I recently built a new gaming rig, which will be my primary rig. I though I should share my experience here, from selecting the components to the final build to stability testing, so that numerous other people building a machine with similar configuration can benefit.
Guys from Bangalore planning to buy from S.P road, may be interested in "Acquiring the components" section and "The Ankit Hustle". This is my experience at S.P road. May be this will help you.
I call this rig G-Rig-3 (This is my 3rd gaming rig and my 4th machine). My first was a
PIII 550 Mhz (coppermine), 128 MB 100 Mhz SD RAM, i810e chipset. (circa May 2000)
My 2nd rig, G-Rig-1 (Build date: 26 Jan 2002), was a
P4 1.6 Ghz, GeForce 3 Ti 200, 4x64MB Samsung RDRAM, i850 chipset.
The rig I am upgrading from G-Rig-2 (Build date: 21 Sept 2005)
--------
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (90nm Venice core), 2x512MB TWINMOS DDR-400 CL 2.5.
Asus A8N-E.
Leadtek GeForce 7800 GT 256MB (The first version 110 nm).
Grabbed it as soon as it came out in Sep' 05. Price was insane but I got my moneys worth. Man it rocked hard. Got a lot of power. It came bundled with two free games Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory and Price of Persia: Warrior Within. For 2 years it just maxed out all the games I threw at it at 1182x864@75Hz. For a year I Had to reduce the settings a bit, tweak and fine tune the games, but it was still amazing and the games looked good. It was only in the 4th year the it felt lagging in the latest games.
Then in Sep' 09 its time has came. It was because of the SMPS. I bought a Zebronics 400W SMPS, it was a higher end model in Zebronics. May be it was a mistake that I bought this SMPS. But It worked flawlessly for 4 years, there was never a BSOD or a system crash in those four years. So it did its job. One day there is no display. After a lot of troubleshooting and borrowing parts from my cousin, narrowed down on the problem and the problem was the SMPS and it took the card with it. But surprisingly my 7800gt works on his machine and his graphic card works on my machine with a different SMPS. So there must be a problem with the GFx and my MoBo combo, may be the board is not able to deliver enough power. So I grabbed an ATI Radeon HD4350 512MB DDR2 and used a 300W SMPS from my Cousin's Dell machine, which was lying around after he upgraded his GPU and SMPS. This card also turned this rig into a potential HTPC, when it goes to my parents.
MSI ATI Radeon HD4350 512 MD DDR2. (Temporary substitute for the failed 7800GT)
Samsung 753DF 17" Monitor, from the previous rig
160 GB Seagate 7200.7
Sony DRU-810A (Failed after 3yrs. Bought a Sony V200s)
Zebronics 4OOw higher end SMPS. (Failed after 4yrs 3months, Using a spare SMPS from my cousin's DELL machine)
Zebronics GeForce 2 Case.
==================================
So guys, here it goes the G-Rig-3 story. I have been contemplating the idea of building an new rig since Oct'2008, as G-Rig-2 felt lagging in the latest games of the time like COD-MW, Burnout Paradise etc at high setting. I for one never liked playing a game at low setting, as the game would loose its visual appeal and immersion at those settings. I would hold off till I build a better rig, but I would not play a game at low settings. But the build did not materialize because I was not getting enough time to spend on gaming and hence to justify a new rig. I was spending 3-4 hrs a week re-playing my old favorites and games that I did not play before that G-Rig-2 can run at high settings.
==================================
Tentative Components
==================================
Processor & Motherboard
In Oct' 09 I decided to build a new rig. The latest from Intel, lynnfield is just out and what better time to build a new rig. After a lot of research I finalized that
Intel Core i5-750
will power my new rig, and for the motherboard the contenders are
* Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2.
* ASUS P7P55D.
* Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R.
* MSI P55-GD65.
