Time to upgrade...

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by Fluffysheap

I'd probably get XP and then upgrade to Windows 7 later. Everybody hates Vista although, in reality, Windows 7 is not going to be that different. Unless you have some DX10 thing you want to use right now though, there's no good reason to get Vista. You can still find XP and OEM versions of XP are pretty cheap.

I actually have an OEM version of XP but it came with my old Alienware. I assume that if I try to install it on my new PC then something will go tits up?

Originally Posted by Fluffysheap

640GB is a small drive by today's standards, but it depends on what you do. I have 3TB total but then, I also use my PC as a media server. A friend of mine has 500GB and only does games and the web and his drive is still half empty. If you mostly care about games 640GB will be OK.

Trust me, I will never get anywhere near 640Gb. I don't store music or videos on my PC, I just use it for work and games, and I tend to play only a few games at any given time. My old HDD is a 70Gb drive and I rarely used more than two thirds of it.

Originally Posted by Fluffysheap

It's hard to upgrade RAM nowadays... it's not like the old days where you could just stick in more RAM and have it work. Now all the RAM in a system has to "match"...

That's not actually new. 9 years ago I upgraded the RAM in a system of mine and was told back then that I had to match the current RAM exactly (manufacturer and everything) so I did. It's not a big problem IMO as long as you know exactly what kind of RAM you have.

Originally Posted by Fluffysheap

...but if you want to do something like leave your web browser open with a couple dozen tabs while you play...

I find the very suggestion of such behaviour to be horrifying! Seriously, I do not do that. I hate stutter in games and will close everything (even system services) to ensure a smooth game. That's a long-time habit and not likely to change. So, from what you say it sounds like I'll be good with 2Gb.

Originally Posted by Fluffysheap

One last thing, be sure to get a good power supply...

LOL, we x-posted on that methinks

[onelifecrisis]

Ahh, google is my friend.

http://forums.kustompcs.co.uk/showthread.php?t=42918

[CaptainHaplo]

Onelife - seriously reconsider the 450W ps...

The 4850x2 alone requires a 650W ps. You try hooking it to a 450, your going to have problems.

With the rig your looking at - a 750 or 850 Watt is probably a better long term option.

DO NOT SKIMP ON THE PS! I suggest something like Corsair or other high end, quality PS.

I just picked up a 750W Corsair for $120. Can't beat that when it has a 5 year warranty.

Processor questions have already been addressed. As for vid cards, I have used both Nvidia and ATI, have been on ATI for most of the recent years, but went ahead and got a GTX260 OC'd out of the box by BFG. Lifetime warranty - $200. So far, I haven't been able to force ANYTHING I playunder 60fps. (But dang that thing was HUGE!)

For Crossfire/SLI - you have to have 2 pci-e X16 slots - and usually you have to use the same family of cards... Like 2 GT9800's - but not a 9800 and an 8800. Going with an X2 style board is fine as long as you make sure your Mainboard has the room for it without losing additional slots because they are covered.

More memory is always good. If you choose 32 bit OS though, don't get over 4. It can't address it.

No reason not to go 64 bit UNLESS you run really old stuff. Then, you have dosbox. 7 is definitely the way to go regardless. Its what Vista should have been years ago.

[Arclight]

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

Thanks Arclight.
Can you explain why I need an extra 2Gb? I mean I've yet to see any games recommend more than 2Gb of RAM. Even the YouGamers recommended rigs, for the more demanding games I've looked at, never seem to exceed 2Gb.

It's about future expansion, mainly. Put in 2x1GB now, and you can expand with another 2x1GB, limiting you to 4GB. Put in 2x2GB now, and you have the option to put in another 2x2GB later. It's about not having to toss out those 4 1GB sticks if you ever want more than 4GB total.

Also, only having 2 sticks instead of 4 puts less strain on the system. I'd recommend only using half the memory slots of a motherboard for any gaming PC, if only for that little bit lower power-consumption and slightly (unnoticeable) increased stability+performance.

That post you linked to has another good point: more memory makes it less likely to run out, which avoides paging to the HD (though more than 4GB is never nescesary with current Windows versions; any single program is limited to 2GB max). I ran 2GB for a while, but went to 4GB eventually (from 2x1GB to 2x2GB). Can't say I really notice the difference, but at least I know that if a game needs the full 2GB it can ask for, it's available with plenty to spare for the OS and other progs running in the background.

