StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Help me. Please.

I'm looking to buy a new computer but the last time I read anything in-depth about what makes them tick was in 2003. So I go in thinking "do they still sell P4's" and "maybe I can get a Radeon 9000" and "oooh 1 gig of RAM!"... and end up getting mighty confused.

I'm not looking for a 1337 gaming rig, just your basic home-and-garden paperwork PC, with maybe a DVD drive and if possible a dedicated video card that can run games from, say, last year smoothly at medium settings. What I'd really want to do is play GTA4 but I hear it's a bit precious.

So I could use a primer on how to sort through laptops and desktops. My main questions are:

- Processors. It used to be simple. You had Intels with big numbers, AMD's with smaller numbers, and mobile ones that were quiet. Now, I'm seeing dual cores, quad cores, multiple frequencies for the same processor(s?) - how does it all work? Is a dual-core Intel running at 2GHz actually running at 2GHz, is it both cores added up, what's the sort of number I should be looking out for? Is there an objective advantage to more cores? Do I want Intel or AMD?

- Video cards. How does the numbering work? Is there any rhyme or reason to model numbers jumping all over the place? How do you recognise on-board video? What feature set do I want? What are good brands and model ranges?

- RAM. I take it 4GB is the new 256MB?

Get a Core 2 Duo, a GTX260 or 280 and 4gb of RAM. Dont bother with quad core. DVD drives are $15 now.

Basically what JointStrikeFighter said, but in slightly more depth:

A faster dual core is better than a slower quad core for most games; certain games, as I recall mostly RTS, do benefit more from a quad core but for most purposes a dual core is fine. Everything I've read says buy Intel. I have a Q6600, which is a quad core, and was probably a mistake on my part. If I got a "do-over" I'd pick up the 3ghz dual core instead.

Basically, more cores is better for running lots of programs simultaneously or those very few programs that actually take advantage of multiple cores. As I understand it most software will only use one core. Thus, a dual core is probably fine unless you're trying to run a LOT of stuff in the background while you game.

In terms of video cards, nVidia put together a new numbering scheme hypothetically to help make it easier to understand what is going on with the cards. This, of course, has failed miserably since there are plenty of cards around using the OLD numbering scheme. A GTX260 from nVidia is probably going to be more than enough video card for your needs, or the...ummm...ATI 4850? It's been a year since I built my last machine and I haven't tried to keep up. You could probably get away with the nVidia 9800GTX+ for that matter.

Four gig of ram is a solid amount, though unless you're running a 64 bit version of Windows you won't actually benefit from all 4. Still, DDR2 ram is fairly cheap right now, and unless you absolutely want to spend money on "cutting edge" (which it doesn't sound like is the case) then DDR2 is fine.

Jaevric wrote:A faster dual core is better than a slower quad core for most games; certain games, as I recall mostly RTS, do benefit more from a quad core but for most purposes a dual core is fine.

This is not good advice if Bounty expects this computer to be usable for six years, which may be the case if 'last looked at this in 2003' means that his current computer dates from 2003. Not much (consumer) software right now really benefits from quad core, but by 2012 it'll be really useful (and new computers will be coming with 8 cores, 12 if you're an enthusiast). If you were waiting until Christmas to buy one of the new i5 systems, or splashing out on an i7 system, this would not be such a big deal as those will be upgradable for a few more years. Core 2 systems basically aren't.

Everything I've read says buy Intel. I have a Q6600, which is a quad core, and was probably a mistake on my part. If I got a "do-over" I'd pick up the 3ghz dual core instead.

If Bounty is competent enough to assemble a computer from scratch he's competent enough to buy an AMD Phenom2 X2 or X3, and unlock the missing cores with a software unlocker. This is by far the cheapest way to get a quad core (the AMD motherboards are dirt cheap too) - success isn't guarenteed, but I haven't seen anyone reporting a failure.

A GTX260 from nVidia is probably going to be more than enough video card for your needs, or the...ummm...ATI 4850?

The ATI (AMD) cards seem to be marginally better on price/performance currently but there's only a few percent in it, so I'd just go with whatever you can get a good deal on.

Four gig of ram is a solid amount, though unless you're running a 64 bit version of Windows you won't actually benefit from all 4.

32-bit Vista will use all 4 Gb, it's just that it can't allocate more than 2 Gb to any one program, without employing hacks of dubious reliability. Still as of 2009 I don't recommend 32-bit operating systems for anyone.

Starglider, my understanding was that the current generation Intel chips were simply superior to their AMD counterparts. Should I take it that's changed in the more recent releases?

And, I concede my point about a quad core not being worth it compared to a dual core; I hadn't been thinking "six years into the future," more "next couple of years." I tend to upgrade fairly frequently, though.

Jaevric wrote:Starglider, my understanding was that the current generation Intel chips were simply superior to their AMD counterparts. Should I take it that's changed in the more recent releases?

And, I concede my point about a quad core not being worth it compared to a dual core; I hadn't been thinking "six years into the future," more "next couple of years." I tend to upgrade fairly frequently, though.

