Jump to content

Sign in to follow this  
Victor_S.

PC Discussion Thread - All PC related in here.

Recommended Posts

  (Rommel @ July 13 2008,19:59) said:
9800GTX for about 280 AUD (260-270 USD). Why bother with the 9600GT?  whistle.gif

HD4850 for about 190 USD. Why bother with the 9800GTX? whistle.gif

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  (Universal @ July 13 2008,19:29) said:
Apparently you aren't aware of the recent Intel price cuts wink_o.gif.

I was looking at retailers just this morning whilst getting some things for my laptop, that's what they were then smile_o.gif

  [b said:
Quote[/b] ] It's a matter of money , if you have the cash spend it.

Judging from some of your posts, I dont think youve ever heard of this wonderful thing called "Value for money". When there's so much more things in life to be spent on rather than computer parts, why waste €100 on something that will barely make any difference.

  [b said:
Quote[/b] ] Now Q9450 vs Q6600 : fsb , 2.667 vs 2.4 ghz , newer fab process , better TDP , higher l-2 cache and slightly lower multiplier.

As I said in my previous post, what looks nice on paper often has very little significence in real world performance.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The price cut is to take into effect around late July (22 or 30 ?). I've heard of price-to-performance ratio but if I want a monster QX9650 or QX9770 computer what is to stop me because its my cash and I choose how to spend it because I want the best of the best. When I built my computer in 2003 it was the best of the best during that time. The only truth in you're statement would apply to Q6600 vs Q9300.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Looks like the price cuts begin July 20th here

and will especialy effect the chip I'm looking at; E8400. The E8600 is expected to come in at either $266-$299 sporting 3.33ghz and a x10 multipier. I'm not ordering till 1st week of August so I'll keep my eye on it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  (Universal @ July 13 2008,19:54) said:
The price cut is to take into effect around late July (22 or 30 ?).

The price cut will doubtlessly apply to the Q6600 too, so the status quo is maintained, you just spend less money.

  [b said:
Quote[/b] ] I've heard of price-to-performance ratio but if I want a monster QX9650 or QX9770 computer what is to stop me because its my cash and I choose how to spend it because I want the best of the best.

Good for you, but this isnt about what you think is best for yourself. Froggyluv wanted to get the most performance for the buck, so I recommended appropriately. Spending more and more money on things that dont really add to the speed isnt condusive to what was asked smile_o.gif

  [b said:
Quote[/b] ]The only truth in you're statement would apply to Q6600 vs Q9300.

Not really. After the Q6600, the only chip worth buying is the €1,000 or so Core 2 Extreme. Anything between those can be equaled by overclocking the Q6600. In reality, you are not going to notice two or three hundred extra MHz unless you have certain CPU-intensive apps (mainly scientific ones). The money would be better spent on more RAM or a faster Graphics card, which will actually make a tangible difference.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

@ch_123

You just reminded me about the ram question. I remember the huge performance increase when upping from 1gig to 2gigs, years ago. Now you say XP 32 can only handle 3.2? Should iI jump to 3 gigs of ram or what about XP 64? I'm really not a Vista fan as I had it once and ended up quarantining in a partition, but wouldn't the ability to really stack up on ram negate the otherwise slower os?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Foggyluv:

My PC has 3GB (I had a 1GB, but got the oppurtunity to buy a 2GB for a very reasonable price), but I gave a loan of 1GB of that 3 to a friend who needed it for testing, I noticed very little difference between having 2GB and having 3GB. However, having 2GB was a bonus over 1GB. Therefore, 2GB is the best balance. You also have to consider that youre paying twice the price to only get 50% more RAM. In theory, you could buy 3GB of RAM (2x 1GB RAM, 2x 512MB RAM) but mixing different types of RAM is not advisable and CAN (read as; not definitely, but possibly) cause problems.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well it comes down to memory speed and whether it is DDR2/DDR3.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Memory speed has very little impact on system performance. The difference in performance between a system equipped with basic "value RAM" and a system with the fastest and latest memory may be only a few percent. Overclockers can benefit from faster memory, but all but the most elaborate of overclocks can be performed on relatively basic RAM from good manufacturers. At this current time, DDR3 has little to offer over DDR2. It will be a year or so before its worth recommending to the mainstream user.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Under 1600mhz (DDR3) makes no difference , above it it makes a huge difference.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So I guess your saying there is a point of diminshing return. All of this time I've been wondering (salivating) at people with 6 gig, 8 gigs of ram thinking their performence must be thru the roof.

