PC Buying Guide - March 2011

[Jaskanwar Singh]

cilus sorry for being late..my bsnl broadband has some prob. the internet light is not glowing while dsl, ethernet and power glows. i am on my mobile internet which is slow. so monitor pics also have to wait.
now checking out your configs. good job

ishu N520 is better than 212+.
Vickybat i will give it as option.
aby i will look into it. but most of the members are indians. are those psu availbale in india?

modification for the first one -

Under 60K

AMD Phenom II X4 955BE @ 7.2k
Asrock 890GX Extreme3 @ 7.2k
CM Hyper 212+ @ 1.8k
G.Skill F3-10666CL7D-4GBRH (2Gx2) @ 3.7k
Main Card: Sapphire Radeon HD6850 @ 11.2k
PhysX Card: Zotac GT240 1GB GDDR3 @ 4.5k
Seagate 500 GB 7200.12 @ 1.7k
LG 22X SATA DVD @ 0.9k
Corsair VX550W @ 4.7k
NZXT GAMMA @ 2k
DELL ST2220L @ 8.5k
Logitech MX518 @ 1.2k
Logitech KB-200 @ 0.4k
Numeric 1KVA @ 4.1k
Altec Lansing VS2621 @ 1.6k

Total - 60.7k

what do you think of this cilus.?
will post others soon.? (my internet problem).

 

[Ishu Gupta]

@ Jas
No its not.
Overclock3D :: Review :: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus & TX3 Heatsinks :: Test Results 212+ is the best performer in budget

CM N520 vs 212+? - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net EVERYone saying 212+ is better

Cooler Master Hyper N520 vs Hyper 212+ | Rodney Reynolds 3dgameman says its better

 

[aby geek]

@ jasji no x series is not yet launched in india thats why i said put newegg prices cause here we are not advicing pc purchase , this a pricepoint rig build database.
atleast people should know wha most for the money means.

though people were repeatedly questioning the it wares guy on some forums .. was techenclave i think, they wanted x series.

it will be coming to battle corsair hx and ax since seasonic dont have any modular range, and not all hx and ax are seasonic oem.

nonethe less they are worthy psus so you cant be wrong adding them ,coz you are only making people aware of their options.

 

[topgear]

Here's my Suggestion :

Intel Core i5 760 @ 9.8k

A hexa core AMD CPU can be Oced upto around ~ 4.2 Ghz and The i5 760 can be OCed upo the same speed or little bit higher and even at ~ 4.2 GHz the core i5 760 will win every benchmark and give more performance in multimedia apps for it's more optimized architecture. Moreover the power consumption and heat generation is low compared to AMD hexa core as it needs less vcore even when OCed.

Gigabyte GA P55M UD2 @ 6.4k
The mobo choice is very good as it was able to hit 4.3 Ghz with a core i5 750 in just 5 secs ! Read Here

CM Hyper 212+ @ 1.8k

G.SKILL Ripjaws 2x2GB DDR3 1600 MHz @ 3.7K (mediahome.in)

Main Graphics Card : HD 6970 @ 22.6k

PhysX card: GTS 450 @ ~7.8k
Why settle for something lower than this - A physX rig should have a decent and powerful PPU

Seagate 2x 1 TB 7200.12 @ 5.2k in Raid 0

LG 22X SATA DVD @ 0.9k

PSU : Keep the one you already have ie TX 850

CM 690 Advanced II @ 5.5k ( lynx-india )

Samsung P2350 @ 10.8k

Razer Death Adder @ 2.2k

Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 @ 1k

APC 1000VA @ 5k

Total : 82.7k

 

[Jaskanwar Singh]

ishu - Cooler Master Hyper 212 plus review

N520 is 3 degrees cooler!

 

[The Sorcerer]

+/- 5 degrees doesn't really matter. Such minor differences are overlooked.

 

[Jaskanwar Singh]

so which is the best one in 2-3k range sorcy?

 

[Cilus]

Topgear, your suggestion is pretty good to me, but I have not suggested a Core i5 760 because Oceing it is not as easy as AMD BE processors. And in rendering work I think 1090T is little more powerful. So went for that.

And regarding PhySX card, as you are using a dedicated card just for PhysX 9800Gt or GTS 250 will be fine for it. Obviously GTS 450 is better but not that better for which you are gonna spend extra 2K.

