Hardware PC Hardware Buyer's Guide August 2010

because its the same chip jedi with a slight clock bump and if your overclocking they both hit the same frequency of 4ghz with ease.

 

But surely the same logic applies to folding rigs... we know Nvidia cards are faster than ATI and the more processor cores the better, beyond that what's needed for a folding rig apart from "moar mhz"!

It would be interesting to see if more Custom PC/bit-tech readers have a HTPC or a dedicated folding rig...

 

Because OEM copies of Windows can only be installed on one machine (and changing the motherboard is a new PC according to MS), full retail version allow you to reinstall on a different PC.

 

I was interested in folding a couple of years back, but after seeing my utility bills skyrocket lately, i can't afford to waste any electricity on a folding rig.

 

Probably at the time of writing the price difference was greater. Quickly Browsing your looking at 0.12GHz increase for £5 If you think its worth it go for it. There is potential for the 760 to clock higher but with overclocking miles may vary. Its similar with the 920 and 930. The 930 was too expenisve for the small increase in speed but had potential to clock higher tho some did some didn't. In the end it wasn't worth the price difference against the risk. Its a similar case here but with a smaller difference. The 750 is known to hit 4GHz or close to it fairly easily but the "new" batches of 760 are relatively untested.

 

the MSI board is no longer in stock and probably won't be in stock on newegg, or elsewhere for that matter anymore sadly.

 

The Premium Player build has a 750W PSU, is that going to be enough if in a year or two I will add another 2GB ATI Radeon HD 5970 and another 6GB of memory. If 750W is not enough how much is?

 

750W is more than enough.

 

Would there not be cause for having a budget system with the GPU and CPU budgets flipped for those who need a PC for more CPU based japery? Or perhaps for people like me who aren't really heavy gamers. I like my PCs to last three years and generally spend £5/600 on them and game lightly. The only card I've ever spent more than £70 on was 8/9 years ago and they've always been more than enough for my needs, just like a 240 would be now... And I like Football Manager

Just a thought!

 

Using a Power calculator for the Crossfire set up and extra ram on top of the standard build you looking at roughly 700W before overclocking. If you Plan to overclock (and personally even if you don't tho others may disagree with me) I agree with your concern and strongly recommend a bigger PSU for efficency purposes alone plus the fact the HD5970 is a monster card, I doubt a 750W PSU would have enough connectors for a second one. A 1000W would be a better bet. Personally I would avoid crossfire after HardOCP's recent Article on it. Seems theres alot of suggestion that ATI's drivers are getting worse. According to the article they claim the GTX460 SLI (using heavily overclocked cards) beats HD5870 Crossfire set up.

Has the bit-tech/CPC staff got any articles planned for SLI vs crossfire? Last time CPC had one was just after the 9 series release. Would be nice to see if the replicate HardOCP's findings.

 

I find myself disagreeing with the graphics card choice for the Affordable all rounder, as over at ebuyer they have the fermi 460's at around £180 and the radeon 5770's for £130, that's a whole £50 saving!

For only £5 more you could also get a nice round 3Ghz Athlon X2 250 and I would also be more inclined to include a more powerful PSU, but that is just my own personal preference.

...and just to rub the salt in the wound

+1 on the HTPC

)

 

Duh! 4 GPUs only for a folding machine? That will unfold only half the shadow of a protein in one year.
Now 16 GPUs is more like it: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/12/dell_c410x_gpu_chassis/

 

I decided to follow your recommendations for a budget new build, and am very pleased indeed. I already had a graphics card from my previous rig, together with some Sata and DVD drives, which fit in nicely with my new build. I'm impressed with how fast the system is compared to my previous one, so thanks guys. Custom PC is still my favourite read.