I wanted to go with the Gigabyte UD2. Since it fits my requirement, good quality components all over and excellent reviews overall. I may also be able to get some slight over clock with this board. I will not over clock heavily. One concern I had was that the board is a uATX board. Limited slots for add-on card/adapters. I have a PCI wi-fi card from my previous rig which I wanted to use. I thought I can manage to get this card in the second PCI slot after installing the Gfx card. But it will almost touch the GFX. In the worst case I have to buy a USB wi-fi adapter, which are not as good as PCI ones. I very much wanted to go for P7P55D or UD3R, but they are expensive by 3000 and 4500 rupees respectively, which may make me stretch my budget. Any way I kept P7P55D as an option, though I may not get the UD3R.
By spending the extra 3k I get all the features of UD2 and more.
* extra ports and more flexibility for add-on cards,
* 12+2 power phases for excellent over clocking (I may go for those high over clocks after all
) and heat sinks on the power circuitry.
* The board looks awesome with the black PCB and silver blue heat sinks.
* I get two extra fan headers if I want to use fan control options like Q-Fan in the motherboard.
Since this is a new platform and a lot of people are facing various problems I decided to wait for a month or two before the final build. At the same time prices will also settle down. I had 9th Jan in my mind as the tentative date on which I will build the rig.
==================================
RAM
The contenders are - G.Skill RipJaws F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL, G.Skill RipJaws F3-10666CL9D-4GBRL, CORSAIR CMX4GX3M2A1600C9, CORSAIR TW3X4G1333C9A
I am kind of inclined towards G.Skill RipJaws F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL. If it is not available I wanted to go for G.Skill RipJaws F3-10666CL9D-4GBRL or CORSAIR TW3X4G1333C9A. All of these are 1.5V and i wanted to stick with 1.5v modules as the i5-750 can go upto max of 1.65V. So it gives a good head room for over-clocking if at all I wanted to. I kept F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL as my first preference as there is not much price difference between 1600 and 1333 at newegg. I was not aware of local pricing. So i thought if the price difference here is huge i can go for the 1333 version.
G.Skill RipJaws series has a lot of positive feedback especially from the users. I went through the reviews on newegg. Lot of i5 builds that I found on-line are using this RAM. Corsair CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 is a 1.65v RAM and its expensive. So this would be my last option and TW3X4G1333C9A is also expensive compared to F3-10666CL9D-4GBRL. Another reason why I wanted to wait for a couple of months was availability of RAM. Even when I inquiredn December Ripjaws was not available in the Bangalore Market. TE dealer BuyGamingStuff had a thread on this, but looks like availability is tough with him too, as he did not respond to the posts on this thread.
==================================
Graphic Card
The contenders are - XFX Geforce GTX 260 SP216, Zotac Geforce GTX 260 SP216, XFX Radeon 5770, Sapphire Radeon 5770
Another reason to wait was to see if there will be any news about the GTX3xx by Dec or Jan 1st week and see if the prices on these cards will drop.
I was considering the GTX 260, I use Linux for almost everything except gaming.
* Linux support is a lot better from nvidia and overall nvidia drivers are better.
* I also use the per application 3D profile from nvidia control panel which is a great option to force different settings for different 3D applications.
* I also wanted to play PhysX enabled games especially "Batman AA". GTX260 can run BAA @ 1680x1050 with medium physics and the rest maxed out. So its an added bonus.
* Power consumption is less than HD4870, and 4870 did not have the above advantages, it may have DX10.1, but it is not that important to me. Plus performance wise both are same.
I also used an MSI HD4350 for three months which replaced my 7800GT for temporary usage. Ati windows drivers are good enough, except for the lack of 3D application profiles like in NVIDIA drivers. They are there in some form but they are not as intuitive as in NVIDIA drivers. The catalyst drivers use the .Net framework. On my old rig on win XP the CCC took a lot of time to load. The catalyst drivers are bulky. These are not major concerns for me, but for me linux is important and nvidia's linux support is far better.
The red camp's offering 5770, is also equally tempting it has Almost same average performance as GTX260.
* Power consumption is lot less. This is one of the main reasons that I wanted to get a 5770. 50w lesser power draw then GTX260 in normal usage scenario.
* DX11 support. I feel that in the future when games that make proper use of DX11 come out, this card will be underpowered to run them at high settings.
