Thread: Computers 101

Direct X - the higher the number the more recent the better it is.

CPU - AMD > Intel, Dual Core isnt really supported by EVERYTHING yet, quad-core is a total waste of money for a desktop user.

RAM - you get what you pay for. Kingston are a quality brand, match the speed of the ram to the bus speed of your motherboard, DDR is better than SDRAM.

GFX Cards - Read lots of reviews and benchmark tests against top CURRENT games. The model numbers mean nothing, but the GPU speeds, memory speeds, and memory size matter. SLI and Crossfire (nVidia/ATI respectively) are pretty good as a lot of new games are starting to take advantage of this. XFX cards are a good brand in my experience.

As for why everything got so fucking complicated, beats me. It seemed to happen overnight didnt it. I remember when 256 MB of Ram was a lot, and the latest 433mhz Pentium3 was hot shit.

Sigh.

Originally Posted by Gazhole

Direct X - the higher the number the more recent the better it is.

CPU - AMD > Intel, Dual Core isnt really supported by EVERYTHING yet, quad-core is a total waste of money for a desktop user.

RAM - you get what you pay for. Kingston are a quality brand, match the speed of the ram to the bus speed of your motherboard, DDR is better than SDRAM.

GFX Cards - Read lots of reviews and benchmark tests against top CURRENT games. The model numbers mean nothing, but the GPU speeds, memory speeds, and memory size matter. SLI and Crossfire (nVidia/ATI respectively) are pretty good as a lot of new games are starting to take advantage of this. XFX cards are a good brand in my experience.

As for why everything got so fucking complicated, beats me. It seemed to happen overnight didnt it. I remember when 256 MB of Ram was a lot, and the latest 433mhz Pentium3 was hot shit.

Sigh.

I agree with everything except the ram part. Ram is ram, and the only thing that matters is size and clockspeed. I have 2 gigs of ram, and each 512 dim only cost me $19.00 and have performed flawlessly.

I have yet to see any improvement on games from my new duel core 4800 running at 2.5Ghz, but multitasking is badass. I can't open enough applications to make my computer lag.

Originally Posted by KelJu

I agree with everything except the ram part. Ram is ram, and the only thing that matters is size and clockspeed. I have 2 gigs of ram, and each 512 dim only cost me $19.00 and have performed flawlessly.

I have yet to see any improvement on games from my new duel core 4800 running at 2.5Ghz, but multitasking is badass. I can't open enough applications to make my computer lag.

Well if you want to get into the nitty gritty of CAS/RAS latencies and timings, then there is a huge difference. No one will ever notice that though except for overclockers looking for the best scores.

Tom's Hardware - Computer Hardware News, Tests, Ratings and Reviews is a good spot to search up, unless you are going to keep up with things - having someone explain from then to here is pretty pointless.

Latencies on RAM change along with speeds, speeds don't exactly mean what they do at the face because of how many transactions per clock (200MHz DDR for example is really just 100MHz RAM with a transaction at the rise and fall of the cycle) . . .

Today's processors don't clock as fast as a PIV, but are more efficient due to shorter pathways and thusly, ultimately, process information faster.

Specific questions would perhaps be better.

My own box that I recently built up in August (with performance/budget in mind)

Athlon 64x2 4200 Socket AM2 $90ish
PC6400 2x 1GB $70ish
Gigabyte GA-M61P-S2 AM2 mobo (had what I wanted on the board, replaced video) $80ish
MSI GeForce 8600GT 256MB GDDR3 $100ish

You can see I buy a lot of individual components around the $100 mark.

Decent video/processing for the dollar (haven't actively overclocked since the Duron 600@927MHz), but nothing too fancy. What you want dictates what you buy, if you need more processing power (for games or otherwise) you may want to go Intel as they are on the top of the heap. 2GB RAM is a good starting point for anyone performance oriented, especially if you want Vista (I'm on XP still). As for the video I checked up on Tom's VGA charts, and I generally buy in the ~$100 area and have for years, that extra few percentage points costs a lot more. While I have a 21.6" LCD I don't expect or require to game at 1680x1050 for anything modern, don't have time for games anyway

Think about what you want, lay it out on paper/internet, and ask questions. If you want high res gaming (native res of a big LCD for example) then expect to pay for it. For general computing/some gaming, $500 will get you a nice box.

I dont think Ive ever paid less than a grand for a computer. Shit, the dell I bought years ago has lasted me...years. So I think I got what I paid for.

Basically, Id like a computer that is good with games and internet. Lets say one of you built one for me. Choose the parts of the hardware and say why you chose it.

...or dont, Id still like to know whats what.

Originally Posted by KelJu

I agree with everything except the ram part. Ram is ram, and the only thing that matters is size and clockspeed. I have 2 gigs of ram, and each 512 dim only cost me $19.00 and have performed flawlessly.

I have yet to see any improvement on games from my new duel core 4800 running at 2.5Ghz, but multitasking is badass. I can't open enough applications to make my computer lag.

