Need advice on a new PC, thinking about going AMD.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 6:22 pm

Personally, I never saw the need. But if you see something here that makes XP Pro look like a good idea, well...

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/ ... sing2.mspx

Best way I can think of to display the differences.

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 8:16 pm

XP Home can only see 5 networked computers, no support for dual cpu(physical), no encryption, no remote just to name a few

just thinking about the Networking part is a deal breaker IMHO

Vertigo Zer0 · Post by **Vertigo Zer0** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 8:35 pm

Krom wrote:Lol true, get 2x 1GB DIMMs, not like your budget can't handle it from the looks of the rest of the system.

I thought if I went with 2 1GB DIMM's then they would have to be set at slower timing.

Besides, it's not like they're going to send me a system that won't post, much less one that isn't rock-solid stable. This is Falcon we're talking about. These guys have to know their stuff, it's their living. If there's a problem with what I asked for, they'll let me know.

BUBBALOU wrote:XP Home can only see 5 networked computers, no support for dual cpu(physical), no encryption, no remote just to name a few

just thinking about the Networking part is a deal breaker IMHO

Actually, I was just thinking about the possibility of upgrading to a dual-core AMD a few years from now if/when the need arises.

I was reading that the next UT (which everyone is saying is going to support multi-threading) might be called UT 2007, which means it probably won't be out until 2007. That being the case, I really don't need a dual-core CPU until 2008 at the earliest, and by then I'll probably be able to buy an X2 FX-6n. If I truly need XP Pro to take advantage of an AMD X2, then I may as well get it now so I won't have to bother later.

I can call tomorrow and change my order, they don't have a problem with that.

Vertigo Zer0 · Post by **Vertigo Zer0** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 8:38 pm

Double post, please delete.

Admiral LSD · Post by **Admiral LSD** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 8:43 pm

Actually, I think the deal breaker in this case would be that the only version of consumer-grade Windows with x86-64 support is XP Professional:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/default.mspx

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 9:06 pm

Vertigo Zer0 wrote:I thought if I went with 2 1GB DIMM's then they would have to be set at slower timing.

Nope, you got it backwards, 4 dimms would have to be set at a slower timing.

Matrix · Post by **Matrix** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 9:32 pm

Krom wrote:
Vertigo Zer0 wrote:I thought if I went with 2 1GB DIMM's then they would have to be set at slower timing.
Nope, you got it backwards, 4 dimms would have to be set at a slower timing.

Yep the on die memory controllers of new chips REALLY hate 4 DIMMs. I've herd people report that they can run 2x DIMMs @ DDR600 and as soon as they add 2 more sticks of the same ram they can't even get it to post at DDR400. They have to use a divider.
Though there might be people that get it to work perfect. I am not eliminating the chances there, just letting you know when running 4 DIMMs you are pretty much garrented a total ★■◆● 1:1 OC and stuck on some really low RAM divider.

Though since the FX-57 is the cream of the crop out of all the E3 rev chips maybe its memory controller will be that much better.

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 5:40 am

Admiral LSD wrote:Actually, I think the deal breaker in this case would be that the only version of consumer-grade Windows with x86-64 support is XP Professional:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/default.mspx

That too!

snippet:

The Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Technology Advancement Program enables customers who have purchased Windows XP Professional (32-bit) to exchange it for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. You will need to have an x64 processor (the AMD Athlon 64, AMD Opteron, Intel Pentium 4 with EM64T, or Intel Xeon with EM64T) to run the new software.

Note: Orders for the Technology Advancement Program must be placed by July 31, 2005.

