pouët.net

Im upgrading my system, but as my needs arent great, beyond a good soundcard (which i have), i simply dont know what all the hardware out now does or means.

Im looking into a Athlon X2 6000+ because of its price, and i believe that it can last me atleast a couple of years, like this machine im on did. Should i aim higher or is this a proper cpu for a midrange non gaming system?

the ram. what im a going for and why? As far as i have read up im going for 800mhz pc6400, is this correct? As i will continue using windows XP i figured that buying 4x512meg blocks will give me a better performance than 2x1gb.- Is this correct, and should i go for more ram? (i was told that xp can only handle 3gb in total)

I got a good price on a 8800gts, so im putting that in aswell, and i belive that this can last mne a couple of years, no?

i found 12.000 goddamn gpu models, so i just aimed fairly high here. Do anyone have one of these cards, how is the image quality in windows? Is it better than ealyer models or is it only 3d functions they make better/faster?

What kind of motherboard that doesnt cost a million bucks should i put these things into and why?

all suggestions are recieved with enthusiasm as im loosing my mind over this. Back in the days it was easy, there was 2 types of ram, 2 kinds of cpu models and there was 2 models of Gpu's avaible at different closkspeeds, but now....its not a jungle, its nuts! HELP!!!

hey, i can give you a good price on an amd x2 5400+.. i still have one in my drawer from the assembly prizes last year. :)

how much slower is that, compared to the 6000+ ?
Will the difference matter much? and how much do you want for it? :)

how much slower is it? it's like 2.7ghz vs 3.0ghz, probably not very noticable but im sure you can find some benchmarks that tell you how much. it's OEM, so you'd need to get a separate heatsink also (for all of 5e that it'd cost).
as for how much, check the online sites for a ballpark price and take some money off. :)
(if you're interested, my mail should be easy to find in e.g. the dead ringer infofile :) )

so yall just know how to program the hardware, but really have no clue about how the magic box works? shape up bwoys, someone out there must be able to answer these questions. The hardware pages i visited unleashed a shitstorm of fanboyism that got me nowhere closer to the answers im looking for.

RAM: 2-3GB is enough. More than 4GB can't be used with a 32Bit OS anyway and the upper Gig contains the I/O adress space, so that's lost anyway.
All current chips sets dualchannel and I wouldn't waste my time caring about if a specific chip layout/size is faster than the other. Look for the MHz and a good CAS-Latency at the MHz/speed you want to use.
GPU: The 8800GTS is a good card atm if you want DX10/SM4.0. If you primarily run DX9 stuff the ATI X19xx card aren't that bad, cheaper and faster than the DX10 cards. They lack some of the newer stuff (like SM4.0) though... There are new card coming out in the near future afaik, so that could either make prices drop or make better/ more energy efficient hardware available.

Be sure to buy a proper power supply, because new CPUs and GPUs need a lot of power! Go for 500W or higher (future upgrades) and, if you can, something with an efficiency above 80%.

thanks a lot. Well the reason for the 8800 is that i get it for next to nothing, but as XP does not support DX10 AFAII, i wont be able to use it to its full potential anyway.

Am i right in assuming that smaller blocks of ram, will operate faster than larger ones?



now were talking about the Ram, right? All this technical mumbojumbo doesnt help a lot, please, are pc6400 800mhz the correct choice for the CPU regardless of me going with 5400 or 6000?

good one on the powersupply, hadnt given that a thought. thanks.

oh another thing, isnt there always a new card comming out in the future? :D I need an upgrade now, so ill just bite it...again....that in 2 months i can get the same system thrown after me for free if i go to buy a pair of sneakers.

Then you might as well get a good DX9 card like the x1950 Pro or x1950 XT. The equivalent Nvidia DX9 chips are the 79xx series chips (7900 GT or 7950 GT).
When people really start using DX10 / OpenGL 2.1 / Shader Model 4 you probably can buy a new card cheap.


It is more complicated than that. It has something to do with the chip oganization 64Mx8 or whatever and the "rank" the chips have. You can ask the real experts, but I'd just forget about it...


