PC gurus, speak to me

[Onkel Neal]

Ok, the laptop search was successful, I'll try to tap into the expertise here again!

My current game PC is 6 years old. Yes, almost everything has been upgraded except the MB and CPU, some items twice. So, some questions for you who keep up with PC tech.

1. It used to be pretty simple, a CPU was measured in Mhz or Ghz in linear fashion, along with cache. I have a P4 2.4 Ghz. Where can I learn about the changes since then in CPUs? Is there a website you can recommend to catch up?

2. My PC has begun to run slower. Any registry cleaners you have used on PCs that have been used for years?

3. PC Gamer has an article about a $650 PC that runs Crysis Warhead at 30 fps. I assume Crysis is a demanding game. The PC has a 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo E6700 and GeForce 9800GT. Is that a good start for a new PC if I decide to build one?

thanks, I know a lot of people will benefit from a thread like this, esp. me.

Neal

[Skybird]

From a certain point on, registry cleaners only delay the spamming up of the registry, and thus they delay only the growing disorder - they do not totally prevent it. I use such a cleaner once a week, and still it gets slower - just not as fast as without a cleaner. That's why I reinstall once a year.

You may want to consider to create an image of your harddrive with your basic and essential stuff needed, and to make it a habit to install from that image once a year, then you only need to copy back changed and working data, saved games, and that's it. According software does that automatically, so the process takes some time, but not your constant awareness and work. After finishing the procedure and defragmentation, you have an almost newborn baby inside your tower again.

registry cleaner:
http://www.ccleaner.com/download (I use an earlier version myself without problems)

Image program:
http://www.amazon.com/Acronis-True-I...4250098&sr=8-2 (I use version 8 since years, without problems).

You then need a second HD with at least half the size of your regular HD, since Acronis compresses the image to around half the size of the original. But prices of HDs are not a problem these days, so get a solid one. You want to disconnect that image drive after the image has been established, so that it cannot suffer from viurusses, system problems, so you also need what in German is called "Wechselrahmen", a frame that allows you to kick in and pull out the image HD like a radio in cars, it is no money, mine costed less than 8 euros.

That is money well-spend! You immediately realise it when you want or need to reinstall, or have a virus infection and are not sure wether you cleaned it or not: now you just choose tooverkill: you reformat, play back the image, et voilá. It is of course an advantage if you make constant updates of your working data and keep them in one place for easier copying. I even use to put it all onto one separate partition, as far as software allows me to do, and twice a month that whole partition is copied onto a DVD via Nero: no fiddling around with scattered data, no searching and collecting it from various places, just mark the partition and hit the burn-button. After copying back an image, you only need to update chnaged drivers and chnaged or added working data.

[Skybird]

and a question I add to Neal's question. Some software simply does not make use of double core CPUs. FS9 for example does not recognize the second core, and runs with only one. My current single core CPU is a 3 GHz P4. Imagine I get a CPU double core at 2.66 GHz, does this mean then that the sim is running with 2.66 GHz single core and I need to expect it to run slower than on a P4 3 GHz, or do changes in CPU architecture compensate for that speed gap? Is a double core 2.66 running a software that uses only one core: slower, equally fast, or faster than a P4 3 GHz?

[Wolfehunter]

System you have mentioned is fine just make sure it has alot of ram. Vista like to use alot of ram.

Vista also shares Ram with video memory so you need again alot of ram lol.

4gigs or more should be fine. Try to get dual channel 2gig chips if you can afford it.

Your processor is very good.

If your like me and don't Overclock your system then try to get an intel motherboard. I never have problems with them and their prices are fair. I find their strudy too. But research the motherboard and make sure you get the latest one and best. Its worth the extra few bucks because in the long run you want to upgrade your pc when you have a few more bucks later on. If you get a lower end one your system life span will be much shorter and money wasted. For motherboard also check if the ram is compatible. Even if its the right spec certain chips don't work well with certain Motherboards. They post their ram compatibility test on the website.

Video card you have selected it very good for the $. I'm not a fan of ATI cards but you may want to take a look at them. Their prices are very good.

