OT: New PC!

[AgentZero]

No, I don't have one yet, but I'm planning on getting one soon. I've got a rough spec on it, but I'd really like to hear what y'all think.

Especially Fyron, since you really seem to know your stuff, especially in regards to what's good, what's not, and why. So here's the spec I've currently got in mind. Lemme know what you think, and where I could maybe get better performance for less money, or at least shave a few bob off the pricetag without a noticable difference in performance.

Intel® Pentium® Processor 840 w/ Dual Core Technology 3.2GHz 800MHz FSB
Enermax EG701AX-VE (W) 600 Watt Power Supply SLI ready
nForce™4 SLI™ Intel Edition Chipset Motherboard PCI Express SLI
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 2 x 1024MB
Dual 256MB PCI-Express x16 NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7800 GT - SLI Enabled
160 GB Serial ATA 7,200 rpm w/ 8MB Cache
16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Recorder
Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi XtremeMusic
NEC 19" MultiSync LCD1970NXi-BK
Creative® 7.1 Inspire™ T7900
Logitech Internet Keyboard
Razer Diamondback Mouse


The only thing that aren't open to debate is the sound system & the RAM. Rest of it is wide open.

[Fyron]

This site has some good info:

http://shsc.info/PCPartsPickingGuide

I personally don't like the quality of Creative sound cards or speakers... That site mentions the M-Audio Revolution 5.1/7.1 ($75/$90).

The only place where high end audio is appropriate is music, and for that you only need two channels. Swan m200's (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=36-136-102&depa=0) are great speakers. They are a basic pair of self-amplified two-channel speakers. They are a good way to get into high end audio without breaking the bank or getting too complex. CD Music is not mastered for more than 2 channels anyways.

What are you planning to use those extravagant creative speakers for?

[AgentZero]

Cool, thanks. The extravegant speakers are mainly for turning small animals into piles of gelatenous goo, but also for a having "ooo... wow!" quality set up for gaming, and to double as a home theatre system.

[Combat Wombat]

I'd go with a AMD processer and motherboard personally.

[Fyron]

From what I have heard, "home theater" setups generally aren't worth it without going high end. You would probably get better quality sound with the Swan m200s, not just mediocre sound pumped from a bunch of speakers. Its up to you whether you prefer impressing the small animals with high audio quality or "turning [them] into piles of gelatenous goo." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[NullAshton]

First, get an AMD processor. They tend to work better for games.

Second, I'd probally get the 6800, not the 7800. The 7800 is only a minor increase in power, for a big pricetag.

And Fyron, it would be awsome to play Battlefield 2 with a large monitor, and surround sound speakers. Most people would start drooling once they heard surround sound.

[Ragnarok-X]

Agent, in what price-segment do you expect your configuration from post #1 to end ? Im going to buy a new pc as well, though in january, and i personally feel like spending a max of 1300 $ (= 1100 € for me) is by far enough to get a system which will stand about 2 years.


edit: given im only talking about a tower here, no display, no keyboard/mouse, no boxes.

[Renegade 13]

AgentZero said:
Intel® Pentium® Processor 840 w/ Dual Core Technology 3.2GHz 800MHz FSB


If you're looking to use this rig for gaming, I'd go AMD, not Intel.

[AgentZero]

OK, so I've done a little revision after reading that parts guide Fyron was kind enough to supply, and I've done a little revision. Biggest change is swapping over to AMD from Intel, since AMD scores higher points in gaming. Even though Intel scores higher in 3D rendering, I doubt I'll be doing anything complex enough to notice a difference for some time yet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif
All the bits & pieces are basically those recommended by Fyron's link, and bits taken from the Alienware website. I know Alienware makes wicked gaming machines, but f***ed if I'm going to pay THAT much. I took this shopping list to Newegg.com and it came out 1550.00EUR cheaper, even without a case, and I know that even if NewEgg delivers to Ireland (anybody know anything about that?), I'm gonna get drilled on the shipping, but I don't think shipping'll cost me 1550EUR. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

So, without further ado,

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Processor
ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 ATX AMD Motherboard
Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300R0 300GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA133 Hard Drive
2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
eVGA 256-P2-N383-TX Geforce 6800 256MB DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card x2 SLI
SONY 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive
NEC IDE DVD Burner Model ND-3540A
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS (7.1) Channels PCI Interface Sound Card
Creative Inspire P7800 7.1 Speakers
Sennheiser HDR120 Wireless Headphones
NEC Display Solutions 19" 16ms LCD Monitor
Logitech Media Keyboard
Razer Diamondback Mouse
Enermax EG701AX-VE SFMA(24P) ATX12V 600W Power Supply
3com 3C996B-T 10/100/1000Mbps PCI Network Adapter

Couple extra questions on top of the obvious, 'what do you think?' One, since I need a case, how exactly would you recommend I make sure everything fits? Get all the parts together then go out and find one the right size? Or is there some sort of number/model system for cases that would let me know which is the right one?
And two, that 3com Network Adapter is what I want to plug my broadband (ADSL or DSL) line into. Is that the right one?
Three, does the brand of RAM make much of a difference? If so, what manufacturers are recommended?
Four, if anyone sees any components on the list that'll go boom (or something equally unpleasant) if combined with other components on the list, please let me know now rather than later.
Finally, um, am I missing anything?

Edit: Took Ashton's advice and switched to a 6800

[AgentZero]

Ragnarok-X said:
Agent, in what price-segment do you expect your configuration from post #1 to end ? Im going to buy a new pc as well, though in january, and i personally feel like spending a max of 1300 $ (= 1100 € for me) is by far enough to get a system which will stand about 2 years.


edit: given im only talking about a tower here, no display, no keyboard/mouse, no boxes.



Ignore post #1, it's obsolete. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif The second system comes out at USD2370.60 on NewEgg, but if you just want the box it's USD1866.00, or USD1647.00 if you don't want dual SLI video cards. And you could probably shave a few bob here and there if you don't ease off on the processor a bit, take a RAM hit and go for a smaller HD.
In case you're wondering, here's the price breakdown of the above system:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Processor $400.00
ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 ATX AMD Motherboard $249.00
Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300R0 300GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA133 Hard Drive $126.50
2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) $219.00
eVGA 256-P2-N383-TX Geforce 6800 256MB DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card $219.00x2
SONY 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive $10.00
NEC IDE DVD Burner Model ND-3540A $38.99x2
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS (7.1) Channels PCI Interface Sound Card $93.00
Creative Inspire P7800 7.1 Speakers $85.25
Sennheiser HDR120 Wireless Headphones $49.00
NEC Display Solutions 19" 16ms LCD Monitor $299.99
Logitech Media Keyboard $19.95
Razer Diamondback Mouse $49.99
Enermax EG701AX-VE SFMA(24P) ATX12V 600W Power Supply $129.99
3com 3C996B-T 10/100/1000Mbps PCI Network Adapter $123.00

Total $2370.65USD

[Caduceus]

Oog, that's a ton of bread, man. What are you going to be running that you need an SLI set-up? Just curious.

I just made an AMD 3700+ system from the ground up in late May and it is still running. I would recommend Thompson's book - Building the Perfect PC (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596006632/qid=1132001392/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2055040-0168840?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)

[Thermodyne]

What’s the NIC for? Doesn’t that board have two already built in?

Ditch the IDE hard drive and go with SATA. Personally, I would use the included raid and go with a pair of SATA drives.

I would also go with a 7800 video card. Despite what other peeps have said, it is worth the price. It has noticeably better performance and runs a lot cooler/quieter than the 6800’s

Also, while the DC AMD chip is a good pick, you should get some better cooling for it. The best air cooling is still a Swifty pin sink with a Delta. You can quiet it down by going with a 120mm fan and an adapter.

As for sound, I would use the onboard for now, and wait a few months. There are some new cards on the horizon that should push the state of the art.

EDIT:

You also don't neet that $250 board unless you plan to SLI a pair of vid cards. One of the sub $100 boards will do you fine. We actually don't use the ASUS boards for HiPo systems. The DFI Lanparty boards are the top of the line at the moment.

This is what I would use Lanparty (http://www.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_product_spec_details_r_us.jsp?PRODUCT_ID=3471&C ATEGORY_TYPE=LP&SITE=US)

[AgentZero]

wildcard06 said:
Oog, that's a ton of bread, man. What are you going to be running that you need an SLI set-up? Just curious.

I just made an AMD 3700+ system from the ground up in late May and it is still running. I would recommend Thompson's book - Building the Perfect PC (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596006632/qid=1132001392/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2055040-0168840?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)



Well, considering that I've gone from a pricetag of 4,179.88EUR to 2,028.97EUR for essentially the same cost, its looking positively affordable at the moment. SLI, well that's mainly for running FPS at insanely high resolutions at insanely high speeds. Kind of a 'can your machine do this?' to all my console owning friends. And, traditionally, the video card has been the weakest part of my rig, so it's also me making sure that my new system will be OK in that department for some time to come.

[Fyron]

10/100 ethernet is all you need for Internet. The best broadband is only ~8 MB/s, one twelth the bandwidth of a normal NIC.

I would go for high quality sound (ala Swan m200s) over quantity mediocre sound (ala low end home theater speakers) any day, but that's me. Home theater setups are really only worth it if you go high end. Those creative ones might give you a lesser experience overall than the Swan m200s. Of course, the quality costs more.


I know Alienware makes wicked gaming machines...

Alienware is just brand name. It is pretty easy to build the same machine, minus the god-awful case, for half as much money.

[kerensky]

For home theater sound, you might want to look into Klipsch audio speakers. They sound great and have a price tag of about $400US.

[AgentZero]

Thermodyne said:
What’s the NIC for? Doesn’t that board have two already built in?


Looks like it, yup. NIC ditched.


Ditch the IDE hard drive and go with SATA. Personally, I would use the included raid and go with a pair of SATA drives.


Done. But erm, can someone explain to me this whole RAID/SATA thingy. I've been out of the loop for a while, and I don't get it. I know SATA is like the fancy new technology, ergo using it is good, but what's RAID? Heard about it for ages but still don't know what it is. Oh, & on the topic of HDs, is Western Digital still a reputable company? WD and Maxtor are the only companies I'm really familiar with.


I would also go with a 7800 video card. Despite what other peeps have said, it is worth the price. It has noticeably better performance and runs a lot cooler/quieter than the 6800’s



Jury's still out on this one until I do some further research. Better performance and cooler/quieter is a definate big plus for me, almost worth paying an extra $240.00USD


Also, while the DC AMD chip is a good pick, you should get some better cooling for it. The best air cooling is still a Swifty pin sink with a Delta. You can quiet it down by going with a 120mm fan and an adapter.



Ooo, dang, heatsinks! See, that falls into the 'What am I forgetting' category when I'm trying to get all the bits of my new machine costed out. Speaking of which, as a rule will all required cabling come with the various bits & pieces, or will those require seperate purchases?

And out of curiosity, if I wanted to go fancier than air cooling, what are my options?


As for sound, I would use the onboard for now, and wait a few months. There are some new cards on the horizon that should push the state of the art.



To be honest, I've never really noticed a huge difference from one sound card to the other, it's always been the speaker system that was the make or break, so I figure as long as I have a halfways decent card that supports suround sound, I'm happy.


EDIT:

You also don't neet that $250 board unless you plan to SLI a pair of vid cards. One of the sub $100 boards will do you fine. We actually don't use the ASUS boards for HiPo systems. The DFI Lanparty boards are the top of the line at the moment.

This is what I would use Lanparty (http://www.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_product_spec_details_r_us.jsp?PRODUCT_ID=3471&C ATEGORY_TYPE=LP&SITE=US)



I am planning on SLIing a pair of video cards, which is why I'm willing to fork out the extra few quid for a motherboard that'll suport it. Besides, the first PC I ever built had an ASUS board, and I'm feeling nostalgic. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif


kerensky said:
For home theater sound, you might want to look into Klipsch audio speakers. They sound great and have a price tag of about $400US.



