Avian Gamers Network

So its that time again...I have a job after graduating this year...something most of my fellow grads can't say and have been dying for a new rig...and my GF kind of wants my old one to use for her school stuff so its gonna happen I think...

..so just so you have an idea of my 4+ year old rig

Dell 9100
P4 3.0 (2CPU)
1gb ram
Nvidia 6800
160gb HD

It can still run Assassins Creed and Mass Effect on low settings, but Empire Total War runs extremely slow (demo ver.)

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I am looking at the new Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-920 processor and around 6gb ram, with a Nvidia or ATI gfx card with 1gb or dual cards? HD Space doesnt matter a lot simply b/c I have a 500gb external that I use.

I've looked at Dell's, and HP both which obviously are decent, HP tends to have slightly better prices on the higher end machines. I glanced at some of the smaller builders like Ibuypower and cyberpower etc... but am a little skepitical simply because the net is filled with horror stories of those shops.

Basiclly I want to maximize my power/life of the machine without spending more then $1000-$1300

I've looked at the XPS and Studio systems at dell and the Pavillion elite at HP but bottom line I am no where near as familiar with the advances in technologies as I was 4 or 5 years ago, no idea which gfx card these days are top notch or which processors actually out performs the others. I would like to go with an Intel simply because I understand and have always used intel but if you guys know something about AMD chips I'm willing to explore that option.

Any help would be most appreciated.

_________________
Ryric Krael
Former Vice President AGN
Former Director, Section 6
Former Head of Department of the Treasury
-------
Ask not what your PA can do for you, but what you can do for your PA
"Gone Section Five"

I have a comparable machine myself and I need more power aswell...

Main difference is that mine is homebuildt. Got the parts seperate and assembled it myself.

Anyway My main problem is the powersupply. With only 350 Watts it doesn't have enough juice to power the newer graphiccards.

But as you wrote your GF wants the machine so upgrade is out of the qustion for ya'

I'm no longer the feinschmeiker I used to be considering computers, but when choosing between AMD and Intel it more about money for me than performance. Been told by people around me that AMD isn't a gaming CPU, but I beg to differ. It is a CPU, buildt like this and that with this much processing power. With a CPU you should always go for power, but granted nowadays it is more about the graphics than raw power.

If you wanna be on the safe side go Intel. A Dual core 2.8 GHz is sufficient. I honestly doubt that quadcore is gonna be used in games for another 5-6 years.

For graphics it is also more about taste (and wallet/pocketbook (so both sides of the Atlantic can follow)) AMD/ATI's cards are good cards and they are cheap compared to nVidia. But lately nVidia has come up with a lot small good applications which could be a help for players who love realism in physics. All nVidia cards after G-Force 6800GT only need a patch update and physics should be improved in games that support it.

Ask me I'd say AMD/ATI is sufficient.

Oh memory. You'll need 3 Gigs, minimum. I presume you are gonna use XP...

While cryptic I hope it did give some insight...

[EDIT]
I would like to correct myself. Been doing some reseach concerning the physics improvement through a patch is not from Geforce 6800 and up but Geforce 8800 and up. This is due to nVidia's takeover of Aigea Physx and implementation of the physx technologies into the nVidia chips...
Sorry for the foul-up...

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1st Feb 2008

The P4 3.0ghz when it says its 2cpu is actually due to hyperthreading, similar to how the new i7 are technically quad core but with hyperthreading can be called 8 core I think...

Just to mention it but I also use my machine for some video stuff, Office apps and photoshop which to my understanding would be able to make use of the quad core while games typically don't?

_________________
Ryric Krael
Former Vice President AGN
Former Director, Section 6
Former Head of Department of the Treasury
-------
Ask not what your PA can do for you, but what you can do for your PA
"Gone Section Five"

Good post. I feel the same way as you guys when you say you are not as familiar with this stuff as you were 4 years ago. When I went back home in May I could not believe how slow and awkward my old rig was. I need a new PC at the house, and I will probably get a new one for Danyale also. One will probably be a laptop, the other a desktop due to layout of my home office.

Unlike DF, I am not buying anything until these Africa projects are over. So I am waiting, waiting, and waiting some more until I am home to enjoy it, meanwhile technology gets cheaper. I guess I will be buying something in 18 to 24 months.

Anyway, hopefully I can learn something from this thread. I’m lost in technology, and I have a large purchase on the horizon.

That depends whether or not the games support multiprocessors. Like other kinds of software the games need to be optimized for it. Source based games does support dual-core and so does the engine for Crysis. But older games could have problems...

Alot of software has been made to support multiple cores ever since motherboards with dual CPU arrived at the scene. While they was not a commercial success for the regular users (like us) they were popular on server computers. When multi core became available the software just treated it as dual CPU. The same with hyper-trading.

