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Official 2008 "I Need A New PC" Thread

S

SRG01

Member
godhandiscen said:
I have 8GB. My computer eats 1.5GB on idle, nothing loaded but the OS. Seriously, even with 4GB, Dreamscenes is worth it.


Wow. the hate for Vista is so strong here. I don't know what are all these problems that people have. I use Vista Ultimate 64 and its the most beautiful thing ever. Vista just by itself is amazing, 64 bit processing and better memory management, is just icing on the cake. The memory management of Vista 64 is so darn good, that as soon as I installed an extra 4GB I was able to gain 10fps in Crysis (not even a second videocard could give me that). Now I am even able to run Crysis with programs running on the background. The Media Center is just icing on the cake.
Click to expand...

Now you're just exaggerating. ;) :D
 
S

SRG01

Member
Grifter said:
What kinda RAM is a good value for an E84? DDR2-800? CAS 4/5 matter?
Click to expand...

Are you planning to OC your RAM? I was under the impression that 800 RAM was pretty much standard these days since 1066 and DDR3 aren't really cost effective at the moment.
 
godhandiscen

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
SRG01 said:
Now you're just exaggerating. ;) :D
Click to expand...
I am not. Remember my posts about how my performance with Crysis wasnt up to my standards? I am playing at a solid 30fps, with very minor framerate hiccups at scenes like the first beach encounter. It also could be Catalyst 8.4, but I doubt it because there was no release notes on any Crysis improvement. I am pretty sure its because of the 8GB of ram. I checked DXDiag and it says that now I have 3 GB of Video Ram. Its all thanks to Vista 64. :D

About programs in the background, I was refering to the Zune player. Crysis uses only 2 cores, I have 1 core extra to spare after 1 goes to the OS. The performance doesn't change at all if I open Zune, but I am pretty sure is because of my ram and the 4 core processor. Also, I have an AMD Phenom, and remember that the cache memory isnt shared among cores like witht the Intel Quads.
 
A

aeolist

Banned
4GB of RAM lets me leave Firefox with a bunch of tabs and uTorrent open while I'm playing Crysis with no performance loss, plus when I quit the game it loads everything back up again quickly and with barely any hard drive thrashing.
 
G

Grifter

Member
godhandiscen

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
aeolist said:
4GB of RAM lets me leave Firefox with a bunch of tabs and uTorrent open while I'm playing Crysis with no performance loss, plus when I quit the game it loads everything back up again quickly and with barely any hard drive thrashing.
Click to expand...
Srsly, put that RAM to work, get a Dreamscene. You deserve it.
 
G

Grifter

Member
Can I get away with an Antec True Power 430W in an E8400/8800GT system?

Sorry for all the questions, keep finding reasons for my system to bust and been out of the loop since leaving school.
 
B

Blackface

Banned
Grifter said:
Can I get away with an Antec True Power 430W in an E8400/8800GT system?

Sorry for all the questions, keep finding reasons for my system to bust and been out of the loop since leaving school.
Click to expand...

What else will you have in your computer? 430W could be fine depending on the other things you will be using.
 
B

Blackface

Banned
decided it was time to upgrade my computer. Have been waiting for sales.

I built the following for $900 because of big sales at Canadacomputers and Ncix.

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
EVGA Nforce 750I SLI Ftw
Mushkin XP PC2-8000 Redline 4GB
EVGA E-Geforce 9800GTX
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500gb 32mb cache
Corsair TX750W
Noctua NH-U9B
Coolermaster CM690 stacker
Windows Vista Home premium 64 bit.

Going to overclock the E8400 to 4ghz. The Mushkin ram is some of the best I have ever owned by far. I got the case after a friend of mine used it in his build. I have yet to come across anything under $190 that rivals it. Easy to use, holds 7 120MM fans, room for three 9800GTX's, Esata, usb and headphone ports at the top. For $72 I was amazed.
 
G

Grifter

Member
Trax416 said:
What else will you have in your computer? 430W could be fine depending on the other things you will be using.
Click to expand...

Current build:
GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3R
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
EVGA GeForce 8800GT 512MB
OCZ SLI-Ready Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
2 HDs and a DVD burner

Also have a Fortron 400w...if that's better in any way.
 