/me hugs kerensky Thank you! A friend I've lost touch with had a set of Klipschs and they just rocked, but I couldn't remember the name of them. Now that I have, they're on the list!


Imperator Fyron said:
10/100 ethernet is all you need for Internet. The best broadband is only ~8 MB/s, one twelth the bandwidth of a normal NIC.



Cheers!


Alienware is just brand name. It is pretty easy to build the same machine, minus the god-awful case, for half as much money.



Well, I did know they were overpriced, but you're very right about the 'half as much money part' The rig I'm describing weighs in at a bit over 4,000.00EUR as an Alienware, whereas it's currently around the 2,100.00EUR mark at the moment for building my own, & I've gotten to use a few bits that aren't options from Alienware. Although I kinda like their cases, especially the black with red internal lighting. Evvvillll! Course, that's just a matter of taste.

[Atrocities]

Damn that is an expensive system... I remember spending near abouts $2,000.00 on my blue box back in 2001. I had the latest everything and within a month..... after building said machine, it was obsolete and I could have built it for about $500.00 less. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

But good luck to you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[AgentZero]

Well, it's currently quite a bit cheaper than my current system which cost me 2,500.00EUR and I had to cut a lot of corners to get it for that, so I'm relatively pleased at how it's going so far. BTW, here's the system as it stands at the moment...

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Processor $400.00
ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 ATX AMD Motherboard $249.00
Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive $104.00
2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) $219.00
eVGA 256-P2-N383-TX Geforce 6800 256MB DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card $219.00x2
SONY 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive $10.00
NEC IDE DVD Burner Model ND-3540A $38.99x2
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS (7.1) Channels PCI Interface Sound Card $93.00
Klipsch PROMEDIA ULTRA 5.1 470 watts 5.1 Speakers $299.99
Sennheiser HDR120 Wireless Headphones $49.00
NEC Display Solutions 19" 16ms LCD Monitor $299.99
Logitech Media Keyboard $19.95
Razer Diamondback Mouse $49.99
Enermax EG701AX-VE SFMA(24P) ATX12V 600W Power Supply $129.99


Total $2439.89
Total(EUR) 2087.19EUR

Yeah, the price has gone up, despite getting a cheaper HD and knocking out the network card, but that's coz kerensky talked me into an expensive speaker system. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Things like heatsinks et al I'm still considering so any input on them (or anything else) is still appreciated.

Edit: Any point on splashing out on a liquid cooling system with this setup? Are liquid cooling systems considerably more efficient that air cooling?

[JAFisher44]

The only reason to use liquid cooling is if you are going to overclock your PC (which you should not do)

This is what RAID is, http://computer.howstuffworks.com/scsi6.htm

Raid has nothing to do with SATA. It is a backup system for SCSI.

[AgentZero]

No, overclocking bad. I've always seen overclocking as a way for people who are unwilling/unable to afford the performance they want to still get it, but I personally don't think the risk is worth it (burn out a $300 dollar processor trying to get $500 performance, & you end up paying $600 for a $300 processor). Oh, and overclocking is also quite usefull when highschool geeks are trying to sound cool.
"I got a wicked PC!"
"Is it overclocked?"
"No."
"rotflmao! u n00b! Mine's overclocked and it's l33t!"

Thanks for the linky explaining SCSI, it makes a bit more sense to me, but I wasn't able to find anything on that site about SATA. Wassup wit dat?

[Thermodyne]

JAFisher44 said:
The only reason to use liquid cooling is if you are going to overclock your PC (which you should not do)

This is what RAID is, http://computer.howstuffworks.com/scsi6.htm

Raid has nothing to do with SATA. It is a backup system for SCSI.



Why should you not OC your system? Why not buy a cheaper low end chip and run it at the same speed as the high end parts?


Water cooling is a viable upgrade to air cooling; some of the cooling tower kits are quite nice. Air is the most dependable, but can have some limitations with today’s chips during hot weather. The next step up and the first to really be advanced cooling would be water cooling with pelts. The pelt chills the CPU and electronically moves the heat the water cooled side of the pelt. These work well, but can have some condensation issues and are not cheap. The top of the line is phase change. This method uses refrigeration equipment to chill the CPU down to around -30c at start up and maintain temps around 0c to 15c during normal operation. Again, condensation can cause problems and the cost of the chiller would buy you a nice mid level PC.


That is one use of raid. It is not only for SCSI systems, it can be used with IDE SCSI and SATA. The board in question includes a SATA raid chip and SATA is faster than IDE, so naturally you would go with SATA raid. For performance, you would build a stripe set so that you could use the bandwidth of both drives at the same time. If you were interested in data integrity, then a mirror would be better with each drive having exactly the same data. With three or four drives, a raid 5 would give you some of both. A little more speed and almost the same data integrity.

Your last statement is at best, uninformed, and as such should be removed.

[Thermodyne]

AgentZero said:

Thanks for the linky explaining SCSI, it makes a bit more sense to me, but I wasn't able to find anything on that site about SATA. Wassup wit dat?



Everything you need to know about SATA raid is in the board manual. Just remember to press (F6) when windows promps at the start of setup, and load the included RAID driver.

[Atrocities]

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Processor $400.00
Listed for $430.00 (http://www.enuinc.com/cpu-ad-4200.html)
ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 ATX AMD Motherboard $249.00
[/b] Listed for $173.00 (http://www.enuinc.com/mb-asu-149.html)[/b]
Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive $104.00
Listed for $139.00 (http://www.enuinc.com/hdi-wd-300g-sata.html)
2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) $219.00
$220.00 (@ 1 Gig x 2) (http://www.enuinc.com/dim-1gb-pc3200.html)
eVGA 256-P2-N383-TX Geforce 6800 256MB DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card $219.00x2
$319.00 (http://www.enuinc.com/vg-msi-077.html)

[AgentZero]

OK, AT, looks like I might get my motherboard from ENU, but for the rest, NewEgg.com's got em beat.
As for overclocking, I'll tell you a little story about why I'd never do it.

When I was in High School, I had the most brilliant computer science teacher ever. He was a bit odd, never actually slept, just took lots of 30min catnaps throughout the day, but he knew EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING PC related. One day, he let a few of the geekier members of the class play around with overclocking a few of the PCs, with explicit instructions to clean the dust out of their insides first, to be very careful, and to switch the machines off when they were done. Of course, they didn't pay him any attention because they were uber and knew what they were doing, so they didn't clean out the dust (of which there was a considerable amount), and they left the machines running when they went home. During one of Mr. Miaki's (MiaKI not MiaGI!) catnaps, a few of the machines overheated enough to ignite some of the dust, which in turn ignited some paper left nearby (so much for being careful!) and within a few minutes there was a nice fire going. Mr. Miaki never woke up because the smoke & fumes kept him unconcious, and though his life was saved by the fire brigade, he came out of it so badly brain damaged that to this day he has to re-learn to tie his shoes every morning.

And that, in essence, is why I wouldn't OC anything. Especially since I have my PC in my bedroom, and have a habit of leaving it on overnight. I don't think I'd ever sleep a wink after overclocking my machine, even if I had the most expensive phase change cooling system in the world. I know it's unlikely the same thing would happen, but one does not recover from the trauma of losing a friend like that very easily.

[Thermodyne]

AgentZero said:
OK, AT, looks like I might get my motherboard from ENU, but for the rest, NewEgg.com's got em beat.
As for overclocking, I'll tell you a little story about why I'd never do it.

When I was in High School, I had the most brilliant computer science teacher ever. He was a bit odd, never actually slept, just took lots of 30min catnaps throughout the day, but he knew EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING PC related. One day, he let a few of the geekier members of the class play around with overclocking a few of the PCs, with explicit instructions to clean the dust out of their insides first, to be very careful, and to switch the machines off when they were done. Of course, they didn't pay him any attention because they were uber and knew what they were doing, so they didn't clean out the dust (of which there was a considerable amount), and they left the machines running when they went home. During one of Mr. Miaki's (MiaKI not MiaGI!) catnaps, a few of the machines overheated enough to ignite some of the dust, which in turn ignited some paper left nearby (so much for being careful!) and within a few minutes there was a nice fire going. Mr. Miaki never woke up because the smoke & fumes kept him unconcious, and though his life was saved by the fire brigade, he came out of it so badly brain damaged that to this day he has to re-learn to tie his shoes every morning.

And that, in essence, is why I wouldn't OC anything. Especially since I have my PC in my bedroom, and have a habit of leaving it on overnight. I don't think I'd ever sleep a wink after overclocking my machine, even if I had the most expensive phase change cooling system in the world. I know it's unlikely the same thing would happen, but one does not recover from the trauma of losing a friend like that very easily.




Sounds like an urban legend..or.......

Cough Cough....bull****......Cough Cough

I've let the smoke out of a few processors and mainboards, but never had anything close to a fire. If one of those PC caught fire, it was prolly rigged to do so.

[AgentZero]

Well, I can give you a number for him, and you can ask him about it but he usually only answers around 12 noon when an attendant is helping him with lunch, since when he's alone the telephone frightens him since he doesn't know what the 'alarm' is for.
As for whether it was on purpose, it was ruled an accident, but the possibilty is there. And it's really not that difficult, given the nature of dust (and I'm not talking a thin film of dust either, I'm talking under-your-bed kind of dust, proper dust bunnies & all that, since the school board had all kinds of red-tape surrounding even opening the cases [since it 'voids the warranty'] so they didn't allow very frequent cleaning), that once it achieves high enough temperature, it creates a nice little air circulation effect, sending dust floating all over the place, and if any of that dust happens to ignite, it doesn't take long for it to spread.
And while burning dust usually doesn't last long enough or produce the heat required to melt and ignite computer components, it can ignite paper, and burning paper does create the temperatures needed to get plastic burning.
So even if I stored my PC in a freezer, I still wouldn't be comfortable overclocking anything.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Oh man, that's bad. Read the instructions first.

[Renegade 13]

The right kind of dust in the right amount can be explosive in air. For example, grain dust is highly explosive when sufficient quantities are suspended in air.

[Thermodyne]

But at what temp will it combust? Most of the dust inside a PC is from the local environment. In a school environment that would be mostly carpet fiber, ceiling fibers, chalk and human misc. like skin, hair, and clothing. Not a real good source of tinder. Also, the insides of a PC are very fire resistant. That’s one of the reasons that they are so hard on the environment.

Let’s look at this from an informed point of view.

First, did you actually see the fire, or the charred PC lab?

Second, how would OC’ing cause the fire? The CPU is long dead before it reaches 200c; the power supply has built in thermal protection. Newer CPU’s have thermal protection too. And there are no high voltage components on the mainboard. At best, the alleged OC would have been modest, so that the systems would have been stable enough to run for an extended period of time. OCing involves bumping up the multiplier and or the Front side Buss frequency. If possible, you will also want to bump up the Vcore a tenth of a volt or even 5 tenths. None of this is the stuff fires are made from.

Now some point’s of reality. Most schools buy commercial off the shelf PC’s. You aren’t going to do much OC’ing on them. At best they will have a FSB jumper with 66, 100, and 133MHz settings. They might also have some settings for the memory. But for the sake of conversation, we will assume that these were custom OC’able systems. These would also be built to operate safely at their most aggressive settings. In the real world, we kill parts when we start v-modding boards and cards. I seriously doubt that the teacher let the students start bypassing circuits with 1000 ohm trimmers and such. So let’s assume that the system was OC’ed and overheated. It would have shut down long before it got hot enough to ignite dust, unless something was done to actually cause a fire. Magnesium filament and flammable liquid wired to a NS relay would be the easy way, but again I doubt this could happen in a school and not be found out.

And lastly, lots of peeps here have had system shutdowns caused by accumulated dust. They don’t catch fire; they just shut down or lock up. PC are basically fire proof, the plastic won’t even sustain a flame. Until recently, the insides were coated with a fire retardant dust. Many of the components vent fluorocarbons at high temps. They will smoke and stink profusely, but seldom if ever burn.

