Curse

LockerLoad · May 25, 2008, 12:51 AM // 00:51

2Gb is plenty for most people on XP. Vista however is a resource hungry OS so I'd recommend more.

Although the applications you're currently running won't use more than 2Gb of RAM the extra memory will allow for OS creep, antivirus, background services and future RAM hungry games.

You can minimize apps to desktop faster if your OS doesn't have to cache them to the HDD(more RAM means less virtual memory use), your PC will seem faster.

If you must run Vista for DX10 support you can stick with the 32bit version despite the 3.25Gb limit. I strongly recommend you purchase 4Gb of Ram as it is really cheap right now. Buy matching kits at the same time to ensure compatibility.

moriz · May 25, 2008, 03:24 AM // 03:24

if vista 32bit can only recognize 3.25gb, would dedicating 512mb to the integrated graphics have no effect on system ram, if i get the 4GB kit?

LockerLoad · May 25, 2008, 03:59 AM // 03:59

I don't know for certain as I've never tried it but I believe that to be the case.

"Various devices in a typical computer require memory-mapped access. This is known as memory-mapped I/O (MMIO). For the MMIO space to be available to 32-bit operating systems, the MMIO space must reside within the first 4 GB of address space."

"For example, if you have a video card that has 256 MB of onboard memory, that memory must be mapped within the first 4 GB of address space. If 4 GB of system memory is already installed, part of that address space must be reserved by the graphics memory mapping. Graphics memory mapping overwrites a part of the system memory. These conditions reduce the total amount of system memory that is available to the operating system."

"The reduction in available system memory depends on the devices that are installed in the computer. However, to avoid potential driver compatibility issues, the 32-bit versions of Windows Vista limit the total available memory to 3.12 GB."

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605

I've determined that I was mistaken about the amount of RAM useable by Vista32 according to this document It's actually 3.12Gb

EDIT: If I interpret the Microsoft Documentation correctly the memory mapped to the video card or other devices won't impact the 3.12Gb visible to Vista as long as it doesn't exceed the balance ie. no more than 880Mb.

Try the 32bit version and see how it works for you. Since you can DL Vista64 for free you can always "upgrade" if there's a problem.

BTW I've encountered very few compatibility problems using XP64 with 32bit applications.

The only applications I've had issues with were OCCT(new version works) and a free MMORPG which was crap neway(might have been Kal online). Oddly X64 has gotten me around certain Ahem "limitations"(anti scripting code) in various games...

Is X64 worth the hassles? For me it is. You'll have to determine that for yourself.

Brianna · May 25, 2008, 04:16 AM // 04:16

I'd honestly say go with Vista 64 bit.. I hated it at first, but now I love it, and when I first got it I swore that I'd never buy a 64 bit OS again in my life, but now I think differently. It just takes getting used to, you will notice it is worth it in the end.

I did have some software compatibilities at first, but I learned to get over them, and that a few stupid programs aren't worth dooms-daying the whole system. Unless running certain software is an absolute must (and usually it works anyway) then your best bet is in 64 bit.

I'd just say don't tie the rope around your neck, keep a copy of XP on dual boot or something in case, sometimes I do find uses for my XP still and that's why I haven't got rid of it. When my RAM died, and I was stuck with 1 gig, XP saved me.

moriz · May 25, 2008, 12:48 PM // 12:48

alrighty, i've revised my list. i've done some browsing of local stores, and those stores will have preference since... well, they're local.

harddrive: http://www.pccyber.com/?v=product&i=HD-ST3500320AS $79.99
memory: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...597&CatId=2368 64.99
motherboard: http://www.canadacomputers.com/index...9&cid=MB. 350 $99.99
CPU: http://www.everbest.on.ca/ver2/showProduct.php?id=2043 $175
powersupply: http://www.pccyber.com/?v=product&i=PS-ANTEC-EA500 $88
case: http://www.everbest.on.ca/ver2/showProduct.php?id=2897 $69
DVD drive: http://www.everbest.on.ca/ver2/showProduct.php?id=2503 $31

total: $607.97
after tax: $687.01

ridiculously under budget. looks like i'll be able to purchase the new HD4800 series without my next paycheck.

Snograt · May 25, 2008, 04:21 PM // 16:21

Something bizarre about that. The site is Canadian, so presumably the prices are in $CDN, yet the mail-in rebate on the OCZ is in US$.

What's the exchange rate? Their price says 64 $CDN minus 30 $US = $34.

No big deal I guess, just odd...

Quote:

Originally Posted by PC shop, eh?

