Some adivise on a new PC

Enforcer-J · Post by **Enforcer-J** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 4:17 pm

I'm kind of in the market for a new PC, came to my attention when I tried the GTLegends demo....

Jerka, Jerka, Jerka. I came across this, Good deal? Looks good to me but I'm no expert.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Intel-Pentium-4- ... dZViewItem

Cheers.

Shaun · Post by **Shaun** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 4:46 pm

the gfx card wont make GTL any better im afraid, u will need a 9800 pro or a 6600 gt or above to get decent framerate in GTL

Post by **Shonky** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 4:54 pm

Depending what you got already all you might need to do for GTL is throw in a better video card.

Post by **Cutter** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 4:55 pm

Gigabyte Motherboards are very good, the on oard sound and network ports are fine.

do you need a floppy drive? If not ditch it.
The case seems OK but front USB / MIC / Headphone ports are a must,
there seems to be a flip down something, but its overwritten, check whats behind the flip down bit.

The graphics card would struggle. Maybe look at upgrading it in this purchase.
Mind you this is fast heading towards the last generation of AGP based cards.
You could be limited in future upgrade options.

Just check with the buyers comments, but they seem pretty postive.

Latch · Post by **Latch** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 5:38 pm

The sale has ended, so I guess you didn't win it? Anyway, you could buy lots of better stuff than that for $1k. AMD is better for games and less expensive than Intel too.

What have you got at the moment? Might give us an idea of whether you need just a new videocard or a new system.

As a guide:
Athlon64 3200+
1gb ram
Decent motherboard
Midrange videocard (what shaun said. Also, Cutter, AGP has already seen its last generation with the 6800 range)

Cetram · Post by **Cetram** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 6:38 pm

I upgraded my pc a few months to something simular to what latch suggested:

A64 3200+
Msi K8n neo4 platinum motherboard
1 gb ram
6600 GT (pci-e)

This cost me less than $600 and gets me 70+ fps in GTL, so if you were confident enough to do you own upgrade or had a friend who could help you may be able to save yourself quite a bit.

Enforcer-J · Post by **Enforcer-J** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 6:54 pm

Well currently I have:

AMD 2400+ (2.0ghz)
256mb ram (yay!)
Nvidia Geforce4 64mb gfx card

It runs LFS @ 800x600x16bit with everything turned pretty low (polygons when server action gets heavy). Usually at mid 40 fps. I dunno, maybe just upgrade it to 1gb memory (easy enough) and a new video card would do the trick? Are gfx cards that important in makin a game run fast? I thought just the speed of that processor itself would be basically enough to run GTL.

Post by **Shonky** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:44 pm

Enforcer-J wrote:Well currently I have:

AMD 2400+ (2.0ghz)
256mb ram (yay!)
Nvidia Geforce4 64mb gfx card

It runs LFS @ 800x600x16bit with everything turned pretty low (polygons when server action gets heavy). Usually at mid 40 fps. I dunno, maybe just upgrade it to 1gb memory (easy enough) and a new video card would do the trick? Are gfx cards that important in makin a game run fast? I thought just the speed of that processor itself would be basically enough to run GTL.

Well you will notice a big difference just upgrading to 1gb of ram, and the difference won't be just in games, it will be with everything you run. As for graphics cards being important, LFS is generally CPU limited, whereas GTL is more video limited than CPU due to its use of some fairly advanced pixel shaders. GTL is very ram hungry as well, I'm running 1gb of ram here and when I shut down GTL it takes a while for windows to recover as it pulls itself back out of the swap file, I'd hate to see how long it took on a pc with less than 1gb.

At the very least you would need to go to 1Gb of ram, and something along the lines of a Nvidia 6600GT. I guess you'll have to toss up whether to just upgrade what you have, or start from scratch.

Enforcer-J · Post by **Enforcer-J** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 8:06 pm

Yeah, maybe an upgrade will be the way to go, hopefully the motherboard can hang on for a year or two longer. Might be easier on the pockets too as I can take 1 step at a time

I guess the Ram should be the first step.

Thanks for your help

nneeooww · Post by **nneeooww** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 8:36 pm

I Have a AMD 2500+, 1gig RAM and x800Pro 256MB

LFS 1280x1024 everything on and it runs a solid 100+ FPS and >70ish online with a full grid in veiw.

played the GTL demo a while back, cant remember having to many issues with it (i do remember turning some things down) - if only an upgrade for me didnt mean a new pc

- damn 64bit and PCI-e stuff!

pogo · Post by **pogo** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 12:14 am

nneeooww wrote:damn 64bit and PCI-e stuff!

I hear ya brother... saving my pennies for a new mobo/cpu/vid-card at the mo

tehsid · Post by **tehsid** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 1:14 am

same acctualy. wat yall lookin @ spending?

pogo · Post by **pogo** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 7:58 am

About a thousand

Currently have a 2600+, 9700PRO, an old asus AGP board and a gig of dodgy RAM. Could put it together OK. Suggestions welcome, but it's still nearly a month away

Would be good to have this thread stickied

Exar Kun · Post by **Exar Kun** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 8:29 am

I'm looking to spend upwards of $2k around mid year. It'll have to be a quick machine as the simbin titles chew up the CPU, RAM & vid card pretty hard.

