I'm putting together a system for a friend of my father's. His last system was an old P3 laptop which died a horrible death. So he is looking for a system that will meet his needs. The following criteria is what he suggested: 1. It's a mid-range gaming rig. He likes to play simulator-type games, such as flight simulators, sim city, etc. These games are not graphically heavy but do (in the case of sim city) put more pressure on the CPU for calculating a simulation. 2. The PC is also a light work station which is used primarily for email, web browsing, taxes, accounting, etc. I would imagine that he uses a web browser, an email client, and a word processor at once. 3. The PC is also used for movie playback - such as DVDs. 4. This computer must last him for the next 5+ years. 5. Must come to under $1200CND. My questions are: - Would a lower frequency Quad core (~2.4Ghz) be better or a higher frequency dual core (~2.8Ghz). Keep in mind most games run primarily on one Core (older ones do, at least). - Should I look into a Motherboard that can support more then 8GB ram? - Should I bother with looking at the Phenom II CPUs (x3 or x4)? [Edited by - RealMarkP on May 9, 2009 4:35:23 PM]

Any system worth a shake should handle the program load listed without too much trouble. Just load up(splurge a little) on RAM so he can both do lots at once and has room to grow as future programs may want more down the road.

I was going to link to some articles to back up a few things but my connection seems to be freaking out. At any rate pc stats ran a test on multi core CPUs to see who gets what benefit. More or less came out to be.


If you are a specialized field like 3D rendering or movie making, quads aren't very useful. The final core rarely adds much of anything to the table and in some conditions can actually hurt performance ever so sightly. There is no need to buy a quad core without a specific reason

tri-cores were the best for gaming. The third core often added some benefit to games that support multi-core systems. Games were also the main area hit by the slight decrease in speed for using a fourth core. High end gaming can benefit from 3-cores but the third core offers only marginal gains over the second core. So unless you NEED an extra 10% for high end gaming (which you are not here) there is no performance reason for buying a tri-core in this case.

Dual cores offered the biggest gain per added core for everything that saw gains for adding cores. The gain per core was much more substantial than the gain for adding a third core. Bottom line is 2-cores is way better than 1. Anything more than that will see diminishing returns especially for the average Joe. In this case 2 cores is likely your best bet. If price isn't effected negatively for higher core count, its not a bad thing to have more, but just don't pay more because he isn't likely to notice.

Any system you can put together will play DVD's fine or something went horribly wrong. Just be sure the DVD drive you buy has a player bundled with it.

For mid grade gaming and keeping pricing low this might be a good way to go. Solid performance for a 100$ might be just what your looking for.

Computers these days are lasting people a lot longer than they once did. 5 years is likely with any moderate rig.

Moved to Hardware Discussion.

Thanks Promit.

Quote: tri-cores were the best for gaming. The third core often added some benefit to games that support multi-core systems. Games were also the main area hit by the slight decrease in speed for using a fourth core. High end gaming can benefit from 3-cores but the third core offers only marginal gains over the second core. So unless you NEED an extra 10% for high end gaming (which you are not here) there is no performance reason for buying a tri-core in this case.

I'm thinking 5 years down the road, there might be a use for that third core. But regardless, I'm definitely thinking of getting a Pehnom II X3, because they are marginally more expensive the the dual core counterparts (X3 is $150CND, roughly). The price makes it worth it, IMO. Also, having that extra core for regular applications (firefox, word, etc) might come in handy. In the case of RAM, I did take your advice and gave him 4GB of RAM. The motherboard I picked out handles up to 8GB. That gives him room to expand, if that 4GB is not enough.

The question has come up weather or not I should overclock the CPU. The stock Phenom II X3 CPU runs very cool, from what I read. Regardless of the temperature, I'm also looking at 3rd party Heatsinks. The stock Phenom II X3 runs at 2.8Ghz which I'm thinking of pushing to 3.2Ghz or 3.4Ghz, whichever is more stable.

Not worth it in the long run. If something goes wrong with your overclock, you're going to have to play tech support. Stability is more important than speed here; and managing an overclock can be a pain. In my experience, the older a CPU gets, the lower its clock potential gets. So unless you have a lot of headroom, the overclock that runs fine today may not work in a few years.

