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Victor_S.

PC Discussion Thread - All PC related in here.

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Ok, just ordered a XFX Geforce 9600 GS0 768, good price. I hope it will run ArmA better than my old x1950 pro 256. It's about all I wanted to spend on myself. Christmas just around the corner and all.

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Hey guys, I am in a dilemma. I have a 4870 ATI 512MB Sapphire which runs both ArmA and GTA 4 great. The only problem is that both programs need different drivers to run well.

For instance, ArmA runs excellent on very high settings with the 8.8 Catalyst ATI Drivers. Whilst trying to run this in GTA4 causes it to crash. Using the 8.12 stops GTA4 Crashing but makes ArmA do this ...

http://screenshot.xfire.com/screens....6ac.jpg

I have checked the card in both instances and it runs at about 47* so the artifact is not from overheating. Also it is not the card dying as it only ever happens in ArmA when I'm not using 8.8 Drivers, never at any other time. Worse case is I have to keep switching between them but I would prefer a more permanent solution if one is available? Also I have tried 8.9,8.10, and 8.11 all of which cause my PC to BSOD. So any advice would be great, thanks smile_o.gif

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Maybe of interest to you Web Content Management creationist types... Oxite by Microsoft.

Alpha source code released 5th Dec 2008.

Oh, also this software maybe of interest to modellers struggling with uv'ing... uvlayout watch one of the demo vid's like this one for an idea... cheers X for mentioning that one.

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I've been considering building my sister a PC over my winter break. Tell me what you think of this setup:

Case: Cooler Master HAF 932

PSU: Corsair 550W ATX12V V2.2

Mobo: EVGA LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i ATX

CPU: Intel E8600 Wolfdale 3.33GHz (L2: 6GB)

GPU: EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX+

RAM: Corsair Dominator 2x2GB (4GB Total)

HD: Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200RPM

OS: Vista Ultimate 32-bit System Builder's Edition

A couple of starting questions:

1. Regarding the CPU, should I go with the dual-Core E8600 or a similarly priced quad-core? For the exact same price, I can get a Q9400 (2.66GHz, 95W, (L2: 6GB)), or for $50 more I can get a Q9550 (2.83GHz, 95W, (L2: 12GB)). Considering that this PC will be used for running one game at a time, with no major programs in the background, would moving to quad-core decrease or increase performance (On Tom's Hardware, the E8600 is pretty high on the hierarchy)? Second, if I moved to quad-core, would this necessitate purchasing a better fan/heatsink and a bigger PSU (Probably too much money)?

2. Should I go with Vista or XP?

3. Is the PSU sufficient?

4. Use this GPU or an equivalently priced Radeon?

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1. In regards Dual Core vs Quad Core, it depends on whether you intend upgrading the PC within the next 2-3 years or so. At the moment, a faster dual core is preferable to a slower quad core as far as games are concerned. However, within the next 18 months or so, I'd expect to see games become increasingly optimized for quad core. Presuming you want to future proof, I wouldnt bother with either E8600 or Q9400, I'd go for the Q6600 instead. It's cheaper, has most of the performance of the Q9400 (the few extra megahertz doesnt really count, they'll go out of date at exactly the same time wink_o.gif ) and is more overclockable (if that is relevant to your needs).

2. Depends on your preference. I find XP snappier and capable of everything that Vista is able to do. If you like XP and it does everything you need it to do, stick to it. Don't feel the need to jump on the bandwagon just because its the latest OS - the next Windows is on its way quite soon. That said, if you have used Vista before and you like it, go for it smile_o.gif If you want to save money, get Home Premium instead of Ultimate. They do the same thing.

Irrespective of which one you pick, you will also need to go for the 64 bit version if you want to use the 4GB of RAM (32 bit systems can only support about 3GB). If you have to stick to 32 bit for whatever reason, just get 2GB of RAM instead.

3. Yeah, it should do the trick. Corsair units are good quality PSUs.

4. The 9800GTX+ is in the same league as the HD4850. If you want to save money, get the 4850 instead. If you are prepared to spend a little extra to get better performance, buy a HD4870.

EDIT: I wouldnt bother with the Cooler Master case, I'd go for an Antec Twelve Hundred instead. As far as I can remember, the Antec is cheaper too.