Main Graphics Card : HD 6870 @ 22.6k

I think it will be HD 6970.

Thing is if you are gonna use PhysX card along with an AMD card then whole PhysX calculation will be loaded to the nVidia card as AMD cards simply can't do it. So the division of workload is highly balanced here and 9800 Gt is quite a powerful to do the job.
This is not true in the case of two nVidia cards...where a low end card is used as PhysX card because as the main gaming card is also capable of execute PhysX code, phySX work is not fully sent to the 2nd card which is used as dedicated card. The main card will also do some physX calculation, reducing its gaming performance.

 

[The Sorcerer]

so which is the best one in 2-3k range sorcy?

212+ for now.

 

[Cilus]

In Sub 100K gaming config, I think it is the time to introduce SSDs as @ sub 10K plenty of options are available. using it for Os and installed games will give a significant performance boost.

AMD Phenom II X6 1090t @ 11.5k
Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5 @ 10.5K (techshop.in)
CM Hyper N520 @ 2.5k
G.Skill F3-10666CL7D-4GBRH (2Gx2) @ 3.7k
Main Graphics card: Zotac GTX 570 @ 22K
PhysX card: Palit GT 240 1 GB GDDR3 @ 4.4K
Corsair SSD 64GB CSSD-V64GB2-BRKT @ 6.6K (lynx-india)
Seagate 1TB 7200.12 @ 2.8k
LG 22X SATA DVD @ 0.9k
Corsair TX750W @ 7K
NZXT Gaurdian 921@ 4.7K
DELL Ultrasharp U2311H @ 14k
Razer Death Adder @ 2.2k
Razer Arctosa @ 2.2k
APC 1000VA @ 5K
Altec Lansing VS4121 @ 2.9k

Total 102.9K. Now tell me how good is that config. Removed the C9 Kingston rams with low latency Gskill rams.
Now adding an SSD will dramatically improve the Read write performance and I think it will be faster than a Intel Core i7 950 + HDD solution because of the very high read write performance of a SSD. PhysX card can be removed also as GTX 570 has significant power to run both games + PhysX calclulation with very good fps.
Let me know your feedbacks

 

[aby geek]

well iam quiet unsure but i feel above 70k is enthusiast budget itself and so i think atleast the sub 100k configs should be dual graphic solutions.

nice config cilus but i dont feel much satisfied with such a small size ssd, btw how much space do ssd loose in formatting and how much space does window 7 ultimate ask for?

 

[vickybat]

In Sub 100K gaming config, I think it is the time to introduce SSDs as @ sub 10K plenty of options are available. using it for Os and installed games will give a significant performance boost.

AMD Phenom II X6 1090t @ 11.5k
Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5 @ 10.5K (techshop.in)
CM Hyper N520 @ 2.5k
G.Skill F3-10666CL7D-4GBRH (2Gx2) @ 3.7k
Main Graphics card: Zotac GTX 570 @ 22K
PhysX card: Palit GT 240 1 GB GDDR3 @ 4.4K
Corsair SSD 64GB CSSD-V64GB2-BRKT @ 6.6K (lynx-india)
Seagate 1TB 7200.12 @ 2.8k
LG 22X SATA DVD @ 0.9k
Corsair TX750W @ 7K
NZXT Gaurdian 921@ 4.7K
DELL Ultrasharp U2311H @ 14k
Razer Death Adder @ 2.2k
Razer Arctosa @ 2.2k
APC 1000VA @ 5K
Altec Lansing VS4121 @ 2.9k

Total 102.9K. Now tell me how good is that config. Removed the C9 Kingston rams with low latency Gskill rams.
Now adding an SSD will dramatically improve the Read write performance and I think it will be faster than a Intel Core i7 950 + HDD solution because of the very high read write performance of a SSD. PhysX card can be removed also as GTX 570 has significant power to run both games + PhysX calclulation with very good fps.
Let me know your feedbacks

Great config buddy. Keep it up. If possible add a 80gb ssd in lieu for the 64gb. We can also give an i7 950 based config as an option with that budget. i7 950 + asus x58 sabertooth.

 

[topgear]

^^ a core i7 950 paierd with x58 sabertooth will be really great for multimedia apps and we all know these core i7 9 series cpu OCs like a poweful beast.

