Please! Your Comments re: VM Upgrade

I

I'm No Hero

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Apr 27, 2007
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Hello. This is my first post to the Hard Forum and I know next to nothing about computers.

A friend of mine bought my wife and me a Velocity Micro ProMagix™ PCX High Performance Home & Office PC. My wife is now in Europe visiting with her family and she'll be back in 3 weeks. I'll be sending the PC back to Veloicty Micro for an upgrade and I'd like your comments about what modifications I'm thinking of making.

She is a "hard core gamer" (and that's fine with me. But, to be honest, I can't take any of it), she's an engineer, and she does Computer Aid Design on her PC at her office. I would like to upgrade the PC so that she can do CAD at home and play her games, of course.
I'm an academic.

This is the current configuration:

Power Supply 550 Watt Antec® TRUE POWER 2.0 Quiet Power Supply with 120mm Smart Fan (SLI Certified by NVIDIA) (+$70.00)

Case Lights None

Motherboard Intel® D975XBXLKR 975X Chipset Motherboard with DDR2, PCI Express (+$125.00)

Processor Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor E6600, dual 2.4GHz cores (+$160.00)

CPU Cooling Velocity Micro™ LiquiCool 3™ Advanced Thermal Electric Cooling (+$160.00)

DDR2 Memory 2048MB Corsair™ DDR2 PC5300 DDR667 (2x1024) (+$100.00)

PCX Video 256MB eVGA™ NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7900 GS, Velocity Micro Edition, PCI-E, 2 x DVI (+$95.00)

Video Cooling None

Video Tuning Basic 3D Video Performance Tuning & Optimization

TV Tuner ATI® TV Wonder Pro Remote Control Edition (+$110.00)

Monitor None

Audio Creative Labs SoundBlaster® Audigy™ 4, high performance 7.1 channel sound (+$75.00)

Speakers None

Hard Drive 1 250GB Western Digital WD2500KS 7200rpm SATA/300, 16MB Cache (+$25.00)

Hard Drive 2 250GB Western Digital WD2500KS 7200rpm SATA/300, 16MB Cache (+$125.00)

Optical Drive 1 16x Lite On® DVD+/-RW/CD-RW Dual Layer, Black Bezel

Optical Drive 2 16x DVD/48x CD-RW Lite On® Combo Drive, Black Bezel

Floppy Drive & Media Reader 8-in-1 Floppy Drive & Media Reader Combo, Black Bezel (+$30.00)

Network Adapter Integrated 10/100/1000MBps Gigabit Ethernet Network Adapter

Network Adapter 2 or WiFi Adapter None

WiFi Router None

Modem US Robotics® 56K V.90 Hardware Fax Modem (+$75.00)

FireWire 2 Integrated IEEE 1394 FireWire Ports, 1 front & 1 rear

USB 2.0 Ports 6 USB 2.0 Ports, 2 front & 4 rear

Operating System Genuine Microsoft® Windows® XP Home w/Service Pack 2 on original CD, Installed & Performance Tuned

This is the upgrade that Velocity Micro has recommended:
850 Watt Velocity Micro® Power Supply - Nvidia® SLI™ Certified

Asus® P5N-E SLI nForce 650i SLI, Socket 775, PCI-E, DDR2

Intel® Core™ 2 Quad processor Q6600, quad 2.4GHz cores, 8MB L2 Cache

Either:

1. 4096MB Corsair Dominator DDR2-800 Twin2X2048-6400 with Dual-path Heat Xchange (4x1024), OR
2. 2048MB Corsair Dominator DDR2-800 Twin2X2048-6400 with Dual-path Heat Xchange (2x1024)

VM also said that I may want to get a bigger hard drive [NOTE: Can ANYONE please explain to me what Raid (spelling?) 0, Raid 1, and No Raid mean? Advantages and disadvantages of each?]

I would now rather rely on the suggestions of people who own computers instead of relying on salesmen. Any and all comments/suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much!
 
As far as gaming goes, I'd say she just needs a beefier video card. She has 2 gigs of RAM, which is plenty right now.

Unless you're going to run two video cards in SLi mode, then I think you'll be fine with your current power supply.
 
Damn! I spent about an hour typing up a response describing raid, pointing out things in your system and closed the damn tab before saving!!! What a noob.

No, im not going to type it all again. Just Google the word RAID. There is plenty of good explanations. If you are a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy, get raid1. If you want to get speed with a bit of safety Raid5. If you want to go balls to the walls with no net, raid0. There is a slew of additional other forms and combinations. Depends on budget and needs.