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OK, I made some revisions:

Case: Cooler Master HAF 932

PSU: Corsair 550W ATX12V V2.2

Mobo: EVGA LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i ATX

CPU: Intel Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz (L2: 2x4MB)

CPU Fan: Artic Cooling Feezer 7 Pro 92mm

GPU: MSI Radeon 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5

Sound: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 Channels

RAM: Corsair Dominator 2x2GB (4GB Total)

HD: Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200RPM

OS: XP Professional 64bit SPC2 (System Builder edition)

Price is almost exactly the same, actually less due to a mail-in rebate on the Radeon 4870. An ATI card should work fine on the NVIDIA mobo, right (I'm not interested in Crossfire, but the one card has to be compatible)? Also, any preference on brands here? I just went for an MSI with a Quad Heatpipe design and a higher memory clock speed (1800MHz versus 900MHz). The Cooler Master case currently is going for the same as the Antec 1200, so I'll stick with it unless the Antec is actually better.

The switch to the Q6600 was very tempting, it's almost $100 in savings. Most of what it's initially going to handle is probably Sims 3 and the endless parade of expansion packs. Hopefully by the time Sims 4 rolls out, it'll take better advantage of multi-core systems.

One more thing: Will there be any new issues now that I'd be using a 64bit OS? Will my standard-issue Microsoft Office (Home and Student) install on the computer? Should I worry about drivers for the sound/video cards, or anything else (Games)?

Edit: With the switch to 64bit XP and the Q6600 Kentsfield, I still have ~$80 in savings after the upgrade to the 4870. Should I go to 8GB of RAM, or will that not have any noticeable affects on games? Or should I put a few more bucks in and just get a faster quad-core? Or should I just save a few extra bucks?

Edit2: Will OC'ing the CPU (According to the reviews, putting a good fan on should allow safe OCing to ~3.0GHz) necessitate adding better heatsinks to the RAM, or is that only if I specifically OC the RAM?

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OK, I made some revisions:

Case: Cooler Master HAF 932

PSU: Corsair 550W ATX12V V2.2

Mobo: EVGA LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i ATX

CPU: Intel Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz (L2: 2x4MB)

CPU Fan: Artic Cooling Feezer 7 Pro 92mm

GPU: MSI Radeon 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5

Sound: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 Channels

RAM: Corsair Dominator 2x2GB (4GB Total)

HD: Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200RPM

OS: XP Professional 64bit SPC2 (System Builder edition)

Price is almost exactly the same, actually less due to a mail-in rebate on the Radeon 4870. An ATI card should work fine on the NVIDIA mobo, right (I'm not interested in Crossfire, but the one card has to be compatible)? Also, any preference on brands here? I just went for an MSI with a Quad Heatpipe design and a higher memory clock speed (1800MHz versus 900MHz). The Cooler Master case currently is going for the same as the Antec 1200, so I'll stick with it unless the Antec is actually better.

The switch to the Q6600 was very tempting, it's almost $100 in savings. Most of what it's initially going to handle is probably Sims 3 and the endless parade of expansion packs. Hopefully by the time Sims 4 rolls out, it'll take better advantage of multi-core systems.

One more thing: Will there be any new issues now that I'd be using a 64bit OS? Will my standard-issue Microsoft Office (Home and Student) install on the computer? Should I worry about drivers for the sound/video cards, or anything else (Games)?

Edit: With the switch to 64bit XP and the Q6600 Kentsfield, I still have ~$80 in savings after the upgrade to the 4870. Should I go to 8GB of RAM, or will that not have any noticeable affects on games? Or should I put a few more bucks in and just get a faster quad-core? Or should I just save a few extra bucks?

Edit2: Will OC'ing the CPU (According to the reviews, putting a good fan on should allow safe OCing to ~3.0GHz) necessitate adding better heatsinks to the RAM, or is that only if I specifically OC the RAM?

I prefer Sapphire for ATI cards, but TBH it's all just consumerism/favoritism BS. AMD/ATI has a specification and corporations like MSI/Diamond/Sapphire market various versions of essentially the same thing. The only difference you will ever notice is customer support, which is something you may want to research further.

Cooler Master produces excellent ATX cases.

Win XP 64 has matured and the majority of feedback from average users and developers alike is positive. Any issues you do experience can probably be solved with google relatively fast and easily.

Yes M$ Office will install easily on your OS, but I prefer openoffice.

Drivers shouldn't be a worry based on your hardware choices.

The heatsinks on Corsair's Dominator Ram (along with a fan that comes with them IIRC) should cover any excess heat from a stable overclock-

Good luck!

