Time for a new computer

[Myztlee]

Ok, after frankensteining my computer for the past 10 years, it's time to get a brand new, from scratch system, with a few exceptions. I don't need a new keyboard or mouse, the ones I have work fine. I'm still happy with my monitor, though some day I'll get a bigger one. I also have a printer and scanner, palm pilot and digital camera that all need to connect to it, USB, LPT1, whatever. I don't need speakers, either.

But everything else I want fresh. Case, CPU, hard drives, CDROM, CDW, DVD (maybe), memory, sound card, video card.

It doesn't have to be the absolute top of the line, but should be something I can play both today's games, and games of the next few years, without having to upgrade, with very good framerate with high quality effects. So while I don't need some liquid nitrogen cooled CPU and a video card that runs louder than a vaccuum cleaner, I would like a powerful little gaming system, that also can be used for graphical editing, and the simple things like email, web browsing.

I'm looking for 1) what to get 2) where to get it. I live in Toronto, if that helps, for places to buy. So far one place recommended to me was Canada Computers.

My budget would be max $2000Can. I figure by not having to get a new monitor, that will save me some cash for the system itself. If a piece such as the CPU comes down to "well, this is a little better but a bit more expensive", I would probably go for the more expensive, if it's only a matter of $50 or so.

How does USB compare to other ports? Right now, my scanner no longer runs because I'm out of connections. My Palm Pilot cradle takes 1 USB. My digital camera takes another. I can't hook up a webcam without a 3rd, and my scanner doesn't work at all because my printer seems to be taking up the only other port out, but my printer could run off a USB port as well. Which means 3-4 USB ports on top of the regular ones. My mouse also could be USB, but is using an adaptor to connect to the mouse-only port, and the keyboard uses the keyboard-only port.

I'm fairly tech savvy, give me the pieces and I could put a PC together, but I'm not all up on what is good, what ports are best suited for what, and what I should be looking for.

AMD or Intel? Duron, Athlon XP, Athlon MP, Penium, Celeron...huh? Video cards what?

Oh, and operating system... has to be Windows based, but XP, 2000, Win3.1...?

So, suggestions?

[Exitilus]

Well, here's the system I'll be buying as soon as I plow through my next few exams.

----------
ANTEC PLUS1080AMG METALLIC GRAY SOHO FILE SERVER W/430 POWER SUPPLY ($206.11)
VANTEC 80MM TORNADO CASE FAN ($27.95)
X4 VANTEC 80MM STEALTH CASE FAN ($63.80)

AMD ATHLON XP 1700+ THOROUGHBRED 266 MHZ FSB 256KB CACHE SOCKET-A *OEM* ($92.95)
ASUS A7N8X DELUXE V2.0 SOCKET-A NVIDIA NFORCE2 5PCI/AGP8X 3DUAL DDR400 AUDIO LAN SATA 6USB2.0 ($215.95)
X2 OCZ ENHANCED LATENCY PC3200 512MB DDR 400MHZ CL2 COPPER HEATSPREADER ($451.90)
SAPPHIRE ATLANTIS RADEON 9500 PRO 128MB *OEM* ($277.87)

WD 36GB 10KRPM RAPTOR S-ATA 5 YEAR MF WTY ($239.32)

LITEON LTR-52246S 52X24X52X CD-RW RETAIL ($74.95)
LITEON XJ-HD166S 16X48 DVD-ROM RETAIL ($56.66)
PANASONIC 1.44MB FLOPPY DRIVE ($16.94)

LOGITECH ELITE KEYBOARD ($59.95)
LOGITECH MX700 CORDLESS OPTICAL MOUSE ($103.04)

Total: $1,887.39 @ vibecomputers.com (Canadian$)
----------

Vibe is in B.C., but their shipping isn't bad, and they'll price match anyone. (think shipping on the whole system works out to $40 - and I'm not too far from TO)

To go with that, I already have an SLK-800A heatsink (the reason there's only the one tornado fan - too loud to fill my case with them! haha)


-Exit

[Eomer]

I have a few nice Canadian sites bookmarked at home, the one I can remember offhand is www.vibecomputers.com, they seem to be very competitive for price. Keep in mind, all prices are cash only, so add 3% I think for the price if you order with Visa. I will post the others later.

In terms of what you can get, 2K should do you fine. Will use vibecomputers.com for prices for a rough idea (oooh, they just got a new site today):

CPU: at the low to mid range, AMD is more competitive. At the high end, Intel is probably a better bet for now.

AMD 2400: $167 (http://www.vibecomputers.com/index.cfm?loc=iview&if=n&vID=35793)

Motherboard: probably best to go with an Nforce2 based mobo for now, they have tons of features and come with excellent on board sound.

