CWBolton PC discussion

[lonewolfxix]

Circuit City doesn't exist here Ebuyer have an offer on a certain stick of RAM right now.. OCZ DDR2-800 1Gb in their value range for ?30, but that's a bit too much in terms of speed and I can't Garuntee they'll work until I know more about the PC (RAM speed etc.)

A base GeForce 8 series can cost as little as ?32 but it won't compare to the one that already comes with it in terms of games performance, but it'll be better for any processor intensive applications (perhaps you get into movie editing) ?55 is probably the minimum I'd recommend, it's not a necessity and the stock one should be good, unless it's onboard then it'll be lame lol..but you can get an Asus 8400GS for ?33 which'll be able to share the load with the processor when processing data such as video and images or an 8500GT which'll cost about ?55 and also provide low>midrange graphics while the 8600 series which will cost ?80-?130 will provide good mid-range performance.
These cards are worse than current generation/last generation cards like the GeForce 7 series but are more future proof and take load off CPU's when it comes to any sort of processing.

[Thor Erik]

A Packard Bell? highly unlikely.
Overclocking a factory machine built on price is also generally a bad idea due to badly selected parts and insufficient power and cooling. A 1.86ghz Core2Duo is enough for what you said you were doing. On the memory side, another GB or more is recommended and when it comes to it and you have the money I can find you some more RAM for it, another worthy investment may be a GeForce 8 series for how the new DirectX10 works it could be very beneficial for how well the PC performs even a low end one.

My hardware tip would be not to buy ANY DX10 card, since ms has announced 10.1 to be around the corner, and it requires new cards.
So buying a dx10 card won't get you far(Consider there is only a dusin games made for dx10, the others will be 10.1)

Also remember to buy 2x 1 GB sticks, or 1x 2 GB


ps. please don't mix Gb and GB, 1 GB is incredibly litle :P ( 0.125 GB)

[lonewolfxix]

Dx10 cards are proving good for all around media usage in my opinion and the unified shader architecture that is in DX10 makes a good addition to any turnkey system that is in need of a bit more grunt in both the cpu and graphics market in my opinion, although, you are right, DX10.1 is coming out in the near future but when you're spend ?30-?50 on a card it doesn't make much difference especially if you're not an enthusiast gamer who demands the latest and greatest. DX10 hardware may not be able to run in DX10.1 but it'll still run on the older DirectX10 which already looks good, the price you pay the soon as you buy anything in the world of technology is that the soon as you buy it, the cost of it drops or a newer better model comes out, think of it this way, and this comes from a lot of people.
"the longer the wait, the better you'll get, but the longer you wait so the market will change and bring a new technology, ultimately ending in an endless cycle of new technology that you want to make sure your PC is the best, buy what you need when you need it and stop waiting."

[Thor Erik]

Dx10 cards are proving good for all around media usage in my opinion and the unified shader architecture that is in DX10 makes a good addition to any turnkey system that is in need of a bit more grunt in both the cpu and graphics market in my opinion, although, you are right, DX10.1 is coming out in the near future but when you're spend ?30-?50 on a card it doesn't make much difference especially if you're not an enthusiast gamer who demands the latest and greatest. DX10 hardware may not be able to run in DX10.1 but it'll still run on the older DirectX10 which already looks good, the price you pay the soon as you buy anything in the world of technology is that the soon as you buy it, the cost of it drops or a newer better model comes out, think of it this way, and this comes from a lot of people.
"the longer the wait, the better you'll get, but the longer you wait so the market will change and bring a new technology, ultimately ending in an endless cycle of new technology that you want to make sure your PC is the best, buy what you need when you need it and stop waiting."

