sdd , you mean SSD? Solid State Drive

mobo - MOtherBOard

psu - Power Supply Unit

SSD = Solid State Drive
Mobo = Motherboard
PSU = Power Supply Unit
HSF = Heat Sink and Fan
ODD = Optical Disk Drive

If you've doubts about any other ones, just ask.

Regarding not making much use of DDR3@1600 instead of DDR3@1333, it's that there isn't much of a difference between them in terms of performance. Even for gaming, it's only a matter of 3~5fps, in the best cases, but you will need more RAM to make full use of a x64 OS, which is recommended for any new CPU, and the recommended are 6GB. 4GB is the bare minimum, and you want it to last (I know that it works with 2/3GB, but that's too low). x86 OS like XP will limit the performance of your CPU. If you can also find RAM with lower timings at cheaper prices, they can make a big difference.

As for HDDs, I would never recommend Samsung to anyone (but I read good things about their SSDs). Seagate are good, but the best are WD and Hitachi.

CPU: i5 or Phenom II? I would take the Phenom II any day. In practical tests with multithreaded applications (what you're going to use, especially, when you're using all of that stuff at the same time), the larger number of cores on the Phenom II place it above any other offer by Intel that aren't the best (and at 3~4 times it's price) i7s.

From Anandtech:
"Today's conclusion is no different than what we've been saying about AMD's CPU lineup for several months now. If you're running applications that are well threaded and you're looking to improve performance in them, AMD generally offers you better performance for the same money as Intel. It all boils down to AMD selling you more cores than Intel at the same price point.

Applications like video encoding and offline 3D rendering show the real strengths of the Phenom II X6. And thanks to Turbo Core, you don't give up any performance in less threaded applications compared to a Phenom II X4. The 1090T can easily trump the Core i7 860 and the 1055T can do even better against the Core i5 750.

You start running into problems when you look at lightly threaded applications or mixed workloads that aren't always stressing all six cores. In these situations Intel's quad-core Lynnfield processors (Core i5 700 series and Core i7 800 series) are better buys. They give you better performance in these light or mixed workload scenarios, not to mention lower overall power consumption."

Photoshop isn't a single threaded software, and like you stated, you're going to run several programs at the same time, so even when one of them doesn't make full use of the six cores, the rest will do. Single threaded software is turning even more into a thing of the past, so you'll always be better with 6 cores.

I'ld say all 3 would be overpowered for just doing the things you listed, but if I were to choose from the 3 I would definantly go with the i7 the SSE4 extended instruction support and the triple channel 1600 ram will be good for more than a few years. The x6 is just an overglorified Phenom x4 with higher clocks and 2 more of the same cores, it'll be on average slower than an 4 core icore series clocked 400mhz lower than it. As for the GPU you MUST get an Nvidia. Adobe and Celsys have been putting research and support into CUDA. The SSD is a solid state disk, it's useful in that it has no seek time and accelerates system starts and program loading, other than that it doens't have that much of a use to you as you should put the scratch disk on a SSD, it will drastically lower it's lifespan.

As for the o/s, run windows 7 x64 there is no point in running 32bit o/s on any modern hardware even if you don't have 4gb ram.

WDC WD 2500 is a 250gb series drive. 3gb ram is an old ram number for a laptop. as for the 2ghz T7250, it's still a pretty decent cpu even now.

For the sound card, you won't be gaining from it unless you're listening to lossless on more than average speakers. The onboard ALC888/889 series sound chips on the Gigabyte boards have come a long way.

For the case, I'ld suggest you steer away from the heavy steel and plastic Antec and go for nice brushed aluminium Lian Li, it's going to run cooler and the case will be much lighter. Quality does come at a higher price though.

I should point out that the current AMDs do not natively support DDR3 higher than 1333 which means you will have to overclock to make use of 1600 ram while the i7 will run them fine.

For the graphix card I'ld suggest skipping the GT240 and shoot for at least a GT430/450.

SSD = Solid State Disk/Drive which means it uses memory chips for storage instead of round spinning platters, this means they have godly fast seek times.

Mobo = Motherboard

PSU = Power Supply Unit.

As for the DVD-RW, get the cheapest, they are all 22x/24x these days and honestly, unless you're burning discs everyday you won't notice a difference.

Even a 2 year old Core 2 Quad still gives a Phenom II a run for it's money.

Turbo Core is a joke compared to Intel's implenmation, cores are never shut off and voltage increases to ALL cores and 400~500mhz is barely any gain when the Phenom II archtecture wastes som many of it's cycles.

For Harddrives, I'ld recommend a WD Black Sata III for mass performance, If you must go Samsung, At least get a F3 and not the old F1s. If you're just running idle storage drives, a WD Green would be able to handle that fine.

The only fault in those AMDs would be that they love to milk PSUs even when idle, in comparison to what Intel has to offer, but to go back to a Core 2 Quad? The only one that has a better performance than the Phenom II is the Extreme, and even then it's on applications that require more clock than multitasking.

