UKTerrorist
Posted by seik at 19:12, 5/6/2005
Hi kids, long time since my last column and this one though not directly linked to CS, does actually come back round onto the topic of gaming slightly more than I'm used to.
Wee bit of background into my general computer knowledge, I've been messing around with computers for over 7 years now, with my peak being about 2 years ago when I was playing a lot of CS and I regarded keeping up with the latest happenings in the hardware scene as important as watching 9 demos a day to steal tactics from the greats. I've made a few computers in my time, I'm quite a 'dab hand' now you might say, dunno if you know that saying but its been used in my family for as long as i remember. Cutting a longer than desired story short, I know my way round a computer.
I've lost interest in gaming these days, I play WC3 and the odd mix with a few mates, I just hang around on IRC, click lemonparty links and watch WC3 replays. However I've just got a new job which will be giving me a tidy sum of money per month, and seen as my PC setup is slightly tired I figured maybe I could get myself some new kit. I figure I'm over the 're-routing of Artic iceburgs to the Northbridge chipset in order to maintain superior conductiveness throughout the upper inner outer matrix' phase of my geekdom, so I came up with a couple of ideas in my head, something a bit faster than I've got right now, something a lot smaller, and something with a lot more things on the front instead of being on the f***ing back. So, taking a bit of advice from a friend that I need AMD and nVidia right now, I set off on my surfboard.
And now after what I now regret was a massive introduction, is the crux of the column. Why has everything got f***ing stupid names? There are far too many computer components with the same name less one letter, but there is a £200 price difference. Wouldn't labelling be much better if it worked like this: 1) GeForce 6800GT s***, 2) GeForce 6800GT OK, 3) GeForce 6800GT GOOD, 4) GeForce 6800GT BEST ONE!!!! What once was my home territory seems to be a million miles away from me, a million miles of dense jungle. I found a graphics card (on further investigation I found out it was 2, SLI or whatever) for £1175!! I only wanna spend around £800, you used to be able to get top of the range kit for £1000.
I fear I may be turning into the Microsoft dream of purely wanting an entertainment centre, the idea of a complex PC seems to be moving further and further away from myself. I don't actually care anymore about making sure my drives are at least 2 spaces apart to ensure efficient airflow, I don't want my RAM to glow under UV light, who takes their computer to a nightclub anyway?
Does anyone else see the jungle ahead of them that I see ahead of me when I look into the hardware world these days...?
Comments
19:05 6/6/2005
450 WATT silent PSU
x800xt Platinum Edition
A64 3500+ Socket939 Winchester
2x512mb PC3200CPLT TwinX Crosair RAM (400Mhz dual)
CDRW/CD/DVD Drive
2x120GB SATA drives
K8N Neo2 Platinum Motherboard
Just below £1000 :)
I'd say it's fairly top range. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
19:14 6/6/2005
20:16 6/6/2005
Can't call things Budget, Standard and High End as that's only applicable at one point in time. Soon as the next generation in cards is out the naming is obsolete.
But you're right it's confusing, even to somebody who know a bit about computers
Decent place for reviews is here
http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=Videocards
Other thing to do is compare benchmarks, but even then take that with a pinch of salt as ati/nvidia manipulate tests in order to get and edge over each other. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
20:19 6/6/2005
21:07 6/6/2005
21:19 6/6/2005
21:25 6/6/2005
(20:52:39) (@seaweed) (OS) Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 2 (5.1 - 2600), (installed for) 2w 2d 5h 55m, (uptime) 4h 2m 3s .:. (HDDs) 154GB/260GB(59.1%) free
far too lazy to post the full specs but along with my iiyama 17" tft cost me just over a grand and its the dogs bollocks all round. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
23:56 6/6/2005
Anti-saviour of UKT
01:09 7/6/2005
01:32 7/6/2005
02:12 7/6/2005
Intrigue
03:12 7/6/2005
Feeling good at the top
Shopping in sharp shoes
Walking in the sunshine town feeling very cool
But the butchers and the bakers in the supermarket stores
Getting everything she wants from the supermarket stores
Apples and oranges
Apples and oranges [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
Lite
10:43 7/6/2005
Cost about £1350 17" widescreen, 1gig ddr2, pentium M 1.9 (around that), GeForce GO 6800 256mb, 40gig HDD - from Dell - inspiration 9300 model (not the stupidly overpriced XPS 'gaming' system which this one does exactly the same at a much lower price).
