Computers: The Technical Thread [!OT]

[melfice]

It was like OCB said. Same trouble than the self-resetting issue, i read what you posted there, and tried it, and now, it works again, it boots perfectly and is like if never had broken! Thank you guys!

[One Classy Bloke]

I mastabate to your happiness.

[mrwiseman]

Ok, so I'm getting this to play The Elder Scrolls IV and other stuff:

- AMD Athlon 64 3400+ (Newcastle) Socket 754
- MSI K8T Neo-V (VIA K8T800, S754, AGP8X, 2?DDR, 5?PCI, 8?USB2, int 3D sound, int 100Mbps Ethernet) motherboard
- Zalman CNPS 7000B-Cu cooler
- GeIL 1 GB DDR400 Value Kit (2?512 MB, timing 2.5 3 2 5, inc heatsink)

For 369 ?.

Reasoning:
- Since PCI Express is still useless but it cost millions to develop, manufacturers are pushing customers to use it by dropping AGP. I should keep an eye as I might have trouble finding a suitable motherboard for my GeForce 6800 AGP which I'm not replacing.
- Given the excellent results my almost 4 years old Athlon XP 1800+ gave, which I bought when it was the second fastest processor, I'm going for a high-end AMD processor again.
- AMD has a much better performance to price ratio, and is now setting the pace in the x86 architecture and Intel is following. The AMD Athlon 64 processors have extra features no Pentium 4 processors have; most importantly the NX bit (to protect memory against execution).
- Based on performance to price ratio, a Socket 754 solution with single channel memory looks better than a Socket 939 solution with double channel memory for most applications.
- The Athlon 64 3400+ processor seems to offer the best performance to price ratio despite being one of the fastest in the price range I wanted. It's not the highest end, but then again, the highest end is the Athlon 64 X2 Toledo 4000+ which costs over $1000. Anything over 3000+ is high end anyways, and most importantly, I think it'll be more than enough to run The Elder Scrolls 4.
- I'm so happy with MSI I'm not even considering other motherboard vendors.
- I'm happy with VIA's chipsets, and MSI's nVidia's nForce 3-based mobo was more expensive, providing features I wouldn't use (Gigabit Ethernet, better 5.1 sound, 3 RAM slots).
- I'm getting what's probably the best cooler for my processor, which features most silent fan and has the better performing heatsink. I'm tired of it making sounds, and seeing how long did my previous system last, I want this one to last too; low quality fans are noisy and may get even worse, and hot processors die sooner.
- I'm going for GeIL RAM after positive comments.
- I want 1 GB RAM, as I do stuff which take lots of RAM regardless of my very thin OS setups (editing 10 Mpix images, running servers, etc.). 512 MB would fall short soon and would not guarantee the best TES4 performance.
- I'm going for two RAM modules even having only two slots (at the risk of having to replace one if I want to update) because I saw RAM requirements decelerating in the last few years, and I doubt I'll need more than 1 GB in the next 3 years.

Big thanks to Tom's Hardware Guide, which provided invaluable information for this.

I'm also getting a Seagate SATA 3160827AS (160GB, 7200 RPM, NCQ) drive for 85 ?.

With this, my computer specs will be:

- AMD Athlon 64 3400+ (Newcastle, socket 754, MMX 3DNow! SSE 3DNow!Ext SSE2 SSE3 AMD64 NX, 64C+64D KB L1 512 KB L2)
- MSI K8T Neo-V (VIA K8T800, 8?USB2, int 3D sound, int 100Mbps Ethernet)
- Zalman CNPS 7000B-Cu silent cooler
- 2?512 MB RAM 2.5 3 2 5
- nVidia GeForce 6800 128 MB (AGP8X)
- HD Seagate SATA 160 GB 7200 RPM NCQ
- HD Seagate IDE 80 GB 7200 RPM
- NEC ND-2500A DVD?RW (DVD? 16/8/4X, CD 48/48/16X) drive
- MSI 16X DVD-ROM drive
- OEM TV card (based on BT878)
- AeroCool AeroEngine case with 2?12 cm, 1?8 cm fans and blue leds (looks awesome)
- 600W PMPO very high quality 2.1 speakers
- 17" Philips 107X4 high luminance CRT monitor
- Real Keyboard? (buckling spring, heavy, indestructible, no multimedia, serious keyboard devs like)
- 7 button (3 + wheel + left/right) optical mouse
- WingMan RumblePad (1?analog or digital, 1?analog, 1?slider, 9 buttons, rumble)
- Bragging rights

<font color="#345E81" size="1">[ October 12, 2005 09:16 PM: Message edited by: -Wiseman- ]</font>

[melfice]

[Sarcasm]
And with all that you'll be able to run Doom 3 Smoothly!
[/sarcasm]

[mrwiseman]

As I wait for Oblivion, I'm getting ready to update my system. Since I'll be replacing my old 4 GB boot drive with a 160 GB drive, the hardware will be different, and I want to fix a few things as well as get upgraded hardware support, I'll be upgrading to a modified version of Windows XP. I'll do the following:

1. Move everything to my 80 GB drive.
2. Install Windows XP Professional.
3. Install chipset and video drivers.
4. Install Windows XP SP2, and all patches.
5. Use XPLite to get rid of the bloat.
6. Configure it properly to reduce the remaining bloat and make it faster and safer.
7. Do a few hand-optimizations to the system (memory management registry settings, TCP/IP, etc).
8. Install and configure all other drivers.
9. Start sorting all my files into both drives and reinstalling software into the right places as defined in my Zohar Directory Standard. Everything has a place and I'll be hand-relocating software which installs into undesirable directories.
10. Hack and destroy anything that has anything to do with digital rights infringement (DRM).

For now, I've decided against using Windows XP x64, the 64 bit edition of Windows, which means I won't be running 64 bit applications. Driver support is still lacking, there's no ASPI (for CD-based console emulators) or WinPCAP (for Ethereal) device drivers, and there are a couple 16 bit applications I still want to use, so I'll wait for two years and make a smooth transition with dual boot.

[Dreamer7000]

Finally I'm gonna get more RAM!
As an early Christmas present, we're gonna buy 512 DDR RAM, the only ting my babe here misses. And can normally play WoW. ^_^

[mrwiseman]

How much RAM do you have? There's a lot you can do to save loads of RAM. I got stuff working on 512 MB people would think it'd require 1 GB.

[Xellos]

Alot of areas in WoW pretty much require 1 gig to runs moothly. Most Night Elf areas, Ironforge, or anywhere else with lotsa people (Like alterac valley)

[Dreamer7000]

I have 768 MB overall right now, and Hell Knight does as well. Some lag in Ironforge, but nothing else. I haven't had the chance to try it out today, but I'm positive it would have no problems. I was fine with 256 RAM really, by for example using Trillian instead of MSN AIM AND yahoo. Everything is more smoothley now of course.

[DarkLinkClone]

This weekend I'm helping a buddy of mine to build a PC. I've already help him select the parts to purchase and most parts have already arrived.

Parts:
Athlon 64 3500 venice core
ThermalTake BigTyphoon cooler
1GB Crucial Ballistix PC3200 RAM
Asus A8N-SLI Premium motherboard
Geforce 7800GT 256MB
Sunbeam Nuuo 550 Watt PSU
CoolerMaster Centurion 532 steel case

The total was just a bit under $1000

He plans on reusing his disc drive, monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Also he has a 160GB which was suppose to go on his parent's old system.

All the fans in the system are 120mm except the PSU and graphic card as system noise is a concern.