* I also don't like the 128-bit bus, which already bottle necks the card in some scenarios.
* Eyefinity is not important to me as I will not run triple monitor setup. At least I wont on this rig.
Another factor is this time I am not planning to run the same card for more than 1.5 years. So will probably get successor to the Fermi or an ATI HD68xx series card later. Also the current crop of games are not that graphic intensive (except a few exceptions like crysis etc.). Most of the games I want to play will max out at 1680x1050@60Hz with AA and 16xAF which will be my native resolution. I also think any of these cards should be able to run most of the games in the next 1 to 1.5 years at high settings, since most of the game development is now focused on consoles.
==================================
Monitor
Tough I decided to wait for the rig, I went ahead and bought the monitor first. I somehow never liked TN panels. I did not own one but from what I have seen I am not satisfied with the viewing angles and colour reproduction, especially after sticking with a CRT all these years. I have been waiting for a good TFT which is good at the above and good for gaming too (less than 6ms response time). I was looking at some TN panels, then came across DELL Ulra Sharp 2209WA. This panel fits my requirement spot on. It has good colour reproduction, good viewing angles, good response time, its an IPS panel plus its an ultra sharp (good adjustable stand).
This panel has also got rave reviews around the web. After finalizing on this I called DELL to book one, but they refused to sell it to home customers. So I started googling for some other means of acquiring this monitor. After some rummaging I found BuyGamingStuff on TE selling it. I knew of TE before and was also a registered member but I did not know about Dealers on TE till that point. Then I called up BuyGamingStuff, he said that the monitor will be billed on his businesses name as DELL sells this only to Businesses. I made the payment on Nov 2nd 2009 and finally received it in the last week of Nov' 09. The deal was good, my only gripe is that it took a long time to deliver.
My first impression on this monitor was good. Out of the box the build quality is good. I don't call it excellent, the panel's front bezel is not that sturdy, built quality of the rest of the panel and the stand is good. First thing I checked was the viewing angles. It has good horizontal viewing angles, even when viewing at extreme angles. It is a lot better than TN panels, but vertical viewing angle from the top are not good. From the bottom again it is good. Since vertical viewing angle from the top is not that important to me, it is not much of a concern. The Brightness levels are high on this monitor. I am currently running it at a brightness level of 18. The colour of the folder icons in win XP did not look natural to me (compared to my CRT, and i tried all the presets on the monitor), nothing serious, for gaming and movies I did not notice much of a difference. I wanted to try calibrating the monitor and see if it makes a difference. It may not be that important to me because I don't do any professional photo editing but any way I wanted to take a shot at it. I found a thread where someone has uploaded their colour profile and setting for 2209WA. After using these setting and colour profile, the colour of folder icons were better. Overall the colour reproduction was better, but I could only notice this on close examination.
After just under a month of usage (28 days of usage, average of 2 hrs per day), the blue LED under the power button started flickering. The next day it died completely. But in standby the orange LED blinks properly. Looks like some other people also had the same experience. Cheap LEDs are used. As long as the panel is working as it should I did not want to RMA the monitor for a power LED problem. After reading the following threads I definitely did not want to take
the RMA route.
U2410 : flickering power button LED - DELL COMMUNITY
http://www.******.com/forums/u2410-flickering-power-button-led/27706.html
Overall it is a good monitor with minor issue. It meets my expectations as mentioned above easily. I felt at home with this monitor after switching from a CRT.
Pluses
--------
* Good Colour Reproduction.
* Good viewing angles
* e-IPS panel.
* Powered USB ports (Powered only if the monitor is on. I don't use these much. For some people this may not matter.)
* Good sturdy stand, with lot of adjustment options.
Negatives
---------
* No HDMI.
* Blue power LED died within a month of light usage.
I give it a 4/5.
