Who still runs single core?

[Mikhayl]

It's good to see others who have dinosaur computers
I have a dual core, but it's the ugly brother that we don't show to people, a Pentium D 925 3.00Ghz, I'm sure it's slower than many simple core CPUs.
And an old ATI X1650 256MB. I'll go (again) for the cheap upgrade with a 8800GT or similar, and I guess a E7400 or something like that.

[AVGWarhawk]

Also, it is all what you use the computer for. My single core is used by my daughters. It is perfect for them and any game thrown at it. It is a E-machine and about 7 years old now I guess. Still cranking!

[Steeltrap]

If you're looking to build a new rig, I recommend going to www.tomshardware.com and spending some time reading. It covers everything about PCs to a very high level of detail.

You can learn all about CPUs, GPUs, RAM, mobo, power supplies, bottlenecks etc etc i.e. everything you need to make an informed decision.

As Feuer Frei! said, you'll pretty much always do better with a custom build than a prebuilt as the latter tend to make compromises in areas that can hurt performance, and they often aren't really optimised (e.g. they often build in readily anticipated bottlenecks, where one of the CPU, GPU or memory components significantly differ in capacity from the others).

Cheers

[Kresge]

Originally Posted by Steeltrap

If you're looking to build a new rig, I recommend going to www.tomshardware.com and spending some time reading. It covers everything about PCs to a very high level of detail.

You can learn all about CPUs, GPUs, RAM, mobo, power supplies, bottlenecks etc etc i.e. everything you need to make an informed decision.

Tom's is also a good source if you are trying to compare your old system specs with the SHV requirements. There are all sorts of charts and you can compare the performance of say a Pentium 4 3.2GHZ to a newer DuoCore, etc. model and see how they stack up. Video cards are in there too.

[GREY WOLF 3]

Minimum system configuration

CPU: Intel® Core2Duo® E4400 or AMD® Athlon™ 64 X2 4000+ or higher
Operating System: Windows® XP (with Service Pack 3) or Windows Vista® (with Service Pack 2)
RAM: 1 GB (XP) / 2 GB (Vista)
DVD-ROM: DVD-ROM speed 4x, dual-layer drive
Minimum Drive Space: 10 GB
Video Card: 256 MB DirectX® 9.0c-compliant video card (ATI® Radeon HD2600/GeForce® 8800 or better)
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c-compliant sound card
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (included on disc)
Recommended system configuration

CPU: Intel® Core2Duo® E6850 or AMD® Athlon™ 64 X2 5600+ or higher
Operating System: Windows® XP (with Service Pack 3) or Windows Vista® (with Service Pack 2) or Windows® 7
RAM: 2 GB (XP / Vista / Win7)
DVD-ROM: DVD-ROM speed 4x, dual-layer drive
Recommended Drive Space: 15 GB
Video Card: 512 MB DirectX® 9.0c-compliant video card (ATI® Radeon HD3000 series / GeForce® 9 Series or better)
Sound Card: DirectX® 9.0c-compliant sound card
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (included on disc)

Internet connection required

[fromhell]

i have been building rigs for freinds and family and myself fo several years now. i find it hard to understand enyone going out and buying a rig ready made when for less than half the price you can build one yourself. my current rig is;
quadcore 3ghz
nvidia gtx295 video card
1000 watt psu
asus p5q-e motherboard
4 gigs ram @ 1066hz
win7
48x duel layer dvd
1terabyte hitachi hd for storage @7200rpm
300gb western digital velicio raptor hd @10000rpm
x-fi platinum sc
about £1,700 to build
dell do one similar for £3,500! see what i mean.

[fromhell]

just a thought but if enyone needs help or advise on building a rig, i am here

[Submarine]

P4 at 3.4ghz
Geforce 7800 @ 256mb
2gb ram

We are on the same boat.. errr... submarine . It runs SH3 and COD 4 just fine, so I am good to go

[Tarnsman]

Funny thing is I bought this rig to play SH3 (thats how old it is) my former rig was a 1mhz PIII that I spent more time tweaking files, adding cards and generally farting around with than gaming. It was speced for Janes 688I, Janes WW2 and Grand Prix Legends box release. But it ran EA sports F1 99, IL2 Sturmovik and sort of IL2 FB with alot of work. SH3 did it in.

So when I bought I knew what I needed, and AMD and Intel were in a hardware war with new chips coming out every month. If I had my money together in March, I would have wound up with a 5xx Pentium with a smaller Bus size (333 or 500mhz I think) and AGP graphics. But I was forced to wait and I got the then hot 800mhz bus PCI graphics and 6XX series Pentium at a great price. Since then only going to a 24" monitor and SH4 forced a major upgrade to the 512MB 7950GTO card.

I write all of this to point out that there are sweet spots, especially if you are not into the Quake DOOm and Crysis type of games. Simulators are released only every couple of years, and getting a 12 month old former top line cpu can really be an advantage. IMHO get the most forward speced mainboard you can (socketed for the newest class of chips) check out whats comming down the pike,info on Intel and AMD next designs are on the web( check out http://www.anandtech.com/ ) for the release pattern on chip classes and know the type of chip in the computer you are buying. Wikipedea actually has alot of info on this stuff.

Of course builders know all this and a lot more, but alot of guys buy off the shelf and may not realize that the chip/board/socket configuration they are getting is at the end of its development cycle and literally has no future.

[bigboywooly]

Originally Posted by Mikhayl

It's good to see others who have dinosaur computers
I have a dual core, but it's the ugly brother that we don't show to people, a Pentium D 925 3.00Ghz, I'm sure it's slower than many simple core CPUs.
And an old ATI X1650 256MB.

wow my other rig is an identical match
Ugly brother just about sums it up
Those Pentium Ds werent the best