[JAFisher44]

Well, fire hazards aside, The reason I would never OC a chip is because it is bad for it. Period. No matter how well cooled the chip is OCing will reduce its life expectancy. Chips are built to run at certain speeds. The process of heating and cooling causes the silicon in the chip to expand and contract. The materials used are rated to do this at a certain speed. If you overclock (even with proper cooling) this will occur more often and to a greater degree and will degrade the chip. This means that the chip will fail sooner than it would at its rated speed, often far sooner. This is why you should not do it.

Not to mention the fact that overclocking your chip is a guarenteed recipie for failure if your cooling system ever hiccups. Sure, overclocking is fun if you can afford to buy a new system every year, or buy multiple chips, if necessary, when things go wrong, but for your average working joe, you would be best served to just use it at rated specs.

If you do insist on overclocking you should go with a Pentium chip, as they seem to tollerate it better, relatively, than AMD chips. However this means that you have to use a Pentium chip (not good if you want a gaming machine). I would also recommend dropping a some cash on a good liquid cooling system as well.

[JAFisher44]

By the way, SATA is a similar technology to the older PATA technology which is being phased out. PATA, or Parallel ATA, is what you are most likely using if you have the flat ribbon cables connecting your hard drives and cd drives to your computer. Parallel meaning that there are multiple parallel wires in the cable which each carry information at the same time.

In the time of the dinosaurs everything was serial, meaning that there was one wire connecting a drive to a computer. Of course when people ran into frequency limits and could advance no further, someone got the brilliant idea to just add more wires. 8x the connections means 8x the speed.

Well, using parallel wires has its own set of problems. The major one being RF. See, when an electrical signal moves down a wire it creates a sort of radio frequency "shock wave". This shock wave is stronger the higher the frequency of the signal. This RF shock wave interferes with the signals in parallel wires. Over time, several things were done to limit this sort of problem. For example in most modern parallel cables there is an inactive "buffer" wire in between all active wires. This wire helps to absorb the RF interference.

So, now that tech has advanced, we have new materials that can handle far greater frequencies than we used to be able to use, but, if we run in parallel the interference kills the cable. So, we return to serial.

SATA, or Serial ATA, is a new interface for drives that provides serial information transfer for a drive at higher frequencies. Because of the previously stated increases in tech we are now able to increase the frequency to a point that even with only 2 wires (one to send and one to receive) they out-perform 40 wire parallel cables (26 of those carry data). Also, the cables can be much longer for SATA than for PATA, 39 inches vs. 18 inches.

So, basically SATA is a new controller that allows for far faster data transfer at lower power costs. Buy it. Use it. Enjoy it. It's just better.

[Thermodyne]

JAFisher44 said:
Well, fire hazards aside, The reason I would never OC a chip is because it is bad for it. Period. No matter how well cooled the chip is OCing will reduce its life expectancy. Chips are built to run at certain speeds. The process of heating and cooling causes the silicon in the chip to expand and contract. The materials used are rated to do this at a certain speed. If you overclock (even with proper cooling) this will occur more often and to a greater degree and will degrade the chip. This means that the chip will fail sooner than it would at its rated speed, often far sooner. This is why you should not do it.

Not to mention the fact that overclocking your chip is a guarenteed recipie for failure if your cooling system ever hiccups. Sure, overclocking is fun if you can afford to buy a new system every year, or buy multiple chips, if necessary, when things go wrong, but for your average working joe, you would be best served to just use it at rated specs.

If you do insist on overclocking you should go with a Pentium chip, as they seem to tollerate it better, relatively, than AMD chips. However this means that you have to use a Pentium chip (not good if you want a gaming machine). I would also recommend dropping a some cash on a good liquid cooling system as well.



Your first statement is partially true. But it’s not the increase in frequency that causes it. The additional Vcore accelerates electron migration, which is what ages the chip. Heat cycles don’t come into play, and of themselves are not large enough to adversely affect the chip. So my chip last seven years of 24/7 instead of 12, I really don’t care.

Your second statement is false. Chips are hardwired to run at certain speeds. They are designed to run in a target spectrum of speeds. The speeds are determined by binning each lot, then burning to fit inventory needs. If you get a P4 woody of 2.4GHz and another of 1.8GHz, and they have the same lot # on the core, they are the same chip. One had the multiplier burned to 19 and the other was burned to 18. Other than that, they are the same chip.

Your third statement is not true; the materials seldom change within a family of chips. One P4 woody is the same as any other P4 woody material wise. More often than not, it is manufacturing advances that change not the materials.

Your fifth statement is a repeat, but it is still untrue. Electron migration is the problem, and it is caused by voltage. Older processors could be killed by heat, but it took excessive amounts, far beyond what a stable system would run at. Newer chips have built in thermal protection.

Your sixth statement is untrue. If the cooler fails, the thermal protection will shut down the system. More likely, the system would gradually overheat, causing the OC to become unstable, and cause data corruption which would eventually crash the system.

Your seventh statement is sort of a generalization, and a mater of personal opinion. What people can afford is none of my business so long as they manage to pay the bill. Some people OC just to push the state of the art. Others do it because they can’t afford top end hardware to run new games with; others do it because they enjoy it. Who are you to say what would be best for them?

Your last statement is pure uninformed bull****. While Intel systems still hold the reputation of being the most stable, the only place they exceed AMD on OC’ing is raw FSB and cold start on chilled systems. You can not alter the multiplier on an Intel chip, and if you push the Vcore more than a couple of tenths, you’ll be flirting with sudden P4 death. Push it to 1.8v and you can measure the life in hours. AMD chips thrive at 1.8 and on most of them, you can alter the multiplier. Also AMD offers a chip just for the OC’ing crowd. The FX comes with an unlocked multiplier. Also, AMD chips tend to cost less, so it hurts less when you kill one. So, if you want to do serious OC’ing, you are more or less forced to use AMD. Also, 90+% of OC’d computers are cooled with air. Water cooling is for the hard core guys, and phase change is almost a novelty. I probably know 400peeps who OC. Very few, less than 20, use anything other than air for cooling. Perhaps 15 use water and there are five of us with phase change systems. AFAIK, I’m the only one still messing with pelts. The average OC of the people I know is probably 100MHz on the FSB. These systems run for years like this with no problem.

[Renegade 13]

Thermodyne said:
You can not alter the multiplier on an Intel chip, and if you push the Vcore more than a couple of tenths, you’ll be flirting with sudden P4 death. Push it to 1.8v and you can measure the life in hours.


So in other words, OC'ing can easily fry a chip, if you do it wrong! Since many people don't have much knowledge of OC'ing, they really shouldn't do it since there'd be a pretty good chance that they'd totally fry something, simply by doing it wrong. On the other hand, I'm sure you're right that if done correctly OC'ing will do no harm, since when your chip lasts only 8 years instead of the 12 it might have, its so far out of date that it doesn't matter.

[Caduceus]

I love my ATI Radeon X800 XL, but check out NVIDIA New Card (http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20051114/index.html)

[Thermodyne]

Renegade 13 said:


So in other words, OC'ing can easily fry a chip, if you do it wrong! Since many people don't have much knowledge of OC'ing, they really shouldn't do it since there'd be a pretty good chance that they'd totally fry something, simply by doing it wrong. On the other hand, I'm sure you're right that if done correctly OC'ing will do no harm, since when your chip lasts only 8 years instead of the 12 it might have, its so far out of date that it doesn't matter.



Sure, there is no protection for the uninformed. But, with that said, adjusting Vcore is more advanced than basic OC’ing. And a three year old chip is usually not worth much. Unless you need it and it’s the only one you have. People “OC” all kinds of things and in so doing usually trade off some reliability for performance. Cars, RC toy cars, game consoles, their own bodies are some of the things that come to mind. TV repair has been doing it for years. Remember when that old console TV got dim when you were a kid? A man came out and for a few bucks made it as good as new. He installed a voltage kicker onto the tube harness and kicked the voltage to the guns up. I always wondered what that did to the radiation coming out the other side

Let’s state some obvious things here. IMHO You should not go hog wild OC'ing your only rig if you can't afford to replace it. And it would be best if you had a good knowledge of how PC's work before you start altering default settings.

As an example, the board listed in the build above comes with an OC’ing program. The OC ability of the board is the main reason people will pay almost $200 for it. It will allow you to OC on the fly, or to have it happen automatically only when the system needs more speed. You can set it to specific settings, or as a percentage of system speed. All you need to know is how to use a mouse. It does not allow the average user to make big Vcore changes. These still have to be done in the bios code. IIRC, the highest bump is 10%. That would work fine for anyone willing to invest in some upgraded air cooling. 5% would be fine for any stock system that was not in an overly hot environment. The ability to OC is more or less universally included in aftermarket PC parts these days. The OC’ing crowd makes up the largest segment of the market for these parts, and demand that the ability be included.

[NullAshton]

If you do overclocking right, you can get about a 15% increase in performace, at no risk to the component you're overclocking. Graphics cards are probally the easiest to overclock, since they're more resistant to heat. Simply increase the clock settings bit by bit, playtesting it for 5 minutes every time you adjust it, until you notice graphical artifacts. Then adjust the settings back a little, and do an extended playtest. If a graphics card overheats, you'll know it, because of those graphical artifacts.

[Thermodyne]

wildcard06 said:
I love my ATI Radeon X800 XL, but check out NVIDIA New Card (http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20051114/index.html)


The 7800 sli’s are cool. The 512’s went on sale marked up to almost $800 dollars on Monday, and were sold out before the end of business on Wednesday. That 800XL is still a pretty stout card, especially since the new High end ATI cards are still more or less vapor ware. The 800 series still hold some of the higher marks.

3DMark01 (http://3dmarkteam.irydium.com/rankings.php?benchmark=3dmark01)

[Caduceus]

Interesting...

Thermodyne are you Thermo (Rank #2)on the 3D Mark 2003 page?

Where do you work? (You can ignore if that's too personal.)

[Thermodyne]

NullAshton said:
If you do overclocking right, you can get about a 15% increase in performace, at no risk to the component you're overclocking. Graphics cards are probally the easiest to overclock, since they're more resistant to heat. Simply increase the clock settings bit by bit, playtesting it for 5 minutes every time you adjust it, until you notice graphical artifacts. Then adjust the settings back a little, and do an extended playtest. If a graphics card overheats, you'll know it, because of those graphical artifacts.



50% stable, is what we shoot for, but seldom achieve. Best I ever got was 900MHz bump on a 2GHz Northwood. That was with air cooling. The low end CPU's are where the big OC's come from, because that are basicall the same parts as the high end chips. We have about 10 peeps with 50%+ OC's at the moment. Over Clocks (http://3dmarkteam.irydium.com/cpuoc.php?benchmark=3dmark01)

[Thermodyne]

wildcard06 said:
Interesting...

Thermodyne are you Thermo (Rank #2)on the 3D Mark 2003 page?

Where do you work? (You can ignore if that's too personal.)



Yep, that be me. Thoes are on air. I have some higher numbers with the phase change cooling, but I'm still not completly stable. Damn AMD's and coldstart lockups. As a rule, we don't publish results on non-stable systems. I got a new controller for the chiller and I'm working on a bare bones Windows install. When I get some time I'll go after #1 in 03 and 05. The #1 in 01 is a vmodded dual phase amonia coold system, I can't touch that one yet. Perhaps when I get a pair of 7800/512 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Sharkys is a good forum for any of you guys with PC questions, or if you just want to talk about PC's

As to my job, PM me.

[Thermodyne]

While we are on the subject, 3DMark 05 is good bench mark. It will bring a high end OEM system to its knees. If you want to see what you have, run the mark and compare it to about position 10 on down. Above 10 and your against some tough tweaking and custom OS’s

[JAFisher44]

Well, there you have it. I have been pwned. So, I'll strap on my bib, and eat my humble pie. Listen to Thermodyne, he obviously knows what he is talking about when it comes to overclocking a comp.

Frankly OCing a comp is not something I am very interested in doing, so I have never really done any real research into it. I guess this is what I get when I relay second hand info from someone who I thought knew something about the trade.

Lesson learned. Never climb out on a limb unless you have personally checked to see if it is stable. In the future I'll personally research anything I choose to give advice on.