See! Right there! Why is it a dual core? What is the difference between your's and mine, besides speed? Pentium 2 2.24GHz vs. your's.

I haven't actively followed hardware for a couple of years so I'm out of it, but I know that you can't do a direct ghz to ghz comparison. The new Intels and most AMDs have a shorter 10 stage pipeline where Intel used to constantly increase that number in order to allow greater "speeds". That's why AMDs could never be directly compared with Intels for a long time ghz wise.

In a nutshell - the new CPUs process information more efficiently, so 2.4ghz now will wipe the floor with 2.4ghz from 3 years ago.

Why limit yourself to one brain if you can have two, working in concert? SMP and dual/quad core etc is not at the point (and probably never will) where a two proc computer is twice as fast, but it does help (~30% or so most of the time is what I hear).

All About Dual-Core

It's still a numbers game except those numbers are dollars, these days your average computer buyer is buying straight from the box so the components really don't matter they just have to sound extra high tech so the salesman can say "This unit here comes with phase shift multi-fusion core processors, platinum zillion gig hard drives, 40 gigs of plasma induction RAM, blinking full spectrum leds , and fans quieter than your deadliest fart oh and a 10 ft gelatin cast monitor....also comes with a mind reading keyboard and eye-sensing mouse and laser etching printer....all for $499 and 3 moment warranty

Originally Posted by maniclion

It's still a numbers game except those numbers are dollars, these days your average computer buyer is buying straight from the box so the components really don't matter they just have to sound extra high tech so the salesman can say "This unit here comes with phase shift multi-fusion core processors, platinum zillion gig hard drives, 40 gigs of plasma induction RAM, blinking full spectrum leds , and fans quieter than your deadliest fart oh and a 10 ft gelatin cast monitor....also comes with a mind reading keyboard and eye-sensing mouse and laser etching printer....all for $499 and 3 moment warranty

I'll take 3.

Originally Posted by maniclion

It's still a numbers game except those numbers are dollars, these days your average computer buyer is buying straight from the box so the components really don't matter they just have to sound extra high tech so the salesman can say "This unit here comes with phase shift multi-fusion core processors, platinum zillion gig hard drives, 40 gigs of plasma induction RAM, blinking full spectrum leds , and fans quieter than your deadliest fart oh and a 10 ft gelatin cast monitor....also comes with a mind reading keyboard and eye-sensing mouse and laser etching printer....all for $499 and 3 moment warranty

I'll take it!

Originally Posted by Mudge

Why limit yourself to one brain if you can have two, working in concert? SMP and dual/quad core etc is not at the point (and probably never will) where a two proc computer is twice as fast, but it does help (~30% or so most of the time is what I hear).

All About Dual-Core

quad core dual processor is the only way to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally Posted by Mudge

Why limit yourself to one brain if you can have two, working in concert? SMP and dual/quad core etc is not at the point (and probably never will) where a two proc computer is twice as fast, but it does help (~30% or so most of the time is what I hear).

All About Dual-Core

"AMD also announced its line of desktop dual-core processors, the AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor family. The initial model numbers in the new family include the 4200+, 4400+, 4600+ and 4800+ (2.2GHz to 2.4GHz)"

Does this refer to what danzik said?

In a nutshell - the new CPUs process information more efficiently, so 2.4ghz now will wipe the floor with 2.4ghz from 3 years ago.

In essence yes - the entire purpose of AMD's naming schema was so that people wouldn't just look at the speeds of the processors and disregard it compared to the "faster" Intels.

I don't know how the schema is on the dual core processors now, but I know with the old athlon lines you would take the number and that would be roughly what it would compare to in Intel/ghz.

Those are called PR, Performance Ratings. Cyrix is the first company I'm aware of that came up with the use of these values with their Pentium type CPUs.

The thread is funny because the same thing happened to me. I totally lose track of where things are at until it's time to buy a computer. Then I have to go learn everything again.

Originally Posted by KelJu

I agree with everything except the ram part. Ram is ram, and the only thing that matters is size and clockspeed. I have 2 gigs of ram, and each 512 dim only cost me $19.00 and have performed flawlessly.

I have yet to see any improvement on games from my new duel core 4800 running at 2.5Ghz, but multitasking is badass. I can't open enough applications to make my computer lag.

Did you match the RAM speed to your Bus speed? Ive had shitloads of trouble with package-deal PCs from the big companies that werent matched. In one instance the Ram was too fast for the board so was creating a bottleneck there, and the other time the bus was too fast for the ram and that one has recently burnt out, lol.

Like somebody said, latency DOES make a difference, but to be honest, my sticks arent particularly hot on that front and work great. I just throw kingston in because ram has failed on my in the past, but their stuff never has. Plus they have their own coolers on top of each stick.

<----nerd. :P.