I don't have a particular model in mind, although Asus has always been great, this one is pretty top o the line: $215 (http://www.vibecomputers.com/index.cfm?loc=iview&if=n&vID=131765)

Video Card I would go with an ATI, hands down. It's hard to say which exactly tho, since their product line is in the middle of a transition. Best bet for your dollar is a 9500 Pro, but those are very hard to come by. Basically they are a castrated 9700 Pro, but most could be software modded to nearly the same level. But you basically can't buy em anymore, and the replacement 9600 Pro is actually slower even at normal settings. A 9700 Pro runs about 500, and IMO is close to worth it. However I would wait for widespread availability on the 9800, because prices are probably going to drop significantly.

The rest I am sure you can figure out for yourself, and to be honest you will probably never notice differences between different hard drives, dvd drives (get one, not a cd drive), or even memory. Just make sure you get a decent case with good airflow and a strong 350W+ power supply, otherwise heat and power problems might bite you in the ass.

Also, you were saying that you ran out of USB ports? Most motherboards come with a little dongle thingy that you plug into the mobo and mount in a PCI slot, to give you extra USB in the back. Also, most decent cases have a few on the front now as well, so you should be okay. I believe you can also buy USB hubs that you plug into a USB port on your computer and place on your desk. I think anyway, never even looked as I don't need it. You could also buy a PCI USB card, which are like 20-30 bucks.

[Exitilus]

To add to all that, some quick comments ...

- If you're not up to messing around with overclocking your system, drop the tornado, and buy a newer processor. 1700+'s can, with the right stepping, be overclocked to around 2.5 GHz, but, that requires messing around with voltage and getting a serious heatsink - so you could obviously pick up a faster processor with the money saved from not getting a new mouse/keyboard - bang for your non-overclocked buck is likely the T-bred 2400+ (http://www.vibecomputers.com/index.cfm?loc=iview&if=n&vID=35793

- If you're not up to paying out the big bucks for such a small drive (it's all about speed, wooo) your best bet would be the western digital special edition 80 or 120 gig drives with 8 meg caches. They don't run quite as fast as the ATA/133 maxtor drives, and are even a couple dollars more expensive, but they have triple the warranty (3 years) and, of course, the 8 mb cache. (http://www.vibecomputers.com/index.cfm?loc=iview&if=n&vID=35427 / http://www.vibecomputers.com/index.cfm?loc=iview&if=n&vID=2068)

- The asus board has very amazing onboard sound, so there's no reason to spend cash on anything else unless you really want frontside headphone inputs

... if anything else comes to me I'll post again ...


-Exitilus

[Tilea]

I don't know enough to recommend any hardware to you, but check out www.pccanada.com Myz. They're on Lakeshore Blvd.

I got my last PC there on a recommendation, and have never had a problem with it. Their prices are good, too.

[Talas]

X2 OCZ ENHANCED LATENCY PC3200 512MB DDR 400MHZ CL2 COPPER HEATSPREADER ($451.90)

That is some SERIOUS RAM, LOL!

[Exitilus]

Just quickly about video cards and whatnot ... (touching on the same thing eomer did)

Eomer's getting two cards mixed up, and, well, it's not a big deal - a month ago I would have made the same mistake.

There are two very different cards, the Sapphire Radeon 9500 128MB and Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB. The price difference is about 50 dollars in favour of the non-pro card, but performance-wise, there's a huge gap.

----------
Things to take into account:

- Without any modifications, the non-pro is blown out of the water completely.

- With the soft mod on the non-pro, it runs about 5%-10% better than the pro.

- With a BIOS replacement, so it's no longer clock locked, the pro, overclocked, rivals the 9700 pro.

.. and most importantly ..

- Only 30-40% of the non-pro cards can actually be soft-modded, the rest, when you attempt it, junk up your screen with artifacts
----------

Either way, make your own decision - vibe actually sells both:

Pro (http://www.vibecomputers.com/index.cfm?loc=iview&if=n&vID=147014 / http://www.vibecomputers.com/index.cfm?loc=iview&if=n&vID=131761)

Non-pro (http://www.vibecomputers.com/index.cfm?loc=iview&if=n&vID=147015)


Oh yeah, and as eomer hinted, don't even touch nvidia cards .. urgh


-Exitilus

[Eomer]

Yeah, maybe I did get it mixed up, I only briefly read about the whole 9500 pro/non pro modding thing, since I wasn't planning on doing it myself.

All I know is that one of them can potentially be very very fast, although it's not guaranteed.

[Geranon Morrowind]

~~**Information Technology Professional**~~

OK Myzltee today we are going to help you choose what system works best for you. And first in doing so we are going to be giving you some new information to help you decide.

First off: YOUR NEEDS

Here we go,
You have alot of USB devices, which like any normal person these days, you need more ports. You arnt going to find a computer that comes standard with 4-8 ports, but what you can do is go out and buy a nice little usb hub that has 4-10 additional ports, and plug that into "1" usb port, giving you a total of 5-11 ports for all of your digital needs.