Well since the Nehalem will require a complete new build, I'll hold off on DD3 till that rebuild when hopefully it's price has dropped.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Perhaps. But when you consider that 2GB of DDR3-1800MHz is approximately the price of 18-20GB of DDR2 (I know no motherboard can hold that much standard DDR2, but just for comparison)I know which one I'd rather have. Trust me, I'll recommend DDR3 when the prices start to become sensible smile_o.gif

@Froggy: Large amounts of RAM are quite affordable now adays (You can stuff a DDR2 board to its maximum of 8GB with good OCZ RAM for about €150) The problem here is to do with 64bit Windows. In my estimation, we'll see computers from the likes of Dell or HP being sold with 2 or 3 Gigs of RAM for a good while until they're satisfied that 64 bit Windows isnt going to cause their tech support lines to get raped smile_o.gif

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Are you sure about that ?. P45 motherboards like the Maximus II formula can handle 16GB of DDR2 and there are 16GB kits (I've seen G-SKILL

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Perhaps. Im just going on what Ive seen from X48 motherboards. And the only 16GB kit I could find was $1,000. I can imagine that 4GB modules are pretty rare, and will continue to be as DDR2 is slowly phased out.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Looks like the Asus p5q-e I'm lookin at also support up 16 gigs ram

But again, this would require Vista 64 bit? Does anyone here use 8 gigs or more ram and if so how does it enhance games like Arma?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Anything above 3GB needs XP/Vista 64 bit (in the 64bit market, Vista is a better option). And at the current moment, anything above about 4GB (or even 2GB in a lot of cases) is superflous unless youre doing an awful lot of multitasking, or want to future proofing.

About the 16GB limit:

Achieving that limit would involve four 4GB modules, which I didnt think existed until Universal linked me a 16GB set, and I cant find them on any of the retailers I use, so they must be very very rare. Usually it takes about a year or so for a certain type of module to come down in price, but DDR2 will probably be out of mass production within a year, so we'll probably never see 16GB kits for DDR2 boards at affordable prices.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That 16GB set costs even more than a PC3-16000 (2000mhz) 2X1GB kit of DDR3 memory.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Supposedly the Nehalem will be able to support Triple-channel RAM (which I would imagine would consist of a total of six separate slots) which means that we could easily be seeing non-server motherboards that support up to 48GB of RAM in the not so distant future.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  (Universal @ July 14 2008,03:53) said:
Anything above that will have to be overclocked or it will wont work.

Eh, nope. The CPU will treat anything faster than that speed as if its 1333MHz anyway. This of course leaves good headroom for overclocking. A similar situation already exists with AMD's chips which are optimized for 800MHz DDR2, and will not take any advantage of faster RAM at stock settings, but still work. Im not sure if its the same with current Intel chips, which are hard to compare because they do not have the onboard RAM controller like AMD chips and the proposed Nehalem design, but I think a similar rationale applies at some point.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

AMD does not support DDR3 (till AM3) and where is the proof for what you say about it recognizing it as that speed because from what I gathered it means you cannot put higher speed memory modules.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

After a few days mulling it over I've decided to contact the company I bought my 9800 from and see if I can return it for the 4870, really unhappy with the lack of fullscreen clone mode for TV Output.

Can someone with a 4850/4870 confirm that ATI still supports "theater mode" for those cards please?

Edit: The place I bought it from (http://wesellcd.com/) have confirmed I can return the card and trade for the 4870, with me just paying the shipping to them and the difference between the 2 cards (roughly £20), so I think I'm definitely going to do that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  (Universal @ July 14 2008,04:08) said:
AMD does not support DDR3 (till AM3)

I never said it did support DDR3. I was talking about memory speeds and it was a perfect example.

  [b said:
Quote[/b] ]where is the proof for what you say

Right back at you. What Ive described is how things have always been. On the other hand, "what you gathered" sounds extraordinarily unlikely, and sounds like a misunderstanding on either your part, or the part of whoever you got the information off. Think about it like, why would Intel make a CPU architechture that would only take RAM that will be obsolete within a year?

@Placebo:

Sounds like a good deal, Im afraid I cant help you with your questions on home theate (Im sure some people round here know) but from a performance viewpoint its miles ahead of the 9800GTX.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  (ch_123 @ July 14 2008,15:08) said:
@Placebo:

Sounds like a good deal, Im afraid I cant help you with your questions on home theate (Im sure some people round here know) but from a performance viewpoint its miles ahead of the 9800GTX.

They got back to me and have no problem with me returning it and trading it for the 4870, just gotta pay shipping of the Nvidia card back to them, difference of 23GBP or so for the 4870 and then another 15GBP or so to ship the 4870 to me, cheaper than buying a stereo plus get the bonus of a faster card with TV Out that works as it should.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I received my new video card yesterday, and now ArmA runs better on Vista than i have dreamed of.

It`s an ATI Radeon HD 3650 with 1024MB RAM, an AGP card that supports DX10.1. smile_o.gif

The only problem i have now with that card is, there are no official drivers for Win2K. I hope i can get that Omega driver to work on Win2K. huh.gif

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
Sign in to follow this  

×