Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. The question of not using Crossfire related more to opting for a significantly (£20) cheaper P43 as opposed to a P45. I can categorically say I will not be making use of the Crossfire feature at any time, certainly not with this build. I'm pretty set on the XFX HD 4850 now and will go for the Dual Core E5300. That effectively leaves me with only ~£50 to play around with so far as the motherboard goes. The XFX HD 4850 I quoted above is PCI-e 2.0. Does this mean I should discount the P35s and opt instead for a P43? If I'm going for a P43, the only downside I can see is that it's OCing potential isn't matching the P45. My thinking is to save the £30 and get the Asus P5QL - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus...(x16)-DDR2-1066-667-800-SATA-II-SATA-RAID-ATX. That means I can afford the superior HD 4850 card and still have a few pennies saved up.
Thanks for those inputs guys. I'm certain on the Samsung Spinpoint F1 as my 1TB HDD now. Now I just need something smaller, faster and cheaper to run the OS and a few games on before I start cluttering up the 1TB. What HDDs tend to be the best value - 120GB, 250GB, 320GB? I don't want a massive drive as this will host the essentials. This is really confusing me now - I think I'll just have to plump for one or another based on my personal preference. In terms of the GPU, I've just found - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512M...Hz-GDDR5-GPU-750MHz-640-Cores-2xDVI-HDTV-HDCP - is £7 cheaper than the XFX 4850. Which of these is better? Also, I'm having a hard-time finding rock solid facts on the OCing ability of the E5300. What I don't want is to restrict the OCing ability of this CPU with a mobo - so as long as the mobo can handle the E5300's OCing potential, I'm happy with it. The Gigabyte and Asus P43s will, won't they? Realistically, with the addition of an Arctic 7 Pro cooler, what could I clock the CPU up to?
Pretty much. If the XFX 4850 is the 1GB version, then the XFX is superior. My 512MB 8800GT struggles in scenarios that hit VRAM hard, while a 1GB 4850 I've got doesn't break a sweat. For £7, double the VRAM is not a bad thing. Of course, it's GDDR3 instead of GDDR5... I'd take the 1GB GDDR3 over the 512MB GDDR5. Others might not. To each their own. I don't like half multipliers myself, and for six quid, I'd take the risk that the E5300 might be a bit better binned than the E5200. The best value drives at the minute are 1TB. Why not partition a second 1TB up if you don't want you OS drive that full size? Stick little-used files on the second partition.
Because I'm not an expert on partitioning. Say I got a 1TB drive and gave it three partitions (one for OS, one for games, one for music and video), would the boot times be diminished or would it boot/run as quickly as if I ran the OS on its own physical drive? Very useful post by the way, a great many thanks for that. The XFX is a 512mb GPU but I still think I'll go for it over the 4770 - reviews for the 4850 are, across the board, better than those for the 4770.
Did anyone mention the EP43-DS3L or EP43-UD3? That's the motherboard I'd buy if it was P43. And get the whichever one's cheaper(HD4850/HD4770), but for the HD4850, try to scrounge around and find the ICE-Q 4 version by HIS, that one is awesome, and pretty cheap too nowadays. Just don't get the 1GB version of the cards.
Which of these motherboards is the DS3L? I had been looking at the DS3's so fervently that it's on my list - it's just £6 more than the Asus and didn't know if it warranted the cost difference? The HIS card is about £13 more expensive than the XFX. At the moment I genuinely can't afford to be adding to the cost of the build.
The only times partitions have a marked effect on transfer rates is when multiple partitions are being accessed at the same time - such as when you're trying to copy data from one partition to another on the same physical drive. Having multiple partitions should not impact boot times at all, provided Windows is installed to the first partition on the drive (drive performance drops as you get further from the beginning of the drive) rather than on the last one. I partition my laptop drive up as it makes it easier for me to remember where everything is if music is on one, videos on another or whatever. Others find folders a better alternative. However, partitions mean that I don't have to defrag lots of data that doesn't need it. Fair enough. Have a gander at this card maybe as well, but it's all going to be a balancing act price-wise so maybe that's not a good idea. Just those cards, or 4850's etc in general? I've got the Gigabyte 1GB hehe 4850 running in a second rig; it's been perfectly well behaved since October last year. Anyone who says 1GB of VRAM is a waste hasn't ever tried running some of the Oblivion texture mods out there.
