PC Hardware

bernard8950 · Guest

This is the system I'm hoping to buy:

ASUS A8N nFORCE4 939 PCI-E
AMD ATHLON 64 3200 VENICE CORE or ? 3500
2X512 RAM DDR400 PC3200
GEFORCE 6800GT PCI-E
SEAGATE BARRUCUDAPATA 7200 80GB 2MB CACHE HARD DRIVE
HIPER 580 WATT TYPE R MODULAR PSU.

I'm wondering if this system is good enough to handle the latest game
at 1280x720 resolution or higher? Can the cpu be overclocked t
perform like a 3500

--
bernard8950

McGrandpa · Guest

"bernard8950" <bernard8950.1yfyj0@news.computerbanter.com> wrote in message
news:bernard8950.1yfyj0@news.computerbanter.com...

/\\/\\UF/-\\S/-\\ · Guest

vERY MUCH SO. tHAT SYSTEM SHOULD BE MORE THEN ENOUGH,

--

/\/\UF/-\S/-\
"bernard8950" <bernard8950.1yfyj0@news.computerbanter.com> wrote in message
news:bernard8950.1yfyj0@news.computerbanter.com...

Phil Weldon · Guest

'bernard8950' wrote, in part:
| I'm wondering if this system is good enough to handle the latest games
| at 1280x720 resolution or higher? Can the cpu be overclocked to
| perform like a 3500?
_____

The system performance difference for games, if just the CPU is changed
(from a 3200 to a 3500) is likely to be less than 3%.

A better way to ask the question "good enough to handle the latest games" is
to list specific games; some of the latest games don't require as much
system power, some you won't play, and some aren't worth playing.

Phil Weldon

"bernard8950" <bernard8950.1yfyj0@news.computerbanter.com> wrote in message
news:bernard8950.1yfyj0@news.computerbanter.com...
|
| This is the system I'm hoping to buy:
|
| ASUS A8N nFORCE4 939 PCI-E
| AMD ATHLON 64 3200 VENICE CORE or ? 3500
| 2X512 RAM DDR400 PC3200
| GEFORCE 6800GT PCI-E
| SEAGATE BARRUCUDAPATA 7200 80GB 2MB CACHE HARD DRIVE
| HIPER 580 WATT TYPE R MODULAR PSU.
|
| I'm wondering if this system is good enough to handle the latest games
| at 1280x720 resolution or higher? Can the cpu be overclocked to
| perform like a 3500?
|
|
| --
| bernard8950

Nikonja · Guest

On Sun, 13 Nov 2005 14:28:07 +0000, bernard8950 wrote:

Scotter · Guest

I would never build a system for "latest games".
I would build a system that I theorize can handle "the coming year's games."
I realize money doesn't grow on trees. But you are not wasting money by
buying a system that will last longer. And the bonus is that system will be
more fun to play with all along the way!

That said, you ARE making great choices for future upgradeability.
- I hear great things about ASUS boards in general.
- Maybe get the 64-3200 or 3500 cpu now and next year, once 64-4800s have
decreased in price, swap for one of those.
- Great choice in power supply! You can't have too good a power supply. I
learned my lesson this year about that! When a power supply goes out it can
fry many things. And with video cards getting so power hungry...
- Hard drive: I recommend nothing less than 300gig hard drive. Nowadays
price and size of programs... blah blah... 80 gig is going to run out very
fast unless you are building this machine to ONLY play games. Even in that
case, get no less than a 200 gig drive!
- 1 gig of RAM will do you fine for now and you can easily bump it up to 2
gig next year. I did notice performance increase & less hard drive paging
when I upgraded to 2 gig. But hey this is an easy item to upgrade without
loss so go with 1 gig for now so you can afford the most important item on
this list...
- VIDEO CARD! Not an easy item to upgrade cheaply. Here is where I would
splurge if I were you. You are getting a PCI-e motherboard so I highly
recommend you bite the bullet and buy the best card you can at this time so
you don't have to try to sell it next year for a big loss. Get the 7800 GTX
now if you can swing it. Or ... get the very highest you can possibly afford
even if you have to make do with a 6800 Ultra or hey actually the 7800 GT is
a great bang for the buck I hear. And think of how great it will be to play
your fave games at the highest possible rez with all eye candy turned on!