* Click here to download information for:
$30 (USD) Mail In Rebate on Select OCZ Products - O261-9030-8044-2006-6046-9062-9068-9032-9028-9052-8078-8070-9006-7054-8082-2005-9024
Valid 05/17/2008 - 05/31/2008
This rebate MUST be postmarked within 30 days of purchase.
This rebate is in USD currency.
Notice: Limit one (1) rebate per person, address, company, or household.

Lord Sojar · May 25, 2008, 04:23 PM // 16:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

alrighty, i've revised my list. i've done some browsing of local stores, and those stores will have preference since... well, they're local.

harddrive: http://www.pccyber.com/?v=product&i=HD-ST3500320AS $79.99
memory: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...597&CatId=2368 64.99
motherboard: http://www.canadacomputers.com/index...9&cid=MB. 350 $99.99
CPU: http://www.everbest.on.ca/ver2/showProduct.php?id=2043 $175
powersupply: http://www.pccyber.com/?v=product&i=PS-ANTEC-EA500 $88
case: http://www.everbest.on.ca/ver2/showProduct.php?id=2897 $69
DVD drive: http://www.everbest.on.ca/ver2/showProduct.php?id=2503 $31

total: $607.97
after tax: $687.01

ridiculously under budget. looks like i'll be able to purchase the new HD4800 series without my next paycheck.

Ok, there was a lot of AMD hate earlier in this thread. I think AMD is great, and their prices are wonderful right now. They have a great, stable, rock solid platform with an amazing chipset to boot. HOWEVER, I must tell you that getting an Athlon X2 processor would be silly. That is antique technology. Go with an Phenom X3 or X4 CPU, because the K10 architecture, despite its flaws, is still a lot better then the K8. Not only that, but... AM2+ socket + AM2+ processor = HAX as far as FSB goes due to Hypertransport 3.0.

So yeh, go go Phenom processor, now.

http://www.pccyber.com/?v=product&i=...HD9600ZWCGDBOX

That one, in particular. So worth the extra, um, what 80-90 CAD?

LockerLoad · May 25, 2008, 05:03 PM // 17:03

Moriz,

Looks good to me.

The EA500 is a solid PSU but the Corsair is superior IMHO. In addition to the 120mm fan The Corsair is I believe a Private labeled Seasonic(the Cadillac of PSUs).

Either one will doubtless do the job, the Corsair will just exhaust more air from the chassis.

LockerLoad · May 25, 2008, 05:09 PM // 17:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rahja the Thief

Ok, there was a lot of AMD hate earlier in this thread. I think AMD is great, and their prices are wonderful right now. They have a great, stable, rock solid platform with an amazing chipset to boot. HOWEVER, I must tell you that getting an Athlon X2 processor would be silly. That is antique technology. Go with an Phenom X3 or X4 CPU, because the K10 architecture, despite its flaws, is still a lot better then the K8. Not only that, but... AM2+ socket + AM2+ processor = HAX as far as FSB goes due to Hypertransport 3.0.

So yeh, go go Phenom processor, now.

http://www.pccyber.com/?v=product&i=...HD9600ZWCGDBOX

That one, in particular. So worth the extra, um, what 80-90 CAD?

Rhaja, There's no AMD hate here just a sincere cost benefit analysis.

EDIT: I'm a card carrying AMD enthusiast My "antique" Opteron 180 runs at ~3.0ghz in a DFI NF4 Ultra-D with 4GB of 500mhz ram. It Isn't the bottleneck in my system, my GPU is. That will be the case with the AMD 6400/4800 combo as well. Still I couldn't recomend AMD CPUs over Intel right now.

Read this so as not to spread misinformation pls. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...rade,1928.html

AMD Phenom CPUs are overpriced compared to Intel Core2 CPUs. 3 or 4 cores net NO gain in games. Why pay for an idle core that runs 700mhz slower on a fast bus that your CPU and GPU can't utilize anyway?

If Moriz decides to buy a Phenom down the line if and when AMD offers something worth spending $250+ on, she will have the right socket for the job.

Don't go go Phenom unless you want less performance for more money.

Lord Sojar · May 25, 2008, 05:40 PM // 17:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by LockerLoad

Rhaja, There's no AMD hate here just a sincere cost benefit analysis.

EDIT: I'm a card carrying AMD enthusiast My "antique" Opteron 180 runs at ~3.0ghz in a DFI NF4 Ultra-D with 4GB of 500mhz ram. It Isn't the bottleneck in my system, my GPU is. That will be the case with the AMD 6400/4800 combo as well. Still I couldn't recomend AMD CPUs over Intel right now.

Read this so as not to spread misinformation pls. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...rade,1928.html

AMD Phenom CPUs are overpriced compared to Intel Core2 CPUs. 3 or 4 cores net NO gain in games. Why pay for an idle core that runs 700mhz slower on a fast bus that your CPU and GPU can't utilize anyway?