Well latest things, is unless the game is made for DX 9 and 10, the 8800 GTX(!) Can't meet the demmands DX10 requires, the GPU is strong enugh, but the fbus is just too slow.
Flight Sim X CAN NOT run on DX10, due to 2 things:
1. the patch is broken (boomer ms ^^)
2. the current DX10 cards are not strong enugh.
The 8xxx series is practically worthless, cause the overall preformance of it is just as good as their 7xxx equalients when it comes to DX9

[lonewolfxix]

the 8300 to 8600 series are infact very bad for gaming on the whole performance you get for how much you paid, I agree, but the 8600GTS can perform in DX9, not at everyone's expectations, but it can, the 8800GTS is also a good performer in DX9, MS FSX doesn't run in DX10? most people don't use DX10 anyway, even with the latest of hardware my friend doesn't run Vista. the way Dx10 cards work make them good for all round stuff when the processor cannot handle everything. and 8000 series not strong enough to run FSX? I ran FSX on my GeForce FX5900XT 128mb which was a budget high end card in 2001 on it, okay, it looked crap but it ran! Could of also been due to my processor and RAM.
Want something that can run High Def and also help with processing when your CPU just isn't enough? a directx10 based card with it's unified shader architecture can help, It's not a necessity, but it can.

Also, why 2x1GB or 1x2GB RAM? not everyone can afford 2GB RAM sticks and not everyone wants 2-3GB of RAM especially if it means replacing every stick, a simple 1GB stick of DDR2-800 along with the 1GB of DDR2-533/667 currently in the system would more than likely be perfectly fine for anyone, I'm still living on 1GB albeit it's a little slow on the newer games at higher details. Not everyone has all the money in the world, some people want things that will help with minimal damage to their bank accounts, some people really couldn't care about price.

I'm a gamer, I constantly read about all this stuff and I like the sound of dx10 even if dx10.1 is coming out but my wallet isn't that fat and think about how long games take to be made for the latest and think how much the hardware costs when it comes out - the first DirectX10 card to come out cost ?500 here in the UK then it's little brother priced at something like ?350 did then IT'S little brother priced at ?200, now DX10 has came and games are started to be made for this new technology, very sparse right now.. but you can get a base DX10 card for ?20 upwards and it can - when in the right fields of work - provide an advantage over a dx9 card or an onboard like most turnkeys have. If DX10.1 is in the making - how long do you think MicroSoft will take making it? Think back to Windows Vista or LongHorn as it was first known as.. dx10.1 - just around the corner? for some reason I doubt it.. and they have to fix all the bugs first before people start adopting, which dx10 now is at the point where people will start investing into it.

[cwbolton]

errrm k i think were going a little of topic and i have on idea what you guys are saying?

[lonewolfxix]

Yes, yes we are, sorry. I must say, cwbolton, if you want the best deal it'll be an idea to wait until the January sales where you'll be able to pick up that pc for probably ?400 instead of ?600, If you were building one I would also say wait until then for the new "Core 3 Duo" Penryn's which will help drop the price on the Core2Duo range even more. Ofcourse, not every can wait the best part of 3 months for a new PC, in which case I still haven't really managed to find a better deal, has anyone else got any input on any specific machines they reckon will do the job well? (without going over budget)

[cwbolton]

also can you tell me more about overlcoking and wht it does the risks and etc

[lonewolfxix]

Overclocking is raising the "bus speed" of the processor to make it operate at higher speeds, I'll put it in my easiest to explain way. Think of a motorway.. for example... 8lanes wide (yes, big but there's reasons.) Say the speed is (wow this'll sound unrealistic but i can't do metric) 200mph and you have a truck in each lane transporting a lot of... food lol. the more lanes (or multiplier in cpu) and the faster it can go (bus speed) The more data you can get and process.

The risks? well if you're talking "i'm a nutter and run my cpu faster than anyone else" you can crash your operating system, most people who run systems like this generally have coolers the size of an average PC case alone and only run these systems for max of 6hours average unless "burning in" in which case, 24 to 48hours fully attended.
Now, a more realistic down to earth speed aslong as you run the right sort of system there's no risk, if you try and get a lot from a cheap power supply and cooling you can risk the core temperature of the cpu reaching critical and burning out or the power supply being soo overloaded all the transistors blow which is a fire hazard.
There's no reason why overclocking is a bad idea, you just have to be patient, if i get my PC fixed soon i'll try and post a guide on it, or I could go use my friends pc :P

[cwbolton]

right lol i sort of get it is there like a max limit on how much you can overlock?