New PC

[Relayer]

Hi guys,
Just got my 1st "not off the rack" PC. Here's the specs.

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Gigabyte GA-X38-DS4
G.SKILL 4GB kit (2GB x 2) DDR2-800 (PC-6400) CL4-4-4-12
MSI RX3870-T2D512E-OC Radeon HD3870 512MB PCI-E
Seagate SATAII 320GB 16MB 3GB/S HDD
Liteon 20X SATA Dual DVD RW
SILVERSTONE SST-TJ04 Black Aluminum ATX Full Tow
ACBEL 510 8CM FAN OEM Power Supply

The E8400 is out of stock (big surprise there). So, Extremepc.co.nz was gracious enough to loan me an E8200 until the E8400 arrives. I thought they deserve a plug for there service. Not too many places would let you borrow a top notch processor like that. Not like E8200s are in plentiful supply either.

I was wondering what free benchmark type utilities I can DL to check the overall operation of the system. Seems fast as hell to me, but I'm coming from an old system. Just want to check and see if everything is up to par.

Thanks for your time.

 

[sbrehm72255]

There a list of several different benchmarks in the OC'ing thread and they're all free or have free versions.

Awesome rig by the way, should serve you well for sometime to come. Never heard of the PSU before though, it could be the weakest part of the whole system.

By the way, Welcome To The Forums..................

 

[Kougar]

Welcome Relayer!

That's a very sweet looking rig you've got going there. Not heard of that site before, but I've never heard of any sites ever doing something like that either!

For stability checking I would suggest Prime95 http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm It features a torture test that checks for overall stability, lots of guides on how to use it out there.

Memtest is a good app for checking the RAM stability, always a good idea on new builds. I am not to familiar with this version, but it should work just as well as the Memtest86+ v2.01 that you would have to boot the system into to use. http://hcidesign.com/memtest/

 

[Greg King]

Hi guys,
Just got my 1st "not off the rack" PC. Here's the specs.

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Gigabyte GA-X38-DS4
G.SKILL 4GB kit (2GB x 2) DDR2-800 (PC-6400) CL4-4-4-12
MSI RX3870-T2D512E-OC Radeon HD3870 512MB PCI-E
Seagate SATAII 320GB 16MB 3GB/S HDD
Liteon 20X SATA Dual DVD RW
SILVERSTONE SST-TJ04 Black Aluminum ATX Full Tow
ACBEL 510 8CM FAN OEM Power Supply

The E8400 is out of stock (big surprise there). So, Extremepc.co.nz was gracious enough to loan me an E8200 until the E8400 arrives. I thought they deserve a plug for there service. Not too many places would let you borrow a top notch processor like that. Not like E8200s are in plentiful supply either.

I was wondering what free benchmark type utilities I can DL to check the overall operation of the system. Seems fast as hell to me, but I'm coming from an old system. Just want to check and see if everything is up to par.

Thanks for your time.

Relayer, welcome to the forums!

Thats a good looking PC you have there. Sounds like Extremepc.co.nz deserves more than a shout out for being so nice to their customers. I have never heard of anyone doing that... especially for hardware that could be fried by the users (not that you would) by a bad overclock. Kudos to them.

I can understand your predicament too. Coming from an older PC, anything seems fast but if you want to get a good idea about system performance, grab PC Mark 05, or Vantage if it's available in demo form, and 3D Mark 06. As much as I don't care for those benchmarks as a whole, they do offer a good comparison to other PCs as everyone and their brother upload their scores into the database so you can easily see how your PC stacks up against the rest.

Again, welcome to the forums. We hope you stick around. Good luck with that PC too!

 

[Rob Williams]

I agree with the rest... a company loaning out a CPU like that is incredible. Kudos to them.

Welcome to the forums, don't hesitate to hang out and ask questions!

 

[Relayer]

Thanks for the warm welcome guys. I found you here after reading a hardware review while I was shopping for my PC. I was very impressed with the review and came to the forums here to read the responses. I was just as impressed with everything here. Great forums!

As far as the loaner processor goes... Yeah, I'm impressed too. I moved from the states to NZ about 1.5 years ago. Very down to earth here. While some things seem like "Bazarro World" to me, I'm adapting. The place I work at loans stuff to customers all of the time too. I think it's a practice that started because of the relative isolation of NZ. Lots of things get delayed and back ordered.

I'll try those apps. Being a C4D user, I've already run "Cinebench 10".

CINEBENCH R10
****************************************************

Tester : Rod

Processor : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8200 @ 2.66GHz
MHz : 2.66
Number of CPUs : 2
Operating System : WINDOWS 32 BIT 5.1.2600

Graphics Card : ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series
Resolution : 1024 x 768
Color Depth : 32 bit

****************************************************

Rendering (Single CPU): 2926 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 5545 CB-CPU

Multiprocessor Speedup: 1.90

Shading (OpenGL Standard) : 5369 CB-GFX


****************************************************
Not great numbers for the vid card. I'm going to have to see what's up there. Probably driver issues. I guess that I should expect that from ATI, unfortunately. The specs for their hardware seems so good though, DDR4 RAM, etc... lol I'll have to see if I can get it straightened out. Maybe I can find some better drivers?

I'd like to give 2 thumbs up to the Silverstone SST-TJ04 case. The pics don't do it justice, as far as it's looks go. While it is understated, the finish is great and the styling is quite elegant, really. It reminds me of the 1980's styling of high end audio gear.
It came with a front and rear fan. The reviews I've seen say that the rear fan is optional. They've also added the, almost required, right side window. The window's large and takes up most of the side of the case. Gives a good view. Lots of connectors (4 USB 2.0 up front) and plenty of slots for expansion. All of this for around $100.00.

 

[werty316]

Nice set of parts you chose.

Are you planning on overclocking that E8200? I'm curious how well it does.

Theres plenty of apps you can get like SuperPI and Sandra for example.

 

[Relayer]

Tried the Omega drivers and the results were worse. Installed 8.3 and got a much better result. The Drivers that came with the card are mysteriously labeled 8.4. I'm assuming that has nothing to do with ATI's own numbers and correspond to MSI's naming protocals? The MSI included drivers are from Nov. ATI's 8.3 drivers are Mar. They seem to work quite a bit better.

CINEBENCH R10
****************************************************

Tester : Rod

Processor : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8200 @ 2.66GHz
MHz : 2.66
Number of CPUs : 2
Operating System : WINDOWS 32 BIT 5.1.2600

Graphics Card : ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series
Resolution : 1024 x 768 @ 75hz
Color Depth : 32 bit

****************************************************

Rendering (Single CPU): 2926 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 5589 CB-CPU

Multiprocessor Speedup: 1.91

Shading (OpenGL Standard) : 5700 CB-GFX


****************************************************

No, I won't be OCing the 8200. Not my processor, after all.

 

[sbrehm72255]

Vendors often label their drivers different from the offical drivers, I always go to the chip makers site for drivers for video cards, that way you get the most up to date ones............

 

[Rob Williams]

Yeah... I don't like the fact that vendors will label the drivers to their own scheme... it makes no sense. Much easier to just go to the official site and snag whatever is there, like sbrehm mentioned.

To compare drivers, you may just want to do some real-world tests... playing the same level in a game over and over. That test within Cinebench is rather simplistic and not a good judge to go by. If you really want an automated benchmark, you should try out 3DMark 06, which is a "standard".

http://www.futuremark.com/download/3dmark06/

Results can sway though, that's the only trouble. Should be run twice with the results averaged, really. That's what we do with our reviews.