High-End Buyers' Guide: May 2007
by Dave Robinet and Jarred Walton on May 29, 2007 1:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Basic High-End Intel System
One of the few components held over from our October 2006 High-End Guide, the E6600 processor has dropped in price and remains the sweet spot for high-end purchasers at the $2,000 system range. The processor is known to be an excellent overclocker, and provides an even better value after Intel's price cuts. And speaking of price cuts, it's no secret that Intel is planning another round of price cuts in late July. If you can hold out another month or so, you just might be able to pick up a quad core Q6600 in place of the E6600 for a minor price increase.
Prices of 680i chipset-based boards have been dropping recently, which gives the EVGA 122-CK-NF63-TR its place in the baseline high-end Intel system. There were indeed some 975X motherboards which cost roughly the same, but as these implementations leveraged the ICH7 controller rather than the more-expensive ICH7R and an NVIDIA SLI currently continues to require NVIDIA chipset motherboards, it made sense to give the nod to the EVGA 680i solution.
There are potentially more overclock-friendly solutions like the ASUS P5B Deluxe, which costs roughly the same as the EVGA board and has a wider breadth of overclocking options. It runs on the P965 chipset, however, which sets it at a disadvantage in that one of the PCIe x16 slots can only run at x4 bandwidth, rather than giving each card the full x16. Again, such solutions also lack official NVIDIA SLI support so you would need to look at AMD graphics cards if you want to run a multi-GPU configuration. As mentioned already, however, running a single 8800 GTX in place of 8800 GTS SLI can save some money, avoid some headaches, and would be a great fit for a P965 platform.
We went with OCZ Flex XLC memory in the Intel high-end system. In our labs, this memory has reached 1T timings at speeds even slightly higher than 800MHz on 680i platforms. Your mileage may vary, of course, but this is an excellent pair of memory sticks at the sub-$180 price point.
The remaining components are all carried over from the AMD baseline system. The price for the Intel system comes in slightly higher than that of the AMD system, though the $2000 price point is maintained. Note that the Intel system configuration will show superior performance in virtually all applications compared to the AMD system, largely due to the Core 2 Duo's advantage over its Athlon X2 counterpart. If you're looking to overclock, the Core 2 Duo E6600 will also easily outperform any current AMD Athlon X2 processor, often by huge margins. It's not unreasonable to get 3.6 GHz and higher with E6600 chips when using an appropriate aftermarket CPU heatsink, and at present AMD lacks a dual core chip that can even hope to compete with such an overclocked processor.
This system gets Windows XP 32-bit, like the AMD baseline system. If you do choose to go above 2GB of memory, however, please ensure that you do move up to a 64-bit OS - preferably Vista at this point in time.
| Basic High-End Intel System | |||
| Hardware | Component | Price | Rebates |
| Processor | Core 2 Duo E6600 | $223 | - |
| Motherboard | EVGA 122-CK-NF63-TR | $159 | - |
| Memory | OCZ Flex XLC 2GB Kit DDR2 PC2-6400 | $179 | - |
| Video Card | 2x EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB | $700 | $60 |
| Hard Drive | Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB | $112 | - |
| Optical Drive | Pioneer DVR-212BK | $42 | - |
| Operating System | Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 SP2B (OEM) | $110 | - |
| System Total | $1525 | $1465 | |
| Complete Package | $2061-$3720 | $2001-$3660 | |
 |
Prices of 680i chipset-based boards have been dropping recently, which gives the EVGA 122-CK-NF63-TR its place in the baseline high-end Intel system. There were indeed some 975X motherboards which cost roughly the same, but as these implementations leveraged the ICH7 controller rather than the more-expensive ICH7R and an NVIDIA SLI currently continues to require NVIDIA chipset motherboards, it made sense to give the nod to the EVGA 680i solution.
There are potentially more overclock-friendly solutions like the ASUS P5B Deluxe, which costs roughly the same as the EVGA board and has a wider breadth of overclocking options. It runs on the P965 chipset, however, which sets it at a disadvantage in that one of the PCIe x16 slots can only run at x4 bandwidth, rather than giving each card the full x16. Again, such solutions also lack official NVIDIA SLI support so you would need to look at AMD graphics cards if you want to run a multi-GPU configuration. As mentioned already, however, running a single 8800 GTX in place of 8800 GTS SLI can save some money, avoid some headaches, and would be a great fit for a P965 platform.
We went with OCZ Flex XLC memory in the Intel high-end system. In our labs, this memory has reached 1T timings at speeds even slightly higher than 800MHz on 680i platforms. Your mileage may vary, of course, but this is an excellent pair of memory sticks at the sub-$180 price point.
The remaining components are all carried over from the AMD baseline system. The price for the Intel system comes in slightly higher than that of the AMD system, though the $2000 price point is maintained. Note that the Intel system configuration will show superior performance in virtually all applications compared to the AMD system, largely due to the Core 2 Duo's advantage over its Athlon X2 counterpart. If you're looking to overclock, the Core 2 Duo E6600 will also easily outperform any current AMD Athlon X2 processor, often by huge margins. It's not unreasonable to get 3.6 GHz and higher with E6600 chips when using an appropriate aftermarket CPU heatsink, and at present AMD lacks a dual core chip that can even hope to compete with such an overclocked processor.
