ASUS P5K questions?

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Well, I can't say personally how well either overclock, however they probably provide virtually identical options as far as overclocking goes.

It's not very important, no. You may or may not notice a performance increase with a larger buffer. Likely only if you perform very repetitive tasks. What you should keep an eye on, is the actual media transfer rates of the drive which you can view on the manufacturers website. This thread might be useful to you: https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic102623.html.

 

[Doctor_hv]

ok, thanks, and for brand, WD or Seagate?

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Irrelevant. Compare specifications and buy whatever drive has the best price : performance. Although I'm not sure if Seagate has a 10,000 RPM drive readily available, from what I can remember their Barracuda 7200.11 had better timings than Western Digital's 7,200 RPM drives. I could be wrong, however.

 

[Doctor_hv]

Well, I did a little research for this P5K-E, and it seems good, and it is cheaper...
I'm going for a 7.200RPM drive, I don't mind the speed much, more I'm concerned is the noise... That's what I wanted to know, which is the most silent, Maxtor, Seagate or WD or this Seagate-Maxtor? Maxtor is the cheapest, but I don't want a tractor in my room...
Would you recommend 2 or 4GB of ram, or to go for 2 now and invest money in something else and upgrade later, since it's the cheapest of the components?
BTW, thank you a lot guys, you've helped me a lot.
only 2 more weeks and I am building my "beast"

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Run with 2GB of RAM for now.

I'm not sure about noise levels, I've always just tried to watch for media transfer rates. I care about speed first and noise second.

If I were you I would buy either a Hitachi Ultrastar or a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11.

 

[Doctor_hv]

So I finally went to start buying components for my new rig, and I went to buy the MB... Then the guy selling the stuff says that they don't hold any ASUS P5K in stock since they had several problems with it and quad core processors recently, so I can order it, but he wouldn't recommend it...

Has anyone here had similar problems or it is just them? I will probably go with E8400, so I shouldn't have any problems? I don't know for any similar board on our market that has a similar price-performance...

I will look for P5K-E, and if I don't find it, I'll order this P5K and hope that I won't run into troubles if I sometimes in future buy a quad...

and I asked this guy for the PSU, and he offered me some Powerline 430W, which looks nice, has all black cables and connectors and is quite heavy (he told me that the heavier PSU is, the better it is, any reason in this?!)...
There are also some Linkworld, MSI, Codegen and Fortron in the offering... Which of these is the best, since there are no others available here...

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

The E8400 won't give you any problems with the mobo.
Oh, and Fortron is the best brand out of all those PSUs.

 

[Doctor_hv]

But will the quad be a problem, since I intend to buy it sometimes, and I don't want to change everything again...
I suppose that 400W Fortron will be ok? Anyways, that's the only one available so I'll go for it...
Thanks...

 

[Doctor_hv]

I bought an XFX Alpha Dog 8800GT with 512MB and on the box it says that they recommend a 500W or greater PSU, but they used a QX9600 processor in the system, and since E8400 is much more energy efficient, 400W should be fine, right?

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

It depends on how much of the 400W really goes towards the +12V rail(s). You'd need the PSU to deliver about 28-30A on the +12V rails combined, which comes down to about 340-360W of power on that rail and the rest distributed on the other rails, which is difficult if the Fortron PSU in concern is not a ATX-400PNF, FSP400-60GNF, ATX-400PN or a ATX400-PAF. Those models deliver about 29-30A on the +12V rails combined, which will be sufficient for your card and CPU. Cross-check and see if it's one of those models, otherwise you're gonna have to order online.

 

[Doctor_hv]

Well, it says on their page that it is Fortron ATX-400PNF so that means it should be enough?

I was thinking of buying tomorrow an optical drive, I am going for a SATA drive, so which brand to choose, Philips, Samsung, NEC, LG or Asus?
As for HDD, I bought a 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11...and tomorrow I should get Asus P5K.

Will Kingston do well for RAM, I can also get takeMS, Apacer and A-Data, so for which to go?

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Yes, then it should be enough.
As for the DVD drive, anything from Samsung, Lite-On or LG will be good.
Lastly, Kingston, A-Data and Apacer are okay, in that order. I've never heard of takeMS, but I'm guessing it's value RAM, so I won't recommend it, especially if the others are available at the same price or the price difference is very minimal.

 

[Doctor_hv]

Thanks a lot man.
I don't quite understand why it takes so much power when on all the reviews I've read, a system with 8800GT in it takes 210-220W peak...
I am afraid will my peripherials work on this PSU then:
USB: keyboard, mouse, memory stick, bluetooth dongle, gamepad and webcam
PCI: dial-up modem and Skystar2 DVB-S card
Optional: another optical drive and USB scanner.
So, will at least these USB and PCI devices that I already have be able to work?

