OT: New PC!

[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 & 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.


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 & Offline. Anyone know what the difference is?

[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 & 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.

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

[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!

[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 & 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 & applied for a loan with 6 months interest free. 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]

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.

[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.