I'd like to think, however, that when I do have more knowledge than others I would use it to help people out rather than to lord my superiority over them. It is too bad that manners and knowledge aren't a package deal.

[Atrocities]

And let that be a lesson to you! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[JAFisher44]

Indeed. ¬¬

[Thermodyne]

JAFisher44 said:
Well, there you have it. I have been pwned. So, I'll strap on my bib, and eat my humble pie. Listen to Thermodyne, he obviously knows what he is talking about when it comes to overclocking a comp.

Frankly OCing a comp is not something I am very interested in doing, so I have never really done any real research into it. I guess this is what I get when I relay second hand info from someone who I thought knew something about the trade.

Lesson learned. Never climb out on a limb unless you have personally checked to see if it is stable. In the future I'll personally research anything I choose to give advice on.

I'd like to think, however, that when I do have more knowledge than others I would use it to help people out rather than to lord my superiority over them. It is too bad that manners and knowledge aren't a package deal.



Na......Not pwned.....I'm not into all that. It was just a good aggressive debate. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[NullAshton]

A good old google search will do wonders for debates like this.

[AgentZero]

Weeb!
http://www.extremeprometeia.com/cgi-bin/sh000005.pl?REFPAGE=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2eextremeprom eteia%2ecom
%2facatalog%2fsearch%2ehtml&WD=ii%20mach&PN=Promet eia_Mach_II%2ehtml%23a76#a76]http://www.extremeprometeia.com
/cgi-bin/sh000005.pl?REFPAGE=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2eextremeprom eteia%2ecom%2facatalog%2fsearch%2ehtml&WD=ii%20mac h&PN
=Prometeia_Mach_II%2ehtml%23a76#a76

I was thinking of getting this one, because not only could I put my beer on top of my PC to keep it nice & chilled, but I could use my PC cooling system as colateral for a mortgage.

Seriously though....



Thermodyne said:
...you should get some better cooling for it. The best air cooling is still a Swifty pin sink with a Delta. You can quiet it down by going with a 120mm fan and an adapter.




I haven't been able to find what you're talking about anywhere. Linky?

[Thermodyne]

Swifty (http://www.swiftnets.com/)

Go to the MCX64-V under heatsinks

[AgentZero]

Thanks! Think I've got me a proper system now, so all that's left is to appropriate the funding for it. Actually, I already have the funding for it, what I need to do is get my *** a job so that I don't have to use my savings to stay afloat. And spending two grand on a new computer when you're jobless is just not a good idea. Unless you've got way more money than I do, anyway.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Could you shrink the link? Thanks.

[AgentZero]

narf poit chez BOOM said:
Could you shrink the link? Thanks.




OK, but now it's broken. I hope you're happy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Thermodyne]

Hmmm….Not sure what the link was to, but it looks like it might have been to a Chiller? If so, they will let you make some real good OC’s, but they are in and of themselves, as big pain in the butt.

[Fyron]

AZ:
Leave the url part alone and just change the text displayed.

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>make this part short (http://long.horrid.url)</pre><hr />

quote this post to see the underlying code (http://www.extremeprometeia.com/cgi-bin/sh000005.pl?REFPAGE=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2eextremeprom eteia%2ecom%2facatalog%2fsearch%2ehtml&amp;WD=ii%20mac h&amp;PN=Prometeia_Mach_II%2ehtml%23a76#a76)

[AgentZero]

Threadium Resurectus!

Still don't have my new PC, I'm considering waiting until Feb when nVidia releases it's next generation video cards, since that'll drive down the price of the ones I want. Or at least until after Christmas when shipping becomes reliable and bargains abound.

Came up with two questions though.
1) Seeing as I'm going with an SLI configuration, I'm a bit worried about the noise the thing'll be making. Two video card fans, a processor heatsink &amp; the power supply fan sounds noisey to me. Anyone know of any good solutions for that?

2) I've found an Irish website that actually is a bit cheaper for a few parts than I've found on US sites, so I'll definately be getting a few from there. Question is, if I buy some parts in Ireland, and some parts from the US, am I going to have to worry about any incompatabilities? ie: Power supply...?

[Thermodyne]

Hey, I finally finished one of my projects yesterday. 4.2GHz of water cooled bliss http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

PIXs (http://groups.msn.com/ThermodynesPlace/watercooling.msnw)

[Thermodyne]

AgentZero said:
Threadium Resurectus!

Still don't have my new PC, I'm considering waiting until Feb when nVidia releases it's next generation video cards, since that'll drive down the price of the ones I want. Or at least until after Christmas when shipping becomes reliable and bargains abound.

Came up with two questions though.
1) Seeing as I'm going with an SLI configuration, I'm a bit worried about the noise the thing'll be making. Two video card fans, a processor heatsink &amp; the power supply fan sounds noisey to me. Anyone know of any good solutions for that?

2) I've found an Irish website that actually is a bit cheaper for a few parts than I've found on US sites, so I'll definately be getting a few from there. Question is, if I buy some parts in Ireland, and some parts from the US, am I going to have to worry about any incompatabilities? ie: Power supply...?



1) The fans on the cards don’t make much noise, the 7800/256 cards run quite cool and don’t need fast loud fans. Most heat sink fans list the dbs and you can look for a quiet one. Also, larger diameter fans move the same amout of air as smaller fans, with less noise. So look for a case with 120mm fans.

2) Remember to add shipping costs and any duties to offshore orders. Often it is a lot cheaper to buy in country. The only thing to worry about is the power supply. The AC plug and voltage need to match what is locally available. Also be sure to get a PSU with dual SLI leads.

[geoschmo]

quietpc.com. They sell all sorts of things for silencing the beast. Fans, special quiet drives and more. You can spend a little, or you can spend a whole lot. Just depends on how quiet you really need it to be. I've never actually bought anything there, but I love browsing the site and dreaming. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[El_Phil]

Whisper power supplies are amazingly good, I was suitably impressed with how quiet they actually are. As Thermy mentioned get a quiet processor fan, the graphics card not too loud and a nice 120mm case fan. Throw in a quiet power supply and job's a good 'un.

Customs duty can be an unpleasent surprise when it kicks in, there are various threshold beneath which it doesn't apply. Not being an expert on Irish duty I have no idea if it's the same there, but I'd imagine it's at least similar.

The US is 110v 60Hz while Europe has allegedly standardise on 220v 50Hz. I'm pretty sure Ireland has dropped down from 240v to the European standard. Regardless a US spec power supply wouldn't be happy in Ireland.

[AgentZero]

El_Phil said:
Customs duty can be an unpleasent surprise when it kicks in, there are various threshold beneath which it doesn't apply. Not being an expert on Irish duty I have no idea if it's the same there, but I'd imagine it's at least similar.

The US is 110v 60Hz while Europe has allegedly standardise on 220v 50Hz. I'm pretty sure Ireland has dropped down from 240v to the European standard. Regardless a US spec power supply wouldn't be happy in Ireland.



Don't have a clue bout customs either. Regardless, I'll be buying the power supply in Ireland since the one I have my eye on is eur40 cheaper. The only thing I'm concerned about would be things like sound &amp; graphics cards; if I buy them from the States, and plug them into a mobo bought in Irleand, running off an Irish power supply, would they be OK? Currently the cheapest GeForce 7800s available in Ireland are eur120 more than the cheapest in the States.

[Renegade 13]

Have you taken a look at www.tigerdirect.ca (http://www.tigerdirect.ca) ? They have some of the best prices I've seen for computer components. I'm looking at getting a nice shiny new power supply from them now that I've got a good job. 500 or 600W. Remember, prices are in Canadian dollars, not American. Though the two are becoming closer all the time!

[Fyron]

Careful about cheap PSUs... a malfunctioning PSU will fry everything in your computer. Make sure to do plenty of Internet research on the brand/model you are looking at.

[El_Phil]

Renegade while I appreciate the sentiment (who doesn't like cheap deals?) a Canadian PSU will get fried on 220v. While a candle burnt at both ends will live half as long, a PSU on double the voltage will last a couple of seconds before going boom.

That aside the rest of the bits should be utterly fine, the voltages for PCI, etc are all defined (3.3v rings a bell but I'm sure someone else know or can google the real answer). The components should, by everything I know and have heard, be fine. No power system in the world runs correct for a motherboard so transforming the voltage is a must, hence the only check is if the PSU will work on your countries voltage and frequency.

[Renegade 13]

Well the site I quoted has computer components of all varieties at good prices, I didn't mean to imply that it was solely PSU's. And I wasn't recommending a North American PSU in Europe! Boom not good when it comes to computers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Fyron]

That's assuming that the PSU doesn't fail by starting to put out significantly more than 3.3V on that rail... The standards are defined, but when electronics start failing, anything can and will happen.

[mac5732]

I'm looking to buy a new comp as well... what is better, Geoforce pci express 6800 or geoforce 7800 gtx???

[Phoenix-D]

Definitely second Fyron's comment about cheap PSUs. The same thing goes for fans. If a RAM chip dies, no big deal, toss in another.

If a PSU goes, it can either A. do nothing B. take out a couple components C. nuke your whole system or D. (doesn't happen often) catch fire.

Fans, if they die without you noticing, will do any number of things. Case fan..not a big deal, you'll have time to notice. CPU fan? Modern CPUs will overheat more or less instantly without a fan.

[AgentZero]

/me is afraid now

It's been a good few years since I was last building PCs (to give you an idea the last one I built was a Pentium 200MHz, and it was state-of-the-art at the time), but I recall that power supplies used to have a little switch at the back for flipping betweent 220v and 110v. Is this not the case anymore?

And I've no intention of buying a 'cheap' PSU, or fans, or anything vital. I just want to get the best price that I can for good equipment.

[Renegade 13]

mac5732 said:
I'm looking to buy a new comp as well... what is better, Geoforce pci express 6800 or geoforce 7800 gtx???

The 6800 is a good midrange card that should last you for quite some time. That's the good thing about cards that aren't quite top of the line anymore, but aren't too far below either. I have a 6600 GT OC and it runs everything just fine. In a couple years though, that might no longer be the case. However, the 7800 GTX is definitely top of the line at the moment. It'll cost you quite a bit more than the 6800, but will also last longer in a machine. In either case I'd definitely go with PCI-Express, not AGP.

7800GTX 256MB will cost you about $350 if you can get a good deal. Up to $600 if you don't. 6800 will likely run you about $150-$175US, but will not run graphics intensive games at their highest level for as long as the 7800. Really it's up to you. Especially if you don't run graphics intensive games, I'd stick with the 6800. If you do, might consider the 7800.


Fans, if they die without you noticing, will do any number of things. Case fan..not a big deal, you'll have time to notice. CPU fan? Modern CPUs will overheat more or less instantly without a fan.

Which is why you hope you have a temperature display that you glance at frequently!


I recall that power supplies used to have a little switch at the back for flipping betweent 220v and 110v. Is this not the case anymore?



I believe that is still the case.

[Fyron]

It is generally a bad idea to buy top of the line video cards... Always buying top of the line cards will cost more mony in the long run. While it is true that the card will last longer than the last generation (or two) of top of the line, it will cost more than twice as much and will not last anywhere near twice as long before feeling "dated." Buying a new second or third generation card a few years down the line when the 2nd/3rd gen card you buy today starts feeling dated will still have you spending less money overall (even taking inflation into account) than the initial purchase of the top of the line card today... Top of the line models fall drastically in price after a rather short period, largely because they start out highly inflated in price.

The same holds true for CPUs, and pretty much all other computer parts...

[AgentZero]

Good point, Fyron, which is why I'm thinking of waiting for February to buy my graphics cards, since that's when the next-gen nVidia's are supposed to be out. And seeing as I'm giving serious consideration to a pair of 7800s, I think the savings of waiting a couple months would be well worth it.

[Renegade 13]

Since this has become a general tech thread, I've got a question about RAM.

I'm looking to upgrade from 1GB to 2GB. The question is, do I need to buy the extra Gig from the same manufacturer or is RAM compatible across manufacturers? As it is, I could end up with 2x512 from one manufacturer, and 2x512 from another...would this work fine?