==================================
Speakers
I upgraded my speakers to Altec Lansing MX-5021 in Q3 2008, when I was first considering an upgrade. I had a Creative Inspire 2400 system which i wanted to upgrade to a better speaker system, since I use my rig for listening to music, watching movies and for gaming. My friend had the same set of speakers, and they are good. So I went ahead and bought them. The build quality of the sub-woofer is good. The satellites come in a plastic enclosure with a small base and tend to fall off often. The control pod has aux-in and headphones jack which i find very useful. The build quality of the control pod is not so good. The volume knob is not sturdy and its wobbly. My friends speakers are not usable now because his control pod is not working. He is planning to get it repaired. I mostly use the remote to control the volume or to make bass and treble adjustment. I set the bass to slightly higher than Half and treble to just about half the level. At these setting the sound delivered is clean up to 90% of the volume or may be even 95%, tight bass and no signs of distortion. After that at full volume there is slight distortion. I usually keep the volume at 50 - 80%. Overall great speakers for the price.
Pluses
-------
* Good Sub-Woofer.
* Good overall sound reproduction.
Minuses
--------
* Satellite speakers base is small and tend to fall off often.
* Build quality of control pod.
My Rating 3.5/5 . Would have given a 4 if not for the build quality.
==================================
SMPS
To select the right SMPS I use the extreme power supply calculator to get an idea of where my potential Rigs power requirements would be. Since the GTX260 consumes more power than 5770 I used it to arrive at this number. Link for extreme power supply calculator eXtreme Power Supply Calculator
I selected the following options on the page, with the extreme case of 100% TDP on the CPU and 100% system load with 20% Capacitor aging:
* i5-750 as the processor over-clocked to 3.6 Ghz at stock voltage. (I will not over-clock but if I do I will stick to stock voltage).
* High end Desktop Motherboard.
* 4 sticks DDR3 SDRAM.
* ATI HD5870 (To make sure i can upgrade to this level of card in the future).
* 2 HDDS
* DVD-RW
* 2 x 120 mm fans
* 1 x 140 mm fan
* 1 USB device
* 1 PCI device.
The max power this rig would reach is 482W in the worst case at extreme load. With no over-clock on the CPU it is 452W and with a GTX 260 SP216 it is 438w at extreme load. A 550W SMPS is more than enough even considering future upgrades and decent over-clock. At more realistic loads, with single HDD (I plan to use only one now) and under normal scenarios this rig would not even cross 400W. Even a 450W SMPS would do but I wanted to have some headroom, since an SMPS operating at less load translates to better efficiency (best between 75 - 95 %), less heat, lower cooling requirements and hence less noise from the cooling fan. After reading a lot of reviews I have zeroed in on the Corsair VX550. HardOCP has an excellent review on this, where they do an in-depth analysis of the PSU.
==================================
HDD
The options
WD5001AALS (500 GB Cavier Black edition), WD6401AALS (640 GB Cavier Black edition), WD1001FALS (1 TB Cavier Black edition), WD6400AAKS (640 GB Cavier Blue edition)
I wanted to stick to either 640GB blue or black, as 1TB goes above my budget. 640GB is the best option because they use higher density 320GB platters compare to the 250GB platters on 500GB. Higher density = Better performance. But 640GB blacks are tough to come by. So its going to be one of the other three. From what I read 1TB black > 500GB Black > 640GB Blue in terms of performance.
==================================
UPS
APC 650 VA, I did not want to spend much on ups. I want good protection from unclean power and 2-3 min of backup to shut down the machine. I will add More thoughts and analysis on this in the stability testing section.
Mouse & Mouse mat
I got a Razer Diamondback 3G in q3 2008. One of my friends got it for me from the US. In Nov' 09 I bought the Goliathus alpha speed edition from BuyGamingStuff. Again a good deal, my only complaint is the shipping time. I am very satisfied with the combo. Worth every penny. Adds to the total Gaming experience. Invest in a good mouse and mat if you are mostly into gaming, since this is the interface with your machine, it makes a difference.
I like the on the fly sensitivity adjustment of the mouse. Feels nice to hold and has a good grip, the button are good. My only gripe is that the buttons on the side are not easily accessible especially ones on the right side (I am a right hander). There is some confusion about the speed and control edition, about which one enhances control. I haven't used the control edition. I think speed edition has a tighter wave and hence more friction. It enhances control especially in the middle of intense action.
