PC Help

[Professor S]

Guys, I just picked up a new PC which is being delivered at the end of this week. I thought you might be able to give me a good gaming ability review.

1) Processor: 2.4 Gig Pentium 4
2) Memory: 256 mb RDRAM (Ram-Bus Technology) - 2X faster than DDR
3) 19" Trinitron Performance Flat Screen Monitor with .24 dot pitch

Thats all pretty good. Here's my worry...

3) eVGA GeForce 4 64MB MX with TV Out

This didn't get that great of reviews, but I couldn't afford the next step up and this came standard with the 8250 Dell Dimension. My worry is not being able to play any new games in a year or 2, and what about now? Are there games I can't play now because of the card?

Thanks for you help in advance.

[manasecret]

You'll be able to play all of the games out now with pretty good graphics, but some of the FPS's might run slow. However, the games in the near future may pose problems, especially games like Doom 3.

It depends on what you play really. Some will work really well while others won't, depends on how graphic intensive each one is. In general, though, you won't be able to play with the best settings on any recent game.

Fortunately, by spending just a little more money, you could get a very good videocard and another stick of 256 MB RDRAM. If you can't afford it now, wait for the next generation of GeForce to come out in January or February (or wait longer for the next ATI), and all the top cards of the market now will be really cheap.

Even now you can get a GeForce 4 Ti4600 for around $200 - $250 if you look at different websites. You can get the best card out now (ATI Radeon 9700) for about $330 if you look in the right places, but I'm guessing you don't want to spend that much.

So my advice in two steps:

1. First buy another stick of RDRAM before anything else (and make sure it's the same kind as you have now)

2. Then sometime down the road buy one of the best cards of the market now when they get much cheaper

Since you have a very good processor and RDRAM is the best to have, that's really all you need to be able to play the games coming out in the next year or two.

db (deed bleed)

[Professor S]

Thanks a lot. Excellent advice. I knew I would find someone who knew what they were talking about here. :D

meanwhile over at FXB someone told me that DDR was better than RD. I'm no computer wiz, but I know Rambus is much better than DDR.

[Shadow_Link]

Originally posted by The Strangler
meanwhile over at FXB someone told me that DDR was better than RD. I'm no computer wiz, but I know Rambus is much better than DDR.

It actually depends on what processor you have, so it really isn't as clear cut as that. Maybe things have changed, but I thought that DDR RAM went best with AMD Athlon XP's, and RD RAM went best with P4's, and also that the AMD setup was better.

[Professor S]

All I've heard about AMD Athlon's are that they aren't as good as the P4. My entire IT staff told me to go with the P4. Is there anything they don't know that you could tell me?

[manasecret]

Last time I researched, which was about a month ago, this is how it went in order of best:

1. Best P4 with PC1066 (fastest) RDRAM (expensive)
2. Second best P4 with PC1066 RDRAM
3. Third best P4 with PC1066 RDRAM
4. Best P4 with PC800 RDRAM
5. Second best P4 with PC800 RDRAM
6. Best Athlon with best DDR
7. Third best P4 with PC800 RDRAM
8. 2nd best Athlon with best DDR
9. Best P4 with best DDR
....

And so on. That's a generalization obviously, but that's pretty much how it was. Athlon doesn't use RDRAM at all, not sure why they don't I just know they don't have an option to use it.

I'm guessing the list is about the same now, but I couldn't tell you with out looking around a bit.

So in general, the best P4 with the best RDRAM will kick the pants out of the best Athlon, but the price difference is also monstrous. Of course then you could step down a rung or two of the P4's and still beat an Athlon for closer to the same price. :D Which is what I did.

db (dee bee)

[Shadow_Link]

Ah, I thought my information was a bit dated. A couple of months back, AMD with DDR RAM was top... Unless people were BS'ing :D.

I would go with Manasecret's advice. If you really want to get the best out of your games, you may want to start with upgrading your RAM. And if you've got enough cash after that, definately try getting a better GPU. Look into the 128MB cards. The best now now is the Radeon 9700. But I guarantee that in a short while, Nvidia will top it with something better. So wait till then, and the price of the current cards should drop a bit.

To get an intensive game like Doom 3 running at a decent rate, you may have to get a very good GPU. I don't even think the top ones at the moment will be able to run it at its optimum, but they will definately do a more than adequate job.