If Moriz decides to buy a Phenom down the line if and when AMD offers something worth spending $250+ on, she will have the right socket for the job.

Don't go go Phenom unless you want less performance for more money.

That isn't true. Moriz is waiting for the 4870 AMD/ATi offerings which launch end of June or beginning of July (I have no confirmation from AMD's offices on anything right now... it was a long week)

Thus, it would be pointless to get a 90nm (NINETY!!) based fab at this point. That is so wasteful, is an energy hog, and would bottleneck the new PCIe 2.0 based 4870's. Phenom processors may have their negatives, but they are most certainly better than their Athlon counterparts. I design fabs for a living, I wouldn't give bad advice in this area. AMD has their issues, I will not argue that. Hell, I am their enemy considering my employer and my allegiance to them. I love AMD, always have, and I hope they are still here 2 years from now, hopefully turning up the heat on Intel with their upcoming parallel architecture, using subprocessors imbedded on carbon tubes. That is going to be nuts if it works out.

PS: I don't need to read articles on Tom's. Anandtech is a better site anyways, Anand is an amazing guy, had the privilege of meeting him at last developers conference. I am a bit above those platform tests they perform, as I perform about 20x more tests in a months time then they probably do in 3 months (which is by no means fun, in any sense of the word or the letters, F U N. I would rather suck on a cyanide Popsicle)

moriz · May 25, 2008, 06:26 PM // 18:26

on the CPU front, i'm essentially split between the athlon X2 6400 and the phenom X3 8750. according to tom's hardware, the two performs within 2.4% of each other overall, with the phenom beating the athlon on 3D rendering tasks.

phenom is only $40 more expensive. however, with the motherboard recommended to me by Lockerload, i MIGHT have to flash the motherboard BIOs, which is impossible without another AMD processor handy.

i'm definately not getting a quad core. i don't need it, and i probably won't need it in the forseeable future. it will probably come down to whether the motherboard can support the phenom out of the box or not. phenom or athlon... maybe i should just flip a coin :S

Lord Sojar · May 25, 2008, 08:56 PM // 20:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

on the CPU front, i'm essentially split between the athlon X2 6400 and the phenom X3 8750. according to tom's hardware, the two performs within 2.4% of each other overall, with the phenom beating the athlon on 3D rendering tasks.

phenom is only $40 more expensive. however, with the motherboard recommended to me by Lockerload, i MIGHT have to flash the motherboard BIOs, which is impossible without another AMD processor handy.

i'm definately not getting a quad core. i don't need it, and i probably won't need it in the forseeable future. it will probably come down to whether the motherboard can support the phenom out of the box or not. phenom or athlon... maybe i should just flip a coin :S

Or flip on your light switch, then off again, and repeat that 7000x. That is how much electricity the Athlon X2 will extra per week compared to the X3 Phenom. Go with the Phenom. It isn't just performance that I am recommending it on.

moriz · May 25, 2008, 11:12 PM // 23:12

i've read that the phenoms have power management problems while idle. in fact, it apparently draws more power idle than an idling 6400. or at least, that's what it said on tom's hardware.

zamial · May 26, 2008, 12:43 AM // 00:43

Im gonna break this down, not just for moriz but for anyone reading this. I too WAS an AMD fan but the times have changed.

FACTS: AMD chips draw more power and run hotter than the intel counterparts.
Intel gave up that architecture for those reasons. This also answers the question of what happened to the P4 series.

The ugly truth no one wants you to know. The Hardware in computers are moving to platform based.

Intel = Nvidia - SLI platform
AMD = radeon - Spider platform

Yes you can still mix and match BUT each platform can "sense" its components and gives a performance boost when using the same platform components.

Yes you can mix and match BUT you loose the above mentioned "built in" performance boost.

I ran AMD when they were the best but unfortunately they no longer are AT THE MOMENT.

I also am going to add in here that, from what I have learned is, math errors. The more cores you stack on top of each other the more math errors in the chip there are. This is getting better.

AMD is going to get its teeth kicked in. When they launch the new and better than intel's chips that are 45nm(which AMD has been struggling with) Intel is gonna launch the 32nm.GG.KTHXBYE.

BTW I am everyones double agent and will always go with who is the best.

Brianna · May 26, 2008, 01:31 AM // 01:31

I heard that AMD ran much hotter and drew more power, yeah. More watts drawn = more heat to the processor? 125watt Phenom = Ouch? (Not sure).

I have been using AMD processors since I can remember, but unless (and even then I doubt) they beat Intel in the next 1-2 years, I will be switching to Intel.

