Should I upgrade? Is this a decent deal? 2

[FTLOSM]

Have a friend who custom built 3 pcs for a client but they never paid or picked up the last one. He said his cost on each was just over $900.

My current setup is a bit old (ancient by pc terms probably) and I would enjoy some more speed in processing when doing movie encoding, video editing, photoshop and web graphics work in illustrator.

I wanted to ask two main things,

First will I see a big boost in speed/improvement between my current setup and this new setup if I buy this?
My setup currently

AMD Athlon Thoroughbred 3000+ 2.7 Ghz
1 Gig of ram
1 dvd burner
ati 8500dv video card
creative soundblaster 5.1 card
antec 550 power supply

overall not too bad for what I do but of course would welcome more...I guess I just don't know where these stand next to each other amd vs intel etc...

The system I would be looking at buying

Intel D945G NT Motherboard
Intel Pentium D P4 3.2Mhz w/hyperthreading
2Gb RAM DDRII
Antec 550W ATX Power Supply
Thermaltake “Shark” Case
2 - 250Gb SATA WD Hard Drives
2 – NEC 3560 DVD+/-RW
1 – 3.5” Floppy
1 – Media Card Reader
Front USB, Firewire, & Audio ports
ATI Radeon 256Mb PCI-X16 Graphics accelerator – supports 2 monitors I believe number was 1600?
microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse
(all parts new just assembled) looks nice actually, no monitors etc but I have that stuff here...

This would also be running same OS (windows xp pro).

Overall if i went from my above amd to this intel setup would I see big improvements when encoding a video or working with video editing etc?


Second is this a decent deal overall?
Based on the parts listed above his cost was aprox $950 and he would sell to me at that cost, nothing extra, for the client who bought first 2 they were $1500 he said.

Not that I don't trust him on the deal I just don't know if moving upto this would feel or be much different speed wise or if you put these items all together today if it would be near that price wise or if you can get newer faster cheaper today (this was built about 2 months ago never picked up 3rd unit so it sat new here in his shop), I do have two monitors but havent bought a dual head video card yet, and I need a new keyboard so using my monitors, his new keyboard and that setup i "should" have a rockin system if I buy that for $950 right?

Thanks for any input on this, just tryin to decide is this worth the money and would it really show me any gains performance wise.

Bill

 

[wahnula]

Forget it. Pentium D is last year's tech, and nowhere near as good as Core 2 Duo. Much hotter too(temp-wise)

See thread602-1336091

for a spec sheet that is similar in cost but more current technology.

Tony

 

[paparazi]

Indeed, last years technology:
This system is based around a mini ATX motherboard using an Intel 945G chipset, this has integrated graphics but does not appear to support Core2 duo so it's kind of limited.
Not only that but to me it doesn't make sense limiting your upgrade potential with a mini ATX mainboard (fewer upgrade slots) especially as you point out, a seperate X1600 ATI card is fitted so onboard VGA is not required (motherboards with built in graphics are nearly always mini ATX size)

http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/d945gnt/

I suggest that it might be possible to buy a similar machine fitted with an entry level Core2 Duo (E6300)and a full sized ATX motherboard at a similar price.
Someone here might put some parts and prices together for you.
Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[kmcferrin]

Yeah, I just ran those parts versus what I recall paying for similar parts at retail (NewEgg), and it seems like the $900 figure sounds about right. But if he's building for a living then he should be buying wholesale, which would be a little cheaper. Someone paying $1500 for this system would be getting taken advantage of in a big way. I'm not saying that to badmouth your friend. I'm merely pointing out that though he's offering it to you at a substantial discount from his "usual price", he's basically offering it to you at what the retail price would be, so it's not a "bargain" per se.

Also, I see that it mentions a "Pentium D P4 3.2Mhz w/hyperthreading." The Pentium D CPUs didn't have hyperthreading, but the Pentium 4 CPUs did (at least the most recent lines). So it's not clear which CPU this is.

In either case, this is last years tech and has limited expansion/upgrade options (as others stated). If the CPU is a Pentium 4 that would make it a single-core CPU, and it would only be marginally faster than the CPU that you're using now. If it were a Pentium D then it would be a dual core CPU, which would still be marginally faster on a per-core basis, but you would probably see much more improvement with multitasking, especially with CPU intensive tasks. For example, you could encode video and do some image editing simultaneously without seeing everything come chugging to a stop. It has double the memory of your current system, and that would help too with multitasking.

I think that I agree with paparazi though, you could probably get something built with a Core 2 Duo or Athlon X2 for a similar price that would offer much better performance. Or if you weren't set on getting an entirely new system, you could buy a few key components to upgrade your existing system. For example, you already have a DVD burner and a 550 watt PSU, case, etc. For the same $950 you could get a new motherboard, CPU, video card, and memory to replace your current components and have a smokin' dual core system with 4 GB of RAM or something similar.

 

[FTLOSM]

Thanks to everyone for input here I am passing on this deal, in the near future (I am not a builder of pcs) which brands or models should I look to for upgrading my pc here, I know duo core and probably at least a gig or two of ram (ddr2 right?) I want to run dual monitors minimum possibly 3 or 4 down the road, and generally what i do with my pc is video editing, music editing, photo and illustration editing (illustrator, photoshop, premiere, soundforge), those are the things that take up resources that I use often, then of course the general web email stuff like that but no gaming (no time really), no dvd watching even though i work with video and audio i don't sit and enjoy movies at the pc etc.