==================================
Guys from Bangalore planning to buy from S.P road, may be interested in "Acquiring the components" section and "The Ankit Hustle". This is my experience at S.P road. May be this will help you.
I call this rig G-Rig-3 (This is my 3rd gaming rig and my 4th machine). My first was a
PIII 550 Mhz (coppermine), 128 MB 100 Mhz SD RAM, i810e chipset. (circa May 2000)
My 2nd rig, G-Rig-1 (Build date: 26 Jan 2002), was a
P4 1.6 Ghz, GeForce 3 Ti 200, 4x64MB Samsung RDRAM, i850 chipset.
The rig I am upgrading from G-Rig-2 (Build date: 21 Sept 2005)
--------
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (90nm Venice core), 2x512MB TWINMOS DDR-400 CL 2.5.
Asus A8N-E.
Leadtek GeForce 7800 GT 256MB (The first version 110 nm).
Grabbed it as soon as it came out in Sep' 05. Price was insane but I got my moneys worth. Man it rocked hard. Got a lot of power. It came bundled with two free games Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory and Price of Persia: Warrior Within. For 2 years it just maxed out all the games I threw at it at 1182x864@75Hz. For a year I Had to reduce the settings a bit, tweak and fine tune the games, but it was still amazing and the games looked good. It was only in the 4th year the it felt lagging in the latest games.
Then in Sep' 09 its time has came. It was because of the SMPS. I bought a Zebronics 400W SMPS, it was a higher end model in Zebronics. May be it was a mistake that I bought this SMPS. But It worked flawlessly for 4 years, there was never a BSOD or a system crash in those four years. So it did its job. One day there is no display. After a lot of troubleshooting and borrowing parts from my cousin, narrowed down on the problem and the problem was the SMPS and it took the card with it. But surprisingly my 7800gt works on his machine and his graphic card works on my machine with a different SMPS. So there must be a problem with the GFx and my MoBo combo, may be the board is not able to deliver enough power. So I grabbed an ATI Radeon HD4350 512MB DDR2 and used a 300W SMPS from my Cousin's Dell machine, which was lying around after he upgraded his GPU and SMPS. This card also turned this rig into a potential HTPC, when it goes to my parents.
MSI ATI Radeon HD4350 512 MD DDR2. (Temporary substitute for the failed 7800GT)
Samsung 753DF 17" Monitor, from the previous rig
160 GB Seagate 7200.7
Sony DRU-810A (Failed after 3yrs. Bought a Sony V200s)
Zebronics 4OOw higher end SMPS. (Failed after 4yrs 3months, Using a spare SMPS from my cousin's DELL machine)
Zebronics GeForce 2 Case.
==================================
So guys, here it goes the G-Rig-3 story. I have been contemplating the idea of building an new rig since Oct'2008, as G-Rig-2 felt lagging in the latest games of the time like COD-MW, Burnout Paradise etc at high setting. I for one never liked playing a game at low setting, as the game would loose its visual appeal and immersion at those settings. I would hold off till I build a better rig, but I would not play a game at low settings. But the build did not materialize because I was not getting enough time to spend on gaming and hence to justify a new rig. I was spending 3-4 hrs a week re-playing my old favorites and games that I did not play before that G-Rig-2 can run at high settings.
==================================
Tentative Components
==================================
Processor & Motherboard
In Oct' 09 I decided to build a new rig. The latest from Intel, lynnfield is just out and what better time to build a new rig. After a lot of research I finalized that
Intel Core i5-750
will power my new rig, and for the motherboard the contenders are
* Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2.
* ASUS P7P55D.
* Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R.
* MSI P55-GD65.
