An Unusual Request...

[Roman Clone]

Well, I've just about had it with sharing a computer with my brother. No, It's not that we hate each other, it's just that the room the computer is in is too hot and it's just not built for gaming.

The Specs? I'll copy it from my Xfire profile just in case you need it.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+ (2 CPUs), ~2.3GHz
Memory: 2046MB RAM
Hard Drive: 309 GB
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8300 GS
Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor
Sound Card: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Speakers/Headphones:
Keyboard: USB Root Hub
Mouse: USB Root Hub
Mouse Surface:
Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6000) (6000.vista_gdr.070627-1500)

I have tried doing some research on my own for new parts but when I saw a processor on for sale at $1000 I nearly cried myself to sleep in hopelessness. So, I heard that because of the company wars going on, sales are tremendous and aplenty. I have a budget of $1000 and I can probably supply a Hardrive [A SATA 300 Gig, I'll look later on more info on it] and a case but I think I'll leave you all with the honors of finding the rest for me.

Ps. Some more information:

I want an Intel processor and an 8800 [Anything.] I will have a tough time accepting something else in the 8 series, because I'm not really interested in any games. If I do require a new hard drive, I want to still use Windows XP. Maybe Media edition, but any edition is fine by me. Try to get 4 Gigs, and a processor that isn't one of those prototype 4 core ones, I don't want to run into even the smallest error with this new computer. Grazie Signors.

[King Edward III]

Get a 3870.

[Roman Clone]

The reason I don't want that card is because most of the games I play were created with Nvidia technology, an it has been proven that anything but a Nvidia cards will crash the game more.

[sapi]

The reason I don't want that card is because most of the games I play were created with Nvidia technology, an it has been proven that anything but a Nvidia cards will crash the game more.

...there's absolutely no reason that that would be true

[Roman Clone]

Well, that was something I picked up in the SPQR: TW forum. But please, can we get some brave soul to find parts for me?

[Freddie]

Well, that was something I picked up in the SPQR: TW forum. But please, can we get some brave soul to find parts for me?

I don't spend that much time on the SPQR forums anymore but if that's the sort of advice you have been given I see will need to frequent there a bit more often. In fact I’m surprised LT1956 didn't set you straight on this already, I'm going to have to have a word with him.

$1000 is what you pay if want the ulitamte in CPU technology and anything other then the best just won't do. A E6750, 4Gb DDR2 (equires XP/Vista 64 bit) and 8000 GTS 512MB would leave you with a super fast system with change left over for a decent display.

I wish C.A would tell us a few more technical detials about Empire Total War, I really want to know if the game is going to be able to all the threads on a quad core CPU.

-------------

Ok I've just read Pent Up Rages post and I know I can best that.

Asus p35 P5K-E/WIFI-AP $149.99

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 $189.99

Antec 650 Watt Silent PSU $119.99 (sale price)

G-Skill 4 Gb DDR2 800 mhz $99.99

Liton DVD +-RW $26.99

HITACHI Deskstar P7K500 250Gb $63.99

BFG 8800 GTS 512Mb $280.00

Antec Solo Black/Silver Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $79.99

Total = $890.94

Ok so maybe not enought left over to buy a display, but hey for me that works out at about £490 (plus shipping). The Core 2 are great overclockers, I would buy in addtion to the above a ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro and get some free speed!

Your going to need to spend another $230 on a display plus you will need an opertaing system so there's more expense to consider.

[mrmouth]

I really want to know if the game is going to be able to all the threads on a quad core CPU.

Do you think thats even a possibility?

I might be horribly out of step with this, but I think the days of games utilizing quad cores are something we wont see until '09 at very least.

In late '06 many developers came out and said they just flat out don't understand why quad core CPU's are even on the market. They were just starting to really put dual core CPU's to good use. Even now the time and money spent to optimize games for more threads just doesn't equate to good business strategy for most. Back then it was adding upwards of a year to the development process, for a 20-30% performance increase. Only the largest developers with solid backing from publishers could really pull it off.

