Qhimm.com Forums
Miscellaneous Forums => Scripting and Reverse Engineering => Topic started by: Goku7 on 2001-12-08 23:18:00
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Ok, first of all, I'd like to announce that yesterday, December 7, was my birthday. Now, aside from the fact that that means people were wishing me a happy birthday, I also got roughly $160 worth of checks and cash from my relatives. Added to my life savings, that brings the total close to $200.
Now, the real kicker is that my dad agreed to supplement me in buying a bare-bones CPU-Motherboard-Memory upgrade. So, without further ado, here's my question:
What combination of components can get me the most bang-for-buck for under $500? Why $500? Because I think that dad is only willing to pay for roughly $300 or so for his part of the purchase. 300 + ~200= almost $500.
Now, I'm planning to upgrade it to where I can stay above the 1GHz barrier on a P-III, with 256 Megs of PC133 SDRAM. I don't need to worry about Video or Sound, because of my 3dFX Voodoo3 PCI and my XG hardware card. I do need to worry, however, about the availibility of ISA slots on this potential system. The SB AWE64 I use for SoundFont purposes is an ISA card, and therefore needs a slot.
So, therefore, those of you who are regulars in this forum (whom I dub the "Tech Squad", after the one in Trabia Garden in FF8.), give me your best shot at this limited opportunity I have.
-edit- why doesn't the forum recognize the underline tags in the posts? Oh well, I'll just use italics instead.
[edited] 239 2001-12-09 00:19
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Hmmm ... OK.
Firstly if you're looking for 1Ghz or above ... you should almost certainly *not* be buying Intel CPU. Don't know about US prices (but I'm assuming they're a similar "spread" to UK prices) but a quick check on >1Ghz CPU's gives me:
P4 1.4Ghz: £116 (actually cheaper than the slower PIII, so if you *must* buy Intel, you'd go for that)
Athlon 1.4: £103
Or, for a value CPU:
Duron 1Ghz: £60
So Intel really isn't a good bet - most people agree AMD is *generally* ahead on performance, although it's a bit contentious - but it's fairly clear than Intel costs noticably more for little, if any, gain at the moment. Plus isn't there that RIMM issue with P4's...?
Is there some reason you need a PIII? With a new mobo, surely you could go for any CPU, right? Athlon is *the* choice at the moment...only thing to watch for is cooling, but if you're not overclocking a standard Athlon heatsink/fan should do.
RAM ... well, if you want 256MB of 133, then buy that, you can't really say much about RAM.
Mobo ... well, I haven't got an Athlon/Duron, but a quick search popped up the Gigabyte GA-7ZXR; support for AMD's up to about 1.5Ghz, 5 PCI slots & 1 ISA (which to be honest, is as good as you're likely to get nowadays; ISA is old...). Onboard 4-channel sound, which you may not need, but an awful lot of mobos have it ... you can always disable it ... plus dualbios, which could be very useful when it comes to flash upgrade time :wink: Haven't seen it, but my current mobo's a Gigabyte and I've been satisfied with it. Asus are also supposed to be pretty good.
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Sounds good....only problem is I don't know the exchange rate for British to U.S. currency.
Well, my dad suggested an Intel CPU; simply because of the cooling issues. If I had a choice between a CPU that fries itself 5 seconds after the heat sink/fan gives out (that's AMD) or a CPU that just causes the system to freeze after the cooling systems fail, but no hardware damage, I'd rather err on the side of price to make I won't have to spend it again on a new processor. Don't get me wrong, the AMD route was my first choice, but after my dad told me about the cooling issues, I decided to change my mind.
The price list my dad showed me had about a $200 increase in making the jump from P-III to P4. Considering that I'm still on a limited buget, and that the P-III is generally cheaper than the P4 with little or no difference in performance for games, I had thought that P-III was the way to go. However, I'll go for a P4 if I can afford it.
BTW, what's RIMM?