Next, you'll be wanting a machine that can play EverQuest without the lame loading times and nice Graphical Setup. On another note your looking for system parts that, not only dont conflict with EQ, but also work great with other games on the market.

While System proccessor speed is a grand thing, nothing comes more important than Memory, and considering the new Doom thats comming out soon, you'll want a few nice things that make the world of computing a nicer place.

So on a whole, what is the last need you have? The cash flow, with two grand your looking at a pretty spiffy nice new computer for you, that will at least last a few years.


Next: YOUR OPTIONS

A big question in the computer industry has been for the last few years. Intel or AMD. Originally Intel was the only way to go, and then AMD came out with the Athalon line. AMD kept up with intel fairly well until more recently, that most gamers are slowly starting to prefer Intel based systems once again. Why? AMD lagging behind the latest chip designs and features listings. Although a lot of gamers still prefer the AMD because of past recognition.

In terms of Graphics Cards your looking at the ATI's Vs. the Nvidia, and for this I would honestly go Nvidia all the way, not because ATI doesnt have some amazing cards out there, but for games, most game creaters design their games for best performace around the Nvidia chipsets, like id software, and even SoE has talked how EQ and EQ2 are exclusively made to run on Nvidia cards. Id's new Doom 3 game is once again exclusively made to run on Nvidia cards, not saying that ATI card won't run them, but that for the maximum features and the best look and feel Nvidia is the way to go, plus anything about 35-40 fps is honestly not even detectable by the human eye. so when comparing 180 to 175 fps in the two cards, Id give the advice to go with the quality over the extra few fps speed. Once again Nvidia.

Memory, For EQ and other games upcomming, your going to want a minimum of at least 512 mb ram or even 1gb. For the prices right now You can easily afford 1 gig of nice ram for under $300, so its not a bad thing to add to your system choice.

Finally ~~ Gamers Choice ~~

With $2000 cash (unsure how it transfers between US and Canada) but you might want to consider just going with a manufacturer of computer gaming boxes. You can get almost a dream box minus monitor, keyboard, mouse, from Alienwares for under $2000. And they will ship it to ya no problems at all. Plus the nice additional idea of free support for the next two-three years is a major plus. I checked out the site that Tilea mentioned and after looking, you can get a MUCH better system from a place like Alienwares or Dell for much cheaper. Now days you can't buy parts by your self that they can get cheaper.


and in conclusion:

I'd go to the Dell site and look at big company computers (goto the home computers section and they dont let you customize enough options, like I dont want to buy the gay photo studio garbage option). You'll be able to get a nice 2-3 ghz box with all the features you want for under 2000, including a nice (at least right now) Free 3 year all parts all service warrenty included. I use to only reccomend someone building a system by themselves for better parts and cheaper cost, now days, buy it from a major distributor, for better parts, chearper costs, and better warrenties.

-Ger

**Edit**

Some people dont get sarcasm, guess I'm just not that good at it.

[waright]

"I'm fairly tech savvy, give me the pieces and I could put a PC together, but I'm not all up on what is good, what ports are best suited for what, and what I should be looking for. "

I used to put all my comp's together in peices. I found out no matter what it seemed I got screwed about 1/3 of the time with problems that I used to love to troubleshoot.... no more.. I now either buy from a bargan basement with a warrenty shop like www.cyberpowerpc.com or I buy from dell.

As for what you want, it does not really matter, anything that you would buy for 1k at cyberpowerpc type shop or 1.5k (american dollors) at dell would be great, get a 64 or 128MB video card 1GB of ram and your set for OS I would go with XP home, or if your a geek like me XP pro. (I use Win2k pro myself since I hate the new licensing)

Listen to the do it yourself geeks if you want. If you want to be a poweruser it may pay off, if you want a system that you dont have to fuck with every single minute of the day I would make sure you go with a company that has a warranty and puts it together for you. If you want to overclock ignore this message completely, what I have said does not apply to overclockers.

P.S. Intell or AMD does not matter, just 200 dollors your paying for a name and maybe sofware better written for it... flip a coin and the coin will give you more sage advice than you will get anywhere else without you diving into a doctorate of CPU theory. (I use AMD cept for my 8000 insperon dell)

[Buazag Bonesteel]

Originally posted by Exitilus



Oh yeah, and as eomer hinted, don't even touch nvidia cards .. urgh


:confused:

I have a Visiontek geforce 4 ti4600. Been pretty happy with it so far but not being a tech monkey I might just be missing things. Why exactly are nvidia cards no good??

[Eomer]

This may sound harsh, but I have to say it: I would ignore the vast majority of Geranon's post. I don't know if it was meant sarcastically or not, but I kind of hope so.

