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(A fairly big budget)
Now, I'm not going to be doing this till around November, but I will be doing it. I thought I'd get some opinions from you guys.
Here are the constraints:
1) Budget £1000-2000 (give or take a few hundred)
2) Base unit plus graphics and sound only. In other words: Motherboard, processor(s), PSU, cooling, graphics card(s), RAM, case, sound card, and speakers. I *think* that's it...
So no monitor(s), Keyboard/mouse, optical drives etc are needed.
3) Designed for gaming.
So, your thoughts? Enough for a dual pci-express gfx card system? ATI or NVidia? Perhaps a dual core processor? What would you build on that sort of budget?
Now, I'm not going to be doing this till around November, but I will be doing it. I thought I'd get some opinions from you guys.
Here are the constraints:
1) Budget £1000-2000 (give or take a few hundred)
2) Base unit plus graphics and sound only. In other words: Motherboard, processor(s), PSU, cooling, graphics card(s), RAM, case, sound card, and speakers. I *think* that's it...
So no monitor(s), Keyboard/mouse, optical drives etc are needed.
3) Designed for gaming.
So, your thoughts? Enough for a dual pci-express gfx card system? ATI or NVidia? Perhaps a dual core processor? What would you build on that sort of budget?
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Allred wrote:
>
"Details of ATI's upcoming graphics chip generation begin to
> emerge ahead of the official product launch, which is expected to
> take place within a few weeks."
That'll be the same few weeks they said back in June, July, August and now September. I'm a huge ATi fanboy, but I think this time, they've ballzed up a tad in trying to get too much out at one time. Doesn't help that the chip yields are so low for the 90nm cards. The X1800 looks nice, but it's their response to the 7800GTX and doesn't offer too much "new" apart from it's enormous size! R580 is the on to wait for. This is mean't to be a killer.
So far on the CF board front we have 1 by Sapphirre, 2 buy Asus and 1 by DFi, though DFI are really holding back on it for some reason. Haven't seen the Ausus board yet and the Saph one has had really bad write ups.
I've got 2 weeks before I order my new system, so will be sitting back, watching with interest till then.
>
"Details of ATI's upcoming graphics chip generation begin to
> emerge ahead of the official product launch, which is expected to
> take place within a few weeks."
That'll be the same few weeks they said back in June, July, August and now September. I'm a huge ATi fanboy, but I think this time, they've ballzed up a tad in trying to get too much out at one time. Doesn't help that the chip yields are so low for the 90nm cards. The X1800 looks nice, but it's their response to the 7800GTX and doesn't offer too much "new" apart from it's enormous size! R580 is the on to wait for. This is mean't to be a killer.
So far on the CF board front we have 1 by Sapphirre, 2 buy Asus and 1 by DFi, though DFI are really holding back on it for some reason. Haven't seen the Ausus board yet and the Saph one has had really bad write ups.
I've got 2 weeks before I order my new system, so will be sitting back, watching with interest till then.
Tyla wrote:
> Allred wrote:
> I would wait to see how ATI's crossfire and new GPU perform, they
> are
> due very soon.
>
> Miles off. There's only 2 companies with CF boards out this month
> (fingers crossed). CF GPU's are still unconfirmed for release this
> month and looks like it could be November berfore they finally arrive
> as they're to busy working on r520/560/580. I wanted to hold out for
> CF, but fromt he only board I've seen so far, you sacrifices board
> performance/features for CF ability.
http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050908_131203.html
"Details of ATI's upcoming graphics chip generation begin to emerge ahead of the official product launch, which is expected to take place within a few weeks."
> Allred wrote:
> I would wait to see how ATI's crossfire and new GPU perform, they
> are
> due very soon.
>
> Miles off. There's only 2 companies with CF boards out this month
> (fingers crossed). CF GPU's are still unconfirmed for release this
> month and looks like it could be November berfore they finally arrive
> as they're to busy working on r520/560/580. I wanted to hold out for
> CF, but fromt he only board I've seen so far, you sacrifices board
> performance/features for CF ability.
http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050908_131203.html
"Details of ATI's upcoming graphics chip generation begin to emerge ahead of the official product launch, which is expected to take place within a few weeks."
Allred wrote:
> I would wait to see how ATI's crossfire and new GPU perform, they are
> due very soon.
Miles off. There's only 2 companies with CF boards out this month (fingers crossed). CF GPU's are still unconfirmed for release this month and looks like it could be November berfore they finally arrive as they're to busy working on r520/560/580. I wanted to hold out for CF, but fromt he only board I've seen so far, you sacrifices board performance/features for CF ability.
> I would wait to see how ATI's crossfire and new GPU perform, they are
> due very soon.