When I asked my dad why he suggested 256 megs instead of of the 128 I figured he'd go for, his reply was, "RAM is cheap." 'Nuff said on that issue! :grin:
[edited] 239 2001-12-09 02:01
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PIII ain't cheaper. That P4 1.4Ghz I found cheaper than the PIII 1Ghz. Intel's really pushing the P4, hence the prices.
Maybe your price list is out of date ... old CPU's (and the PIII qualifies on that) always cost more simply because they aren't being produced as much, or at all, compared to newer processors. The day Intel announces PIII production stopped/slashes, boom, prices change.
However ... if you prefer the safety margin of Intel (personally, I wouldn't really care, cooling failures are rare anyway, plus "any day now" AMD motherboards will have proper thermal protection too) then you *are* going to pay for it.
RIMMs: IIRC Intel's P4 mobos use RIMM memory, which is essentially the fastest ram available (still beats DDR memory I believe) but you *do* pay a noticable premium for it. I'm told you can get P4 mobos which use normal RAM, but I haven't seen any. Then again, I haven't been tracking P4's so I'm not exactly 100% on all of this.
OK, price time...
256MB of PC133 ram ... £26
256MB of DDR ram ... £28
256MB of RIMM ... £78
You noticing a difference here? Yup :grin:
Pound/dollar exchange rate is usually around 1.4 pounds to the dollar ... so the ram prices above would be around 36, 39, 109 in dollars.
The memory issue is another reason I'm aiming for an AMD when I upgrade, but hey. At the moment the P4's are safer for thermal overheating ... in a few months, different story :wink:
Got all my prices from http://www.pcindex.co.uk which I've found fairly good, so I'm prepared to take their prices as read (since they just search through about 15 stores and take the lowest price).
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Definitely go AMD. The cooling issue isn't a problem unless you have a defective fan, in which case, the PC shop will probably replace the CPU/mobo.
You can get an AthlonXP 1800(1.5GHz?) for $180 US. $252 gets you an Intel P3 1.2GHz... let's compare there.
I would say go for an Epox 8KTA3+ motherboard and the AthlonXP 1800. It uses standard SDRAM at PC133 speed. It really performs well. It also has an ISA slot, and 6 PCI and 1 AGP, plus onboard sound(easily disabled in BIOS).
I have the standard 8KTA3 board and an Athlon 1.33GHz, and I love it. Very stable.
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Hmm....Your explaination of RIMMs sounds familiar......
Of course! They probably call it "RIMM" in the U.K., but in the U.S. I think it's called either RAMBUS or RDRAM.
Wait a minute. According to the prices you listed, the cost of going from PC133 to DDR is a measely $2? If that's the case, then I'll try to go for the DDR. Okay, so maybe I'm getting a little greedy here!
Still, like I said, I'll go for the P4 if I can manage to get a good price for it. I think your right about the price list my dad got. The particular store he got the list from tends to be a little higher, and is most likely 2 or 3 months old.
Now, will the fact that I would prefer a motherboard that has at least one ISA slot (1 will do, actually, since I don't need my modem, I'm using DSL.), make the motherboard price higher than it would be w/o it, simply because it's ancient technology? If that's the case, then how much of an increase in price would I be typically looking at?
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Definately go for AMD. My brother has a 600 Mhz Pentium Celeron on his computer, 128 MB DIMM RAM, 8 MB video memory graphics accelerator. My laptop has 550 Mhz AMD-K6 III, 128 MB SODIMM RAM, 8 MB video memory, and I still outperform my brother's computer by a lot. 3D games run with no problems on mine, and multimedia is perfect has no problem on my computer, and on my brother's computer Divx movies are choppy. I have grown a fondness for AMD processors :love:.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that DDR is faster than RAMBUS.
Tomorrow (sunday) is the day that I will finally be free from slavery (work).
-vvalentine
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I'm correcting you, because I think you're wrong :wink:
Check http://www4.tomshardware.com/mainboard/01q4/011008/sis645-03.html for memory benchmarks.