Superior, but more expensive. You can get a top of the line AMD Phenom for under $300. Granted that's out of Bounty's budget but that shows where AMD's price line lies and where Intel does.
CPU's are also not the only thing. Quality AMD motherboards are far cheaper than Intel motherboards and usually come with just as many features.

Jaevric wrote:Starglider, my understanding was that the current generation Intel chips were simply superior to their AMD counterparts. Should I take it that's changed in the more recent releases?

That's correct, but the 'current generation Intel chips' are the Core i7 series, which are quite expensive (particularly with the matching motherboards and triple DDR3 kits). The AMD Phenom2 chips are roughly equivalent to the mainstream Core 2 series and slightly cheaper (for a given performance level). The thing that makes them very attractive at Bounty's price point is that the 2 and 3 core versions are actually 4 core chips with 1 or 2 cores disabled; this can be reversed with a software tool, giving a very cheap way to get a fast quad core. Intel will be replacing the Core 2 line with the i5s late this year; these are basically cut-down i7s with only two cores and two memory channels, though the Core 2 design will linger for a while in the ultra-budget segment.

As attractive as it sounds to cheat and get a quad-core, is it really a practical solution? I'll likely get a notebook, which to me brings up heat concerns if you start activating extra processors. If this dual core and quad core hardware is identical and it's just a matter of switching the extra core on, fine, but I'm not going to risk a new computer on some dodgy hack.

This likely won't be a home build, either, as much as I'd like it to be. Parts are expensive and time is short.

Bounty wrote:As attractive as it sounds to cheat and get a quad-core, is it really a practical solution? I'll likely get a notebook, which to me brings up heat concerns if you start activating extra processors.

Modern notebooks automatically downclock the processor if it exceeds the thermal envelope, but I don't think you can get the Phenom X2s and X3s in notebook form anyway. For a notebook (unless it's a desktop replacement) you want a low power processor; quad core is probably out of the question anyway (I have a quad core laptop but only because I use it for software development). Even moreso for a notebook than a desktop, I'd strongly recommend waiting another 4 months or so for the new i5 chips to come out; they'll completely obsolete the existing Core 2 based notebook processors, and even if your budget doesn't stretch to that, prices on the existing chips will crash.

Particularly for a notebook, I'd prioritise getting an SSD over a high-end CPU or GPU. It's good for performance /and/ battery life. Also RAM is pretty much the only thing you can easily upgrade on a notebook, so it's no big deal getting 2 Gb now and upgrading it to 4 or 8 Gb later.

This likely won't be a home build, either, as much as I'd like it to be. Parts are expensive and time is short.

Eh? For a desktop, home building should always be cheaper and if it takes more than a hour to put a computer together you're doing something wrong. However home-building notebooks isn't really practical.

Starglider wrote:Eh? For a desktop, home building should always be cheaper and if it takes more than a hour to put a computer together you're doing something wrong. However home-building notebooks isn't really practical.

Some of the prebuilt no-OS systems I've been looking at are cheaper than home-build, to the tune of a couple of hundred quid.
No good, as you say for laptops and notebooks, but worth considering for desktop systems.

Regarding notebooks: Some companies actually produce bare-bones laptops.
Example
However, they mostly seem to be outdated and only meh quality.
If you're going for a notebook, and you want something that will last a long time, I would spend an extra few hundred dollars on something like a Lenovo (if possible).
4GB is probably a good amount of RAM, you should probably get a small-ish HDD with a large external HDD (for heat reasons I think - also, better data security wrt to losing data), and intel is probably a good idea wrt to heat as well. As for the graphics card, the other peeps are right-on for desktops, and it would be similarly numbered for laptops (just something like 9800 Go or something).

Edit: better example

Darth Nostril wrote:

Starglider wrote:Eh? For a desktop, home building should always be cheaper and if it takes more than a hour to put a computer together you're doing something wrong. However home-building notebooks isn't really practical.

Some of the prebuilt no-OS systems I've been looking at are cheaper than home-build, to the tune of a couple of hundred quid.
No good, as you say for laptops and notebooks, but worth considering for desktop systems.

Yeah, with store and bulk discounts, and the jacked-up parts prices at retail, you're often better off just buying pre-built.

Which is what I did. Core 2 Duo at 2.5GHz, 4GB RAM, 1TB of storage, a slightly underwhelming rebadged 9-series Geforce card, and they threw in a 22" screen for free. Now if I can just figure out how to open the panel with the card reader and remember not to kick the tower when I move my chair I'm all set. Thanks everyone.

Bounty wrote:Yeah, with store and bulk discounts, and the jacked-up parts prices at retail, you're often better off just buying pre-built.

You're not thinking of buying computer parts from an actual, physical shop are you? Even worse, a chain like PC World or whatever you have in the US (Fry's?). That is usually a rip off. I get parts from online-only wholesalers like Dabs and Scan, or whichever company on Froogle is cheapest without looking completely dubious. If you purchase sensibly is it always cheaper to build it yourself, but admittedly I probably wouldn't bother for a cheap-and-cheerful sub-$500 computer, since the saving will likely be under $50 and it's more hassle if any of the components fail.