Things have obviously gotten better in the regard. We have seen the first patches to take advantage of dual core technology, but I think we are a ways away from quad core gaming. The game developer community hasn't even really agreed on how to best utilize the additional cores. One core can be utilized for physics and collision. The second can be utilized for AI, while the third calculates graphic data. Unfortunately core two and three will always have to wait for core number one to finish its task and pass on the job to cores two and three. Core number four could be used to stream and load data, but its hotly contested.

Overall, multiple core CPU's are giving developers one massive headache.

[Freddie]

Do you think thats even a possibility?

I might be horribly out of step with this, but I think the days of games utilizing quad cores are something we wont see until '09 at very least.

In late '06 many developers came out and said they just flat out don't understand why quad core CPU's are even on the market. They were just starting to really put dual core CPU's to good use. Even now the time and money spent to optimize games for more threads just doesn't equate to good business strategy. Back then it was adding upwards of a year to the development process, for a 20-30% performance increase. Only the largest developers with solid backing from publishers could really pull it off.

Things have obviously gotten better in the regard. We have seen the first patches to take advantage of dual core technology, but I think we are a ways away from quad core gaming.

At the moment Unreal Tournament 3 uses 4 threads (will use more if available) and Crysis apparently uses 4 threads but I've read a few unqualified forum posts saying it doesn't work as well as it should.

I would like think Empire will at least be dual core enabled, RTS games need all the CPU power a computer can muster.

Just to make my post qualified.........

link

PCGH: What is the maximun number of threads that can be calculated separately? Will there be a performance-boost if a quad-core system will be used?

Epic: Were able to scale the thread-structure pretty well. There is a primary
thread for the gameplay and a second one for rendering. On systems with more than 2 cores we run additional threads to speed up various calculation-tasks, including physics and data-decompression. So the overall performance benefits greatly from a quad-core processor. Although we havent looked into the matter yet, I expect an even further performance increase through CPUs with more than 4 cores in future UE-based games.

[mrmouth]

At the moment Unreal Tournament 3 uses 4 threads (will use more if available) and Crysis apparently uses 4 threads but I've read a few unqualified forum posts saying it doesn't work as well as it should.

I would like think Empire will at least be dual core enabled, RTS games need all the CPU power a computer can muster.

I just finished my original post, and I stand corrected. I had no idea that games were currently supporting quad core's. I haven't read any current articles, so I probably should have just shut my mouth.

I see no reason why Empire wouldn't be tailored to take advantage of dual core cpu's.

[Roman Clone]

I don't spend that much time on the SPQR forums anymore but if that's the sort of advice you have been given I see will need to frequent there a bit more often. In fact I’m surprised LT1956 didn't set you straight on this already, I'm going to have to have a word with him.

?????

Are you my mother?

I have clearly seen before LT said that if a game was built with Nvidia technology, which most if not, all of my games are, they are bound too crash more under an ATI card.

[sapi]

?????

Are you my mother?

I have clearly seen before LT said that if a game was built with Nvidia technology, which most if not, all of my games are, they are bound too crash more under an ATI card.

He may have said it, but he was wrong

[Roman Clone]

He may have said it, but he was wrong

Point is, I have seen ATI Cards in the past, and they are horrible. I just want an 8800!

[Roman Clone]

I don't spend that much time on the SPQR forums anymore but if that's the sort of advice you have been given I see will need to frequent there a bit more often. In fact I’m surprised LT1956 didn't set you straight on this already, I'm going to have to have a word with him.

$1000 is what you pay if want the ulitamte in CPU technology and anything other then the best just won't do. A E6750, 4Gb DDR2 (equires XP/Vista 64 bit) and 8000 GTS 512MB would leave you with a super fast system with change left over for a decent display.

I wish C.A would tell us a few more technical detials about Empire Total War, I really want to know if the game is going to be able to all the threads on a quad core CPU.

-------------

Ok I've just read Pent Up Rages post and I know I can best that.

