Pentium-3 and petiuim-4 easily.......I was a solid user of AMD's chip when they were clearly superior to Intels - bet 1999-2006.

Core chip (Intel's Pentuim-4 replacement) arrived in 2006 and AMD has never been able to re-take the crown since then.

Core line is the best of the best - and after intel put the memory controller onto the chip with the i5/i7 lines 4 years ago, there really is no contest WRT to speed.

but how much speed do you need today - and if the price is right AMD's offering is fine (good enough).

most headache's WRT to AMD was with the substandard pisspoor VIA and SiS chipsets on the AMD compatible motherboards (issues out of the control of AMD's quality control). VIA was the WORST......made some the the shhiitties motherboards in history (sadly I owned two in the early 2000's).

Sorry if I sound harsh, I have not touched anything AMD for at least 6 years, maybe it has improved.

6 yrs? ya that's about right. maybe a little more.

sadly - always like underdogs ;-/.

 

[gaffo]

Everything I have ever tried Linux on ran way better than any Windows OS ever did. Opens web pages faster , boots up faster, wakes up from sus faster, Over all just does it ''all' way better!!

Yep - back in 1998 I installed Linux with KDE1 on my WINCHIP-2 (you know about them? Winchips are cheap, but slow............version 2 was better and comparable to AMD's K-6 (which was really a NexGen dez chip the Nx686 that AMD bought(out the whole company)) their k-5 sucked so bad and all).

my humble winchip multitasked like a duck in water -----intil I had to get on the internet (Linux didn't go winmodems back then -always some poor diver/no diver issue then and now 18 fookin years later - same bull**** NO DRIVER SUPPORT.

so I had to go back to windoze98 which didn't multitask hardly at all and was generally 50-percent slower.


-

I gave up on Linux years ago - too many "re-inventing" GNOME or KDE (KDE has been fine since 1997! - no need to screw with it), or "desktop effects" or some other irreliventcy -while ignoring DEVICE DRIVER SUPPORT


so that 18 yrs later - I might get SOUND? or maybe VIDEO or even have my WiFi Card seen so I can get on the Net?...............I had better driver support in 1998 than I did the last 3 times I installed the last 2 Linuxmints and the last Suse ------none offered sound support - and Suse never saw my WiFi card.



you now BASIC stuff. nope "script kiddies" have no interest in anything as practical as that!

 

[gaffo]

Since this board about a year ago got the Bios reflashed and the better CPU. I am sure previuos limitations are gone now. Bet I can Double my memory. As the CPU I have now knows what to do with it.


Here you go this thing is taking a nap. It is always easy peasy with Linux.. Cant forget my 60 inch flat screen monitor. This is a sound investment for all that saved money..

ya bigger is better - 60" seems insane, until you try it, then it is just right.

 

[gaffo]

A Pentium 4 is not a hotrod at all by today's standards. No way at all. It's a single-core that was a step backwards architecturally from the Pentium 3.

Absolutely - p-3 was a good chip, 20 percent faster than the p-4 and only 10-percent slower than the Athlon.

p-4 sucked because Intel wanted to retire x87 and use SSE1/2 soley. but AMD has a monster x87 and most floating point software then (the installed base) didn't use SSE - only x87. Intel crippled the p-4 x87 - it was 1/2 the speed of the Athlon's at same GHZ.

Intel learned nothing from the "Pentium-4 plan" (i.e. the idea that a chip feature can make software change to support said feature) -the opposite of AMD's "Athlon plan".

Intel tried the same plan with their "Itanic" - thinking that they could "force a software change" - again software dev. ignored Intel's Itanic and instead wanted x86 code to get 64bit support (the last thing Intel wanted - Intel wanted to kill-off x86, going to 64-bit would do the opposite), AMD provided with the first 64bit x86 chip .................Intel finally "gave up" around a year later and provided their "Version of 64bit"......and shortly after simply bought the rights to use AMD's 64bit version of x86.

............nail in Itanic - which has been "walking dead" for what? a decade now? Intel (and HP) must have lost a fortune with their "Merced" (Itanic).....................

just like the "bulldozer" the Itanium looked like a Mericle on paper, but in the real world, a turd.


...................

I wonder if x87 is still used today - or if it is all SSE/etc - never been able to find out.

 

[gaffo]

A brand new comp opening pages slow will never impress me.

SSE (Solid State Drives) are a godsend here.

the best component in my box IMO - make more difference than the i5-2500K or that expensive GTX7?? (highway robbery pricing in 2012 -I'm still paying for it -lol)

 

[gaffo]

Not that I would need to, my system tri-boots XP, 7x64, and SUSE 10.1..

Always loved KDE and hated GNOME - same with SuSe (love - have the best KDE is most polished) and Ubantu (hate - loathe "their way and never KDE" they are the Microsoft of the Linuxes.

the day they die is a day I'll cellibrate............with the latest Ubantu's way or the highway (the whole Mir vs Wayland - X-windows Xorg replacement) Linux Mint founder is looking at using Debian for future releases.

I hope he does - as soon as practical - and glad than others are starting to see the Ubantu I've seen since almost day one.

...................

oh ya I actually like windows 7 - she and the latest Linux's both take up around the same hard-drive space (~ 20-30 gigs) and the same RAM (around 600-700 megs) - and of course if you want it to actually work in the real world both OSes take around 4 gigs to run well -- 8 preferable.


