Are these pc componets up to spec?

[buggs 0]

Hi all, Im looking at investing in a new pc. my current rig is a AMD athlon 800mhz, gforce4 ti 4400, 512 ram, win 98.

Im going to invest in a pre-built pc (i dont trust myself to build one from scratch) but im not sure what to go for.

obviously my ultimate nightmare is to buy a pc that has components that will be incompatible with OFP. And to be honest the main  reason i'm buying a new rig is to play OFP, and hopefully play it in high detail. i'm hoping i'll be able to play missions with a lot more units. with my current rig i can get away with about 36 troops in a large resistance town, anything more & i get lots of lag.

Anyway here's a system that looks to me a decent piece of kit

Its buy a company called microland uk.

Here's the spec's:

Intel Pentium 4 3.06GHz Hyper Threading Processor

Gigabyte 8INXP E7205 (8x AGP) Motherboard

Gigabyte Dual Power System

Dual 256MB DDR 400 PC 3200 Memory (512MB)

120 GB Hard Drive with 2 MB Buffer (made by Maxtor.....never heard of them)

Gigabyte 128 MB ATi Radeon 9700 Pro

6 Channel Surround Sound

16x LiteOn DVD Drive

52x24x52 LiteOn Burn proof CD-ReWriter

3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Drive

Gigabit Intel Pro Ethernet LAN Card

Microsoft® Windows® XP Home

this is retailing for just over a grand

I think i'll ask them to change the graphics card, i've seen lot's of posts with people complaning about radeon.

Anyway, any advice appreciated

Cheers, Buggs

[drewb99 0]

The ram seems slightly lacking, but the rest of the system seems really very nice.

[killswitch 19]

Looking at what www.microland.co.uk has to offer, there are three things I'd change:

* Get a i875-based board, like the Gigabyte 8KNXP. The E7205 is old hat. They're trying to sell old stuff to you.

* Get 1 GB of RAM. OFP needs it. I have 512. I know.

* Get the 800 FSB version of the P4.

[Donnervogel 0]

* Get 1 GB of RAM. OFP needs it. I have 512. I know.

Can't confirm that. I have 512 MB DDR and the only programm that ever used 100% of it was mathlab which is really much more RAM demanding than OFP.

[buggs 0]

Many thanks for the replys so far. i really haven't got a clue as to whats current & whats not.

and thanks killswitch, this is exactly the sort of stuff i need to know.......cheers

[Shashman 0]

At over a grand I can tell you that you're spending quite a bit for a PC that (apart from the processor) is not actually that impressive.

I am also looking at acquiring a new PC (but I will be assembling it myself) and here's what I've thought of :

-AMD Athlon XP+ (Thoroughbred) 2800+ MMX FSB 333

-Zalman 7000 Alu.+Copper cooler

-Asus A7N8X-X nVidia nForce2 DDR400 Audio 5.1 RJ45

-DDRAM 1024 400Mhz PC3200 2.5v (2x512)

-Pioneer DVD-ROM 16x40x Trail DV120

-Samsung 1.44mb 3,5

-Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60GB 7200RPM UDMA/133

-nVidia GeForce FX5600 256mb DDR TV/DVi

-Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy Player PCI+1xFirewire

Total= 934.66 Euros

 

[killswitch 19]

* Get 1 GB of RAM. OFP needs it. I have 512. I know.

Can't confirm that. I have 512 MB DDR and the only programm that ever used 100% of it was mathlab which is really much more RAM demanding than OFP.

Fair enough. Depends on how one uses OFP then, I guess. I regularly pass 800+ MB of memory usage for XP as a whole when playing certain OFP missions.

Confirmed via the task manager and, in a slightly non-quantifiable way  by the sound of the disk chewing on the swap file.

I do have a lot of addons in my many mod folders. This of course has a lot to do with it. A clean OFP:Resistance uses less memory and might be fine with 512 MB. Not enough for my use, though. Will be getting more soon.

[Shashman 0]

Yeah the more RAM the merrier

I currently have 512SDRAM and I am limited to about 530mb of addons in my addons folder

[lee_h._oswald 0]

Better choose SEAGATE Barracuda harddrives.

Only UDMA100 but same speed as maxtor and sometimes faster.

And the maxtor(i have a 80gb maxtor) are very noise when reading/writing.

In my second pc I´m using a 40gb seagate barracuda.

Very fast and extremly quiet.

And yes, 1GB of ram is needed, cause you choose higher settings while having a fast computer.

MfG Lee

[buggs 0]

At over a grand I can tell you that you're spending quite a bit for a PC that (apart from the processor) is not actually that impressive.

I am also looking at acquiring a new PC (but I will be assembling it myself) and here's what I've thought of :

-AMD Athlon XP+ (Thoroughbred) 2800+ MMX FSB 333

-Zalman 7000 Alu.+Copper cooler

-Asus A7N8X-X nVidia nForce2 DDR400 Audio 5.1 RJ45

-DDRAM 1024 400Mhz PC3200 2.5v (2x512)

-Pioneer DVD-ROM 16x40x Trail DV120

-Samsung 1.44mb 3,5

-Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60GB 7200RPM UDMA/133

-nVidia GeForce FX5600 256mb DDR TV/DVi

-Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy Player PCI+1xFirewire

Total= 934.66 Euros

 

Yeah......I think its back to the drawing board. how did you come about that configuration/setup, is it from personal knowledge or recommendation?

Cheers.

[Shashman 0]

Well half and half

I've had a couple of recommendations (only for the gfx card) and I've 'built' numerous PCs on the sites of local PC shops over the past couple of days and compared all the prices,etc...And come to the conclusion that this setup is probably the best (how do I say this in English...hmmm) in French it's rapport qualite/prix...Errm...Balance between quality and price

I suggest you do this, 'build' your ideal setup and do the same somewhere else and somewhere else, then either tone down the setup on the most expensive site, or tone up the setup on the cheapest site, and come to a balance and you should have a decent PC

[Supah 0]

I wouldnt buy a AMD and the motherboard for it if they are giving them away for free. I have never owned anything else then intell. Friends and clients who own AMD have nothing but mystery computer trouble which tends to go away after buying intell. Compared side to side AMD isnt all that much better performance wise. The few servers i know to have AMD processors also arent all that stable at high workloads.

[Shashman 0]

AMD is better than Intel.

It's cheaper for a start

[Supah 0]

AMD is better than Intel.

It's cheaper for a start  

Runs at higher temperatures

Needs a bigger fan

Uses More power because of that fan

Makes more noise because of that fan

Has questionable stability record

Higher percentage of production flaws causing cores to come lose

They stickers are uglier then the Intell one's ( )

Better you say?

[Warin 0]

I wouldnt buy a AMD and the motherboard for it if they are giving them away for free. I have never owned anything else then intell. Friends and clients who own AMD have nothing but mystery computer trouble which tends to go away after buying intell. Compared side to side AMD isnt all that much better performance wise. The few servers i know to have AMD processors also arent all that stable at high workloads.

FUD.

I've used AMD since 99 and not had a single problem with any of my systems.

What happense the most often is that in order tot totally sheap out and make the most affordable system possible, PC makers use the cheapest PSU's they can, and that is the core of the problems in a lot of case, not the processor.

AMD is everyy bit as stable as Intel. Currently the P4 is the astest processor, but for price performance, AMD still wins. However, if the Athlon 64 doesnt lift the bar, my next system will be Intel.

[Shashman 0]

AMD is better than Intel.

It's cheaper for a start  

Runs at higher temperatures

Needs a bigger fan

Uses More power because of that fan

Makes more noise because of that fan

Has questionable stability record

Higher percentage of production flaws causing cores to come lose

They stickers are uglier then the Intell one's ( )

Better you say?

Well as Warin said, I have also had an AMD processor for quite a while (3 years) and had no problems whatsoever with it.Before this I had a P166

Oh and NO WAY does the Intel sticker look better than the AMD one!

[Supah 0]

I wouldnt buy a AMD and the motherboard for it if they are giving them away for free. I have never owned anything else then intell. Friends and clients who own AMD have nothing but mystery computer trouble which tends to go away after buying intell. Compared side to side AMD isnt all that much better performance wise. The few servers i know to have AMD processors also arent all that stable at high workloads.

FUD.

I've used AMD since 99 and not had a single problem with any of my systems.

What happense the most often is that in order tot totally sheap out and make the most affordable system possible, PC makers use the cheapest PSU's they can, and that is the core of the problems in a lot of case, not the processor.

AMD is everyy bit as stable as Intel.  Currently the P4 is the astest processor, but for price performance, AMD still wins.   However, if the Athlon 64 doesnt lift the bar, my next system will be Intel.

Looking at it from a server point of view, if put under stress .. it croakes. Those things arent running on cheap motherboards. Just because you didnt have problems doesnt take away the fact that i see allot of problems coming from the AMD crowd. Dunno what it is, maybe the motherboards consumers buy are indeed shite . Btw anyone else hear AMD being called "The white trash" processor?

[Shashman 0]

Nope can't say I have

But I've certainly heard Intel being called allsorts

Oh and btw...Over here (Belgium) there's a French gaming magazine called Joystick, and every issue they do a Top 3 of all compnents and AMD is practically always the top 2 slots And this magazine has a very good rep so it's not just any old PC magazine.Any francophone will have heard of it

[Supah 0]

Nope can't say I have  

But I've certainly heard Intel being called allsorts  

Oh and btw...Over here (Belgium) there's a French gaming magazine called Joystick, and every issue they do a Top 3 of all compnents and AMD is practically always the top 2 slots    And this magazine has a very good rep so it's not just any old PC magazine.Any francophone will have heard of it

Well what ive heard of this processor "war" is that ppl tend to get religious about it. I personally like Intell more but i am open to AMD stuff. What i am seeing at work and with pc's i fix for friends and relatives just doesnt exactly make me very enthousiastic about it. But its hard to get a truelly unbiased view of things in the media, especially with some magazines being sponsored by hardware manufactorers.

[Shashman 0]

Fair enough, but I can tell you that they are not sponsored by AMD

Guess we'll just have to agree to differ on this one

[Supah 0]

Fair enough, but I can tell you that they are not sponsored by AMD  

Guess we'll just have to agree to differ on this one  

yeah besides ... bickering about it can be fun too

[Shashman 0]

yeah besides ... bickering about it can be fun too

Nah, not really at 0222...Maybe tommorrow

[lee_h._oswald 0]

OMG!

It´s turning into a AMD vs. Intel thread.

Only one word on AMD:

Buy an NForce2 board, put an AthlonXP(FSB333) on it, purchase 2x512MB DDR333 Ram(like Kingston or same quality), and you won´t see a bluescreen or stupid bugs or whatever.

Mostly it isn´t Intel or AMD, it´s the USER that makes a system unstabel.

Install drivers correctly, don´t overclock your system and be happy with a fast and stable computer.

MfG Lee

[kegetys 2]

Go buy an AMD

...so then I can get my intel cheaper

[Shashman 0]

Buy an NForce2 board, put an AthlonXP(FSB333) on it, purchase 2x512MB DDR333 Ram(like Kingston or same quality), and you won´t see a bluescreen or stupid bugs or whatever.

Good news for me