New computer configuration

[DKT27]

Nice choice. I got strict no from my engineer about Gigabyte for the support issues otherwise gigabyte was my first choice when I started thinking about buying a new computer.

[LeetPirate]

I just noticed on the Asus site that the audio is VIA® VT1828S 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC. I was all happy that I'm getting realtek. But no it's VIA. Is VIA anywhere good, at least for audio?

And cooler master extreme is just 70% efficiency at normal. So I'll get only 350W from 500W PSU.

Extreme Power calculator says I'll need 500W power, so is it also counting efficiency or the total power?

Realtek is always bottom of any list, VIA might be a little better but the difference is minimal, nothing even noticeable. All you need to know is the SNR is above 95 and you will get decent sound. You won't get audiophile quality from onboard sound. ASUS has made Xonar sound cards for those who prefer superior hardware and sound quality. The thing is don't worry about it, unless you own Audiophile speakers or headphones it makes no sense buying high end sound cards.

You have the power supply calculations wrong, a 500W power supply @ 70% efficiency means it can output 500W but it will take 715W to give out that 500W. Bear in mind that almost every power supply has highest efficiency at 50% load. So I estimate your pc to only use around 200W max therefore that 500W power supply is good enough, you could even get a 430W power supply if you want. It would be better if you could afford a power supply that is 80 plus certified and has active power factor correction (APFC).

[DKT27]

Thanks for the info Leet. Again. When you guys post. It clears a lot of things.

I don't think I could afford 80% efficiency PSU. :(

I'll post again what I'm may well fixed to go for.

Intel i5-750

Asus P7P55D

Kingston DDR3 2GB X 2.

WD or Seagate 500GB Sata HDD

ATI Radoen HD 5450 (5570 is not available yet, my guess will take more 1 month)

Sony or HP DVD Writer

Cooler Master Elite 310 (it will have one 120RPM fan)

Cooler Master Extreme 500W or 600W

Logitech Multimedia Keyboard and Optical Mouse.

Anything else?

In future I may well go for a USB 3 PCI-E card if needed.

Now what you say, this is the power calculator. Please tell me what to do. 500W or 600W

[Bizarre™]

@DKT27:

CPU: It's your choice, I can only advice proper cooling

MOBO: Asus

RAM: HyperX Kingston or Corsair Gaming Edition

HDD: Anything will do, I want to suggest Fujitsu but it's for mobile

GPU: It's your choice

PSU: I suggest you research the parts you want to buy and calculate the total power consumption here

[LeetPirate]

Thanks for the info Leet. Again. When you guys post. It clears a lot of things.

I don't think I could afford 80% efficiency PSU. :(

I'll post again what I'm may well fixed to go for.

Intel i5-750

Asus P7P55D

Kingston DDR3 2GB X 2.

WD or Seagate 500GB Sata HDD

ATI Radoen HD 5450 (5570 is not available yet, my guess will take more 1 month)

Sony or HP DVD Writer

Cooler Master Elite 310 (it will have one 120RPM fan)

Cooler Master Extreme 500W or 600W

Logitech Multimedia Keyboard and Optical Mouse.

Anything else?

In future I may well go for a USB 3 PCI-E card if needed.

Now what you say, this is the power calculator. Please tell me what to do. 500W or 600W

Could not possibly use more than 200W typically and rarely 250W max at extreme cases. 500W power supply is fine.

[DKT27]

Hmm. :think:

I forgot to mention. I'll go for Kingston ValueRAM not HyperX. :(

Can you guys locate a dual channel Kingston DDR3 ValueRAM 2GB? The most I've seen online is triple channel.

[box]

http://www.pcper.com/hwlb.php

What is the PC Perspective HW Leaderboard? The PC Perspective Hardware Leaderboard is going to become the first place you look to find the components that will make up your next computer. On this page you will find our editor's combined opinions on the best systems you can build based on three different budgets. You can expand each of the systems (High End, Mid-Range and Budget) to show you all the components that we believe represent the best products in their price ranges.

Why a Leaderboard? We like the idea of a Leaderboard because it presents a no non-sense way of looking at the best hardware available. On this page, you won't find paragraph after paragraph telling you why this processor is better than that processor. Instead you'll find the quick and dirty on our editor's choices for the best hardware you can get. No beating around the bush here. Of course, if you still want to get our full and detailed opinions on various hardware, you can look through our reviews page. But the HW Leaderboard is going to give you our final decisions in one quick look.

I love PC Perspective and I subscribed to the podcast.

[DKT27]

Thanx box. I'll look into it. :)

[*dcs18]

Hmm. :think:

I forgot to mention. I'll go for Kingston ValueRAM not HyperX. :(

Can you guys locate a dual channel Kingston DDR3 ValueRAM 2GB? The most I've seen online is triple channel.