[Crimsonbanshee]

Ok i have gone into it with Myzt already but heres my 2 cents:


AMD dont waste your money on intel paying for a name plain and simple. blah blah hyperthreading ill take two athlon MP's and out perform it for the same money =p

Only Buy trusted name brand ram Crucial is my choice

I like ASUS boards MSI is alright too

As far as video cards go im sorta mixed I prefer lower end Nvidia cards because of reliability and ATI is the king atm as far as speed for a cheaper card a ti 4200 128 meg is what i would buy.. Upper end ATI 9700 pro / 9800 no question. I dont need anopther furnace atm like the Geforce FX thanks electricity is too expensive to heat my house =-p

[Eomer]

ATI is the best card to get out there right now, at any price point. It isn't really up for debate even, their cards are simply better in virtually every respect. And their drivers are actually way better than Nvidia's right now for their new line, as their AA and AF is half broken, and reliability isn't that great either.

That all could change in a few months, but right now ATI can't be beat in any segment. I can't understand why anyone would want to buy an older Nvidia card right now, and miss out on the far better image quality of mid or even low range ATI cards with AA/AF on.

[Exitilus]

Just a note ...

Radeon 9700 pros should be dropping in price quite a bit in the next couple weeks .. they're apparently starting to hit the $300 mark at some places already ...


-Exit

[Tarissa]

Well, everyone's an expert (except Geranon's comment on memory, dude wtf was that?? sure if i have 32 meg and i'm running w2k advanced server its gonna suck but saying memory is greater than CPU and vid card for gaming is, well shit they haven't invented that word yet!)

My opinions:

1) CPU: Whatever. Intel or AMD. It's getting so close it doesn't 'matter.

2) RAM: DDR. Intel is switching to this and ditching their crummy 2 byte bus RDRAM (oooh I'm clocked at 533 but I run off a 16 bit bus!111)

3) Video: Radeon 9700 or 9800.

4) Motherboard: Any MB that has a nice built in audio chipset to avoid soundblaster, and the USB ports you need (easily can find 6 USB port MB's). The real big thing: find one that supports dual ddr. If you buy two sticks of ram, your ram bandwidth is (theoretically) doubled

5) Hard disks: Toy with buying Serial ATA drives with big buffers. With the right MB you can RAID 0 them, but it's really not a big deal for games

6) Case: something that looks pretty. If you find a completely toolless case, tell me, i couldn't. Mine glows lots of colors and has front USB firewire. That's why I got it!

Point: I am not an overclocking kidee. I like stable systems, and don't like to ever question why this or that is wrong (computers have enough anomolies between all of the interacting hardware from different manufacturers and their subsequent drivers / software that I don't need *another* variable like running hardware above spec to give me MORE headaches.

My system:
AMD Athlon XP 2700+
2 x 512 PC2700 RAM CAS 2 (cas 2 is semi-important. can get a performance increase of 10% equiv of CPU increase over 2.5 cas ram)
Asus a7n8x deluxe MB
2 x 80 gig HD (whatever, they were cheap ^_^)
DVD/CDRW Combo
Radeon 9700 Pro

I'm sure you can put together a nice intel system now. The prices
have come down.

The simple difference between Nvidia and ATI (Radeon) cards: Nvidia = good drivers. ATI = better performance. You'll easily find stuff that ATI will have problems with. Nvidia seems to put a lot of work into drivers (like 3dfx used to) sigh :(

[Eomer]

Tarissa, that's not the case right now. Nvidia has the shit drivers, with ATI blowing them out of the water in terms of image quality and performance. Stability is virtually the same. I know I know, up until 9 months ago they sucked ass, it's true. But that seems to have changed for the better.

And about rdram, I don't know much about it technically. It is serial or something, so narrow pipe moving fast blah blah, that's the depth of my knowledge. I wouldn't have a problem with it if it were competitive on price and performance with DDR (which it is starting to be now, but wasn't before).

My main problem with rambus is that they are a bunch of thieving lying bastards who hide behind lawyers. That whole bullshit with them trying to sue JDEC after they left it for royalty on basically every stick of Sdram memory in existence was borderline criminal. And they have been chastised by US judges for repeatedly trying to dodge ones that they feel are not friendly to them. They are a joke, and I hope they fade away into obscurity.

[Exitilus]

Toolless? Anything by Lian Li is, pretty much.

However, they're really expensive and don't come with power supplies. I was toying with buying this (http://www.newegg.com/app/Showimage.asp?image=11-112-027-01.JPG/11-112-027-07.JPG/11-112-027-06.JPG/11-112-027-05.JPG/11-112-027-04.JPG/11-112-027-02.JPG/11-112-027-08.JPG/11-112-027-03.jpg) Lian Li case - with all the front inputs and it being completely toolless ... but the price tag is just a bit high ... (I'd end up paying 250 for the case, then 150 for a PSU .. maybe next upgrade :( )

They're great anyhow ... sliding motherboard tray, thumbscrews all around, every port you could want... *shrug* $$$ :D

The best bet otherwise would probably be to buy whatever suits your fancy and load up on thumbscrews - they're not exactly cheap (a dollar per sometimes - depending on if you want them anodized or not) but can allow you to somewhat effectively mimic a toolless case on any setup.

