Alright nerds.

[Fenghuang]

My new boss runs a computer business alongside the Quizno's he owns and he's offered to order them using his wholesale account and then have me pay the same. I want AMD, must be PCI-E (duh) and have decent onboard sound. Most other things are negotiable. Oh, slot 939 is the new AMD one also IIRC, that's another thing it needs to be.

 

Also if anyone who's been keeping up with the tech a little closer than me knows if there's any new standards just on the horizon that I should wait for to upgrade to, please do speak up.

 

This is the site I can order from. Have at it.

 

EDIT: I can't believe I forgot to mention what I need. I need a new processor, graphics card, and MOBO. I'm running on an AMD 2500 and 9600XT right now.

Edited May 1, 2006 by Fenghuang

[NInjaPirate]

After you buy new hardware, how about you send the old hardware to me. What are you expecting to run on this?

Edited May 1, 2006 by NInjaPirate

[Fenghuang]

Already promised it to my family.

 

I wanna run a few of the games I already have at full settings (Half Life 2, new Prince of Persia, San Andreas, couple others) and I want to get Oblivion and play it at settings > ugly, as well as newer games that come along as they pique my interest.

[Llyranor]

Oh, man. You just got told, dawg.

[Atreides]

Bling bling.

[Walsingham]

Their website is stinky with flash gimmicks.

[Bokishi]

Get an Xbox!

[Fenghuang]

Waiting until it drops in price some more. Also, the games for Xbox are still comparitively expensive to PC games.

 

Also I really wanna upgrade.

 

Bok, be helpful instead of being an ass, there's only like three or four games I want on Xbox anyway, PS2 is better.

[WITHTEETH]

Waiting until it drops in price some more. Also, the games for Xbox are still comparitively expensive to PC games. 

 

Also I really wanna upgrade. 

 

Bok, be helpful instead of being an ass, there's only like three or four games I want on Xbox anyway, PS2 is better.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree with Bokishi - You might want to buy an Xbox first and wait till new hardware/lowerprices are set for what you want on pc, since THATS what changes most frequently. PC prices and components are always in flux.

 

EDIT: have you seen the comparison of XBOX vs PC with oblivion? The XBox is just about as good as a SLI Rig to be honest.

 

IGN compares PC and Xbox Versions

Edited May 1, 2006 by WITHTEETH

[Bokishi]

Video cards are currently going through a dark age, where even the best cards seem to falter on the newest games, like Tomb Raider Legend and Tom Clancy Advanced Warfighter. <_<

Edited May 1, 2006 by Bokishi

[Fenghuang]

Waiting until it drops in price some more. Also, the games for Xbox are still comparitively expensive to PC games. 

 

Also I really wanna upgrade. 

 

Bok, be helpful instead of being an ass, there's only like three or four games I want on Xbox anyway, PS2 is better.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree with Bokishi - You might want to buy an Xbox first and wait till new hardware/lowerprices are set for what you want on pc, since THATS what changes most frequently. PC prices and components are always in flux.

 

EDIT: have you seen the comparison of XBOX vs PC with oblivion? The XBox is just about as good as a SLI Rig to be honest.

 

IGN compares PC and Xbox Versions

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

That's an Xbox 360. There's no way in hell I'm buying one of those because A) I have no games for it. B) I have no HDTV and that would cost more than a new computer more'n likely. C) The hardware's still new and very, very faulty.

 

I'll buy a PS2 eventually, then an Xbox maybe, but for now I just want advice for a PC upgrade. Can you guys give this to me or are you just going to keep telling me to get a console like a$$holes.

[Bokishi]

But you know whats going to happen right, I'm gonna tell you to get nvidia and you'll go "ZOMG ATI PWNS NEVAH" and then we'll go back and fourth back and fourth... unless you're willing to migrate, that 7900 gtx is pretty kickin' I hear. I don't want one because I'm waitng for the 8800 series to come out.

[Fenghuang]

Did I say anywhere in that post that I was ATI exclusive?

 

I'm trying to figure what is best.

 

I've used Nvidia cards before, I had an old GeForce 4 that was pretty awesome.

 

ATi cards are prettier though and generally perform pretty similar to better. Also they're easier to overclock...

[Bokishi]

Prettier? You mean the card itself?

[Fenghuang]

Yes, shiny and red, good for case modding. Geez.

[Bokishi]

Green cards are sexier. Green cards with big fans

Edited May 1, 2006 by Bokishi

[Fenghuang]

Black PCB with gold details is the sexiest of all, but I've only seen that on motherboards and that one Creative sound card.