P.S. I see you are from UAE so shukran jazeelan ya Sadiqii

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

No problem mate, are you Arab by any chance?
As for the PSU, that much power draw might be a bit too much. I'd look for a bigger PSU if I was you in that case, because you'd need more power with all those peripherals IMO.

 

[Doctor_hv]

No man, I am Bosnian, but I study Arabic and English, though I wouldn't be able to discuss with someone in Arabic...
Well, I received P5K, bought Toshiba Samsung DVD-RW, and some other peripherials (floppy, modem, mouse) so I still have to buy E8400, 2GB of Kingston and a case with PSU...
but it seems like a problem now, I don't know what to go for...
I can go either with that Fortron or this
Linkworld ATX 650W (500W cont.) Thermal Control, 12 cm Fan, 24 Pin, Low Noise
or
Mercury 500W Silent Sata, PCIexp. AP5500
or this one
CHIEFTEC PSU ATX 450W Chieftec Delta 12cm Fan
but it is the most expensive one, so would any of the previous be able to run my system...and which would be the best, in order (since lots of times they don't have them in stock, and I would like to build it this weekend)
Thank you one more time.

 

[Doctor_hv]

My friend has system with Pentium Dual Core E2180 running at 3GHz, 3GB of RAM, 250GB HDD, 8800GS 384MB with additional power port for PCI (on MB), dial-up modem, skystar 2, bluetooth and he has some cheap 400W PSU...
So in case I don't get any answer, I will go for that Fortron 400W and may God help me that I don't make a mistake that will cost me 35EUR...

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

The E2180 is a low-power chip made for HTPCs, so I don't think you can compare it to a 45nm mainstream desktop CPU. But the E8400 should allow for some headroom...
Anyways, keep us updated.

 

[Doctor_hv]

Well, I don't know anymore what to do...
I'll go now to buy RAM, and I'll see with the guy at the store which PSU to buy, I may even go for this Chieftec, I think...
Anyway, I'll inform you what I've done and if I manage build it this weekend post some benchmark results...
Thnaks a lot

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

IMO, if going for a PSU other than the Fortron, go with the one with the highest total wattage, since it's atleast guaranteed not to overload.

 

[Doctor_hv]

Well, I've bought a FORTRON SAGA plus450P (it says on the box up to 500W) so I think this one should be fine...
I also bought 2 x 1GB of Kingston RAM (I've read that it's better to have two sticks, since PC can access the memory at the same time), and ordered E8400 for tomorrow, so with God's help, I'll build it tomorrow...

 

[Doctor_hv]

I have a problem!
I've built the rig, powered on the system, everything works fine, even MB recognizes CPU without BIOS update, but when I tried to install Vista, bang, a problem...
It does not recognize my HDD and I cannot install OS on it... BIOS detects it but not the OS... I've taken it to my friend, and his PC recognizes it in BIOS, and when we loaded Windows XP, it found new drive, and it is there in the Device Manager, but there is no drive in My Computer... In Safely remove devices, there is my friend's disk and drives E:, C: written, but next to mine, there is nothing, just the model number.
When I try to boot from it, computer simply restarts...
I gave it to another friend before I built my system and his PC recognized it, he made two partitions 146GB and the rest on the second to which he copied some things for me that I wouldn't have to download on dial-up.
XP installation recognizes the disk, but only as 135GB and it formats it and copies the installation files and when it restarts, nothing, all the same, it starts installation again...
Is there anything I could try to do, or should I return it to the shop and ask for a new one?

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Great job, glad it worked out for you.
As for the HDD, it's better to just return it and get a new one. It'd be easier than wasting your time trying to salvage a defective one.

 

[Doctor_hv]

Thank God, I've made it... well, I'm writing this from my new PC...
I managed to make it work, installed Vista 64bit, but I am not quite impressed with performance... I got 5.6 on Vista experience (CPU 5.7, RAM 5.6, rest 5.9), and I tried to play Crysis, without patches and with the drivers that came on CD with card (since all those things were on the other partition, and all is gone) and I barely got average 25fps on 1440x900 DX10 High settings...
I also experience occasional slowdowns when working in Windows, but I guess it's just until it all gets to work together...
Anyway, thanks for your help, I hope I'll be able to help other people on this forum who need help...

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Vista SP1, newer drivers and the latest patch for Crysis should fix those issues. Did you try other games though? UT3 should be a breeze to run at that resolution IMO.
Anyways, glad to know it worked out well and good luck to you. Enjoy your new PC!

 

[Doctor_hv]

Well, I tried NFS Pro Street, and it goes some 50fps with everything on the maximum, and Call of Duty 4 is locked at 60fps and falls sometimes to 55, with everything maxed out... and some 5-6 explorer windows and kaspersky update in the background running... I guess it's Crysis being ahead of time, not my computer that's problem...
Asus PC Probe shows CPU temperature 35 at startup, and after playing it is 60 (is it high?) and MB temperature is constant at 41-42, while CPU fan spins 2500-2700...