;) For informational purpose only:-

[DKT27]

Any 2GB X 2 will work as dual channel memory or I'll have to specially buy one specifically? :unsure:

[LeetPirate]

Any 2GB X 2 will work as dual channel memory or I'll have to specially buy one specifically? :unsure:

Matched speed and capacity should do it. Problem is brands like Kingston just buy the cheapest ram chips they can find and slap it on a ram module so if you buy one today you might get hyundai ram chips, tomorrow you might get samsung or elpida ram chips even though it is the same exact kingston item and model number. If you are lucky they will still give you dual channel but it is not guaranteed. This is why it might be better to buy from a more consistent manufacturer, example Micron (aka Crucial), you know for sure they make their own ram chips so you will always get consistent performance.

Oops I didn't read your question correctly, I thought you meant you wanted to buy a 2GB stick for now and later buy another one to dual channel it. ^_^ The answer to your question is yes, most kits come with a matched pair from the same stock so they will dual channel just fine.

[DKT27]

The thing is. I visited Kingston's website and most of the DDR3 RAMs had triple channel written next to it.

If I buy same model, same speed, no matter if they say anything about double channel or triple channel, they will work double channel right?

[DKT27]

I've finalized the config today. Will get it on late monday finally. And will start from tuesday.

The change is, ATI 5450 512MB is out of stock so I'll have to go with 1GB. I feel sad because it will take 1GB from my normal RAM if I'm not wrong. So I'll only get 3GB of normal RAM, out of 4GB. :unsure:

[mara-]

I've finalized the config today. Will get it on late monday finally. And will start from tuesday.

The change is, ATI 5450 512MB is out of stock so I'll have to go with 1GB. I feel sad because it will take 1GB from my normal RAM if I'm not wrong. So I'll only get 3GB of normal RAM, out of 4GB. :unsure:

Someone will need to confirm what I'll say because I'm not sure, but if you install 64-bit system I think you will have all 4GB available.

Cheers ;)

[HX1]

Regardless at some point you can upgrade your RAM... Windows 7 will allow you to add I think its 8 or 16 GB..

[LeetPirate]

I've finalized the config today. Will get it on late monday finally. And will start from tuesday.

The change is, ATI 5450 512MB is out of stock so I'll have to go with 1GB. I feel sad because it will take 1GB from my normal RAM if I'm not wrong. So I'll only get 3GB of normal RAM, out of 4GB. :unsure:

No, the card comes with 1GB of its own memory, GDDR5 or GDDR4, has nothing to do with your normal ram. Only onboard GPU uses normal RAM.

[shought]

I've finalized the config today. Will get it on late monday finally. And will start from tuesday.

The change is, ATI 5450 512MB is out of stock so I'll have to go with 1GB. I feel sad because it will take 1GB from my normal RAM if I'm not wrong. So I'll only get 3GB of normal RAM, out of 4GB. :unsure:

No, the card comes with 1GB of its own memory, GDDR5 or GDDR4, has nothing to do with your normal ram. Only onboard GPU uses normal RAM.

I'll confirm that ;)

[DKT27]

Sure? Not even few even 256MB? I heard something about AGP aperture size? I know about it having it's own memory, but doesn't it take any memory from normal RAM?

BTW it would be DDR2/DDR3. The graphics card.

[WaKa WaKa]

The AGP aperture size its only for AGP card. Yours is PCI-E.

About the 4GB...

* A 32 bit OS can only use 4GB of memory total, that means if you have 4GB of ram and your graphic card has 1GB of ram, you have a total of 5GB of memory.

* Out of that 5GB of memory, you can only use 4GB total. 1GB the graphic card will take up, so now the 32bit OS can only use 3GB.

* Enabling PAE, will limit to the OS to 2GB total. What PAE does is dedicate 2GB to OS and the other 2GB to anything other then the OS. Apparently some people don't understand how PAE works and think that some how it can magically make a 32bit XP use more then 4GB, which is impossible, so after noticing my explanation is not getting through, I thought a visual from MS itself might help sink it in, you can see it here: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx

* Vista 32bit can see only 3.5GB of ram total. The new sp1 only reports how much memory you have intalled, not how much memory you can use.

If you want all the 4GB use a 64 bit OS

Complete explanation:

Dude, Where's My 4 Gigabytes of RAM?

Memory Limits for Windows Releases

Maximum Memory in 32-bit Windows Vista

[DKT27]

Thanx for the info Waka. I wonder why my friend got(gets) only 3GB reported when he has 4GB and x64. I hope he (implague) replies if there's any update about it.