Ive bought it mainly to be mobile as my final year of uni (digital 3d design) is coming up so I need portability + after uni. Previously only desktops had the power I needed for the 3d apps, or Macs but they don't support 3dsmax.
Im also looking forward to getting back into gaming, not decided yet if I will go the CS route again or the 1v1 PK/Q4 route.... [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
Rage
12:56 7/6/2005
Tom's Hardware reviews and stuff are just appauling how biased they are. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
13:55 7/6/2005
Lite
18:30 7/6/2005
20:04 7/6/2005
00:00 8/6/2005
01:38 8/6/2005
18:08 8/6/2005
I'm feeling less lazy today so here's the specs of my system, it cost around a g a month or so back
AMD Athlon 64 3500 32/64Bit CPU S93
1.0Gb PC3200 (PC400) DDR Non-ECC Memory
200Gb Seagate Barracuda HDD
Coolermaster Silver Aluminum Keyboard
Coolermaster Centurian Case
Tagen 450w PSU
Sony DWD 23 Black 16x16 DVD±RW
1.44Mb Sony Black Floppy Disk Drive
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live 7.1
17" Iiyama PLE435S-B TFT
256Mb PCI-E GF6800GT DDR3 Tv/DV
Akasa Evo 33 (AK913) Variable speed HeatPipe Cooler
Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe Mobo DDDR400
Pretty solid system so far ive had no complaints and neither have any of the games i've thrown at it.
little tip tho don't ever order anything from scan.co.uk
[Edited by Seaweed at 18:10 8/6/2005] [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
19:18 8/6/2005
Antec SLK1650B Miditower, Black w/350W PSU
Corsair TWINX1024-3200C2 DDR-DIMM 1024MB Kit w/two matched CMX512-3200C2 DIMMs
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB SATA 16MB 7200RPM NCQ
Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS, Bulk PCI Soundcard,THX,7.1,24-bit/192KHz
NEC DVD recorder
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ 2.4GHz Socket 939, 1MB
Sapphire Radeon X800XL 256MB GDDR3 PCI-Express,Ultimate Edition,Full-Retail
IIyama 19" CRT Vision Master 1451 TCO-99 Monitor
The monitor does a wopping 76 hrtz in 1600x1200 and a solid 152hrtz in 800x600. It cost me around about 1800 EURO. But I'm hoping it will last the pace for around another 2 years.
monitor and gfx card just came today along with new mousemat, mouse and headphones.
Dh, have the welcoming party ready for me tuesday please, as I'm off to a wedding tomorrow. :D [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
feo
20:27 8/6/2005
01:18 9/6/2005
IIyama Vision Master Pro 454 19" CRT DiamondTron Monitor (MO-023-IY)
- 2048 x 1536 @ 80 Hz Max. Resolution
- 1600 x 1200 @ 100 Hz Recommended
(£238.53 Including VAT at 17.5%)
Surely you got ripped off? [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
10:58 9/6/2005
13:15 9/6/2005
14:41 9/6/2005
169 EURO and that price is including vat, put that into sterling and I don't think I got ripped.
komplett.ie
cheap nuff. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
14:47 9/6/2005
Sniper's Alley
16:05 9/6/2005
16:25 9/6/2005
16:59 9/6/2005
Atari.Crew
18:04 9/6/2005
21:34 9/6/2005
Fair enough Sunman, its a nice monitor. Nice PC aswell. You could prolly clock that 4000+ to 2.6Ghz+ easily. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
22:37 9/6/2005
23:05 9/6/2005
16:27 10/6/2005
16:39 10/6/2005
03:58 11/6/2005
Choke
08:27 11/6/2005
Game2XS
09:58 11/6/2005
The 15" (yes 15") monitor does a WHOPPING 65hertz at 1024*768.
I've had loads of complaints and its been s*** with every game i've thrown at it so far!
Bought it from Dell in 2001 for £1200 and i get aroun d 10fps in half life 2 and 50fps in CS! Runs MS Paint and Word like a dreamboat.
Im hoping it lasts another 2 years and i get up to 2 fps in quakeIV any other future games..
My system OWNS!
