2009-02-05 21:11:01

Okay I just need a quick heads up;

What version of vista?

I've read on some sites/forums that Vista business would be a smart choice, seeing it has all of the technical specifications a gaming rig would need but is pretty slim on the "extra's" MS has put in the Home premium and the Ultimate versions....

Then again, the ultimate looks good cause it also supports media center...

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"Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the evilest motherf*cker in the valley"

2009-02-06 01:36:35

I say Ultimate is a bit redundant and way, way overpriced. But the bottom line is really this: Don't buy Windows Vista. Windows 7 should be out this year and it's a very worthy upgrade to the Vista platform. In many ways, it's what Vista should have been... and you're not going to want to buy Windows twice, right?

Just run the Windows 7 beta until August. It's a free download for anyone.

2009-02-06 07:18:22 In reply to GriftGFX (2009-02-06 01:36:35)

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"Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the evilest motherf*cker in the valley"

2009-02-06 07:21:49 In reply to FireWire (2009-02-06 07:18:22)

2009-02-06 07:33:23

It does actually sound like a good alternative, but I don't know if I'm gonna be comfortable installing a "beta version" of an OS on a PC that has cost me an arm and a leg. I mean I don't know if I can be bothered with coming home every night to a pc that doesn't work :S

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"Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the evilest motherf*cker in the valley"

2009-02-06 07:44:45

Although this test gives a good indication;

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/windows_7_gami...


http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/index.php?showtopi...

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"Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the evilest motherf*cker in the valley"

2009-02-06 10:28:28 In reply to FireWire (2009-02-06 07:33:23)

2009-02-06 10:32:28 In reply to GriftGFX (2009-02-06 10:28:28)

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"Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the evilest motherf*cker in the valley"

2009-02-17 01:27:49

My current rig is Asus P5B, Intel Core Duo 1,86GHz 1MB L2, nVidia GF7900GS 512 MB RAM and only 1GB of main RAM (memory was rather expensive when I was building that rig). I'm looking into changing something in my PC so that I could run games with better framerate. I'm not switching to Vista, so I'll remain DX9. I'll definitely add some RAM, even though the only game so far that really needed it was Crysis demo and games were never memory bound - changing texture quality never made any difference to framerate.

The next thing will be graphics card - is there anything that you'd recommend that would allow me to play games with settings maxed in DX9 mode with 40+fps? After having my GPU replaced I'll see if games will be CPU bound, because at this time I don't see any point in changing the processor.

And I may easily wait with this upgrade until Summer, since I may not have that much time in Spring (I'm finally doing driving license, new semester starts in March, it's the best to play soccer etc.). Anyway, the games I'm looking forward to playing on my improved PC are the new Relic games - DoW2, Tales of Valor; Empire Total War. Especially the latter may be quite demanding (especially as a time sucker ;)). Plus multiplatform PC/console games, which are usually at least twice as cheap on PC (seriously, I bought BiA Hell's Highway new for 79PLN and next to it were PS3/360 versions for 219PLN) - the first of those would be the new Riddick game.

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"That just happened 'cause that was awesome" - Randy Pitchford, Gearbox

2009-02-17 13:45:30

I am pretty sure Ati's 4870 line is pretty awesome, no idea what would be good from Nvidia. I haven't really been up to date about this stuff for sometime now. If you do upgrade at Summer there is nicely time to think about different choices and if I see something interesting I try to remember to link it to here.

Some sites I look sometimes to get benchmarks and stuff, there were some other sites too which I don't remember right now.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Components,1/G...
http://www.anandtech.com/video/

Hmm your CPU is C2D E6300 or E6320. I am pretty sure it could be OC to around 2.4GHZ or so.

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2009-02-17 15:12:30

About the Operating System; I've been using Windows 7 on my new rig and everything is running incredibly smooth for an BETA... Even so I would just skip vista if I were you and either wait it out until Windows 7 or get a cheap Windows XP.

In my eyes Windows 7 is the true follow up of XP. It's fast, clean and looks slick, without the the bullshit Vista brings to the table. So far it looks like it's going to be a great OS...

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"Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the evilest motherf*cker in the valley"

2009-02-17 18:26:03 In reply to Isomac (2009-02-17 13:45:30)

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"That just happened 'cause that was awesome" - Randy Pitchford, Gearbox

2009-02-17 22:52:31

Vista was just a big public beta test for Windows 7 if you ask me. This time it looks and works a lot better....