Go to the video forum. You may wish to get a bit more video, especially if you are considering DX10 in the future, since the wife is hard core.

Stay with 2g of memory. 32 bit operating systems (XP and Vista) cannot access all 4 gigs. You would need a 64 bit OS for that.

The cooler you have seems overkill for stock speeds. Have VM overclock it for you. Your system with that cooler can easily handle it.

Yes, if you want SLI in your future beyond a very low end or low power video card, you will need more juice. Essentially, determine your cards power needs, double it and add what your base system needs are. 850 sounds more than enough for your described needs.

Personally, I like a fast raid0 for system needs and a fat disk for archival data (JBOD (just a bunch of disks) or Raid5).

Last.. if you can, hold off just a bit. ATI and nvidea have/are releasing a slew of new products, so prices should drop and you may have better price/performance options.

edit: oh.. get rid of that modem and get some form of high speed cell-phone-net card. VM wont have that.. see your local cell net dealer.
 
Another vote for just bumping the video card. Get at least an 8800GTS 320MB.
 
1. Get a new video card...8800 GTS (640mb).
2. Overclock the e6600
 
In a strange turn of events, it looks like VM is trying to upsell you a bit there, unless you're not fully disclosing the prospective uses for your machine.

For CAD work, I would definitely go with more RAM - 2GB should be more than enough in an XP environment. You don't really need a CPU upgrade. I'd go for a video card upgrade if you're a heavy gamer. If you're not, then the 7900GT is still a very decent mid-range card.

You don't need a 850W power supply, either. 700 at the max.

For RAID, for my own reasons, I don't recommend it. In my experience, you get a negligible performance increase with a huge increase to data loss risk with RAID 0, and you cut your storage in half with RAID 1. Now, if the data that you have is absolutely vital to you and you absolutely cannot afford to lose it, go with RAID 1. Your data will be mirrored between your drives so that if one fails, you can pull it out and use the other one independently.

A summary of RAID.
 
This is "I'm No Hero." I'm writing from our PC at home.

Thank you all. From your responses, I'm partial to modifying the existing PC this way:

  1. Asus® P5N-E SLI nForce 650i SLI, Socket 775, PCI-E, DDR2
  2. Core™ 2 Quad processor Q6600, quad 2.4GHz cores, 8MB L2 Cache 320MB
  3. EVGA
GeForce 8800GTS DDR3 PCI-E w/HDCP SUPERCLOCKED
[/LIST]


Some more quick questions:


A. Velocity Micro recommends at least a 700 Watt Power Supply for the GeForce 8800GTS video card. But the only step up I see on VM's web site is for the 850 Watt Power Supply. Can anyone say if a 700 W supply is sold by VM?

B. The RAM: Any suggestions to an increased amount?

Again, I would appreciate your comments and thoughts.

Thank you again.
 
Your current PSU should be fine. The recommended PSU is 400W for the 8800 GTS.
 
Possible reason VM recommends the 700 watter or above is for Video SLI set up some time in the future. Might as well go that route for some future proofing the system, since you did say your wife is hardcore. Might want a 8800 GTX single card or god only know what will come out later on and what it will need as far as a power supply requirements.


VelocityMicro Gamers Edge PCX

680i SLI
Bios P-25
E6600 2.4 Ghz @ 3.0 ghz
4 Gb DDR2-1066 5-5-5-18 2T
Vista Ultimate
8800 GTX single card
250 Gb HD 16 mb cache
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
 
n00bie:

Please explain to me why you recommend the 8800 GTX single card instead of the GeForce 8800GTS DDR3 PCI-E w/HDCP SUPERCLOCKED. Please remember, I'm not a computer person.

Also do you think I have enough RAM as the PC is currently configured?
 
GTS superclocked is a fine card, but the GTX version is a better card, and can be overclocked even more if you or your wife want the very best in games, or even two GTX cards ( SLI set up ) to really have the game frame rates way up there. But for me, one card would be enough until my games show some slow downs, than either another better newer card or sli for me.

Remember, you did say your wife is a hardcore gamer, and having the best for your wife is saying " I love you " :D

2 Gb of ram is the sweet spot. When and if you migrate over to the Vista 64 bit version, than 4 gigs would be future proofing your system for what comes later on. Driver issues for some with Vista 64 bit, but others run it now without too much issue. I will go the 64 bit soon, so I got a good deal on 2 additional gigs of ram, and why not. Course, ram prices are going down as they normally do, so maybe I did not get such a good deal :(



VelocityMicro Gamers Edge PCX

680i SLI
Bios P-25
E6600 2.4 Ghz @ 3.0 ghz
4 Gb DDR2-1066 5-5-5-18 2T
Vista Ultimate
8800 GTX single card
250 Gb HD 16 mb cache
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
 
Looks like a great system. Here's my two cents worth.