Topgear, your suggestion is pretty good to me, but I have not suggested a Core i5 760 because Oceing it is not as easy as AMD BE processors. And in rendering work I think 1090T is little more powerful. So went for that.

Ocing of core i5 760 is pretty easy and there's plenty of reviews and tutorial online.

Granted that in video rendering app hexa core amd cpu will be a little bit faster but in gaming ore i5 760 will rule at same clock speed.

And regarding PhySX card, as you are using a dedicated card just for PhysX 9800Gt or GTS 250 will be fine for it. Obviously GTS 450 is better but not that better for which you are gonna spend extra 2K.

GTS 450 consumes less power compared to GTS 250 ( old 9800GTX+ ) and is faster than 9800GT anyday.

BTW, why you are listing a GT240 and a another PSU - I think you have a 9800Gt and a good PSU already - so why bother getting a GT240 ( according the config you mentioned below ) ??

I think it will be HD 6970.

yep, that was a typo and I've corrected that.

Thing is if you are gonna use PhysX card along with an AMD card then whole PhysX calculation will be loaded to the nVidia card as AMD cards simply can't do it. So the division of workload is highly balanced here and 9800 Gt is quite a powerful to do the job.

I've suggested a Nvidia card as PPU and AMD card as the main gpu.

This is not true in the case of two nVidia cards...where a low end card is used as PhysX card because as the main gaming card is also capable of execute PhysX code, phySX work is not fully sent to the 2nd card which is used as dedicated card. The main card will also do some physX calculation, reducing its gaming performance.

but why are going for 2x Nvidia card then as you know that will reduce gaming performance.

Make me something clear - if you are using 2x nvidia card ( from 2 different series of course ) one for physx and another as gpu - there will be no performance drop as in nvidia control panel you will get an option to choose which card you want to use as the dedicated physx card and which card will do all the gpu related works - so the driver is intelligent enough to send the Physx calculation to the card which is being used as PPU and other graphical calculation to the card which is being used as the dedicated gfx card.

 

[Cilus]

aby geek, At 100K budget I've already provided a dual Gfx card solution + PhysX card in my previous post. I suggested two HD 6850 in Crossfire + a 9800 GT as PhysX card.
And regarding your query, a Windows 7 64 bit on installation will take max 10 GB and it will increase some times and 30 GB to 35 GB is enough to hold it. Now another 25-30 Gb can be used for at least two games to be installed.
I know it is not the best solution, just trying to bringing new concepts.. Next time will try for a 80 GB SSD to be fitted as suggested by Vickybat.

Topgear, GTS 450 is definitely a better choice as PhysX card. But as most of the sites suggested that it is nothing to spend much money for, I have suggested lower and lower-middle end cards for it.
In some system builder's marathon and rig of the months in Guru3d I observed that they are using GT 240 as their dedicated PhysX card and except very few titles the PhysX calculation is pretty good. And 9800 GT is available @ 5.5K whereas GTS 450 will cost you around 7.5K. After visiting those reviews and the opinion of the different poles, I have suggested 9800 GT (GTS 250 is a better choice but price is very high here) and GT 240.
Check below the Tomshardware chart for Mafia II
*media.bestofmicro.com/7/T/260777/original/mafia2_02.png

Also check their assessment section in this link.

Regarding scaling of nVidia Game card + nVidia PhysX card, what you have said is theoretically true. But a lot of people complained that PhysX work is not completely directed to the dedicated PhysX card if the performance difference between them is too high. FOr example if a GTX 480 is used with GTS 250, not all the 100% physX is going to the GTS 250, the GTX 480 also does some PhysX processing. I got in two times by the persons whose systems have been selected as the rig of the month.

 

[rajan1311]

Guys, we have gone a bit OT..lets have a new thread just to discuss hybrid setups? I mean, it would be much easier to find if someone is looking...i would say lets just split the topic?