XP Home is for people who buy their computer at a store like Bestbuy and CompUSA and use AOL

Vertigo Zer0 · Post by **Vertigo Zer0** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 8:32 am

Matrix wrote:
Krom wrote:
Vertigo Zer0 wrote:I thought if I went with 2 1GB DIMM's then they would have to be set at slower timing.
Nope, you got it backwards, 4 dimms would have to be set at a slower timing.
Yep the on die memory controllers of new chips REALLY hate 4 DIMMs. I've herd people report that they can run 2x DIMMs @ DDR600 and as soon as they add 2 more sticks of the same ram they can't even get it to post at DDR400. They have to use a divider.
Though there might be people that get it to work perfect. I am not eliminating the chances there, just letting you know when running 4 DIMMs you are pretty much garrented a total **** 1:1 OC and stuck on some really low RAM divider.

Though since the FX-57 is the cream of the crop out of all the E3 rev chips maybe its memory controller will be that much better.

According to the review on [H]ard|OCP:

The San Diego core brings with it some very important things. Primarily, it has what AMD terms as a â??more flexible memory controller.â?

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 9:24 am

The new chips are an improvement over the old FX chips which could not run with 4 DIMMs in spec at all. I seriously recommend 2 DIMMs still if you are planning on overclocking it. DO NOT GET 4 DIMMS!

Vertigo Zer0 · Post by **Vertigo Zer0** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 2:11 pm

I called up and had them change XP Home to XP Pro, and I told them to forget about the overclocking. As fast as the thing is going to be, I think overclocking isn't going to really be worth it.

So that's pretty much that.

I thank you all for your input.

When I get it, I'll post some pics.

Matrix · Post by **Matrix** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 5:09 pm

OCing not WORTH IT!?1?1!1?!

YOU HAVE SINNED!!!!

You have to OC it or all of those sexy parts will go to waste

Vertigo Zer0 · Post by **Vertigo Zer0** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 9:45 am

Matrix wrote:OCing not WORTH IT!?1?1!1?!

YOU HAVE SINNED!!!!

You have to OC it or all of those sexy parts will go to waste

Nah, this thing is frikin' expensive, and I really don't want to reduce its life by overclocking it when I don't have to.

The dual GF 7800's are already overclocked from BFG anyway. That's good enough for me.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 11:56 am

Vertigo Zer0 wrote:Nah, this thing is frikin' expensive, and I really don't want to reduce its life by overclocking it when I don't have to.

The dual GF 7800's are already overclocked from BFG anyway. That's good enough for me.

The difference you are talking about is worst case 10 years instead of 15. By the time overclocking would kill a CPU like that, it would have already been useless for 7+ years.

Vertigo Zer0 · Post by **Vertigo Zer0** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 11:04 am

I wouldn't say it would be useless.

I'm keeping my old PC and setting it up as a Windows 98 Second Edition box to play my DOS games and early Windows games. I have a Soundblaster Awe64 Gold in one of the ISA slots, so getting sound for DOS games is no sweat.

At some point, I'll keep this new PC for playing "old" games too. May as well try to make it last as long as I can.

Oh, I also called and had them change the HDD config to RAID 0.

Admiral LSD · Post by **Admiral LSD** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 11:16 am

Vertigo Zer0 wrote:a Soundblaster Awe64 Gold

heh, the AWEs were the last great sound cards Creative ever produced. Once they went PCI they went downhill fast. If it were still practical to use my old AWE64 Value I would.

Vertigo Zer0 · Post by **Vertigo Zer0** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 2:08 pm

Final configuration!

Mach V Exotix specs:

ICON Aluminum Chassis
Silverstone 650Watt Power Supply
Windows XP Professional
Asus A8N-SLI Premium Motherboard
AMD Athlon64 FX-57
Zalman ZNPS7000LED ALCU - CPU Cooler
Corsair TwinX 2048MB 3200XL-PT (4/512MB)
2x nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB PCIE - SLI
Audigy II ZS Platinum
2x Maxtor DM-10 300GB SATA 16MB Cache (RAID 0)
Plextor PX-716A/SW DVDÂ±R/RW CD-R/RW - Black
Plextor PX-Premium/SW-BL CD-R/RW - Black
Sony 1.44MB Floppy Drive - Black

Black with Silver Falcons Paint Scheme:
Porsche Black Automotive Paint
Silver Falcon Logos
LaserWorks Two-Color Lit Falcon Eye

Vertigo Zer0 · Post by **Vertigo Zer0** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 1:47 pm

Update:

I picked up a Razer Diamondback Plasma Limited Edition Infrared Precision Gaming Mouse from Amazon.com to go with the new PC.

