I'm about to upgrade my system, as my cpu is really too slow. Since it is on a dead socket (AMD socket 754), I'm also having to upgrade the mobo, RAM (DDR->DDR2), and video card (AGP->PCI-e). Here's what I plan to move to: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe (2.4GHz, 4MB) MSI P6N SLI Platinum (nForce 650i) EVGA GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 2GB (2x1GB) G.SKILL DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Just wondering if anyone had any feedback. I'm pretty much 100% set on the E6600 for the cpu, but I really haven't done much research when it comes to the memory. I looked around quite a bit at motherboards but I'm still a little unsure about that choice as well. I know the video card is great, but my old qualm is whether or not I will regret having the 320MB version in the future. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Nice system. Way too pricey for my tastes, but a nice system nonetheless. $154 for a motherboard is ouch. But if you go Intel, you pretty much have to. And no, you won't regret 320MB.. most games still don't take advantage of 256MB, let alone 320. Especially since you have SLI, you can just get a second GTS 320 if needed. G.Skill memory is pretty good.. I just tend to look for memory with 5-eggs. That the last memory I bought was Kingston, didn't matter to me. I'd either go for the E6600 or the E6420. But I guess $40 isn't all that much in the grand scheme, so stick with the 6600. What about hard drive? Case?
That's actually pretty far down for an intel board... the top end ones are near 300. SLI holds the same data in memory in both cards. Using two 320MB cards in SLI doesn't mean you have 640MB of video memory available... you still only have 320. My fear is that in a year or so, 320MB might be the performance limiter for my machine. And it's not too unreasonable to think that the cost differential between a GTS with more memory is cheaper than upgrading the whole card later. Upgrading a system so I'm sticking with my old hard drive, optical drives, and case. Hard drives being a 74GB WD raptor for the primary and a 160GB 7200rpm Maxtor for storage. I am contemplating whether or not I want to get another hard drive or not. Current case is a Coolermaster Cavalier. The version without the goofy sound-meter thing on the front, and with no case window. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119075 That's my case, although I bought it 2.5 years ago so the revision I got has a different side panel vent setup that looks much nicer, but it's a horizontal type thign that wasn't designed for fan mounting or GPU airflow. It' also has it on both sides. Also I think it cost me 110 bucks or something back then
Powa: if you're interested, I've got a Maxtor 320 GB (300 GiB, 298 formatted) ATA/100 HD I'm looking to sell for 75ish+shipping. PM me if you're interested. Also, I am jealous... I really want to build a new system, but I have no real reason to, as my current ones serve me just fine.
After doing some more reading up I decided to drop those G.SKILL memory sticks in favor of the much-cheaper WINTEC AMPX C5 pair. Tomshardware seemed to put them in the middle of the pack, and since I don't plan to overclock much (if at all), It's worth it to save 50-60 bucks over other offerings. Still contemplating the mobo.
Well I finally bit the bullet and ordered those 4 parts. I had some reservations on whether or not I should get a 640MB version, or step down to a cheaper video card altogether and then upgrade it in a year or so. Finally after looking at tons of benchmarks I decided to just stick with the 320MB version. Now of course I'll be all giddy waiting for them to arrive. Can't wait to be running all my stuff at max everything without any hiccups
That's a nice system. The best I am going to be able to manage in the next few months is upgrading my P4 system to have 2gb of ram. *sigh*
Not really. Maybe it's only a high-end midrange, but it's still overly expensive. That isn't what I was saying at all. I know enough about SLI. I'm saying that you currently rarely need 256. The only reason you might need more than 320, is if you were running some whacky resolution over 2048x1536 and if the textures are pumped up to extremes. More likely you'll need more processing power before you need more ram. For the extra money the ram costs, you're not going to see any improvement. However, I don't know what it'll be like a year from now, so maybe it would be worth it. I upgrade my video card once a year, which is probably why I'd stick with 320. You'll probably keep yours longer than that, so you might want to go with 640. Coolermaster makes some nice cases. I almost went with the Centurion on my last build, but opted for the NZXT Apollo instead.
That's definitely true for the games that I play now, as well as the current games that I would be interested in possibly buying. However, there are already games that choke on cards with less than 512MB of video ram (biggest and most severe example is Serious Sam 2). SS2 gets about 6 fps min and 22 fps max with the card I bought (at 1600x1200). My monitor is 1650x1050 so that is almost identical to results I would see. Also, according to an article I read, some games that didn't have issues with other sub-512MB cards, have some issues with the card I bought. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/msi8800gts-640.html I guess the 320MB version has some memory management issues (probably acts like it has 640 to work with when it doesnt). Of course this is fixable through drivers which is why I went ahead and got it anyway.
Yeah, new drivers should help. The problem with SS2 is shoddy programming, not really a problem with video card ram. They could have streamlined the textures more, IMO. I honestly don't think you'll notice much of a difference in 99% of what you end up playing. Of course, you might end up having another new card before you come to that fork in the road where 320 isn't enough.
According to the package tracking site, my parts went out on the truck from my local UPS office to be delivered to my place at 5:30am today. It's 1:20pm and I'm dying with anticipation... hope it arrives soon.
I wish.. If I didn't already have a 250GB and 200GB, I'd think about it.. well that and my new system only has one IDE port, which my 250GB and DVDRW are hooked up to.
Well, got my stuff installed without any issues so far. Still installing games and whatnot so I can't give you a performance report yet, except for the following:
Nice!! Here is mine: Even though my processor is the weakest point, I don't mind too much since it runs about 18C. Leaving me room to overclock if needed.
One of the definite benefits of the Core Architecture over NetBurst: a 10x power reduction per core - the C2Q takes 50 watts, whereas the last P4 took ~125.
Currently in the process of putting all my old parts (A64 2800+, 1GB DDR400 RAM, ATI X800 XL AGP 256MB) into one of my parents machines. It's not entirely charity though, I'm ganking the 300GB Maxtor MaxLine III (16MB cache) I put in their box and replacing it with my 160GB maxtor. ATM I've got them both on my box and I'm gonna first grab any important files off their HD before I format it and then make the transfer.
They need to update their scores. AFAIK 6 is the max you can get in any category, but they said they are going to expand it as time goes on. The GFX test they run is pretty solid for Aero but doesn't give a great indication of game performance, there are tons of cards that cap it out.
>< Mine is an X2 3600+ 65nm 65W AMD. But definitely, both new architectures for AMD and Intel run so much more power efficient than they once did. I overclocked from 1.9 to around 2.2 yesterday and it only picked up about 3-4C. Couldn't believe my eyes... My SocketA from a couple years ago was much warmer than that!
Did you notice that my RAM scored higher than yours? AFAIK, you're running DDR2800, right? Mine is DDR2667.. I'm not exactly sure I trust their performance tests. lol
Turns out the 350W PSU on my parents old box won't power my old hardware. So I went out and picked up a new PSU for my box and I'll slide my Antec 480W over to their old machine. I got them to go 50/50 on a new Antec NeoHE 550W since they'd be getting my old one (along with all my old computer parts to boot!).
Got the PSU all installed, then went to install XP on my parents machine using a legitimate XP pro disc. First oddity is that it asks me to insert an old version of windows (like the upgrade version does, however this disc is not an upgrade version, I've installed off of it dozens of times). Anyway I retried it in the other CD drive and still the same issue. So I just found an old windows CD and got past that issue. Then I started to get "setup could not copy ______" for tons of files so I figure, ok great my cd is scratched or something. So then I busted out of my CD resurfacing deally. Everything's going fine then when I was about 2/3rds done, the wheel (the has the grinding surface on it) bends and the thing gets really hard to turn. That grinding wheel is pretty old and I've used it on 7-8 discs so I guess I shouldn't be too suprised. Anyway the disc looks pretty wrecked from that busted wheel. Long story short I have a legal XP pro CD key but no disc to install with. I'm going to try to use my other PC to re-burn the XP cd in hopes that with error correction I can get everything up and running. If I can't read the disc, I'm hoping I can find someone who has a working image that they could send to me. If anyone has any help, please let me know.
No go (at least using my old cloneCD installer I had), re burned disc still has a lot of corrupted files on it. I might DL a Nero trial and see if that helps, but I'm not holding out a lot of hope.
Yeah. I found someone who can hook me up with a copy in a few days. My parents have other machines so it isn't a big rush (they barely use that pc anyway). After thinking about it I realized the mobo could have been damaged by the previous under-powered PSU, which is causing read problems on the disk. However, the disk had some scratches that definitely COULD cause read problems (but were small enough that they might not). I wish I had tried the disk in other machine before trying to resurface it, then I would've known for sure. Then again, who would've expected the wheel on my diskdoctor to shred?
