My Next Machine

[Antman]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

...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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

 

[Antman]

...the Intelivision...

Good memories. The undefendable QB rollout pass to the opposite sideline. B-17 Bomber.

Oh yeah.

 

[DarkXeno]

Good memories. The undefendable QB rollout pass to the opposite sideline. B-17 Bomber.

Oh yeah.

Sad thing is I still go to flea markets and pick up broken old console repair and then sell them.

 

[Cindy]

One more thing to consider if i had just an X-Box i would not have Windows 7 ... therefor i would not be here

 

[Antman]

...MMORPGs...

I had to Google that, said the old man. The WoW "Corrupted Blood plague incident" was an interesting read.

So, check this out... a nephew has recently chosen to play WoW and has asked my assistance in upgrading his machine. I bought him this eMachine T5246 last year ($200). I told him when I gave him the machine that it would serve his needs for a few years unless he decided to game on it. The RAM is maxed at 2GB. What video card can I get for < $100 US that will support WoW on this machine? Like this?

 

[mikinho]

I had to Google that, said the old man. The WoW "Corrupted Blood plague incident" was an interesting read.

So, check this out... a nephew has recently chosen to play WoW and has asked my assistance in upgrading his machine. I bought him this eMachine T5246 last year ($200). I told him when I gave him the machine that it would serve his needs for a few years unless he decided to game on it. The RAM is maxed at 2GB. What video card can I get for < $100 US that will support WoW on this machine? Like this?

What OS and resolution does he play on? Does he raid or mostly pvp? WoW really isn't an performance intense game, especially since they removed 40 man raids but if he isn't playing w/ all the effects enabled he really is missing out.

Btw, The Corrupted Blood glitch was pretty fun though frustrating as well.

 

[mikinho]

So, check this out... a nephew has recently chosen to play WoW and has asked my assistance in upgrading his machine. I bought him this eMachine T5246 last year ($200). I told him when I gave him the machine that it would serve his needs for a few years unless he decided to game on it. The RAM is maxed at 2GB. What video card can I get for < $100 US that will support WoW on this machine? Like this?

And the 9500 GT would be enough but it is PCI-e 2.0, the eMachine is probably only PCI-e 1.

 

[mikinho]

What is funny is that when I played WoW I couldn't afford to upgrade my machine, I used whatever systems I got from work. When I quit I made a couple thousand from selling my accounts. I built a pretty bad @$$ gaming system but never really utilized it.

 

[Antman]

And the 9500 GT would be enough but it is PCI-e 2.0, the eMachine is probably only PCI-e 1.

I understand. I told him that PCI-e 2.0 would future proof his investment a bit, and will also play in the 1.0 slot.

OS: Currently Vista32, but I have scheduled him for some partition resizing and an install of Win7-64.

Res: His monitor supports 1440x900

Raid and pvp: must be WoW jargon ?!?

WoW is not installed at this time and he is travelling out of the country soon. I will do the work on his machine the week of July 19.

BTW: Your Yammm crashed on me instantly on it's first execution, but is running fine now. VLC 1.0 has released and I am a bit excited about ditching WiMP this weekend.

* Off to some WoW research...brb

 

[mikinho]

At that resolution the 9500 GT will be more than sufficient. With only 2 GBs of RAM a fast ReadyBoost drive would help as well for a relatively low cost.

PvE = Player versus environment
PvP = Player versus player
A raid typically refers to a group of 10 or more players working togethor in PvE

In terms of Yammm, if there are any problems, suggestions or improvements I can make please contribute to http://www.sevenforums.com/media-center/10757-yammm-yet-another-media-meta-manager.html. A new version will be release soon (this weekend I hope pending no emergencies at home) but I'll be working on a new build shortly afterwards.

 

[pparks1]

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.

Maybe I'm confused here...but doesn't the Intel E6700 CPU run on a 1066 front side bus? And the Intel FSB is quad-pumped, so if we divide 1066 by 4, we end up with 266Mhz. So, in the event of DDR2 RAM...the FSB speed of 266 x 2 = 533Mhz...would put the RAM at a 1:1 ratio with the CPU.

It's my understanding that the CPU and the RAM aren't going to communicate any faster than the Front Side Bus speed will allow. I think you are confusing the FSB speed total of 1066 with your RAM speed of 1066...since the FSB speed is 4x and the ram speed is 2x.

Technically, with your DDR2 1066 ram, if you divide 1066 by 2 you would get 533Mhz. So, you should be able to effectively run your FSB at 533Mhz and if it were quad-pumped that would be a FSB speed of 2133 in order to run that at the full rated speed.

So, with your CPU running at stock clock speeds (no overclocking) DDR2 533 RAM would have been fast enough to run as fast as your system could possibly go. DDR2 667 would have given you some heardroom for overclocking your CPU a bit (up from 266 to 333) and DDR2 800 would have given you the ability to up your CPU even more (from 266 to 400) while still running at 100% the speed of your system.

Somebody can correct me if I am wrong.