[Null]

RD ram is better then DDR, it does depend on the system. but in most cases a P4 with RD is better.

as for the chips. it used to be an AMD was better then a P4, however P4 kept getting faster while AMD didnt really keep up. So as for now, a higher speed P4 is better then an AMD.

as for the GFX card, that would should work for most stuff. might not display the higest graphics that the game can do in SOME cases.

right now id recommend a gf4 ti4600 128mb

However if that one is fine for you now. prolly the best thing would be to wait untill the NV30's come out (gf5's basically) thoes will be top of the line when they arrive.

or you could just wait untill a game comes along that you really need a new gfx card for.



Should get some games man. (cough Unreal Tournament 2003 cough)

we can play sometime. ;)

[Professor S]

I'm not a huge FPS fan. I'm more into strategies and RPG's. I want the graphics so that I can be engrossed in the lush enironments. Plus I want to get Black and White and Warcraft 3.

[Null]

id say wait for the nv30's. if your going to try and get a good one, might as well get the best when they're new.


as for games. never heard of black and white.


but i'll kill you in warcraft3 if you like. :D

[Mushlafa]

Originally posted by Null


as for games. never heard of black and white.




Your jokin right????

[GameMaster]

Originally posted by Null
as for games. never heard of black and white.

Really? That's really strange. It was just one of the most highly praised games when it came out 2 years ago and it still stands as one of the greatest PC games ever. How could you have not heard of it? :confused:

[Null]

most likely cuz 2 years ago i didnt play very much computer games.

i think the only one i played was quake3

2 years ago i hated most computer games. refused to see them as being as good as they are.

didnt realize he was talking about an older game.

[manasecret]

Originally posted by The Strangler
I'm not a huge FPS fan. I'm more into strategies and RPG's. I want the graphics so that I can be engrossed in the lush enironments. Plus I want to get Black and White and Warcraft 3.

You'll be just fine with what you have now, then, unless by RPG you mean games like Morrowind (very graphic intensive).

If all you want is B&W and WC3, though, then you'll be absolutely fine for a long while.

I thought B&W sucked, by the way. It was ok until around the third level, which seemed impossible to beat. I thought the whole idea behind it was cool, but it had poor gameplay to back it up and a lot of the puzzles were impossible just because the controls made them impossible (which isn't challenging just frustrating).

If it's $20 I'd pick it up otherwise I wouldn't touch it. IGN gave it a 10 or nearly a 10 but then a little while later the guy who reviewed admitted later in the letters section or somewhere that he was caught by all the hype. After the hype died down, he realized that the game really isn't that fun.

db

[Happydude]

Originally posted by Null
never heard of black and white.

:rofl:






:lol:






:D





...





sorry...


*walks off chuckling*

[Null]

look in the mirror or something? :p

[Happydude]

........no mirrors in my room...but i did look at my sister...:D

[Shadow_Link]

Originally posted by GameMaster
Really? That's really strange. It was just one of the most highly praised games when it came out 2 years ago and it still stands as one of the greatest PC games ever. How could you have not heard of it? :confused:

It's also one of the most overrated games ever.

But don't get me wrong, it's a good game.

[Professor S]

I've played the game before and I loved it, but its definitely not for everyone. True, it does get repetitive at times and there are some frustrating aspects, but I think the pure uniqueness of the title won me over. The AI is the best I've ever played as you really feel like you are raising your Avatar and that he can think on his own.

Thsi and Warcraft will be the 2 first games I'll play on my PC.

Just in case you were wondering, my old PC ran with a 8 MB graphics card... DOH!!!

[Professor S]

Update for anyone who cares. I just ordered 2 more sticks of 128 PC 1066 40ns for my Dimension bumping it all the way up to 512. Here's a mind numbingly fast PC experience :D

[Null]

you made sure you have enough ram slots for 2 more sticks first right?

hehe :D


but yea, the amount of ram i'd recomment is 512 at least, tis a good amount.

i'm hoping to be up to 1024 after christmas

[Professor S]

But of course. The guy actually caught me at 4allmemory.com. (HIGHLY recommended, cheap and great Customer Service)

I was going to order a 256 stick and he told me the Dimension 8250's only support individual sticks of 126, so I ordered 2 of them. He said a lot of people are upgrading the model PC that I have. I'm not surprised as its MUCH cheaper to do it yourself.