Also, a lot of cases nowadays are coming with latched hinge doors, so, that can really reduce the *need* to bust out a screwdriver. (here (http://www.vibecomputers.com/index.cfm?loc=iview&if=n&vID=57416&vli=y), here (http://www.vibecomputers.com/index.cfm?loc=iview&if=n&vID=35600), and here (http://www.vibecomputers.com/index.cfm?loc=iview&if=n&vID=56884&vli=y) for starters - if you aren't going lian li, antec is the next best thing - and they come with really nice PSUs most of the time)


-Exit

[Tarissa]

"Nvidia has the shit drivers, with ATI blowing them out of the water in terms of image quality and performance."

Yeah I see what you're getting at here. Though, when I say good drivers, I usually mean they are more feature complete and stable. I still see interimittent gaming problems on my Radeon for some games, though my geforce never seems to miss a beat (albeit slower!) I'm not sure rambus can catch up with 333mhz or 400mhz DDR ram on a dual ddr board. I think its going away permanently now (and yeah it was crazy expensive) I didn't follow any of that companies legal cases. As an aside, doesn't the gamecube or something use such a highly clocked but low bandwidth bus for their system?

Performance wise, I mean for example anti aliasing, ATI is great (FSA on Nvidia cards!? If you don't mind 30% perf hit heh)

[Parak]

Mmm, good suggestions. Though I'd go with Corsair twinx memory, 512 or 1gb set. Two sticks matched and tested in a dual ddr configuration, which all nforce2 based boards use. Or if you don't, get two sticks of same specifications anyway.

[Eomer]

As far as a case goes, I just ordered this last night from Vibe: http://koolance.com/products/product.html?code=CCS-A04

I have never tried water cooling before, so I figure this is a nice easy way to start. I also ordered the various blocks for the CPU/Videocard/HD from them. I doubt it will be a very good cooling system compared to a hand picked part variety, but I just want to see how this water cooling works.

Not to mention I found it pretty cheap, only 157 bucks for the case and about another 150 for the various blocks (all Canadian funds). With the current retail heat sink/fan on my Athlon 2000 and an open case, the CPU is rarely below 60 C after playing games for awhile, and it's at nearly default voltage. Hopefully the water cooling will be a little quieter as well.

If it sucks, whatever, hopefully I will have fun playing around with it and assembling it.

[Exitilus]

Just be really careful eomer .. don't want to be frying anything! Best idea is to get the system setup, and run it for 48 hours before attaching the blocks to your processor and GPU - because, well, fried computer bits suck. (I'm sure you were going to be careful - but it's always good to hear it again, hehe - and the fact that the pumping system is builtin helps too - but still, lol)

Oh, and about the "kits" OCz, Corsair, and whomever else sell - they're just a ploy to charge an extra 50 bucks for their already expensive products.

-Exit

[Eomer]

Yeah, I am aware. I plan on significantly upgrading my system in the next 3-9 months anyways, depending on a lot of stuff (Athlon64 release being one), so if I fry anything it isn't a huge loss. Nothing in the system is too exotic. So I figured I would try the water cooling on a system that was going out the door anyway.

Being a plumber, I am well aware of the dangers of water. Not to mention well equipped to really have some fun with this kind of thing :D

[Buazag Bonesteel]

Originally posted by Eomer
. Hopefully the water cooling will be a little quieter as well.



Quiet?? Whats that??

When I built my new maching I put in a volcano fan myself. System runs at a very nice temp all the time even after many hours of intensive gaming....but my god it's loud. After the relative silence of my old rinky dink Kool Max fan this sounds like a jet engine :D

I've gotten used to it though...but I think I'd be looking for another option if I had multiple rigs here like so many of you do.

[Geranon Morrowind]

In response to Nvidia vs. ATI (Serrious this time)

ATI currently has better drivers and very nice performance ratings in comparison to Nvidia.

However. ATI's still seem to have some issues with some games. Many of the up and comming games have been stated to have been designed specifically for Nvidia cards. Like Doom III is being tested on the Gforce FX, and EQ2 is being developed by SoE to work mainly with Nvidia's cards.

ATI has awesome cards
Nvidia has guarenteed greatest effects on some of the up comming games.


Which one to get? <shrug> Get the best for your money. More memory, more recent product, ATI? Nvidia? Honestly you can get a better ATI card right now for less money. Want the name? I choose Nvidia because thats the card I know id's developing doom 3 for, and I'll be all over that game, muhahhahaha. Otherwise? <shrug> I got a friend that works for Nvidia right now, I get cards for cheaper than most. I'd say go for an ATI because you get better performance for less money. but once again <shrug> your choice guys, its all mainly preference than actuallity. Mac? PC? anyone? lol the age old religious debates.

