Hey guys.
since most of you are computer freaks and crazed techies like myself, i was wondering on everyones opinion on my next "super" gaming machine of the century.
when trying to figure out best combinations, im looking for the best possible out there in terms of speed, expandability, etc etc. imagine that money is no object, and base your decisions upon that.
plus- any mad cooling systems (what ever happened to fridge cases damnit? they have like disappeared from aussie markets) anyway chipset cooling/cpu cooling/case cooling/management.
basically something i can overclock like a motherbitch.
Jaeger Meister
RETIRED 65 Overlord Veeshan
Circle of Eternity.
Seagate 73GB 15,000RPM SCSI Hard Drive (x2 RAID 0 config)
or
Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA Hard Drive (x2 RAID 0 config)
** heat, noise, and value are the debated issues between the two configs
**If you were to go with the WD Raptors, I like that ABIT IC7-MAX3 motherboard, but I don't have enough experience with MBs to offer interesting advice.
ATI Radeon X800 XT
Cases are a more personal thing. I love my Sonata and thing that it is very pleasant looking (for a computer!). Some people might prefer one of the OTT cases like Thermaltake Xaser V. *shrug*
p.s. this should be in the Computer/Technology forum.
I saw an article recently (I think on PC World somewhere) that was talking about this not being the best time to buy/build a new machine since advanced chipsets with a new PCI2 bus and better memory transfer rates would be out in the next few months.
Neost wrote:I saw an article recently (I think on PC World somewhere) that was talking about this not being the best time to buy/build a new machine since advanced chipsets with a new PCI2 bus and better memory transfer rates would be out in the next few months.
Thing is, there will always be new and better stuff coming out. Personally, I've stopped worrying so much about it. If I want/need an upgrade I'll get it, and then I wont look at hardware for a few months so I wont cry over prices or new stuff
Neost wrote:I saw an article recently (I think on PC World somewhere) that was talking about this not being the best time to buy/build a new machine since advanced chipsets with a new PCI2 bus and better memory transfer rates would be out in the next few months.
Might want to take this into consideration unless you have money burning a hole in your pocket.
Yes, I'd wait like 4-5 months imo to see the new stuff
What stragi said. Besides the ATi X800, which you may want to wait for a PCI-Express version anyway for, the new stuff is a few months away. Right now, the top of the line parts for computers have been around for awhile.
Kelshara wrote:Thing is, there will always be new and better stuff coming out. Personally, I've stopped worrying so much about it. If I want/need an upgrade I'll get it, and then I wont look at hardware for a few months so I wont cry over prices or new stuff
That's usualy true although it's been unusually quiet in the computer high end area for the past 6 months. There will always be something better tomorrow but there are some strategic times to buy and this happens to be the end of a tech cycle...on the plus side, that means the prices will plummet for current top of the line items very soon as well.
The new AMD Athlon-64s all come with the dual channel memory controller, so it's no longer necessary to shell out for the FX models to get this.
Is PCI Express really going to be that much faster than AGPx8? From what I read, it's a pretty marginal improvement.
"There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships." -Theodore Roosevelt
PCI-express will be roughly 80% faster for graphics, I believe. The big advantage on the new mobos will be the other pci cards. Instead of the one way max 133mbs transfers, we will see full duplex 250 mb/s, at the very least tripling the transfer speeds with no queuing.
IT'S HARD TO PUT YOUR FINGER ON IT; SOMETHING IS WRONG
I'M LIKE THE UNCLE WHO HUGGED YOU A LITTLE TOO LONG
6 months for the new stuff to start coming out.. a year for the prices to come down to a reasonable level.. then something new will be on the horizon to wait for.
Pfft. Get something now. Not like you're going to honestly really notice the speed difference between what you can buy today and what you'll be able to buy in a year for the same price.
Thanks guys- i dont see a lot of different stuff since i live in australia, and if it comes out in the US in 6 months time theres a chance it will never get to Aust, and if it does it will be like 6 months after that
PCI-express hey? never heard of it, maybe i should do some reading.
what about dual CPU systems? what about the type of CPU, such as Xeon, P4, AMD, 64 bit versions. i know heat is a problem with AMD, or has been in the past are they fixing this?
case is going to be modded to the shithouse really, was thinkin about vapochilling the case to give longer life and higher stability to overclocked shtuff, maybe juss a heap of fans will do... hrm
ive never used SCSI drives before, i was warned off them in my early years because supposedly they conflicted and screwed up a lot. is that true or ? on the other hand SATA i hear good things about, but 15,000 rpm is nice too
Jaeger Meister
RETIRED 65 Overlord Veeshan
Circle of Eternity.
Heat is sooo something the Intel fanbois rag about when it comes to AMD. I've ran AMDs for years and never had a problem with overheating (and this current apartment gets a lot of heat through the floor from the boiler room downstairs heh).