Selling for £2500 (o.n.o) [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
15:28 11/6/2005
17:47 11/6/2005
22:32 11/6/2005
So I don't see the need in overclocking mobo, gfx and or cpu when at stock it runs everything quick fast, the meg cache makes sure of that :D
+ I’m a retard that forgot to buy thermal paste :( [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
12:26 12/6/2005
Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe
Corsair TwinX 1GB DDR
MSI PCI-E 6800 GT
Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2
Western Digital Raptor 74GB
Western Digital Cavier 250GB
Pioneer DVD+RW
Antec Sonata Case
BenQ FP937s+ Monitor
Thats my beast, only thing that could be better is the graphics card - the one thing i cut back on simply because ran out of money :P I'll probably upgrade that sometime in the near future ¬_¬ [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
14:57 12/6/2005
19:00 12/6/2005
20:47 12/6/2005
Sniper's Alley
21:31 13/6/2005
I can run in 1024x768 with 4xaa and 4x aniso with almost all the graphical options on the highest setting without it ever chugging (it stutters after new areas load but I think thats a RAM issue).
Not bad considering how little money I spend on my PC and how infrequently, I think I've spent about £600 on essential hardware in the last 5 years and I've had a PC that can run the latest games acceptably for almost all that time, just by spending wisely when things have come down in price. I've had the PC since 1997 (though it's the 3rd case now and 6th motherboard, and the only original bit left is the monitor) [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
21:52 13/6/2005
http://www.elitepcsystems.co.uk/12.htm
:|
Kinda makes you want to f**k PCs and just stick to consoles, which are all of a similar spec to each other :( [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
Sniper's Alley
19:42 14/6/2005
21:57 14/6/2005
elemental
12:08 18/6/2005
13:01 19/6/2005
Then after 3 weeks of waiting I removed it from my order only to find they'd sold other items from my order which had already been picked and they told me i'd now have to wait for those aswell.
Took 5 weeks in all to get my pc and another 2 for the monitor. They are cheap if you cba with the hassle tho. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
01:12 21/6/2005
09:35 22/6/2005
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ Clawhammer 130nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4000ASBOX) (CP-098-AM)
Price: £279.95 (£328.94 Including VAT at 17.5%)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Asus A8N-SLi nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-101-AS)
Price: £84.95 (£99.82 Including VAT at 17.5%)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Crucial 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2 PC5300 667MHz Ballistix Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT6464AA664) (MY-035-CR)
Price: £149.95 (£176.19 Including VAT at 17.5%)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
XFX GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (PVT45FUD) (GX-038-XF)
Price: £299.95 (£352.44 Including VAT at 17.5%)
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Arctic Cooling T2 Silentium Silent Midi Tower Case - 350W Seasonic Silent PSU (CA-001-AR)
Price: £49.95 (£58.69 Including VAT at 17.5%)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
TOTAL (inc VAT): £1016.08
dont know how this is going to come out but here goes! :D [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
09:37 22/6/2005
Sniper's Alley
12:31 22/6/2005
My bet is it won't be able to hold close to 12v when the system is under load, and your PC will be unstable.
It may seem like a waste of money spending money on a quality PSU, but I've built my own PCs since 1997 and I've had 4 cheap power supplies fail and lost two motherboards and a hard disk when they've blown up, and I've only just learnt my lesson.
It's really not worth skimping on the PSU because if it blows up then it could take everything else in the system with it.
And I wouldn't even think about running more than a couple of optical drives or more than a couple of powered USB devices either with that PSU. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
Sniper's Alley
12:32 22/6/2005
12:39 22/6/2005
Sniper's Alley
22:59 23/6/2005
23:25 24/6/2005
I wouldnt get that if i were you, will be out of sync with that cpu. You want PC3200, out of sync ram means having slightly delayed bullet reg in cs. Don't believe me... buy it and find out for yourself. But when you do... come back on here and be sure to tell everyone about the slight delay you now have in your bullet reg. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
13:33 25/6/2005
11:20 26/6/2005
12:30 26/6/2005
13:44 26/6/2005
Boys From The Dwarf
19:18 22/7/2005
AMD Athlon 64 FX-55
Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe
Corsair TwinX 2GB DDR
2x XFX PCI-E 6800 GT
Creative SoundBlaster Audigy ZX 7.1
Seagate 300gb SATA
Seagate 400gb SATA
WD 200GB
Maxtor 80GB
DVD Writer + CD Writer
8-1 card floppy drive
SilverStone TJ case thing
19" Samsung SyncMaster 913n
And i'm gonna be paying it off long b4 it's out of date :( [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
16:22 23/7/2005
17:40 25/7/2005
saying that you all need a bullet in the head far more than anything else. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]