Another separate yet related question; is there any way to determine the manufacturer of a particular component without physically cracking open the case and checking the labels? I have the idea there is a way and spent a while poking around the various device managers, but couldn't seem to find it. If anyone knows, please help! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Instar]

Dunno if it was suggested or not, but get a 10,000 RPM SATA hard drive, the WD Raptors at 74 gb are great.

[Fyron]

Renegade 13 said:
I'm looking to upgrade from 1GB to 2GB. The question is, do I need to buy the extra Gig from the same manufacturer or is RAM compatible across manufacturers? As it is, I could end up with 2x512 from one manufacturer, and 2x512 from another...would this work fine?

As far as I know, RAM is RAM is RAM. It shouldn't matter who made each chip, unless it is some shoddy Chinese junk manufacturer... Just make sure to get them all the same clock frequency, since the motherboard will run all RAM at the frequency of the lowest chip.

Another separate yet related question; is there any way to determine the manufacturer of a particular component without physically cracking open the case and checking the labels? I have the idea there is a way and spent a while poking around the various device managers, but couldn't seem to find it. If anyone knows, please help! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Device manager is not always helpful, especially if you have components using generic drivers. Try Belarc Advisor, which I believe reads all the identification bits for each piece of hardware, as well as driver info:

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

[Raging Deadstar]

And, it may seem obvious to us Techmonkeys but i've seen it happen, make sure you have enough DIMM slots to place 4 sticks of RAM in. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Renegade 13]

Thanks Fyron! That's pretty much what I thought, but wanted to be sure.

RD: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif Wouldn't that be the first thing one would confirm before thinking about an upgrade!?!?

[AgentZero]

Speaking of RAM, does anyone have any suggestions for a good mix of performance &amp; price? I'm looking at some nice Corsair stuff, but it's about eur250 for 1GB, and I want 2GB, but don't really want to spend eur500 on RAM.

[Renegade 13]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif 250 Euro's!?! Is it gold plated and encrusted with diamonds?!? There's really no need that I can see to spend anywhere near that much on a Gig of RAM. Something a little lower down the price spectrum should still do you just fine. Then again I'm not horribly knowledgable, so you'll probably want some better opinions than mine. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Thermodyne]

What kind of ram are you looking to get. DDR PC2700?

[AgentZero]

DDR PC3200, if memory serves. Had a lovely spreadsheet done up but left it at work, and won't be able to get it back until the 3rd. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif Would PC2700 do fine for a system geared primarily towards gaming?

[Baron Munchausen]

Heh...

It probably depends completely on the game. Some FPS games might need every little thing to be as fast as it possibly can be in order to perform best. Others might only need enough memory to keep from having to use disk swapping.

[AgentZero]

Um, not hugely into FPSs... I'll play them now and then but I'm mainly getting the rig for the graphic-intensive RPGs &amp; strategy games on the way. Don't know if the different engines would make a difference though.

[Fyron]

AgentZero said:
Speaking of RAM, does anyone have any suggestions for a good mix of performance &amp; price? I'm looking at some nice Corsair stuff, but it's about eur250 for 1GB, and I want 2GB, but don't really want to spend eur500 on RAM.

Dear Xintis... any RAM costing that much money is a ripoff. Its all the same, really... so long as it isn't from a no-name Chinese factory, performance will be virtually the same from different manufacturers (for same make and frequency of RAM). Most of it comes from the same factories anyways... Heat sinks as featured on glitzy Corsair stuff cost only a few bucks if you buy them separately, so that is no reason to pay such a mark-up...


A quick froogle search (http://froogle.google.com/froogle_cluster?q=1+gb+corsair+pc3200&amp;pid=48178324 35625804528&amp;oid=2910049021243855407&amp;btnG=Search+Fr oogle&amp;lmode=&amp;addr=&amp;scoring=p&amp;hl=en) even shows those same chips to be far cheaper... (250 euros is ~296 US dollars). Even with import duties, that 250 euro figure can't compare, I think.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

...'Froogle'?

Ah, computer slang. Nothing like it.

[Atrocities]

Well the time has come to upgrade the old video card. Since everything is going PCI express I guess I need to consider a new MB as well. That brings me to memory and CPU.

What would your suggestions for a solid, enexpensive Motherboard, CPU, Ram (1gig), and power supply wattage?

Sure AMD 64's are hot right now, but are they worth the money?

I am finding it very confusing with all of the socket types, merrory version so any one able to clear things up would get a gold star from me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I would like to try and stay around $500.00 (not counting the Video card) for costs in parts. The cheaper the price the better things will be.

[Thermodyne]

What do you have now? $500 is not going to get you ^&amp;$# from that list.

[Fyron]

narf poit chez BOOM said:
...'Froogle'?

Ah, computer slang. Nothing like it.

It's not really slang when it is a web site name...

$500 can go a mighty long way Thermodyne... Once you know what you need, just watch the deal sites and wait for good rebates. All it takes is a bit of patience.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

It is slang when it mimics an actual word.

[AgentZero]

Frugal: fru·gal adj.
1. Practicing or marked by economy, as in the expenditure of money or the use of material resources.

Sorry. Had to.

Anyway, I've been out of the loop for so long, all this new RAM terminology has got me a bit confuddled. DDR this and PCxxxx that. What the devil does it all mean? And more importantly, what's a good thing to look out for that would give decent performance along with a managable pricetag?

[Fyron]

You can get a good price tag on any RAM, so long as you shop around.

PCxxxx is related to clock frequency of the RAM, in a convoluted sort of way. Higher is generally better. Try not to combine different "PC" levels of RAM, since it will all be downclocked to run at the lowest frequency.

Sorry. Had to.

Not entirely sure why.

[AgentZero]

Imperator Fyron said:
Sorry. Had to.

Not entirely sure why.



Because I had to. I thought I was clear on that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Anyway, here's a rather important question: I'm looking at a Geforce 7800 card, and it says as part of it's minimum requirements that one should have a 350W power supply. Now, if I'm going for two SLI cards, does that mean I should be looking at a 700W power supply?
I'm assuming not, since I don't think it needs the whole 350W, and that's listed as a minimum since that's the least it will run on with the processor, fans, HD, etc running.

But I can't seem to find anywhere that says what the card's actual draw would be. Any ideas?

[Thermodyne]

This is what I used in both of my sli systems
PSU (http://www.silverstonetek.com/products-65zf.htm)

Beware, it's slightly longer than a std PSU. Made it a real hard fit in one of my cases.

[Ed Kolis]

Is there an online version of the printed manual at the manufacturer's website? Those things usually explain all the nitty-gritty technical details...

[AgentZero]

Thermodyne, this is the case I'm thinking of (Though I'll be looking for a slightly better price, this site just has the best info about its dimensions). Case (http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=308923&amp;view=detailed)

Ed, thanks for the idea, but I left my spreadsheet with all the details on it at work (I'm productive, really!) so I can't actually remember what card I was looking at. I might actually show up early tomorrow just to find out.

Edit: Fixed linky

[Thermodyne]

OK that’s the same case I have but with a different front. You will have to remove the top of case connector panel and fan to install the linked PSU. It’s not a big deal, one screw on the panel and a squeeze bracket on the fan. Don’t loose the screw, it’s a real short one.

[Renegade 13]

AZ, I believe the minimum power wattage on a PSU for two 7800's in SLI is 500W.

[AgentZero]

Currently this is the PSU I'm looking at PSU (http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=314759&amp;view=detailed) .
That should fit ok, shouldn't it? Out of curiosity, Thermo, do you have to remove the case connector pannel &amp; fan permenantly, or can they be replaced once the unit is in place?

[Thermodyne]

You can put them back after the PSU is in.

[AgentZero]

Ah, well that's grand then. I'm well used to having to finangle computer bits around to get them working.

Another little question just came to mind. In terms of primarily gaming performance would I be better of with an AMD 2.4GHz with a 1MB cache, or a 2.2GHz with a 2MB cache? The 2.4GHz with 2MB cache is a bit out of my price range.

[AgentZero]

OK, so here's where the system is sitting at the moment:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.2GHz Socket 939
Asus A8N-SLI Premium, nForce4 SLI,Socket -939
Corsair TWINX2048-3200
Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM
Gainward GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 x2
Creative SB X-Fi Platinum PCI, Retail
Samsung 19" LCD Syncmaster 930BF TCO-99 Monitor, DVI-D, D-sub, 4ms
Logitech Z-5450 Speakerset 5.1 THX
Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard
Razer Diamondback Plasma
Zalman FS-C77 Fatal1ty CPU Cooler - Retail (HS-018-ZA)
Thermaltake Kandalf Black
Seasonic S12 Powersupply 600W
Plextor DVD±RW burner, PX-750A x2

I know, it won't be cheap, but I've got the funds for it, and it's just looking sooo purty. Anybody have any suggestions for things I might have forgoten about, or not even thought of?

[AgentZero]

Anybody? Any thoughts at all? I've changed the PSU to a Thermaltake PurePower 680W, for the simple reasons that a) it's cheaper and b) the Seasonic can't handle SLI. I've also changed the DVD drive to a Plextor PX-716AL because it's faster, &amp; I don't really need two just yet.

Also, Thermodyne any thoughts on whether a Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Zalman_121.html) would fit in the case I'm looking at?

[Will]

With the components you have listed, you don't need anywhere near 600 or 680W of power. AMD lists your processor as 110W, your video card is probably in the 60-110W range, hard drive peak power is usually &lt;50W, and I would imagine it's the same for optical disc drives. With what you have, 500W would be more than enough to power it, while allowing you to expand to more drives in the future. But, unless you're powering something like a RAID-5 array of 20 drives, you don't need anywhere near the 680W.

[AgentZero]

Agreed, but considering the 680W is priced about the same as a 500, why not? After all, an extra €10 for an extra 180W seems pretty good to me, considering I'm paying an extra €15 for my DVD drive because the cheaper site doesn't have it in a nice colour. Beige?! Sooo 1990s.

[Will]

Well, that's a good enough reason... besides, you never know when you want to build a cappuccino machine into your case...

Something that I didn't see on your list, though, is a UPS. Since you're investing a lot in this already, it would be a good idea to invest a little bit more so it doesn't go up in a poof of magic smoke if you're hit with a power surge. I got one connected to my monitor and computer, and so far (in 6 months) it's protected from noise 4 times, brown outs twice, and black outs 5 times (they were working on the power around my building a lot a few months back).

Also, for performance, you might want to get a second, smaller/faster hard drive for your system partition. Windows likes to send stuff to the swap file even if you have loads of free RAM still, so having a different drive than the one where all your apps are stored speeds things up a bit more.

[Fyron]

AgentZero said:
Creative SB X-Fi Platinum PCI, Retail

I still don't think you should buy a Creative card... M-Audio Revolution 7.1 (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Revolution71-main.html) and Revolution 5.1 (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Revolution51-main.html) are better quality cards.

[AgentZero]

Yeah, but I like Creative. They've always been good to me, though I know I might be in a minority there.
Well, that &amp; the fact that the only site I've found that'll deliver to ROI that stocks M-Audio cards wants about €30 more for em clinches the deal in my mind. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif


Edit: Will, thanks for the UPS reminder. Anyone have any suggestions, since I've got pretty much no knowledge in this department, but give the state of the Irish electricity grid, I probably should. I've been poking around and UPSs seem to fall into two broad categories: Online &amp; Offline. Anyone know what the difference is?

[Baron Munchausen]

My 'thought' is not about any particular part you have selected but about a new wrinkle in the whole concept of 'build it yourself' PCs. Counterfeiting is not just for software anymore:

PCWorld article on fakes (http://pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,123792,00.asp)

More and more hardware is also being counterfeited. Batteries are one of the worst products for this. Consumer electronics and computer parts are also 'growth areas' for this problem. Maybe you won't find fake CPUs or video cards (yet) since these are very complex and difficult to make, but fake memory sticks, fake hard drives, and other relatively simple parts are getting fairly common. You'd best be very careful in your choice of suppliers for your parts.

