So what is it's spec. AMD Athlon 64bit 4200+ X2 cpu. In those days it was a twin core 2100Mhz 64 bit chip. 4Ghz of DDR2 ram, massive in its day. MSI Neo v3 motherboard, Nvdia GS7300 dedicated graphics card. Just at the time that integrated graphics where becoming standard for low-spec PC's. A Seagate 160GB sata2 hard drive @7200rpm. I later added a 500Mb second hand one too. The Whole PC with PSU and case cost around £350 and it has served me well especially through testing Linux Distro's and building a large ASP.Net Database driven website. But equally power supplies, fans, heatsinks, hard drives have all been replaced with cheap rep[lacements as I was not working then.
I think the turning point was MS Visual Studio's 2015 service packs and add-ons. Sure the program is comprehensive but jumps from 3gb to 27gb in the blink of a few updates. Having started a new Web Developers job I weighed up the options.
Plan 1
How much difference would an SSD make? Rather than build the whole PC I could test a SSD and make do with 3gb limit on Sata 2 as it only really affect burst speed anyway, or does it? I selected a Sandisk 480gb Sata3 2.5" drive for just over £100 and installed it with a fresh install of Linux and Windows 10. More about Windows later.
WOW! A few benchmarks showed I was achieving 300Gb/s compared to a maximum of 100Mb/s and average of 45Mb/s on the Seagate and my other 500mb drive. Linux would boot in around 20 seconds and Windows in 45 secs, superb. I did look briefly at doubling the 4Gb ram, the cost was ridiculous and I only had 3 slots (yes three) and 2 were in use. The latest DDR3 ram was cheaper but not supported by the (8yr old) motherboard.
Plan 2
So how much faster would it be with a modern multi-core CPU/APU? An APU (not this Apu) is a combined CPU with several cores and several dedicated Graphics cores (GPU's) that are all running at CPU Northbridge speed. This is way faster than most PCi buses but I admit not quite as good for games. Then again i am not really a gamer. I wanted CPU power! I started to spec out a new PC.
This is a mystical process to the uninitiated. I generally find a motherboard that has the sockets that I need. I wanted VGA, HDMI and DV-I graphics ports at that point. I wanted plenty of USB 2/3 sockets as my USB expander was crap and USB 1.0. I wanted 4 ram slots to expand later if needed.
What I tend to do is draft a £60-70 for each component as a starting point. The motherboard I wanted was a Gigabyte, the CPU AMD. Sure some people moan at AMD but for for value for money they are unbeatable. Remember the old Cyrix 1.6 Mhz Pentiums? Even Intel's proccessors used to regularly pop in those days. I wanted an AMD A8 or A10 with 4 cpu core and 6 gpu (graphics) cores as they used the same Radeon graphics as my laptop but R7 rather than R5. (Laptop graphics are never as good anyway even like for like due to current consumption and cooling).
I reckoned on 8 Gb of DDR3 ram as few programs need that much yet and the price point was good at around £50.
I spent three weeks juggling the components and watching AMD computer builds on YouTube. My old hack (Kochanski) used to run the CPU at over 60 degrees Celcius and sometimes freeze, though I reckon an ailing network adaptor may have been to blame. The Bios was known to report incorrect temperatures but flashing to the latest firmware did not help.
Cooling was going to figure heavily. I found some bargain gaming cases that I could add extra fans to. I had done this before and fitted a speed controller later.
All prices are +vat and delivery from overclockers.co.uk and where correct on 17th August 2016 - 16th Sept unless stated. (I also chose companies that could do weekend deliveries and may not be the cheapest for this reason.)
The big build
Obviously Plan 2 was going to happen so here is the result. I am not doing a build guide as everything is different for everyone.
Suffice to say - take the motherboard and place it on the ant-static wrapper. Install the RAM chips after reading the manual as some Mobo's are fussy.
Install the new heatsink to the Mobo using the right mount, before adding the fan and you may need to fit it differently.
Ensure the case has the right supports to match the motherboard as most cases will fit ATX, Micro ATX and ITX mobo's and the supports are all different.
Fit the drives and their cables.
Last of all fit the PSU and tidy all the cables, you do not want 500 watts down the wrong route.
Only ever plug the PSU cable in when the PSU switch is set to OFF. This prevents any surges and only ever unplug it after switching OFF. If there is no switch then turn it off at the socket first.
Da Build
The pictures where taken after I did a quick rebuild and cable management exercise as I forgot the first time in excitement!