Are you upgrading your board? If you do, get one that supports high-speed DDR2-RAM (800/1066/1xxx) for future upgrades.
Use the highest speed your board can support and watch the CAS-Latency of the chips you buy. A chip with higher speed, but a higher CAS-Latency might be as fast/slower as a chip with lower clock speed/lower CAS... Short: Get something with PC6400/800MHz/CL4 for speed. 2GB of that should sell 60-70€, CL3 chips have insane prices (200€ and up).


Yeah, but new hardware releases usually make prices drop, so I never buy the newest stuff...

right that was good information, just what i was looking for. thank you :)

buying pcs these days is hard. :) the "right system" depends totally on how much you want to spend, what you want to use it for, and whether you care about things like quiet running or small size.

anyway. imo the nv 8xxx series and ati 2xxx series cards are the first ones that actually run ps3.0 stuff _well_ - previous generations didnt have the speed or bandwidth - so you're better off with something like that than the older series. generally if you're buying a gfxcard, it's normally worth getting the higher mid-range card of the newest series (ati 2600xt, nv 8600gt) at sub £100 and still very fast. then you should be able to afford to upgrade it in a year or two, rathern than spending hundreds on the top end - it'll go out of date almost as quickly.
btw, the ati 2600xt i added blows the nv79xx out the water speed-wise for the tests ive done (i.e. running my own stuff :) ), it's cheaper, and it has the featureset to run dx10 stuff even if it won't run brilliantly. but hey, dx10 stuff wont run brilliantly on an 8800 either - we'll have to wait for the next range of cards or the one after that to sort that out. :)

of course,if you can get an 8800 for next to nothing as you say, then go for it. :) it's damn fast.

as rarefluid said, dont skimp on the power supply - these modern cards demand a lot. 600w is a good place to start.

600w, oh the humanity

Agree - it's really the wrong direction. Whatever happened to powerful laptops with interchangable GPUs?

the 8800 series are an insult at mother Earth :p

VIA C7 mobos with integrated GPU consume like only 20W at peaks, 1W on average use. Of course the performance of the CPU+GPU are dreadful, but far enough for a mini server at home =)

ok, so i actually need barsebech to power it. 600w thats quite some =/

zest, the 8800 arent good because? Do you reccomend the same thing as smash then, to go with a 2600xt or 8600? i can get the graphics card without vat so those will only be cheaper still.

I was told ATI has driver issues, but i take it that was fanboyism talking and not reality?

ghag you have to have a degree in advanced computer science just to assemble a pc, what IS up with this flood of products that are the same but with slight variations to the theme, and then they just bunk a gt, gm, xt, xt pro, pro, gts, gtz, gtx oc, gtx ultra, gtx ultra oc....WHAT THE HELL?! ARRRRRRG!!!!

Well, according to THG the 8800's seem quite good? granted the DX10 shootout link below is geared towards games, but it should at least give you a decent guide on what to buy.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/DirectX10-Geforce-Radeon,review-29666.html

I really like ATI, but from what i've seen the NV card are just better atm. I've yet to have any driver issues(well, very few) with ATI, but i have a 9800xt so can't vouch for current cards.

The HD2600 XT (512 MB) is v good value for money though. I think i'd want to wait for the next generation of DX10 cards myself, although i have no intention of going to Vista so not sure if that makes much sense :)

the top end 8800gtx ultra thingy is the fastest thing on the market right now. it's also like 500e :) you pays your money, you makes your choice.

of course are the 8800 good, they are the best on mainstream market, and the only cards available to run crysis smoothly for example (i tend to reject ATi ones for the moment because of the driver quality). nvidia mid-range cards that i usually adopt like the 8600 line are actually ubercrippled versions of the 8800, their designers have apparently left only 1/4 of cores and power! o_O and what smash said is the most relevant opinion about buying a videocard today.

actually i was just underlining that highend cards are wattage suckers indeed, which is a bit shameful in today's context of global green conscience :P

uh crysis can put even a 8800 GTX down at very high spec =)