[Baron Munchausen]

AgentZero said:
Agreed, but considering the 680W is priced about the same as a 500, why not? After all, an extra €10 for an extra 180W seems pretty good to me, considering I'm paying an extra €15 for my DVD drive because the cheaper site doesn't have it in a nice colour. Beige?! Sooo 1990s.



Extra wattage is a good idea since a power supply is not intended to be used at max capacity most of the time. At less than full power it runs cooler and lasts longer, and the more capacity you have the more 'safety margin' you have for adding things to your machine later.

[Baron Munchausen]

Yes, a UPS is a very, very good thing to have! A hard crash caused by power failure can make an awful mess of a hard drive. The big names in UPSes for personal systems are APC and Tripp Lite last I recall. Just go to a site like New Egg and go to the UPS section and browse. I am using a Tripp Lite unit that I bought fully 10 years ago. It has saved me from many glitches and I only just had to replace the batteries a few months ago. But since my current unit is good enough, I'm not up on what's available right now.

[AgentZero]

Thanks! Them UPS's aren't the cheapest of things, but I suppose if I'm dropping eur3000+ for the new system, an extra 100 or so won't make that much of a difference. And I won't have to worry about my lovely new system being fried by an unpleasant power spike, either. I'm looking at this one: APC UPS (http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=315853&amp;view=detailed), because it seems to be nice and basic. I don't want to spend a load of money on fancy features I'll never use.

[Baron Munchausen]

420 VA looks kinda scrawny for the machine you are building. The VA (volt amps) rating is supposed to be greater than the power draw of your system. If not, it will simply overload and shut down when the power fails. You'll get a slightly noisier crash than if you had no UPS. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif If you are using an LCD instead of a CRT monitor that helps, but a 680 watt power supply demands a similar VA rating. 'Volt amps' are basically equivalent to watts, so you want at least a 680 VA UPS. A 750 is probably a good idea.

Hey, I'm using an 850 VA UPS to run a computer with an 'average' 250 watt power supply and a 19" CRT monitor (it draws a maximum of about 240 watts). Yes, it's much more than 'absolutely necessary'. That just means it lasts longer when the power goes out. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Yes, it's more expensive than the cheapest solution, but you definitely get what you pay for in backup battery power. You might want to go for a 1000 VA UPS -- 1 kw!

[Will]

If you go to a site like NewEgg, they will tell you the VA rating, and the wattage it is designed for. I have an APC BE725BB, which is a 725VA, 450W UPS (I have a 450W PSU). It came with a little monitor utility that lets you set timers when on the backup, so you can have your computer automatically shut down after some time, or hibernate.

Plus, you can use it for general purpose stuff. During the big blackout in LA this fall, I took it down to the lobby, and plugged the radio we have down there into it to figure out what happened (some dude from PG&amp;E cut a wire he wasn't supposed to, and the entire basin got its power cut).

[Renegade 13]

AgentZero said:
...dropping eur3000+ for the new system...


Ouch. Wish I had that much cash lying around to spend on upgrading my system!

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Wish I had that much cash lying around! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Fyron]

AgentZero said:
Yeah, but I like Creative. They've always been good to me, though I know I might be in a minority there.
Well, that &amp; the fact that the only site I've found that'll deliver to ROI that stocks M-Audio cards wants about €30 more for em clinches the deal in my mind. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

The improved audio quality is well worth the €30, I think.

[Baron Munchausen]

Will said:
If you go to a site like NewEgg, they will tell you the VA rating, and the wattage it is designed for. I have an APC BE725BB, which is a 725VA, 450W UPS (I have a 450W PSU). It came with a little monitor utility that lets you set timers when on the backup, so you can have your computer automatically shut down after some time, or hibernate.

Plus, you can use it for general purpose stuff. During the big blackout in LA this fall, I took it down to the lobby, and plugged the radio we have down there into it to figure out what happened (some dude from PG&amp;E cut a wire he wasn't supposed to, and the entire basin got its power cut).



According to references I have, a 'volt-ampere' is one volt at one amp, and so equivalent to one watt. Therefore, the VA rating should be exactly the same as the wattage it can support. I wonder what they are really describing if they don't rate the VA and watts as the same?

[AgentZero]

Well, this one CyberPower Office Tower 750VA UPS Line Interactive RS-232 (http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=315927&amp;cks=PRL) seems to be the most affordable UPS that could handle my 680W PSU. I don't know much about CyberPower, does anyone know what sort of name they have?

[Fyron]

UPS’s are given volt-amp (VA) ratings, which is the maximum apparent power the unit can deliver to the load. UPS’s may also have a wattage (W) rating, which is not the same as the VA rating, and refers to the actual power consumption of your connected equipment.

From bottom of:

http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/electricity.asp

The "VA" rating is not what you need to be so concerned with, but rather the direct wattage rating. VA is more concerned with charge capacity (in a roundabout way), whereas W measure is maximum instantaneous power draw from the battery. Of course, higher VA means longer operation after power loss. VA vs. W ratings are used in this way very commonly for electric devices.

Cyber Power's site lists all the information for their UPSes, unlike that store site AZ linked to.

[Baron Munchausen]

Ouch...

http://www.apcmedia.com/salestools/SADE-5TNQYF_R0_EN.pdf

It looks like the actual wattage is closer to 60 percent of the VA. That means my 850 VA UPS is only 'adequate' for my load, and AgentZero is in fact going to need a 1000 VA or larger UPS!

[AgentZero]

Good grief. A 1000VA UPS starts at close to eur400. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the whole VA-Watts thing is basically a matter of how long the unit can last in the event of power loss, right? Or does it affect something else as well?
In the seven years I've been living in Dublin, there's only been one blackout I know of, but it was localized and didn't affect me. So I'm not too worries about blackouts, so much as power surges and the like. Given that, I'm wondering if I'd be better off buying just a surge protector, since the likliehood of a blackout is very low.

[Renegade 13]

Surge protector should provide you the hardware protection that you need, but you will of course not have the power backup. Not a large issue in my opinion, especially since the UPS is so expensive. Go with the surge protector.

[Baron Munchausen]

AgentZero said:
Good grief. A 1000VA UPS starts at close to eur400. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the whole VA-Watts thing is basically a matter of how long the unit can last in the event of power loss, right? Or does it affect something else as well?
In the seven years I've been living in Dublin, there's only been one blackout I know of, but it was localized and didn't affect me. So I'm not too worries about blackouts, so much as power surges and the like. Given that, I'm wondering if I'd be better off buying just a surge protector, since the likliehood of a blackout is very low.



A little bit more will get you a 'line conditioner' -- a surge protector plus a transformer that steps low voltage up a little bit. This additional protection is a good thing to have. Utilities also have 'drops' in voltage as well as surges. This is included in a UPS these days, so you're actually getting three different systems in a UPS: surge protection, low voltage protection, and blackout protection.

You might also try searching for used equipment. After all, it's not like a UPS built now is dramatically better than a UPS built 5 years ago. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I know you can buy reconditioned UPSes from used computer dealers here in the US. Dunno about Ireland or the EU in general (voltage is standardized throughout the EU, right?)

http://www.usedcomputer.com/classifieds/XcClassified.asp

http://www.refurbdepot.com/index.cfm

[Fyron]

AgentZero said:
Good grief. A 1000VA UPS starts at close to eur400. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the whole VA-Watts thing is basically a matter of how long the unit can last in the event of power loss, right? Or does it affect something else as well?

The amount of total charge is only the VA rating. W rating is how much power it delivers an a time, so you need a big, beefy one that can deliver 600W or whatever the powe drain was. This does not require a 1000 VA UPS, but rather a 600W one. Maybe 650W to be safe and cover the monitor.

I see absolutely no hard correlation between W and VA ratings on Cyber Power's UPSes. Some are VA = 2 W, some are VA = 1.4 W, etc.

[AgentZero]

It figures that the last thing I'd think of would be the most complicated. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif On an unrelated note, does anyone know of a good source for hardware release dates? I've heard nVidia's next generation video cards are due out in Feb, and I'm thinking of holding off on my purchase until they do, to take advantage of the price drop on the ones I want.

[Renegade 13]

Have a question for those who might know. I recently added another 1GB of RAM to my system, bringing it up to 2GB (4 x 512MB). All the RAM has clock speeds of 400 MHz, and yet they're running at 333. Anyone know why, or if I can boost it up to the supported clock speed?

[Fyron]

Is every chip of RAM clocked at 400 MHz? All RAM must run at the same frequency, so one slower chip brings it all down. Does the motherboard actually support clock rates of 400 MHz? If so, is there any driver patch or BIOS update about buggy RAM support for the motherboard on it's manufacturer's web site?

[TurinTurambar]

Imperator Fyron said:
Does the motherboard actually support clock rates of 400 MHz?



THAT is the question. And do you have the BIOS settings adjusted correctly?

(Hey Fyron, check your PMs...)

TT

[Thermodyne]

Renegade 13 said:
Have a question for those who might know. I recently added another 1GB of RAM to my system, bringing it up to 2GB (4 x 512MB). All the RAM has clock speeds of 400 MHz, and yet they're running at 333. Anyone know why, or if I can boost it up to the supported clock speed?



Ram speed is a function of the BIOS. Your board may or may not allow you to set the buss to 400MHz (200x2MHz)

Also, some AMD systems will slow the buss to 333MHs if more than a gig of ram is installed.

[Thermodyne]

AgentZero said:
It figures that the last thing I'd think of would be the most complicated. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif On an unrelated note, does anyone know of a good source for hardware release dates? I've heard nVidia's next generation video cards are due out in Feb, and I'm thinking of holding off on my purchase until they do, to take advantage of the price drop on the ones I want.



If the cards are on time and in quantity, then you’ll see prices on older cards fall in late March or early April. But don’t hold your breath. The 7800/512’s are still little more than vapor and they have been out for months.

[Renegade 13]

The system supports speeds of 400Mhz, since when I had only 1 Gig of RAM, it was running at 400. However, since I do have an AMD system, I'd think the most likely possibility is the one Thermo mentioned, the system slowing it down with there being 2 Gigs installed. I'm not sure WHY it would do this though...

Will also check BIOS settings later.

Thanks! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[AgentZero]

Thermodyne said:

AgentZero said:
It figures that the last thing I'd think of would be the most complicated. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif On an unrelated note, does anyone know of a good source for hardware release dates? I've heard nVidia's next generation video cards are due out in Feb, and I'm thinking of holding off on my purchase until they do, to take advantage of the price drop on the ones I want.



If the cards are on time and in quantity, then you’ll see prices on older cards fall in late March or early April. But don’t hold your breath. The 7800/512’s are still little more than vapor and they have been out for months.



That crunch you just heard was the sound of me biting the bullet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif The idea of waiting until Mar/Apr for my new system is not appealing, especially since my current one is in need of a format/re-install that I don't really want to do

[Fyron]

Renegade 13 said:
...the system slowing it down with there being 2 Gigs installed. I'm not sure WHY it would do this though...

When you have twice as much RAM, you have twice as many addresses to access, which increases the amount of time every RAM access operation takes to perform. But the difference in performance between 400 MHz clock and 333 MHz clock for RAM is pretty trivial anyways...

[Atrocities]

I have a quick question:

When your talking about RAM, what RAM goes with what CPU? I have noticed that there is a lot of differant RAM types with differant FSB speeds and what not and it is quite confusing to try and figure out.

Any help is appreciated.

[Fyron]

Its more what RAM goes with what motherboard than CPU. It is entirely dependent on the motherboard specs.

[Thermodyne]

Fyron hit it on the head. The board determines the memory type and speed. Most boards will support several speeds and adjust the buss automatically. Some boards will allow you to set the voltage and buss speed above the specs for the installed ram.

SDRAM fits lots of older systems regardless of CPU.
DDR fits lots of currant systems regardless of CPU.
DDR II fits Intel only.
RDRAM fits Intel only.

All of the types come in standard, EEC and Registered EEC. EEC is for high end workstations and servers. Registered EEC is for high end servers and required for some AMD CPU’s.