I find the same thing with Dual Core as you actually, for gaming i havent noticed much difference (if any), but when im doing audio editing or photoshop and i have a lot of programs open and a lot of input/output hardware working the dual core really comes into play. Adobe products really take advantage of that technology and its a fucking godsend.

Faster RAM does not create a bottleneck anywhere, if it still fits on the board if anything you could probably run the latency settings faster than you would be able to if you were to run it at the speed it was intended for (since you'd be running it slower). If the board is 'too fast' for the RAM then it either will not POST or it will simply be unstable.

If I had for example "266MHz" DDR but I was running it at 200MHz, I could probably get some free lower latency and still have a stable system.

Multithreaded applications benefit the most from dual/quad core, and most games are not taking advantage of that very heavily yet. Once the hardware becomes commonplace, programmers start programming for the platform more. It'll take awhile to catch up.

Merry Christmas to me. for doing 15 things at once and I'll have it long enough so games will catch up i hope.

Originally Posted by Little Wing

Merry Christmas to me. for doing 15 things at once and I'll have it long enough so games will catch up i hope.

Will 500 gigs of hard drive space do ya LW? I know you do a lot off of your comp so that would bother me. I looked at the specs and can't see the info on the mobo ... specifically if it will do raid 0 on two drives. That sys with two 500 gig drives would do well for a while with power supply and gfx card upgrades as the only real thing in the near future that I'd be concerned over.

Originally Posted by BoneCrusher

Will 500 gigs of hard drive space do ya LW? I know you do a lot off of your comp so that would bother me. I looked at the specs and can't see the info on the mobo ... specifically if it will do raid 0 on two drives. That sys with two 500 gig drives would do well for a while with power supply and gfx card upgrades as the only real thing in the near future that I'd be concerned over.

right now i use a 300 gb drive but i keep it divided into 6 parts that are more than half full most of the time and i burn a lot of my files onto dvd. all my c drive has is os, programs and things i can stand to lose. so 500 is a good start but yeah, more space n power will follow as needed. the comp i have now is a real cheapo, but i've learned to keep it running pretty damn clean. a game with good graphics will crash it after an hr or two though and i have a logitech cam that it can't run without overheating.

Originally Posted by Mudge

Faster RAM does not create a bottleneck anywhere, if it still fits on the board if anything you could probably run the latency settings faster than you would be able to if you were to run it at the speed it was intended for (since you'd be running it slower). If the board is 'too fast' for the RAM then it either will not POST or it will simply be unstable.

If I had for example "266MHz" DDR but I was running it at 200MHz, I could probably get some free lower latency and still have a stable system.

Multithreaded applications benefit the most from dual/quad core, and most games are not taking advantage of that very heavily yet. Once the hardware becomes commonplace, programmers start programming for the platform more. It'll take awhile to catch up.

Completely correct - one of the old overclocking tricks was rather than buy the overpriced RAM with super low latencies, buy good RAM that was faster than needed, and then downclock it to match your mobo. The remaining capability of the RAM could be translated into tighter latencies.

Similarly you could loosen the timings of RAM and be able to safely increase the speed that it ran at without needing to increase voltages.

Originally Posted by Little Wing

right now i use a 300 gb drive but i keep it divided into 6 parts that are more than half full most of the time and i burn a lot of my files onto dvd. all my c drive has is os, programs and things i can stand to lose. so 500 is a good start but yeah, more space n power will follow as needed. the comp i have now is a real cheapo, but i've learned to keep it running pretty damn clean. a game with good graphics will crash it after an hr or two though and i have a logitech cam that it can't run without overheating.

... whoa. What wild stuff you doin' over there that you overheat your webcam?

Originally Posted by BoneCrusher

... whoa. What wild stuff you doin' over there that you overheat your webcam?

my life's not that interesting it just is one of the fun ones that tracks your face so you can put a mustache on yourself or be a shark etc. http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/we.../3057&cl=us,en

Originally Posted by Little Wing

my life's not that interesting it just is one of the fun ones that tracks your face so you can put a mustache on yourself or be a shark etc. http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/we.../3057&cl=us,en

... Hope you get that not that interesting thing fixed. Really mine's in that same shape too but I'm looking at eharmony after the springtime comes along to maybe fix that. It's a different world after 45 has passed you by. Anyways good luck on both counts ... the comp and the other thing.

Originally Posted by BoneCrusher

... Hope you get that not that interesting thing fixed. Really mine's in that same shape too but I'm looking at eharmony after the springtime comes along to maybe fix that. It's a different world after 45 has passed you by. Anyways good luck on both counts ... the comp and the other thing.

thanks. i actually opted to home school Tyler this year and it has added a lot more "interesting" to things. forcing the school to pay for a tutor last year backfired by leaving him unprepared for 5th grade. so this yr, to cover their failure to provide adequate tutoring, they were not demanding work anywhere even near what he is capable of. public schools suck ass.

as far as adult interesting, i think my trip to Montreal will have to wait until i can face the 840 mile round trip minus the winter weather. it's still something to look forward to though.