PC Recommendation, 23 March (Pre-April)

Link : http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?1l7ff1a8yi7e9l3

Finally, I have time to clean the spider web on this site. Life is busy, I believe, not just for you, also for me. So, my posting here may not be as frequent as before.
This update is mainly focused on graphic card and builds. LGA2011 platform is added, and the new generation cards are included as well.

If you are looking for fast update on this guide, I suggest you to stay updated at LYN Hardware Support. Any questions? Just ask on the page or LYN HW Q&A .

PC Recommendation, 15 January Update.

PC recommendation is updated. This is the first update for year 2012! Enjoy.
Download Link : http://www.mediafire.com/?28i5nl3qyoj5y90

Highly recommended.
Home Online/Office Work : RM1200
Spec : Intel Core i3 2100, MSI H61M-P23, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB hard drive, a DVD burner, Cooler Master Elite 310 and Gigabyte PoweRock 390W.

Intel i3 2100 - A very best budget processor in the market. It has powerful single threaded performance, which is better for daily applications. The power consumption is low too.

MSI H61M-E33 - RM219, that comes with Intel H61 chipset and HDMI display output. What can you expect more? Full solid capacitors! All are packed into this lovely small board.

4GB DDR3 RAM - Should be more than enough for daily usage.

500GB hard drive - Personally I prefer Samsung SpinPoint F3 in this category. But it is slightly more expensive than other competitors and it's availability is lower, I go for WD Blur at this moment.

Cooler Master Elite 310 - A cheap casing that is good for those seeking for simplicity. The design is not so futuristic, but brings some fun colour.

Gigabyte PoweRock 390W - Every rig deserves to have a good power supply. This power supply costs only RM79, but has high efficiency. Result? Save electricity. Time to throw away your cap ayam power supply!

Multimedia Editing : RM2900
Spec : Intel Core i7 2600(K), MSI Z68A-G43, 2x4GB DDR3 RAM, GTX560 Ti, 500GB hard drive, a DVD burner, Thermaltake V3/Cooler Master Elite Series, SeaSonic Silence 500W

Intel i7 2600(K) - Gaming? Rendering? It will do the jobs nicely. It has 4 cores. Thanks to Hyper Threading Technology, each of the core can process 2 threads. End up it has 8 threads, boosting the multithreaded applications performance. This is where it is superior than i5 2000 series. If you are going to overclock, get K series, otherwise, go for non-K series.

MSI Z68A-G43 - An entry Z68 mobo from MSI. It comes with 4 ram slots, supports LGA1155 K series processor overclocking. Difference of Z68 and P67 chipset? Z68 supports the utilization of the graphic chip in the processor, Intel HD2000/HD3000. This mobo also brings Lucid Virtu, enabling the user to utilize Intel QuickSync (Not for quality freak) to boost the video encoding performance with discrete graphic card attached.

2x4GB DDR3 RAM - Total up 8GB of RAM. Not enough? Feel free to add more, since it is only RM65+- per stick.

GTX560 Ti - I introduce Leadtek GTX560 Ti Hurricane here. It costs only RM739, but comes with custom cooling from Leadtek, and it is factory preoverclocked. It can be used to provide CUDA functionality and also gaming performance on it is pretty decent.

Seasonic Silence 500W - Seasonic is top notch PSU manufacturer. Their PSUs are known with low ripple and high efficiency. It costs RM199 only! If you prefer to have sleeved cables, go for Corsair CX 500W, it costs RM219.

Gaming : RM3000
Spec : Intel Core i5 2500(K), MSI P67A-GD55, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GTX570, 500GB hard drive, Thermaltake V3/Cooler Master Elite Series, Seasonic S12II 620W.

Intel Core i5 2500(K) - A mid range quad core processor. It has powerful single threaded performance. Since it has 4 cores, the multithreaded perfomance of it is very powerful as well. Why i5? Why not i7? Because most of the games don't utilize so much of threads, end up the gaming performance is identical, why spend extra RM300 then?

MSI P67A-GD55 - Mid range mobo from MSI. The place I really liked it is it's SLi/CFX capability and price. It costs RM379 only! USB3, SATA3, you can get these, all of the nice features on this mobo.

GTX570 - MSI GTX570 Twin Frozr III is one of the SKU lurking around. It costs RM1119, but comes with great Twin Frozr III cooler and factory preoverclocked. Full HD+Ultra settings in games isn't a problem for it.