I

IronicallyTwisted

Banned
Durante said:
I'm sorry, but from this (and the rest of your post) I have to conclude that you're either deliberately spreading FUD or simply incompetent. Vista is actually easier to keep clean than XP, and my XP install worked perfectly (and fast) for 3 years without a reinstall, including daily game, entertainment, internet, work and development use. Also, I personally love the GUI improvements in vista. Not only is it a great technical achievement (I would go into details here but since it's close to my specialty I'd get carried away), but the new program launching and explorer paradigm are simply indispensible to me now.

I'm not saying Vista is perfect, far from it! The default explorer settings are even more horrible than XP's and UAC (while not a bad idea in theory) is far too annoying in its current incarnation, especially combined with legacy applications. But I still prefer it to XP and any flavour of Linux (yes, I'm a competent Linux user and have been for a few years).
Click to expand...

The GUI improvements in Vista hardly exist. It tries to be friendly but with none of the charm of OSX. The start menu still organizes programs in the worst way humanely possible. Hell, the new control panel holds your hand way too much and I couldn't even find half the features available in the classic view. UAC is great for stopping your friends from deliberately fucking over your system, but is ten times more annoying, and a lot less safe, than the root passwords of Linux.

As a technical achievement: meh. Ram preloading is a good time but startup and shutdown are still very slow. The programmers are obviously afraid to make any real changes to the OS for compatibility reasons, which means pretty much all the problems of XP are in Vista. If you can keep XP going strong for 3 years, good for you. I was using XP back in early 2002 when it was absolutely terrible, and know how this works. Microsoft can never deliver on day one, it takes them years to fix all the shit they couldn't deal with in development.

SRG01 said:
edit: Oh I have to mention too: Vista manages the registry and uninstallations far better than any OS that I've seen so far, including Linux.
Click to expand...

Linux and OSX don't use a registry, which means they both shit all over Vista. The registry system should have been removed a long time ago, its almost unbelievable that its survived for so long.
 
S

SRG01

Member
IronicallyTwisted said:
The GUI improvements in Vista hardly exist. It tries to be friendly but with none of the charm of OSX. The start menu still organizes programs in the worst way humanely possible. Hell, the new control panel holds your hand way too much and I couldn't even find half the features available in the classic view. UAC is great for stopping your friends from deliberately fucking over your system, but is ten times more annoying, and a lot less safe, than the root passwords of Linux.

As a technical achievement: meh. Ram preloading is a good time but startup and shutdown are still very slow. The programmers are obviously afraid to make any real changes to the OS for compatibility reasons, which means pretty much all the problems of XP are in Vista. If you can keep XP going strong for 3 years, good for you. I was using XP back in early 2002 when it was absolutely terrible, and know how this works. Microsoft can never deliver on day one, it takes them years to fix all the shit they couldn't deal with in development.



Linux and OSX don't use a registry, which means they both shit all over Vista. The registry system should have been removed a long time ago, its almost unbelievable that its survived for so long.
Click to expand...

I meant uninstallations, whoops.
 
godhandiscen

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
IronicallyTwisted said:
Its an optional install with Vista Ultimate. Its pretty cool, but it becomes distracting after a while.
Click to expand...
Ok, now you are just grasping for straws. Show your true colors Apple Fanboy. You can bash Vista all you want, but validate your arguments with not so laughable reasons at the least. The AERO/DreamScene combo is beautiful, and not distracting at all.
AeroDreamScene.jpg


Imagine that, but the background is actually moving softly all the time, like looking through a window during autumn. BEAUTIFUL!


IronicallyTwisted said:
The GUI improvements in Vista hardly exist. It tries to be friendly but with none of the charm of OSX. The start menu still organizes programs in the worst way humanely possible. Hell, the new control panel holds your hand way too much and I couldn't even find half the features available in the classic view. UAC is great for stopping your friends from deliberately fucking over your system, but is ten times more annoying, and a lot less safe, than the root passwords of Linux.

As a technical achievement: meh. Ram preloading is a good time but startup and shutdown are still very slow. The programmers are obviously afraid to make any real changes to the OS for compatibility reasons, which means pretty much all the problems of XP are in Vista. If you can keep XP going strong for 3 years, good for you. I was using XP back in early 2002 when it was absolutely terrible, and know how this works. Microsoft can never deliver on day one, it takes them years to fix all the shit they couldn't deal with in development.



Linux and OSX don't use a registry, which means they both shit all over Vista. The registry system should have been removed a long time ago, its almost unbelievable that its survived for so long.
Click to expand...
UAC can be removed at any time, also, you can select any application to run with administrator privileges, so you can have UAC, and get rid of the pop up in every application you are already safe with.

