OMG wife agrees to new computer
 

Should i get a DDR3/1333mhz /8800 320mb gts graphics card system and forego the extra upgrades like a new monitor and a better 8800 series graphics card . Or do i get a DDR2/1066 system and get a new monitor to replace the old CRT monitor and a better 8800 series graphics card (640mb). cheers .

I like the old CRTs better than new moniters.

I'm with you on that one, CRT monitors display colours better than TFTs; if space isn't an issue, stick with the CRT and spend the cash on more processor power, RAM or graphics.

:D Chock

Mmm...
depend on the quality of it.
most CRT are too dark, even if you have the brightness on max. its a big pain if you play a something which contain dark places.
also...CRT's mostly gave me a headache...after a while.
havent got those 2 issues on this LG TFT screen.

Your wrong about the darkness, they can be as dark or as bright as you like.

Yes, they do give some people headaches and cause rettina dammage.

Well, Pumped my CRT @work on Max bright , and toyed around with other settings.
and I barely can read the text and stuff on the Battle-field.com dark blue skin...
just barely...

Edit: but also,
if the current monitor is fine, keep it.
buy a new one , when there is plenty of money saved

Sounds like some people need a new CRT! :D If anyone cares, a good CRT outputs 70% of the colors as seen by the human retina, and they have absolutely excellent black levels. At least this holds true if you get something other than a Trinitron CRT which trades colors for sharpness - and adds annoying little wires in the monitor that can easily be seen with the naked eye on bright backgrounds.

For a good TFT, expect about 30% of the colors of the human eye, along with horrible black levels due to the backlight.

-S

And very poor up/down times.

To be honest DDR3 doesnt really justify itself from a price to performance ratio, at least not yet. Id stick with good DDR2 if upgrading right now, the money left over is better spent on something else, like a more poferful graphics card if you want more ye candy, more storage space if you like archiving stuff etc. Allso be sure NOT to save money on the PSU, geting a good PSU is important to the logevity of your computer, the unclean current from bad psu's can damage every other component.

Quite frankly, Standard DDR is the best from my perspective. It has the lowest latency times. High bandwidth of DDR2 and DDR3 may be fine for a video card that transfers large 512+ MB textures around, but for your system, you deal with smaller files all day long so latency actually is more important than throughput. Why DDR2 and DDR3 is the standards we are going to I will never know since I have yet to see an instance that max's out standard DDR let alone dual channel standard DDR.

-S

PS. If you have a choice - get DDR2, not DDR3. Let me know if you want a technical lesson on the differences between all three. You will see why you want lower latency over anything else.

Go DDR3, ddr 2 will be obsolete, if not already.

Everything gets obsolete. DDR3 is a step backwards in technology for system memory on my opinion though. It uses the same mentality RAMBUS used back when standard DDR and RAMBUS fought it out. Tests showed that DDR was superior to RAMBUS for normal system tasks, and the same game is being played out today with DDR / DD2 (The current standard) / DDR3 (The hopefully non future standard, but most likely will be standard).

DDR3 right now is expensive and slower for the task that he will be asking of it. It may send large files fast, but when is the last time you sent 100+ MB through your memory in a single file? Not likely you have every done that lately except on rare occasion.

For the same price of DDR3 right now - you can buy yourself DDR2 now and DDR3 later when you need it.

-S

Well actualy DDR memory is pretty much near its theoretical limits with AMD K8 architecture systems. The theoretical limit of DDR400 is 3.2gb a second and 6.4gb a sec in dual channel mode. I have DDR500 ram sticks which reach 7.5gb of their 8gb theoretical maximum bandwith use. Besides nowadays there are low latency DDR2 modules available for reasunable prices making the advantages of DDR near non existant in that area and giving you more bandwith. Right now for gaming, that is the best way to go. As time passes DDR3 latencies will come down because production technologies and procedures mature and with that prices allso come down.

What would you suggest i buy from this site , mobo etc I think i would like a core 2 duo system . This is where i will buy the parts from http://www.gamedude.com.au/ Just something to run current games with good framerates . cheers .

Sort of. I guess I have to base my opinion on dual cores which most people have these days, but I bet if you ran testing on it, your reads and writes would probably never hit the full 6.4 GB/sec on a given day. A Cl 2 in latency is going to greatly outperform any speed advantage that any additional pipe size is going to get you for real world and real gaming work. I've yet to see actual DDR2 modules be below CL4 for the most expensive type available, and that is only half the speed of a mid range priced DDR module. That's a significant loss for many small transactions as done by system memory, giving DDR a significant performance edge in doing normal work on any given day.

People don't seem to realize that latency is more important than throughput when it comes to system memory. Both are important of course, but you have to look at what your RAM is doing all day to figure out why you want better latency over throughput. It's like giving a dragster 20,000 horsepower, with only 100 ft/lbs torque. It can go real fast with a great top speed, but can't accelerate for crap.

-S