To build or not to build?

[hobbes_fan]

Aha but if your car is covered by warranty and you fail to do regular maintenance and as such your vehicle is damaged or you use the car outside the normal operating conditions then it is not covered by warranty. What caused the engine failure? Did you not change the oil? Did you not change the oil filter? Do you drive like you're playing NFS pro street and redline the engine? If it is an inherent manufacturing fault say the wiring is is substandard causing a short which sets the oil on fire then it is their responsibility under warranty. Even if it is no longer under warranty they still have to fix it. Product recalls have happened regularly. Ford has had a few in recent times. But if a car spontaneously combusts with no party at fault well, that's just tough. I think you are confusing warranty as an automatic guarantee of workmanship

Depends what the warranty covers? My phone is covered for 1 year - I expect it to survive 1 year. The battery is covered for 90 days. I expect it to survive 90 days. If it exceeds that - excellent. But I am under no pretenses that a manufacturer has any responsibility past the warranty period for any product. After that its an issue of workmanship and no warranty is an adequate replacement for that.

Every drive should work fine that's true, but reality says there will be failures. Offering a warranty doesn't remove that cold hard fact.

These are the standards. If that is the standard and that is their period of legal obligation. A warranty is a contract set by the manufacturer that you the buyer agrees upon - it does not absolve you of all responsibility. It is a contract offering replacement or refund if a certain set of conditions occur. A long term warranty does not equal workmanship.

What I still fail to see is your determination that Seagate is so overwhelmingly superior. What peace of mind is it offering? It's not the HDD that's the issue really it's the data stored which is irreplaceable. I don't see anything to suggest Seagate HDD's have a failure rate higher or lower than its competitors. I refer you to section 3.2 of the document that link refers to However, in this paper, we do not show a breakdown of drives per manufacturer, model, or vintage due to the proprietary nature of these data.

Now looking at the newegg reviews (extremely unscientific admittedly) look at any 250gb-1tb drive with 100+ reviews. All average around 10% complaining of failures within a year (admittedly at least 1/2 the reviewers sound like they shouldn't be allowed near anything pc related) Seagate/Maxtor, Samsung, WD etc etc. no manufacturer is immune

Buffalo also don't make HDD's. they only make the enclosure which are some of the best particularly their NAS boxes. The actual disk is usually Hitachi or WD.

[Ledgem]

Your link seems to be drawing on statistics from the Google paper that I mentioned earlier. As I said before, they don't mention drive manufacturers.

Originally Posted by Potatochobit

do you own a cell phone? do you expect it to suddenly die after your 90 day warranty expires?

No.

that is why you should buy seagate. you are paying that extra money for security.

Is Seagate paying you? How much do you get for being a product evangelist, and where can I sign up? I'm kidding, of course.

the animesuki user base is actually a very good statistic pool because we tend to download numerous torrents. and most people do not pre allocate files which probably stresses out hard drives a lot.

There is so much that goes into potential for drive failure. Temperature, spin up/down cycles, read/write, drive seeking... with experimental data you want to remove as many extraneous variables as possible.

What the Google paper showed was that drive temperature is not important in the way that most people think. What kills drives isn't high temperatures, but rather temperature ranges. A drive at 40˚C that only experiences 2˚ fluctuations will theoretically last longer than a drive at 30˚C that experiences 10˚ fluctuations. The Google paper also showed that drives with the highest failure rates occur within their first year of service, or after five years of service (this is from my memory, I'm too lazy to re-check their charts). In other words, if you have a new drive and it survives its first year, it is statistically unlikely to fail until after it hits its fifth year of service.

Anyway, Seagates don't cost a whole lot more than other drives. I think WD is just more aggressive about sales events. That aside, it isn't always true that spending more nets you a better product - especially in the tech world.

But we're derailing this thread. Get what ever HD is the best deal, make sure it matches your power expectations, and perhaps pay attention to the noise rating. There's nothing worse than a whiney hard drive.

[sa547]

All right, before we go back to topic, I finally realize that whatever works reliably for us (for the longest time, it's compatible with our existing hardware and with little error), we should buy it.

[Sephi]

Originally Posted by hobbes_fan

Expect to play games at 1024x768. Don't expect to play it at the native res of your monitor. Where are you gettting 111w and 45w for the power consumption of the 3850 & 8600gt? That's nearly impossible as the 3850 is a smaller processor, so that's not happening at idle. At full load maybe. There is no significant difference between a gt and a gts. If you want a 8600gt. Wait, by around Christmas time they'll be basically giving them away, and that's pretty much what they're worth right now. The 9500gt is just some more NVidia "wankery" it's just a die shrink of the 8500gt so useless for games. Also comparing laptop onboard gfx vs desktop gfx is not an accurate comparison. Laptop vidcards are designed for low heat, low power. It's like comparing a sprinter to a marathon runner. Can't expect desktop performance from a notebook.