(trust me, there's plenty of games that need the full 2GB they can get)

Imho, considering the prices, there's really no reason to not go for the 4GB. You'll never regret it, I can promiss you that.


For the 64 vs 32 bit thing, I'd say go with 64. I only switched to 64 bit when the Win7 beta came around, and I haven't run into any issues yet. All I had to do was collect the correct drivers for my system, that's it. Don't know about this "emulation mode", but if it's there it's fully transparant; no actions are required from you to get something running.

Win7 (and I guess Vista) puts 32bit apps in a different "program files" folder as 64bit ones. I guess as long as you stick with the default directories there's nothing to worry about. Though I put all my games somewhere else (all 32bit, offcourse), and everything runs fine.

*ah yes, and you gain excess to the full 4GB of RAM, should you go with that.
** like CH points out, reconsider the PSU. I have 520W, and I'm a bit afraid to stick in, say, a radeon 5870. Performance degrades over time as well, which is another thing to keep in mind. If you ever decide to stick in another graph.card and go SLI/Crossfire, you'll be glad you got that 750W one instead.
(for your average system, 500+ should be fine for single card, 600+ for dual, but I'm inclined to recommend 600 for single and 750 for dual, considering the fact cards demand more and more power)

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

The 4850x2 alone requires a 650W ps.

With all due respect mate, that's bollocks.
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid...=expert&pid=10

Besides, the general consensus and my own experience both suggest that the quality of the PSU is far more important than it's power rating.

Still, I take on board the general point you're making and I may use the money I save by leaving out the OS to change the 450W up to a 600W, just to be on the safe side.

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by Arclight

It's about future expansion, mainly. Put in 2x1GB now, and you can expand with another 2x1GB, limiting you to 4GB. Put in 2x2GB now, and you have the option to put in another 2x2GB later. It's about not having to toss out those 4 1GB sticks if you ever want more than 4GB total.

Also, only having 2 sticks instead of 4 puts less strain on the system. I'd recommend only using half the memory slots of a motherboard for any gaming PC, if only for that little bit lower power-consumption and slightly (unnoticeable) increased stability+performance.

That post you linked to has another good point: more memory makes it less likely to run out, which avoides paging to the HD (though more than 4GB is never nescesary with current Windows versions; any single program is limited to 2GB max). I ran 2GB for a while, but went to 4GB eventually (from 2x1GB to 2x2GB). Can't say I really notice the difference, but at least I know that if a game needs the full 2GB it can ask for, it's available with plenty to spare for the OS and other progs running in the background.

Imho, considering the prices, there's really no reason to not go for the 4GB. You'll never regret it, I can promiss you that.


For the 64 vs 32 bit thing, I'd say go with 64. I only switched to 64 bit when the Win7 beta came around, and I haven't run into any issues yet. All I had to do was collect the correct drivers for my system, that's it. Don't know about this "emulation mode", but if it's there it's fully transparant; no actions are required from you to get something running.

Win7 (and I guess Vista) puts 32bit apps in a different "program files" folder as 64bit ones. I guess as long as you stick with the default directories there's nothing to worry about. Though I put all my games somewhere else (all 32bit, offcourse), and everything runs fine.

*ah yes, and you gain excess to the full 4GB of RAM, should you go with that.

Hmm, thanks for the advice, but I'm not convinced. I reckon that by the time I'm needing 8Gb of RAM this system will be ready for the trashcan. In the meantime I have the space to upgrade to 4Gb when that starts being beneficial (which, as far as I can tell, it currently is not - at least not for people like me who use one app at a time ).

[Arclight]

Games, right? If a game needs 2GB, it can only get 1.5, because your OS is sapping the rest.

You really want 4GB, but you don't nescesarilly need it.

[onelifecrisis]

Okay here's a question for you Arclight. If you could choose between these, which would you choose?

1) 2GB RAM with a 640GB HDD (7200rpm, 16MB cache)
2) 4GB RAM with a 250GB HDD (7200rpm, 8MB cache)

Bearing in mind that for me, the extra space on the HDD is not of benefit but the extra speed given by that space (and by the extra cache) is appealing.

In my experience many games do not make good use of RAM. They tend not to preload very well, and will happily thrash the HDD when data is needed, in spite of the fact that I have (typically) a spare 1 Gb of RAM sat around doing nothing (which could have been preloaded with the data beforehand). Because of this, I'm inclined to go with option 1. Option 1 is also a bit cheaper than option 2.