Yeah, PCI-Express is due out in a few months, and do in fact offer higher bandwidth. How soon after it releases do you think Vid cards will actually utilize that bandwidth? To give you an idea, even the 9800 Pros out today dont even fully utilize 8x AGP, and how long has THAT tech been out now? The X800's that are due to release with a PCI-Express interface are just marketing BS; they are identical in every facet to the AGP version, just geared to go into a different socket...woe to any sucker paying for THAT version.
Basically, if you want to wait for PCI-Express performance, don't hold your breath. It's going to be at least a year after its release where you'll start to see real returns. Maybe I'll be wrong and card makers will really be able to utilize PCI-X soon after its release, unlike what happened with 8x AGP. But I wouldn't bet on it!
To answer your question!
AMD Athlon64 FX-53
NForce3 chipset
Corsair DDR500
Western Digital 15K Raptors SCSI (4x raid0)
Radeon X800XT (for DX9 performance) or GF6800Ultra(for OpenGL performance) *
Don't forget to get a nice powersupply, usually the heavier they are the better quality.
*I have a strong feeling the 6800's will start to outperform the X800XT's in a couple months+ after the kickass Nvidia driver team releases further optimizations. The X800XT's are pushing their theoretical speed limits already, with their currently clocked speeds, while the 6800's are not even near theirs. Meaning: X800XT's won't overlock worth a shit, and 6800's will. The memory clocks between the two will probably be about equal since they are using the same technology, but their GPU's are vastly different. Regardless, both companies are releasing a whole new chipset in the near future anyways, so may make my argument moot. That said, I still went and pre-ordered an X800XT, lol.
Honestly, I do hope PCI-X will be utilized properly and in a timely manner, and if it is, I'll sell my X800XT and build a new computer! Currently running:
P4 3.2c GHz @ 3.52GHz
2x 512MB Mushkin DDR433
Asus P4P800SE
2x Seagate SATA 80gb 7200rpm (raid0)
GF 5600XT 256MB (Because my other card was fried in an overclocking experiment! Placeholder for my X800XT! hehe)
Stock cooling, etc etc.
Not the absolute best, but good enough for a ~$1000.(includes X800XT)
The machine I proposed above will run ~$2000 minus power supply and case and any other drives. Too frickin expensive for marginal speed increases! Though the Athlon64 FX-53 chip is really, really nice >< 800 bucks JUST for the cpu...
About heat: and I'm not a fan of either in particular. I'm a fan of speed, period!
AMD chips, if overlocked and it runs too hot, runs a very realistic risk of overheating, since they do not adjust when overheating, they simply go on until they die.
Intel's one saving grace at this point is their chips automatically adjust themselves to run slower or simply stop processes altogether to attempt to cool themselves off. Meaning, even if you run a P4 without a heatsink altogether, it is very hard to burn it out, whereas if you did the same with an AMD chip, you can bet the house that it'll burn itself out.
Another thing with the P4's is they generally overclock a HELL of a lot better than AMD. I'm not sure if this is due to their BUS architecture, or heating issues, or whatever. It's just fact...it's common to see P4 2.4's OC'd to to 3.0+, and 3.2c's to 4.0GHz, whereas it's pretty rare to see an Athlon 3200 overclocked anymore than a couple hundred MHz.
As for dual processor systems...keep in mind software needs to be written specifically to take advantage of multi-processor systems in order to gain any real advantage from them. Hell, Athlon64's are not even fully used to their complete potential right now in Windows systems and software, since nothing is written for that architecture just yet, unless you're running Linux or whatnot. WHich basically says, when Windows 64-bit edition ever comes out, Athlon64's will kick P4 butt even harder than it is already! Anyways, I don't think there are any motherboards out there to build dual P4 or dual Athlon XP or 64 systems are there? I *think*, and that's a big *think*, that only Opteron, Xeon, and Athlon MP cpu's can be dualed. None of those processors are worth tinhking about unless you're building a server meant for stability and real-time error correction, and not for speed. Those chips aren't built for speed =P
Anybody got some more infoz or corrections to what I posted?
Yea, I'm actually purchasing cheap upgrades to hold me over until PCI express and all that is actually worthwhile. Can get an athlon xp mobile 2600+ (athlon xp mobiles come with the multiplier unlocked, easy oc'ing along with FSB boost) and a good nforce2 mobo for <$200.
Kelshara wrote:Heat is sooo something the Intel fanbois rag about when it comes to AMD. I've ran AMDs for years and never had a problem with overheating (and this current apartment gets a lot of heat through the floor from the boiler room downstairs heh).
You could fry an egg on those AMDs!
If you're not in a super rush, I'd wait for the PCI Express MBs. Try to get GigaLAN as well if you do any kind of large file transfers between computers.
Here's a short comment about the past and the planned PCI Express:
