Buying a new pc

[Jinef 2]

Okay i have a budget of around Å1300

I was looking at an AMD XP 2400

Or a Pentium 4 2.4 ghz

What's the major difference between SB Audigy and SB Audigy 2? And what the hell is platinum

Should i wait for a Geforce FX or should i get a GF4Ti800 with AGP 8X?

everything else i got sorted -

512b ddr RAM

motherboard - depends on processor but probably high end ASUS

80 - 120GB 7200 rpm HD

and i'm also trying to find UK based companies who do systems with a full windows CD as standard - i've got poweroid

any suggestions would be appreciated

[dayglow 2]

Well if you are budgeting money the AMD proc will be cheaper than the Intel. Also duel channel ram MB are coming out in the next few months so I"d wait for those to come out because they will give a boast in memry performance. If you are going to wait for the FX then that's what I would do. As for the difference with soundcards. I believe Audigy2 gives you 6.1 sound with a center rear channel and also it has uped the fidelity that it can record sound at. Other thanthat I have no clue.

COLINMAN

[Jamesia 0]

does this have something to do with operation flashpoint and i just haven't noticed?

[Mister Frag 0]

By all reports (but not from first-hand experience), the Audigy 2 sounds a heck of a lot nicer than all previous models. The Audigy 2 is also relatively cheap, so there's no reason not to get one (other than Creative's lousy support).

Regarding the graphics cards, I would punt on a leading edge DX9 graphics card such as the FX or Radeon 9700 -- there simply aren't any games that take advantage of one, and by the time those titles come out, you'll be able to buy something faster for less money. Get a solid card like a Ti4200 and enjoy the new system. Also, AGP 8x buys you squat in terms of additional performance.

Finally, as far as the processor is concerned, I'm an Intel guy myself, but AMD does field inexpensive and powerful competition. There is more room left in the Pentium cores for higher clockspeeds, so if you are looking to upgrade CPUs with a faster one down the line, Intel might be a better bet. If you go with an AMD processor, get a system based on the nForce2 -- if you are going for Intel, get a Granite Bay (E7205) board like the Gigabyte P4 Titans.

[Jinef 2]

Thanx for the opinions, i will get an audigy 2 (why not) and probably just the GF4 Ti4600 instead of waiting for the FX.

The BIS team run OFP on high terrain detail at a view distance of 2500, i wonder what sort of PCs they've got? hehehe

[LowLevelFunctionary 0]

just a quick question...

Do you need a new tower to upgrade from a P3 to a P4 because of all the new fans involved???

sorry i heard that somewhere and it is kind of related to the topic

[Die Alive 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (LowLevelFunctionary @ Dec. 10 2002,15:27)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">just a quick question...

Do you need a new tower to upgrade from a P3 to a P4 because of all the new fans involved???

sorry i heard that somewhere and it is kind of related to the topic <span id='postcolor'>

This summer I went from a P3 to P4 and didn't need a new tower, just a new power supply. But it all depends on your tower, I guess.

-=Die Alive=-

[ADOY 0]

Dont buy any of that crap! Keep what you have now!

My understanding of the pipeline of innovation is that in 2 years there will be 100Ghz cpu's, 20000 Gb HD'S, and ATA-1000 Ultra DMA.

You should save your money and instead use your time to read PC Magazine.

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (ADOY @ Dec. 11 2002,01:55)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Dont buy any of that crap!   Keep what you have now!

My understanding of the pipeline of innovation is that in 2 20000 Gb HD'S,<span id='postcolor'>

Please explain how new pipeline technology will allow such large hard drives

Unless you do away with the BIOS or find another file allocation system, HDD manufacturing is going to run into serious problems VERY soon.

[FSPilot 0]

I've got a pentium now, works great.

[USMC Sniper 0]

I would suggest waiting for a Geforce FX, if you can. However, it will probably be VERY expensive, probably $600.

[Mister Frag 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Ex-RoNiN @ Dec. 10 2002,17:00)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (ADOY @ Dec. 11 2002,01:55)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Dont buy any of that crap!   Keep what you have now!

My understanding of the pipeline of innovation is that in 2  20000 Gb HD'S,<span id='postcolor'>

Please explain how new pipeline technology will allow such large hard drives

Unless you do away with the BIOS or find another file allocation system, HDD manufacturing is going to run into serious problems VERY soon.<span id='postcolor'>

NTFS 5, the native file system of XP, already allows for volumes as large as 256TB (that's Terrabytes), and NT-based operating systems such as NT, 2000 and XP already bypass the BIOS.

[ralphwiggum 6]

sorry for asking for my help, but here it goes.

currently i have a VIA-chipset board, and OS is Win98SE.

next week, i'm planning to upgrade, and my questions is which should i do first? i'm planning to get new MB and Gfx card, but keep the case & power supply and HDD and CD drive.

which should i upgrade first? OS or hardware? since changing hardware will affect OS configuration, i don't know which way to go.

[madmedic 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Jamesia @ Dec. 10 2002,19:12)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">does this have something to do with operation flashpoint and i just haven't noticed?<span id='postcolor'>

umm...I would say it does, seeing how OFP is a COMPUTER game, and pretty much requires a computer of decent power to fully enjoy.

About 5 months ago I bought a DELL Dimension 8200 with a 2.5 gig P4, 512 mb of RAM BUS memory (which I just upgraded to 768 mb), and a Nividia GeForce 4.

I havent had any problems with it, and it is pretty damned fast.