Miles off. There's only 2 companies with CF boards out this month (fingers crossed). CF GPU's are still unconfirmed for release this month and looks like it could be November berfore they finally arrive as they're to busy working on r520/560/580. I wanted to hold out for CF, but fromt he only board I've seen so far, you sacrifices board performance/features for CF ability.
I would wait to see how ATI's crossfire and new GPU perform, they are due very soon.
£2000 is most certainly a budget.
It's merely a generous one.
It's merely a generous one.
£2000 is hardly budget...
Memorandum! wrote:
> Tyla wrote:
> The 3700 is only 2.2Ghz with a 1MB L2, but these things will clock
> on
> stock cooling to arouns 3.2Ghz, up to 4.6Ghz if water/refrigerated
> cooled, so nw real need to go any higher processor wise for the
> sake
> of 400Mhz.
>
> can we see some evidence of this please?
> I've never seen an Athlon 64 any higher than about 3.8GHz and those
> were on phase change cooling. I find 4.6 on water extremely unlikely
> given the voltages that would most probably be required.
It be buried somewhere in the OCers forum, I'll try to dig it out. So far I've found the P4 @ 6Ghz thread!:/
> Tyla wrote:
> The 3700 is only 2.2Ghz with a 1MB L2, but these things will clock
> on
> stock cooling to arouns 3.2Ghz, up to 4.6Ghz if water/refrigerated
> cooled, so nw real need to go any higher processor wise for the
> sake
> of 400Mhz.
>
> can we see some evidence of this please?
> I've never seen an Athlon 64 any higher than about 3.8GHz and those
> were on phase change cooling. I find 4.6 on water extremely unlikely
> given the voltages that would most probably be required.
It be buried somewhere in the OCers forum, I'll try to dig it out. So far I've found the P4 @ 6Ghz thread!:/
Tyla wrote:
> The 3700 is only 2.2Ghz with a 1MB L2, but these things will clock on
> stock cooling to arouns 3.2Ghz, up to 4.6Ghz if water/refrigerated
> cooled, so nw real need to go any higher processor wise for the sake
> of 400Mhz.
can we see some evidence of this please?
I've never seen an Athlon 64 any higher than about 3.8GHz and those were on phase change cooling. I find 4.6 on water extremely unlikely given the voltages that would most probably be required.
> The 3700 is only 2.2Ghz with a 1MB L2, but these things will clock on
> stock cooling to arouns 3.2Ghz, up to 4.6Ghz if water/refrigerated
> cooled, so nw real need to go any higher processor wise for the sake
> of 400Mhz.
can we see some evidence of this please?
I've never seen an Athlon 64 any higher than about 3.8GHz and those were on phase change cooling. I find 4.6 on water extremely unlikely given the voltages that would most probably be required.
Nimco wrote:
> But surely for a lot of people, it would be beneficial to have 1 core
> focussing on running Windows, AntiVirus, Firewall, etc etc, and have
> the other core dedicated to the game? Doesn't that mean the dual-core
> processor would be faster?
No, because "Windows, Antivurus, Firewall etc" only use a very small amount of processing power, and each core isn't as fast as an FX57. So one FX57 running windows, firewall, antivirus and a game is still faster than what you described.
And games aren't designed to be able to take advantage of all the extra processing power that would be available from the low used Windows, firewall, antivurs core, so it would just go to waste.
> But surely for a lot of people, it would be beneficial to have 1 core
> focussing on running Windows, AntiVirus, Firewall, etc etc, and have
> the other core dedicated to the game? Doesn't that mean the dual-core
> processor would be faster?
No, because "Windows, Antivurus, Firewall etc" only use a very small amount of processing power, and each core isn't as fast as an FX57. So one FX57 running windows, firewall, antivirus and a game is still faster than what you described.
And games aren't designed to be able to take advantage of all the extra processing power that would be available from the low used Windows, firewall, antivurs core, so it would just go to waste.
Nimco wrote:
> But surely for a lot of people, it would be beneficial to have 1 core
> focussing on running Windows, AntiVirus, Firewall, etc etc, and have
> the other core dedicated to the game? Doesn't that mean the dual-core
> processor would be faster?
Dual core overclocking rocks. I've seen a X2/4800 with one core clocked at stock (2.4) and the other core clocked at 3.8 on stock cooling 4.6 on Water! Quite facinated by the ability to clock the cores individually.
> But surely for a lot of people, it would be beneficial to have 1 core
> focussing on running Windows, AntiVirus, Firewall, etc etc, and have
> the other core dedicated to the game? Doesn't that mean the dual-core
> processor would be faster?
Dual core overclocking rocks. I've seen a X2/4800 with one core clocked at stock (2.4) and the other core clocked at 3.8 on stock cooling 4.6 on Water! Quite facinated by the ability to clock the cores individually.
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