[philthomas]

Originally Posted by spot

There we go, 19 posts into the thread and the answer pops out just like that..

It may have popped up 16 posts earlier, if you hadn't been playing Devil's Advocate

At least you're happy now though .... that's the main thing

[spot]

Here's what I found at eBuyer after reading the thread twice.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Energy Efficient 95W edition Socket 775 (2.40GHz) G0 Stepping L2 8MB Cache £152
Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R Socket 775 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard £76
Kingston 2gb Kit (2x1gb) Ddr2 800mhz/pc2-6400 Hyperx Memory Non-ecc Low-latency Cl4 £37 x2 = £74
Western Digital WD5000AAJS 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200RPM 8MB Cache £62
Arctic Power 700W PSU - With PCI-E, 4x SATA, 20+4, ATX12V, 8pin +12V Connectors £40
MSI 8600GT Silent edition 256MB DVI HDTV PCI-E Graphics Card £64
Lian Li PC-7B PLUS II Aluminium Black Mid Tower Case - No PSU £61

which is £529. Not, admittedly, double the price but not far off. I prefer the case since I got to choose it. If I put the price to £600 then I can have 8GB of memory. For some reason the board's not got a firewire socket so I'll have to rethink my backups or find a similar motherboard that has one. It has a parallel port so I can still print. It's got a serial port! What good is that to man or beast?

The system has a nominal 20% processor throughput improvement over the ebay one which is pleasing, at least it's not slower.


So that's the answer? Double my budget?

[Carbon]

That guide was mostly written for gaming. You could shave off a ton of cash by:

Grabbing a different motherboard: P35, still supports the quad, no unneeded stuff. You'd have to get a firewire addon because most motherboards with them are high-end, luckily you can get them relatively cheap (sometimes they'll even come with motherboards)
Getting a graphics card that "just works": 8500GT (you just want something that'll make the monitors work, I'm guessing)
Getting a PSU with less wattage: 500W (won't need the 700W)

You could also cut the HDD down to your original spec of 250GB, and/or forsake one of those GB of ram. With that you'll have a much better machine than your original spec. What's going to be the most expensive in the end is of course the quad. You could also go for a dual-core with a higher clock speed (and cheaper) like the E8400, as I doubt you'll be overclocking the quad.

[link590o]

my oh my there's been a lot of bickering on this thread. i thought this place was friendly and family oriented.

well, never mind. once again, carbon seems to have beaten me to the punch. what he recommends is very sound. the p35 is a wonderful chipset. and i'm sure that you can indeed cut down on some of that RAM. you better be buying a 64bit operating system if your're buying all that memory. even 3 gigs is going a little overboard.

and there are plenty of high quality 500watt power supplies out there like the antec earthwatts, or some of the thermaltake models. even some of the coolermaster models are fairly decent. just make sure you're not paying far too little for the wattage or you're getting screwed. at least....i'd say 40 pounds would be about right for that wattage.

and you'd be surprised at the costs between intel and amd. the system i put together was originally intended to be approximately 600 dollars, and it was an amd rig. i was looking at an amd 64x2 6000+. i showed the rig to my father since he works with computers a lot, and he almost hit the roof and cried bloody murder. told me to redesign around an intel processor. and it actually ended up being about 50 dollars cheaper than my amd build. and i was buying the best dual core out there at the time. the E6750. not a cheap processor. but i still put together a fairly top-notch rig for relatively cheap.

so mess with your build as much as you can. surf all the parts out there, and follow what these guys recommend. after putting together my first list, double-checking and seeing it all for myself, what the advice said and what the prices and performance reflected were very very close. same for the quality. and if you've been building computers for this long, i'm surprised that you don't believe in the idea that you shouldn't skimp. quality is everything in a computer. otherwise it fries. i'd much rather be safe than sorry when buying such an integral part of the computer as the cpu.

[spot]

On a point of information, even 32 bit linux would use 8GB of memory quite effectively, assuming the applications you're running in that environment have a need for it. It's Microsoft that has the memory constraint, they build limits into each release as part of their argument to pay extra for the more corporate versions. I remember when they tried to cripple Internet access in Windows 95 in an attempt to bully companies into buying Windows NT 3.5 or 4 instead, they backed down over that when the outrage erupted. I think that 3GB home-use limit's there on the same basis.