[AgentZero]

Right. Still no PC since the bank's dragging it's feet on releasing my money... When I got my money in August, I knew I wouldn't be buying a new PC until around this time, so I went to the bank &amp; asked them to put it in a high interest account for six months so I'd have a bit more cash when it came to buying time. Now I find out they negelected to tell me that if the money's not in the account for at least 12 months, I've got to pay tax on it, so I'll end up with less than I put in. So, I've got to a different bank &amp; applied for a loan with 6 months interest free. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif Anyway, I've made a few small changes, but this is basically what I'm going for once the money comes through. Any last minute suggestions, comments or critisms are, as usual, welcomed.


Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.2GHz Socket 939
Motherboard: DFI LANPARTY UT RDX200
RAM: Corsair TWINX2048-3200
Hard Drive 1: Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM
Hard Drive 2: Western Digital Caviar SE 80GB 800JD SATA 8MB Cache 7200RPM
Graphics Card: Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB
Sound Card: Creative SB X-Fi Platinum PCI, Retail
Monitor: Samsung 19" LCD Syncmaster 930BF TCO-99 Monitor, DVI-D, D-sub, 4ms
Speakers: Logitech Z-5450 Speakerset 5.1 THX
Keyboard: Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard
Mouse: Razer Diamondback Plasma
CPU Cooling: Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower CPU Cooler
Case: Thermaltake Kandalf Black
Power Supply: Thermaltake PurePower 680W
DVD Drive: Plextor PX-716AL DVD RW

[Renegade 13]

Boo ATI graphics card! Nvidia!

[Kamog]

Is Nvidia better than ATI? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Captain Kwok]

Not necessarily. Renegade 13 might be one of those in-forum marketing guys since Nvidia has been known to use such methods.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I've always had good results with nvidia.

ati might be better, but I've got no reason to risk a switch.

[Fyron]

Unless you need high end 3d gaming support in Linux (ATI Linux drivers are terrible), neither one is better than the other. Whatever the best card is, the competitor will beat it in 3 months... What you should look for is performance / $, rather than brand loyalty.

[Renegade 13]

Captain Kwok said:
Not necessarily. Renegade 13 might be one of those in-forum marketing guys since Nvidia has been known to use such methods.

Yep, that's exactly it! You caught me! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif I get $10 per positive Nvidia comment that may sway someone's opinion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif But now that you've blown my cover...I'm screwed! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

The only reason for my comment was personal preference. Nvidia has always treated me quite well, I've had no difficulties.

However, I've never even tried ATI so I actually have no basis of comparison.

[AgentZero]

Imperator Fyron said:
Unless you need high end 3d gaming support in Linux (ATI Linux drivers are terrible), neither one is better than the other. Whatever the best card is, the competitor will beat it in 3 months... What you should look for is performance / $, rather than brand loyalty.



Well, according to most of the reviews I've read, a single X1900XT-X is comperable (wee bit slower) than two GeForce 7800s in SLI mode. And one 1900XT-X is about €150 cheaper than two 7800s. Plus, in a few months time I can shell out a few bob for a second Crossfire edition, &amp; have two 1900s. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

I've owned both nVidea and ATI cards and honestly the only difference I've noticed was a slight twinge of angst when I loaded a game that started by splashing the competitors logo on the screen. Other than that, nada. I've always been motivated by performance/cost.

Funny that you mention Linux as well. I'm not planning on doing any gaming with it, but I am planning on having a dual-boot Linux/Windows system. Linux for all things internet related, and Windows for my gaming. Does anyone know offhand if it's doable/advisable to set up a dual boot configuration with the two OS's on seperate partitions/drives?

And finally, would someone mind having a look at this page (http://www.thermaltake.com/XaserCase/kandalf/bws/va9000bws.htm) and telling me how many HDs I could cram into it. I think 6, but I'm not sure...

[Fyron]

You have to set them up on different partitions. There is no particular need for separate physical drives. Make sure to install Windows first. Linux boot loaders play nice with Windows, but not vice versa.

[AgentZero]

Thanks, Fyron. I'm basically going to partition the 80GB drive in two and stick Windows on one &amp; Linux on the other. 40GB might be a bit big for an OS partition, but given how cheap an 80GB drive is these days, why not?

Anyway, due to unforseen circumstances, my budget has increased by about a grand, and I've been putting it to good use. Those with a heart condition should look away now.

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400 €490.00
Motherboard: Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire €120.00
RAM: Crucial 2GB (2x1GB) DDR PC4000 Ballistix €283.00
Hard Drive 1: Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 NCQ 80GB €57.00
Hard Drive 2: Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 NCQ 250GB €106.00
DVD Drive: Plextor PX-716AL €120.00
Graphics Card: Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB €510.00
Sound Card: Creative SB X-Fi Platinum €185.00
Monitor: Samsung SM-930BF 19" LCD Monitor €361.00
Speakers: Logitech Z-5450 Speakers €369.00
Keyboard: Logitech G15 Illuminated Keyboard €86.00
Mouse: Razer Diamondback Plasma €51.00
CPU Cooling: Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower €55.00
Case: Thermaltake VA9000BWS Kandalf Full Tower €171.00
Power Supply: Enermax Liberty 620W ELT620AWT €155.00


Total: €3,119.00

I know that looks like a monster increase in price given that I was originally quoting somewhere in the €2,300 neighbourhood, but all those prices were based off of NewEgg.com. I had a friendly word with the Customs &amp; Excise folks &amp; they told me the import duty on that system would run €700-€1000. Current prices are all off a UK website. It's cheaper than the Irish sites &amp; one doesn't have to pay import on it coz of the good ole EU.

[NullAshton]

Bah. Go Nvidia, they have SLI mode.

[Atrocities]

Who can aford an SLI system? OMG just $900.00 bucks for the two top of the line cards, then another $1,900.00 for a decent top of the line system.

If I had $2,800.00 extra dollars I would spend it on other things like things I need to live. But still it would be sweet to have a mega top of the line system just once in my life. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[AgentZero]

And ATI has Crossfire, which is more or less the same thing. Aside from the fact that the ATI card I'm getting is almost as powerful as two nVidea 7800s, and if I whack a second one in there, well then..

[NullAshton]

Hey. Go bold, get 4 Nvida 7800 512 GTXs, all working together in SLI mode! Have the power to do whatever you want!

[Renegade 13]

And soon the next generation of cards will be out from Nvidia, and their cards will wipe the floor with the current ATI...etc etc ad nausem. The cycle will continue, with the prices for top cards from both companies absurdly high, continually one-upping each other...

If you actually want the best performance vs. price ratio, go for the generation behind the latest generation. Perfectly good performance for a hell of a lot less cost. To be honest...who actually needs that much graphical power? I run a 6600GT and it'll handle anything I throw at it. It'll be a long time before I have to upgrade, and when I do it won't be horribly expensive like it would be if I went top of the line.

My advice would be to not bother with the latest graphics card and go with something a little more reasonably priced, yet with perfectly good performance.

But that's just me, and I'm a little stingy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Thermodyne]

Wait a week or two and when the 7900's hit the shelves, buy a pair of 7800's after the price falls.

[AgentZero]

If only things worked like that over here. The ATI 1900 series came out a month or so over here, and the prices of other cards hasn't gone down yet. In fact, they've gone up. I think the only place where I'll be spending an less money is on the RAM, if I can find somewhere over here selling Crucial PC3200, since I've no real need whatsoever for PC4000, having no intention of doing any overclocking on this system.

[NullAshton]

Even better, buy quadruple 7800's.

[LonghornXtreme]

JAFisher44 said:
Well, fire hazards aside, The reason I would never OC a chip is because it is bad for it. Period. No matter how well cooled the chip is OCing will reduce its life expectancy. Chips are built to run at certain speeds. The process of heating and cooling causes the silicon in the chip to expand and contract. The materials used are rated to do this at a certain speed. If you overclock (even with proper cooling) this will occur more often and to a greater degree and will degrade the chip. This means that the chip will fail sooner than it would at its rated speed, often far sooner. This is why you should not do it.

Not to mention the fact that overclocking your chip is a guarenteed recipie for failure if your cooling system ever hiccups. Sure, overclocking is fun if you can afford to buy a new system every year, or buy multiple chips, if necessary, when things go wrong, but for your average working joe, you would be best served to just use it at rated specs.

If you do insist on overclocking you should go with a Pentium chip, as they seem to tollerate it better, relatively, than AMD chips. However this means that you have to use a Pentium chip (not good if you want a gaming machine). I would also recommend dropping a some cash on a good liquid cooling system as well.



I know that quote was from one of the first few pages of this thread and I'll admit I haven't read past that post...

I just have to disspell some myths about overclocking:

1) 80% of the time (or more) chips from the same architecture come off of the same piece of silicon. The manufacturer then tests the stablilty of the chip and the voltage requirements for each chip... the chips are then coded by these tests and binned (separated into model #'s i.e. the difference between lets say an A64X23800 and a 4200)

2) In the first production runs of a certain architecture i.e. right when the chip comes out, the above process IS important when determining the durability and stability of the higher clock speed chips. BUT once the fabrication kinks are ironed out, most chips are exactly (i hate using the word exact, of course they're not identical, but for turning the chip up to a higher 'stock' speed and other overclocking purposes, it's the same) the same pieces of silicon, just multiplier locked from the factory.

3) AMD and Intel sell vast more amounts of mid ranged and lower chips than their bleeding edge models

4) All processors 'wear out.' Lets say stock speed it'll last 50,000 hours at 100% usage (purely hypothetical number for the hours, it's a large number) And let's say that same chip with a good heatsink and fan or other properly designed cooling system is clocked up 300mhz will run 45,000 hours at 100% usage. The key is 100% usage... most computer users will have periods of 100% and then their CPU's will idle... Not to mention most of the upper end chips wear out faster than the lower end chips of the same architecture... see where I'm getting to?

4b) All processors are designed to go through cycles of hot and cold just like an engine is designed to go through cycles of hot and cold.

5) If your computer catches fire: well you didn't take care of your dust bunnies EVER, or something was way more wrong with the computer than overclocking. (I know this wasn't in the quote, BUT it was in a post preceding it)

With proper chip selection and timing, it is possible to buy the same qualtiy chip. With proper cooling you can insure a long lifetime of the chip. And with proper knowledge of overclocking the chip can be absolutely 1000's of hours prime 95 stable (that means it ran prime95 constantly and never had a false calculation, good test for CPU and RAM stability)

I have no problem with people that spend more money for the upper end processors... but I usually choose to buy the low to mid range model solely due to economics and let my knowledge of overclocking turn that hundreds of dollars cheaper piece of (the same) silicon into the high end chip or beyond. It's the same thing as a person who buys a 911 to go fast versus someone who modifies a cheaper car (not a pinto mind you) let's say an Rx8 or a G35. Both can achieve the same level of performance but it takes expertise, trial and error, and sometimes a little scientific method to do it effectively.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I remember finding a hidden overclock mode on one of my graphics cards. I think it was an NVidia, but I'm not sure.

[AgentZero]

Despite my misgivings about overclocking (that was me who posted about the fire, and I know it's an extreme case, if one person can find one other person that's happened to, I'll give you a lot of money), I haven't any issues against it, aside from one thing: I know absolutely nothing about it. Well, I know what it is, but that's as far as my knowledge goes. I might one day spend a couple hundred euro on a cheap system that I can tinker around with and learn about overclocking on, but I'm not going to risk anything on my €3,000 system.
Especially because when it comes to computers, I am the embodiment of Murphy's Law. If you ever see a review or a note on a website saying 'Some users experience [insert something negative here]', you can be pretty much guaranteed that I'll be one of those users. And that, in a nutshell, is why I ain't gonna be overclocking this system.
I have enough knowledge to assemble a system, and I'm willing to spend a bit extra so I know all I have to do is assemble it correctly and it'll work.

[NullAshton]

If you want to be careful about it, do it very, very, slowly. Only increase clock speeds by 5 every time. When there's errors or it gets too hot, then reduce the clock by 25 or so, giving you good buffer room.

