I was going to have to fine tune a lot of parts of my computer to get the whole thing running, but I found out with graphics cards and processors these days it'd be way too expensive. So, I decided to go with this name brand desktop, so I can't screw up, and yet I can add the stuff I already have and sell the stuff I don't need or can't use. I've got a monitior and everything already, so that doesnt matter, and in a month or two I'll be upgrading to a 512MB graphics card. Let me know what you think of the idea. Oh, and, with the hard drives I already have I'll have 650GB, or 900GB, depending on if I sell one of my current HD's, and I'll have 3 GB of RAM. Not to mention the 4600+ X2. I won't need this much power, but oh well. I'll probably sell off one of my drives, and maybe if doing a cross brand RAM setup doesnt work too well, I'll sell a gig of ram. Gateway 4600+
I would get a barebones kit. You can get the processor, motherboard, and case for about $400 I would say.
Man that's quite the potential system there and almost a terabyte of potential HD space there. Yeah barebones is a great deal, you get the things you want, nothing you dont and the extra insurance of knowing that what's there works so it's really a happy medium between price, building you're own and yet getting it pre built. Good stuff. A 512MB Graphics card isn't a bad idea but with DX 10 cards coming out as early as September you might want to hold off on that big investment. But if you just can't wait yeah at least go with the best like the 7950GX2 or X1950XT or something.
A lot of people look at the memory size on a graphics card, but you need to really look at memory bandwidth. Many 256MB vid-cards outperform 512. The memory size has become more of a marketing instrument companies are using, rather than a performance tool.
The amount of RAM will become more important when games start to use that much, but at this point it is more bandwidth based. But I tend to agree with Ex, wait for a DX10, then get 512 MB on that.
Yeah 512 Is very marketing-centric that's whay you see X1300's and 6200's with 512Mb of ram. You'll always get people thinking that that will be better than a 7800GTX with 256, probably with the intention of dominating the lowend market or something. But generally it's the highend cards that have it so in that respect it's not so bad.
A lot of memory and slow ram is not a good thing. I'd rather have higher clock and fast ram then more ram.
True but at least it's possible to crank up you're clockspeeds, extra memory's a nice insurance. But yeah DDR isn't going to compete with DDR3.
The great thing about DDR2 and DDR3 is their ability to deliever speeds at lower vol7ages that make them prime for overclocking. You dont need the extra memory. I'm telling everyone right now, it's a marketing ploy. Figure out what has the larger memory bandwidth. Back when 256MB was the big thing, why did you think you could get a 512MB MSI for less money? "Ooo it has more memory, it has to be better" - only to find out that it sucks. Why does it suck? Memory b/w was shitty.
Very true but what I'm getting at is if you're comparing pretty much the same card like say two X1950XT's, one has, let's pretend 256Mb's or vram and somewhat higher clockspeeds, the other has 512Mb's or vram and a bit lower clockspeeds. Assuming the pricing wasn't drastically different it would (to me) make sense to go with the 512Mb card as 256 is not going to cut it forever. I rememer it wasn't that long ago that most people felt that 128Mb a ridiculous amount of ram and nobody really needed it. It doesn't take long for those things to change as we all know. We'll see 512Mb cards become pretty useful by early 2k7 for sure.
Okay you're right there, but that scenario is less likely to happen since Chip manufacturers generally require certain specifications to be met.
i dont think the X1950XTX's are coming out untill sometimes like september, its going to compete with the G80 things from nvidia apparently. Get an X1900XTX, there falling in price slowely now. woah, x1900's have gone down in price, first time i seen them selling for £211
I was only using it as a random example. And while I'm sure it'll be a good card it'd probably be pretty lousy competition for the G80. I mean it's just going to be a beefed up X1900XTX or something, not a whole new league.
apparently the X1950XTX wont be just a beefed up x1900xt, i think it's going to use GDDR4, umm and another nm chip, somthing like 60 maybe, just becouse it says x1950 dont mean its just going to be beefed up. its not a few MHZ faster, its about 50, if there is an X1900XTX for same price as an X1900XT, its obvious to get the X1900XTX, maybe its only 50mhz faster, wont make much difference, but to the hardcore gamer it might, so what does that tell you eh? Also ever heard of bragging rights, thats all a 7950 series card is from nvidia, overkill, bragging rights, same as an X1900XTX.
If you're a hardcore gamer and you buy a shitty overclocking lowgrade x1900XTX when for the same price you could get a nice overclocking x1900XT, you better shoot yourself. I'm not going into why your comment was stupid. But keep feeding the forum lies or keep believing them - if we both had the same products, my box would out perform yours anyday. If you call any top-of the line card overkill/bragging rights, then maybe. But it's these overkill/bragging-right cards that gamer designers are beginning to cater to. You can't run very high settings on just a "good" card anymore. Not to mention, if you have a larger resolution (as I like to use) you will suffer a considerable performance loss. These cards are not overkill.
well i have a mid end card (X800XT PE) and i can run nearly every game on highest settings on 1280x1024, X1900XT is more than enough, and an X1900XTX aint crappy lowgrade, its just a factory overclocked X1900XT and will still go as high as a X1900XT. I have never fed the forum lie's, i try to help, i make mistaked, but i DONT feed the forum lies, and i dont try to insult other people too. Dont tell me i am feeding the forum lie's, i may be wrong, but i can learn from my mistakes, i bet if someome corrected you, ohhh no you wouldent have any of that, you think you know it all I know you know a hell of alot more about computers than me, no need to say i am feeding the forum lies though.
Really? What is every game? My friend has an X800XT and I guarantee you he cannot run every game on the highest settings. And those where he can he suffers a significant FPS drop. If you're going to reply to something I said, go back and make sure you understand what was stated. I was saying if the XTX is a lowgrade model, not to be confused with XTX cards are lowgrades themselves - granted you have to be able to read to understand what I'm saying. For instance, MSI and Sapphire both put out shitty (low cost) graphics cards. They don't usually overclock that well and are stock just a little better than a decent XT. If it came down to a decent XT which can clock very nicely, or one of the many shitty XTX cards, I'd go with the XT. It will outperform (over clock to higher) than the XTX. I don't need to think - for the most part I do know it all. When I need to be corrected I will "Thank" the person. I've needed to thank one person, mainly because my memory had faded on the subject.
i can play, N4SMW, Oblivion, F.E.AR, DreamFall, Cod2, FarCry, Doom3, Tomb Raider Legends, Black and White 2, i play them all at highest settings, and if you notice my cpu is at 2.8ghz, and an Overclocked 3700+ to 2.8ghz does better than a FX57 by a extreamly small margin. Lol, you dont know it all, no one knows it all. If you want to say anything else to me, use PM, this is off topic and going against rules.
