2010-09-17, 01:30 PM
(This post was last modified: 2010-09-17, 01:56 PM by KajitiSouls.)
Time to play catchup during the weekends =O But in the meantime while I'm combatting college and work, I have more questions to bounce around...
1.) I haven't used my next level of google-fu, but what exactly is so exciting about the new architecture from Intel and AMD?
2.) Last statement in the email about updating GPU, true or false?
3.) Something I've noticed from both NewEgg and TigerDirect is the option to protect your stuff with warranties. For TigerDirect, can you simply not select a warranty by leaving the drop-down menu on the first item? ("Choose From Extended Service Plans as Low as $xx.xx") Silly question, but I'd rather have word-of-mouth insurance than trying things blindly.
4.) I was trying to look up the Radeon HD 4870 that Zelkova selected in post 3, and found these two cards that were more or less identical. However, one had a spec that said "Memory Bandwith: 161.0 GB/sec" while the other one simply didn't list it. What exactly is that, and what would be the assumption for graphics cards with unlisted values?
5.) Comparing graphics cards side-by-side, I saw the PNY GeForce GTX 460 and the Diamond Radeon HD 4870. Both are about the same price, but they obviously have different structure. Which one performs better? And what flaws do they potentially have?
Initial (noobish) impressions: the Nvidia one has a stream processor bottleneck, possibly, while the Radeon seems to be much more balanced, but less memory.
6.) Not that I'm going to buy this, but I saw a Gulftown CPU for $900! Now why the heck is it so expensive? Is it because it's i7 with fancy QPI? What's the equivalent of QPI in the older CPUs anyways?
7.) In terms of buying parts, would it generally be better to try and match brands, or should they all generally work with each other, given that you match the slots, etc.?
I think that's all for now. Currently compiling a big list of things I'm looking for, translated into fancy pants technical vocabulary...
Oh yeah, a few other things, since many of you are eager to select the computer parts for me...
--I probably won't take advantage of the higher resolutions (my laptop does 1280xSomething) until much later. Don't bother looking at monitors.
--Ditto with sound card, if ever. Though I might get one in case the MOBO doesn't have an integrated card, or decides to be retarded or something.
--I don't really care about aesthetics that much. Just as long as the stuff isn't butt-ugly like that dragon in my siggy. Oh wait...
E-mail Wrote:Last time I spec'ed out a computer, it was for ******. I pretty much based most of the things on the ArsTechnica Budget Box guide. They haven't released their guide for this year yet, but it's probably coming up next month. Here's the 2009 version: http://arstechnica.com/hardware/guides/2...dition.ars.
Usually new architectures are more expensive. Did they mean a new socket architecture that's not compatible with the existing one? On the other hand, the longer you wait, generally the better things get for the same price, so I tend to like waiting as long as possible until things feel right.
From what I hear, Newegg is better than tigerdirect.
I think going beyond 5 years is maybe unrealistic as parts start to fail. Recently, new games haven't been as demanding on having up to date graphics cards lately (probably because of consoles taking up a lot of gaming dollars), but I'd expect you might need a card update in 5 years as well.
1.) I haven't used my next level of google-fu, but what exactly is so exciting about the new architecture from Intel and AMD?
2.) Last statement in the email about updating GPU, true or false?
3.) Something I've noticed from both NewEgg and TigerDirect is the option to protect your stuff with warranties. For TigerDirect, can you simply not select a warranty by leaving the drop-down menu on the first item? ("Choose From Extended Service Plans as Low as $xx.xx") Silly question, but I'd rather have word-of-mouth insurance than trying things blindly.
4.) I was trying to look up the Radeon HD 4870 that Zelkova selected in post 3, and found these two cards that were more or less identical. However, one had a spec that said "Memory Bandwith: 161.0 GB/sec" while the other one simply didn't list it. What exactly is that, and what would be the assumption for graphics cards with unlisted values?
5.) Comparing graphics cards side-by-side, I saw the PNY GeForce GTX 460 and the Diamond Radeon HD 4870. Both are about the same price, but they obviously have different structure. Which one performs better? And what flaws do they potentially have?
| PNY GeForce GTX 460 | Diamond Radeon HD 4870 | |
| Core Clock (MHz) | 765 | 750 |
| Shader Clock (MHz) | 1530 | Not Found |
| Memory Clock (MHz) | 3700 (effective) | 900 |
| Memory Size | 1 GB | 512 MB |
| Stream Processors | 336 | 800 |
| Max Resolution | 2560x1600 | 2560x1600 |
6.) Not that I'm going to buy this, but I saw a Gulftown CPU for $900! Now why the heck is it so expensive? Is it because it's i7 with fancy QPI? What's the equivalent of QPI in the older CPUs anyways?
7.) In terms of buying parts, would it generally be better to try and match brands, or should they all generally work with each other, given that you match the slots, etc.?
I think that's all for now. Currently compiling a big list of things I'm looking for, translated into fancy pants technical vocabulary...
Keyboard specs list; contains tabs from notepad.exe, best viewed by quoting
Oh yeah, a few other things, since many of you are eager to select the computer parts for me...
--I probably won't take advantage of the higher resolutions (my laptop does 1280xSomething) until much later. Don't bother looking at monitors.
--Ditto with sound card, if ever. Though I might get one in case the MOBO doesn't have an integrated card, or decides to be retarded or something.
--I don't really care about aesthetics that much. Just as long as the stuff isn't butt-ugly like that dragon in my siggy. Oh wait...