[Aalenu]

I choose Nvidia because thats the card I know id's developing doom 3 for

Umm, no.

Much has been hyped about how Carmack uses a FX to develop and test, but it's being written using DirectX. Any DirectX card will run it. The card that does the function calls the fastest, will run the game the fastest. Some function calls are currently done faster by Nvidia cards, some by ATI. In general the balance is pretty even now.

ATI's current advantage in performance is mostly due to their much more efficient handling of Anisotrpic focusing and AA, if that matters to you.

[Geranon Morrowind]

You are correct Aalenu, it is being written using DirectX and any DirectX card will run it. And the balance is "Very" even right now.

All down to preference and price for each person on an individual level. Yet at the same time, Carmack and SoE are testing their games currently on the FX card, does that mean it will run games better than an ATI? perhaps and then again perhaps not, I wouldn't be surprised if the ATI runs some of them better than the FX at this point. However they will run nicely on an FX, and for previous stated reasons "ie friends" I'll probably be sticking with the Nvidia cards for a while, and I am not saying everyone else should. You should choose the one thats best for your needs and your cash availability. ;)

[Eomer]

Yeah so I guess the only public demonstrations of Doom III so far running on ATI setups doesn't count for anything huh?

Seriously man, I don't know where you are getting this idea that games are being made specifically for Nvidia cards. The only thing that is happening is Nvidia is paying a bit for splash screens in games, like for the UT2003 demo. A developer would be slitting their own wrist if they were to specifically optimize for one brand. Not to mention that right now, ATI is selling a ton more cards than Nvidia, at least in the gamer segment. Like I said, it's their own suicide to make.

Go look at any benchmark for a recently release game (Splinter Cell, UT2003 are just about the only ones until Doom 3, no one else makes it easy to benchmark), and the best ATI card has a 20-30% lead on the best Nvidia card (that isn't even widely available, and never will be) on default settings. Turning on AA and AF, and the ATI is doubling or tripling the Nvidia scores. It's laughable. It's not as pronounced on mid or low range cards, but it's still there.

Anyone looking to buy a decent graphics card right this very second would be making a huge mistake buying anything but ATI.

Don't believe me? Go look at these benchmarks and come back and tell me that it's a close race. http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDU2LDQ=

Even if you ignore the overclocked scores, it's huge. Taking those into account, it's even more ridiculous. And good luck trying to overclock your FX when it's already cranking out ridiculous heat, not to mention that it automatically throttles it's own clock speed down if it gets too hot.

It's really unfortunate, if the FX came out when it was supposed to, 6-9 months ago, it would have been a great card. I look forward to Nvidia getting their shit back together and spanking ATI like they normally do. Ain't competition grand?

[Eomer]

Bah, got a call from Vibe today... they had mispriced the case. Which I thought they had. It was at 157, was supposed to be 357 :D. That's why I was so eager to jump on it. I cancelled, will do water cooling another time.

[Exitilus]

aww .. yeah .. I'd thought the case price was a tad under ;p

If you ever really want to try your hand at water cooling in the future, and want to get it all as a kit, there's one sitting easily on top of the pile -> swifttech (http://www.systemcooling.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=354) (also (http://www.ipkonfig.com/Reviews/LiquidCooling/Swiftech_QPowerCase/))

My friend has it setup, and it runs wonderfully - all easy to setup, and it has top-form performance. (though, it's pricey .. think the whole kit runs $300 or $400 cdn) However, it's likely a better buy than kits like the Aquarius II and Iceberg systems, as they only perform slightly better than air cooling, and compared to some setups, such as an SLK-900U and screamer, worse.


-Exit

[Geranon Morrowind]

Serriously do you actually read my posts? or just see me using the name Nvidia and jump on me? I've seen all the latest bench marks and I'm not disagreeing that ATI cards are doing alot better than Nvidia cards.

Who said that games were being made to run specifically on Nvidia cards? Um go re-watch the EQ 2 video on the programmers talking about how they're using Nvidia cards primarily, or all the articles about how Carmack is/was using Nvidia cards to do testing.

Does this mean they "arn't" using ATI cards? I doubt that, Carmack and SoE both are smarter than that, and are most assuredly using ATI cards to do testing as well.

"I" key word, "I" choose to stick with Nvidia right now because of what I can get for "my" money. I'm not going to go and spend several hundred dollars on a nice new card when I can get one for under a hundred that performs better than "most". (notice I did not use the word all).

Nvidia vs. ATI --- Once again --- personal preference and cash flow.

Read it this time? lol, not trying to be offensive to anyone here.