Games on the other hand, usually has been for the regular users who mostly have a single CPU based, until dual-core became the standard. So games that are 3 to 5 years old or older usually doesn't regognize the extra core so the game would only use one of the cores. I was told by a friend once that he suddenly couldn't play a certain game after he switched to a 2.4 GHz dual core. After some checking we discovered that the game only saw 1.2 GHz.

I myself has a 3.2 GHz P4 with H/T where H/T is only activated if nessesary. So if I play games not supporting multi core I got 3.2 GHz at disposal, and if I play game with support for multicore I have two cores with each 1.6 GHz... (in theory).

That is how I understand it... but don't take my word for it. Ask some other who got more experience in the subject...

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1st Feb 2008

I would appreciate some advice as well. I will be getting married on August 9th to a Japanese woman, then we will be moving back to the U.S. (I have a fellowship at U. Washington in Seattle). She is looking at buying something with a Japanese OS before we leave, so a laptop, and she likes the Sony VAIO. Is something like that any good for gaming at all? She might want to get in on something like The Old Republic with me if we have a chance.
Basically, what are some specs you need to solidly run games these days? The laptop I have right now couldn't run Neverwinter Nights 2, so I may be getting a new desktop as well.

_________________
65 min: Fastest Accepted Member in Avian History (as far as I'm aware)
ARCHITECH (Peace to GG)

My junk is usually outdated. I never play the newest games. Heck I bought The Orange Box ½ year after it was released...

In terms of CPU you just need "Powerful", that is a dual core 2.4 and above.
Graphics would be something like a Geforce 8800 or above Radeon HD 4700 series or above.
2 gigs of RAM.
3-8 gigs of free space on harddrive... maybe more...

With this as minimum you should be able to play anything comming out the next year or so... (That includes Crysis and Asassins Creed, the heavy weight graphics champions games of 2008 & 2009 - Honestly I don't remember when they came out, but I can barely play the games on my stationary computer w/ a Geforce 6600GT 128MB just manageable)

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1st Feb 2008

So I ordered parts today/last night. Little on the higher end of my budget but it should be good for a build or two down the road... I can pop in another gfx card at a later date if I want to increase power...current top of the line card is the GTX 295, which technically two GTX 275's are equal to or greater. EVGA also does 90 day upgrade guarantee...so if the new DirectX11 cards blow the old gen out of the water come Sept/Oct I can upgrade...

The i7 920 clocks in at 2.66 but can be easily OC'd to 3.6 or so on the equipment I have, (people have OC'd the 920 past 4.0). The OCZ plat is 1.65v which is the most the i7 can handle . UD4P is considered one of the top ATX boards with Asus P6T/P6t Deluxe V2 being the other big names...The heat sink CM v8 is supposedly a beast and will freeze your processor. The cm 690 is a nice looking case with lots of space, sleek with lighted fans, but not a "I am a 1337 gamerz and i pimped my case" look.

Overall a bit excited/nervous but had some people make sure everything looked compatible...I will be sure to take plenty of pictures during the build to share..

Cooler Master 690 - $55ish
Core i7 920 D0 Stepping $200
GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4P LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - $259.99
CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W $119.99
OCZ Platinum 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) OCZ3P1600LV6GK $114.99
EVGA GTX 275 - $234.99
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB $74.99
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound $6.99
SAMSUNG DVD Burner Black $28.99
COOLER MASTER V8 $54.99
ASUS VH226H Black 21.5" 2ms(GTG) HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor $169.99
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit for System Builders +W7 Coupon $109.99

Several Rebates on items but it still is in the $1,500 range with shipping, tax etc... Most of the Parts are newegg.com but a few are going to be from Microcenter (case, i7, gfx card)

_________________
Ryric Krael
Former Vice President AGN
Former Director, Section 6
Former Head of Department of the Treasury
-------
Ask not what your PA can do for you, but what you can do for your PA
"Gone Section Five"

so thought I would update... Had to RMA my first mobo due to some issues with the PCI slots (read: they died within 3 days - just enough time to get it running, vista installed and everything else loaded - they just stopped working only indication I had was my WLAN and gfx card started to not work and the gfx card fan wouldn't spin up on start-up)

other then that its been really easy goin, I am getting a new mobo tomorrow from newegg and they were very easy to work with...

I'll post pretty pictures when its running.

_________________
Ryric Krael
Former Vice President AGN
Former Director, Section 6
Former Head of Department of the Treasury
-------
Ask not what your PA can do for you, but what you can do for your PA
"Gone Section Five"

Look forward to it.

BTW with a machine like that I pretty sure you acn play the upcomming PC-edition of Force Unleashed...
I can't find the site i read the news, but you can confirm this on wikipedia and presumeably on Lucas Arts own site

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1st Feb 2008