Thanks. I'll pop that down as my #1 choice then. Great, thanks for that. Is PartitionMagic still the best software to use for making partitions? How can I create partitions prior to installing Windows? And what does this feature mean, is it that Windows 7 will automatically put itself in its own partition?
You don't need to use any other programs - you can create, delete and extend partitions all within Windows, and IIRC you have the option of creating a partition from unallocated space before installing Windows from the installation disc. EDIT: Oh, and on the graphics card issue, PCI-e 2.0 is completely backwards compatible with PCI-e 1.0, so the card would still work fine in a board that only supported the older revision of the interface, it just wouldn't have the additional (double) bandwidth offered by PCI-e 2.0 available to it, although this is pretty much a non-issue with only a 4850, so you probably wouldn't notice any difference.
I stopped using PartitionMagic because for some reason Vista would always complain the MFT was damaged after I'd played with partitions in PM8. I ended up just using the pre-install Windows partition interface and Disk Management once Windows was installed. The Windows 7 'feature' creates a 200MB hidden partition that it stores copies of essential files on (and the BitLocker encryption key) just in case you FUBAR your Windows install or decide to reinstall without backing up your encryption key - something that would mean all encrypted files are lost... I normally make a partition of about 10-20% of the capacity of the full drive as the C:\ drive, and install Windows on that. Only Windows and apps like Office, Photoshop, and other 'productivity' applications go on there. Once Windows is working and happy, I then use Disk Management (Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management) to partition the rest of the drive up how I want it. It's a slightly crippled version of Partition Magic, to all intents and purposes. Makes changing drive letters a breeze too. Yup.
Sounds like good advice to follow. But if I'm using a 1TB drive, will Windows (XP at first), Photoshop CS3, AutoCAD, Office 2007, Lightroom 2 take up 100GB? Also, once I've got to your stage of going into Disk Management, can I then "scale down" the OS partition so it's just enough for the files within it (plus a little headroom)?
When installing Windows, create a new 100-200GB partition and leave the rest of the disk empty. That way you don't have to resize it later on. Actually the Windows XP partitioning tool is pretty crappy compared to Vista's and 7's. Can't resize partitions for example.
No; XP, Office, AutoCAD and Photoshop aren't going to take 100GB. I've not got Photoshop installed ATM, but Vista, Office 2003, PSP9, all the other little programs that provide essential functions comes to about 25GB. Then I've got another 7GB of work related files and programs. However, even if everything installed only comes to 50GB or so, having 100GB gives the defragger lots of room, System Restore room to work (if you use it - I don't as my experiences of System Restore would lead me to believe it's more of a hiding place for viruses than it is useful for "Oh dear, that file's screwed.") and room to install more programs without having to spend ages faffing around resizing partitions again. I'd rather 'waste' 5% of my disc space than make Windows choke because it runs out of room when it's doing something essential. True. But if you realise it's limitations they're easy to work around. You just need to plan a little.
Right, I'll use the included Windows package then. All this research has made me too keen on the build to wait until Windows 7's release so I'm going to buy the components at the start of September and run XP on it until October 22nd!
Interesting. I had stutter city when running Qarls' on a 512MB 8800GT. Moved to a 1GB 4850 and all the stuttering went away. I was checking VRAM usage with ATi Tray Tools and it was telling me that it was in the 700MB region. Crysis got a lot happier on High settings with 1GB of VRAM, too. It would play great up until the point where ice appears, and then the framerate would nosedive with only 512MB.