Homecinema : RM1800
Spec : AMD A8-3870, MSI A75MA-G55, Kingston HyperX 4GB DDR3 1600MHz, 500GB hard drive, Cooler Master Elite 343 Casing, Gigabyte PoweRock 390W, Acer S231HL 23" LCD

AMD A8-3870 - Fusion, it is the newly discovered concept for the CPU. It comes with 4 cores, and HD6550D GPU. The HD6550D GPU is the fastest onboard graphic chip around. It even can beat low end graphic cards.

MSI A75MA-G55 - The cheapest FM1 mobo around that supports SATA3, USB3. It even supports casing USB3.0 connections.

Kingston HyperX 4GB DDR3 1600MHz - RAM speed is important for the HD6550D. The HD6550D can be easily become faster with faster RAM.

Arctic Cooling MX-4 Review

Introduction
Still remember my last review? That was Arctic Cooling F12 casing fan, and I truly loved it!
I'm here to present, yet another quality product from Arctic Cooling, that is Arctic Cooling MX-4 thermal paste! I was actually looking for Tuniq TX-2 but it was not available in Lowyat Plaza. Too sad. Then I had to get Arctic Cooling MX-4. The price is around RM35 for the shops in Lowyat Plaza, which is priced a bit more expensive than other pastes.
Here is the official product page : http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/cooling/thermal-compound/30/arctic-mx-4-4g-und-20g.html

This is how the stick looked like. (I broke the packing :'( )

Testing time!

This is our candidate! The Lenovo G450 notebook.










The spec is following :

The main reason that I chose it because the NVIDIA G210M runs really hot on load.
And yes, the competitor was the Cooler Master Hyper TX3 stock thermal paste.

Applying
It was easy to apply, easy to use.

After opening the back cover, the heatsink was silently lying on the motherboard. Underneath is the processor.

Yes, our real candidate is here, NVIDIA G210M, with heatsink on it.

Cooler Master Hyper TX3 stock thermal paste was applied.

After benchmarked with Cooler Master Hyper TX3 stock paste, the processor was cleaned.

NVIDIA G210M was cleaned too. (Too bad as I can't clean it up entirely, but I cleaned it as far as possible.)

Applied Arctic Cooling MX-4.

Testing Methodology
- Battery was removed and adapter was used for benchmarking to avoid any power saving features come into play.
- Temperature monitoring was done by Open Hardware Monitor.
- The laptop was left until lowest temperature from GPU can be obtained.
- Unigine Benchmark 2.5 Basic Edition was launched.
- The benchmark was started.
- Highest temperature was recorded after the benchmark was completed.
- Procedure will be repeated for 3 times to obtain average reading.
- Ambient temperature was 28°C.
- The NVIDIA driver used was 280.26 mobility.

Result

Conclusion
Wow, what an impressive product! It managed to lower the temperature by 10°C on load! I got nothing to complain for such a cheap thermal paste. It was easy to spread, large amount and electrical non-conductive!
I no longer need to downclock the GPU now to reduce temperature on load! Yay!

Did you see the "holes"? What a pleasant design from Arctic Cooling! It enables you to see how many thermal paste is left in the stick!

Yes, and again, I got no complain from this product. Yes, it is recommended. If you have extra bucks to spend with, or looking for a new stick of thermal paste, go ahead with it. It is definitely, your choice!

Arctic Cooling F12, Mini Review.

I'm not here for quite some time. Finally, I got some new stuffs to share with you guys.
Unveiling the Arctic Cooling F12...

This is how the packing looked like.

Well, unpacked, and stuffs inside were :
- Arctic Cooling F12 Normal.
- 4x Screws

My unit is normal version, so it comes with 3 pin.
There is still a PWM version, that comes with 4 pin, allowing the user to adjust the fan from motherboard.
Or even mount it on big heatsink, like Cooler Master Hyper 212+.

Installed and started it's engine.
VROOOOM!!!! :P

Whole casing view.













Personal thoughts :
- Superb airflow.
- Perfectly silent.
- Cheap! (RM30+- from the shops from Lowyat Plaza)
- Unable to find any cons.

Recommendation from me?
Yes! Sure. In fact the curtain behind my rig is sticking to the window, due to the strong air output from F12.

Cooler Master TX-3 Cooler Review

Introduction

Been tired of hearing the bloody noisy stock fan sound when my pc was on load. Imagine when you are playing games, and enjoying the sound effect from game, suddenly the noisy fan sound comes into, *OMGWTFBBQSOS*!
(AMD, please improve your stock cooler, at least give users the one during Athlon 64x2 era, that is decent.)
So, I bought this cooler to replace the stock cooler.
It is cheap. As far as I see, most of the shop from LYP sells it at RM69. I got my unit for 50 bucks. (Thanks to Brian for buying it for me. )

Gallery

The packing.