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rambus costs an arm and a leg. go with an athlon 1900+ and a gig of ddr for about the same price as the RAMBUS :grin:
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Well, there's a problem with stocking up on memory. I have a *relatively limited* budget to work with, remember? I need to balance the cost of the case, mobo, CPU,and RAM to fit under roughly $500.
PSU: I'm assuming that stands for Power Supply Unit. Yes, I know I'll need a new one. But dad said that the new PSU will be bought with the case when we do go to buy the new "upgrade". So we've already got that issue covered.
As for the Sound Card Issue; you remember I run a dual sound card setup. My SB AWE64 is used for the SoundFont capability, and the fact that it's joystick port doesn't forget the gamepad's callibration every time Windows starts up. My XG card's Joystick port does forget.
Now, you may say, "but you should still get the SB Live! because of the EAX support and [insert another radical acceleration features the card has]". Well, my XG card has hardware acceleration for practically every 3D sound API except for A3D 2.0, which now pretty much seems defunct, since I haven't seen many games that use A3D 2.0.
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goku, that would be difficult on a p4/athlon system. my suggestion:
Duron 1GHz - Look it up on pricewatch.
ATX case with 400 watt power supply - $50-100
Gigabyte Motherboard - $100 or so
512 PC133 SDRAM - $50?
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Yeah, that's what I thought. I knew that RAMBUS was faster, but I wasn't so sure. I looked somewhere, and read that DDR was faster (and it kinda confused me). So thanks for the link, it gets my mind clear on that.
I dissagree with going to Intel. AMD is much cheaper, and I have seen that AMD processors have been able to keep up with Intel processors. Plus, I'm kinda tired of Intel.
-vvalentine
[edited] 213 2001-12-10 04:46
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P4's *are* an easy choice because they require less worrying about, but if you've got the time to spend tweaking your AMD then it's generally a better choice, IMHO of course.
Guy I know a few roads over runs an Athlon 1.4 and it idles around 30 degrees. Sure, he had to buy some cooling equipment (IE: not the sh*tty heatsink that most companies try to fob you off with) but that's a good idea anyway ... IIRC he's using a aluminium shim, Arctic Silver compound, along with a nice large fan/heatsink combo. Idling around 30 is *very* nice on a 1.4Ghz machine :wink:
Cost might seem annoying, but remember how much you've saved by going AMD and you're still ahead...
The only thing that would put me off an Athlon is the nice thermal meltdown "feature" :smile: The newer XP/MP models do have a thermal diode in them though, and as soon as a mobo with *proper* usage for it comes out, you've got protection against that. Lord knows why it's taking them so long (well, I'm told it's not as simple as the P4 system to use, but even still I'd have though it was a pretty important feature!).
I'm not planning to upgrade until at least next year anyway, so by the time I'm ready, hopefully I can pick up such a mobo and go AMD with *no* disadvantages :wink:
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In addition it's more than capable of causing meltdown in your computer, often taking the motherboard with it. And the chipsets you have to use with it will give you much joy when you start to ponder whether this version of Insert-Name-Here-4-in-1 drivers will give you trouble, and will they work with your soundcard drivers that were written by the elite of programmers (*cough* I'm not talking about Creative's driver 'support' here, not... *cough*). It also offers you much higher chance of chipping the core when you are installing the heat sink
Meltdown? Only if your fan fails, in which case many places will replace the CPU if the fan is within warranty. VIA drivers have gotten to a point where there aren't any serious issues(no more than Intel's chipsets anyway). And most PC stores will install the fan themselves just to prevent any such issues.
AMD is a better choice in every way. Cheaper, same or better performance, same compatibily.
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water cooling system.... *drools* now that will prevent meltdown.
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Here's my understanding of Rambus and DDR (or regular Sdram).
Rambus is like a dump truck (Just picture something big and slow).....