Look at the big picture and some practicality.......If your wife is an engineer I'm sure she could look under the hood and upgrade her computer at some time in the future herself.
So.....buy two GB of 800Hz RAM and if she wants more later, she can put it in.

The 8800 GTX video card is the top of the line at present. It will run almost any game right now at high resolution and excellent frame rate.....anything less is,well,less. If she games [H]ard then get the GTX. Trust me,she'll dig it. To really appreciate it, you'll need a monitor capable of 1600x1200 resolution.

Go with an SLI motherboard, in the future adding a second 8800GTX will be a good idea.(to understand SLI better go to nvidia.com and click on their "SLI zone" tab.

Buy the 850 Watt PSU. Right now its overkill with one graphics card, but if you plan to SLI then you'll need the power advantage, plus you wont have to do it yourself. I'd just ask VM if their 850 W model has 4 PCI-e connectors, you'll need two each for the 8800 GTX cards, which is not the norm......most Graphics cards require only one.

I'm not sure why VM wanted you to upgrade to a quad core processor......right now there are few applications that challenge even a dual core. That will soon change, but if it was me, with that CPU cooler in your machine currently, coupled with the 650i motherboard VM recommends, you can overclock the hell out of that e6600, and at sometime in the future you can add a quad core CPU very easily. But again, if you are looking forward, more cores are not a bad idea.

Ive never used RAID, dont really see an advantage, but if your data is critical, its a good option. Me, all Id loose would be a few saved games.....I generally back up all my critical stuff to a big ass USB external drive......just makes more sense to me and is less complicated.

No matter what, VM will do you right. They are a good company with pretty straight shooters.:D
Buy your wife a copy of STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl to play when she gets home. You wont regret it.:eek:
 
My sister-in-law has told my wife what I'm up to (she's in Europe with my in-laws now...coming back in 3 weeks) , she called me this morning, and told me what SHE would like the upgrade to look like (no more surprise, I'm afraid). Once again, I'd appreciate your comments/suggestions regarding components, compatbility, etc.

This is how she would like the ProMagix to look like when she gets back:

Motherboard: EITHER 1) the EVGA nForce 680i SLI, Socket 775, PCI-E, DDR2 OR 2) the Asus® P5N-E SLI nForce 650i SLI, Socket 775, PCI-E, DDR2
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Quad processor Q6600, quad 2.4GHz cores, 8MB L2 Cache
Memory: 2048MB Corsair Dominator DDR2-800 Twin2X2048-6400 with Dual-path Heat Xchange (2x1024)
Video Card [she INSISTS that I spend no more than $250 on a better card]: Either 1. 256MB eVGA™ NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8600 GT Velocity Micro Performance Edition, 2 x DVI
OR 2. the 512MB eVGA™ NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7950 GT, Velocity Micro Edition, PCI-E, 2x DVI, HDCP, OR 3.the 256MB eVGA™ NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8600 GTS SUPERCLOCKED Velocity Micro Performance Edition, 2 x DVI HDCP
Memory: 2048MB Corsair Dominator DDR2-800 Twin2X2048-6400 with Dual-path Heat Xchange (2x1024)
Configure the PC with NO Raid

Would I need to replace our current 550 watt power supply with either a 700 watt or 850 watt Power Supply to be compatible with the above?

Please let me know if you think the above configuration will work.

You will never know (but, then again, I think you would) how I've been agonizing about what to change.:confused: :)

Thank you again. I appreciate your help.
 
well if you're getting a quad core CPU and are gonna spend that much on just one component...the least i would go with for a video card would be the 320mb 8800gts...
 
Normally I would not recommend a quad-core, as virtually no applications can really take advantage of it, but since your wife does CAD work, it might actually come in handy.

For the video cards, I would definitely go with one of the 8600s. And if you can stretch it, go with an 8800GTS 320MB.
 
Thank you all, again.

I have one last question (I hope): Can anyone say if I can run the proposed configuration with the current 550 Watt power Supply? Or is it recommended that replace it with either the 700 Watt or the 850 Watt Power Supply?
 
No questions asked dude. A good quality 500-550W power supply can power much more of a system than that.
 
Thank you Jason_Wall, MrMike, magoo, and SR45 (and all others).