The height of the cooler, compared to my Pilot Super Grip Mechanical Pencil (I knew it is very old :P).

3 copper pipes.

The Cooler Master fan blade with "Cooler Master" logo.

The mini toolbox, containing the following stuffs.

1) Manual.

2) Intel bracket.

3) AMD bracket.

4) Secondary fan bracket.

5) Plastic bag, inside with Cooler Master thermal paste, screws for connecting the secondary fan with secondary fan bracket.

Assembling :

Assembling fan was easy, but not the cpu bracket (maybe due to my casing).

The thermal paste comes with this cooler is easy to use. It is kinda dilute.

It took me 15 minutes to put on the cpu bracket, bloody clip.

Testbed :

Testing Method :

- The temperature was monitored by using Open Hardware Monitor.

- To test idle temperature, the pc was left running with Open Hardware Monitor. After 10 minutes, the minimum value and maximum value was recorded. Average value (Idle temperature) was calculated.

- To test load temperature, after Prime95 was launched for 5 minutes, the Open Hardware Monitor was launched. The temperature was under supervision. When the temperature stayed constant (+-0.3C), the max temperature was recorded.

- CnQ was turned on throughout the testing.

- Smart Fan was turn off throughout the testing.

- The ambient temperature was 32C.

Result :

Conclusion :

Pretty impressive for a cheap cooler to do so, huh? Although it is very small (compared to those high end cooler), but it's performance can't be ignored. Socket flexibility is a plus. It supports all of the modern sockets, from Intel to AMD, without problem. There is a big brother up there, that is Hyper 212+, which is being sold at RM129 (from most of the LYP shops). Want a cheaper cooler? No problem, get Hyper 101. It is the little brother, which comes with 2 heat pipes instead of 3. 

(Taken from TX3 product page.)

And why my fan bracket is different from this 1? :(

Anyway, due to it's decent performance and being priced cheaply, I give it a Value Buy Recommendation!

PC Buying Guide - Motherboard

Hi, I'm here again. Been busy for several weeks, finally got room to let me breath.
This part is mainly about motherboard.

Socket :
Get the one which supports your processor. You can refer to the CPU Support List on the motherboard's page.

Size :
The common motherboard sizes are M-ATX and ATX. I-ATX and E-ATX are becoming more common, recently.

Chipset :
Any chipset will work, just fine. Lower end chipset may lack some features from high end chipset.
I recommend a mainstream chipset for most of the cases, it is sufficient to deal with any single GPU setup.
For LGA1155, Intel H67/P67 chipset. For AM3, AMD 770 chipset.

RAM Slots :
Normally, ATX mobo has 4(LGA1156/AM3)/6(LGA1333) RAM slots.
For M-ATX mobo, they have 2 RAM slots.
However, there are some really nice M-ATX motherboard with 4 RAM slots.
I recommend you to get motherboard with 4 RAM slots. The extra slots will come into handy, when you upgrade the RAM. If your budget is really tight, then no choice.

PCI-E Slots :
On modern motherboard, usually there are PCI-E x1 and x16 slots.
If you are planning to SLi/CFX, it is ideal to get motherboard with 2xPCI-E slots, make sure the chipset support too.
SLi/CFX on x16 and x4 will cause bottleneck. It is not recommended to SLi/CFX on the mobo like this.
Example, MSI 870-G45.
However, the x4 slot can be used for NVIDIA cards to run PhysX. It does not require so much of bandwidth.
The prefect motherboard for SLi/CFX should have both PCI-E slots running on at least x8.

SATA :
If you are going to get SATA3 SSD, then go ahead with motherboard that has SATA3 ports.
Otherwise, SATA3 is not a good reason for choosing the motherboard,
How about SATA3 HDD? Their interface is SATA3 but the actual performance is still around with other SATA2 HDD. It is a marketing gimmick.

IDE :
It is deprecated, not good enough to become a reason.

LAN :
Modern motherboard comes with 1Gbps network card. Not a good reason too.

USB :
USB3.0 are getting popular now. However, motherboard with USB3.0 are overpriced.
Not a good reason too.

Special Features :
Example, Military Class, Super Alloy Solid.
Ignore them. Marketing gimmicks.

Price :
Expensive motherboard serves better performance?
Not necessary. They got more features than cheap motherboard only.