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"Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the evilest motherf*cker in the valley"

2009-02-18 05:03:53 In reply to szaromir (2009-02-17 01:27:49)

2009-02-20 07:44:23

Btw Grift;

I did get the Razer Death Adder and I must say it's may favorite mouse allready. It's really responsive and accurate but also nice and simple! JUST LOVE IT!

Thanks for all the advice btw guys...
Loving my new rig so far :-)

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"Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the evilest motherf*cker in the valley"

2009-03-15 15:46:43

Got myself a new Rig as well, finally! Rather similar to Firewire's setup.I wasn't planning on upgrading really, but doing some research after the i7 920, I realised I could get a pretty damn fine setup for a very decent price. So, I wen for it.

-Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5
-Intel Core i7 920
-Samsung Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ - 1 TB
-Kingston 6GB 1333 cl9 tri-kit
-Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 1gb
-Tagan piperock 800w
-Coolermaster Cosmo 1000

Loving it so far as well! It isn't primarily for gaming, but I figured I'd get a decent GPU while I was at it. I can run Crysis warhead with everything at max, although it will occasionally drop to 25 fps.

The Tagan PSU will have to be replaced unfortunately due to a loose/noisy fan. The casing, imo, is absolutely georgeous! It's heavy as hell (mainly steel), but I'm just in love with the design. I've only installed XP 32 so far, will try Vista 64 bit and Windows 7 as well.

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2009-03-15 23:33:27

The 1GB 4870 is more then decent still.. great GPU. Crysis is a great way to see how far you can push your graphics, but there's nothing else out there that will push your rig that hard.

It may not be for gaming but it's definitely a gaming rig :P

2009-03-16 18:02:31 In reply to GriftGFX (2009-03-15 23:33:27)

Yeah, it pushes it pretty hard indeed. But, it looks bloody amazing...seriously impressive. I'm definitely enjoying the bit I've played. Controls are very solid and I'm loving the power-ups.

I suppose it's gaming rig allright, and will definitely be used as such from time to time. Might pop in another 4870 to keep the other company when these cards get a nice pricecut! :)

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2009-03-16 21:17:47

I'm not sure that Crossfire is really worth it atm, but as card prices drop I'm sure it will seem like it might. Xfire/SLI has never really been an upgrade path imo, more of a fringe high end setup. The X2 is better than Crossfire too...

And yeah, Crysis is awesome. It's actually a good game too, despite contrary reports.

2009-03-17 20:49:48

Well, XP 32 bit and 6GB RAM? Isn't that a huge waste?

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2009-03-17 22:06:36 In reply to LEBATO (2009-03-17 20:49:48)

6GB tri-kit of decent DDR3 ram for 99 Euro's? Not a waste at all. Also, I've been trying Vista 64 bit as well.

@GriftGFX: Yeah, I'd obviously go for whichever's best bang for buck. But if I'd run into a 4870 in the next few months for 100 Euro's or something, I doubt anything could beat that.

Crysis is definitely awesome, these "reports" are mostly from people just looking at a few vids and drawing premature conclusions I'd say...

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2009-03-19 06:12:26

Ya--or people who spent a very short time with the demo, or "with a friends" copy of the game and never gave it a proper chance. It's a very well produced game. The graphics and physics are amazing, sure. But the story, art direction and gameplay are all great too. Warhead is also great, even though it feels very different from the start

2009-11-01 21:12:45

A small update on my upgrades and a question:

So far, I bought additional 2GBs of RAM and a Scythe Mugen 2 cooler, so I overclocked my CPU to 2.7GHz (it's still quiter and cooler than it was before overclocking). The performance boost isn't big, but I'm still sitting on Windows XP (will be upgrading to Windows 7 soon. It's a good thing I have a free key as my university is a member of MSDN Academic Alliance).
Here's the question. When can we expect the next wave of AMD GPUs price drops? I would like to buy 5750 or 5770, but would be ready to pay the current price of 4850. I am patient, so there's no rush.

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"That just happened 'cause that was awesome" - Randy Pitchford, Gearbox

2009-11-01 22:13:18

I don't really know when they'll drop, but I wouldn't expect it to be too far out. On the other hand, they've got a large price advantage over Nvidia, so they can afford to wait.

They're releasing the 5970/50 soon too. Soooo nice.

PS. I'm not sure why everyone thinks that Win7 is that much faster than XP. There are some tasks that it benches better in but I swear it's the biggest sugar pill in PC history. Great marketing, Microsoft.

2009-11-01 22:22:51

I don't think it's faster tham XP, I actually expect it to be slower since it's probably doing more stuff in the background, but I won't install DX11 without it :P

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"That just happened 'cause that was awesome" - Randy Pitchford, Gearbox