It carries a lot of dirt (memory) with each load.....but it's slow....and the Dump truck isn't always full when it gets to it's destination. (the CPU) DDR/Sdram are like a regular pickup truck. It handles like a car, fast and nimble, but doesn't carry anywhere near the dirt that a dumptruck can....it's usually fully loaded on it's deliveries.
So...in heavy memory applications, the Rambus really shines....(of course I think the only thing that uses that feature exclusively are probably benchmark programs that rate memory....I could be wrong. Games nowadays, need a lot of everything.)
In light/average memory applications the Sdram and DDR Sdram, show their advantage over the heavy lag time of the Rambus memory.
The difference between DDR and normal ram is about a 10% increase in performace. You would think that something called Double Density Rated Sdram...would be twice as fast as Sdram...but it isn't.
As far as the mhz race. P4 is winning.....but according to the benchmarks between the two chips.......mhz to mhz the Athlon, is faster. a 1.6 Athlon runs the same as a 1.9 P4......at least that's what AMD is rating it at...and that's basicly what the Benchmarks say, too.
Currently the Athlon is lagging a little behind the P4, in performance.....but very, very little. And you have to remember...your comparing a 2 gig P4 with a 1.6gig Athlon.
I wish I could say that the Athlon is more stable....but I would be lying, if I said that, because I never used a P4. So I couldn't fairly say it's more stable. I can tell you it's more stable that my old P200mmx. Crashes are very rare on my MSI board. The only time it crashes is when playing poorly/old programed games, and during power failers.
As for tempertures.....Just have the third party probe program on.....it'll start beeping if it gets too hot, I have mine set for 55C. Average temp seems to be about 45C...sometimes it will get to 50C sometimes it'll idle at 40C (kinda depends on the room temp). I really should put on a faster fan.....but it hasn't beeped yet.
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Ya know, AMD is starting to sound better.......
Like I said, the AMD route was my first choice, but dad was so in doubt about trusting the AMD processor that he was really pushing me to get an Intel CPU. Right now, I just don't know. My friend has an AMD and is not experiencing any problems, thermal or otherwise.
I gotta go now, I'll finish what I have to say later.
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Let me just add that components will make or break an Athlon. Athlons require a high quality Power Supply. Be wary of cases that come with generic Power Supplies. I suggest getting an Antec 400w PS....I'm using the 300w version and have had no problems with lack of power, with it and my 1.2 Athlon.
Lack of power is the number one cause of random reboots. Enermax and Forton Source PS's are also considered good brands, but your going to pay for them
You also need a good Motherboard....Epox and the "Sayo Dragon plus" seem to be the best right now, according to reviews.
And stay with named-brand memory, stay away from the cheaper generic brands. Memory is cheap right now, anyway. Why bother saving 5 dollars for, luck of the draw, generic memory.
And if your worried about temperatures, and you don't mind the sound of a WW2 airplane engine. Get the
Global Win CAK38 Solid Copper Cooler (pricy)
or the
Global Win WBK38 (better priced)
or just choose one:
http://www.coolerguys.com/cpucool/duron.shtml
I'm using the Alpha PAL6035 with the ultra quiet Sunon FAN.....The temps are a little high with this fan....The Delta Fan will bring down the temps but is, very, very, very noisy.....maybe the middle fan (YS-tech) was the best choice, too late, now....... But if you don't mind the noise, anything with a Delta Fan, will cool....and if that fan ever goes out, your going to know it.
[edited] 65 2001-12-12 02:51
[edited] 65 2001-12-12 02:57
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Ok. I'm back. Time to put my response on the various issues out, en masse.:
PSU: I'll ask my dad what he thinks would be the best PSU to get for my system. I'll take your suggestions into consideration as well.
TEMPERATURE: Well, I don't think I'll have to worry that much about temperature, since my house has blown-in insulation and central air conditioning, and we normally keep the ambient temperature in the house at 70 or so degrees F at the most. In other words, I'm not running the system in sauna-like conditions already.