And for those that wonder what I'm running:

Dell C840 Latitude Laptop
Pentium4 - 2.2 Ghz
Gforce 440 Go 64mb
1Gb DDR ram
IBM UXGA 1600x1200 15" screen
40GB 5400RPM Disk Drive
Internal 8-24-10-24X SWDVD/CDRW Combo
Crystal CS4205 Audio
2x 8-cell Lithium-Ion (66WHr) Battery
(average battery life while powersave mode: 11 hours)
(average battery life while on performance mode: 5 hours)


Bummer on the case Eomer, hate when they mess up on pricing like that :( but yeah, most water cooled systems are fairly expensive, when I saw your post about that one for only 157 I was thinking about ordering it myself. lol.

[Exitilus]

Nvidia vs. ATI --- Once again --- personal preference and cash flow.

That's the problem. That statement, if not directly, says that you believe the two manufacturer's cards are equal - and what Eomer is saying is, and rightly, that they aren't equal - nvidia is really lagging behind.

Radeon cards are a far better value performance/cash-wise, and on the high end, blow nvidia away. It's hardly a matter of preferance, unless you prefer having a bad video card.


-Exit

[Geranon Morrowind]

Originally posted by Geranon Morrowind
I'd say go for an ATI because you get better performance for less money.

missed this statement? --- how many posts ago did I say it?

[Exitilus]

You're just sending mixed messages on the issue. That's all I'm trying to point out.


-Exit

[Eomer]

I don't mean to be hostile Geranon, sorry if I come across that way. However your posts have shown a lack of knowledge about video cards etc, and you are really misleading people. Myztlee is looking to spend his money in the manner that will lead to the best system. Sorry man, it's not up for debate, the best video cards, whether you are concerned about price or not, are simply ATI. For now, anyway. That wasn't the case six months ago, and may not be in 6 months.


I'd say go for an ATI because you get better performance for less money.

What else would you buy a video card for? You like it to double as a space heater for your feet under your desk? Features? Get an AIW Radeon.


Who said that games were being made to run specifically on Nvidia cards?

You did.


Many of the up and comming games have been stated to have been designed specifically for Nvidia cards


I choose Nvidia because thats the card I know id's developing doom 3 for


but for games, most game creaters design their games for best performace around the Nvidia chipsets


even SoE has talked how EQ and EQ2 are exclusively made to run on Nvidia cards


Id's new Doom 3 game is once again exclusively made to run on Nvidia cards

I see the point you are trying to make, at least I think I do, that developers code for Nvidia cards first, and worry about ATI second. That's simply not the case. I would however, like to congratulate Nvidia marketing on successfully indoctrinating another person! It's all bullshit man, marketing at its best. There is no benefit to any developer, especially someone like id who pride themselves on top notch performance, to purposely make one card run better than another on their games. It creates bad blood between companies, and it pisses off customers. It's bad business, and none of the major devs would stoop that low for a cheque from either manufacturer.


not going to go and spend several hundred dollars on a nice new card when I can get one for under a hundred that performs better than "most". (notice I did not use the word all).

That's good to hear. If you were well informed, however, you would realize that at any price point right now, ATI beats Nvidia. That includes low end solutions as well, although the gap is a lot narrower down there. That's where the better drivers become even more important for ATI.

But all that aside, you can't even buy the newest generation Nvidia cards, whether they are the budget ones or the 400 dollar ones. At least, I haven't seen a single Canadian store, online or retail, that has them. Several are already taking orders on 9800's though.


Nvidia vs. ATI --- Once again --- personal preference and cash flow.

No, it's really not. It's personal ignorance right now. Like I said, it could change in a few months, and before the scale was tilted the other way. But not now, and decisively so.

And yes, I am bored. I finished all the crap I needed to this morning, and am now twiddling my thumbs waiting to get on a plane to Victoria to visit friends and partake in mass smoking of whatever we get our hands on! woo

[Rika]

some ddr ram says 32x64 and some is 64 x 64 whats the difference? they are about the same price

[Geranon Morrowind]

"shrug" you win... "zips his mouth"

[Parak]

Rika: http://www.kingston.com/tools/umg/umg04.asp
In simple terms, you multiply the two, divide by 8, and you should get the total memory size in megabytes. Though that's not always the case. :eek:

[Buazag Bonesteel]

This video card debate has been kind of amusing heh. I bought my card, Visiontek Xtasy Geforce 4 ti4600 (http://www.deviantpc.com/reviews/vti4600/index.shtml) , a while back. It was before you could buy it off the shelf even....I had to order it. It was beyond a doubt the fastest and best card out there at the time although it still may not have been the best value for the price.

Having bought it I really don't keep up on everything that is new coming out now seeing as I have no intention of replacing this card for probably 2 years or so. Judging by the many seemingly well researched responses in this thread it looks like ATI has overtaken the nvidia cards in value/performance.

What is funny to me is that there is a similar thread over on the IG boards and on THAT thread the nvidia cards are being touted as the better deal heh. From looking at the technical numbers ATI does seem better. Benchmarks all favor the new ATI cards.