The nortbridge issue of the 790g it just runs hot stock and unoverclocked. Has nothing to do with the cpu heatsink. Gaming further causes more heat issues for the northbridge. As its a new chipset its best to wait for a while so bios/hardware issues are sorted out

Here use this to check psu needs
http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine
You're looking at roughly 280-330w with an 8600gt at load depending on how many usb devices, HDDs, PCI cards

Yes the 111 is at full load as i also mentioned in my post. According to the site i intend to order the parts from the HD3850 pulls 111 at full load and the 8600GT can pull 45 watt at full load.

And i'm well aware of the mobile versions being less powerful. But so far my experience with the X1600 mobile(on par with mobile geforce 7600) isn't to my liking.

- random crashed in Warcraft 3 ~~
- Glitches in some games i played
- CCC start up takes far to long. I don't like waiting 10 extra seconds during my startup.

That is also why i considered getting a used 7600gt if i decide to build it. As i know it will outperform the card i have now. And than replace that for whatever card that is the successor of that series. Seeing getting a used 7600 these days is dirt cheap.

And about the overclocking. It was about the stock cooler for the processor you mentioned i should replace it? Or did i misunderstood that. From reviews i heard the stock cooler is "OK". Not to much noise and does the cooling well. So i didn't consider buying a different cooler unless i go overclock it. But if i would overclock i wouldn't go with AMD to begin with

As for the PSU site. The psu i'm getting is 380 watt, so it should give enough power even with some expansions. I don't think i will expand much except for a few harddisks. Though god knows how much the power consumption will be from the newer generations, Nvidia is going to, or are at 45nm right? Power consumption shouldn't be to crazy than.

And haven't done my homework on the mobos yet. Will look at that later

As for the harddisk. They are the least of my worries when buying a component for a PC. And the old Maxtor harddisk in the P4 still works. It does has some random data corruption so once every blue moon, but as long as it doesn't result in a BSOD i don't mind it. It's been in use for 7-8 years or so, and only my parents use it for internet so once in awhile. So if it dies again i just put the image over it again

So for harddisk, i might just go for what works/available for a good prize. I also got 3 external HD, 2 of them Sata 2. I might just copy all of the data from the 500 to the 750gb and use the 500gb in the new computer. Saves me around 50-60 euro

Question:

How am i guarantees that the mobo i buy fits with the casing? And how do i know the PSU i buy will fit in the casing? Is there a special thing to look at for that?

I have replaced numerous parts of a computer, but never have i done CPU/Mobo/PSU and so. So even if i'm going to build it, it's still going to be a challenge to get it all working. And a colleague of my told me a funny story how he fried his mobo when connecting something wrong I assume that won't happen to me as the manual of the mobo explains what is what right ?

[p997tt]

Originally Posted by Sephi

Question:

How am i guarantees that the mobo i buy fits with the casing? And how do i know the PSU i buy will fit in the casing? Is there a special thing to look at for that?

I have replaced numerous parts of a computer, but never have i done CPU/Mobo/PSU and so. So even if i'm going to build it, it's still going to be a challenge to get it all working. And a colleague of my told me a funny story how he fried his mobo when connecting something wrong I assume that won't happen to me as the manual of the mobo explains what is what right ?

As long as you are using a mid-tower ATX case or bigger, then any motherboard for normal desktop PC should fit.

I am guessing your colleague fried the motherboard by wrongly inserting the RAM in? I have seen it happens before - an incorrectly inserted RAM fried both the RAM and the RAM slot. If you aren't sure what to do, just read the manuals carefully. Make sure you get the + and - side right. Reverse polarity is the easiest way to fry things.

As for failure rates of hardware, I work in a computer shop and I see faulty or DOA parts from all manufacturers just about equally. I have seen the clicking sound of death on brand new Seagate HDDs, a brand new ASUS Striker II Extreme DOA, a client bought 4 Samsung 226BW and 2 died within a week, plus heaps of other things. So these days, I just don't care about brand and just buy whatever parts I like.

[Sides]

Check the size of the case. Normally in the specs you can find the supported mainboard sizes, ATX, M-ATX aso, same applies for the PSU. The cooler master case you listed should fit a standard atx PSU, futhermore a m-atx and atx size mainboard should fit perfectly.