The control panel can always be reversed to the classic view, and actually during user testing, the new control panel was found to be more user friendly for people that were recently being introduced to windows, and had a low level of computer literacy.

My startup time is 10 seconds or less, and "nada" with Hybernation enabled. Also, the multicore management of Vista is fucking awesome. Vista is amazingly smart when treading applications and dealing with memory limitations. I however do not condone the decision of releasing a 32 bit version. The real Vista is the 64 bit version.
 
P

Pachael

Member
Grifter said:
Current build:
GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3R
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
EVGA GeForce 8800GT 512MB
OCZ SLI-Ready Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
2 HDs and a DVD burner

Also have a Fortron 400w...if that's better in any way.
Click to expand...

I think that's an OK power supply. You may want to consider getting a branded power supply like the Antec 430W if you think there may be not enough power.

Otherwise a pretty good choice in parts, the E8400 is a dual core monster from what I've been reading. I'm a tad disappointed in many applications' lack of multi-threading considering that many have picked up the Q6600 and the Q9xxx series are crazy good as well. That, and AMD's Phenoms are great value too.

Anyway brain_stew you're getting a fantastic deal for the price, gee I'm jealous ;p
 
Z

zoku88

Member
godhandiscen said:
I however do not condone the decision of releasing a 32 bit version. The real Vista is the 64 bit version.
Click to expand...
THIS!!!!

You don't know how mad I am at MS for releasing a 32-bit version. I'm using the 32-bit version since Cisco hasn't made a 64-bit version of their VPN client (at least, the one my school uses so that I can do that 3 month activation thing.) >: (
 
I

IronicallyTwisted

Banned
godhandiscen said:
Ok, now you are just grasping for straws. Show your true colors Apple Fanboy. You can bash Vista all you want, but validate your arguments with not so laughable reasons at the least. The AERO/DreamScene combo is beautiful, and not distracting at all.
Click to expand...

I'm certainly not an Apple fanboy. If i'm a fanboy to anything its open source software. DreamScene is really pretty, absolutely. I personally find it distracting to have moving shapes in the background when i'm working, but you can always turn it off anyway. If anything, I find it disappointing Microsoft made DreamScene available to so few users.
 
Z

zoku88

Member
IronicallyTwisted said:
I'm certainly not an Apple fanboy. If i'm a fanboy to anything its open source software. DreamScene is really pretty, absolutely. I personally find it distracting to have moving shapes in the background when i'm working, but you can always turn it off anyway. If anything, I find it disappointing Microsoft made DreamScene available to so few users.
Click to expand...
Have to justify the cost of Ultimate somehow, I guess...
 
A

aeolist

Banned
Woah, it is pretty neat. Most of the Microsoft videos are pretty lame but a little Googling found me a really awesome spinning fractal for a wallpaper.
 
godhandiscen

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
IronicallyTwisted said:
I'm certainly not an Apple fanboy. If i'm a fanboy to anything its open source software. DreamScene is really pretty, absolutely. I personally find it distracting to have moving shapes in the background when i'm working, but you can always turn it off anyway. If anything, I find it disappointing Microsoft made DreamScene available to so few users.
Click to expand...
DreamScenes is available to all versions of Vista, look up the link I posted.
 
V

Vormund

Member
godhandiscen said:
I however do not condone the decision of releasing a 32 bit version. The real Vista is the 64 bit version.
Click to expand...

Agreed. MS should have pushed Vista as a 64-bit experience (or some other marketing bs)

I still can't believe Windows 7 will still be available in 32-bit. (though it will be the last) Anybody running that would surely have a 64-bit cpu.
 
B

Blackface

Banned
Grifter said:
Current build:
GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3R
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
EVGA GeForce 8800GT 512MB
OCZ SLI-Ready Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
2 HDs and a DVD burner

Also have a Fortron 400w...if that's better in any way.
Click to expand...

I would go with 500 or 550. Not because you need it, but so you have some extra room for future upgrades.
 
B

Blackface

Banned
I don't have any problem with Vista after Sp1. In fact I like it alot, much more then Xp. It runs well, solved lots of Networking problems Windows XP had with specific hardware, and it looks good also.
 
