> Dear All,
>
> I'm thinking of building a new system, which I do relatively rarely. Since my
> kids are getting older, it would probably be good if it could play games now
> and in the future. I'm wondering if anyone who's looked into components
> recently has any advice.
>
> I've done some quick searches online and found recommendations for, say,
> Intel Core i5-2500K processor and NVidea GTX 560 ti which seemed to be a good
> balance between price and power for the range that I'm looking in. I haven't
> gotten my brain around the choice of motherboards yet.
>
> Any recommendations out there for these or other components, either good
> brands or specific models? I'd also be interested in anyone who's had a good
> experience with companies that will do the assembly for you---I like the
> assembly, but it's hard with two kids and not a lot of time when they're not
> awake.
>
> I've always found NVidea more stable than ATI in Linux, but I don't know if
> that's true any more---I'd be interested in whether anyone had recent
> experience.
If I had a choice, I would go with Intel Integrated Graphics. It always worked
flawlessly since three years ago (with all fancy graphics acceleration
capabilities). ATi seems better than NVidia but is still a hassle when it comes
to multi monitors and hot plugging support (which might be less of a problem
with your desktop, as it's a fire-and-forget thing).
The new Sandy Bridge has the GPU built-in and you can always plug a card in
later if you find the Intel Graphics too weak so I don't see any reason to buy
a discrete graphics card at the beginning unless you want to do some CUDA
calculation that requires a NVidia card.
If you're looking for processors, this link might be helpful for
you.http://ark.intel.com/products/family/59134
For the processor, I am currently having a 2100T
(http://ark.intel.com/products/53423) which has the thermal design of 35 Watts.
For i processors: All the T models consumes about 1/3 what a normal processor
in the same range does, which reduces heat, fan size, and noise and is not much
more expensive, but can neither overclock nor have VT directed IO. All the K
models can over clock but doesn't have Virtualization for directed I/O which
can reduce your performance when you run virtualization and want the virtual
machine to use physical I/O devices directly (increased performance?). All the
naked model can't overclock but has VT directed IO.
My i3 is plenty fast for my Android compilation (which totaling about 6GB in
code, and the whole thing compiles in < 2hrs for the first time, and 20 minutes
for subsequent compilations). I *personally* think that slower processor
doesn't have that much of an impact compared to a slower hard drive (SSD all
the way. I have an Intel SSD which served me well so far... almost 2 years!).
My motherboard is the cheapest one I could find on Newegg with decent ratings
and solid caps/whatever capacitors that they advertise that works with Sandy
Bridge, it seems like it's ASUS branded.
>
>
> --
> Scott Thatcher
> Associate Professor of Mathematics
> Truman State University
> thatc...@truman.edu