My last question (again: I hope): For the 256MB eVGA™ NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8600 GTS SUPERCLOCKED Velocity Micro Performance Edition, 2 x DVI HDCP.....is it recommend that I get the Video Cooling thingy [that is, the "VideoCool™ Positive Pressure Airflow System - Speed adjustable, with light"]?

Or no?

I apologize for all of my annoying questions but I only ask because I don't know.
 
Questions are a good thing. If you don't know, it's best to ask :p

If the card is "SUPERCLOCKED!" that much and it only has a stock cooling, I'd say go for it.
 
It's just a single-slot dual-fan cooler that takes up the PCI slot below the video card I believe. I haven't seen any posts about the 8600s getting super hot when OC'd in the video card forums, so I wouldn't be overly concerned. If you're going to spend any more money on this system it should really be to get an 8800GTS 320MB.
 
Its looks like youve made great choices.
The 8600 GT cards are brand new this week, so I cant tell you much about them.
I agree with Mr. Mike, rather than getting an 8600 with a video cooler, I think I'd rather spend the money on a better card.
The 8800 GTS 320MB should be a great card.
You know sometimes, when we spend a little more than our wife wants, but she can kick more ass in her games.......thats a good thing.:D
She'll appreciate a better card for her games I promise you.
Good choice on a great system.
 
Call your wife and tell her you got a note from the guys that know what they are talking about and get the better video card. In the long run she will understand the limitations of the 8800 GTS 320 mb in gaming, not to mention the mid range 8600 card, and wished instead you got the 8800 GTX card with larger power supply to begin with.

Than sit back, and tell her, " I told you so " ( Be at a safe distance when you tell her )

I play the Flight X Sim game from Microsoft and with the 8800 GTX card, I am still disappointed with the frame rates. Needs a patch or a better video card later on, so tell her that if she likes this game ( probably not ) than with the other cards its only going to be worse...

VelocityMicro Gamers Edge PCX

680i SLI
Bios P-25
E6600 2.4 Ghz @ 3.0 ghz
4 Gb DDR2-1066 5-5-5-18 2T
Vista Ultimate
8800 GTX single card
250 Gb HD 16 mb cache
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
 
You are all very kind.

There are 4 memory "cards" (or whatever the proper term is to denote memory in a PC). I ordered the ProMagix with 2048MB Corsair™ DDR2 PC5300 DDR667 (2x1024). Does this mean that we have 2 "gigs" of memory?

I want to replace the existing 2048MB Corsair™ DDR2 PC5300 DDR667 (2x1024) memory WITH the 2048MB Corsair Dominator DDR2-800 Twin2X2048-6400 with Dual-path Heat Xchange (2x1024). Is this recommended?

I think I will upgrade our Velocity Micro ProMagix as follows:

Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Quad processor Q6600, quad 2.4GHz cores, 8MB L2 Cache
Motherboard: EITHER the Asus® P5N-E SLI nForce 650i SLI, Socket 775, PCI-E, DDR2 OR the EVGA nForce 680i SLI, Socket 775, PCI-E, DDR2 [recommendations, please]
Video Card: 320MB EVGA GeForce 8800GTS DDR3 PCI-E w/HDCP SUPERCLOCKED [I will keep the current 550 watt power supply. We won't be using 2 different video cards simultaneously]
Memory: (per your suggestions): 2048MB Corsair Dominator DDR2-800 Twin2X2048-6400 with Dual-path Heat Xchange (2x1024)


Once again, I appreciate all of your comments and recommendations.
 
I have not owned either of those motherboards, so I can't give first person experience. However, there have been a number of people that posted with issues about the eVGA 680i board, so I would be inclined to go with the 650i. I don't really see you getting much more for your dollar with the 680i over the 650i either. The money you should save going with 650i over 680i should at least somewhat make up the difference between the 8600GTS and the 8800GTS 320MB.

Yes, that means you have two gigs of memory. You do not necessarily need faster memory, but it can make an improvement. DDR2-800 will be natively supported by the 650i chipset, so it will take advantage of it.
 
I don't think you will see much benefit from switching 2GB of DDR2-667 for 2GB of DDR2-800 unless you plan to overclock your memory. A better option would be 4GB of DDR2-667 if your operating system is capable of using all the memory. It has been said here before, but 2GB of RAM is all you will need for most games at present. If you need more later down the road, RAM is easy to install and is cheap and getting cheaper (DDR3 is on the horizon this year).

Regarding the motherboard choices, if you are going to use SLI then choose the 680i board. If not, go with the 650i board. Or if you are going to overclock your q6600, the A1/T1 revisions of the 680i board with the p27 BIOS is the better choice.
 
MrMike: I am in love with you. But please do me a favor: don't tell Gabriela (my wife).

