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Sunday, August 7th, 2011, 10:41 PM
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| Projection Computer - Opinions? I used to be very well versed in computer building. Just get the highest clock processor you could afford and the latest video card you could afford.... Now, things are much more complicated. Anyone care to give opinions on this machine? Too much, too little? No high power gaming necessary. Just PowerPoint 2010 (now... maybe PP someday) & playing videos. I tried to get a reasonably high power machine, keep it quiet & responsive. I chose a SSD because I got one in my laptop & I LOVE the quick boot. I need 2x DVI/VGA for video system (1024x768 projectors). Thanks! Case/MB - Shuttle SG41J4 Intel Core 2 Multi-Core Processors Intel Socket T(LGA775) Intel G41 Intel GMA X4500 Barebone $139.99 CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 Wolfdale 3.33GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor BX80570E8600 $289.99 RAM - Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Desktop Memory Model KVR1066D3N7K2/8G $49.99 Video Card - EVGA 01G-P3-N959-TR GeForce 9500 GT 1GB 128-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card $64.99 Hard Drive - Patriot Wildfire PW120GS25SSDR 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) $299.99 Monitor - ASUS VH197D Black 18.5" LED Backlight Widescreen LCD Monitor $95.99 DVD Drive - ASUS Black Blu-ray Burner SATA BW-12B1ST/BLK/G/AS $94.99 Subtotal: $1,035.93   |
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Monday, August 8th, 2011, 11:25 AM
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| Well it should be one heck of a machine with those specs, a couple of suggestions though. If i were you i would go with a larger case and at minimum a micro atx motherboard. This will help with cooling and fitting a larger gpu. Now if you are wanting something super portable and don't mind loosing some cooling and performance than ignore that. If you can step up to a current graphics processor you will get more life out of your system. a 9500 is almost 4 years old at this point so it is really inefficient against newer gpu's. I would atleast try to get an ATI 5000 series or nVidia 200 series gpu. If you can get a higher end GPU like say a ATI 6850 or nVidia 460 you will not have to worry for quite a few years. Ofcouse that is along as we don't get blindsided by some new technology advancement. The rest of the system is gravy and should give you years of performance. I usually use 2 drives for any heavy media computers but the SSD you chose should be able to handle the strain. crt BTW it dawns on me that the GPU upgrade could only be carried out if you did in fact go with a larger motherboard, case and PSU. The current system just as you have designed would be riding the edge of what the powersupply could do...at full tilt anyway.
__________________ Chad Taylor |
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Monday, August 8th, 2011, 05:16 PM
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| I chose the Shuttle case because of it's small footprint. I'm not too concerned about cooling and performance.... Here is an update: I switched to a Core i5 system with a nVidia 430 video card (don't plan on using the integrated graphics)... but I might consider an nvidia 440 too. Case/MB - Shuttle SH55-J2-BK-V1 Intel Core i7 / i5 / i3 (LGA1156) $219.99 CPU - Intel Core i5-650 Clarkdale 3.2GHz LGA 1156 73W Dual-Core $174.99 RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) $54.99 Video Card - EVGA 01G-P3-1431-KR GeForce GT 430 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card $74.99 Hard Drive - Patriot Wildfire PW120GS25SSDR 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) $284.99 Monitor - ASUS VH197D Black 18.5" LED Backlight Widescreen LCD Monitor $95.99 DVD Drive - ASUS Black Blu-ray Burner SATA BW-12B1ST/BLK/G/AS $99.99 Subtotal: $1,005.93 |
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Monday, August 8th, 2011, 06:07 PM
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| I'm partial to rack-mount cases myself. The ones I've bought recently have been Antec 4U boxes, plenty of room inside for drive bays and cards and heatsinks and such. Solid-state drives sure look neat. I tried one out in a database server a couple of years ago, and it sure was neat and fast and cool, but not significantly faster than using a moving drive. Since SSDs are more expensive for a smaller drive, not to mention have that rewrite ceiling, it's hard for me to justify them in many applications just yet. If I were building this machine, I'd put in a pair of 500G moving drives in RAID1. I might even go more crazy and do two RAID1s, one of 80s for OS and one of 500s for data, in a front-swap bay. But that's just me. |
