My Next Machine

Antman · 10 Jul 2009

I will not replace my current primary platform until USB3 is available. There are other emerging technologies, but slow transfer speeds from flash media is my pique. This thread, I suppose, is more of a rant about my current platform.

I tend to be an early adopter, and as such, I often pay some fairly steep prices for gear. About three years ago, I bought an upgrade processor that did not fit my motherboard. So I bought a new board. And case. And RAM. It was good money after bad. So, I decided to spend a lot more money.

I decided on an Intel E6700, Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi. I read in the Asus literature about Kingston HyperX PC8500 running at 1066 and paid about $270 for 2GB. About a year later, the next 2GB kit only cost me about $80.

Not once have I been able to run this RAM at 1066. It's SPD is 800 and all variations of overclocking crash the RAM after about 900. I even discovered this forum as a result of searching for clues on how to achieve 1066.

Asus was as helpful as any one of the 7 Best Buy personnel. Kingston and I have a virtual RMA express checkout agreement, and they are every bit worthy of being fit into the 7BB hierarchy.

I bit on some marketing bait. I have a nice board and good RAM. I have even upgraded my processor to the E6750. I am not complaining about my system - it is a good one, quite snappy in every respect (except USB throughput). I am just a bit ticked, even after three years, that Asus and Kingston marketed something that they knew did not function as advertised.

My next machine will not contain an Asus board or Kingston RAM.

And I still have that Socket 478 3.20E chip. I am looking for a board for it now. I have a fantasy that I can build a quiet low-profile system around it to connect to the TV in the bedroom.

Dinesh · 10 Jul 2009

Hi antman, asus boards are often not promising. I always prefer Intel mobo as they deliver good performance and they last long. And i always go for Transcend RAM. But Kingston is not bad though. May be it did not work for you, but my old pc had 512 MB kingston RAM that lasted for years, even the over clocking results very good.

DarkXeno · 10 Jul 2009

I understand what you are saying Antman. I have a machine I built 8 years ago. Like you I went and bought all top of the line stuff, but the usb 2.0 ports are horribly slow no matter what the device is. The rest of the machine is a tank its a MSI K7T266Pro RU mother board and a Athlon XP 1800+ besides the USB ports slow ness MSI only updated the BIOS a few times and then dropped support for the board all together within four months leaving the machine with only able to take up to a 120 gig drive and not being able to use two of them on the IDE raid, yep cant get two 120 to work on the raid channels. Other than that its been a nice machine and has been running for years I keep thinking about maxing out the ram on it and making it my new Media Center but those damn XP chips get so warm the fan would drive me nuts.
There is little love for us that adopt when the newest item comes along, but hell we have fun messing with it when we do get our hands on it.

btw: I still have an asus mobo running a PII 450 just wish I could remember what model it was.

Cindy · 10 Jul 2009

I have spoke to my Dad a few times about my next Computer as i hope to go water cooled, i7 and Crossfire, as i do like games and would like to build high end gamer .... but have to save for the parts first

DarkXeno · 10 Jul 2009

Cindy said:

I have spoke to my Dad a few times about my next Computer as i hope to go water cooled, i7 and Crossfire, as i do like games and would like to build high end gamer .... but have to save for the parts first

So many things can be said on this statement but only one word seem right for it Cindy...Awesome

Antman · 10 Jul 2009

Cindy said:

...i do like games and would like to build high end gamer ....

I am not a gamer,so help me to understand something. Why not an XBox 360, PS3 and a Wii? The combined cost is lower, the performance is superior, and the physical interface is more intuitive.

Are there significant game titles that aren't available in those formats?

Don't get me wrong. I have a slight belief that gaming requirements are the true driving force behind hardware development.

This weekend, my Number One and his friends are going to have a gaming tournament at our home and I am considering installing my EA Sports 2006 package on my machine for them.

Cindy · 10 Jul 2009

Thanks DarkXeno, Dad has been building for 25+ years so i can always count on his advice on hardware/software, Oh and as SSD is quite expensive i would go W/D Raptors for HDDs :)

DarkXeno · 10 Jul 2009

Antman said:

I am not a gamer,so help me to understand something. Why not an XBox 360, PS3 and a Wii? The combined cost is lower, the performance is superior, and the physical interface is more intuitive.

Are there significant game titles that aren't available in those formats?

Don't get me wrong. I have a slight belief that gaming requirements are the true driving force behind hardware development.

This weekend, my Number One and his friends are going to have a gaming tournament at our home and I am considering installing my EA Sports 2006 package on my machine for them.

I can only speak for myself here, I can say it depends the only system I don't own is a PS3 I have all the older systems too going back to the Intelivision (I have yet to sell a game back to a store).. and I play PC games too, it just comes down to what type of game and how they are played. Some games just work so much better on a pc than console. With the fact I do some video editing I can also use the hardware for that along with gaming. It all comes down to what you like to use, mouse/keyboard or joystick, wheel, gamepad. After a post like this I think I might have to turn in my geek card...

Cindy · 10 Jul 2009

Antman said:

I am not a gamer,so help me to understand something. Why not an XBox 360, PS3 and a Wii? The combined cost is lower, the performance is superior, and the physical interface is more intuitive.

Are there significant game titles that aren't available in those formats?

Don't get me wrong. I have a slight belief that gaming requirements are the true driving force behind hardware development.

This weekend, my Number One and his friends are going to have a gaming tournament at our home and I am considering installing my EA Sports 2006 package on my machine for them.

Simply Antman because an X-Box is just a gaming platform, a high-end Computer can do much more than just play games (you cant compile a letter or create a Video walk through on a X-Box :))

mikinho · 10 Jul 2009

Antman said:

I am not a gamer,so help me to understand something. Why not an XBox 360, PS3 and a Wii? The combined cost is lower, the performance is superior, and the physical interface is more intuitive.

I think this is only true for sport games. It comes down to personal preference but I believe for almost any other genre the PC offers a much superior platform.

And I take it you've never experience the addiction factor of MMORPGs.

I was a hard-core console gamer for a long time, I kept a somewhat ignornat ideology that PC gaming was stupid but when I started playing MMORPGs and FPS on a PC that changed. Console games couldn't keep my interest for more than a day or two.

I've pretty much given up on PC gaming when I quit WoW (sold my accounts) and I hardly play my 360 or Wii anymore either due it just pails in comparison to PC gaming.