Quote: Original post by Sc4Freak
Not worth it in the long run. If something goes wrong with your overclock, you're going to have to play tech support. Stability is more important than speed here; and managing an overclock can be a pain. In my experience, the older a CPU gets, the lower its clock potential gets. So unless you have a lot of headroom, the overclock that runs fine today may not work in a few years.

Going to second that. In the interest of Stability and longevity, over clocking isn't the best way to make a system last and stay trouble free. It's a geek thing to do in order to eeeek out a few drops of extra performance. It sounds like he never said he needed it to be the fastest thing on the block, he did say he wanted to last. You would be sacrificing something he specifically said he wanted for something he never asked for. Over clocking can be fun but this isn't a personal toy, it's your handy work someone is counting on.

Firstly, and unfortunately, there is exactly zero reason to even consider AMD CPUs at this point for anything but the very low end -- in all other performance and price classes they are entirely outclassed by Intel's kit. Its sad, I wish it weren't true, but its fact.

There are the two intel platforms now -- the new i7, which is quad-core throughout, plus hyper-threading (8 threads total) and requires DDR3 and socket 1366 motherboards, and the Core 2 platform which is available in 2 and 4 core configurations (no hyper-threading). Overall, the i7 will be more expensive -- an entry-level i7 is about 280 USD, motherboards will run a bit more (40 USD or so, for equal features/quality), and DDR3 still demands a small premium over DDR2 but the cost of RAM in general is already very low (a Tri-channel 6GB kit can be had for $100), especially if you can catch a good sale.

I'd really say that the choice comes down to whether your father's friend would like to go quad-core (at a rough platform-premium of 250 USD for the whole system) or would like to save money by staying with a Core 2 Duo - based system. With the i7 coming out (the lowest-end model is comparable to the highest-end Core 2 Quad) there is no reason to build a *new* quad-core system around a Core 2 chip -- it was great for early quad-core adopters and its an option for those with existing Core 2 sytstems wanting to go quad, but its not viable for a new build.

If you do go Core 2, you might to a modest overclock that doesn't even need a fancy air-cooler. I have a 3Ghz (stock) Core 2 duo with FSB1333 which I simply run at FSB1600 to get 3.6Ghz. I pair this with low-latency DDR2 running at 800Mhz, 1-1 ratio with the FSB. I happen to have a big cooler on mine, but such a modest overclock doesn't really need it -- in my case, since I started with a Xeon-binned core 2 variant (Xeon 3110) I actually run at lower voltage levels than the non-xeon retail version of my CPU (E8400) [grin]

For Video, since he's not a hard-core gamer, and I assume the most intensive performance he'd need is for something like Flight-simulator X, I'd recommend the something from the AMD/ATI 4870 or 4890 (180-220 USD) if he likes to run at resolutions higher than 1600x1200, or even the 4670 if very high resolutions are not a major concern (it would even serve a 1080p monitor nicely) and costs half-as much.

Since he's running an old laptop you're going to need a monitor. There have been some really nice 22" widescreen 1080p (native) LCDs with good color quality and sub-5ms refresh rates that are right around 200 USD. Extra inches begin to come at a distinct premium beyond this, so I'd say that 22" is your best bang for buck -- since these particular monitors are 1080p and 16x9 natively, rather than the 1920x1200 16x10 that's more common you get more effective area for movie playback without loosing too many pixels for desktop use. These monitors also usually come with VGA, DVI, and a couple HDMI ports, and some even have component/composite/svideo. All this connectivity is good if he'd like to be able to connect standalone equipment like a TV-reciever, Blue-ray player, or maybe a game console.

For general stuff, 4 gigs of RAM (2x2GB) for a core 2 system, or 6 gigs (3x2GB) for an i7 ought to be more than enough for now. I'd get a blu-ray drive (100 USD or so) and a multi-format dual-layer DVD burner. You can get a 1TB Hard disk for 100 USD these days. Go with a 500-600 Watt PSU unless you intend to go with more than 1 high-end Graphics board (which I don't recommend), but in either case make sure the model you choose has high efficiency, and modular cabling is nice if you can get it. Case-wise, I'd go with a reasonably sizable case, and since he's not a high-school student, not one of those gaudy gamer cases... Something like the Antec 300, which is a great case for about 150 USD, very well constructed, laid out, and in general a dream to work with.