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 7:10 pm

What about the Keyboard???

Falcon Northwest used to only include Keytronics Lifetime Series Classic II (Designer is good too ), now they have Microsoft, Belkin, Logitech which all suck for gaming

Vertigo Zer0 · Post by **Vertigo Zer0** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 9:19 pm

BUBBALOU wrote:What about the Keyboard???

Falcon Northwest used to only include Keytronics Lifetime Series Classic II (Designer is good too ), now they have Microsoft, Belkin, Logitech which all suck for gaming

I don't know yet, actually.

As you can see, I was careful to buy the best gaming mouse available. But picking the mouse was easy compared to picking a new keyboard.

Right now I use a Belkin Nostromo SpeedPad n52 for games, and a Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro for typing. I need the n52 for gaming, because while the Natural is fine for typing, using it for gaming for anything more than 15 to 20 minutes results in my getting shooting pains in my left wrist. Straight keyboards are even worse. It got so bad I had to stop gaming for months until the pains subsided. If it wasn't for the n52, I probably would've given up on gaming.

BTW, if anybody can recommend a nice ergonomic keyboard for me to check out, no matter how unothodox the configuration, I'd appreciate it.

De Rigueur · Post by **De Rigueur** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 9:45 pm

Here's the keyboard I use for gaming. The keys are lighter to the touch than the N52 (which I own, but don't use.) BTW, I turn it sideways when I play on it.

http://www.xkeys.com/xkeys/xkdesk.php

Vertigo Zer0 · Post by **Vertigo Zer0** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 2:48 pm

Really Final configuration!

Mach V Exotix specs:

ICON Aluminum Chassis
Silverstone 650Watt Power Supply
Windows XP Professional
Asus A8N-SLI Premium Motherboard
AMD Athlon64 FX-57
Zalman ZNPS7000LED ALCU - CPU Cooler
Corsair TwinX 2048MB 3200XL-PT (4/512MB)
2x nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB PCIE - SLI
Audigy II ZS Platinum
2x Maxtor DM-10 300GB SATA 16MB Cache (RAID 0)
2x Plextor PX-716SA DVDÂ±R/RW CD-R/RW - Black
Sony 1.44MB Floppy Drive - Black
Razer Diamondback Plasma Limited Edition Infrared Precision Gaming Mouse

Black with Silver Falcons Paint Scheme:
Porsche Black Automotive Paint
Silver Falcon Logos
LaserWorks Two-Color Lit Falcon Eye

Vertigo Zer0 · Post by **Vertigo Zer0** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 2:51 pm

De Rigueur wrote:Here's the keyboard I use for gaming. The keys are lighter to the touch than the N52 (which I own, but don't use.) BTW, I turn it sideways when I play on it.

http://www.xkeys.com/xkeys/xkdesk.php

I looked at it and it looks good, but I'd need to try it out in a store before I thought about replacing my n52 with it.

Vertigo Zer0 · Post by **Vertigo Zer0** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 9:36 am

It arrived yesterday.

This thing is awesome!

I haven't had the chance to set it up properly yet, but I did hook it up for a little while to play the included Doom 3 demo and at 1024x768 with all video settings maxed out it was buttery smooth and looked fantastic.

I'll post pics of it soon.