But yea I've already downloaded Windows 7 x64 untouched. I'm knowing about the x32 vs x64 thingy quite more now. Have asked a lot in here. :)

[HX1]

Might wanna look into that a little farther too because I think that along with the limited Core usage changed with Windows 7..

Like whats mentioned here .. http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=4254

[WaKa WaKa]

If he has 64 bit OS and 4GB I'm pretty sure he see the FULL 4GB.

The limit of ram in Windows 7 Ultimate 64bits its 192 GB :lol:

Only Windows Server 2008 can use mora than 4GB (64GB max) in 32 bit. But they need to activate PAE.

The others OS are designed to use a maximum of 4GB.

[DKT27]

I had myself checked everything on his PC from Teamviewer. He had vista x64(ultimate i guess) at that time, and now Windows 7. Has a Nvidia GT 9800 or similar card and he got only 3.3 or something reported. It did show 4GB but below it was 3.3 or something. Later I read somewhere that his graphics card (pci) would be taking the RAM. :unsure:

[WaKa WaKa]

The problem is in the MOBO/BIOS. He need to change in the BIOS this " Enable Memory Mapping" (or something like that)

This are a few quotes...

haha, gues what this is a known issue by microsoft and a very commo

issue with windows 7. I am having the same issue, upgrade from vist

(wich read all 6 gigs of my ram) to win 7 64bit wich sees all 6 gigs bu

but only considers 3.5 gigs usuable. Yup thats right Windows 7 64 Bi

sometimes just cant get past that 3.5 gig memory limit.

After spending a week dealing with microsoft tech support on the phon

they considerd this issue unresolved and claim the are currently workin

on an update to fix it.

according to the tech guy from microsoft, it is an issue with the bio

and the motherboard. all of you that are having this problem, it i

becuase something in windows 7 does not fully support either your mothe

board or your bios or both. The memory mapping will do you no good.

Unless you go out and buy the most latest motherboard, processor an

ram, you are going to continue to have this issue.* <-- Directly fro

microsoft tech support.

To the guy that posted this "It also depends on exactly which versio

of the board you have. There

are 3 editions of the PT880 Pro-A7 and the specs for 2 of them is only

2GB of RAM is supported. Now, even though they say only 2GB is

supported you may realize a bit more than that but not all 4GB. Dell

says my 1501 laptop only supports 2GB. With 4GB in the laptop Dell has

it configured so that Win 7 only sees 2.25GB."

Gues what? They lied to you. Their hardware is not fully compatibl

with windows 7. That is why it only sees 2.25 gb.

So... since I have installed windows 7 64 bit, I have lost over half o

my ram (3.5gigs Unusable), I have lost the ability to print on any o

the 20 printers at my home and office (there are as of yet no driver

for windows 7 64 bit on most printers), oh yeah, and the latest window

update killed microsoft office.

Check out this screen shot of windows 7 64bit not passing the 3.5 gi

memory limit http://www.rustycage.net/sysinfo.jpg

EPIC FAIL!!!

*I want my money back.

Bob Costello;4680658 Wrote:

> Upgraded to Windows7 64 bit from Vista 32 bit. Added RAM to 5GB

> (reason

> I upgraded to 64 bit was to get around the 3GB 32 bit limitation.) Now

> system shows 5GB but only 3.3GB available for use. Task manager shows

> 5.12GB installed, 3.326GB available or cached and 1.794GB "hardware

> reserved"(?). Is this 1.794 not available for software? If not, how

> to

> make it available for software?

>

> I really wanted the performance improvement of 64 bit and increased

> RAM.

> How do I get Windows7 64 bit to utilize the full 5 GB?

>

> System is HP running 64 capable 2.13 hz dual core Intel.

I had such problem: Windows7 64 bit showed what 4Gb RAM installed but

3Gb usadge. Bios showed all 4Gb of RAM. The next solution treats this

problem:

1. If BIOS does't show all installed memory then enable MEMORY REMAP

function.

2. If BIOS show all installed memory then check

a) MSCONFIG.EXE-->Boot-->Advanced options: disable checkbox maximum

memory (if checkbox disable yet then enable it, reboot system and

after

that disable again (i know what it looks like "magic" but it

work!)

B) Reboot computer and upgrade performance raiting.

PS: Sorry for my English and best wishes from Russia.

[DKT27]

Wow. Thanx Waka. I will surely notify him about this post. :)

It always, I say it always clears many doubts after asking here. :)

Just one more tension I did order kingston RAM. But read many reviews that it's not one of the great. Now this troubles me a lot. I don't want a highend brand or wanna overclock. Are they just overly harsh on it, the reviewers?

Is it good enough to do the job for me? :unsure: