OT: Building a new computer...
 

Ok, so I'm building a new computer. I've got most of it down, I think. Care to look at what I have so far and critique and offer suggestions?

Motherboard: ASUS P5LD2 R2.0 LGA 775 Intel 945P ATX
Price: $84.99

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz LGA 775
Price: $279.99

Power Supply: Thermaltake Purepower W0129RU ATX12V 600W
Price: 104.99
Notes: I am not set in stone with this unit. Probably only need a 400W supply anyways. Would prefer to stick with Thermaltake as the brand. Any recommendations? Connectors will need to power SATA drives preferably...

Memory: Kingston 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM 800 (PC2 6400) -- x2
Price: $57.99ea/$115.98 total.

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda ES 320GB 7200RPM
Price: $94.99

Still need: Video card, DVD/CD burner and case.

Any suggestions on how to make this better? I'm trying to keep everything under $900-$1000.00. Again, not everything is set in stone, this is just a starting point. Keep in mind I'm trying to go with SATA on the drives and such.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

You have $300 left......spend $50 on drive, $150 on a GeForce Video card (a GTX version in the 7000 range) and $150 on a LCD Viewsonic monitor.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

For reference, Ars Technica maintains some good hardware buying guides:

http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/guide-200708.ars

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Think I'd rather go for a GeForce 8xxx card, for shader model 4.0/DX10 support.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Is gaming a priority? If so, then so will a decent graphics card. Otherwise, get a cheap one and spend the savings on a better monitor (which you'll be looking at most), keyboard and mouse. The best choices here really come down to personal taste - I recently got a Logitech MX Revolution mouse which is beautiful hardware but its SetPoint drivers are downright horrid.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Gaming is not really that big of an issue for me. The most graphic intensive game that I play is SE5. I also do some 3D modeling troubleshooting at work; but that is rare.

I'm definitely going with Nvidia as my chipset of choice, but the manufacturer I'm not sure about. Is there any particular brand of video cards that stand out above the rest?
I was thinking of something like this: ASUS EN7600GS SILENT/HTD/256M GeForce 7600GS 256MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported
That card is only $80.00 and would probably be fine for me.

I also changed my power supply to this: Thermaltake TR2 RX W0146RU ATX12V Ver2.2 450W Power Supply
It cost $65.00 instead of $105.00 and should provide enough power.

I found the drive to get: LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model for only $38.00.

So for everything so far, not counting the case, I only have $760.00 in the machine. Not bad at all.

Thanks for your suggestions so far. Keep them coming. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

The Core 2 Quad chip isn't worth it. In most benchmarks the Duos beat the pants off of it, and it doesn't really offer any better multitasking performance. I would bump it to a Duo E6750 instead, at $194.99; that brings total to about $600 plus tax, and leaves only video card, optical drive, and case. For optical drive, Lite-On is pretty much the best value out there... basically same exact thing as Sony drives, only 10-20% less expensive. A good burner is about $30-35. Video card... take your pick, from the $125-225 range. And don't cheap out on the case. It really depends on what kind of look you want, but general rules: the less plastic the better, well established compartments for PS, MB, and HDD makes your life much easier, and you do NOT want to use any fans that may come with the case (buy at least two separately). A decent case will probably run you $60. You're better off going for the ones that are closer to $100+. Lian Li's are excellent.

And I'll second the suggestion to go for a nice monitor; you can get a nice 19" for almost $150 these days, and 22" for a bit over $200. 24" and 30" are still really expensive ($600-1200), but you won't know how you lived without once you try them. But that is beyond your budget, so just something to think about.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

I've been a fan of this case since I saw it:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129021

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

EVGA seems a popular choice for the card manufacturer, I can't say I remember which one I choose for my new 8800GTS but it wasn't evga because it was more expensive and I am a cheap bastard.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

I'd have to second the recommendation against a quad core chip. Snake oil silicon at its finest...

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Fancy fan LEDs are all well & good in theory, but in practice they are the badness. Trying to sleep as your PC works on an overnight download while simultaneously lighting up your room like a cheap strip club is not fun.

Also, quad cores are useless.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

You don't say. I'm in the market for a new computer and I saw a quad core that the salesman explained had less Mhz than his old one but was 5 or 6 times as fast. I thought dual or quad core meant 2 or 4 times the Mhz but I have gotten conflicting information that it is the speed listed but having 2 or 4 cores makes it process faster.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

As I understand it, multiple cores only give significant speedups for programs that were designed to exploit them.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

so is it worth it for a rig to play games in about 6 months?. Stuff like Spore or a MMPORPG. I would expect them to be designed for stuff like that.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Quad Cores aren't completely useless. You will get a faster computer overall. However, few applications yet take advantage of all the cores. Photoshop and 3DStudioMax are programs that benefit enormously from quad core( or even more cores ). Upcoming games like Crysis, and all games being made with the UnrealEngine3.0( that's alot of games ), are designed to take advantage of 2 or more cores. The future is Quad Core, really. But with brand new Intel and AMD quad cores coming up within the next few months, there's little use buying the current quad cores on the market.

Especially interesting is the AMD quad core, since they've been sort of 'out of the loop' lately it will be interesting to see how theirs perform compared to Intel's.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

That's ok. I won't buy it till Christmas. I hope to save some money that way and I told my sister she could have my current computer when she does her internship.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

There's really no point going out and getting the latest, greatest thing, when you can go two or three hardware generations back and get a helluva lot better value:dollar ratio. Dual- and quad-core processors are all shiny and flashy now, but you really don't need them at all, and won't for some time.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Quad core desktop CPUs will be good in maybe 3-4 years. Stay far away from them for now if most of your time is not spent rendering hugely complex 3d models.

Not exactly. 2 cores is like having two discrete CPUs, so instructions from two processes can be executed at the same time. Each core is necessarily slower than a CPU that used the same process tech, but used the whole core. The reason why multiple CPUs/cores tend to be better than a big single one is that most processes (even games) don't really need all of instruction processing capacity of the last generation of single-core CPUs. Its better to split up the silicon so that the OS task scheduler has more leeway to manage applications (such as kernel and background processes). In theory, 4 cores are better than 2, since the system can process instructions from more processes concurrently.

When you compare a dual core to a quad core CPU, both made on the same silicon process level (45 nm now for the latest stuff, IIRC), a dual core tends to come out ahead in real world applications for home use. Each core has twice as much capacity to process instructions as a quad core CPU. On the other hand, a quad core CPU can process instructions from twice as many applications at once. There are pros and cons for each situation. When you have a ton of concurrent processes (or threads of one big one) running all the time, you want as many CPUs as possible. Servers tend to benefit greatly, as do workstations that do a ton of data crunching (or model rendering if the renderer is capable of using many CPUs). When you have just one app that is very CPU intensive, its better to have a dual core CPU.

Games don't really lend themselves to many concurrent threads. There is a lot of optimization that can be done with 2 threads, but going to 3 or 4 is usually redundant, since the extra tasks that could be split off tend to be far less process-intensive than the main threads. Plus, multi-threading in games is still nascent; most devs are still trying to wrap their heads around two concurrent threads, much less many.

In summation, ignore quad-core CPUs for the next few years. Dual-core CPUs should net performance gains with modern games (and are more than sufficient to run older games). Quad-core CPUs should net performance losses with almost all existing games, and most games under development.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Thanks, I'll remember to stick with dual core then and leave the quad stuff for the one after that then. Either that or keep an eye out to see if the games I'm after use quad stuff, though I see by your explanation that probably won't be.

About the only other thing I have running when I game is music. That and I don't bother closing internet windows. I have a couple of coasters though that taught me to close everything else when I burn DVDs.

I actually went into a new store and said I was after a top end system. The salesman, maybe after a big commision, pointed out to me a big quad core system. I said to him

"ok I said I wanted top end but I didn't mean that much"

he then pointed out the systems along the back wall.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

To my knowledge there's no real cons against quad core( except price, and bigger cooling and power requirements ) compared to dual core. Intel's quad core CPUs, the only quad cores available at the time, are simply two of their dual cores put together on one chip. Given the same clock frequency, a quad core and a dual core will perform equally in applications/games that only support one or two cores.

The catch here is, as mentioned, the price. The 3ghz dual core costs the same as the 2.4ghz quad core.

Personally I think it's only about a year or so before most( if not all) new games released will take some advantage of quad core, though.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

High power consumption (leading to much greater total cost of ownership and noisier cooling systems), poor cost/frequency ratio, and little benefit to various existing game engines (including UE3) make quad core not as attractive at this juncture. Sure you'll get a few more frames per second from some crappy FPS titles, but its not (IMO) worth the cost.

I think its going to be (much) more than a year before quad core starts to make sense for gaming. Its good for applications with more load-balanceable parallelization, of course.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

The other con is the amount of die space available for on-chip cache. Normally about 50-67% of the space on a modern microprocessor is taken up by cache; if you take a dual core and squeeze another two processing units onto the chip, you are either going to: A) cut out some parts of the processing cores, B) reduce the amount of total cache, or C) take a lot more power. The only way to get around this is to reduce your process size (e.g. 65nm to 45nm), but then you can use the same process on dual cores, and you end up with the same trade-off.

For intel chips, the most apples-to-apples dual v. quad comparison I could find is the E6850 (dual) v. QX6850 (quad). Both have the same FSB @ 1333MHz, both have 32kiB L1 and 2MiB L2 per core, and both operate overall at 3.0GHz. The difference is power: the E6850 takes 65W @ 0.962V-1.350V; the QX6850 takes 135W @ 1.100V-1.372V. That means you'll need a lot more cooling for the quad core. On benchmarks, doing raytracing (by nature a multi-threaded process) or other image manipulation in 2d or 3d gives around 10-25% advantage to quad core. Compilers, web servers, etc. actually do better with dual cores, compression gives <10% advantage to dual core except with h.264 which seems to give a nearly 50% advantage to quad core. And then games... the differences are so small as to be negligible.

And then comes the cost: QX6850 will cost you around $1000. E6580 about $250. And power consumption is 69W v. 17W while idle, and 136W v. 67W under load. Which means that the E6850 will cost less to run under full load 24/7 than the QX6850 if it is idle 24/7. At my electricity prices (~$0.11 / kWh), that amounts to $66.50/year to run the quad core 24/7, vs. $16.50/year to run the dual core.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Well, as mentioned in that Q&A you linked to, the UE3 does gain some small benefit from more than 2 cores. Crysis, another major title released within a few weeks, is supposed to benefit greatly from more than 2 cores. Valve's next version of the Source Engine is also being developed to benefit greatly from more than 2 cores.

These are all games/engines of this year, and many other games will be using these engines as a base. That's why I think that already next year we'll see most games supporting, to some degree, more than 2 cores.

Already there's a few games like Supreme Commander that takes very good advantage of quad core.
Interestingly, the 2.4ghz quad core actually outperformed a *4ghz* dual core in the game Lost Planet(Link). That's some good developing.

Again note that I do not actually support buying a quad core before the next generation of them appears within the next few months, though. Then we'll probably see much better cooling, power consumption, etc.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

More flash in the pan FPS games that will differ little from the simpler flash in the pan FPS games of yesteryear, beyond more shininess... yay...

Supreme Commander seems to make some relevant usage of multi-threading though, what with the need for actually intensive AI processing in a RTS as compared to the few "living" things present at a time in a FPS and all.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

True, graphics and FPS seems to be where most of these increased number of cores are wasted. If SEV had good support for multithreading I'd consider getting a 4core even if only for that game, though; it'd make turn processing far less of an annoyance. Probably very hard to add if the game wasn't made with multithreading in mind, though.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

It would not actually be too much of a problem structure-wise to get most games multi-threaded. For example, SEV; instead of each AI processing its turn in order, just spawn a thread for each AI, and have each work on its processing at the same time. For combat, spawn a new thread to resolve the combat, and continue processing other parts of the game.

The issue isn't with games not having multiple threads in mind at the design stage; the issue is with actually writing the games to exploit multiple threads WITHOUT concurrency bugs. A FPS-type game is fairly natural with two threads, one to update the game state (player input, monster movements, etc), and the other to read the game state and do the appropriate rendering on the screen. This avoids the issue of concurrency bugs because it doesn't really matter much if the renderer reads part of the game state before or after an update, since it will just render all over again in a few milliseconds. The combination of read-only and rapid looping means that programmers can use two threads with no trouble. However, when there are multiple threads that are reading AND writing state, there become issues. They are issues that in principle are solvable (TSL, semaphores, monitors), but do not always amount to performance gains. Making code multi-threaded will ALWAYS add overhead to the process, and often that overhead will exceed the gains from having multiple execution units. And since some things will always need to be processed serially instead of in parallel, there is a limit to what multiple cores can accomplish. That's why the most performance gains you will usually see from doubling processing cores is 50%, and sometimes you will see performance hits. That's why it is not worth shelling out cash for a quad core in the current environment.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

I don't think your approach to SEV multi-threaded would work. You could have one core per AI, but that doesn't help you any because the AIs do their turns one after the other, with their decisions being made depending on the previous AI's actions that turn. The same is true with combat; you can't resolve other parts of the game while processing combat because the other parts are dependant on how each combat is resolved. You end up with cores just having to wait for other cores to finish before they can do their work.

At any rate, they're getting better and better at finding ways to thread the applications, and since they've pretty much reached the clock limit with the current base-technology, more cores is the best way to go until someone 're-invents' the computer for a more optmized and streamlined design. There's too many bottlenecks 'improvisations' in our current systems.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

First off, note that cores never wait for other cores; cores are always running, always processing instructions. The kernel task scheduler puts various processes and threads on each core dynamically, as needed for optimal load-balancing.

Abandoning the garbage sequential movement mode solves the concurrency issue nicely. If all game modes featured simultaneous movement, each AI can think at the same time, since all they are doing is giving orders. They can even do all their thinking while the human player is playing his turn... Turn resolution can still benefit somewhat from multithreading, since you could process the movement of all of an empire's ships in one thread. Have each one process one day worth of movement and wait for combat resolutions.

With 20 threads and 4 cores (a full game), the kernel task scheduler would typically have 5 of the threads process on each core (though it could really be any distribution, depending on how long each AI thread takes to finish). Each AI thread would process one day of movement, then go to sleep. After all such AI threads are sleeping, all pending combats would then be assigned their own threads, and executed in parallel. Once they are all done, the main game thread just has to wake up each of the AI threads.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

It'd definitely work better with simultaneous movement, that's true. However, the best approach might be something similar to how Master of Orion 3, which also uses simultaneous movement, processes turns. It basically finishes all movements for all empires, then stores all potential combats.

This way the game could just go ahead and process all empires' movements at once, using all the cores. When that was finished, it could then go ahead and split the combats between the different cores. This way, the only thing that would have to wait would be those combats dependant on the results of previous combats the same turn.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

You can't do that without eliminating the ability to move in sectors of a system; MOO3 had a really primitive movement system, without any ability to move more than through part of a warp lane in a turn. Systems are just a generalized location, without any internal locations. This can't work for SE-style location systems, because ships can move, fight, move, fight, etc., all in one turn. You can't postpone things pending a later combat resolution, since literally hundreds or thousands of objects' movements can be affected by a single combat.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Raapys said:
I don't think your approach to SEV multi-threaded would work. You could have one core per AI, but that doesn't help you any because the AIs do their turns one after the other, with their decisions being made depending on the previous AI's actions that turn.

You could at least in theory make AI processing multicore by splitting out the "opponent invariant" parts (aspects that don't depend on the current tactical actions of other players like research, diplomacy, production and movement in systems held by that AI exclusively) and each individual combat could be handled by a separate thread (with the main AI thread moving on to other systems pending battle completion).

Whether SEV could do this though, depends solely on the underlying code and so is a question only Aaron could likely answer.

As for more general purposes, there are plenty of situations where a second core comes into play even for single-core applications (e.g. Nvidia's graphics drivers with some of the image quality options will use it) and for on-line gaming you'd benefit from having another core for security software (firewalls, anti-virus scanners, etc) so with a dual-core application, you're already talking about quad offering real benefits. And Intel's budget quad-core Q6600 may offer "only" a 2.4GHz clock but there are plenty of reports about the G0 stepping overclocking to 3.0Ghz+ with air cooling alone.

Finally, it seems that even eight cores can be made use of by some games - for example Lost Planet.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Firewalls and resident AV engines use almost 0% of CPU cycles... unless you are running some sort of Norton bloatware or something?

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Fyron said:
Firewalls and resident AV engines use almost 0% of CPU cycles... unless you are running some sort of Norton bloatware or something?

Firewall CPU usage will depend on the amount of network traffic it has to process - some filesharing programs can open hundreds or even thousands of connections resulting in significant CPU usage on some systems. For AVs, it depends on how much they have to scan - those with web traffic scanners can slow throughput if they don't have enough CPU.

Of course there are examples of both AVs and firewalls that minimise CPU usage, but in many cases by performing less thorough checks (poorer unpacking support for AVs, weaker leaktest performance for firewalls).

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Or, just by being intelligently designed, so as not to be huge and bloaty... For some nice anecdotal evidence:

Even with managing all those torrents on the SE file tracker, my firewall has had a massive 2:16 CPU Time over the last... 2 weeks? of system up-time. Almost always at 0% CPU load. And its one of the best windows personal firewalls out there...

A game is not web traffic, and neither is something like a torrent client. A bloatware AV resident scanner with "web traffic" scanning shouldn't even enter the picture... Hell, my resident AV scanner has exactly half the CPU Time as the firewall (1:08)! It certainly does what it needs to do as a resident AV scanner...

And this is even on a 5-6 year old pentium IV system with its outdated, bulky, slow silicon...

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Fyron said:
Or, just by being intelligently designed, so as not to be huge and bloaty...

Well one person's bloat is another person's critical feature and the top-performing firewalls are now expanding into areas like system, process and registry control. That is of lesser relevance in this thread though - the point I was making was that security software can benefit from an extra core.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Kids these days don't appreciate how good they have it. Terribly wasteful with their CPU cycles...
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/nick/p...es/se5beta.png

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

AstralWanderer said:
"...the top-performing firewalls are now expanding into areas like system, process and registry control..."

Good god man, that is not at all what a firewall should be doing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif All it should do is monitor and shape TCP and UDP packets according to a defined set of rules... Talk about feature bloat. The only way a firewall should "expand" is by more expressive rule language, or covering IPv6 packets...

"...the point I was making was that security software can benefit from an extra core."

That point is mistaken though; good security software that does its job properly, and doesn't try to include the kitchen sink, has a minimal footprint. No background processes should necessitate the need for a whole CPU core...

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Well it's getting close to me buying a new computer. I reread this thread and will be going for a reasonably high end dual core system with plenty of RAM (3GB perhaps), helped by how well our dollar is doing at the moment. I know things differ from US to Australia equipment wise but I wonder if there is some way of making the computer more silent I could mention to the store bloke. I don't want to try mucking about with fancy cooling systems. My mother hooked me up with an expert last time who built my system for me and I've never been entirely happy with how loud it is. Are fans less loud than 3 years ago. As it is I keep my computer down stairs because it can't handle hot weather and even then I need to turn it off in the middle of the afternoon sometimes during summer.

Does anyone have any advice that could be useful?

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Thanks, this is very helpful to those of us who our of date as far as knowledge goes.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

The type and size of fan you get determines how loud it will be. Larger fans tend to be quieter, since they can push out the same amount of air at a lower rotation speed. 120mm case fans are ideal, compared to 80mm, if you can get a case that uses em.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

What is better, water cooling the cpu, multiple case fans, or a combination of both?

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Well the technical guy at one of the shops said they can't give me a 120mm fan but I don't think it is necessary any more. The ones they had on display made no real noise I could hear, granted I am half deaf. He said stuff about bad bearings on old ones and needing to cool the processor which isn't needed so much now with dual and quad core.

The Quad core one they had was way too expensive, and I am willing to pay well for a good one that will last. I think the major addition was a HD-DVD/Blue ray drive I don't have any interest in. He was telling me the HD-DvD was worth it alone as it would cost A$1500 to add it later. Obviously out for a commision I think.

Another store had a quad core without that stuff but the young guy there couldn't tell me what it lacked (ie better than generic hardware) that made it so cheap.

I know people said Quad core isn't necessary and I discussed that with the guy but might it be worth it since the computer is to last 3, maybe 4, years?. Starting with Quad core might let it last longer as future software is built with it in mind.

On a related note. Interesting story. When I went to the first store the salesguy trying to get me to take the Quad core hog with HD-DvD drive, was stunned when I started discussing technical stuff.
"You'll have to talk to my manager" he said. So I start talking with the manager who could discuss technical stuff and he got annoyed when he realised the salesguy had dissapeared off to lunch it seemed. His words were I think
"he has to learn to stay and learn if he wants to stay in my computer department" the salesguy was older than the manager, who didn't appear that young.

Incidentally, can anyone explain if Vista Ultimate is the best? The computers I saw all come with Ultimate. I asked if despite being "ultimate" that still meant it was the worst version. I know as they go up in quality they include components that might not be necessary for someone who just wants to use it at home.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Anyone that tells you that it is not necessary to have proper case cooling (at least one intake fan on the front and one on the back) should be summarily ignored. You especially want an intake fan blowing air over your hdd bays... Sure, a core 2 duo might put out a bit less heat than a Pentium 4 Extreme or whatever, but it still makes a lot of heat under load. So does the RAM, motherboard, video card, hdds, etc. Nothing but CPUs has really had much engineering done towards reducing energy usage and heat output. You want some airflow going through the case. You do not need to create a wind tunnel, however. Slower, quiet fans are good for case fans (many people even voltage-mod their case fans down to 5 or even 3.3 volts, for even less noise output). Panasonic makes some good case fans (Panaflo), for example. Most motherboards can control fan speeds based on thermal sensor readings, and slow them down when less heat is being generated. You could also get fans with built-in switches to control speed, or one of those front-mount fan control panels.

Quad core is still snake oil for 99% of people. It is not worth the extra investment. Any worthwhile motherboard you get will support both dual and quad core CPUs. By the time quad core is really necessary, you will be able to get a replacement CPU for less than the difference in cost between the dual core and quad core you would buy today. Die shrinks and process improvements make silicon get real cheap, real fast. Then you've got inflation working to your advantage; just look at how cheaply you can get 3-4 year old CPUs today. It never makes any sense to buy bleeding edge technology. CPUs and video cards are particularly bad, with massive markups on new architectures for the first 6-12 months.

Standalone HD-DVD players do not cost anywhere near that much money... and by the time you would consider getting one for your PC anyways (after affordable burners come out), they will cost $30-50 US.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

I remember with an old one I was told it was too old to handle a new cpu. You say motherboards these days will be able to handle a quad core come its time, ok then. You are clearly the expert. To paraphrase Blackadder

"That I cannot say, Sir. I am one of those people who are quite happy to use computers but have absolutely no idea how they work" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

well maybe a bit.

He wasn't advocating the total removal of fans, not that I think that's what you mean, but he said back when there was only one core it might only be 200Mhz (his words) and they buried it under a lump of cooling so they could overclock it to Ghz speeds. Didn't add up when he said it but I don't know how overclocking works unless you immerse it in liquid Nitrogen.

The DvD stuff was I think HD-Dvd and blue ray combined. Of course the massive cost might have also included the monitor and other stuff. I wasn't paying much attention to that one. But it surprised me when I saw another quad core system for nearly half price. Of course that didn't include monitor and looked a bit generic.

It wasn't that I doubted before, I believe what you say, only that I was keeping in mind it's usfulness in future but what you say about replacing the cores seems to make sense.

Furthermore, do you think 2GB of Ram is sufficent for now or should I continue to consider the future and go with 3GB?. Ram is very cheap these days.

Edit: My current system has three fans that I can see. One intake vent at the front and 2 (power supply + 1) in the back. I don't mind saying for years I didn't even realise the raised edges along the front were an intake. I commonly don't make the leap that normal people might.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

I'm not talking about an old motherboard supporting brand new CPUs, but rather what is now a fancy quad core supported by your mobo becoming a bargain-basement priced part in a few years time. Have little doubt that in 3-4 years, the mid-high end CPUs won't work in whatever motherboard you get today. Of course, if you have a huge budget to blow through, a quad core CPU won't necessarily hurt much. It just tends to come with a rather large jump in price... I'd rather spend that money on more RAM or more HDD, personally.

200 MHz CPUs cannot be clocked to GHz frequencies without some massive liquid nitrogen based cooling and a heaping spoonful of luck... Sane over-clocking might net 10, 20% more clock frequency (depending on CPU and mobo chipset). Going much over that tends to cause rampant instability.

Make sure to buy your system with gigabyte sticks of RAM. Nothing is worse than getting 2 GB, and later finding out it was really 4 x 512 MB sticks so you can't expand cleanly... If you are going to stick with XP, 2 GB is more than sufficient. If you want to go with Vista, 2 GB is probably still sufficient. It couldn't hurt to slap in another GB either way, though. Make sure they are giving you a competitive price with purchasing RAM separately though (particularly from a good, cheap online vendor), and not gouging you for extra profit margin. RAM is one of the easiest things to install into a computer.

HD-DVD and Blu-ray are not worth investing in at this juncture. The quality improvements over DVD in an up-converting player are marginal at best (even with a nice HDTV), for a massive price premium. Best to wait until they hit price levels equivalent to today's DVD, in either a combo player or just one format, with the other going the way of Betamax.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

GB RAM sticks, ok.

I last asked about it a month or so ago, I believe it was something like A$100. I assume that's per GB but I'll have to check. At the current exchange rate that's about US$90. I have a dread of doing technical stuff. Opening the case and blowing out dust is about as far as I feel comfortable with, although I have on ocassion replaced a CD or DVD drive.

I have no interest in HD-DvD or blue ray. I don't concern myslef with having the flashiest electronics. It took until my birthday 2 or so years ago before I got a DvD player. It broke awhile ago and I was only interested in a simple replacement without surround sound or fancy stuff. Of course being cheap sometimes mean you end up with cheap crap that goes though 2 machines quickly before you learn your lesson.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Installing stuff in the computer isn't that hard, although I do reccommend having a qualified person look over your shoulder until you get the hang of it - And for more complex stuff, a second head can help.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Again, water cooling the cpu or more case fans? Which do you think or know, is better?

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Unless you have an extreme gaming/performance machine that rivals anything near supercomputer power, I'd go with case fans.

Water cooling is neat and all, but I am not comfortable with water running through my computer.

Oh, and for all of you who helped me when I created this thread, thanks again! I have my new computer and it has been running smoothly for several weeks now. Grand total for just the PC was $735. I'll post specs later on.

Re: OT: Building a new computer...
 

Atrocities said:
Again, water cooling the cpu or more case fans? Which do you think or know, is better?

Water cooling should be more effective and (almost surely, depends on exact setup) quieter than case fans - but it does have complications...

1). You have to make sure that your setup is totally leak-proof (conventional wisdom is to run the cooling for 24 hours without the PC switched on, in order to check for leaks). If you are chilling the water to below-ambient temperatures (e.g. by using a phase change or thermo-electric cooler on the water) then you may also need to lag everything to prevent condensation from causing similar problems (depending on the chiller temperature and the dew point of your PC's surroundings).

2). You will need to use distilled water with additives to avoid algae buildup (not harmful but looks bad) and galvanic corrision. These additives will need topping up every year or so.

3). Hardware changes (new graphics card, extra RAM) are harder to do with water-cooling pipework in the way. You may also need to drain the system to swap out a water-cooled item (CPU, GPU).

There are a number of forums with more information on the more "esoteric" forms of cooling - Xtreme Systems being one of the largest and worth checking out for those interested.