And as usual, I am a die hard Nvidia fan, so I will never give up my GeForce's unless ATI seriously makes some good video cards that don't have a lot of problems (e.g messing up games and crashing the computer all the damn time, at least in my experience with a lot of ATI cards).

Now I am not saying that ATI cards aren't good, but I have dealt with them in my laptop (tons of errors and crashes) and my friend's PC's have all had tons of crashes and game errors too, I am not buying an ATI card, definitely not jumping off the cliff again like I see everyone continually doing with ATI, I'm never buying a laptop with an ATI card again either. It's just a stupid move for me to go buy something that I know I'm going to have problems with just like I have seen over the past years and experienced as well, so.. I'm definitely not switching, but I'm happy for the people who have had success with ATI cards, I just wasn't one of them.

Blackhearted · May 26, 2008, 01:41 AM // 01:41

heh. Geforce 8(and apprently 9, too) cards didn't mess up games, they just messed up entire game engines. (see unreal engine 2 for an example)

Cyb3r · May 26, 2008, 01:48 AM // 01:48

well no comment on Nvidia's driver quality for their older cards -_- don't know about the 9xxx series of Nvidia but their older cards have the worst driver support you can imagine atm (heck my very old P1 200mhz has an ati Pci card (use is as an old backup server and for teamspeak when holding lan's at my home which is does rather decent for it's age))

And that card is from the days ati had problems with their drivers heck i've hadn't had to switch drivers so many times as on this pc lately cause of Nvidia's bad drivers (oblivion is allready a pain to run but together with a crappy nvidia driver i think you can guess the pain -_-) another example Hellgate london and Guildwars (don't ever run GW on the 16X.XX drivers xD)

The only driver i run my dual GT's on atm is the 171.16 beta (yes i know it's dated by now, but i still have to run into problems in any of the games i play atm and that includes a wide variety ranging from RTS, RPG to FPS)

And i agree with blackhearted the Nvnews forums are swarming with posts about Geforce 8/9 series messing up whole games, some older games needed a patch specially for the G8/9 series and other games either refuse to run at all or run very choppy (got to check which game it was that ran at 10fps on a G8800 GTX and about 120 fps on a 7800 gtx if i'm correct) got to check the post but i'll check later since i got to get up early in the morning i'm affraid (paperwork, not making me happy -_-)

moriz · May 26, 2008, 02:01 AM // 02:01

hmm, lockerload's motherboard suggestion won't work, since the part is listed as "walk-in purchase only", and i am definately not walking all the way to downtown toronto (from ottawa) to get it

anyways, the only part that i can find is this one: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...cture=Gigabyte

it apparently officially supports a phenom X4 9750, but not the 9850. since both chips (as well as the athlon 64 X2 6400) are 125W chips, i'm guessing that it will support all three... but i am really not sure.

Brianna · May 26, 2008, 02:21 AM // 02:21

It's better that you go with a Full-ATX board anyway, don't bother with Micro-ATX.

Blackhearted · May 26, 2008, 02:27 AM // 02:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyb3r

And i agree with blackhearted the Nvnews forums are swarming with posts about Geforce 8/9 series messing up whole games, some older games needed a patch specially for the G8/9 series and other games either refuse to run at all or run very choppy (got to check which game it was that ran at 10fps on a G8800 GTX and about 120 fps on a 7800 gtx if i'm correct) got to check the post but i'll check later since i got to get up early in the morning i'm affraid (paperwork, not making me happy -_-)

Yep. i wouldn't be suprised about lots of posts like that. Here's an example of one of the most notoriously stuttery games(imo) on geforce 8's when you run it on xp.(only on xp cause nvidia likes vista users better and long since fixed it there).

Notice the huge fps dip there that happens many, many times per second on maps that do that. The normal framerate, in this case, should be about 200-300fps. The stutter caused by that makes some maps pretty much unplayable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyb3r

And that card is from the days ati had problems with their drivers heck i've hadn't had to switch drivers so many times as on this pc lately cause of Nvidia's bad drivers (oblivion is allready a pain to run but together with a crappy nvidia driver i think you can guess the pain -_-) another example Hellgate london and Guildwars (don't ever run GW on the 16X.XX drivers xD)

I've never had any issues with the 169.21 drivers on GW. Runs without a hitch on my 8600gt.

Myself i'm waiting for the 177.xx drivers to come out(beta or otherwise) before going through the hassle of changing video drivers(hassle cause the uninstaller removes my mobo drivers too... /sigh). Cause it's claimed that those will finally bring a long awaited stutter fix for us XP users.

And moriz, A few customer reviews says it does work with the 9850. If you want to have faith in customer reviews is up to you.