My new i7 build (and why)

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chphotos

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Cliff
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I've been contemplating an upgrade/rebuild of my PC as I've been increasingly frsustrated at long wait times in Lightrrom and Photoshop. After running a Photoshop speed test, which gave me time of 59 seconds for the test, I knew the time had come for an upgrade.

Current Spec

Antec Fusion HTPC case - to be reused
Antec 430 w power supply - to be reused
Asus P5E VM HDMI Main Board
Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 CPU
4 Gig Corsair DDR2 Memory
Scythe Mini Ninja Cooler
Panasonic DVD/CD Rewriter - to be reused
1tb WD Caviar Black Primary HD - to be reused
1tb WD Caviar Black 2nd HD - to be reused

New Build

To go with the bits I'm reusing, I've ordered the following:

Asus P8H67-M PRO Rev3, Intel H67 Main Board
Intel Core i7 2600K OEM CPU
8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 XMS3 Memory
Noctua NH-C12P SE14 Top-Down CPU Cooler

So, I now await the delivery tomorrow from Scan, via DPD, and then need to find some time to strip and rebuild.

Watch this space and wait for some pics in progress. :)
 
I'm on about 65 secs with my XP64 system...........

.......however, I'm retired so have bags of time !
 
chphotos said:
I've been contemplating an upgrade/rebuild of my PC as I've been increasingly frsustrated at long wait times in Lightrrom and Photoshop. After running a Photoshop speed test, which gave me time of 59 seconds for the test, I knew the time had come for an upgrade.

Current Spec

Asus P5E VM HDMI Main Board
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I think this is where the bottleneck was, integrated GFX chip. I'm using a Q6600 (core 2 quad) 2.4GHz OC'd to 3.33GHz (roughly) and I get a score of 20 seconds! There is an ATI 5770 GFX card and 8GB of ram in the system.

I've been thinking of upgrading to i7 but in my case waiting for AMD bulldozer parts might be worthwhile. If they get it right Intel prices should come down a bit more. :D
 
You could be right about the integrated graphics chip, but the Q6600 overclocked and with 8GB of ram should be faster than my E8200 system. But I think I could have lived with 20 seconds; I'm now hoping for around 15 secs.

I'm going to see how the new build performs, with integrated graphics also, but may consider a seperate graphics card as well. My aim though is to get a faster machine, but one that is still relatively quiet.
 
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I know what was said on the other thread and what Wiki says, but according to the spec and Asus docs, the H67 can be overlooked. So once the bits turn up, hopefully this morning, and the build is done, I'll be able to play.
 
chphotos said:
I know what was said on the other thread and what Wiki says, but according to the spec and Asus docs, the H67 can be overlooked.
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Yes, the GPU can be overclocked.... You can also overclock BCLK. This is the master 100MHz clock, but since the whole board clock tree is based on this, you'll find you can only up this by a couple of % before the board becomes unstable.

On the H6x boards, the turbo multiplier (which is what you use to get these beasts to really fly) is not changeable. In the P67 board docs (I picked the P8P67-M Pro board) on page 2-15 you have a section titled Turbo Ratio. This is where you overclock the CPU as this is the bit that limits the maximum frequency of each CPU on die. This section is missing from the H67 manual.

If you want to overclock the 2600K, you'll need a P67/Z68 based board.
 
The Core i5 processors seem to be pretty good, just tested mine and i got 16 seconds on the photoshop speed test with other things running. (4GB ram, 2.66GHz i5 overclocked to 3.5GHz) and they're cheaper too :D
 
That's a good result. The bits for my build have arrived, so need to get the strip down started.
 
neil_g said:
Had a very quick look the other night and it does look like my h61 does have BIOS options for clocking
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Yes, that'll be BCLK overclocking - moving the board base clock. As everything depends on BCLK, you'll find you can move it a few % up, but that's only a small overclock. The K processors have their turbo mode clock unlocked. On the H series boards, the ability to change the turbo clock multiplier above standard is disabled as the chipset doesn't have the required support for it. For example, my turbo mode clock is set to 43 (4.3GHz) which is a 13% overclock (3.8GHz->4.3GHz). Why 43 - it's because it was the first number I chose and it just worked ;)

Take a look at any P67 board document and it will have additional BIOS options over and above the H67/61 equivalent - all to do with Turbo Mode.

