CoffeeFiend Posted December 20, 2008 Share Posted December 20, 2008 (edited) On price alone maybe... But the choice of parts though :/Shiny fast quad core, but real low on memory -- that'll way more than offset whatever speed gains the quad may bring, and DDR3 is expensive stuff too Slow HD (19ms seek times on a HDTune bench, making it dead last in the whole bench!) Cheap case...Cheap PSU too Single 12v rail with 30A total (a lower wattage Corsair gets a solid 10A more -- hell, my 350W Seasonics can do 90% of that, assuming the Ultra actually manages to live up to its label which is actually quite unlikely); not 80 plus (never actually hits 80%, more like 75%), looks like an old design (more amps on the 5v rail than the 12v one?), etc. Can't say I've been impressed much by previous Ultra PSU reviews (not in a good way anyhow) -- and that's one of their "fancy" modular ones... Just a quick excerpt from that review:Make a note to stay as far away from this flaming hunk of crap as you possibly can. If not, we highly suggest you make sure and have a fire extinguisher handy.I'll stop here.Within $50 you could get way better IMO, e.g. a plain old Q9600 or even a Duo, along with 4x2GB of fast DDR2, better motherboard, WD AAKS drive and quality parts overall (good PSU, case with good airflow). Edited December 20, 2008 by crahak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cluberti Posted December 20, 2008 Share Posted December 20, 2008 Well, that machine will run fine for you. However, I'd make sure to bump up the memory and get rid of that god-awful hard drive they put in there with something faster (as crahak mentioned - it's really, REALLY slow). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceez Posted December 21, 2008 Author Share Posted December 21, 2008 wow i am amazed of how much you guys know about specs, i dont know how you guys memorize all this stuff but I am impressed and I thank you all for your input.I am not a gamer so i think i'll be fine with that 500gigger (maybe my 350gigger is faster, i'll post what I have later ). the 2gigs or ram should be fine for now but I know that I will soon upgrade that puppy. As long as I can finally play by br discs and browse the net i'll be fine! thanks guys Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puntoMX Posted December 22, 2008 Share Posted December 22, 2008 ... get rid of that god-awful hard drive they put in there with something faster (as crahak mentioned - it's really, REALLY slow).Well, those drives aren´t that bad, they might not be the fastest but they are not much behind on the WD 640GB drives either, plus they are reliable.EDIT: Access time shows high indeed, 18.7ms, burst 124.8MB/s, and AVG 78.5MB/s... this is on HD Tune but there should be better programs, any tips? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrankE9999 Posted December 23, 2008 Share Posted December 23, 2008 Speaking of real-world, I'm running Vista Ultimate SP1 x64 on a Q9550 Core2Quad on an Asus P5Q Deluxe with 8GB RAM, an ATI Radeon 3650 (silent HIS), and some 320GB HDDs as an HTPC and MCE box and it chews through everything I throw at it. And, to boot, it's just as fast in about every benchmark as an i7 920 (except for memory-bound apps, where the i7 will perform far better due to the on-die controller).Drop the following into a nice case with a decent PSU and a BR drive, and it should run very well under XP or Vista:Asus P5Q Deluxe - $190:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813131297Intel Core2Quad Q9550 - $320:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115041G.Skill 8GB Kit (4GB x 2) - $110:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820231151HIS ATI Radeon 3650 512MB DDR3 (silent) - $110:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814161220WD Caviar WD3200AAKS 320GB HDD - $55 (x4 = $220):http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136074Total, $950USDThis seems like overkill for a HTPC. The MSI Media Live DIVA 5.1 AM2+/AM2 AMD 780M HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail is about $170 after rebate. A AMD Phenom 9350e Agena 2.0GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 2MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 65W Quad-Core Processor - Retail is also about $170. With this morherboard and processor you don't need a video or sound card.http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/blogs/st...htpc-video.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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