Conclusion :
For me, I always get a low-mid range motherboard. High end motherboard is not really necessary. A mid end motherboard can provide quite much of useful features already, like USB3.0, 2xPCI-E.
For AM3, I recommend Asus M4N68T-M v2(low budget), MSI 870-G45/Asus M4N75TD(low-mid end, with 4 RAM slots and decent OC ability.), and MSI 870A Fuzion Power Edition(SLi/CFX setup, good OC ability.).
For LGA1155, I recommend Intel DH61WW(low budget), Intel DH67BL-B3(M-ATX sized with 4 RAM slots)/MSI H67MA-E35(M-ATX sized, 2 RAM slots, to those who wants to tweak stuffs), MSI P67A-C45 (ATX-sized, allows K-series overclocking) and MSI P67A-GD55/65(For CFX/SLi).

PC Buying Guide - Processor

Processor is the brain of your computer, it is known as CPU (Central Processing Unit).

If someone tell you, CPU is the whole thing (metal box+stuffs inside), probably they are wrong.

We call that "whole thing" as rig. Source

Numbers of Core :

The more the number of core, the faster the processor. But more cores do not mean better.

Softwares are running on threads, not cores. For gaming, 3 threads or more are recommended.

Why? Most games are not yet optimized to multi threads. They are still running on 1/2 threads.

In this case, 4 or even 6 cores processors are unable to release it's full power. Processor with high single threaded performance will shine here. If you are going to play games on the pc, you don't have to get high end processor, unless you got bucks to spend. Designing softwares like Adobe CS5, are optimized for multi core.

Processor with more cores will work really good here. You should opt a larger amount of money to processor, in this case. If the computer is just for normal internet surfing, video watching, then a cheap dual cores will serve you well already. 

Clock Speed :

Most people will just look at this and justify the performance of processor. It is fine. I will focus on pricing here as this section has not much thing can be discussed. If you are paying extra RM0-30 for extra MHz, then it is fine. If the higher clocked model requires you to add more RM50, then it is not worth already, unless you got extra money to spend with.

Lithography :

Heard about the "nm" thingy about processor? Yes, it is lithography. Smaller nm will reduce the die size, power consumption and heat release, compared to larger nm, when both are on same architecture.

Socket :

Not much to discuss about this topic too. Just get a motherboard (will be discussed later) that can fit your processor.

AMD or Intel?

Don't be fanboyism here. Processors that are manufactured from both camp are fine. I knew some people heard AMD processors have temperature issue. Ignore them, that is old news. If they talk about this now, probably they are bullshitting. 

Understanding the market :

Intel

LGA775... (Phased out already, not recommended to get unless you want to upgrade with minimum amount of money.

Celeron - Low end processor

Pentium Dual Core - Low end dual core processor, but targeted at higher segment of market than Celeron.

Core2Duo - Mid end-High end dual core processor.

Core2Quad - Quad core processor.

LGA1156/LGA1155

Pentium - Low end processor.

Core i3 - Fast dual core processor. (Hyper-Threading)

Core i5 - Fast dual/quad core processor. (Hyper-Threading on dual core models)

Core i7 - Fast quad core processor. (Faster than same generation i5, due to Hyper-Threading)

AMD

Athlon II

x2 - Mid dual core processor.

x3 - Triple core processor.

x4 - Mid quad core processor.

Phenom II 

x2 - Fast dual core processor.

x3 - Fast triple core processor

x4 - Fast quad core processor.

x6 - Hexa core processor.

Conclusion :

You should get some idea  from here. I'm not going to spoon feed you about the performance of processor, please google for the actual performance, then compare with other models that are priced in same price range. See if it is best bang for bucks or not. For your information, the actual performance of processor is not limited to the above discussed topic, but also architecture.

If you are still blur about the choice of processor, don't worry, I will make a full system buying guide at the end of this series. You will understand it very well.

Here is a nice chart for your reference. It is about the gaming performance of processors. Enjoy!

MSI NF725GTM-P31 Review

Went to Viewnet at last weekend, from the recommendation of the salesman at there, I bought this motherboard for my Athlon 64x2 5200+. The last motherboard, Abit NF-M2S was dead.

Overall looking of the motherboard
In the motherboard box, it contains the motherboard itself, IDE cable/Molex-SATA power/SATA cable 3-in-1, quick start guide, and parallel bracket.

Onboard expansions
2 DDR2 RAM slots
2 SATA ports

1 IDE port
1 PCI-E x16 slot (Blue in colour)
1 PCI-E x1 slot
2 PCI slot
2 USB front/back panel connectors
1 Parallel socket for parallel bracket

I/O Ports
It provides 2 PS/2 ports(Keyboard and Mouse), Serial Port, VGA port (onboard Geforce 7025), 4 USB ports, 10/100 LAN port and 5.1 channel audio port.