[Arclight]

The second.

I think you'll get a better experience from doubling the RAM than doubling the cache on the HD. Once everything is in memory, paging is minimal.

Are you looking at WD drives? You might consider a 160GB drive then, should be faster than the 250GB model.

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by Arclight

Once everything is in memory, paging is minimal.

I agree. But have you ever actually watched the memory usage of your games? Generally they will be programmed to use a certain amount and if you've got more than that certain amount then they simply won't use it, and your extra RAM is quite literally sat there doing nothing.

Originally Posted by Arclight

Are you looking at WD drives? You might consider a 160GB drive then, should be faster than the 250GB model.

Really? I read somewhere that, all other things being equal, a larger drive will be faster than a smaller one. If what you say is true then I'll go for the smaller one. All I care about on the HDD is speed. I don't need space.

Edit1: The site doesn't specify the HDD manufacturer. I'll call them and ask.
Edit2: I found the part of their site listing manufacturers. Apparently all their hard disks are either Seagate or WD.

[Arclight]

It's just a theory though, I'll see if I can dig something up.

Basically, most manufacturers use 250, 500, 750 etc. WD switched to 160, 320, 640 etc.

It comes down to the way the platter for the drive is manufactured. Those 640GB drives are very fast, so I extend the logic to conclude those 160 (or 320) drives will have high performance as well.


On memory use; depends on the game. I don't know what you usually play, but I imagine OFP2 doesn't do a proper job because it was designed to run on consoles, which obviously are pretty limited memory wise.

For example, Supreme Commander can suffer a crash from exceding it's 2GB address limit, so there are definetly games that actually need all of it.

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by Arclight

On memory use; depends on the game. I don't know what you usually play...

Well there are several upcoming titles I'm interested in and several recent (ish) ones that I missed out on because my PC couldn't handle them. Off the top of my head I plan to be playing Operation Flashpoint 2, Diablo 3 (should be very easy on any system, it's Blizzard after all), Silent Hunter 5 (obviously), Empire: Total War, and maybe the upcoming Napoleon: Total War as well. Oh and at some point I want to get a steering wheel and play some racers, but I don't know which ones yet, most of them seem quite "arcadey" these days, but the graphics in DiRT and GRID are really nice.

[onelifecrisis]

And maybe Crysis.
Just to see how nice it looks.

[bybyx]

I will take:
a PSU from Corsair because they have a single powerful +12V rail.
4 gb of ram in an instant. I will go with Mushkin Ram. I used Ram from Mushkin in 3 PC-s in the last year and they work fine. Sh3 with GWX3 eats almost 700mb of ram. Add that to whatever Windows eats up and you find that 2gb is rather...low. and I have Win Xp pro 32bits.
Videocard wise take a ATI 5850. It is DX11 capable. If you have more money take the 5870. A 4850X2 is powerful but limited in some games because some of them are designed in a way that those 2 VPU-s won't be used. The same thing goes sometimes for crossfire and SLI sistems.
Regarding the Hdd get a SATA2 WD or Seagate or Hitachi Hdd. They are fine all of them. 500gb at least

PS.
£600 is not much for a gaming system.

[onelifecrisis]

@bybyx

DX11, eh? The list of current DX10 games is rather short... and even those games usually only have one little extra thing (e.g. God Rays, or Cloud Shadows) that DX10 can do and DX9 can't. I'm not sure that DX11 support is a priority for me right now.

SH3+mods uses only 700Mb on your system!? On my old rig it will quite happily eat up all of the 2GB RAM and then some. Seeing all my RAM being used like that gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. But SH3+mods is very much the exception to the rule, at least in the collection of games that I own. Generally, games that could be using 2GB (if they'd only been programmed to) will only use 1GB. As for Windows itself, if properly configured XP will use hardly anything at all.

Originally Posted by bybyx

A 4850X2 is powerful but limited in some games because some of them are designed in a way that those 2 VPU-s won't be used.

Now you just spoiled my day. Can you give me more details on this? I thought crossfire was supposed to always work, not just on games that are designed for it but on all games.

Originally Posted by bybyx

PS.
£600 is not much for a gaming system.

If you'd like to send me some cash to help me buy a better one, I won't object.