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| There are extra fans and temperature sensors on RAM chips. Also a Northbridge chip fan was added |
Cases have two sides, use them
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| Good cable management really helps to stop a rat's nest from appearing. I did tidy them up properly before fitting the right hand side. |
Processor: CPU + GPU = APU
My spec was all based on price per performance, there was nothing between AMD A8 and A10, I had found some cheap A10's but they quickly sold out as new stock came in. I could go for an X4 with no Gpu and save some ££'s but again there was little in it so I opted for the A8-7650K 3.8Ghz 10 core with Radeon R7 graphics. ATI was bought out by AMD so they know what they are doing. I would have been nice to hit 4.0Ghz but hey.
AMD Kaveri A8-7650K 10 Compute Core APU w/ Radeon R7 Graphics (4 CPU + 6 GPU Compute Cores) - Retail £62.49 * This is what I got
The X4 equivalent is
Athlon X4 870k 3.9Ghz (Socket FM2+) Quad Core Processor (AD870KXBJCSBX) £74, sure it may be a bit faster but no GPU?
Both retail kits includes a heatsink and fan, I had other ideas...
Motherboard (MOBO):
Motherboard, I did a lot of research and ASRock came up and the specs for speed where little different to the Gigabyte at twice the price. I wanted the A88 chipset to get extra sockets and XMP Ram Overclocking. This is an official way to boost speed, more about this later. I wanted 4 Ram slots so I could use dual channel DD3, this is faster but involves twice the number of chips, I would use 2 initially. Again DDR4 was priced heavily and offered little more for the money.
Asrock FM2A88X Pro3+ AMD A88 (Socket FM2+) DDr3 ATX Motherboard £ 54.16
| The power supply is in the case's bottom and sucks air through the base rather than from inside the case |
System Memory (RAM):
Team Group Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2133HC11ADC01) £32.49
I can double it at this price if I need to!
SSD Hard Drive
You can buy faster, but then again you always can. This will do.
SANDISK Ultra II 2.5" Internal SSD - 480 GB £109 PcWorld.co.uk
max 550Mb/s
Power supply (PSU):
There are a couple of things you need to bare in mind with PSU's;
1- reliability. A cheap PSU can take out your entire PC in milliseconds due to mains surges, CPU/Graphics loads and even physical shocks. More power is more safety margin. They are rated at the maximum continuous current. If you exceed that they either shut down or blow up depending on their design and quality.
2- power consumption, if your PC uses 100w your PSU could use 200w if it is only 50% efficient and many old ones are even worse. The 80 Plus rating means my PSU is more than 80% efficient, you can also get 80 Bronze, Silver and Gold if your pockets are deep enough. Value is the key for me.
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| EVGA PSU, 430 watts and 80% or better efficiency |
NOISE! Modern PC's should be seen and not heard, more efficient PSU's make much less noise.
EVGA 430W 80 Plus Power Supply (100-W1-0430-KR) £30.79
EVGA turned up in a lot of videos,
my CPU needs 95 w, add same for Mobo and again for a dedicated graphics
card I might add later. Thats 300w plus some for safety.
Make sure that you have connected all the relevant PSU connectors. Even I missed one second time and I have built a lot of PC's.
Caution! Modern PSU connector is 20/24 pins, make sure they are aligned correctly. Also the CPU has a 8 Pin connector made of two 4pins with yellow/black wires and if you have a top end Graphics Card it will have a 6 pin yellow/black connector or a 4pin Molex (red/black/black/yellow) like the older hard drives that goes onto the motherboard. It is too easy to miss one and could damage the boards or CPU.
Make sure that you have connected all the relevant PSU connectors. Even I missed one second time and I have built a lot of PC's.
Caution! Modern PSU connector is 20/24 pins, make sure they are aligned correctly. Also the CPU has a 8 Pin connector made of two 4pins with yellow/black wires and if you have a top end Graphics Card it will have a 6 pin yellow/black connector or a 4pin Molex (red/black/black/yellow) like the older hard drives that goes onto the motherboard. It is too easy to miss one and could damage the boards or CPU.
Always useful to hold it all together this is pretty and has two fans already and space for 4 more.
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| More bays than anyone could ever need, 8 in total. Also screwless clamps. |
Aerocool Strike-X ONE Advance Midi Tower Case - Black £24.99
Cooling - Yes even more cooling, cooool.