Asus p35 P5K-E/WIFI-AP $149.99

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 $189.99

Antec 650 Watt Silent PSU $119.99 (sale price)

G-Skill 4 Gb DDR2 800 mhz $99.99

Liton DVD +-RW $26.99

HITACHI Deskstar P7K500 250Gb $63.99

BFG 8800 GTS 512Mb $280.00

Antec Solo Black/Silver Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $79.99

Total = $890.94

Ok so maybe not enought left over to buy a display, but hey for me that works out at about £490 (plus shipping). The Core 2 are great overclockers, I would buy in addtion to the above a ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro and get some free speed!

Your going to need to spend another $230 on a display plus you will need an opertaing system so there's more expense to consider.

Your decision looks best, but is there a better MOBO? According to some reviews it's unstable.

[Cyrus the Virus]

Your decision looks best, but is there a better MOBO? According to some reviews it's unstable.

You could purchase a MSI perhaps.

[Pent uP Rage]

The best bang for the buck in Intel's cpu line is the Q6600 at the moment.

You should be able to put together a decent Intel Quad system, that would be very upgradeable later on, for about $1000-$1200. Some of the parts wouldn't be the absolute best, but you'd still have a really nice system that would do pretty much what you wanted it to do.

I'll edit this post with the set up I was going to build before I got this AMD system I'm on. All total, it came in at around $1500, but that was splurging on a few things like a top of the line motherboard and power supply. Just being more conservative on those two parts would've saved me about $300-$400.


*EDIT* I've tried to make a wish list @ newegg....but it's not making it public yet. so, I'll go ahead and post it.

motherboard - ASUS Maximus Formula - 259.99 - You could choose a cheaper mobo, but this one would be a good base for a solid system for some time. Includes Intels newest chipset, X38, and has its' own SEPARATE "onboard" sound card so you wouldn't need to buy an Audigy right away.

cpu -Intel Q6600 Quad core cpu - 274.99 - This is the best performance for the price in the Intel family.

graphics - BFG 8800 GTS (G92) - 279.99 after rebate. Again, best bang for the buck here. The G92 cards are actually better that the previous versions of the same card. If you want to run SLi later on, you can pick up another one, but you'd have to upgrade the PSU I've included as well.

RAM -2GB Gskill DDR2 800 - 46.99 Good performance for the price. Newegg's winner of the customer choice award for desktop memory. Not really much more to say about it. You won't be setting any record breaking overclocks, but who cares. You've got a really nice system for about $1000.

PSU - PC Power & Cooling EPS 610W PSU - 119.99 Not the highest PSU for the money. But the key is that the ratings are at operating temperatures, whereas nearly all other PSUs are rated at startup temps. Once the PSU heats up it will actually lose some of its' power due to heat. This PSU is rated a CONTINUOUS 610W @ 40C. Should be enough power for one 8800 and few fans. If want to add another 8800 and some lights or watercooling, you're gonna need 1000+W.

HD - Western Digital 160Gb, 7200RPM, SATA 3.0 - 49.99 - Not the best or the biggest, but it's cheap and has enough room for Windows, your games, music, etc...and still probably have enough left for other stuff.

CD/DVD Drive - Lite-on DVD/RW - 26.99 - Again, it's cheap and will burn DVD's. You can get a fancy one, or a BLu Ray burner later on.

All that's left is for you to pick a case. But, the grand total for the parts on this list, after any discounts and rebates, is $1,088.93.
You can probably fiddle around with the list and switch some parts out to get the cost down a tad more. But that's a pretty solid system for a pretty decent price.

[Roman Clone]

Grazie Signor!

But will I be able to use another 2Gigs? Is there a stable version of XP that can handle that?

[Doono]

4 gigs is only possible with a 64bit version of windows, 2 gig is sufficient in most cases anyway.

[Cyrus the Virus]

Heard that XP can use 3 GB at most. Need confirmation on that though.

Edit: Found this in some other thread.

Same here. Too bad I'd have to buy the 64bit version of Vista if I want to go above 3 though.

[LoZz]

games are always behind the tech, its only now/last few months we are starting to see dual core support as standard.

[Freddie]

games are always behind the tech, its only now/last few months we are starting to see dual core support as standard.

I'm not sure on this one, by the time Oblivion was released back in 2006 most new releases (M2TW being a massive exception) were multithreaded.