I wanted to go with the Gigabyte UD2. Since it fits my requirement, good quality components all over and excellent reviews overall. I may also be able to get some slight over clock with this board. I will not over clock heavily. One concern I had was that the board is a uATX board. Limited slots for add-on card/adapters. I have a PCI wi-fi card from my previous rig which I wanted to use. I thought I can manage to get this card in the second PCI slot after installing the Gfx card. But it will almost touch the GFX. In the worst case I have to buy a USB wi-fi adapter, which are not as good as PCI ones. I very much wanted to go for P7P55D or UD3R, but they are expensive by 3000 and 4500 rupees respectively, which may make me stretch my budget. Any way I kept P7P55D as an option, though I may not get the UD3R.
By spending the extra 3k I get all the features of UD2 and more.
* extra ports and more flexibility for add-on cards,
* 12+2 power phases for excellent over clocking (I may go for those high over clocks after all
) and heat sinks on the power circuitry.* The board looks awesome with the black PCB and silver blue heat sinks.
* I get two extra fan headers if I want to use fan control options like Q-Fan in the motherboard.
Since this is a new platform and a lot of people are facing various problems I decided to wait for a month or two before the final build. At the same time prices will also settle down. I had 9th Jan in my mind as the tentative date on which I will build the rig.
==================================
RAM
The contenders are - G.Skill RipJaws F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL, G.Skill RipJaws F3-10666CL9D-4GBRL, CORSAIR CMX4GX3M2A1600C9, CORSAIR TW3X4G1333C9A
I am kind of inclined towards G.Skill RipJaws F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL. If it is not available I wanted to go for G.Skill RipJaws F3-10666CL9D-4GBRL or CORSAIR TW3X4G1333C9A. All of these are 1.5V and i wanted to stick with 1.5v modules as the i5-750 can go upto max of 1.65V. So it gives a good head room for over-clocking if at all I wanted to. I kept F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL as my first preference as there is not much price difference between 1600 and 1333 at newegg. I was not aware of local pricing. So i thought if the price difference here is huge i can go for the 1333 version.
G.Skill RipJaws series has a lot of positive feedback especially from the users. I went through the reviews on newegg. Lot of i5 builds that I found on-line are using this RAM. Corsair CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 is a 1.65v RAM and its expensive. So this would be my last option and TW3X4G1333C9A is also expensive compared to F3-10666CL9D-4GBRL. Another reason why I wanted to wait for a couple of months was availability of RAM. Even when I inquiredn December Ripjaws was not available in the Bangalore Market. TE dealer BuyGamingStuff had a thread on this, but looks like availability is tough with him too, as he did not respond to the posts on this thread.
==================================
Graphic Card
The contenders are - XFX Geforce GTX 260 SP216, Zotac Geforce GTX 260 SP216, XFX Radeon 5770, Sapphire Radeon 5770
Another reason to wait was to see if there will be any news about the GTX3xx by Dec or Jan 1st week and see if the prices on these cards will drop.
I was considering the GTX 260, I use Linux for almost everything except gaming.
* Linux support is a lot better from nvidia and overall nvidia drivers are better.
* I also use the per application 3D profile from nvidia control panel which is a great option to force different settings for different 3D applications.
* I also wanted to play PhysX enabled games especially "Batman AA". GTX260 can run BAA @ 1680x1050 with medium physics and the rest maxed out. So its an added bonus.
* Power consumption is less than HD4870, and 4870 did not have the above advantages, it may have DX10.1, but it is not that important to me. Plus performance wise both are same.
I also used an MSI HD4350 for three months which replaced my 7800GT for temporary usage. Ati windows drivers are good enough, except for the lack of 3D application profiles like in NVIDIA drivers. They are there in some form but they are not as intuitive as in NVIDIA drivers. The catalyst drivers use the .Net framework. On my old rig on win XP the CCC took a lot of time to load. The catalyst drivers are bulky. These are not major concerns for me, but for me linux is important and nvidia's linux support is far better.
The red camp's offering 5770, is also equally tempting it has Almost same average performance as GTX260.
* Power consumption is lot less. This is one of the main reasons that I wanted to get a 5770. 50w lesser power draw then GTX260 in normal usage scenario.
* DX11 support. I feel that in the future when games that make proper use of DX11 come out, this card will be underpowered to run them at high settings.