The only thing I can say that actually comes from experience though is that all the games I play look great. I can always have every option turned on. I have never had any wierd video glitches or crashing problems with any part of my system including the video card.

My friend Sakekak recently put together a totally new system as well...his has a radeon 9700...not sure if its a pro or not. One game we both installed and played was Shadowbane. Aside from huge server stability issues....I can play the game with all the bells and whistles turned on and it runs smooth as silk....I never had any graphic issues and haven't crashed or locked up my system once. With the ATI card he had quite a few issues including a graphical bug that gave him a really screwy font and large patches of whited out area so he couldn't read anything. He also locked up his system several times just trying to get a character made. After a full day of trying to make the game work he boxed it up and returned it.

This doesn't mean that the nvidia card is better. I'm not even saying that it makes ME think the nvidia card is neccesarily better. But in Shadowbane at least there have been a lot of people having issues with that card (there is a thread on the SB boards as of yesterday saying that the new 3.3 drivers out now fix the problems). When I was playing AC2 and visiting those boards I saw quite a few threads on ATI problems there too.

In short.....maybe my experience here has been a rare one in not having any problems but....it seems to me that despite the technical superiority of the radeon right now it needs a lot more tweaking and attention than my card does. I popped my card into my system last May. I have since upgraded every single piece of hardware around it. In that year I have had zero problems with running any graphical programs and have only ever had to upgrade drivers(twice I think) to keep it running just fine. I have also never run across any threads in game forums that Ive visited that complain about bugs with nvidia cards. Granted I haven't gone looking for them and I'm not naive enough to believe that they don't exist....I am sure that there have been issues with the cards with at least some games out there....I just haven't run into any as of yet.

So at least in that respect I do agree with Geranon even though he seemed to have trouble with being consistant as to what he reccomended ;) As far as just looking at all the numbers then yes, the ATI cards are technically superior right now. For me, in computers and in most things I buy, brand loyalty plays a part in my desicions. If I buy something and it performs the way I expect it to and I never have any problems with it....then I am more likely to stick with that name. My old card was an original Geforce 256 DDR. I loved the card and again...never had problems with it at all.....when I went looking to upgrade it I definitely went with a new nvidia card in mind.....of course it helped that at the time nvidia WAS the fastest card out there. Ram...I had Corsair...liked Corsair...bought more Corsair. Only place I wavered in my brand loyalty was in switching from Intel to an AMD chip.

So in a nutshell....if I was in the market for a new video card right this minute I would be in a bit of a quandry. When I buy any kind of electronic equipment whether its stereo or computer gear I like to have cutting edge stuff so as to get the most out of my money and not have to upgrade for a while. Going by that its an obvious choice...ATI has bigger and better numbers. On the other hand I like to stick with brands i have experience with as long as that experience is good. I also tend to try and look around and get a "feel" from the gaming community as to what works the best, is the most solid, stable choice out there....not being the kind of person that likes to have to spend a lot of time tweaking and messing around to make something work, that's important to me. Going by that....I would lean towards nvidia. Like I said...had 2 geforce cards now and both were plug em in and forget about them kinds of cards.

So to each his own.

Thus ends another long winded and more or less pointless post by the troll :D

[Exitilus]

Yeah, shadowbane seems to really dislike radeons. You need to downgrade your drivers and disable z buffering (think that's it), and it'll work fine - they're supposedly working on a fix for this - which may well be out either way. (I stopped playing, and thus, stopped paying attention)

.. and as for brand loyalty - I've never much liked nvidia since they killed 3dfx =(( (though, they obviously had the better product, I still love the old voodoos, hah)

-Exit

[Buazag Bonesteel]

Yeah that pretty much sums up what people were saying you had to do in Shadowbane. I put the onus on the game companies...Ubisoft in this case, to make sure their games work with the technology out there but if enough games have problems the no matter who's fault it may be....it still sucks.

Very likely that the reason I see so many "issue" threads regarding the ATI cards is that technically they are a better card and therefore a lot more people have bought them recently. More people with those cards = more people with possibility of problems.

If no one is using the nvidia cards....obviously they won't be posting about things that are buggy or don't work ;o

Like I said though....doesn't really matter to me as I like my card and shouldn't have to worry about upgrading anytime real soon. I do kinda hope that when I DO go out looking for my next card that nvidia is back on top though. Makes it easier when brand loyalty and best product on the market both point in the same direction.

[Eomer]

I think the problem is that some QA departments are behind the times or something, using older rigs from when Nvidia was top dog (for the past several years), and inertia from moving over to Radeon's or something. I agree that a lot of games that have come out over the past while have problems with ATI cards, they are specifically mentioned in more patch messages for games than Nvidia anyway.

But seriously, I am all for having personal preference. But I really can't understand how anyone could argue that Nvidia makes a better card that is readily available right now.