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| Yes I know only one is lit. |
BitFenix Spectre PWM 120mm Fan Blue LED - Black x2 £13.32
Air Flow (CFM) - 51.3 CFM, Noise (dB-A) - 22.5 dB(A)
They look pretty and are efficient, oh and quiet too!
I had a little accident and the front of the two fans LED went up in smoke. I have worked in Electronics for years and I only make the odd boo-boo. I plugged it directly into a PSU fan socket not an Led one which has a resistor. Thankfully it is only a £7 fan not the Mobo. The smoke was amazing as the cable burnt all it's insulation off before I could shut it down. I only ever once destroyed a Mobo when the huge CPU fan and heatsink fell off and the AMD CPU blew up. I had to replace the Mobo and CPU for £150, OUCH!
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| Fan overkill? Make sure both are working together not against each other! Cables where tidies later. |
Bin the retail pack heatsink and fan, they are barely adequate in a perfect case and you will not know until it is too late, spend a little more now and save later. DO watch the height this gives about 12mm between the top and the case it is 134mm high the case is 180mm and the motherboard about 15mm, so still 30mm for another fan. No really! You might have to move one to the side with dedicated graphics. Be warned! - This lovely expensive heatsink came without any heatsink compound resulting in a dash on cycle to Maplin and paying £6 for some. There was none in the AMD retail kit as theres was precoated with it.
The finished product!
I have to say it runs very fast and quiet, even on power up when all 6 fans run flat out for 10 seconds or so. The Northbridge fan is worse as it does not have a tacho to monitor it's speed so the fan controller guesses the drive. If I put it straight to the motherboard fan outlet, it makes more noise than the whole PC!
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| Yes I did try another graphics card. |
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| Switched off, stickers are ASRock and AMD A series Black Edition |
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| I like this case, its not too obtrusive or heavy |
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| Fan controller makes for slow fans and less noise until they are needed. They haven't needed to boost so far |
Fan Club
I added a BitFenix Recon system fan speed controller, £29.99 Amazon.co.uk.
This has 5 temperature sensors and controls 5 fans manually or automatically, I read a lot of reviews as you do not want you CPU fan to go down. That said, my motherboard is controlling the CPU fan and this is controlling the rear case fan next to it on the temp sensor.
I also noticed that my Northbridge chip was sitting around 50 C, so I bought it a new Heatsink and Fan on Ebay for £6. I could not remove the Heatsink and it was fine anyway so I just added the fan to the existing one. It dropped to 32 degrees.
Final temperatures a week or two later as things have to bed in.
Channel Component Temp degrees celcius
1 CPU 27 (Mobo says 35)
2 Northbridge 32 (Mobo says 36)
3 + 4 Ram chips x2 30
5 PSU case 30
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| Video of my PC in action as I write this blog |
Conclusion
OK so I spent more than I intended but I got a PC that far exceeds my expectations. I have also added a -
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| WD 3TB My Cloud NAS drive on the right of Virgin router |
WD 3TB My Cloud Personal Cloud Storage NAS Drive £99
NAS drives are accessible over the Internet not just at home, they haves sophisticated user management admin and are now as cheap as USB external drives. Compare the price to a years cloud storage! The price has changed at Maplin now. It should have been £149 but it was on special offer, £99 same price as 2TB version.
I weighed this cost against the annual cost of Dropbox Pro and Onedrive. I can still access this remotely through Android Apps and Networking (and probably other ways too), though I have not tried yet, a friend has accessed it remotely on a PC with a restricted account setup. I can set up as many Private and Public shares as I like and read only or editable accounts. It also has backup software to shadow certain folders automatically. This is a domestic NAS drive, professional solutions can cost many £ thousands. I can also add another drive via external USB3. You can add freeware software too from WD website. It has its own processor and network (RJ45) connection. It is Wifi via your router, not built-in.
I am pleased to report that it is accessible from Windows or Linux, though technically it is not Linux supported but it's a network drive so it works through samba/network browser, you just have to login to it
BenchmarksI will have to redo the benchmarks for my old desktop PC (Kochanski) as currently it's hard drive is currently in the new one (Mercedes).
My HP Pavilion 15p-287 (Cabriolet) Benchmark
My home-built AMD A8 3.9Ghz APU 4gb ram SSD (Mercedes) Benchmark
They might not seem much different on paper, but compared to Kochanski and in real world usage they are miles apart.
Windows boots on less than 25 seconds and Linux in 15, both shut down in around 3 seconds and that is for a full shutdown not a half one!
What next?
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