Epirb

Hi all, new build coming up, general use and modest video editing, Windows 7. Intel core2 duo 8400, 4 gigs RAM.. Thinking quiet and energy efficient, want to find a passivly cooled 512 Mb graphics card.

Getting done in looking for a Motherboard, see what you can pick out of this...

Asus or Asrock.
4 x Sata II
PCI Express 16x for graphics card.
Hi Def audio.
Instant boot facility.

Might as well be full ATX, why go for micro when there is no need?

In Uk and reckoning to spend around £40-00.

Any ideas good people?

Thanks, Epirb.

Phædrus2401

Asrock motherboards aren't very good. Asus and Gigabyte are the brands we recommend.



Anything on this list would be good for you, none as cheap as 40 pounds, cheapest is 60.
http://www.ebuyer.com/search?page=1&...&condition=new

Epirb

The £60 board certainly does all and more I need.

Didn't I hear that Asus now own Asrock and that their previously dodgy build quality was much improved?

Thanks for your interest so far,

Epirb.

Phædrus2401

I had not heard that, I think I'll follow up on that info. *scurries off to google*



One other thing to consider, if you aren't going to be doing a lot of first person shooter and similar gaming, and are going to be doing video editing, a quad core might be a better choice. We recommend the E8000 series CPUs a lot since they have the best bang for the buck for most games, but if you're only going to be doing light gaming and plan to do video editing you will see a lot of performance gains form the extra CPU cores.

The Q9400 and Q9550 are price close to the E8400.



Also, a good passively cooled video card:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158996
That will suffice for basic desktop usage; if you plan to game at all I would move up to at least a 4650.

Epirb

Thanks, good info, must disappear now for the night but will check back tomorrow, look forward to carrying on my research here,

Cheers, Epirb.

wrench97

Asrock was started by Asus and spun off somewhere around 2001-2002, they are still a second or third tier manufacturer(IMO) competing with the likes of ECS and Foxconn for the OEM and price market. I've never had a lot of luck with them over the long run.

Tyree

ECS made ASRock Mobo's for Asus as a cheap line. As far as IO know, ECS still makes them.

Epirb

Hi,

These the Ebuyer prices for those chips:

E8400 121 GBP
Q9400 127 GBP
Q9550 167 GBP

So I guess that my next question for you good people needs to be what is the real world difference in performance between the two core 8400 and the quad core 9400?

Where will I notice the difference?

Seems that the Asrock/ Asus thin may have been a figment of my imagination, I will come back wit a reference if I can find one.

Thanks Guys,

Epirb.

Phædrus2401

The E8400 will do better in older applications an in certain types of games, especially first person shooters.

The Q9400 will far outperform it in things like video editing, taking maybe three quarters as long to perform video encoding tasks.


Here are some benchmarks: http://xtreview.com/review233.htm
That's the Q9400 vs. the E8600. Now, if you were a heavy gamer I might still suggest the E8400 or E8500, but for your needs spending the extra 7 pounds on the Q9400 will show a big improvement.

Epirb

OK, so it seems that this is all becoming application specific so how about this list for the quad verses duo debate.....

Windows 7
Office 2000
Serif Movieplus x3
Serif Webplus x2
Serif photoplus 10
Serif Page Plus 7
WMP 11
Large music collection.
Some fiddling with mp3 conversion
No serious games, tried a PS3, didn't like it!

Interest in low energy..

Last build was a P4 3ghz chip and still working after 5 years.

How does that measure up?

Thanks for your kind help.....look out I may well move on to hard drives next!

Epirb.

wrench97

Movieplus X3 = Minimum System Requirements:

* Intel® Pentium® II or AMD Athlon™ XP processor
So a quad probably won't make a large difference.
Same for Photoplus.

Office 2000 runs fine on single cores.
Win7 will run on either.
As will the Music.

All will run faster, especially when multitasking with either the E8x00 or the Q9400, for what your looking doing I would opt for the E8400.

Epirb

Would you mind telling me why?

Thanks, 'pirb

wrench97

None of the software you have listed is quad core optimized, meaning it won't take advantage of the extra cores.

Epirb

So:

it looks like an ASUS P5Q SE2 iP45 Socket 775 with an E 8400 chip, 4 gigs DDR2 1200 Ram and a Sapphire HD 4350 512MB.......

Hope that meets approval, comments welcome,

Thanks for all the help,

Epirb.

wrench97

If the DDR2 1200 is more expensive then the DDR2 800 save the money and get the 800.

Phædrus2401

^ Aside from that it looks good. You won't notice a ton of difference between DDR2 800 and 1200, aside from the price, so that's a place you could save a bit of money.

Epirb

Cool, thanks for the explanation, consider the money saved!

Cheers for the guidance guys, think that lays this one to rest.

All the best, Epirb.

Epirb

Hi, sorry to resurrect this thread when you thought you had me sorted! Just a couple of extra queries....

What about this as an alternative?: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/170239

Cheaper than the suggested but still ticks all my boxes.....?

Also I would like to connect the firewire port on the front of case, how far up the range do I need to go to get that facility or is it best to get an add in PCI card?

Finally I would like to find a set of USB ports to fit in the floppy disk drive, maybe with a card reader but two USBs minimum and in black!

Thanks in advance, hope I am not frustrating you with my slow progress, just to reassure you, the chip, the case and the PSU are bought.

Cheers, Epirb.

Phædrus2401

That's an ok motherboard, but I'd go with a G41 instead of G31; newer tech for not much more cost.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/170245
One advantage is that it has integrated video, so as long as you don't plan to play games newer than 2006 it will save you the cost of getting the Radeon 4350.

Epirb

OK, see the point but don't think your recommended has express gate that I wanted to try....? Or is it just not listed?

I took myself off to the asustek website to check things out but seems you need to know your chipsets to make sense of it!

'pirb