Remember, your TIME is valuable. Yet another reason to upgrade BIG when you
upgrade, so you can put it off longer until the next upgrade.
--
Scotter

"bernard8950" <bernard8950.1yfyj0@news.computerbanter.com> wrote in message
news:bernard8950.1yfyj0@news.computerbanter.com...

Scotter · Guest

Regarding overclocking.
Be careful.
Remember your time is worth money.
Let's be conservative and say your time is worth $20/hour.
If you buy a 3200, I can almost guarantee you will spend at least 5 extra
hours of your life dealing with all the hassle, research, experimentation,
benchmarks, reboots, etc. to get that thing reliably doing 3500. And if you
try to clock a 3200 to 3800 speeds, you'll also be investing money/time in
extra cooling. AND in the end what do you have? A computer running on the
very edge of it's capability and more likely to have future problems than
otherwise.
So if you want the performance of a 3800, spend the extra bux, save yourself
time, and buy a 3800. It will run more reliably and generate less heat than
a 3200 overclocked to act like a 3800.
--
Scotter

"bernard8950" <bernard8950.1yfyj0@news.computerbanter.com> wrote in message
news:bernard8950.1yfyj0@news.computerbanter.com...

deimos · Guest

bernard8950 wrote:

Scotter · Guest

Here is a sweet deal on MB + CPU combo that just arrived in my email box:
http://www.outpost.com/entry?site=op:mfe111105&sku=4559957

And btw, dual core CPUs are more useful than just for the few games that
have multi-threading. But it depends on how you use your computer.
For me more than one processor helps a noticable amount because I'm running
quite a few apps at the same time I'm running any given game and more than
just email.
Ever heard of FRAPS? It is inexpensive software that allows you to record a
video of your game while you play. That is just ONE example of
cpu-cycle-eating software that can run in the background.
Others include things like Ventrilo and Teamspeak that allow you to wear a
headset and converse with your teammates in various games.

--
Scotter

"bernard8950" <bernard8950.1yfyj0@news.computerbanter.com> wrote in message
news:bernard8950.1yfyj0@news.computerbanter.com...

J. Clarke · Guest

Scotter wrote:

Scotter · Guest

Oh yeah! Good points, J. Clarke! I totally get that.

In fact, I've done it (overclocked both cpu and video cards) myself in the
past just out of curiosity and to see if I could get a few more FPS out of
certain games and in a way, sure, I enjoyed the process. But in the end,
most of the time, I ended up dropping back to the default FPS because
reliability was more important to me.

My reason for bringing up some reasons *not* to overclock are that I wanted
to present the "other point of view" to balance things out because I'm there
seem to be many out there who think overclocking is a completely painless
solution with no price to pay.

And as far as the whole $20/hour thing goes, yeah, he could be a grad
student or he could be an engineer who makes $90/hour. I thought $20, as an
example of time-can-equal-money, was a nice average number to use.
--
Scotter

"J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@snet.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:dl848e0a8h@news1.newsguy.com...

Bob Knowlden · Guest

This doesn't really answer your question, as I don't have all of the "latest
games", but there's a substitution that you may find worth looking into:

There are now 6800GS based cards available (PCI-E only). They have only 12
pixel pipelines (the 6800GT has 16), but the GS has a core clock of 425 MHz
or higher (vs. 350 MHz for the GT), so the base performance of the two cards
is similar. (I don't know which overclock better. My old AGP 6800GT likes
410 MHz core/1100 memory, although it can be pushed harder.)

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2593

The GS is significantly cheaper than the GT, though (at www.newegg.com, at
least).

I'd also recommend a SATA hard drive, if you can get one at about the same
price as the PATA model. (The price difference is small at the moment in the
US, at least at the online vendors.) I doubt there would be a major
performance difference between PATA and SATA, but I like the narrow SATA
cables.

Address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.

"bernard8950" <bernard8950.1yfyj0@news.computerbanter.com> wrote in message
news:bernard8950.1yfyj0@news.computerbanter.com...

	PC Hardware Forum Index -> Video Cards	All times are GMT
Page 1 of 1