[mav2000]

Originally Posted by navin

No I dont intend to OC.



Ok I sat down with the IT guys and realised the following.

1. I use FEA about 3-4 times a year and if a model takes 30-40 minutes I am ok with it as I run the FEA during my lunch
2. I use Ulead about once a month but I need the machine to process 60 min of AVCHD to DVD fast.

If the budget is 1L for the PC the CPU cant cost more than 25K na? After all the motherbaord (30K), RAM (15K), Graphics card (15K) will also cost 60K and then the cabinet and Power supply will cost about 15K. The choices for under 25K are the Intel Xeon L5530 or Intel Core i7-960.

Which is preferable. Any other choices?

Since I dont know much about those programs all I am going to add here is that any 6 core AMD or Sandy bridge Intel should handle those with ease. I do a lot of benchmarking and I dont see that much of a difference when using multi threaded apps between Intel and AMD. On single threaded apps Intel has a clear lead.

Anyway coming back to what you need, Ram is not so expensive any more. So keep a budget of 10k and you can end up with 8GB of Ram, which will be more than sufficient for most needs. You can get them even cheaper if I am right. For the GPU, there are a lot of options from Nvidia and AMD at that price range. Take the time to study the prices before plunging in for any of them.

@ vasudev - Stay away from the extreme power series. real power and Silent power are the good stuff from Cooler master. The best would be a seasonic.

[vasudeva]

@ vasudev - Stay away from the extreme power series. real power and Silent power are the good stuff from Cooler master. The best would be a seasonic.

I never mentioned anything about owning an extreme power. I have a Coolermaster Silent Pro 700W. Had a 450W in 2009 which was proving inadequate.

[navin]

Originally Posted by mav2000

any 6 core AMD or Sandy bridge Intel should handle those with ease.
Anyway coming back to what you need, Ram is not so expensive any more. So keep a budget of 10k and you can end up with 8GB of Ram,

Originally Posted by navin

My current machine is a Q9550 quad core with 8GB of RAM.]

mav, as you can see from my earlier post (repeated above) my current machine already has 8GB of 1066 RAM. I want something SIGNIFICANTLY faster.

The i7 I dont think is significantly faster so maybe Xeon might be my only option.

Originally Posted by Rehaan

I have a Dell Ultrasharp 2407 WFP. No complaints whatsoever.
Strange that you made a loss of 6k. I hear Dell has AMAZING customer service.

I agree. One of my mom's friends (she's 78) got a 2410. Excellent monitor. Dell usually has very good A.S.S.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by navin

mav, as you can see from my earlier post (repeated above) my current machine already has 8GB of 1066 RAM. I want something SIGNIFICANTLY
faster. The i7 I dont think is significantly faster so maybe Xeon might be my only option.

That is not possible with upgrades in CPU/RAM. All the improvements that you would get over current system would be marginal.

Lets put some numbers:

1. Significant : > 30 % performance improvement
2. Marginal : < 10 % performance improvement

Lets say these numbers are for processing AVCHD video clip of 30 minutes.

1. How much time does that take in your current system
2. Is CPU maxed out in that duration (> 80% usage)

Maybe you will get better performance by focusing on other aspects of the system (E.g. I/O)

[vasudeva]

From what I have understood so far (which may not be much), far more value can be gained in investing in CPU and HDD than RAM. That being said, 1066 seems a bit too low but enough for my i7 920 at stock speeds and no OC. Had invested in a 1333 RAM which has only been fully utilised with 20% OC. SB perhaps natively supports 1333 and IvyBridge may support 1600. With OC, people usually go 2 bands higher (eg 1600 for core i7 920).

I check on RAM prices out of curiosity and decent 1600 RAM with CL9 should be around a max of Rs. 1,000 per GB. 1833 may be more expensive but I envisage at least that as the next upgrade for a planned second half of 2011 system. By that time, 1833 may cost what 1600 costs today.

[NetfreakBombay]

@vasudeva, what is the usage of this system?

Just curious to know which task pushes the system to the extent that performance difference between 1066 and 1333 becomes apparent.

For example, maybe you are building CAD models that render 5 seconds faster.

[vasudeva]

Yes, 1066 and 1333 will hardly make a difference. Perhaps this recent review on memory for Sandybridge will be useful.

Exploring the impact of memory speed on Sandy Bridge performance - The Tech Report - Page 1

The difference in core i7 920 at 2.67 and 1066 RAM and OC i7 920 to 3.34 is perhaps a bit faster video conversion. If it is of any worth, both CPU and RAM score in WEI went up: CPU from 7.4 to 7.6, RAM from 7.4 to 7.7

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by vasudeva

Whatever be your present card, do go for around 450-500W PSU from a good company (I prefer Coolermaster). It will save you some costs later and a lot of headaches.

As to MB, I saw a figure of Rs. 30K. That is too high for sandybridge. I think mid-end start from 10K and Gigabyte P67-UD5 should be around Rs. 14-15K. A very good MB can be had for less than 20K. I think 25-30K is for Gigabyte X58 UD9 or Ua9, which anyway is out now.

I would also suggest a slightly beefed up PSU, as 3D graphics cards (today or in an upgrade) require a lot of power.