BTW, I have enough slots to upgrade to 2 Gigs if I want to :D

[Null]

i think you mean your motherboard can support 2 gigs.

you prolly have 3 to 4 actual slots.

im pretty sure you have to buy a tray kinda thing that plugs into one of the slots that creates a bunch more slots to have a ton of sticks in.

never seen a motherboard with more then 4 actual slots on it. (then again i never went out looking.)

BTW, mine can go up to 3 gigs. But we not in competition. :D (sorry, hehe)


-EDIT- Actually i just thought about that.... 4 slots, with a 512 stick in each is 2 gigs. so yea, guess you can get in 2 gigs without expasion slots. sorry, hehe.

mine can goto 3 gigs, but only has 3 slots, so eh *shrugs*

[Professor S]

I can't put 512 sticks in though, only 128s, and the guy said I could upgrade to 2 gigs on my current PC.

2 Gigs though? We probably won't hit the need for that for YEARS.

Question: Do you have RD or DDR RAM?

[Null]

mines DDR. i toyed with the idea back and forth whether to get RD, and finally it just came down to price, and DDR isnt too far behind RD in performance.

only 128's? that seems odd to say the least.

Does RD ram come higher then 128 right now? (if 128 is the higest that makes more sence)

as for 128 then. you'd need 16 ram slots to get to 2 gigs. i SERIOUSLY doubt you have 16 ram slots.

now if you have one of the expansion things, its possible. but i dont even think they could fit 16 on a board, unless its an odd shaped board that lies flat, and has a vertical wall on it.

have you ever looked inside it yet? You know what kinda motherboard it has?

or what is this? Dell Deminsion? if so what number 8 something? or just give me some names so i can look up the motherboard and see what all it has.

just curious of what it looks like.

[Professor S]

I have a Dimension 8250

[Null]

im not sure why it would only take 128's

is this Duel channel RD ram? that might explain the pairs thing you mentioned.

dunno if i can find your exact mobo. theres a number on the back of your pc that lets you find out all the info on everything your personally PC came with by entering it in.

i dunno. i cannot see it having that many slots onboard.
obviously you'll know exactly how many it has when you open it up to put the new ones in. hehe
I suppose it doesnt really matter tho. IMO, 2 gigs is overkill for a home pc, let alone 3, i did not buy this mobo for the amount of ram it could handle. i can see maybe a server having that much. But once i get 1GB of ram. i dont really see me going over that amount.

you putting them in or someone else doing it for you?

[Professor S]

Yes it is dual channel RD RAM. How is that different from regular RD RAM. From what I gather it both loads and preloads info at the same time.

[Null]

im not sure exactly what it does. just know it speeds things up a bit, and it uses them in pairs....... downside being you must buy them 2 at a time.

dell website shows you can buy higher ram for a dim8250, maybe the guy just really recomended the 128? cuz like the 512 was over $400

[manasecret]

It's because what he has in there now is a pair of 128's, equaling 256 MB. If he wants to upgrade to 512 MB, he can't just buy a stick of 256MB because like you've been saying they have to be in pairs.

So to get 512MB with what he already has, he must buy two sticks of 128MB. Otherwise he would have to buy two 256MB sticks and throw away the two sticks of 128MB that he already has.

He could get up to 2GB of RAM if he got rid of the four sticks of 128's and bought four sticks of 512MB.

I think you almost knew that, just didn't put it together right or something. :)

db

[Null]

ok ok, i seem to remember some of this. been a while since i dealt with ram that needed pairs.

jist of it is he has to upgrade equally correct? cant have 2 128's and 2 256's ? all has to be equal?

(if thats really sayin what im tryin to say. heh)

[sdtPikachu]

RAMBUS RAM is a pain in the arse. If you need to upgrade it, you not only need stuff that's the same type, you need it from the same batch. So if you're gonna upgrade to 512 MB, you'll either need another stick of 256 from the same batch (ain't gonna happen), or you're gonna have to buy a whole new RIMM.

It's problems like this that make me hate RAMBUS, even though it delivers higher performance than DDR. Yeah, you'll get the highest performance with 1066 RAMBUS and an Intel 850i chipset, but the sheer pain in the arseness of RAMBUS means I would never ever use it.

A nice Athlon 2600 and DDR would give you equivalant performance, except in apps which are very dependant on memory bandwidth.

And to anyone else tempted to use RAMBUS; don't, if you value your sanity. Go grab an nForce 2 motherboard and make use of the dual-channel DDR that this chipset supports.