Thinking of the major companies like dell and hp i guess but wondered are there better more customizable options out there for me from lesser known companies that build good quality systems for a fair value (and stand behind them when something breaks).

Bill

 

[MaxEd]

If you got the dough go for the top of the luxury end of Dell systems. I think dell's are very reasonable for their systems. They make little on the system itself. They make a TON off the servicing and the warranty.

-Laughter works miracles.

 

[wahnula]

FTLOSM,

"Duo Core" or "Core Duo" is not the same as "Core 2 Duo" which is the CPU you want. Yes, 2GB of DDR2 is the way to go, but make sure the speed is at least 800 mHz as the 533 has too much latency (slower).

As for chipset, Intel's 975X is stable and plentiful, or nVidia's 580 or 690i, all are good choices.

Those apps are resource hogs so you will want at least an ATI X1900 or nVidia 7800 GFX Card. I would look for a PC that offers a RAID 5 data array and a smaller RAID 1 array (or single 36GB 10K Raptor) for OS & apps.

There is a US company called ABS

http://www.abs.com

that will take good care of you.

Tony

 

[kmcferrin]

"Duo Core" or "Core Duo" is not the same as "Core 2 Duo" which is the CPU you want. Yes, 2GB of DDR2 is the way to go, but make sure the speed is at least 800 mHz as the 533 has too much latency (slower).

Latency isn't the issue, it's bandwidth. When dealing with DDR2 you actually can usually get lower latency memory at lower clock speeds. For example, the cheapo DDR2-533 MHz memory usually has latency timings of 4-4-4-12, whereas the cheaper DD2-800 MHz memory is usually 5-5-5-12 or even 5-5-5-15.

Those apps are resource hogs so you will want at least an ATI X1900 or nVidia 7800 GFX Card. I would look for a PC that offers a RAID 5 data array and a smaller RAID 1 array (or single 36GB 10K Raptor) for OS & apps.

Those apps may be resource intensive, but they're not 3D intensive applications. So shelling out for a high-end 3D card is probably a waste of money. A decent mid-range card with 128 MB of memory should be more than adequate. The CPU and memory will be far more important to his performance than the video card. The same could probably be said for his hard disk setup.

You can build the latest and greatest whiz-bang system out there, but if you're just throwing money and expensive parts at it without thinking about where they are truly necessary to meet your requirements then you're just wasting money.

 

[wahnula]

So shelling out for a high-end 3D card is probably a waste of money.

Neither of those choices (X1900 or nV7800) is high-end, they're midrange products available in 128MB GDDR3 flavor. About $150, not $400-500 like the 8800 512MBGDDR4 whiz-bang buncha-letters. You will not need midrange GFX for video & photo editing? I beg to disagree, especially if running or planning to run Vista.

Tony

 

[kmcferrin]

You will not need midrange GFX for video & photo editing? I beg to disagree, especially if running or planning to run Vista.[/qoute]

I think that there are a lot of myths out there about just how 3D-intensive Vista actually is. On my 1.5 year old HP laptop with an integrted ATI video chipset that uses system memory I can run Vista, including Aero, with no problems. And it runs smoothly. And since video and photo editing are 2D operations, the number of pixel and vertex shader units used for 3D rendering (which is what the main difference is between say, a GeForce 7300 and a GeForce 7900) will be irrelevant.

 

[wahnula]

kmcferrin,

I have the utmost respect for your knowledge. In real-world situations, Vista simply runs faster with a good MIDRANGE card. I have personal experience in this as my latest build featured a 128MB X1300, P5WDH-Deluxe, 2GB OCZ Platinum RAM. Ran beautifully fast w/ XP. Booted to Vista drive, ran OK, smooth but way slower than XP for everyday apps. (surfing, email etc)

I swapped out the X1300 for an X1900 ($150) and my overall performance in Vista increased dramatically. This is for everyday apps, not gaming. XP is now ridiculously fast.

My point is, myth or not, that Vista simply runs better and faster with a modern GFX card. Still not as fast as XP but lots more eye candy. Yes it can run smoothly on older tech, but why? For a few more $$$ or euros or whatever you can get better performance. Isn't that what it's all about?

Tony

 

[kmcferrin]

Ummm...you're right. Sorry.

I didn't believe you, so I dug out a spare hard disk and installed Vista on it this weekend to do some testing. Lo and behold, there was a noticeable difference in desktop performance between and older ATI card and my newer nVidia card.

There is a difference between video cards "good enough to smoothly run Vista" video cards "that run Vista really well".

I suppose that actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it. With 3D games theres a difference between being able to play at 30 fps versus playing at 70 fps. It's a shame that the desktop is going that way too though.

 

[wahnula]

kmcferrin,

You are a gentleman and a scholar. I don't blame you for taking my word to task and self-testing; that shows you are truly open-minded (or he||-bent on proving me wrong ).

When I first started here I was really green (still kinda chartreuse) and you were a huge help to me, I am proud to have earned your respect.

Tony

 

[Gavona]

I am going to pay more attention to the video card on my next pc. Thanks Tony for highlighting the issue (and kmcferrin for verifying it).


Gavin