The MB seems to be extremely high. What, my Dual Xeon Tyan MB was less, and Intel Dual Xeon MB are around 20K mostly. MB + Processor may touch 30K though it has to be high power one!

[mav2000]

Originally Posted by navin

mav, as you can see from my earlier post (repeated above) my current machine already has 8GB of 1066 RAM. I want something SIGNIFICANTLY faster.

The i7 I dont think is significantly faster so maybe Xeon might be my only option.



I agree. One of my mom's friends (she's 78) got a 2410. Excellent monitor. Dell usually has very good A.S.S.

Truthfully, Navin, you are not going to get a Significant upgrade. 8GB of ram is more than enough for most uses. The only place you can use more is with a core i7, with 12GB, with 2 GB sticks or otherwise go for a snady bridge and use 4gb sticks for a total of 16gb. If you are not in a hurry wait for the new Ivy bridge setups being announced at the end of this month and then make a decision. A Xeon is not going to be greatly faster than an i7, unless you go for an SR2 build which uses two CPU's, but that would be a whole lot of money, also taking into account that EVGA barely sells their stuff in India. So the SR2 mobo will have to be imported.

On the speed side, the main issue with our computers today is load times which are affected by HDD speeds. If you really want to spend a good amount of money go for a high capacity SSD and you will see start up times and loading times come down significantly. Two 256 GB drives should be enough for most of your stuff and you can have an extra 1 TB normal HDD for storing files, music and the likes.

But trust me, the SSD will be the best upgrade you can get.

[vasudeva]

For current owners of high end CPUs (i7 and some i5), this article reveals Intel's tick (new Core i7 9-series Extreme Edition microprocessor sometimes in the next 2-6 mths) and tock (Sandy Bridge E-series microprocessors in LGA2011 form-factor by late-2011) plans. The site has proved to be pretty reliable, though launch dates and wider availability may vary a bit. Basically, the tick strategy may save the cost of a MB though I would personally prefer the newer generation processors due in late-2011 (see article 2). Sandybridge is supposed to be better than most of present core i7 lineup, and LGA2011 should be better than Sandybridge.

Intel Plans to Update Enthusiast-Class Desktop Platform Late in 2011 - X-bit labs

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis...ge_Report.html

As to the previous post, that is very sensible. Faster storage makes a lot of difference everywhere. But two SSDs of 256GB is perhaps a too much. Agreed that the higher the capacity, the better is usually the performance, but >100GB SSDs (100-128GB depending on manufacturer) have little shortfall compared with higher capacity SSDs. At these prices, only a very rich guy would think of storing files on a SSD, and for OS+software, even 100GB at this time is overcapacity (even with some games loaded). Instead of spending on 2*2 256GB SSD, I would spend on 1 of 100-120 GB SSD and save the amount for a 2TB WD Caviar Black.

As to RAM, yes 8 GB is overkill, unless you are running virtual machines. In that case, depending on what you do, 8GB may be insufficient. I run VMware WS and allocating 5GB to a VM makes a lot of difference than say 2-3 GB. My personal experience in running VMs is that higher RAM allocation to both main/VM machine and some OC has made a lot of difference in virtualisation.

[anachronix]

This weekend I am planning to purchase a Home PC. I have the following configuration in mind. I took inputs from TechEnclave to finalise this configuraiton.

Need feedback from PC gurus here

Processor: AMD Athlon II x3 445
Motherboard: MSI 880GMA-E45
RAM: Corsair VS 2GB DDR3 1333
HDD: Seagate 7200.12 500GB
Cabinet: CM Elite 310
Monitor: Benq G2220
PSU: FSP SAGAII 400W
K&M: Logitech Combo
DVD Writer: Samsung

Cheers,
Arun

[NetfreakBombay]

This config is quite good for a home PC. Consider 4 GB RAM if you are going to use Win 7 64 bit.

[anachronix]

Thanks Netfreak!

I will be running XP OS for now. I want to give the Win7 some more time and I would be upgrading the RAM as well.

One question, does the MSI 880GMA-E45 have expansion slot for a better graphics card? The cabinet as well, is it enough to have a additional graphics thrown in later on?

[NetfreakBombay]

Do try Win 7 (64 bit) it will extract more performance out of extra RAM.

Regarding graphics card, you are good to go. This motherboard has one slot for it, cabinet and PSU have space/power to accommodate it.

In-built GPU is decent too, but does not have any memory of its own. Good enough for everything except gaming.

[navin]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

That is not possible with upgrades in CPU/RAM. All the improvements that you would get over current system would be marginal.
1. Significant : > 30 % performance improvement

1. How much time does that take in your current system
2. Is CPU maxed out in that duration (> 80% usage)

Originally Posted by mav2000

Truthfully, Navin, you are not going to get a Significant upgrade. 8GB of ram is more than enough for most uses..A Xeon is not going to be greatly faster than an i7..On the speed side, the main issue with our computers today is load times which are affected by HDD speeds...
But trust me, the SSD will be the best upgrade you can get.

The load time does not bother me as usually after switching my PC on I do other work till the PC is booted up and stable.

What bothers me is when I starts a AVCHD file it takes an hour to process 4GB of SD RAM to a DVD. I would like to take this time down to 10-15 minutes.

FEA normally takes an hour too but I am usually at liberty to start it when I am out to lunch.