I really don't know why people aren't believing me here. It's in black and white all over the internet....
 
neil_g said:
I'm not dis believing you just saying. I'll clear it up later and tell you exactly what options they are.
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I'll be back at 3 then after the GP ;) :D
 
Well my new build is complete, almost. Little bit annoyed with myself as I didn't realise that the new board has an 8 pin 2nd power connector and my power supply only has a 4 pin molex. I've just ordered a 4 pin to 8 pin adapter lead so will have to wait until it arrives to complete it.

I'll post a pic up in a while to show the pc assembled.
 
neil_g said:
I wish, I'm at an event till 7 then up to midnight doing photos...:(

(Mind you cant complain this is what's paying for my new computer LOL)
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Excuses, excuses :p

chphotos said:
Well my new build is complete, almost. Little bit annoyed with myself as I didn't realise that the new board has an 8 pin 2nd power connector and my power supply only has a 4 pin molex. I've just ordered a 4 pin to 8 pin adapter lead so will have to wait until it arrives to complete it.

I'll post a pic up in a while to show the pc assembled.
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Looking forward to them :)
 
chphotos said:
Well my new build is complete, almost. Little bit annoyed with myself as I didn't realise that the new board has an 8 pin 2nd power connector and my power supply only has a 4 pin molex. I've just ordered a 4 pin to 8 pin adapter lead so will have to wait until it arrives to complete it.

I'll post a pic up in a while to show the pc assembled.
Click to expand...

check your manual for the motherboard, sometimes you can run the 8 pin from a 4 pin. does it have some holes blanked off?
 
I did read that somehwere, but all the holes are open. The PC is all built apart from that and back in position, so I'll just wait patiently for the lead.
 
Nice.. And what's the performance like? ;)
 
Need a 4 pin to 8 pin power lead adapter, which I've ordered today, so at the moment it's not running. Will update when the lead arrives.
 
A decent looking rig and should be a noticeable difference too!

Whats your plans for the bits left over in your old rig?
 
I've been kicking around the idea of building a WHS to centralise my storage and simplify my backup strategy. All I need to do this is to buy a case and a copy of WHS.
 
Thanks for that Neil; I saw your reply on another thread about NAS, which made me aware of it. Good old Microsoft.
 
BTW, I ran the radial blur benchmark here: http://ksimonian.com/Blog/2010/02/2...for-both-mac-pc-free-radial-blur-filter-test/

It lights up all cores to nearly 100% within a second, so is a good test for out and out speed (even if the result is totally useless!!). Have to say the Retouch Artists is probably the best mix as it contains some linear processing and some that can be split into tiles.

16.9 seconds.
 
arad85 said:
BTW, I ran the radial blur benchmark here: http://ksimonian.com/Blog/2010/02/2...for-both-mac-pc-free-radial-blur-filter-test/

It lights up all cores to nearly 100% within a second, so is a good test for out and out speed (even if the result is totally useless!!). Have to say the Retouch Artists is probably the best mix as it contains some linear processing and some that can be split into tiles.

16.9 seconds.
Click to expand...

thats the other test i was on about in my i7 thread except with a different photo.. (as per here)

my q9950 did that one in 9.5s
 
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I ran the test on my core 2 duo rig and the results are as follows -

CS5 32 bit - time of 1min 43 secs (slow)
CS5 64 bit - time of 1min 28 secs (not so slow)

It's not until you run an in depth action that you realise how slow/time consuming it can be.
All going well this year before fatherhood approaches I'm thinking about doing a PC upgrade. Will be good for a bit breathing space and plus, this machine I'm on is 6 years old now.
 
With those figures, you definitely need an upgrade!! But you're right, until you run a test such as that, you don't really know how slow your pc is.
 
neil_g said:
thats the other test i was on about in my i7 thread except with a different photo.. (as per here)

my q9950 did that one in 9.5s
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Somewhere between 4 and 5s here (not got an accurate stopwatch)...
 
arad85 said:
http://clubofone.com/speedtest/
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2mins 14 seconds

arad85 said:
BTW, I ran the radial blur benchmark here: http://ksimonian.com/Blog/2010/02/2...for-both-mac-pc-free-radial-blur-filter-test/

It lights up all cores to nearly 100% within a second, so is a good test for out and out speed (even if the result is totally useless!!). Have to say the Retouch Artists is probably the best mix as it contains some linear processing and some that can be split into tiles.

16.9 seconds.
Click to expand...

15mins 20 seconds.



OUCH!
 
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