Regarding the RAM, that Asus M4A87TD/USB3, already supports DDR3@1600 without OC, it only needs OC for 2000MHz RAM.

There isn't any need for sound cards, because if you have some proper speakers, then they will have S/PDIF and/or HDMI connections and boards like the Asus M4A87TD/USB3 are already prepared for those. The board's HDMI only outputs 2.0 LPCM (Lossless PCM), but you can always buy an Ati 5xxx that already has 5.1 LPCM support through HDMI.

Also, AMD's support for USB 3.0 could be better implemented. From what I've read, most of their motherboards will need some firmware updates to make it properly work.

I never said C2Qs beat phenom IIs, but they run close enough for me to keep me from "upgrading" to anything in it's lineup. Or anything in Inte's current lineup either for that matter. Still waiting for 28~22nm hex/octa cores. The motherboard supporting the ram is not the same as the native ram controller built on to the CPU itself. I would only recommend AMD if one already has a AM2 or compatible motherboard, since Tea is starting out fresh, shooting for the i7 950 he listed himself would be logical, with the larger faster ram and SSD, though the choice of GPU is a bit, appalling.

Ramping up the voltage on ALL CORES would mean you'ld hit the TDP on AMD cpus much faster than the comparable intel. Intel shuts down the cores that you aren't using less cores running = cooler cpu. With AMD's TURBO you'ld be wasting power and generating more heat by ramping up the voltage on unused cores, it's either all or nothing on the AMD.

This chart is a bit older but it fully shows what I meant by giving it a run for it's money.


You're forgetting headphones mana, it's hard to connect S/PDIF or HDMI to headphones. I should also point out that going for ATI would forfeit your CUDA acceleration in Adobe CS and Nvidia's edge in multimedia.

Forgot about CUDA (which was a good crutch for my CPU when the GPU worked), and the headphones, even though I can connect mine to the A/V receiver. Regarding 3dsmax, I usually use comparisons of in-game performance to see if those numbers are actually worth anything and then we get stuff like this:



Where I have to pay several hundreds of euros more for differences from 1.6 to 7.4 more fps, on average. With that difference, I could invest on a better graphics card or on a SSD.

According to the chart the 920 @ 2.66 has the same fps as the x6 1090T which is priced at 260.99USD on newegg.
The 950 @ 3.06 would be much faster at 294.99USD.

Regarding Tea's original 3 choices, I'ld say that the 34bux difference in the cpus is justifiable for the better SSE4 extended, intel turbo boost and other features.

Now that you talk about it, I just checked my usual Portuguese store, and the prices really dropped since I helped a friend with his PC during the summer. The 920 is actually cheaper than the 1090T, 240€ against 258€. The 950 is 267€. And the motherboards are getting below the 175€ range... In that case, the i7 is the best choice.

EDIT: Regarding the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R, OCC loved it and didn't find any faults with it. Given the number of PCI-e slots, you can easily upgrade it with a X-Fi Titanium or a X-Fi Bravura.

EDIT2: That Antec Truepower New 550W is also a good choice from what I just read.

Oh FUCKING HELL I SHOULD KNOW BETTER BY NOW.

Reply died.

First off what's SSE4 and CUDA?

If, say, my budget was $1000 USD, what would I go for?

What kind of cooling? Air cooling should be fine right?

What's the GPU used for? I'm happy if I can HDMI out right now. My laptop doesn't support that.

Sound card will be nice if I have extra money then. I'll put it at the back of the list.

What kind of motherboards are there? I'd need to slot in a wireless network card too.

RAM speed? What kind of RAM is etc etc

I don't think SSD's are cheap enough for my budget.

I think, as Kureha has said, I might be going overboard. I ask my cousin too, (but she's a software junkie, and an iFag so..."just get macbook pro") and she said I probably wouldn't be needing an i7.

ughhhhhhh tired. sleep. study for exams later. Thanks guys.

If you want it to last 2 years, I would hardly call it "going overboard".

GPU = Graphics Processing Unit, a.k.a., the graphics card (part of it).

CUDA = Compute Unified Device Architecture. It's exclusive to NVIDIA graphics cards, and some software, like Photoshop CS (as Kureha pointed out), make use of it to support the CPU with the unused processing power of the GPU. Basically, if your graphics card isn't doing anything, it will help the CPU. Only some software makes use of it, but it helps with what you want to do. The GTX4xx series also outputs audio through HDMI.

With a budget of $1000, you can forget about the SSD, and I can hardly help you with the prices. You'll also have to sacrifice the second HDD, and the sound card.

1K is perfectly fine and you'll be able to get most of what we mentioned earlier besides the SSD and sound card.

Here's a random i7 build I slapped together in less than 5 mins.

Sounds nice. Thanks Kureha.

Oh no the picture's gone :0

***

Well, what do you guys do about those pesky HF or DF or FileSonic downloads that guys are using these days? I seriously despise it when they don't at least have MU or RS or MF. It just takes so long otherwise.

I look for a better sauce. If there isn't one, I wait like everyone else.

I usually use torrents. I hate all DDLs.

reuploaded the picture to another host site.