# Plz complete my Intel PC config..



## imjimmy (Jun 27, 2005)

Hi,

As part of my Intel based system i have purchased the following:

Intel p4 540J 3.2 GHz,Intel Desktop Board 915 GAV
kingston KVR 512 * 2 Dual channel
Benq DW1640
Samsung 710n
Altec Lansing Vs 3151
Microsot Wheel optical Mouse and Keyboard

I need to complete the rest of the stuff without spending too much..(coz i have already reached the limit of my expected budget with the above config 

To complete the config i need:

160 GB SATA (Can someone plz recommend a brand and price)
SMPS (plz recommend Brand/price)
UPS (plz recommend Brand/price)
Cabinet (plz recommend Brand/price)

People often say that Prescott's run at a high temp. I'm not gonna overclock. Can someone recommend some inexpensive cooling method..
Plz add anything else you can think of in the config..

Thanks,


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## darklord (Jun 27, 2005)

1] 160 GB SATA (Can someone plz recommend a brand and price)-------> Even though you ahve mentioned SATA, i would say,you go for PATA as 160 PATA is at a very sweet price spot.It costs around 4k.

2] SMPS (plz recommend Brand/price) ---------> I would suggest going for Powersafe 500 Watt,which should cost around 2000-2500

3] UPS (plz recommend Brand/price) ----> Powersafe 600VA, 1800/-

4] Cabinet (plz recommend Brand/price)---------> If budget permits, go for VIP ZB01 without PSU,which should be 4.5k,Otherwise go for any cabinet you like.Prefer ones with arrangement for fitting 120mm fans, in front and rear.

There is nothing you can do to cool down the Prescott.
I have one solution though - Go for 939 based AMD Athlon 64,runs cooler and beats the hell outta the P4.Think about it.

You can prevent excessive heat accumalation by taking care of air ventilation and some neat neat cable management in your case.


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## imjimmy (Jun 27, 2005)

Thanks for the reply.

Actually i have already bought all the stuff that i listed in the first section- so there's no turning back.



> I have one solution though - Go for 939 based AMD Athlon 64,runs cooler and beats the hell outta the P4.Think about it.



Yes, i thought a lot about it. I am a NON-Gamer and for AMD 64 socket 939 there was no motherboard with Onboard graphics( there was one RSI480M2-IL, but did not like that mobo so much)..

An Athlon 64 3200+ with a mobo + GPU would have cost a lot - considering that i would not make much use of the graphics card anyway.. 

So i got an Intel System which is supposedly better at encoding(smthing that i do a lot) and multitasking..(that's what i've heard, anyway)




> There is nothing you can do to cool down the Prescott.



I was not aware that heating was such a problem with the prescott. Maybe i shd have gone with a Northwood or even a Celeron D with EMT 64


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## parimal_xp2003 (Jun 27, 2005)

U r nongamer so why u need  160GB HDD. 
80 GB or 120 GB is enough. Anyway

  Samsung 80 GB 7200 rpm ---> 2850 /-
  Samsung 120 GB 7200 rpm --> 4000 /- 
  Samsung 160 GB 7200 rpm --> 4500 /-
  Samsung 80 GB sata  ----> 3400 /-
  Samsung 120 GB sata --- > 4500 /-
  Samsung 120 GB sata --- > 5100 /-

U can get 500VA (15-20 Min backup) UPS around 1500 to 2000 Rs.
The brands for UPS are Luminous,Elnova,Nexus,Electronic enterprises,Aay Bee. These all brands are good. 

     Note that prescott is better then the northwood. bcoz prescott has a 1MB L2 cache while in northwood it is 512K . Cache memory is Static RAM which is faster then our dynamic RAM. So when processor need a data it first check the cache memory. If it is available in cache then processor get it without any time delay. But if the data is not in cache then the data is taken from DRAM.  DRAM is slow so processor has go into wait state. When the data is available from DRAM it is also given to the cache. So when next time processor need that data it will get it from FAST cache mem. For good processor the success of the data has found from the cache is around 90% and it known as Hitrate.
      So bigger the cache -->  faster ur system. 
U can use a extra fan if u want make ur system much cool.


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## imjimmy (Jun 28, 2005)

> U r nongamer so why u need 160GB HDD.
> 80 GB or 120 GB is enough. Anyway



Thanks for the reply. I do a lot of Encoding of movies to Divx. Use stuff like Photoshop a lot.Hence need the HDD space.




> Note that prescott is better then the northwood



Yes it obvously has to be coz the cache is double and simply coz it was the next generation core after northwood..



> U can use a extra fan if u want make ur system much cool



I am little concerned with the heating part. I am a non-techie so i have some questions:

When does a processor heat up. Is it when the CPU utilization is close to 100%.. Does it heat up more when you try to overclock? Will it heat up also in the more common tasks which are not so demanding on the CPU..

I had read somewhere that these processors have an automatic cut off pt at which as soon as the proc crosses a certain temp limit - it decreases the speed and cools down.. Is that true?

SO what happens when the temp of the CPU is high on a consistent basis? Does it decrease the CPU life?
What's the worst that cud happen when the Temprature increases..


Thanks,


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## siriusb (Jun 28, 2005)

> I am little concerned with the heating part. I am a non-techie so i have some questions:
> 
> When does a processor heat up. Is it when the CPU utilization is close to 100%.. Does it heat up more when you try to overclock? Will it heat up also in the more common tasks which are not so demanding on the CPU..
> 
> ...