"redesign around an intel processor. and it actually ended up being about 50 dollars cheaper than my amd build" is just what I was hoping for. So far, with the suggested UKP80 savings suggested, I'm still UKP150 over budget with the option of further savings if I reduce performance. That, last time I looked, was $300. What I'm typing on would go for $80 in a thrift store.

[alex]

Originally Posted by link590o

my oh my there's been a lot of bickering on this thread. i thought this place was friendly and family oriented.

I've no problem with any of the responses in this thread Link.

If someone had put "You're a f**king idiot for wanting a Phenom" then I would have had an issue.

Debates and disagreements between knowledgeable people are par for the course and to be expected.

Carbon's "Rubbish" comment was based upon a comparison with Intel's quad's and to be frank Phenom's are found wanting. On a like for like and a bang for buck basis.

It doesn't matter if the members on this site helped developed the cpu or not, the fact remains it simply is not a good cpu to purchase considering the competition; it's not a good oc'er, there's various bugs with it due to it's true quad architecture (and not just two duals sandwiched together as in the case of Intel), and it also uses more juice at stock than Intel's quads be it the 65nm or 45nm variety.

Personally, I call it the Phailure.

Most people are locked into a budget and as there's always sales on or bundle deals going it's sometimes the best course of action because bang-for-buck should be your number one priority.

Some people retain brand loyalty. But when that's to the detriment of performance it's rather silly to be frank unless, as above, you're saving enough money to make it worth it.

[link590o]

alex, i had a relatively loose definition when i was using the word "bickering". in my mind, there's a huge difference between bickering and flaming. bickering is, what i consider, tamer. i was just taking note that things were getting a little more heated than your average casual conversation. namely the "taking advice" section. i sensed a lot of furstration, and i was already a little nervous posting here based on that factor alone.

you're absolutely right with what constitutes true fighting. but i at least wanted to put out a reminder that we're all friends here. know what i mean? after all, i trust you to figure out if it's getting out of hand or not.


as for the brand loyalty statement, from my experience i can back that up as being 100% valid. i was an amd fan boy when i got to my first tech website. and when i took a look at some benchmarks and was shown the ropes, particularly after that run in with my father and my build, i quickly changed my opinion. loyalty means next to nothing if the parts don't meet or exceed expectations. and it was a let-down to see the company struggling to compete with intel's superior parts.

[philthomas]

I agree with alex, .... I dont think anyone was bickering, just making their points clear & concise.

I detected from quite early stage in this thread, that spot was playing Devil's Advocate for the Phenom. He actually admitted to this in post #16, after which point, I must admit, I lost interest in contributing any more meaningful discussion.

I don't think he was really looking for answers, as his knowledge appears to be well above the type of questions he was asking. I'm not sure whether he was looking for a verbal fencing interlude, to try and score knowledge points, or to gain the opportunity to name drop, from his vast IT experience of the past, which he has manged to do in many of his posts, but either way, my interest died at this point.I did try to introduce some humour and smilies, to keep things friendly, but maybe these failed.

I'm sorry spot, but I'm a bit old in the tooth for playing games, although I do enjoy a good healthy debate.
I am sometimes wrong too and often bow to others with greater knowledge than I. We can all learn lots, when we listen

[alex]

Originally Posted by philthomas

I agree with alex, .... I dont think anyone was bickering, just making their points clear & concise.

I detected from quite early stage in this thread, that spot was playing Devil's Advocate for the Phenom. He actually admitted to this in post #16, after which point, I must admit, I lost interest in contributing any more meaningful discussion.

I don't think he was really looking for answers, as his knowledge appears to be well above the type of questions he was asking. I'm not sure whether he was looking for a verbal fencing interlude, to try and score knowledge points, or to gain the opportunity to name drop, from his vast IT experience of the past, which he has manged to do in many of his posts, but either way, my interest died at this point.I did try to introduce some humour and smilies, to keep things friendly, but maybe these failed.

I'm sorry spot, but I'm a bit old in the tooth for playing games, although I do enjoy a good healthy debate.
I am sometimes wrong too and often bow to others with greater knowledge than I. We can all learn lots, when we listen

Extremely good post, I completely agree.

Stoke the fire's and all that.

Still, it made for interesting reading.

[spot]

I'm maligned! Honestly! At the end of my search it's my intention to buy a replacement computer somehow, and the £300 budget was realistic I thought. I'm surprised I can't find an Intel quad core soak-tested computer for the same £300 price seeing as the £152-£155 CPU price is effectively identical. Maybe what I need is to look out for a quad core budget offer on ebay and nudge the PSU quality with the builder.