[Thermodyne]

Renegade 13 said:
And soon the next generation of cards will be out from Nvidia, and their cards will wipe the floor with the current ATI...etc etc ad nausem. The cycle will continue, with the prices for top cards from both companies absurdly high, continually one-upping each other...

If you actually want the best performance vs. price ratio, go for the generation behind the latest generation. Perfectly good performance for a hell of a lot less cost. To be honest...who actually needs that much graphical power? I run a 6600GT and it'll handle anything I throw at it. It'll be a long time before I have to upgrade, and when I do it won't be horribly expensive like it would be if I went top of the line.

My advice would be to not bother with the latest graphics card and go with something a little more reasonably priced, yet with perfectly good performance.

But that's just me, and I'm a little stingy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



With that ASUS board, you don’t need to know how to over-clock. It has a little app that let’s you oc from the desk top.

[AgentZero]

Thought I'd just resurect this thread on account of me heading back to Canada, the new machine will likely be bought over there. So, can any fellow Canucks recommend a good Canadian website for me to buy all my bits &amp; pieces from?

[Captain Kwok]

This website is generally considered the best:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca

[Renegade 13]

I concur with Kwok. I've bought a couple items from them, they have good prices, good shipping and a very wide selection.

[AgentZero]

Well, I'm sold. Priced my computer out on their site &amp; it came out €500 cheaper. €700 if you count the fact that since I have a huge big room with loads of space back home, I'm going with a 21-inch CRT instead of the 19-inch flatpanel.

[AgentZero]

Well, the order has been placed, and this is what I'm going with:
Processor AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400
Motherboard Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire
Ram 2 GB PC3200 DDR
Hard Drive #1 Seagate 80GB Sata HD
Hard Drive #2 Seagate 400 SATA HD
Optical Drive LG 16X Dual Layer DVDRW
Video Card Sapphire Radeon X1900 XT 512MB Video
Sound Card Creative Labes SB X-FI Platinum
Speakers Logitech Z5300 Speakers
Keyboard Logitech G15 Illuminated Keyboard
Mouse Razor Diamondback Plasma Mouse
CPU Cooling Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower
Power Supply Enermax Liberty 620W ELT620AWT
Monitor 21" NEC CRT
Case Thermaltake Tsunami

Now, the important part, is all the new software to load onto the system since I won't be getting it hooked up to the internet for the first weeek. So far, I've got:

Tweak UI
AVG Anti-Virus
Ad-Aware
Azureus
Directory Opus
DivX Codecs
Firefox
Foobar2000
Irfanview
Java Runtime Environment
Limewire
Media Player Classic
Open Office Suite
Photoshop
Spybot
Thunderbird
Trillian

Any other recommendations/things I'll be kicking myself if I forget?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Floppy drive. I like floppy drives.

[Thermodyne]

I’d make one change to the software, you should try the Windows Defender Beta from MS. It’s free and works well.

You moght also want to try the IE7 Beta2, if for no other reason than to see how much IE has changed. I'd keep the Firefox as primary. Also didn't see Adobe reader, I have the corp re-d of 6 if you want it.

PS: What about RAR?

[Fyron]

I'd recommend utorrent (http://www.utorrent.com) over Azureus, personally. 4 MB ram usage is hard to pass up. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Its got most of the important features of Azureus, with more being added every update.

[TurinTurambar]

Not software related, but I was suprised to not see a second optical drive. The ability to copy discs on the fly from one drive to another is a beautiful thing. I suppose if you don't make copies of all your music that doesn't matter so much. I also agree with Narf that a generic floppy drive is worth the insignificant cost you'll pay for it, and both your case and MB will have room included for it.

[NullAshton]

He has 2 gigabytes of memory, a little less ram usage isn't going to matter...

Send your computer to me when you get it... Or at least take screenshots of your games.

[AgentZero]

Actually, there is a second optical drive &amp; a floppy drive too, I just forgot to stick them on there. And I've already got a few 'before' screenshots saved somewhere, so once the machine is up &amp; running I'll do a few 'After' shots.

[Fyron]

NullAshton said:
He has 2 gigabytes of memory, a little less ram usage isn't going to matter...

More RAM usage makes the RAM chips run just that much hotter. It also makes for more disk access due to swap file, causing more strain on the hard drive. Sure its not a great effect, but over time, it adds up.

Of course, my recommendation of utorrent is more about the general feel of the app, which is similar to Azureus, but better in subtle ways. You've really got nothing to lose by trying it out. If only they would write a decent tracker for utorrent...

[Baron Munchausen]

Imperator Fyron said:
I'd recommend utorrent (http://www.utorrent.com) over Azureus, personally. 4 MB ram usage is hard to pass up. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Its got most of the important features of Azureus, with more being added every update.



I agree. The only feature that I know of which Azureus has and utorrent doesn't is password protection for torrents. This is a special 'high security' feature that most people won't need. There may be other features that utorrent doesn't have, but I don't even know what they are, which shows you how important they are... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif because I am a fairly regular user of Bittorrent networks for various things.

[Baron Munchausen]

NullAshton said:
He has 2 gigabytes of memory, a little less ram usage isn't going to matter...

Send your computer to me when you get it... Or at least take screenshots of your games.



A 'little' less? the difference is almost an order of magnitude, and there is also a major difference in CPU usage to get the same work done since Azureus runs under the JRE. It's really amazing, and shocking, that all those features can be implemented in a program so tiny compared to all the others that do the same things. Plainly, disregard for efficiency of programs is what has got us to the point of needing a gigabyte of RAM in a standard desktop computer. (Yes, Windows 'Vista' will need close to a gig since the standard 'minimum' system recommendation is always about 1/2 of what you need to use a program properly...)

If more people would program in C++ and not Visual Basic or Python we might not need so much computer power for our ordinary usage. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Baron Munchausen]

AgentZero said:
Well, the order has been placed, and this is what I'm going with:
Processor AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400
Motherboard Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire
Ram 2 GB PC3200 DDR
Hard Drive #1 Seagate 80GB Sata HD
Hard Drive #2 Seagate 400 SATA HD
Optical Drive LG 16X Dual Layer DVDRW
Video Card Sapphire Radeon X1900 XT 512MB Video
Sound Card Creative Labes SB X-FI Platinum
Speakers Logitech Z5300 Speakers
Keyboard Logitech G15 Illuminated Keyboard
Mouse Razor Diamondback Plasma Mouse
CPU Cooling Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower
Power Supply Enermax Liberty 620W ELT620AWT
Monitor 21" NEC CRT
Case Thermaltake Tsunami

Now, the important part, is all the new software to load onto the system since I won't be getting it hooked up to the internet for the first weeek. So far, I've got:

Tweak UI
AVG Anti-Virus
Ad-Aware
Azureus
Directory Opus
DivX Codecs
Firefox
Foobar2000
Irfanview
Java Runtime Environment
Limewire
Media Player Classic
Open Office Suite
Photoshop
Spybot
Thunderbird
Trillian

Any other recommendations/things I'll be kicking myself if I forget?



Filezilla is a good dedicated FTP client. Sometimes the FTP features of a browser are not enough.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla/

You are aware of the 'alternatives' for Real Player and Quicktime?

Both Real Alternative and Quicktime Alternative can be downloaded from http://www.free-codecs.com/

Lots of other good stuff is available there, too. ffdshow, for example, which is a really nice replacement for about a dozen seperate codecs like DivX and XviD. (And faster than all of them, and with more user controls!)

Other than these, you will definitely want some sort of archiver software sooner or later. Win XP does 'zip' natively now, but as usual the corporations are years behind the times. You need something like WinRar or IzArc or 7Zip to handle all the new formats.

http://www.rarlab.com/
http://www.izarc.org/
http://www.7-zip.org/

I also notice the lack of a firewall in your software list. The native Windows XP 'firewall' is not worthy of the name. I will not stain this forum with any of the words that people who know about security use when speaking about it.:D You need an independent firewall product. The now famous Zone Alarm is not necessarily the best. Kerio Free/Personal is supposed to be fairly good. I recommend Agnitum's Outpost, myself.

http://www.agnitum.com/

The only thing is, the 'free' version is rather old and not updated for Win XP. I think you'd want the latest on an XP system. That means $40 instead of free. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif But there is still Kerio, or you can buy the full version of AVG and get the built-in firewall. Even that is better than the native Win XP firewall.

[AgentZero]

Actually, I was thinking of going with something along the lines of this (http://homepages.wmich.edu/~mchugha/w2kfirewall.htm) for my firewall. From the looks of it, it seems pretty secure. Any thoughts from anyone?

[Thermodyne]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You need to have your firewall between your system and the WAN (Internet). Having it on your workstation is a last resort. Look around and see if you can find an RO 318 by Netgear. They are about the best personal firewall ever built. They went for $95 when in production and will bring as much as $250 new in the box today. They last basically forever and you should be able to find one used for around $125. There is something of a market going on used ones. You can advertise for a used one at Amazon. RO 318 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005KJNL/103-3980263-8226264?v=glance&amp;n=172282)
This was one of those products that was way too good for the price, so when the new owners took over they killed it right off, rather than have it compete with their branded products.

[Fyron]

Baron Munchausen said:
If more people would program in C++ and not Visual Basic or Python we might not need so much computer power for our ordinary usage. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

You forgot about C#, the bloatiest of all. A simple calculator I made needed 25 MB of RAM. Yikes!

[Renegade 13]

Is bloatiest a word? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Fyron]

When it takes 25 MB to draw 16 buttons and a text box or two, yes, it is.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

It is constructed according to the rules, such as they are, of the english language.

[AgentZero]

Well, I'm going to be connecting the new machine via a D-Link 524 wireless router (on a wired connection), and it's got a built in firewall so that should be fine.
I just have to wait until Saturday when my dad gets back, since mother dearest can't remember the passwords for it.

[AgentZero]

Well, I've got the machine, and it's up and running nicely. I'm still getting all the applications etc set up, but the basics are there, and I found enough time to fire up Half-Life 2. I have to say, that warm, pleasent sensation didn't last long. But only because pee-soaked trousers go cold fast.
Holy CRAP! I had no idea things could look this good! It's one thing to look at screenshots, but to actually SEE it. Wow.
Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to spend the next few hours shouting "Holy crap! Lookit that!!!"

Although there is one thing I'm wondering. I went to download the free version of 3DMark, and it was about 570MB. Is that normal or did I do something wrong? And why the devil does it need to be so big?

[NullAshton]

Because it's basically a video game, without the game? That's mostly the graphics engine, textures, blah blah blah...

[AgentZero]

I see... Well, once I get it down, I'll be sure to come back and gloat.
In the meantime, I seem to be suffering from a variation of the Half-Life 2 stuttering bug. Video as well as audio is affected and the 'stutters' last on average 4-6 seconds, but every now &amp; then I get one that's 20-30 seconds. The closest I could compare it to would be as if it's trying to read from a CD that's skipping (it doesn't run from CD, and the disc isn't even in the drive). I've tried every single offered solution on the Steam forums &amp; elsewhere, and nothing works. Using the ATI Omega drivers got me about 5 minutes of flawless play time, but after the first loading screen, the stuttering came back.
I suffered through the audio stuttering on my old machine, and it was annoying but I still got through the game, but it's unplayable on my new machine, which is just bloody irritating.
Somehow, I don't think there's a solution for me, but if anyone can think of anything, that'd be great. Otherwise, Sin: Episodes looks kinda cool, anyone know if it uses the Source engine?

[Thermodyne]

Well, you should have the rough edges rubbed off by now, so it's time for some benchmarks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[AgentZero]

Well, only benchmark I know of is 3D Mark, and I scored 5328 on that with no tweaking done and I think it was Trillian still running in the background, so I don't know what effect that would have had. If you have any other benchmarks, or suggestions on tweaking, I'd love to hear em.

[Thermodyne]

CPU-Z
Sandra 2005
3D mark 01
Super Pi
All of the newer future mark stuff
Cinebench 2003

That should keep you busy for a few hours.