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Monday, August 8th, 2011, 09:25 PM
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| I would suggest making the 440 your baseline gpu instead of the 430. I wouldn't put anything less than a 460 in a projection machine for my usage. Of course my usage can be a bit more taxing than some others. Bumping up from the Core2's to the i5 won't help much for most task but if you will be doing rendering then it will be worth it. Figured i would mention that if you are looking to cut a little cost you might cut your ram in half. Most applications you will be running won't use more than 3 gigs of ram so 8 gigs is way overkill. If you can afford the ram then by all means get it. More programs will start to use more and more ram to gain speed and stability so it's only a matter of time before higher ram usage becomes the norm. Looking at your new case choice it appears that you could handle a larger graphics card and higher wattage card as well since the psu is 300watt. crt
__________________ Chad Taylor |
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Monday, August 8th, 2011, 11:17 PM
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| Why not get a smaller ssd for a boot drive and applications and get a normal hard drive for everything else? Search these on newegg (can't post links yet  )N82E16820148441 ($119.99) N82E16822136697 ($69.99) $95 price cut and almost 5 times the storage space Just an idea... |
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Tuesday, August 9th, 2011, 09:40 AM
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| Just know that your case is limited in expansion slots. Other than that, I'd opt for a larger screen. Its not that much more to go from 18.5 to 21.5/22". 18.5" is a little small for a desktop for me.
__________________ Derek Van Winkle FBC Biloxi, MS |
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Tuesday, August 9th, 2011, 10:46 AM
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| About the monitor screen... see this post: What happened to all the 1024x768 monitors? Our projection system is based on a 1024x768 display resolution, but it seems 17" 1024x768 monitors have disappeared from existence. I can only find 15" 1024x768 monitors. I want 17" or larger 1024x768, but they don't exist. The 18.5" above is 1366x768, so it would work well in pillarbox format.... but I agree it is small. I have been considering just going with a 17" or larger 4:3 lcd screen and live with the poorer quality of sending a 1024x768 signal to it. What do you think of that? Most 17" = 1280x1024 Most 20+" = 1600x1200 Here is a thought... are there any 1280x1024 monitors that support portrait mode? In portrait mode, it could display a native 1024x768 signal in a letterbar format. Anyone have any experience with that? |
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Tuesday, August 9th, 2011, 05:38 PM
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| Don't skimp on the video Card.., if you do you will regret it.. I hate nothing worse than projecting a video clip. WMV or DVD etc and it start skipping or pausing.. Get the fastest NVIDIA card you can afford.. I would even suggest going with a Quad processor.
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Tuesday, August 16th, 2011, 05:28 AM
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| Thanks for the advice everyone. Below is what I ordered024x768 / . -- I upped the Video card a bit to a GeForce GT 440 Fermi. Our current PC does just fine with PPT 2010 & some video and it is 'only' an old Celeron with integrated video. So I think this will be more than adequate. -- I dropped the SSD and went with a 1TB 7200RPM instead. In the end, I just don't think SSD was going to be worth the cost... maybe an upgrade later... -- I chose the 19" monitor because I got a few of them and they have Composite/S-video inputs too. That will be handy in other areas while keeping everything pretty standard. I think we will just live with the 1024x768 / 1280x1024 resolution mismatch with our projectors. Case/MB - Shuttle SH55-J2-BK-V1 Intel Core i7 / i5 / i3 (LGA1156) $219.99 CPU - Intel Core i5-650 Clarkdale 3.2GHz LGA 1156 73W Dual-Core $174.99 RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) $54.99 Video Card - EVGA 01G-P3-1441-KR GeForce GT 440 1024MB (Fermi) DUAL DVI PCI Express 2.0 x16 $79.99 Hard Drive - SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s $59.99 Monitor - ViewEra V191HV-B Black 19" $229.99 DVD Drive - ASUS Black Blu-ray Burner SATA BW-12B1ST/BLK/G/AS $99.99 |
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