 

Anyhow, computer, now!

[angshuman]

How long do you wish to wait? Intel's Conroe is coming up in a couple of months, and (I believe) it's worth waiting for.

 

Bokishi's right, video cards are now going through a "dark age". Nvidia is trying to milk their aging architectures for all they are worth by mindlessly bumping up pipe counts and clock speeds, while ATi are fumbling with cool new architectures that are not quite mature enough to be implemented efficiently using current technologies.

[Fenghuang]

I really really don't like Intel.

 

Between the poor business practices and up until possibly Conroe inferior bang for buck compared to AMD, Conroe would have to be something really amazing for me to shell out my cash to them.

 

It'll probably be 3-6 months depending on what I need to spend money on between then and now and how much the upgrade ends up totaling.

[angshuman]

Between the poor business practices and up until possibly Conroe inferior bang for buck compared to AMD, Conroe would have to be something really amazing for me to shell out my cash to them. 

As far as microarchitecture is concerned, it's going to be very hard for Conroe to go wrong. It is the product of years of evolution and fine-tuning of what was a simple and beautiful microarchitecture to begin with. It's "wider" than any existing processor. Plus, Intel's manufacturing and process technologies are so much better than other fabs it's not even funny.

 

Of late, AMD has been the one charging ridiculous prices for its processors, especially the dual-cores (although they have been offering better performance).

 

As far as I can see, the only way Conroe can go wrong is if AMD comes up with something revolutionary via K10, or if Intel's platform/memory interface is ridiculously bad. Both are unlikely scenarios -- AMD has only announced their AM2 (DDR2) interface and do not appear to be introducing a new microarchitecture anytime soon, and Intel's bus, unsophisticated as it may be, does get the job done somehow through sheer brute force.

[alanschu]

I have a bias towards the underdogs, so I'll likely stick with AMD.

 

I haven't really followed processors closely since the 1 GHz race though.

[angshuman]

I have a bias towards the underdogs, so I'll likely stick with AMD.

B-but... aren't Intel the underdogs? Look at their stock prices. Look at their current products. Look at their management. :D

[mkreku]

I like Asus. Their motherboards are usually good for overclockers with their user friendly bios.

 

I'd suggest something like this for the motherboard:

http://www.malabs.com/product.asp?product_...b&pass=&shopid=

 

To be honest, I don't know anything about the onboard sound on it, but the other components look good. It supports SATA2 also, which is a good thing.

 

 

 

Since you never mentioned a budget, I'll assume you're human and can't buy the AMD FX-60 (which is the obvious choice if you're made of money).

 

Good CPU for the smaller budget: AMD Athlon 3700+ (1 MB cache)

http://www.malabs.com/product.asp?product_...b&pass=&shopid=

 

Good CPU for the medium budget: AMD Athlon X2 4400+ (2 MB cache)

http://www.malabs.com/product.asp?product_...b&pass=&shopid=

 

The best CPU for the HAHAHA-ALL-THE-WAY-TO-THE-BANK budget: Athlon FX-60

http://www.malabs.com/product.asp?product_...b&pass=&shopid=

 

 

 

For the video card, I'd suggest this one: ATI Radeon X1800GTO 256MB

http://www.malabs.com/product.asp?product_...b&pass=&shopid=

 

I bought that for my cousin the other week and even though it's not very pricey, it's performance these last few days has impressed the hell out of me. It cost like 60% of my Nvidia 7800 GS, but performs about equally! I've tried it with FEAR, Battlefield 2, Oblivion and in FEAR it detected maximum settings on everything automatically and when we ran the built-in performance test, it averaged 50+ fps and never went below 30! It also runs Oblivion very well.

 

The only problem with it is that it's so new. That means it would be difficult to find a master card if you'd want to take advantage of Crossfire (ATI's version of multi-GPU's, supported in the motherboard I suggested above), although that's sure to change in time.

[alanschu]

I have a bias towards the underdogs, so I'll likely stick with AMD.

B-but... aren't Intel the underdogs? Look at their stock prices. Look at their current products. Look at their management. :D

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hehe, this would totally be news to me.

 

I'm sure that even if a single stock of Intel was half the price of an AMD one, Intel still demolishes them with volume

[alanschu]

Compare video cards here

 

Compare CPUs here

 

You can pick two products to see how they compare, as well as the benchmark you are interested in.

Edited May 1, 2006 by alanschu