I may be wrong but Tigerdirect has the best overall prices.

example,

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...173&CatId=2406


Goodluck on your Hunt Neal.

[danlisa]

Oooh, geek time!

1) Wiki for CPU would be your first stop. In basic terms there a single, dual & quad core CPU's available these days, these compare (very roughly) as so - 3ghz Single = 1.5 ghz Dual etc....you see where that's going....If building a system to last another 5 years, you need to look at atleast a 2.5 ghz Dual core system. However, these CPU's come in many flavours and some are more user friendly than others.

2) The best fix for a slow system is a reinstall of the operating system following a full format. Failing that any system cleaner that clears the Temp folders, Internet files, registry etc aswell as defragging the registry is the best solution. Also a HDD dragging solution should be recommended, one that defrags via Name, Access etc, NOT windows defrag, it sucks. For a cleaner, I would suggest TuneUp 2007 or 2008 and for a defrag solution OO Defrag is the industry standard.

3) Yeah right, my old PC will run Crysis @ 30 FPS BUT at what settings? LOL, that's marketing for you. If you want a balanced answer for the PC offered, can you list it's specs?

What's your budget and let's see if we can build you a parts list.

[jumpy]

1) http://www.tomshardware.com/us/

2) Never bothered with any reg cleaners all that much; I tried 'Reg Cleaner' a ways back, but ultimately I 'format & reinstall' (windows mantra™)

3) Crysis is pretty demanding gfx wise. That spec. is better than mine - amd athlon 64 X2 dual core 3800+ 2.01Ghz, 2gb ram, nvidia 7950gt 512mb.
Ram, gfx memory and cpu speed are where it's at. Though I'm told 32bit windows will only support a maximum of 3gb of total system memory, including RAM, GFX RAM and any other memory on your mobo or sound card etc. Don't bother with a gfx card with less than 512mb of memory these days. Intel seem to have the edge over amd, though I stick with what I know (amd) for the same reasons as you were asking about cpu speeds


Start with a decent mobo (preferably one that can use 2 or 4 cores these days) with space for lots of RAM and PCIe (gfx slot - agp is not so good any more). If you're building it yourself, there's never any point in getting the fastest cpu out there for a premium; apart from some of the uber pricey ones, the choice seems to be between clock speed and cache (some of the intels have 12mb cache ) and go with somewhere in the middle of the range or slightly above.

'puters are a minefield though... in six months you'll be kicking yourself because all the bits you spent your money on are now half the price and your home will ring to the cries of 'Why?! Why didn't I wait just a few more moths?'

[longam]

To keep my reg cleaned and prevent spyware build up I use products from this site. I have had reg mech and spyware doc on both windows XP and Vista with no issues. I also like the real time protection of spyware, this seems more important then antivirus these days.

http://www.pctools.com/

Tom's Hardware should get you up to speed on PC components.

http://www.tomshardware.com/us/#redir

[danlisa]

IIRC Konovalov has a thread detailing his build, I'll see if I can find it.........

It's old but has some good tips - http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...ighlight=E6700

Just realised you have 2 threads on the go.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Is a double core 2.66 running a software that uses only one core: slower, equally fast, or faster than a P4 3 GHz?

Well, the dual-core, if it's a newer processor, will be lot more effecient than the P4, squeezing more out of fewer clock cycles.
Also, the newer Intel multi-core chips soak up a lot less power than a P4.

[Thomen]

Originally Posted by Wolfehunter

System you have mentioned is fine just make sure it has alot of ram. Vista like to use alot of ram.

Vista also shares Ram with video memory so you need again alot of ram lol.

4gigs or more should be fine. Try to get dual channel 2gig chips if you can afford it.

Your processor is very good.

If your like me and don't Overclock your system then try to get an intel motherboard. I never have problems with them and their prices are fair. I find their strudy too. But research the motherboard and make sure you get the latest one and best. Its worth the extra few bucks because in the long run you want to upgrade your pc when you have a few more bucks later on. If you get a lower end one your system life span will be much shorter and money wasted. For motherboard also check if the ram is compatible. Even if its the right spec certain chips don't work well with certain Motherboards. They post their ram compatibility test on the website.