E

Epix

Member
Here's where I'm at right now. Will probably order next week:



EVGA 512-P3-N845-AR GeForce 8800GTS (G92) KO 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - $224.99

OCZ GameXStream OCZ600GXSSLI ATX12V 600W Power Supply - $94.99

Rosewill RCR-102 52-in-1 USB 2.0 Card Reader - $14.99

ASUS P5E LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard - $224.99

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor - $219.99

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel - $79.99

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler - $36.99
 
B

brain_stew

Member
Scum said:
I've just finished setting up my new rig, but it turns out I might have a dodgy stick of RAM. ;-/
So, I'm looking for 4GBs of RAM as replacement to go with my Q9450, Asus P5N-T & Vista Ultimate.

I currently have these in mind.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-096-OC

What do you guys think?
Click to expand...

Are you aiming for a major overclock and planning to really push your RAM? If not, it looks overpriced to me, you can get perfectly good stuff for much less than that.
 
C

Cheeto

Member
oo Kosma oo said:
Does anybody use 10000RPM HDD's here? Are they worth it for gaming?
Click to expand...
I use 15k drives in some servers at work. They are fast, but I'm not convinced they are worth the extra cost for gaming. Since the games that do stream off the hard drive, figure for the low end(5400 or 7200) you won't see much of a performance there. Where you will see it is in load times, where it will make a noticeable difference. Is a 5-10 second faster map load worth the extra $100 or whatever for the faster drive?
 
A

aznpxdd

Member
TF2 loads up a lot faster for me (10-20 secs to join servers) with the Raptor compared to my old PC, but then again...its probably a combination of all the new hardware too.
 
C

Chris_C

Member
This is a great thread, I've read ALL 33 pages so far, would like a bit of advice!

I'm building a new living room rig for Age of Conan (among other games like Bioshock, Crysis, hopefully Alan Wake etc). I'll be playing on a 720p HDTV, so I'm looking at these specs at the moment:

Processor: E8400 or Q6600. I hear the E8400 is better for gaming, but I'm wondering whether it's a good idea to get a quad core processor since I want this PC to last a year. Also, E8400's seem to be hard to find.

GPU: Geforce 8800 GT 512MB or 9800GTX. I'll be playing at a maximum res of 720p, I'm wondering whether the 9800 is overkill? Generally I'm fine if games play at 30fps, I don't NEED 60, though it would be nice.

RAM: 3GB DDR3 RAM. I'll be using the rig for a lot of photoshop work and digital painting, so RAM is important, further to this, I've been wondering whether I should invest in the 64bit version of Vista and just get 4-8GB of RAM, or whether that's just overkill.

Does anyone know any build to order sites that ship internationally? I live in the Philippines, not sure how much of this stuff I can get locally, if not I'll order and have it shipped here.


Oh yeah, and I'm looking at spending between $1000 and $1,500. any advice would be much appreciated!
 
C

Cheeto

Member
Chris_C said:
Oh yeah, and I'm looking at spending between $1000 and $1,500. any advice would be much appreciated!
Click to expand...
With that budget, its:

E8400 (for gaming)
8800GTS (g92)
8gb of ram w/ Vista 64


Vista 64 can use as much ram as you can throw at it, so max your mobo out.
 
C

Chris_C

Member
WhatRuOn said:
With that budget, its:

E8400 (for gaming)
8800GTS (g92)
8gb of ram w/ Vista 64


Vista 64 can use as much ram as you can throw at it, so max your mobo out.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice, how will I know that the 88GTS I'm getting is a G92 card, are all the older ones 640MB while the G92 ones are 512?
 
B

Blackface

Banned
Chris_C said:
This is a great thread, I've read ALL 33 pages so far, would like a bit of advice!

I'm building a new living room rig for Age of Conan (among other games like Bioshock, Crysis, hopefully Alan Wake etc). I'll be playing on a 720p HDTV, so I'm looking at these specs at the moment:

Processor: E8400 or Q6600. I hear the E8400 is better for gaming, but I'm wondering whether it's a good idea to get a quad core processor since I want this PC to last a year. Also, E8400's seem to be hard to find.

GPU: Geforce 8800 GT 512MB or 9800GTX. I'll be playing at a maximum res of 720p, I'm wondering whether the 9800 is overkill? Generally I'm fine if games play at 30fps, I don't NEED 60, though it would be nice.

RAM: 3GB DDR3 RAM. I'll be using the rig for a lot of photoshop work and digital painting, so RAM is important, further to this, I've been wondering whether I should invest in the 64bit version of Vista and just get 4-8GB of RAM, or whether that's just overkill.

Does anyone know any build to order sites that ship internationally? I live in the Philippines, not sure how much of this stuff I can get locally, if not I'll order and have it shipped here.