 

[Jaskanwar Singh]

no need rajan IMO..these are for the guide only.

cilus check these out -

PHYSX CONFIGURATIONS

60K PHYSX Config

AMD Phenom II X4 955BE @ 7.2k
ASUS M4A87TD EVO @ 6.4k
CM Hyper 212+ @ 1.8k
G.Skill F3-10666CL7D-4GBRH (2Gx2) @ 3.7k
Main Card: Sapphire Radeon HD6850 @ 11.2k
PhysX Card: Zotac GT240 1GB GDDR3 @ 4.5k
Seagate 500 GB 7200.12 @ 1.7k
LG 22X SATA DVD @ 0.9k
Corsair VX550W @ 4.7k
NZXT GAMMA @ 2k
DELL ST2220L @ 8.5k
Logitech MX518 @ 1.2k
Logitech KB-200 @ 0.4k
Numeric 1KVA @ 4.1k
Altec Lansing VS2621 @ 1.6k

Total - 59.9k

Intel Option -

Intel Core i5 750 @ 8.5k
Gigabyte GA P55M UD2 @ 6.4k

Total - 61.2k



75K PHYSX Config

Intel Core i5 760 @ 9.8k
Gigabyte GA P55M UD2 @ 6.4k
CM Hyper 212+ @ 1.8k
G.Skill F3-10666CL7D-4GBRH (2Gx2) @ 3.7k
Main Graphics Card: Sapphire HD6870 @ 14.5k
PhysX card: Zotac GT240 1GB GDDR3 @ 4.5k
Seagate 1TB 7200.12 @ 2.8k
LG 22X SATA DVD @ 0.9k
Corsair TX750W @ 6.6k
Cooler Master USP 100 @ 3k
Samsung P2350 @ 10.8k
Razer Death Adder @ 2.2k
Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 @ 1k
APC 1000VA @ 5k
Altec Lansing VS2621 @ 1.6k

Total - 74.6k.

AMD Option -

AMD Phenom II x4 970BE @ 9k
Asrock 890GX Extreme3 @ 7.2k

Total 74.6K



85K PhysX config

AMD Phenom II x6 1090t @ 11.5k
ASUS M4A87TD EVO @ 6.4k
CM Hyper 212+ @ 1.8k
G.Skill F3-10666CL7D-4GBRH (2Gx2) @ 3.7k
Main card: HIS Radeon HD6950 @ 18.5k
PhysX card: MSI GeForce N250GTS-2D512 @ 5.8K
Seagate 500 GB 7200.12 @ 1.7k
LG 22X SATA DVD @ 0.9k
Corsair TX750W @ 6.6k
CM 690 II Plus @ 5k
DELL U2311H Ultrasharp @ 14k
Razer Death Adder @ 2.2k
Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 @ 1k
APC 1000VA @ 5k
Altec Lansing VS2621 @ 1.6k

Total - 85.7k

Intel Option -

Intel Core i5 760 @ 9.8k
MSI P55 GD65 @ 7.9k

Total - 85.5k



Sub 100K

AMD Phenom II X6 1090t @ 11.5k
Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H @ 8.2k
Noctua NH-U12P SE2 @ 3.8k
G.Skill F3-12800CL7D-4GBRM (2Gx2) @ 4.7k
Main Graphics card: HIS Radeon HD6970 / MSI GTX 570 @ 22k
PhysX card: MSI N450GTS Cyclone 1GD5 @ 7.8K
Seagate 1TB 7200.12 @ 2.8k
LG 22X SATA DVD @ 0.9k
Corsair TX750W @ 6.6k
CM 690 II Plus @ 5k
DELL Ultrasharp U2311H @ 14k
Razer Death Adder @ 2.2k
Razer Arctosa @ 2.2k
APC 1000VA @ 5K
Altec Lansing VS4121 @ 2.9k

Total 99.6k

Intel Option -

Intel Core i7 950 @ 14.3k
ASUS Sabertooth X58 @ 11.5k
Noctua NH-U12P SE2 @ 3.8k
G.Skill F3-12800CL8T-6GBRM (2Gx3) @ 6.2k
Main card: HIS Radeon HD6950 @ 18.5k
PhysX card: MSI GeForce N250GTS-2D512 @ 5.8K

Total - 101.7k

 

[Cilus]

Great modifications Jas... Just some small changes in the 100K solution.
Instead of the Gigabyte 890GPA-UD2H motherboard, which is based on 890GX solution, we can suggest Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5 @ 10.5K. Reason is it is having X32 PCI Express lane and 3 PCI Express X16 slots. So Crossfire + PhysX is also possible... a more future-proof solution.

