Search the archive:
YaBB - Yet another Bulletin Board
 
   
 
Page Index Toggle Pages: 1
Send Topic Print
My New Pc (Read 235 times)
Jul 11th, 2005 at 11:09am
Mistral   Ex Member

 
   Just got a job, so i thought i should invest in a new pc. I want to get a pretty much top of the line one, without spending ridiculas amounts of money. Here are my proposed specs, not sure if they are all 'good enough', im sure some of you will have some opinions, so here u go...

Nu Pc Wish List
---------------

Case-
Thermaltake Soprano Middle Tower Case Series- Black w/ X Type Side Panel Window
http://www.xcase.co.uk/acatalog/Thermaltake_Suprano.html
Price- £50

Mother Board-
Asus A8N-SLi NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Socket 939 Motherboard
http://www.overclock.co.uk/customer/product.php?productid=18193
Price- £77

Processor-
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4400 2.2Ghz Socket 939 Retail Boxed (ADA4400CDBOX)
http://overclock.co.uk/customer/product.php?productid=18586
Price- £380

Hard Drive-
Maxtor DiamondMAX 10 300GB SATA 16MB Cache NCQ Lead Free (6L300S0)
http://overclock.co.uk/customer/product.php?productid=17660
Price- £112

Graphics Card-
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 256MB DDR3 VIVO Dual DVI (PVT70F-UDF7)
http://overclock.co.uk/customer/product.php?productid=18646
Price- £365

RAM-
Corsair XMS3200XLPRO TWINX (2 x 512Mb) 1GB Dual Channel Pack
http://overclock.co.uk/customer/search.php?substring=Corsair+XMS3200XLPRO+TWINX&...
Price- £140

Power Supply-
Tagan TG420-U01 420W ATX Silent PSU Retail Boxed
http://www.overclock.co.uk/customer/product.php?productid=17907
Price- £45


DVD-RW-
NEC ND-3540 DVD-RW Drive - Black
http://www.overclock.co.uk/customer/product.php?productid=18534
Price- £28

Total-£1197 ex. VAT
inc. Vat- £1400


 
IP Logged
 
Reply #1 - Jul 11th, 2005 at 4:09pm

the_autopilot   Offline
Colonel

Gender: male
Posts: 1359
*****
 
Thats a very good setup. You'll be happy with it.

If I were you though, I'd buy a x2 4800 instead of a 4400 mainly so it can keep up with the 7800 GTX which can handle quite a bit of data.

Keep in mind that future games will start using the full potential of cards like the 7800 gtx and then your CPU will become a huge bottleneck (in fact, it already is to a small extent).
 

Link to sig:&&Click here&&(Cannot post signature here due to current forum restrications on linked images).
IP Logged
 
Reply #2 - Jul 11th, 2005 at 4:40pm
Mistral   Ex Member

 
You make a very valid there AutoPilot, sadly i'm on a kinda tight budget Tongue, still got new screen etc to add to the above, and when your earning £5 an hour it takes a long time... Grin

So you dont think that the 4400 will handle that card? I would really like to get the 4800, but at nearly twice the price i am unsure, vaguely, in terms of performance percentage, how much difference do you reckon it will make?
 
IP Logged
 
Reply #3 - Jul 11th, 2005 at 8:15pm

the_autopilot   Offline
Colonel

Gender: male
Posts: 1359
*****
 
Quote:
You make a very valid there AutoPilot, sadly i'm on a kinda tight budget Tongue, still got new screen etc to add to the above, and when your earning £5 an hour it takes a long time... Grin

So you dont think that the 4400 will handle that card? I would really like to get the 4800, but at nearly twice the price i am unsure, vaguely, in terms of performance percentage, how much difference do you reckon it will make?


For all games currently out right now, thats going to be fine. A 4400 is enough. However, I'm sure you want your computer to last longer and not be bottlenecked by the CPU, but not only that, you want your vid card to perform at the performence level that you paid for. Going with a cheaper CPU may not allow you to do that.

A good example of this is Half Life 2. Some person on another forum ran a 6800 ultra with a fx-55 and a 6800 ultra with a pII 486. The fx-55 machine ran at 1600*1200 with full aa and fsaa. The 486 barely ran at 640*400 with no aa/fsaa. Its quite obivious that the CPU cannot feed data fast enough to the gfx card because we know the gfx card can handle much higher amount of data.

While the difference may not be that extreme, in the future there will be noticiable difference between a 4400 and a 4800. Will a 4400 perform good? Yes, but your wasting money by using a 4400 because you never use the 7800 gtx to the full potential. To tell you the truth, even a 4800 can barely keep up with this card, but the performence gap is much closer.

Think of it like this:
You buy a super-expsensive 7.1 thx a/v reciever and then buy cheapo 2.0 speakers. Yes, the 2.0 speakers will work, but the reciever is not operating at the performence level that you paid for. Now. if you buy a 5.1 speakers, then the performence potential you lose is much less and therefore less money is wasted.

If your unwilling to spend that much on a CPU, you might consider waiting a bit and get the 7800 GT (a slightly cheaper version of a GTX) which will be out in a month or two. That way you get closer to the performence level you pay for.
 

