OT: Climbing System Requirements and Specs

[Renegade 13]

I have a quite satisfactory system that I bought in August for ~$1700 CDN. So about $1450 American. Since then I've sunk another ~$400 into it (upgraded video card, extra Gig RAM, new PSU). So put the total at $1800 American. Ouch. And this isn't a top of the line system, but it is a system that will handle whatever I throw at it...for the time being...then more upgrades :S

[Saber Cherry]

Atrocities, if you want a good, cheap computer, I suggest you go here:
www.newegg.com
...and assemble it yourself. You could easily get a computer for far less than what Dell wants.

Here's a sample shopping cart (and BTW, I'm not suggesting anyone buy these brands! Samsung HDDs are good, AMD CPUs are good, Corsair is good, but the rest are just "average").

I assume you have an optical drive, monitor, speakers, case, operating system, and etc. that you don't really want to waste money on replacing.



Internal Hard Drives
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update
SAMSUNG SpinPoint P Series SP2504C 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: SP2504C
Item #: N82E16822152025
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$89.99 -$5.00 Instant
$84.99
AMD-compatible Motherboards
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update
ASUS A8N5X Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Model #: A8N5X
Item #: N82E16813131569
** This item is warranted through the product manufacturer only. what's this?
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$80.99 $80.99
Video Cards
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update
SAPPHIRE 100154SR Radeon X1800XT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
Model #: 100154SR
Item #: N82E16814102008
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$308.00 $308.00
Power Supplies
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update
Thermaltake Silent Purepower W0014RU ATX 480W Power Supply - Retail
Model #: W0014RU
Item #: N82E16817153007
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$59.00 $59.00
Memory - System
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update
CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model VS1GBKIT400 - Retail
Model #: VS1GBKIT400
Item #: N82E16820145440
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$66.00 $66.00
Processors
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester 1GHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model ADA4200BVBOX - Retail
Model #: ADA4200BVBOX
Item #: N82E16819103547
** This item is warranted through the product manufacturer only. what's this?
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$355.00 $355.00
Subtotal: $953.98

[Randallw]

Well I've had the same system for 2-3 years. Upgraded it to play SWG, since then I have played COH, Doom3, and Star Wars battlefront 2. The other day I installed Dungeons and Dragons online (only extra was installing a DVD drive), sure it's not at full settings or high definition graphics but I was pleased to find it was pretty good performance.

[Phoenix-D]

I had the same system for..hmm, 4 years? Until I upgraded recently. It ran pretty much every game I wanted to play until Red Orchestra: Ostfront and Oblivion came out. (even FEAR was playable- on low settings, natch).

I spent $800 on a new system, and lo and behold I can run everything current at high. Except Oblivion, I haven't had a chance to test that yet.

[Fyron]

It's generally a bad idea to spend more than about that $800 on a (custom built) system (assuming you don't do something silly like waste $400 on a new monitor when you already have one from your old PC)... There is no real need to buy the latest and greatest CPUs and video cards when their performance gain over their half-priced breatheren is practically negligible. All of that more expensive will depreciate in value tremendously by the time the $800 machine starts to feel dated. But by that time, you will be able to get away with just updating a part or two to get the performance back up anyways.

[Atrocities]

According to most game reviewers and hard ware testers, the top of the line ATI and Nvidia cards are vastly superior in quality and performance over their half priced brethin. The SLI and the ATI version cards can run such games as F.E.A.R. and Half Life 2 without a problem on the highest quality settings available. While the mid range cost cards tend to have problems.

Having a dual SLI system with a top of the line CPU/HD/MEM only provides the gamer with a better gaming experience.

Lets face it, Microsoft wants to force people into upgrading to VISTA through their decision to not make DirectX 10 backwards compatable. Game developers are going to be forced to step up to DirectX 10. When Vista comes out, games designed using older versions of DirectX will be obsolete.

Games developed after Vista, to utilize DirectX 10, will be using more and more of the features and capabilities of the higher end video cards.

Right now the only reason I can see to upgrade to a new system is to enjoy the wonders of the newer high end games, in anticipation of what is too come.

I bought my GeForce 5700 Ultra only three years ago and already it is dramatically obsolete. Eveything is switching to PCI Express, that alone means I need to upgrade my computer as my MB is not PCI Express Compatable, much lime many of you.

My computer is only three years old.

Hell most of the games released in the last year are already maxing out my video cards capabilities, and that was something that I did not expect to see so soon. Hell my $450.00 GeForce 3 card was ficken leap frogged and is now vitually worthless. Might as well be an old Mytrix Mastique for all the good it does in gaming.

So ya, buing a new "high End" video card is something that I am very wary of, yet I know that eventually, especially after the release of VISTA, I will be forced into updating both my PC and my video cards to meet the new standards for the new games.

MS is evil.

[Saber Cherry]

Don't buy SLI or Crossfire, they're both rip-offs. Or rips-off. They only increase the framerate sometimes, in some games... in most games (meaning, not the 10 that every website use for benchmarks) they reduce the framerate. Even when there is an increase, it's almost never more than 20% at any resolution my monitor can handle... and for people who use LCDs for gaming (sometimes even by choice), you can't tell a difference in framrate above 50fps anyway (on a modern monitor - older ones are more like 30 fps). CRTs are a different story, but I've never seen one that can handle 16x12 at 100 Hz, so framerates ate those resolutions are immaterial to me. In short, I wouldn't spend my money on a dual setup, even if I had unlimited money - more noise, heat, and problems for no advantage.

nVidia does a better job for a dual setup, BTW, but I wish sites would stop reviewing that junk when 0.1% of gamers will ever buy it. Your money will always be better spent on a higher-tier card than a second card of the same tier, or if you are at the top, saved for the next generation, which will be faster than duals of the current generation. nVidia and ATI both need to spend their money on useful research, too, rather than this stupid ego-boosting game of "Who can win the NASCAR races with a car totally unlike anything consumers will buy".

[Fyron]

Atrocities said:
According to most game reviewers and hard ware testers, the top of the line ATI and Nvidia cards are vastly superior in quality and performance over their half priced brethin.

Those reviews are full of baloney. Artificial benchmarks are fairly useless. All that the current generation top of the line lets you do is run at best settings. Last generation's top of the line is generally going to be 90%+ of best settings, which is still practically the same. Go back two generations and you might lose the latest useless buzzword feature (like HDR), but the game will still look great and play extremely well.

One thing im missing is a proper soundcard. I think i will get an Audigy ZS 2 soon.

That's not a proper sound card, however. Sure, it can spit out a lot of mediocre quality sound, but it is pricey. Better to go with a card like a M-Audio Revolution.

[Sivran]

My computer is only three years old.

My computer is three years old. It's handled everything I've thrown at it. Granted, I don't have FEAR and don't ever plan to.

Oh, and ethanol? Please. Takes too much energy to produce, gas is better. Bio-diesel man. Bio-diesel. Burrito-scented exhaust anyone?

[Renegade 13]

***Moved to the appropriate venue.***