Once again, thank you so much.:)
 
Marc:
Here's my take on the motherboards......I happen to own an ASUS P5N-E SLI amd AN ASUS P5N32-E SLI (very similar to the evga 680i board).
Sit back because this is going to take a while.......
First of all, both boards will support SLI (nvidia.com/slizone).
Second,the ASUS naming nomenclature for these boards is confusing......P5N-E SLI has two sli lanes at 8x,one LAN,a manual hardware switch for sli,and slightly less overclocking prowess in the BIOS. Still a great board and very stable.
Third, the 680i boards (evga,ASUS Striker and P5N32-E SLI,BFG,GIGABYTE,and others)have two sli lanes(PCI-e)at 16x,software sli switches,2 or 4 LAN,a third PCI-e slot for Physics cards or graphics card based physics,a separate PCI-e Header for sound(slightly better than most on board solutions)and infinate overclocking poptions in the BIOS.
Fourth, you may see a hybrid board of sorts, the ASUS P5N32-E SLI PLUS board. It is slightly cheaper,built on the 650i chipset,but has the third PCI-e slot and 16x sli lanes.

Confused???? not surprised. Bottom line, if your wife is a hardcore overclocker.....the 680i board is the way to go, overclocks very well,stable now that all the bugs are worked out with BIOS updates,and has the third slot for physics cards later on.
If you dont plan on overclocking much,may or may not ever SLI, and dont plan on a physics card in the near future, then the ASUS P5N-SLI is a great, very solid choice.

I'd up the memory from 667Hz to 800Hz(DDR2/800).....it will tolerate overclocks much better. Yes, 2 sticks of 1024 memory is just over 2 GB and should serve you well. You can always upgrade easily by placing an additional 2 sticks.

I think the choices and suggestions are good ones. You will find that most of us want to go full tilt and will always recommend the top of the line videocards.....the GTS is an excellent compromise vs the 8800 GTX (I'd still buy one over the GTS,but I'm biased.):D
 
Jason_Wall said:
Normally I would not recommend a quad-core, as virtually no applications can really take advantage of it, but since your wife does CAD work, it might actually come in handy.

For the video cards, I would definitely go with one of the 8600s. And if you can stretch it, go with an 8800GTS 320MB.
Click to expand...

Say what? how about SQL, IIS, apache 2, exchange, liquid, photoshop, DivX (not really an app), many ripping apps, permier, TruSpace, autocad hell even winrar. The list could go on and on. Its very hard to justify a system for just games (unless you develop them, in which case your likley to have TruSpace, etc and multi-threaded compilers, tools:D)

I guess you meant, "virtually no games"
 
That's why I qualified the statement by saying that because she uses CAD apps, the quad-core would be a good idea.

Yes, "virtually no games" probably would be more accurate.
 
Agree with Magoo on the 680i motherboard. I have the VelocityMicro system with the 680i motherboard. When the motherboard was first released, it had a number of serious issues, but then the Bios updates started, and those issues began to disappear. The current bios version is P-27, and I have the P-25 version without one issue at this time. So don't worry about those that say the 680i has problems. Normally most of them do until the kinks get worked out.

I have the DDR2-1066 mhz corsair memory, but wish now I had gotten the 800 Mhz sticks instead. You really do not need the 800's, nor the 1066's but, for future proofing the system, overclocking someday, than yes to the 800's over the 667. The nice part of it is, you can always upgrade later to another set of memory sticks.
 
SR45, Mons, and magoo:

I'm out of breadth. I think I should take a swim, get another cup of coffee, or get some fresh air.:)

Thanks.


Marc
 
I know you must be agonizing over this, but you really never explained why you need to upgrade the current system so we are all kinda working blind. If I were you, I'd only upgrade the graphics card to a nice 320MB 8800GTS and call it a day. If she needs/wants quad core, then that's fine, but I'd stick with the Intel board, too. It's solid and not a thing wrong with it.

No way should you throw out the memory to get the Dominator now that you aready have it, and the 550w PSU is fine if you have no plans to go SLI. We no longer offer a 700w, only 500, 850, and 1200, so that would be why we suggested 850w, but you are already set.

I'm really wondering, did you call us and ask what could be done, or did somebody actually tell you these upgrades were needed? I'd be SHOCKED if one of my guys told you these things were needed unless you specifically asked what your options were in an open ended sort of way.

Best of luck!

Randy
 
Randy:

I am grateful that the President and CEO of Velocity Micro has taken the time and interest in this conversation. Thank you.

In fact, others in this conversation have said exactly as you say.


Marc
 
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