my athlon xp is starting to feel it's age, after many years of faithful use... so i'm looking at pricing out a new machine to replace it.

i was originally thinking a c2q would meet my needs, but since the core-i# series cpu's are coming out more and more, i'm wondering if an i5 is a better long-term solution.

i don't need a blistering new video card, and i probably don't need more than one video card, but i would prefer nvidia over ati for various reasons. has to have dvi outputs though, for connection to a tv.

the rest i don't really care about, ram is dirt cheap these days, and the kingwin power supplies i bought for my i7 server and prescott PVR are working just great, even though probably don't need 600W power supplies. i could stand to buy a case, but i could always recycle the one housing the athlon right now.

here's a parts list i was working on last week.

can anyone see potential problems with that setup? thanks

1) get the i5-760 its just a tiny bit more expensive and also a tiny bit faster ie i think overall its worth it
2) the gts250 is a over 3 year old card now so avoid it (i think weve been over this before)
3) except for those 16 graphics card pcie lanes all other pcie lanes in p55 boards are effectively pcie 1.0 spec which is a serious bottleneck for sata 6 and usb 3 so make sure each of these controllers is connected to at least 2 lanes on the board (i think asus is currently the only board manufacturer that offers a 2*2 => 4 lane setup for usb3 and sata6)

Quote from Shotglass :

1) get the i5-760 its just a tiny bit more expensive and also a tiny bit faster ie i think overall its worth it

i probably won't need the extra 133mhz, but i'll think about it.

Quote from Shotglass :

2) the gts250 is a over 3 year old card now so avoid it (i think weve been over this before)

yeah, we did on irc...

bean0 thinks i should get the gtx 460.

Quote from Shotglass :

3) except for those 16 graphics card pcie lanes all other pcie lanes in p55 boards are effectively pcie 1.0 spec which is a serious bottleneck for sata 6 and usb 3 so make sure each of these controllers is connected to at least 2 lanes on the board (i think asus is currently the only board manufacturer that offers a 2*2 => 4 lane setup for usb3 and sata6)

i have no plans for sata6 or usb3... the g25 is a usb2 device, and that's probably all that's going to be plugged into it.

keep the ideas flowing though...

Quote from bunder9999 :

i probably won't need the extra 133mhz, but i'll think about it.

i havent checked on newegg but in germany the price difference is about 5€ so theres really no reason to go for the older model

Quote :

bean0 thinks i should get the gtx 460.

my advice would still be the 5770
if you can live with a little less performance the 450 is a reasonable choice
and if you want to pay a fair bit more you can go for a 460 (i think its the best choice currently but i was given the impression that it costs more than youre willing to pay)

Quote :

i have no plans for sata6 or usb3... the g25 is a usb2 device, and that's probably all that's going to be plugged into it.

then why are you planning on paying the 30-50$ price premium for a board with both?

Quote from bunder9999 :

bean0 thinks i should get the gtx 260.

I'm sure I said 460

Quote from Shotglass :

then why are you planning on paying the 30-50$ price premium for a board with both?

because i think it was the cheapest of msi boards that supported the processor...

for years i swore on asus, but they always had the reputation of being expensive. plus, the asus board in my prescott has blown up once, causing me to replace it. add to that, that the athlon's asus motherboard has bulging capacitors on it.

msi's boards on the other hand, appear to have increased in quality since the early-00's... the one in my i7 is running great. (of course, 1 month isn't much of a testing time, but they claim to be military grade)

i'd prefer to stay away from the really budget motherboard brands.

Quote from Bean0 :

I'm sure I said 460

oops, my mistake.

Quote from bunder9999 :

because i think it was the cheapest of msi boards that supported the processor...

newegg appears to be rather expensive in general
and doesnt offer you much choice either
here that msi board you chose is around 110€ and you can pick up a similar board without the usb and sata for ~80
the cheapest p55 board from msi would be ~90
in other words if shop around a bit more before buying that board

On the ATi (AMD) vs nVidia issue if you're planning to run linux on it (which I assume you are...) I'm pretty sure nVidia are still better than ATi (AMD) in terms of linux support (though they've been improving recently). Could be worth putting more research into that issue.

USB2.0 vs USB3.0 is interesting. USB3.0 will probably be very handy for doing backup to external HDD in the future. At the moment USB2.0 is only really good for 25-30MB/sec continuous transfer whereas USB3.0 should be able to max out the hard drive / enclosure limitations. Something else that could be worth looking into if you're going to be backing up a large-ish HDD regularly.

Quote from amp88 :

On the ATi (AMD) vs nVidia issue if you're planning to run linux on it (which I assume you are...) I'm pretty sure nVidia are still better than ATi (AMD) in terms of linux support (though they've been improving recently). Could be worth putting more research into that issue.

haven't decided... it depends on how development of a game goes.

Quote from amp88 :

USB2.0 vs USB3.0 is interesting. USB3.0 will probably be very handy for doing backup to external HDD in the future. At the moment USB2.0 is only really good for 25-30MB/sec continuous transfer whereas USB3.0 should be able to max out the hard drive / enclosure limitations. Something else that could be worth looking into if you're going to be backing up a large-ish HDD regularly.

wasn't planning on it, but there's always esata as well... but my backups are usually done over the network, to disk, so chances are i won't need them either.

i think this is more of a case of "i just need a machine", than anything. hell, the motherboard in my i7 is micro-atx.

Quote from bunder9999 :

wasn't planning on it, but there's always esata as well... but my backups are usually done over the network, to disk, so chances are i won't need them either.

cant speak for everyone but i transfer large files via usb keys on an almost daily basis
anything more than the dismal ~10mb/s write i get from my current one (well at least its tiny) or the rubbish 100mbit network on my eee would be highly appreciated which is why i bought one of the asus usb3 and sata6 cards with bridge chip a while ago... unfortunately no one has thus far released any usb stick that is both fast affordable and reasonably small

the point im trying to make is to future proof your pc i suggest you either buy a mainboard with ubs3 ports or one that has a pcie 4x slot (preferably one thats a long way away from the 16x)