Latch · Post by **Latch** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 9:13 am

pogo wrote:About a thousand

Currently have a 2600+, 9700PRO, an old asus AGP board and a gig of dodgy RAM. Could put it together OK. Suggestions welcome, but it's still nearly a month away

What you've got atm is still reasonable. Very close to what I have actually and I'm not looking to upgrade for a while. If you overclock your cpu to 2200MHz you'll be fine for a while yet.

How dodgey is the ram? Is it just no brand DDR400? If so you should be able to overclock the cpu cause the ram is running under-spec.

Post by **Shonky** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 9:59 am

Exar Kun wrote:I'm looking to spend upwards of $2k around mid year. It'll have to be a quick machine as the simbin titles chew up the CPU, RAM & vid card pretty hard.

Same here, waiting to see what Conroe brings before making a decision between Intel and AMD.

pogo · Post by **pogo** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 10:12 am

Latch wrote:What you've got atm is still reasonable. Very close to what I have actually and I'm not looking to upgrade for a while. If you overclock your cpu to 2200MHz you'll be fine for a while yet.

How dodgey is the ram? Is it just no brand DDR400? If so you should be able to overclock the cpu cause the ram is running under-spec.

Yes Latch, I get by with it - but who wants to just get by?

Can't overclock it

The BIOS is very limited, and the cpu multiplier mod thingie didn't work

The RAM, yep, no frills DDR400. Bit Tornado has the occasional d/l corruption, and copying DVDs cocks up occasionally. Have run a memory test, and it came back with errors. Took 'em out, fiddled, dusted, seemed ok for a bit but now have the same problems.

Exar Kun · Post by **Exar Kun** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 10:20 am

SHoNKY wrote:
Exar Kun wrote:I'm looking to spend upwards of $2k around mid year. It'll have to be a quick machine as the simbin titles chew up the CPU, RAM & vid card pretty hard.
Same here, waiting to see what Conroe brings before making a decision between Intel and AMD.

Yep, and even then it'll come down to a dual core vs single core debate. At least on AMD I should be able to grab a 939 4000+ (or maybe 4200+ if they do it) single core and then just drop a dual core chip into the mobo when the time comes to make it worth it.

Enforcer-J · Post by **Enforcer-J** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 1:27 pm

At the very least you would need to go to 1Gb of ram, and something along the lines of a Nvidia 6600GT. I guess you'll have to toss up whether to just upgrade what you have, or start from scratch.

So, what would prevent me from being able to update my system with just the above? 64 bit what? PCI-e what? Overclocked what? Matt Damon?
Sorry, I know even less than I thought

peter · Post by **peter** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 1:35 pm

im also getting a new comp in a couple of months, if you guys need any info ill be happy to help you. if you can build it yourself its cheaper.

here is a site i found comparing cpu's, go down to the table of contents and click on the benchmark results.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/21/ ... arts_2005/

Post by **Shonky** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 4:45 pm

Enforcer-J wrote:
At the very least you would need to go to 1Gb of ram, and something along the lines of a Nvidia 6600GT. I guess you'll have to toss up whether to just upgrade what you have, or start from scratch.
So, what would prevent me from being able to update my system with just the above? 64 bit what? PCI-e what? Overclocked what? Matt Damon?
Sorry, I know even less than I thought

Nothing really, the ram is just a matter removing the 256mb stick and plugging in the new stuff. Same goes with the video card, I'd suggest un-installing the current drivers before removing the old card, shutdown, pull out the old card and plug in the new card. Boot and install drivers.

Without knowing the chipset on your mobo (brand & model of the mobo would be the best) I can only take a guess at the ram being DDR, and the video card being AGP.

pogo · Post by **pogo** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 7:55 pm

@ Matt Damon

Enforcer-J wrote:Nvidia Geforce4 64mb gfx card

Probably onboard yeah? Most likely an old Asus board like mine, socket A or something?

Enforcer-J · Post by **Enforcer-J** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 9:37 pm

Yeah, it is an AGP8x onboard video card. Can I still update with a Nvidia 6600GT Card for instance? I'm guessing it just bypasses the onboard one.

Ram is indeed DDR 166mhz 2x128mb. Is it better to get 2x512mb or 1x 1gb ram? and is 333mhz the norm?

LOL, I have a feeling this will roll onto another question (hopefully not many more

). Maybe this thread should be in the tech section.

Post by **Shonky** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 9:50 pm

Yeah, it is an AGP8x onboard video card. Can I still update with a Nvidia 6600GT Card for instance? I'm guessing it just bypasses the onboard one.

Yeah it will IF you motherboard has an AGP slot otherwise you are screwed and might as well replace the lot.

Ram is indeed DDR 166mhz 2x128mb. Is it better to get 2x512mb or 1x 1gb ram? and is 333mhz the norm?

Hmm...you sure its DDR? I don't think I've heard of 166mhz DDR, I've heard of 166mhz SDRAM? Someone may correct me on this, I'm not overly adept at remembering all the different ram specs.

If its SDR, again you might as well replace the lot.

Enforcer-J · Post by **Enforcer-J** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 10:22 pm

Ahhh, dammit. It says DDR ram and SDRam on the sticks? I dunno

I have 4 slots to plug stuff into (LOL) One has a modem in it, the others are empty. Whether or not I can plug a video card in I have no idea

I think I'll change my plans again and just get a new friggin system! I'm gonna need more HD space soon anyways and the whole system is nearly 3years old. Meh, I could always take up golf.
Thanks for your help again guys, atleast I have learnt a few things

Hopefully I don't get burnt when I go shopping