Oh yeah, and I'm looking at spending between $1000 and $1,500. any advice would be much appreciated!
Click to expand...

If the system is mainly going to be used for a lot of high quality industry style Photoshop work get the Q6600. If you only do light photoshop and mainly want to game, the E8400 can't be beaten.

You also don't need DDR3 ram, and could use high quality DDR2.

Also, if you are going to be spending the money on an 8800GTS. You could probably find a 9800GTX on sale for the same price. I got my 9800GTX for $250 not including any mail in rebates.

THe E8400 can last you for over a year. It's an extremely fast CPU that can overclock past 4GHZ. Most games as in 99 percent,don't take advantage of a quad core and won't for a while. In fact Intel and Microsoft go to colleges and universities, attempting to force young programmers into making new applications that use all of the cores they will be putting out.

Intels new socket and CPU will be out within a year, so we will all need to upgrade sooner or later. By the time most games start to properly use Quad core CPU's, you will be looking into another upgrade anyway.

I own a Q9450 a Q6600 and just built a gaming system with a E8400. the Q9450 is being used at work, the E8400 is in my gaming rig and the Q6600 is in it's box in my closet.
 
H

Hitmeneer

Member
Trax416 said:
If the system is mainly going to be used for a lot of high quality industry style Photoshop work get the Q6600. If you only do light photoshop and mainly want to game, the E8400 can't be beaten.

You also don't need DDR3 ram, and could use high quality DDR2.

Also, if you are going to be spending the money on an 8800GTS. You could probably find a 9800GTX on sale for the same price. I got my 9800GTX for $250 not including any mail in rebates.

THe E8400 can last you for over a year. It's an extremely fast CPU that can overclock past 4GHZ. Most games as in 99 percent,don't take advantage of a quad core and won't for a while. In fact Intel and Microsoft go to colleges and universities, attempting to force young programmers into making new applications that use all of the cores they will be putting out.

Intels new socket and CPU will be out within a year, so we will all need to upgrade sooner or later. By the time most games start to properly use Quad core CPU's, you will be looking into another upgrade anyway.

I own a Q9450 a Q6600 and just built a gaming system with a E8400. the Q9450 is being used at work, the E8400 is in my gaming rig and the Q6600 is in it's box in my closet.
Click to expand...

I don't totaly agree with the vision that quadcore support will take that long.
The step between solo to dual core was a big step, but the step to multi (i.e. quad/octo) won't be that big. Isn't the Unreal 3 engine supporting multi-core? And thanks to the PS3 and Xbox360 developers get a lot of experience in multi-core programming (although it doesn't always work the excact way).
Games like Alan Wake which will be released this year (hopefully) will also support quad cores.

Also if you check:
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...,1224,1233,1232,1226,1285,1229,1317,1314,1218

You see that the QX6700 is faster then the E8200, which are running on the same clock speed. So you already have some, not full, advantage. (There are is no benchmark at TH of a Q9300 or Q9450 which is about as fast as the QX6700 and about the same price as a E8200/8400).

The only problem now is that the new Q9300-Q9450-Q9550 is really hard to get. I'm already waiting for 6 weeks for my Q9450.

If you want to have the fastest processor at the moment for a good price, you should go for the E8400. If you want to have a processor that will be a bit more futureproof (mine has to last like 3-4 years) , I would go for a Q9450.
 
C

Cheeto

Member
B

Baron_Calamity

Member
Here is the computer I built in Janurary. Its super fast, super quiet. I've been building PCs from parts since 1989 and this is my favorite system that I've built. I also bought an acer 24 inch monitor but I don't have the model handly. Total was just over $1700 with the monitor.

- Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz LGA 775 Dual-Core Processor
- Antec Sonata Plus 550 Black/ Silver Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 550W Power Supply (this case looks soo much better in person)
- EVGA GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express video card
- Four sticks of Kingston 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory Model KVR800D2N5/1G
- Two Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives
- GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard
- ASUS 20X DVD R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model DRW-2014L1T
- Vista Ultimate 32 bit
 
H

Hitmeneer

Member
WhatRuOn said:
E8200 = $180 ($5 less than E8400)

QX6700 = FIVE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE US DOLLARS
Click to expand...

Did you read the text between the () !

(There are is no benchmark at TH of a Q9300 or Q9450 which is about as fast as the QX6700 and about the same price as a E8200/8400).

The Q9450 is about the same speed in Mhz of the QX6700 and probably faster & less power consuming and is 250 dollar.
 
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