The processor heats up as the utilization increases, yes. So you have to make cooling arrangements such that the temp at 100% utilization is below the safe temp for the cpu. I don't know the "Safe temp" for presscot but it is generally below 65 deg C.
Overclocking will definetly heat up the processor since the cpu utilization is   ideally >100% compared to the stock processor.

I am not aware of the automatic slow down thing. Someone else may be able to explain that point.
But there are special throtling features in certain brand of procs where the proc "slows down"(hence cools) when cpu utilization is not above certain threshold.

I am not sure if the life of the processor goes down with consistent performance under heat, but a cooler proccessor is always a reliable one. Some people cool it to increase conductivity and hence increase perf, though it takes below zero C to see any perf increase due to increased conductivity.
And the worse that can happen with temp is a further thinning of your wallet because of a fried piece of silicon.


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## parimal_xp2003 (Jun 28, 2005)

Oh u r interested in movie encoding & photoshop.
And Ya when processor heats up when its utilization is near 100%. And your processor has 3.2 Ghz speed so it heats up much. But CPU is tested in all extreme condition. It can work for more then 8 or 9 hours continously without any problem.  So don't worry abt it. And U r intrested in photoshop so I recommend u to buy a Graphic card. It help your processor. In presence of Graphic  card  processor is free from Graphics work. U r nongamer so u can go for any midrange Graphic card. U have slot on your board so u can but it at anty time in fiture as your conveniency.


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## imjimmy (Jun 29, 2005)

And U r





> intrested in photoshop so I recommend u to buy a Graphic card. It help your processor. In presence of Graphic card processor is free from Graphics work. U r nongamer so u can go for any midrange Graphic card.



yes i was thinking of a Graphics card. I don't use Photoshop very often and no games for me.. but my friend might play some strategy games, no 3d games at all..at the max he might use it for old games like Virtual Tennis, Fifa 2003 etc..For all this i guess the GMA 900 won't cut it..but an inexpensive graphics card might well do the job..

So can someone recommend a cheap PCIE based Graphics card that can go on this 915 chipset mobo.. I would be looking to spend as less as possible..at this pt of time atleast..


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## harshagarwal (Jun 29, 2005)

hey go for 160GB sata from Seagate i bought it 15 days ago from primeABGB mumbai for Rs.4050/-


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## siriusb (Jun 29, 2005)

Hey imjimmy,
why not wait and see how well your current grafx system handles the load. If  it is bad, buy that cheap soln. If it seems good, then wait till the time comes around you feel it could do better. Coz by then, you would've accumulated some more cash and, needless to say, better cards would be available for cheap. Just a suggestion really.

Also you may try going for two 80GB satas instead of one 160GB if u you can afford. You may want to raid0 them later if u are dealing with I/O intensive Multimedia work.Even if not raid'ing, file operations on two partitions on two HDDs will be much faster than with a single one.
This is, ofcourse, up to you if u want more sata channels free for upgradablity.


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## imjimmy (Jun 29, 2005)

> why not wait and see how well your current grafx system handles the load. If it is bad, buy that cheap soln. If it seems good, then wait till the time comes around you feel it could do better. Coz by then, you would've accumulated some more cash and, needless to say, better cards would be available for cheap. Just a suggestion really.



Thanks for the reply.

Sure i will check out the current capability of the GMA 900 in the Intel chipset..

 I really don't have much idea about the chipsets and other details of the GFx cards these days irrespecive of it being AGP or PCIe based.

As per now..cud someone plz suggest some entry and mid level PCIe based Gfx cards?This way i can see my budget and look at home much i can spend now and what i might be able to spend later.. and hold my horses(if reqd) coz surely a midlevel PCIe card might be an entry level -say a year and half from now..


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## geek (Jun 29, 2005)

160 GB SATA - Seagate Barracuda 160 GB (Comes with a 5 yr warranty)
SMPS - Antec (they are the best)
UPS - Get APC (and nothing else)
Cabinet - Anyone you like

Do consider a AMD Athlon 64 based system. Intel is now past. Also go in for a Sony DVD writer instead of Benq

Rest is fine


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## siriusb (Jun 30, 2005)

Hey geek dude, it's already established that the intended applications perform better with an intel.

Check the prices of FX6200 TC (128mb), PCX5300, or radeon x300SE.


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## imjimmy (Jun 30, 2005)

> Check the prices of FX6200 TC (128mb), PCX5300, or radeon x300SE.



Thanks.. will check the prices and maybe get one of these!



> Also go in for a Sony DVD writer instead of Benq



Wherever i seemed to look on the net- the Benq DW1640 was consistently topping the benchmarks. From what i could get -NEC and Benq seem to be the best.
I have a CDRW by Sony - it pretty much sucks! So was not overly keen on going for a Sony DVD RW


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## akshayt (Jun 30, 2005)

get geforce 6200/6600 no tc


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## imjimmy (Jul 12, 2005)

> hey go for 160GB sata from Seagate i bought it 15 days ago from primeABGB mumbai for Rs.4050/-



Thanks for the info. There is a SATA NCQ 7200.8 - what does this mean. How is a disk with NCQ different from one without it. Are these priced different?

And does the SEAGATE 160 GB SATA have a 8 Mb Buffer - or is it 2 Mb only?


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