* I also don't like the 128-bit bus, which already bottle necks the card in some scenarios.
* Eyefinity is not important to me as I will not run triple monitor setup. At least I wont on this rig.
Another factor is this time I am not planning to run the same card for more than 1.5 years. So will probably get successor to the Fermi or an ATI HD68xx series card later. Also the current crop of games are not that graphic intensive (except a few exceptions like crysis etc.). Most of the games I want to play will max out at 1680x1050@60Hz with AA and 16xAF which will be my native resolution. I also think any of these cards should be able to run most of the games in the next 1 to 1.5 years at high settings, since most of the game development is now focused on consoles.
==================================
Monitor
Tough I decided to wait for the rig, I went ahead and bought the monitor first. I somehow never liked TN panels. I did not own one but from what I have seen I am not satisfied with the viewing angles and colour reproduction, especially after sticking with a CRT all these years. I have been waiting for a good TFT which is good at the above and good for gaming too (less than 6ms response time). I was looking at some TN panels, then came across DELL Ulra Sharp 2209WA. This panel fits my requirement spot on. It has good colour reproduction, good viewing angles, good response time, its an IPS panel plus its an ultra sharp (good adjustable stand).
This panel has also got rave reviews around the web. After finalizing on this I called DELL to book one, but they refused to sell it to home customers. So I started googling for some other means of acquiring this monitor. After some rummaging I found BuyGamingStuff on TE selling it. I knew of TE before and was also a registered member but I did not know about Dealers on TE till that point. Then I called up BuyGamingStuff, he said that the monitor will be billed on his businesses name as DELL sells this only to Businesses. I made the payment on Nov 2nd 2009 and finally received it in the last week of Nov' 09. The deal was good, my only gripe is that it took a long time to deliver.
My first impression on this monitor was good. Out of the box the build quality is good. I don't call it excellent, the panel's front bezel is not that sturdy, built quality of the rest of the panel and the stand is good. First thing I checked was the viewing angles. It has good horizontal viewing angles, even when viewing at extreme angles. It is a lot better than TN panels, but vertical viewing angle from the top are not good. From the bottom again it is good. Since vertical viewing angle from the top is not that important to me, it is not much of a concern. The Brightness levels are high on this monitor. I am currently running it at a brightness level of 18. The colour of the folder icons in win XP did not look natural to me (compared to my CRT, and i tried all the presets on the monitor), nothing serious, for gaming and movies I did not notice much of a difference. I wanted to try calibrating the monitor and see if it makes a difference. It may not be that important to me because I don't do any professional photo editing but any way I wanted to take a shot at it. I found a thread where someone has uploaded their colour profile and setting for 2209WA. After using these setting and colour profile, the colour of folder icons were better. Overall the colour reproduction was better, but I could only notice this on close examination.
After just under a month of usage (28 days of usage, average of 2 hrs per day), the blue LED under the power button started flickering. The next day it died completely. But in standby the orange LED blinks properly. Looks like some other people also had the same experience. Cheap LEDs are used. As long as the panel is working as it should I did not want to RMA the monitor for a power LED problem. After reading the following threads I definitely did not want to take
the RMA route.
U2410 : flickering power button LED - DELL COMMUNITY
http://www.******.com/forums/u2410-flickering-power-button-led/27706.html
Overall it is a good monitor with minor issue. It meets my expectations as mentioned above easily. I felt at home with this monitor after switching from a CRT.
Pluses
--------
* Good Colour Reproduction.
* Good viewing angles
* e-IPS panel.
* Powered USB ports (Powered only if the monitor is on. I don't use these much. For some people this may not matter.)
* Good sturdy stand, with lot of adjustment options.
Negatives
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* No HDMI.
* Blue power LED died within a month of light usage.
I give it a 4/5.