Link to sig:&&Click here&&(Cannot post signature here due to current forum restrications on linked images).
IP Logged
 
Reply #4 - Jul 12th, 2005 at 10:20am
Mistral   Ex Member

 
Thank you for that AutoPilot, i can see what your saying, and you are undoubtably right. I might take your advice then and wait for that new card, thanks a lot Smiley
 
IP Logged
 
Reply #5 - Jul 12th, 2005 at 1:35pm
Mistral   Ex Member

 
OK, new plan. Having no real idea about proccessors i dont know whether this is stupid or not, but here goes. I buy a Intel Pentium 4 3.2E Ghz 800Mhz Skt 478 Prescott Processor (OEM), which is only about £130. How well would that run. Then, as the 'new games' arrive, i could upgrade to a new proccessor, as time dictates???

Stupid???
 
IP Logged
 
Reply #6 - Jul 12th, 2005 at 2:21pm

4_Series_Scania   Offline
Colonel
He who laughs last, thinks
slowest.
Stoke on Trent England U.K.

Gender: male
Posts: 3638
*****
 
Quote:
OK, new plan. Having no real idea about proccessors i dont know whether this is stupid or not, but here goes. I buy a Intel Pentium 4 3.2E Ghz 800Mhz Skt 478 Prescott Processor (OEM), which is only about £130. How well would that run. Then, as the 'new games' arrive, i could upgrade to a new proccessor, as time dictates???

Stupid???


Do what I'm doing, I'm getting a low ish AMD 64 3000+ and adding a 6800GT to it, above a certain point, the processor is irrelevant, the GFX card is where you should be investing.

I have a friend with an intel p4 EE, £700 worth of CPU. With his 6800Ultra, it returns 2fps more in doom 3 than the same GFX card with a p4 2.4 cpu - about £100 worth of CPU.  Wink
 

Posting drivel here since Jan 31st, 2002. - That long!
IP Logged
 
Reply #7 - Jul 12th, 2005 at 5:43pm

the_autopilot   Offline
Colonel

Gender: male
Posts: 1359
*****
 
Quote:
Do what I'm doing, I'm getting a low ish AMD 64 3000+ and adding a 6800GT to it, above a certain point, the processor is irrelevant, the GFX card is where you should be investing.

I have a friend with an intel p4 EE, £700 worth of CPU. With his 6800Ultra, it returns 2fps more in doom 3 than the same GFX card with a p4 2.4 cpu - about £100 worth of CPU.  Wink


Buts thats doom 3, which is not CPU bound. Doom3 engin is just gfx and not much else. Games will be like HL2 in the future, with physics and vehicles and lots of CPU resources needed. I garentee you that your friend will see a huge difference in fps with half life 2 or far cry.

Back to main topic:
A 4400 is much better than 3.2 prescott. I think you should stick with your current setup and just get a cheaper video card (like a 7800 gt, just wait a little) or a CPU that can handle the vid card you want.

A single core fx-57 can also handle that card, but thats even more expsensive than the 4800 and is not really futureproof.
 

Link to sig:&&Click here&&(Cannot post signature here due to current forum restrications on linked images).
IP Logged
 
Reply #8 - Jul 12th, 2005 at 6:04pm

4_Series_Scania   Offline
Colonel
He who laughs last, thinks
slowest.
Stoke on Trent England U.K.

Gender: male
Posts: 3638
*****
 
Quote:
Buts thats doom 3, which is not CPU bound. Doom3 engin is just gfx and not much else. Games will be like HL2 in the future, with physics and vehicles and lots of CPU resources needed. I garentee you that your friend will see a huge difference in fps with half life 2 or far cry.



We also tried Far Cry, the huge difference was infact 6 fps hardly worth the extra £600 the p4ee cost him!  Wink
 

Posting drivel here since Jan 31st, 2002. - That long!
IP Logged
 
Reply #9 - Jul 13th, 2005 at 9:38am
Mistral   Ex Member

 
Bah, its all to damn expensive for what it is Roll Eyes Grin

Just to clarify AutoPilot, are you saying that infact a slower G-Card would work more efficiently with this processor, because the faster card would be providing data faster than the proccessor could handle? I really dont have a clue what i'm talking about here Grin

Thanks once again guys for the help.
 
IP Logged
 
Reply #10 - Jul 14th, 2005 at 2:24am

the_autopilot   Offline
Colonel

Gender: male
Posts: 1359
*****
 
Quote:
Bah, its all to damn expensive for what it is Roll Eyes Grin

Just to clarify AutoPilot, are you saying that infact a slower G-Card would work more efficiently with this processor, because the faster card would be providing data faster than the proccessor could handle? I really dont have a clue what i'm talking about here Grin

Thanks once again guys for the help.



I'm saying that the 7800 GTX can provide 'x' amount of performence...provided it has a CPU will to give it that much data. When you buy the 7800 GTX, you pay for performence of x.

However, if your CPU cannot give the 7800 GTX enough data, then the 7800 GTX will never achieve performence of x. So you've wasted money be b/c you've paid for x performence and not gotten it.

Lets say the 7800 gt gives a performence of y with y<x. Yet, the CPu you want can handle the 7800 GT. Then you get your money's worth because you paid for a y amount of performence and got it.

Thats the best analogy I can come up with right now. Tell me if you need more clarification.

 

Link to sig:&&Click here&&(Cannot post signature here due to current forum restrications on linked images).
IP Logged
 
Reply #11 - Jul 14th, 2005 at 5:19am
Mistral   Ex Member

 
No, thats super. Thanks for the help. Exactly why i thought i should start this thread, because i knew i would make mistakes like this.
 
IP Logged
 
Page Index Toggle Pages: 1
Send Topic Print