Which is what I did. Core 2 Duo at 2.5GHz, 4GB RAM, 1TB of storage, a slightly underwhelming rebadged 9-series Geforce card, and they threw in a 22" screen for free.

Well, that should last a good few years if you're not doing anything particularly demanding on it.

Starglider wrote:

Bounty wrote:Yeah, with store and bulk discounts, and the jacked-up parts prices at retail, you're often better off just buying pre-built.

You're not thinking of buying computer parts from an actual, physical shop are you? Even worse, a chain like PC World or whatever you have in the US (Fry's?). That is usually a rip off. I get parts from online-only wholesalers like Dabs and Scan, or whichever company on Froogle is cheapest without looking completely dubious. If you purchase sensibly is it always cheaper to build it yourself, but admittedly I probably wouldn't bother for a cheap-and-cheerful sub-$500 computer, since the saving will likely be under $50 and it's more hassle if any of the components fail.

Well, I usually either use newegg or go to Microcenter if I'm building a new computer. Newegg is almost always the best deal or close, they have great customer service, and their shipping is very affordable. Microcenter is similar, but slightly farther away (a half hour drive) than picking something up at my door :P For a brick-and-mortar store, Microcenter is very well-priced because almost everything is bought in very large quantities (kind of like Costco). They're only in the US, however.

Starglider wrote:

Bounty wrote:Which is what I did. Core 2 Duo at 2.5GHz, 4GB RAM, 1TB of storage, a slightly underwhelming rebadged 9-series Geforce card, and they threw in a 22" screen for free.

Well, that should last a good few years if you're not doing anything particularly demanding on it.

Those specs are pretty reasonable, and should certainly last you a long time like your old computer. I've had pretty good experiences with my 2.66GHz core 2, as long as it's kept from getting to crazy temperatures (70C is when I get worried).

This time I also have some room to upgrade. the motherboard supports 8GB of memory and I have a free slot for a proper video card should I need one;

Bounty wrote:This time I also have some room to upgrade. the motherboard supports 8GB of memory and I have a free slot for a proper video card should I need one;

If you're planning to use a free slot in several years time, it's worth putting a piece of sticky tape over the slot to prevent dust getting in. This isn't an issue if you're going to pull out an existing graphics card and put a new one in its place, but if say you're using motherboard/integrated graphics and decide to fit a card three years later, it can cause problems. I had a lot of trouble with the contacts on my wife's PC when I tried to do this, had to resort to alcohol-based screen cleaner and jamming cotton wool buds in there until the new card would finally work reliably. I've never had this problem with DIMM slots, but it's probably a sensible precaution there too if the PC sits on the floor or a similarly dusty environment.

If you eventually plan to play GTA4 on PC, it likes having as many cores* as you can throw at it. It is a highly demanding game. Present notebooks are unlikely to really run it well (except the monstrous portable-workstation Core i7 "notebooks").

Otherwise, a Core 2 Duo machine will be pretty good for everyday use.

* Intel's Core i7 and later versions of the Pentium 4 are multithreaded cores, in which each processor core can pump two threads into the pipe at once (but only one at a time). Certain games - so far, just GTA4 - can take advantage of this. Media applications also tend to do quite well.

phongn wrote:* Intel's Core i7 and later versions of the Pentium 4 are multithreaded cores, in which each processor core can pump two threads into the pipe at once (but only one at a time).

Nitpicking your wording, but this is not correct. The simultaneous multithreading implementations on the P4 and i7 can decode and execute two threads concurrently; the processor has multiple execution units and different threads can be using different units on each cycle (the register files are duplicated, the caches and buffers are either statically split or dynamically shared in HT mode). Multithreaded CPUs that can only execute instructions from one thread in any given cycle are called 'barrel processors' (technically, only if they switch threads every cycle, but most of them do). The only modern examples I can think of are the Sun Niagra (UltraSPARC T1) and the Parallax Propellor. Itanium's multithreading implementation is even worse; it isn't simultaneous at all, it's really just 'accelerated context switching'.

Starglider wrote:Nitpicking your wording, but this is not correct. The simultaneous multithreading implementations on the P4 and i7 can decode and execute two threads concurrently; the processor has multiple execution units and different threads can be using different units on each cycle (the register files are duplicated, the caches and buffers are either statically split or dynamically shared in HT mode)

Argh, you're right. It's been too long since I've looked at SMT/CMT and I forgot that the execution units can run things from either thread simultaneously (so long as there are free resources to do so). I was sort of viewing the execution units as one solitary black box that isn't duplicated like the other parts of the pipe.

Multithreaded CPUs that can only execute instructions from one thread in any given cycle are called 'barrel processors' (technically, only if they switch threads every cycle, but most of them do). The only modern examples I can think of are the Sun Niagra (UltraSPARC T1) and the Parallax Propellor. Itanium's multithreading implementation is even worse; it isn't simultaneous at all, it's really just 'accelerated context switching'.

Yeah, I tend to think more of UST1's design.