[Sephi]

Originally Posted by p997tt

As long as you are using a mid-tower ATX case or bigger, then any motherboard for normal desktop PC should fit.

I am guessing your colleague fried the motherboard by wrongly inserting the RAM in? I have seen it happens before - an incorrectly inserted RAM fried both the RAM and the RAM slot. If you aren't sure what to do, just read the manuals carefully. Make sure you get the + and - side right. Reverse polarity is the easiest way to fry things.

As for failure rates of hardware, I work in a computer shop and I see faulty or DOA parts from all manufacturers just about equally. I have seen the clicking sound of death on brand new Seagate HDDs, a brand new ASUS Striker II Extreme DOA, a client bought 4 Samsung 226BW and 2 died within a week, plus heaps of other things. So these days, I just don't care about brand and just buy whatever parts I like.

Thanks

I think he attached some cables wrong on the motherboard. He just went back to the store with the fried thing and he even got a new one in return, even though it was his mistake

Originally Posted by Sides

Check the size of the case. Normally in the specs you can find the supported mainboard sizes, ATX, M-ATX aso, same applies for the PSU. The cooler master case you listed should fit a standard atx PSU, futhermore a m-atx and atx size mainboard should fit perfectly.

Thanks.

Cooler Master Centurion 5 = ATX
MSI K9A2GM-FIH motherboard = µATX.
The PSU = ATX 2.03, ATX12V 2.0

With M-ATX. Do you mean micro-Atx(µATX) or is that a other format?

The only thing that doesn't seem to match is the motherboard. Unless µATX also goes in to ATX casings. Seeing the name µATX i assume it's smaller than a normal ATX? Won't i have troubles with the PCI slots opening at the back of the casing not matching that of the µATX?

[Sides]

µATX, M-ATX or micro-ATX are the same. Basically it is just the phsical size of the board. The mounting point should be the same, so you shouldn't have trouble fitting it in.

[Sephi]

Ah ok thanks. But what worries me a bit is. The µATX is smaller than a normal ATX right? The Coolermaster case is a ATX.

At the back of a casing you got those expansion slots for PCI devices/sound cards. Won't i have the trouble of µATX being to short/small to match those expansion openings?

[Sides]

No the mounting point are the same, so you won't have any trouble.

[Sephi]

I see, much thanks for the answers

[hobbes_fan]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3151&p=11
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/591/13/
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid..._13.html#sect0

Obviously, it'll be more at peak 3d as it's 30-40% more powerful but it's not 80 or so watts more.

Personally avoid any incarnation of the 8xxx series except the 8800. Have a look for a 7900gs as well if you can find one for less than 10-15 euros more it's still a very solid card and should see you through for a while. It still plays most current games now.

Northbridge/southbridge-see the two copper/gold coloured thing in this pic

http://images.bit-tech.net/content_i...set/mobo-8.jpg

They get really really hot from a few reports I've heard from early adopters. 65c+ from any gaming on unoverclocked systems. Now whether this is a flaw that will be revised But typically 30-50c is typical.

[Sephi]

Did i just fail at reading a graph or does the first one from anandtech show that a HD 3850 uses 123 watts idle and 186 at full load. And the third link from xbitlabs shows that a HD3850 uses 13 watt idle and 63 at full load? The second link shows somewhat similar numbers as the first one though.

And thanks for the links. I will definitely consider a 7900 if i can get one cheap
And will look up info about the motherboards and if anything changed.

[hobbes_fan]

Anandtech/Legitreview - Test Sytem (CPU HDD etc etc) + Vidcard

Legit Review
For testing power consumption, we took our test system and plugged it into a Seasonic Power Angel. For idle numbers, we allowed the system to idle on the desktop for 15 minutes and took the reading. For load numbers, we measured the peak wattage used by the system while running the game World in Conflict at 1600x1200 with medium graphics quality.

testbed
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/591/2/
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3151&p=5
Obviously the vid card is the only thing that changes

Xbitlabs (last graph) - Card Only. But the problem here is it looks like it draws power from the 12v rails of a PSU at around 25amps required. It's all about voltage on the 12v rails of the PSU. They use measurements at 2d idle (ie rendering your desktop) 2d load ie rendering a movie, and 3d load ie gaming.

I actually stand corrected the Earthwatts you chose should be fine. It has excellent voltage on the 12v rails with a combined 34amps.

[Sephi]

Ah thank you, i should of read the whole article

Thanks.