[Col. Kurtz 0]

Im an AMD person so I will recomend that, but what I really want to talk about is video cards.

I say either get a Radeon 9500pro or wait.

Video Card benchmarks

Here are reliable benchmarks of all the main video cards currently on sale. As you can see, the Radeon 9700pro wins all the battles but thats a top of the range card. At first the Radeon 9500pro only just keeps above the Ti4200 and close the the Ti4400, but wait until you get into Anistropic filtirng and stuff, then the Radeon 9500pro does better than the Ti4600. And the Radeon 9500pro is also cheaper than a Ti4600, been more priced around a good Ti4200. The Radeon 9500pro is also fully Direct X 9 combatible so its good for the future.

If your looking for even more power in the video department, wait. On top of the Geforce FX coming out soon, ATI are supposed to be releasing a new Radeon, the R350 around the same time.

[ADOY 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Dont buy any of that crap!   Keep what you have now!

My understanding of the pipeline of innovation is that in 2 years there will be 100Ghz cpu's, 20000 Gb HD'S, and ATA-1000 Ultra DMA.

You should save your money and instead use your time to read PC Magazine.<span id='postcolor'>

But, if you have to give away money today?!

Must have new tower first with space for fans to cover dual cpu's, 3 X 5.25" bays, and 6 X PCI

[HK (HunterKiller) 0]

@Ralph, if you going to upgrade, get a new power supply, unless you got a good one already this can be one of the most overlooked pieces in a new PC, AND be the cause of a lot of crashes, if you have anything less than a 300W and it's a generic piece, get a new one, an Enermax or an Antec, at least 350W, well worth the money you pay for them.

If you can wait, wait till the first quarter next year, AMD will have out their new CPU and P4's will drop in price, just recently there was a 62% drop in the price of most P4's, i got my 2.53 for Å200, and my 2.4 for Å170, and they were both Å250 + the previous week, i had the good fortune of looking around some overclocking sites and got that info just in time, got 2 CPU's for the price of 1

[dayglow 2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (ADOY @ Dec. 10 2002,17:55)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Dont buy any of that crap!   Keep what you have now!

My understanding of the pipeline of innovation is that in 2 years there will be 100Ghz cpu's, 20000 Gb HD'S, and ATA-1000 Ultra DMA.

You should save your money and instead use your time to read PC Magazine.<span id='postcolor'>

Well you would always be waiting then, because tech always advances. The only reason I'd hold off buy right now is because a new product cycle is just going to start. Dual Channel DDR, Serial ATA, and new graphics cores are all coming out in the next few months.

The one advantage of buying a ATI 9700 or FX when it comes out is the insane memory bandwidth they have. You can run with AA and ansio filtering without any loss in FPS. Even with a ti4600 you still lose performance with high image quality.

COLINMAN

[shadow 6]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (DayGlow @ Dec. 11 2002,07:08)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The one advantage of buying a ATI 9700 or FX when it comes out is the insane memory bandwidth they have.<span id='postcolor'>

And the insane price (for the GF-FX)

I'm an Intel-person. Have always been, will probably always be one.

I prefer stability, low core-temp and a silent PC over a little bit faster but more noisy and a lot warmer core-PC.

Today all new CPU's are fast. I'm still happy with my P-IV 1.8 and my 512 RDRAM and my TI4600

Ofp runs fine for me.

If I was to buy a new rig today I would go for the following:

P-IV 2.667

512 DDR RAM

GF4TI4600 (ATI-support sucks,Nvidia-support is great)

Turtle Beach Santa-Cruz soundcard (so I could play OFP in WinXP)

If the Turtle Beach card is not an option, then go for the Audigy2

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

I have been checking benchmarks for months now and also the corresponding prices. If you want a PC right now and this for the best price possible then buy a

P4 2.53

Motherboard: either Asus P4T533-C with fast RIMM memory

or wait around one or two months to get Motherboards with fast but cheaper DDR2 RAM

Hercules 3D Prophet 9700 Pro

or

Gigabyte GV-R-9700 Pro

or

Saphire Radeon 9700 Pro

or

Asus V8420 Deluxe

Soundcard:

best performance: Terratec DMX 6Fire 24/96

best price: Soundblaster Audigy Player

[Jinef 2]

I will probably get a really good motherboard with AGP8x even though i'm getting a 4X GF4Ti4600. Why? becuase then i can upgrade to a GFFX when the price comes down. Smiles all round really.

Also i hate how big computer companies supply shitty recovery disks! Anyone who's buying a PC should demand a full windows CD with their PC. Why pay for it (use of windows operating system) when you don't get it?

BTW: What's is really the difference between 0.26mm monitor dot thingy and 0.25mm monitor dot thingy, apart from of course the price

[shadow 6]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Jinef @ Dec. 11 2002,16:16)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">What's is really the difference between 0.26mm monitor dot thingy and 0.25mm monitor dot thingy, apart from of course the price  <span id='postcolor'>

Not much difference there.

Both monitors got crappy specs on the dot-pitch

I recomend an Hitachi or an Eizo. Don't think you'll find any better CRTs out there, but watch the price though

Hitachi and Eizo usually operates with 0.21 and 0.22mm dot pitch (the smaller the better)

[nolips71 0]

im AMD all the way i have an xp2000 not very fast these days but very stable and works well. i gainward ti4600 again kicks arse 512ddr ram i will have 768 on friday me personally if i would upgrade my pc now would get a faster amd proccessor and a new sound card