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Perhaps get a 600W PSU? There shouldn't be that much of a price difference.

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OK, a couple small tweaks:

Case: Cooler Master HAF 932

PSU: Corsair 650W ATX12V

Mobo: EVGA LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i ATX

CPU: Intel Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz (L2: 2x4MB) [Will be OC'd to ~2.8-3.0GHz]

CPU Fan: Artic Cooling Feezer 7 Pro 92mm

GPU: MSI Radeon 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5

Sound: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 Channels

RAM: Corsair Dominator 4x2GB (8GB Total)

HD: Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200RPM

OS: XP Professional 64bit SPC2 (System Builder edition)

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Few things -

Why the nVidia chipset board? An Intel P45 based one would be better for performance, and probably cheaper. I'd look at the Gigabyte P45-DS3 if you can get one. However, there are a variety of good ones available from different companies. ASUS is another good brand.

The Antec is actually better, I've read reviews in a good mag comparing it to the Cooler master model you are looking at. Whilst it gave a positive review of the Coolermaster, it said the Antec was better for cooling. (Check out custompc.co.uk and search for the review, the site wasnt working when I was writing this.)

With the extra money you have, I think the best thing would be to get a faster/bigger hard drive. Anything else such as faster CPU or more RAM would be trivial. A Samsung F1 drive of 500GB, 750GB or 1TB capacity would be good.

When you overclock your CPU, you automatically overclock the RAM with it. However, heat isnt a huge issue with RAM, and as pointed out, the heatsinks that come with them should do the job.

The vast majority of software and hardware should work with 64bit XP, and it's likely to be supported for the forseeable future. Only some really old stuff, and certain badly written software will have problems. Anti-virus is an exception here, but just use a free one like AVG.

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How about an Asus P5Q SE Plus P45 as a motherboard? That saves me a few bucks, which can then be spent on a better HD:

Case: Antec 1200

PSU: Corsair 650W ATX12V

Mobo: Asus P5Q SE Plus P45

CPU: Intel Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz (L2: 2x4MB) [Will be OC'd to ~2.8-3.0GHz]

CPU Fan: Artic Cooling Feezer 7 Pro 92mm

GPU: MSI Radeon 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5

Sound: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 Channels

RAM: Corsair Dominator 4x2GB (8GB Total)

HD: Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB 7200RPM

OS: XP Professional 64bit SPC2 (System Builder edition)

Disc Drive 1: Asus 18x/48x DVD-ROM Drive

Disc Drive 2: Samsung 22x DVD-R Burner

Monitor: Acer X223Wbd Black 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD

Actually costs $20 less smile_o.gif .

Edit - Oh, and a question about the tech specs given for the mobo. It's memory standard is listed as DDR2 1200(O.C)/1066. Does that mean that if I OC the CPU, I can install 1200-type RAM, or that I can overclock 1066-type RAM (That is, my Corsair Dominators) to the level of normally running 1200-type RAM?

Edit2 - And if I do use this mobo, is there any point to purchasing a network card? The mobo has onboard 10/100/1000, and this computer is only going to need the connection to connect to a college network (No LAN parties), so is it worth the $ to install a seperate network card? Also, should I even bother with installing a floppy drive?

Edit3 - Looks like the design is starting to finalize. Time to rev the engines and get ready to spend biggrin_o.gif .

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Edit2 - And if I do use this mobo, is there any point to purchasing a network card? The mobo has onboard 10/100/1000, and this computer is only going to need the connection to connect to a college network (No LAN parties), so is it worth the $ to install a seperate network card? Also, should I even bother with installing a floppy drive?

No need to install a separate network card unless you wanna connect another PC to this one.

Floppy? Nah.

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Another thing - I wouldnt bother with the sound card. What you have picked is the cut down version of the X-Fi that doesnt have hardware support for most of its features. It will actually slow down your system if you play it with games. I'd either ditch it or get a better one. The latter I still wouldnt recommend because X-Fi's seem to cause no end of shit for a lot of people (Take a look at Creative's forums if you don't believe me).

Another thing, did you say this was for your sister to play the Sims? Is it a bit overkill for that task? :P

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Quote[/b] ]Another thing, did you say this was for your sister to play the Sims? Is it a bit overkill for that task? :P

There's no kill like overkill biggrin_o.gif . Besides, this computer should last her all of college, so I want to overbuild so that it can handle what will be thrown at it over the next 4 years. I know that what I assemble will do Sims 3 fairly easily, but I also want it to be capable of handling Sims 4: Will Wright's Retirement Package Edition. Plus any AoE style games, that sort of stuff.