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Speakers
I upgraded my speakers to Altec Lansing MX-5021 in Q3 2008, when I was first considering an upgrade. I had a Creative Inspire 2400 system which i wanted to upgrade to a better speaker system, since I use my rig for listening to music, watching movies and for gaming. My friend had the same set of speakers, and they are good. So I went ahead and bought them. The build quality of the sub-woofer is good. The satellites come in a plastic enclosure with a small base and tend to fall off often. The control pod has aux-in and headphones jack which i find very useful. The build quality of the control pod is not so good. The volume knob is not sturdy and its wobbly. My friends speakers are not usable now because his control pod is not working. He is planning to get it repaired. I mostly use the remote to control the volume or to make bass and treble adjustment. I set the bass to slightly higher than Half and treble to just about half the level. At these setting the sound delivered is clean up to 90% of the volume or may be even 95%, tight bass and no signs of distortion. After that at full volume there is slight distortion. I usually keep the volume at 50 - 80%. Overall great speakers for the price.
Pluses
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* Good Sub-Woofer.
* Good overall sound reproduction.
Minuses
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* Satellite speakers base is small and tend to fall off often.
* Build quality of control pod.
My Rating 3.5/5 . Would have given a 4 if not for the build quality.
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SMPS
To select the right SMPS I use the extreme power supply calculator to get an idea of where my potential Rigs power requirements would be. Since the GTX260 consumes more power than 5770 I used it to arrive at this number. Link for extreme power supply calculator eXtreme Power Supply Calculator
I selected the following options on the page, with the extreme case of 100% TDP on the CPU and 100% system load with 20% Capacitor aging:
* i5-750 as the processor over-clocked to 3.6 Ghz at stock voltage. (I will not over-clock but if I do I will stick to stock voltage).
* High end Desktop Motherboard.
* 4 sticks DDR3 SDRAM.
* ATI HD5870 (To make sure i can upgrade to this level of card in the future).
* 2 HDDS
* DVD-RW
* 2 x 120 mm fans
* 1 x 140 mm fan
* 1 USB device
* 1 PCI device.
The max power this rig would reach is 482W in the worst case at extreme load. With no over-clock on the CPU it is 452W and with a GTX 260 SP216 it is 438w at extreme load. A 550W SMPS is more than enough even considering future upgrades and decent over-clock. At more realistic loads, with single HDD (I plan to use only one now) and under normal scenarios this rig would not even cross 400W. Even a 450W SMPS would do but I wanted to have some headroom, since an SMPS operating at less load translates to better efficiency (best between 75 - 95 %), less heat, lower cooling requirements and hence less noise from the cooling fan. After reading a lot of reviews I have zeroed in on the Corsair VX550. HardOCP has an excellent review on this, where they do an in-depth analysis of the PSU.
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HDD
The options
WD5001AALS (500 GB Cavier Black edition), WD6401AALS (640 GB Cavier Black edition), WD1001FALS (1 TB Cavier Black edition), WD6400AAKS (640 GB Cavier Blue edition)
I wanted to stick to either 640GB blue or black, as 1TB goes above my budget. 640GB is the best option because they use higher density 320GB platters compare to the 250GB platters on 500GB. Higher density = Better performance. But 640GB blacks are tough to come by. So its going to be one of the other three. From what I read 1TB black > 500GB Black > 640GB Blue in terms of performance.
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UPS
APC 650 VA, I did not want to spend much on ups. I want good protection from unclean power and 2-3 min of backup to shut down the machine. I will add More thoughts and analysis on this in the stability testing section.
Mouse & Mouse mat
I got a Razer Diamondback 3G in q3 2008. One of my friends got it for me from the US. In Nov' 09 I bought the Goliathus alpha speed edition from BuyGamingStuff. Again a good deal, my only complaint is the shipping time. I am very satisfied with the combo. Worth every penny. Adds to the total Gaming experience. Invest in a good mouse and mat if you are mostly into gaming, since this is the interface with your machine, it makes a difference.
I like the on the fly sensitivity adjustment of the mouse. Feels nice to hold and has a good grip, the button are good. My only gripe is that the buttons on the side are not easily accessible especially ones on the right side (I am a right hander). There is some confusion about the speed and control edition, about which one enhances control. I haven't used the control edition. I think speed edition has a tighter wave and hence more friction. It enhances control especially in the middle of intense action.
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