This system gets Windows XP 32-bit, like the AMD baseline system. If you do choose to go above 2GB of memory, however, please ensure that you do move up to a 64-bit OS - preferably Vista at this point in time.
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dilbertcompguy - Thursday, March 13, 2008 - link
Since when are these computer speakers $5000? Am I missing something here or is this paragraph from like 4 years ago?Super Nade - Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - link
While the Silencer is a good unit, there are several less expensive alternatives that are built equally good if not better than this one.Some that come to mind are:
-Ultra X-Pro series (Andyson)
-Silverstone Zeus ST56ZF (can run 8800GTX SLI with NO problems), 75ZF (Etasis)
-Seasonic S12/M12 nad Corsair
-Zippy GSM series (not less expensive but will out-regulate Seasonic built units)
Maybe you could have offered at least two or three options. Good job though!
S-N, OCForums
Dave Robinet - Thursday, May 31, 2007 - link
Thanks a lot, Super Nade.I actually had the Silverstone in there as one of the original suggestions, but Gary Key (having had the benefit of testing a huge quantity of these in the past) said he'd send me a bunch of dead ones if I included it in the buyer's guide. Not wanting my wife to have a bunch of dead power supplies to yell at me over, I backed off. :) Personally, though, I've not had one go South on me yet.
Your choices of supplies are really good - any of those could have been chosen for the guide. People will pick at the X-Pro's efficiency rating a bit, but honestly, the rest of it is brand preference.
dave
Super Nade - Saturday, June 2, 2007 - link
Dave,Thank you for taking the time to read through this. :)
Silverstone employ several OEM's, Enhance, Etasis, Seventeam and a relatively new but interesting Impervio Electronics from Taiwan. Not all of them are built equal. The Etasis and the Seventeam builds are based off of server platforms and are less likely to cause problems. I have not heard of mass failure but there have been problems with coil while on the DA and OP series. IMO, it does not warrant having to completely exclude Silverstone from the mix. ;)
Best wishes,
Super Nade, OCForums.
overzealot - Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - link
I saw no such thing on the previous page. You only said that you'd choose MCE for 32bit, or Vista because everyone will change to it.
I know Vista is the future, but I live in the present - and when I spend this much on a computer I want it to work as well as it can RIGHT NOW.
Can we have an honest pro/con shootout between XP64 and Vista64?
I'm happy to start off with a few:
Vista
Pro:
Aeroglass
Better disk caching
DX10
Con:
8800 drivers still suck
No EAX, no ALchemy for anything but X-Fi
Some games/programs won't work, others don't work well
Larger footprint
Older hardware doesn't have drivers
XP64
Pro:
Drivers are as stable as XP
Games run as well as XP
Con:
Some obscure apps don't work (VoiceChanger is the only one I can think of off-hand)
Older hardware doesn't have drivers
No DX10
Personally I'm willing to sacrifice DX10 and Aero for EAX and speed now. Are you?
JarredWalton - Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - link
Most of the cons of Vista are applicable to both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Our point is that if you're going to get DX10 hardware and a high-end system, you might as well bite the bullet and move to Vista. If you're moving to Vista, you might as well make the jump to 64-bits as well. My understanding is that the XP-64 drivers are still not as robust or available as the XP-32 drivers, so if you're going to have some driver issues anyway... might as well go the whole hog and run Vista! :)FWIW, I'm only running Vista under dual-boot mode or on certain test systems. It's okay, but there are enough nitpicks against it that I'm not ready to make a complete switch just yet.
overzealot - Friday, June 1, 2007 - link
Availability is a problem, but only as much as with Vista.They're robust, have been since about 2 months after release.
jzodda - Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - link
We all know that what we consider to be "computer monitors" these days stops at 30" unless you are willing to shell out more then the price of a high end system just for the display alone.There is one larger display that I think bears serious consideration for a high end rig. Its the Westhinghouse LVM-37W3 37" 1080p display. The W3 version is the one that you typically will not find in stores, and makes an flat out amazing monitor.
It has an 8 ms response and 8 bit Super MVA panel made by Chi-Mei, and plays games at 1920x1080 very easily if you have a good vid card. 37" of screen space makes the 30" look small and the 24" look puny by comparison.
Its also priced around the same as the 30" screens mentioned, and usually comes in somewhat cheaper, especially when there are good deals on shipping. There is a huge thread on this display here. Amazing find, and Maximum PC recently did a little write up on this display and they loved it.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1088497">http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1088497
Kougar - Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - link
Surprised me to see this recommended, and I got to say great call. I have one of these that just arrived infront of me, and to my surprise it has been modified to offer 2 8-pin + 2 6-pin PCIe connectors for overclocked HD 2900 Crossfire setups. You might wish to update the guide with this info. ;)I guess it explains why this PSU was certified for R600 Crossfire use, while (The otherwise excellent) 850watt GameXstream PSUs couldn't take it. Only the $285 1010watt GameXStream model PSU made the certification for R600 Crossfire, and it costs $85 higher still than the Quad Silencer. The high price is for a product that offers as much oomph as products outside it's class, and it can now power any kind of SLI or Crossfire setup that can be thrown at it.
Rike - Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - link
Crucial Tracer Ballistix Rebate is a one per household rebate. If you get two, you'll need to work the system some how to get both rebates. It's a great deal, but you might want to warn folks up front.