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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JarredWalton - Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - link
The following is with CrossFire X1950 XTX:QX6700 idle @ 1.60 GHz = 195W (sitting at the desktop)
QX6700 100% CPU load @ 2.67 GHz = 285W (running Folding@Home SMP)
QX6700 100% CPU + 3DMark06 = 488W (Folding@Home SMP and 3DMark06)
QX6700 100% GPU = 441W (running just 3DMark06)
The same system with the processor now overclocked to a 1333 FSB:
QX6700 idle @ 2.00 GHz = 250W (sitting at the desktop)
QX6700 100% CPU load @ 3.33 GHz = 341W (running Folding@Home SMP)
QX6700 100% CPU + 3DMark06 = 545W (Folding@Home SMP and 3DMark06)
QX6700 100% GPU = 476W (running just 3DMark06)
As I mentioned below, if you were to put Radeon HD 2900 XT cards in place of the X1950 XTX cards, it appears the total power draw when running 3D applications would go up almost 150W.
Caligynemania - Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - link
Please stop reccomending computer speakers for high end systems. Computer speakers are simply sub-par. Anytime you are spending more than $100 on speakers, people should be looking at Sound&Vision, not Anandtech. Please start advising people to look into real audio solutions rather than the shit for tweets on computer speakers.-Cal
Martimus - Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - link
I agree with you there. Just plug into a good reciever with nice speakers. No need to buy made for computer speakers that are supposedly "high end".maan8517 - Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - link
My recommendation for computers would be a sub $100 2-speaker combination for whenever you want to show someone else something on the computer and then burn the money on a good set of headphones. The Sennheiser HD650 for example is excellent for the non-price sensitive, and the Koss Headset SB45 is OK for its very low price.Emryse - Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - link
I have to admit that I am only dissappointed as I've just purchased my new build a few days ago (and therefore makes this article impracticle for me).Other than that - a great article with the usual clear, reasonable explanations for choices made; hey, a few of my components even made the list!
I just wanted to add that you might consider ammending the ASUS P5N32-E mobo to the alternative from the "Striker Extreme" for those who perhaps want the same core experience of that lineup without some of the "extra" features. That is, unless there is some problem with this mobo, in which case I would need to:
a.) hear from you about any problems with the board
b.) return to vendor from whence it came
c.) purchase new board from list
At any rate, thanks and keep it up! (Oh, and welcome aboard Dave!)
JarredWalton - Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - link
Hi everyone,Say hello to our new contributing editor, Dave Robinet! As always, we welcome your comments and feedback, and hopefully we will be able to get new Buyers' Guides out in a more timely fashion. Try to go easy on him, as we don't want to scare him way after one pilot article. Or just flame away as usual.... ;)
Take care,
Jarred Walton
Senior Editor, Displays and Laptops
http://www.AnandTech.com">http://www.AnandTech.com
Dave Robinet - Thursday, May 31, 2007 - link
Thanks, Jarred, for the introduction, and thanks, everyone for reading and providing comment. :)anandtech02148 - Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - link
Howdy Dave and Jarred,I'm always curious as to what Anandtech recommend for high end or low budget, but how come the high end system never include a LianLi case. Ever sinces the 8800gtx came out with it's arm's length, Lianli case is ready to answer this with it's modular approach.
Also a Lianli's case is fancy on the eyes don't you think?
Just my 2cents, i owned 2 Lianli cases and i'm a big fan of it.
Dave Robinet - Thursday, May 31, 2007 - link
Lian Li cases are great, and that was suggested by a couple of other editors. Cases (assuming they haven't made any catastrophic errors in terms of airflow or quality) generally come down to preference - they could just have easily been included in the Guide.Thanks again!
dave