My Mach V Exotix LaserWorks:

ICON Aluminum Chassis
Silverstone 650Watt Power Supply
Windows XP Professional
Asus A8N-SLI Premium Motherboard
AMD Athlon64 FX-57
Zalman ZNPS7000LED ALCU - CPU Cooler
Corsair TwinX 2048MB 3200XL-PT (4/512MB)
2x nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB PCIE - SLI
Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS
2x Maxtor DM-10 300GB SATA 16MB Cache (RAID 0)
2x Plextor PX-716SA DVDÂ±R/RW CD-R/RW - Black
Sony 1.44MB Floppy Drive - Black
Razer Diamondback Plasma Limited Edition Infrared Precision Gaming Mouse
Ergodex DX-1 Falcon Edition

Black with Silver Falcons Paint Scheme:
Porsche Black Automotive Paint
Silver Falcon Logos
LaserWorks Two-Color Lit Falcon Eye

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 5:58 pm

Vertigo Zer0 wrote: Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS

??
I didnt know these were released yet...I went to creative's site and they have info, but they arent for sale.

interesting note:

quote:

Experience more than 15% faster PC gaming performance over built-in PC audio
With X-RAMâ?¢ for audio, you can boost your gaming performance further*

*X-RAM is available in Sound Blaster X-Fiâ?¢ Fatality FPS and Sound Blaster X-Fiâ?¢ Elite Pro models

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 6:49 pm

The 15% boost over built-in audio is only when pitted against the worst onboard audio has to offer. A quality motherboard like the DFI NF4 SLI board actually scores lower CPU utilization for audio then the best creative cards.

Mr. Perfect · Post by **Mr. Perfect** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 8:31 pm

I doubt it's lower then a discrete SB, seeing how it's damn close to the onboard SBs.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 12:29 am

Vertigo,
I rummaged around Falcon's site and couldnt find even mention of the X-fi card. As far as I can tell, they arent even being sold yet....

How did you get one in your new system?

Vertigo Zer0 · Post by **Vertigo Zer0** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 9:38 am

Actually, I haven't got it yet.

I talked to Falcon about getting it, but they only had one on hand for their testing and weren't going to get any for sale for at least another month.

I had them just send the machine using only onboard sound. I'll buy the card myself when it's out and call up their tech support and have them walk me through how they would install it, since I want it to look like they did it.

So my PC will have an X-Fi Fatal1ty as soon as I can get my hands on one.

No deception intended, just wishful thinking!

BTW, the X-Fi XtremeMusic and X-Fi Platinum were available from BestBuy yesterday, but the X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS and the X-Fi Pro weren't. I guess they'll be available a little later.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 8:06 pm

heh. I searched all over for that card

The reason I'm interested is I decided to definitely have a sound card in my new system, and am waiting on the card to appear so that I can get my system.
I guess it'll ship sometime this month? (I read that somewhere...)

Vertigo Zer0 · Post by **Vertigo Zer0** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 11:56 am

Wow!

This PC is fantastic. Everything is ultra-quick. What a difference from my old PC.

I'm playing Splinter Cell with all effects and settings to the max and it looks great and the framerate is smooth as can be.

Now I going to install Pandora Tomorrow, Chaos Theory and Doom 3 to check those out. Descent 3 will get loaded shortly thereafter.

So far this PC is worth every penny.

Vertigo Zer0 · Post by **Vertigo Zer0** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 12:40 pm

ReadyMan, the Sound Blaster Fatal1ty FPS just got Editor's Choice on Guru3d.com. They gave it a glowing review.

They did say they are going to do another in-depth review of its performance in games, but from what they did do it looks (and sounds) good.

Vertigo Zer0 · Post by **Vertigo Zer0** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 3:20 pm

ReadyMan,

I just picked up a Soundblaster X-Fi Fatal1ty at a BestBuy in Manhattan.

Apparently, they've had them since last Sunday. It seems not all areas are getting the same selection.

I'll post pics after I've installed the card.

Edit: It was NoHo BestBuy on Broadway, in case anybody wants to give them a call.

Need advice on a new PC, thinking about going AMD.

I GOT IT!!!

Re: I GOT IT!!!