Building Computer

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BigBadOrc
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Building Computer

Post by BigBadOrc » Wed Dec 07, 2011 2:22 pm

Trying to build a sweet ass computer for people who only use it for web/email.

Here's my idea:

I have an existing 450watt power supply
$30 micro ATX case
$49 AMD mobo (and planning to use onboard video!)
$62 AMD Athlon II
$21 4gigs of DDR3 1333
$150 Intel 320 SSD 80GB

Total: $312


Thoughts?
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Re: Building Computer

Post by Riot » Wed Dec 07, 2011 3:44 pm

Needs quad-SLI with http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130587

Gotta render those e-mail polygonz
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Re: Building Computer

Post by Merk » Wed Dec 07, 2011 3:59 pm

This is literally my BemaniPC which is more than enough for webz:

Mini ITX case w/ power supply
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004Q7J1S0

Mobo with onboard processor and video card
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004V4G2W6

RAMz
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00168PU28

Hard drive
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00461 ... 00_details


Total (at the time, back in October): $224.94 shipped

Now prices have gone up significantly thanks to WesternDigital getting hit by a flood or some shit, so you'll be hard pressed to find something cheaper than that. If money is an issue don't go with an SSD. If all you need is webz then just get your standard SATA 7200RPM drive since performance isn't a necessity and the hard drive is barely a bottleneck to begin with.
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Re: Building Computer

Post by Fluffyumpkins » Wed Dec 07, 2011 4:16 pm

Do you really need an SSD for something like this?

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Re: Building Computer

Post by Potter » Wed Dec 07, 2011 5:23 pm

yeah, you can literally cut the price in half by replacing that ssd with a normal 7200rpm drive. Then they wouldn't be limited to a tiny 80gb as well

there's a time and place for solid state storage, this isn't one of them
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Re: Building Computer

Post by MonMotha » Wed Dec 07, 2011 5:27 pm

If this is to be a secondary computer, I'd almost be tempted to network boot it. You might also look into the AMD APU boards. $100 for mobo+CPU in mini-ITX, and they run ~20W full tilt.
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Re: Building Computer

Post by BigBadOrc » Wed Dec 07, 2011 9:50 pm

I like your style Riot
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Re: Building Computer

Post by Amp Divorax » Wed Dec 07, 2011 11:15 pm

When it comes to video, I would say spend $100 on a better videocard as many programs now have GPU acceleration. (Of note being the rather odd fact that Web Browsers such as Firefox and Chrome have it.)
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Re: Building Computer

Post by BigBadOrc » Thu Dec 08, 2011 10:44 am

Yeah that's a good thought. I'll probably switch out the motherboard for this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813153211 because it has PCI Express 2.0 x16 instead of 1.0.

I'll probably try the system out with the onboard video card first and then if rendering all those email polygons proves too slow or if I decide that it needs to run Starcraft II then maybe I'll buy a tiny video card like this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814500191

The video card I got for my current desktop is a little big. I'm going to keep card dimensions in mind next time I build a machine for myself.
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Re: Building Computer

Post by MonMotha » Thu Dec 08, 2011 12:33 pm

A $100 video card these days is generally going to be well more powerful than any of the current gaming consoles...why in the world do you need that for web browsing? The "onboard video" is going to be MORE than sufficient in just about any case. It's generally equivalent to a mid-line dedicated 3D product from about 2-3 years ago. Not enough to play the latest shooter with the settings cranked at 1920x1200 (then again..maybe), but more than enough for desktop use. Most of them also have full h.264 decode offload.

You can get an AMD E-350 based Mini-ITX (which still has 6 SATA ports, and a PCIe 16x port though generally only running at x4) for ~$100-110. This is a 1.6GHz Bobcat core (much faster per clock than an Atom but slower than a Phenom or Core2) CPU paired with a HD6310 which will compare roughly to a HD5450 (which is faster will depend on workload). The whole thing only burns ~20W, to boot. Most of them are actually passively cooled. This is well more than enough power for web browsing and light gaming. This is about 1/4-1/6 the general "speed" of a $100 dedicated GPU solution and about 1/4 the power. So unless you need that GPU for games (which is not what you originally cited as the use of this system), I'd say there's little need for a dedicated GPU.

If you're going AMD, you might also look at the Llano series chips such as an A4-3400. These have "real" CPUs and GPUs in them. The A4-3400 is a 2.7GHz Phenom II + HD6410 (compare to a HD5570 or thereabouts - certainly faster than the HD3650/FireGL V5700 in my 2 year old laptop). They go for ~$70 plus you need a compatible motherboard. Total solution should be ~70W max. The GPU in the Intel Sandy Bridge chips is also nothing to scoff at, but the AMD ones are usually a little better since they have the ATi stuff to leverage.