BIOS
Due to I was using CRT, I was unable to capture nice bios screenshot. Anyway, you can download the motherboard guide from here to take a look.

PWM

Unlike mainstream motherboard, it only have 3+1 phase of power.

Overclocking
Setup :

** Cooler - Stock Cooler
** Turned off Cool and Quiet to prevent fluctuation of clock speed.
Stock Status :

Overclocked Status :

Turned off computer after this, plugged in 8600GT and tried to play Left 4 Dead 2. It was stable.


Conclusion
Pros :
Reasonably priced
Neat expansions port placement (Especially the nice SATA ports placement, will not block long graphic cards.)
Parallel and Serial port are present. (Nice for office usage)
Has IDE port, in case you want to reuse/test old harddisk/disc drive.
Support AM3 processors.
Nice colour scheme (Personally, I liked it.)

Cons :
2 RAM slots only.
2 SATA ports only.
Does not support 125W TDP processors.

Mediocre :
Where are the solid capacitors?
3+1 phase only?

Due to the low price and it's feature is actually enough for a normal user, I give it a value buy recommendation. : )

Hands on Internet Explorer 9

Internet Explorer 9 was released by Microsoft for sometimes already. I went to the Red-Green-Yellow-Blue camp as Internet Explorer 7 failed to serve me well. Internet Explorer's market share is going down lately as alternatives like Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera are much better. Since Microsoft is promoting folks to use Internet Explorer 9, I decided to give it a try.

Testbed :

***Windows was updated to latest patch.
***GPU Accelerated Canvas 2D was turned on for Google Chrome through about:flags

Interface :

The interface is very clean, unlike old version of Internet Explorer. The viewing area is much bigger.

The new tab interface is similar with Google Chrome. It tracks the website that you often visit and put it to here for fast access. I love it.

Real world testing :
Internet Explorer 9 got lot's of improvement at here. All webpages were loaded rapidly, unlike old version of Internet Explorer.

Synthetic Testing :
Acid3 Test

Speed Reading
Internet Explorer 9 - 7 seconds
Google Chrome 12.0.712.0 - 16 seconds

Seems like GPU rendering in Google Chrome is not completed yet.

RAM Usage (Single tab of Google homepage) :
Internet Explorer 9 - 46MB
Google Chrome 12.0.712.0 - 43MB

Conclusion :
Internet Explorer 9 got big improvement over previous version. It is as good as Firefox 4 and Google Chrome. Downside of it, is, it supports Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7 only. Microsoft said Windows XP lacks of the support for the rendering engine in Internet Explorer 9. So, XP users got no opportunity to use it. However, the other browsers remains support for Windows XP.
I like it's clean interface and speed. However, the address bar is too small, it can be troublesome when highlighting the address. I would like to recommend it to those who likes to stay with Internet Explorer/Internet Explorer users.
For users who is using other browsers happily, just stay with it, Internet Explorer 9 will not give you big improvement.

Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB (HD502HJ), RAID0 tested.

This hard disk floats in the market for sometimes already. It is highly recommended by people(especially in Lowyat.Net ), as it is prefectly blended from performance-per-price and efficiency.
How will it perform under my testing?

Testbed :

Single drive result :

It is quite fast. As you can see, the burst speed is so-so only, because it has 16MB cache only.

RAID0 result :

Here comes the impressive result! 244MB/s! Bear in mind, Intel X25-M 80GB's maximum speed is floating around 230MB/s, but RAID0-ed F3 500GB can outperform it! Fantastic!

Temperature :
Ambient : 33C
HDD Temperature(Idle) : 33C
HDD Temperature(After benchmarking) : 36C

Conclusion :
According to most shops in Lowyat Plaza, the price for each Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB is around RM120. I got my unit for RM150 (from friend, no hassle on warranty).
Although Samsung Spinpoint F3 500GB runs very cool and quiet, but the performance is not sacrificed!
It deserves my recommendation! 

Straight or Twisted SATA Cable?

Many people, including OEM manufacturers, twist their SATA cables into different forms for a unique look and to stand out from the many other available SATA cable manufacturers found in the market. It looks nice, but will this cause a degradation in performance?

Twisted SATA cable :

Straight SATA cable :

Testbed :

***SATA cables were provided with the MSI G31TM-P31.

Result for straight SATA cable :

Result for twisted SATA cable :

Due to the reason that the performance difference is smaller than 3%, therefore I'm assuming that they are the same.

Conclusion :

We can conclude that twisted SATA cables have little to no performance difference compared to those which aren't.