Linux kernel is better than the NT one which 7 uses - not doubt there. back in 98 my winchip also had NT-4 and it was twice as slow as my "caldera openlinix" KDE bootup


Truthfully I think only in server duty stuff would you be able to tell the difference today - PC are so powerful they "hide" the weakeness of windows.

and graphically Linux is slower by 10-20 percent due to the weakness of its X-windows implementation, which is 30 yr old code.

thus the Mir/Wayland Wars for a replacement.

 

[Goat Herder]

A Pentium 4 is not a hotrod at all by today's standards. No way at all. It's a single-core

Good thing I have a two CPU's here ay......

 

[Goat Herder]

So I looked around for a system builder deal. I did run into this? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-i7-47...05&prg=10073&rk=1&rkt=6&sd=301298515999&rt=nc Woundering on the toughts of this?

After looking around I do see how far back I am. If I was playing games I would hate this comp. Yet on my 60 inch TV it works pretty good for movies and the like. I want a better video card and faster internet speed right now as there is hesitation if I look for it. Mebbe I am just use to it lol. I will look around for awhile. I have always been all about a faster comp for sure. I will have to check cross compatibility with linux too?


Edit for time passed..

I revisted the specs on my motherboard.....

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3485#dl

One Ebay listing later..

Intel Core™ 2 Extreme QX9650 3.00GHz 12MB Yorkfield 45nm C1 130W 1333 FC

Daddy be on the map. Its in the mail. All's I need is some memory and a video card later. Got spare just about every thing else.

After revisiting their sight kinda confused and tired ATM . I think my currant CPU may be about 4mb catch? Dunno?? Will look into it closer.

Got this builder on a entry level bargan. Buddy cooked the capciters out of his motherboard. So hey I got his CPU. It is over clocked right now with a massive heat sink. ''big'' and purring like a kitten..

Now off to that Video card. *Snickers*

 

[The_Aleman]

Nice grab, GH! Although that QX9650 is still "slow" by some people's reckoning these days, that "Yorkie" is one of the last of Intel's big-L2-cache quads. It's a very powerful quad-core and should blow your mind a little bit! I'd be running one if my mobo's ancient i975X chipset would let me. But alas, I have the generation before that - a Kentsfield.

Interesting fact: that QX9650 was once a $1000 CPU. Anyway, be careful how far you try to take that CPU in OCing. Your Gigabyte mobo only has 3 power phases. It'll likely blow out pretty soon if you try to go much over 3.3GHz. The Core 2 quads need quite a bit of amperage over 3.3, my 5-power-phase mobo tops out at 3.4 with my Q6700.

You might want to look into a mobo with X38 or X48 chipset to get the most out of your new CPU. Those boards will be made to handle the QX9650.

 

[Goat Herder]

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Gigabyte-G41M-ES2L-Motherboard/862 Says a 41 series might have the supported sockets for DDR3? Need to pull the ram chips I guess and look for the clues at the socket.


Got another old intel board here I can ugrade too? Or simply use instead? It is a 2.0 16x video card slot as well but supports 4 memory cards up to 8 gigs I think? Prolly DDR2 Dunno? Slept since then.

Problem with me is the challenge. Got to see what I have first? Options? Mainly Memory ATM. Does the language from this chipset bend the rules? Can I snake somthing in? Like 8 gigs!

 

[The_Aleman]

The "G" series chipsets are typically for budget builds, they include onboard video. If you look at a pic of the mobo, you can see 3 little black squares around the CPU socket. Those are the power phases which work in tandem with the Voltage Regulator Module. When one has a dual-core CPU, 3 power phases will work just fine, but when dealing with quads (which in the Core 2 era are really just 2 dual-cores fused together) then having more is better. Most X38/X48 mobos have 6 or more power phases. Some have 8 or more like this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/221361795707?lpid=82

Most "G" series will handle a quad just fine at stock speed, but will quickly prove inadequate when OCing. P35/P45 or X38/X48 will be much better. If you want 8GB of RAM, a P45 or X38/48 will be the way to go IMHO.

 

[Goat Herder]

Interesting fact: that QX9650 was once a $1000 CPU.

I wager it was more than that. These CPU's are not cheap.

Here is where I am at. Venture to say when this stuff comes in I will be a far cry cleaner running after all this.

This CPU is new

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001D86S3G/ref=pe_385040_30332210_TE_3p_dp_1

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Corsair-4GB...1-/271594639488?ssPageName=ADME:X:AAQ:US:1123

Prolly should have got Radeon? Oh well price was OK.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3858032

All these parts including the CPU will cross over to the other Intel mother board I have accept the memory.

This ought to step things up a tad.

The boards you linked I absolutely liked. Just out of my budget ATM. Every way I looked at it, it was new card, new memory yadda yadda. Done now and time to sleep. Me tired of reading.

I will be overwhelmed with more performance than I am used to I am sure! Not gonna worry too much about over clocking this round. Save some for tommorow type deal and get my moneys worth.

I will build a more beastly model next year. Gotta make money or sell something lol.

Ran into this when researching things. Thought it was very Amusing.. https://www.google.com/search?q=GA-...nel=fe&client=browser-ubuntu&hl=en&gws_rd=ssl