Anything more than any of this is solidly in the class of a "gaming" system, these days. Modern computers are stupid powerful for the price.
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Re: Building Computer

Post by Amp Divorax » Thu Dec 08, 2011 5:17 pm

MonMotha wrote:A $100 video card these days is generally going to be well more powerful than any of the current gaming consoles...why in the world do you need that for web browsing? The "onboard video" is going to be MORE than sufficient in just about any case. It's generally equivalent to a mid-line dedicated 3D product from about 2-3 years ago. Not enough to play the latest shooter with the settings cranked at 1920x1200 (then again..maybe), but more than enough for desktop use. Most of them also have full h.264 decode offload.

You can get an AMD E-350 based Mini-ITX (which still has 6 SATA ports, and a PCIe 16x port though generally only running at x4) for ~$100-110. This is a 1.6GHz Bobcat core (much faster per clock than an Atom but slower than a Phenom or Core2) CPU paired with a HD6310 which will compare roughly to a HD5450 (which is faster will depend on workload). The whole thing only burns ~20W, to boot. Most of them are actually passively cooled. This is well more than enough power for web browsing and light gaming. This is about 1/4-1/6 the general "speed" of a $100 dedicated GPU solution and about 1/4 the power. So unless you need that GPU for games (which is not what you originally cited as the use of this system), I'd say there's little need for a dedicated GPU.

If you're going AMD, you might also look at the Llano series chips such as an A4-3400. These have "real" CPUs and GPUs in them. The A4-3400 is a 2.7GHz Phenom II + HD6410 (compare to a HD5570 or thereabouts - certainly faster than the HD3650/FireGL V5700 in my 2 year old laptop). They go for ~$70 plus you need a compatible motherboard. Total solution should be ~70W max. The GPU in the Intel Sandy Bridge chips is also nothing to scoff at, but the AMD ones are usually a little better since they have the ATi stuff to leverage.

Anything more than any of this is solidly in the class of a "gaming" system, these days. Modern computers are stupid powerful for the price.
I know that for most purposes GPU acceleration is unnecessary for web browsing. At the same time, more interactive sites that utilize more interactive aspects of CSS3 and HTML5 would benefit from such processing. (Of note being that HTML5 is working on a built in video playback standard to counter flash.)

As for the A4-3400, if I am not mistaken the CPU benchmarks were a bit on the lacking side. Hopefully future Fusion products show some improvement in that respect as it is definitely an interesting solution.
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Re: Building Computer

Post by MonMotha » Thu Dec 08, 2011 5:51 pm

Amp Divorax wrote:As for the A4-3400, if I am not mistaken the CPU benchmarks were a bit on the lacking side. Hopefully future Fusion products show some improvement in that respect as it is definitely an interesting solution.
My understanding is that the CPU on that product *is* (not just is similar to, but is the exact same CPU pipeline architecture as) a Phenom II, so it should compare clock-for-clock on an entirely CPU bound, tiny memory footprint workload. Now, it's only dual core, so there's that, and it doesn't have the L3 cache, which some workloads may hit. The larger multi-core Phenom II parts also will probably have larger L2 caches, which could help again if your workload is cache hot or fits in the large cache but not the small one.

The A6 and A8 series parts have much larger caches (though comparable or even lower clock speeds), but they do cost more.

I'd say that for casual web browsing, it's a decent option for the cost. If you want performance, well, of course go for a more performance driven setup.
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Re: Building Computer

Post by Pokebis » Thu Dec 08, 2011 11:00 pm

Rendering fractals in Firefox is important to the average internet browser!
But, on a more serious note, I have seen Youtube videos lag before. It's quite a disturbing image and should not have to be endured by anyone.

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Re: Building Computer

Post by MonMotha » Thu Dec 08, 2011 11:18 pm

Pokebis wrote:Rendering fractals in Firefox is important to the average internet browser!
But, on a more serious note, I have seen Youtube videos lag before. It's quite a disturbing image and should not have to be endured by anyone.
That's just Flash being Flash. Flash is in general completely unaccelerated. You just need as much raw CPU power as you can throw at it to get around that.

Fortunately, Youtube is in general supporting HTML5 video, now. Just go to http://youtube.com/html5 and "opt in" to the "trial".
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Re: Building Computer

Post by Amp Divorax » Fri Dec 09, 2011 2:06 am

MonMotha wrote:
Pokebis wrote:Rendering fractals in Firefox is important to the average internet browser!
But, on a more serious note, I have seen Youtube videos lag before. It's quite a disturbing image and should not have to be endured by anyone.
That's just Flash being Flash. Flash is in general completely unaccelerated. You just need as much raw CPU power as you can throw at it to get around that.

Fortunately, Youtube is in general supporting HTML5 video, now. Just go to http://youtube.com/html5 and "opt in" to the "trial".
I don't mean to correct ya, but video in flash has been accelerated since 10.1. Also, apparently Flash 11 can do this.... http://www.unrealengine.com/insiderblog ... s_to_flash
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