Also I need some information regarding low latency ram prices and the prices of Nvidia 200 series from different vendors. Will modify some of the configs accordingly. If the price for GTS 250 is lower than GTS 450, then GTS 250 is advisable as for PhysX you don't need theFermi

 

[Jaskanwar Singh]

thank you cilus. ok i will change to that board.
for prices of rams just check the ones i mentioned in the guide or smcinternational.
the vfm 200 gfx cards are only 240 and 250 512mb. see my post for prices of zotac and msi. 250 1gb costs aroung 7.2k close to 450 @ 7.5k...

 

[Soumik]

Hi All, I am new here. My room mate's buying a desktop this weekend. His budget is within 20K-22K. After some small research i suggested the following:

AMD Athlon II X3 445
Gigabyte MA74GTM S2 (740G)
Corsair 2GB DDR3 1333
WD Cavier 500GB 32MB cache
Sony 22X DVD RW+
Dell/Samsung led monitor around 6K(19")
Zeb 500W Platinum Power PSU
Zeb Fantasy Red Cabinet without SMPS
Microsoft/Logitech KB+Mouse combo

Can someone please tell me if this can be got from SP Road Bangalore within 20K-22K?
Also Please suggest an UPS which will sustain this system for some time. (We dont have much power outages, but there is a lot of voltage fluctuations .)

I will be getting a graphics card for him out of his budget which he will repay later.
So, also suggest a graphics card which will not face much of a bottleneck in this system. I was thinking (HD5750/GTS450/HD4770) ???

Thanks in advance.

 

[topgear]

^^ Get a APC 600VA UPS @ 1.8k
Change that PSU and get FSP SAGA 400W @ 2k or 500W @ 2.2k
For GFX card HD 5750 is around ~7k and GTS 450 is around ~7.5k.

@ Cilus - I got your point buddy. Actually I've confused things a little bit. I thought you are going to get a complete new rig. Since you have gathered so much infos about physx and all I think you are right in about physx configs.

But toms guys has used only one game to show physX performance and Mafia 2 is using some physx SDK 2.x version as far as I know. So I think the physx performance comparison is not future proof enough. And those system builders though made some reaaly good builds but everything always can't be perfect.

I've suggested GTS 450 for low power consumption, smaller size and in physX it will deliver performances neck to neck compared to GTX 260 or may even outperform it - in 3DMark vantage it has outperformed GTX 260 with less SP count as GTS 450 has improved architecture.

Also GTS 450 has a feature called concurrent kernel execution which will be used in future physx SDK ( say from version 3.x ) so I thought GTS 450 is the best as a future physx card.

Concurrent Kernel Execution and Application Content Switching

With graphics operations, PhysX execution, CUDA and general purpose computing, the GPU is no longer a simple-minded, single-function amassment of transistors but has to be flexible to switch between the different applications and tasks on the fly. Each category of application has its own kernel or number of micro-kernels and, particularly in applications that are intertwined like graphics processing with PhysX, it is necessary to switch as quickly and efficiently between different kernels.

In the G80 and GT200 architecture, kernel execution was strictly serial, that is one kernel was executing and only after completion of the task would the processor be capable to load the next kernel. In the GF100 architecture this problem is overcome by enabling concurrent kernel execution, meaning that simultaneously different kernels (for example PhysX and graphics) can be running with the sole limitation that this is only possible if the different kernels are from the same application. If the different kernels are from different applications, they will have to run sequentially.

Source

One is the ability to run multiple, independent "kernels" or small programs on different thread groups simultaneously. Although graphics tends to involve very large batches of things like pixels, other applications may not happen on such a grand scale. Indeed, Nvidia admits that some kernels may operate on data grids smaller than a GPU like Fermi, as illustrated in the diagram above. Some of the jobs are smaller than the GPU's width, so a portion of the chip sits idle as the rest processes each kernel. Fermi avoids this inefficiency by executing up to 16 different kernels concurrently, including multiple kernels on the same SM. The limitation here is that the different kernels must come from the same CUDA context—so the GPU could process, say, multiple PhysX solvers at once, if needed, but it could not intermix PhysX with OpenCL.

Read more ..

So future games and apps which will use future physX SDK ( and I think they will for sure ) will benefit more from GTS 450 in physX.