For the sound card, I'll probably switch to an HT Omega Striker 7.1

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Another thing - I wouldnt bother with the sound card. What you have picked is the cut down version of the X-Fi that doesnt have hardware support for most of its features. It will actually slow down your system if you play it with games. I'd either ditch it or get a better one. The latter I still wouldnt recommend because X-Fi's seem to cause no end of shit for a lot of people (Take a look at Creative's forums if you don't believe me).

Another thing, did you say this was for your sister to play the Sims? Is it a bit overkill for that task? :P

It's not a cut down version, it's simply an old Audigy card renamed as X-Fi in hopes for better sales.

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Im guessing your sister is a hardcore gamer.. judging by the specs of the system. tounge2.gif

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My thoughts exactly. I would have gone for something like a 9600GT and upgraded later if needed. Oh, and regards to a surrond sound - unless you have very good surrond sound speakers, or your sister is an audiophile, integrated audio should do, and will save you some money.

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Okay, here's my problem. I've had a couple of errors with a re-format of my gaming PC, first, I was trying to install XP with no service packs on the PC, which has a PCI-E video card. It gave me a blue screen at the windows installer, for an error with PCI.sys.

I did some reading, found out you have to have XP with SP2 to install on a computer with a PCI-E video card. Thing is, I've always only had XP with SP1, and I got it installed last time I did a reformat (I've got a couple of XP discs, one with SP1 and one without). The copy with SP1 freezes up when I get to the GUI installer, at the Installing Devices phase, with 35 minutes remaining. I've taken everything but my HDD, video card, DVD, and RAM out of the PC and still get the error, so it's not a busted component. I'm going to get XP with SP2 from a relative today, but if that doesn't fix it, am I looking at a bad Motherboard or processor?

Intel Pentium Celeron D dual core 800mhz fsb 3.0 ghz

Intel DP965LT Mobo

BFG 8800GTX OC 768MB

Creative SB Fatal1ty Extremegamer

WD 150GB 7200 RPM HDD

30 dollar DVD-RW drive from Newegg

Antec 650W PSU

I'm going to be shipping out for WTC and MOS school for the army again in January, I'm trying to get this PC up and running again for my wife (And hopefully, ACE and some FDF before I go) to have a nicer PC while I'm gone. So, any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

-Gabe-

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Hello,

I'd doubt there's any hardware problems. Earlier versions of the XP installer don't get along well with new hardware as you say, so I'd say the problem lies there. Do you have access to a working PC? (EDIT: Stupid question of me to ask if you are posting on the internet, unless you are using a Mac :P ) You could download a piece of software called nLite, and use it to make a copy of your XP disk with SP3 integrated into it. There should be some sites on the web that show you how to do this. I've used it before it's reliable. Make sure however that you burn it onto a good quality CD-R.

You mentioned that you are getting a loan of an XP disk, but this can be somewhat problematic when it comes to activation, AFAIK with XP, unlike Vista, the CD key is tied to the CD from which you install it. Therefore you may not be able to use your own XP serial key, and your relative's one will not work if he has it installed on another PC.

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I'm checking out nlite right now, it looks promising. The copy I've got of XP is an old version from an even older raytheon computer, so I suspected it wasn't playing nice with my video card. I'm not sure how I forced it to install correctly last time, I just remember a long weekend of BIOS updates and rollbacks, and pulling out a lot of hair!

I'm going to try the other XP disc with SP2 first, as it's not installed anywhere else (All the PC's are on Vista at the folks' house). Worst case scenario, I can't activate it, and then I'm using nlite to create a disc with SP3 on it. Thanks for the quick response!

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My thoughts exactly. I would have gone for something like a 9600GT and upgraded later if needed.

Well, I was thinking of that too, but a lot of this stuff is being sold with a combination of special Christmas discounts plus extra mail-in rebates, so I wouldn't end up saving all that much money if I bought cheaper components. I figured I'd just get her a really nice PC within my price range xmas_o.gif

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Fun just doesn't stop, I installed the windows XP with SP3 slipstreamed onto the disc, and when I got to the windows screen post installation, it asked me for a password. On a freshly formatted system, with completely default settings. I've never set a password, so I can't log in to my PC to get everything set up. I'm using windows XP professional, is there some kind of default admin password I should know about?

Thanks again,

-Gabe-

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