I may be wrong but Tigerdirect has the best overall prices.

example,

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...173&CatId=2406


Goodluck on your Hunt Neal.

More than 4 GB RAM only really works on 64bit systems. Even Vista 32bit can only address up to 3GB of memory, I believe.

I agree that tigerdirect is a good site. If I go shopping, I usually go to TigerDirect for barebones and to newegg for individual parts.

Video card you have selected it very good for the $. I'm not a fan of ATI cards but you may want to take a look at them. Their prices are very good.

I used to love ATI cards.. hehe Unfortunately they limited the max screen resolution to 2400x600 if you use a Matrox TH2G. =(
The barebone I bought last year came with 2 8500GT. While not the greatest card, it works really well, even in the higher resolutions.

[danlisa]

Originally Posted by Thomen

More than 4 GB RAM only really works on 64bit systems. Even Vista 32bit can only address up to 3GB of memory, I believe.

Partly true.

Even on XP you can enable the full use of 4GB by applying a switch to the boot.ini. This allows applications that use more than 1GB of physical RAM when running to access the additional RAM presented by having 4GB. The OS will still only list as having 3GB but apps will use it.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Skybird

and a question I add to Neal's question. Some software simply does not make use of double core CPUs. FS9 for example does not recognize the second core, and runs with only one. My current single core CPU is a 3 GHz P4. Imagine I get a CPU double core at 2.66 GHz, does this mean then that the sim is running with 2.66 GHz single core and I need to expect it to run slower than on a P4 3 GHz, or do changes in CPU architecture compensate for that speed gap? Is a double core 2.66 running a software that uses only one core: slower, equally fast, or faster than a P4 3 GHz?

A core2duo running at 2.66Ghz tramps all over a P4 3Ghz (for that matter a cd2 at 2 Ghz tramps all over a p4 at 3Ghz).
Don't think for a moment that the increase in performance is measured in 5-10%.
We're talking an increase of several 100%, thats how fast they are in single threaded performance, in multithread it goes even higher.
The c2d was a revolutionary increase in performance owing its success to a very aggressive pre-fectcher (and very big L2 inclusive cache) and a 25% increase in IPC.

Have a look at this comparison : http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/c...Sam-2,390.html (you can also change the benchmark).

From that benchmark, an Intel Pentium 4 "E" 630 Prescott 3000 Mhz does 50 fps and an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2133 Mhz does 120 fps (and this is a pretty low end cpu for today's standard). 50->120 thats more than 100% increase in performance.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by goldorak

A core2duo running at 2.66Ghz tramps all over a P4 3Ghz (for that matter a cd2 at 2 Ghz tramps all over a p4 at 3Ghz).
Don't think for a moment that the increase in performance is measured in 5-10%.
We're talking an increase of several 100%, thats how fast they are in single threaded performance, in multithread it goes even higher.
The c2d was a revolutionary increase in performance owing its success to a very aggressive pre-fectcher (and very big L2 inclusive cache) and a 25% increase in IPC.

Not sure if I understand you correctly, or you understand me correctly. I am talking about software that does not make use of the second core, so that the dual core is running only in "mono": the sim does not benefit fro the second core. Or do I understand that wrong? At least FS9 is confirmed to not make any use of dual core's second processor.

[danlisa]

@ Skybird

Even if an application only uses a single core, using that application on a dual core system will see a huge improvement in performance over a single core due to the architecture of even one of those two cores. The processing power of a single core within a dual core setup is vastly superior to that of a single core.

Alas Klar?

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Not sure if I understand you correctly, or you understand me correctly. I am talking about software that does not make use of the second core, so that the dual core is running only in "mono": the sim does not benefit fro the second core. Or do I understand that wrong? At least FS9 is confirmed to not make any use of dual core's second processor.

I understood you correctly, and as I said even in single threaded performance (that means that the program runs on only 1 core) the performance of the c2d cpu will be much much faster than what is achievable with even the highest end of the p4 (p4 extreme editions 3.7Ghz...)