Now, I know I had this little scare with the possibility that my CPU or PSU's fan was failing. As I stated in the other thread, it turns out I mistaked what I heard for the death throes of the battery within this old Mario World game-watch I had. The battery sent out a final spurt, making it make the series of beeps I described.
CPU BRAND: I am still weighing the pros and cons of the different CPU brands (Intel and AMD). I suppose the Mobo I get will largely depend on the brand of processor I get. So, in that case, I'll need to know what specific Motherboard model works best for the AMD, and what Model works best for Intel. Of course, the trick here is that both models being suggested have to have at least one ISA slot. And, obviously they can't be some pricey board that will run me overbudget.
MEMORY: Type of memory and amount have pretty much been decided. I'm gonna go for 256 Megs of DDR SDRAM. But, when I told my friend at school the memory specs, he said (much to my amusement), "Whadd'ya mean, only 256? Go for 512! 512 sounds like a nice round number when it comes to memory."
ISA SLOTS, ETC.:In response to the question of dumping the SB AWE 64 and getting an SB Live!, well, like I said, I already have an EAX-capable card. Getting an SBLive! card would be redundant, because then it would not only be like replacing the AWE card, but my XG card as well.
Considering I bought the XG card with my hard-earned cash, I would like to keep using it for as long as possible, otherwise it'd be like I flushed $45 down the toliet.
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amd is the way to go if you want to save money.
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You may think getting a PCI card is redundant...but not very many, if any "good" motherboards have ISA slots anymore.
You have to care about temps....an AMD chip will fry in less than 2 seconds, without a heatsink installed. Many newbies, to computer building, fried their chip, because they wanted to see if the system would turn on...without taking the time in installing the heatsink first
Remember, that Windows 98 only recognizes 512megs of ram. So if you don't plan on going to the Win2000 kernel. you can go ahead in get non-ECC memory. (512megs is kind of the determining point of going ECC) ECC and non-ECC ram don't work together. So if you ever go over 512 megs, and use non ECC Ram, you may experience more lockups. The more ram you have, the more likely something will go wrong, The ECC is a chip that is a Error Control Chip. But ECC memory is slower than non-ECC memory. Guess what I'm trying to say is, if you never upgrade from Win98, you shouldn't have any problems. If you ever go with XP or 2000, and buy more ram....your either need to buy the non ECC memory, and keep your old stick of 512, or your going to have to sell the old non-Ecc memory, and buy a whole new set of ECC memory.
(unless I'm wrong about them not working together.....I think I heard that they don't work together....) Hmm, then again....if I was in that situation....I would just buy the non-ECC type, and gamble with the lock-ups.
There is another option, in memory choices, called Registered. Registered is the opposite of non-buffered. Registered is another chip, on the stick, that cures memory lock-ups at the cost of speed. Most people just buy the Non-buffered. The only time you would want Registered is if you were running a server. And, ECC....you have to make sure that the motherboard supports it. ECC is recommended, if you have more than 512megs of RAM.
My Dad just informed me that he want's a computer for work....
I think I'm going to buy most of the stuff at Newegg.com.
Total is 1,003.71 American. (includes shipping to Texas)
Soyo K7V Dragon+
1900XP Athlon
(2) IBM 40gig Ultra 100's 7200rpm
Crucial 256DDR PC2100 2.5case Unbuffered Dimm
Teac 3 1/4 Floppy
Plextor 16x10x40x
MS-8855, MSI G2Ti Pro-T (a Geforce2 Pro Card)
Vantec CCK-6035D (a copper heatsink with a delta fan)
Microsoft 114key with 10 hot keys
Microsoft Intelli Mouse Optical
I'm buying the case locally, probably 120 dollars or so.
and his company is providing a DSL modem. He's going to need a monitor...I'll buy that locally, too. 300dollars or so. As far as a Soundcard...he doesn't really need one....but the Soyo Dragon comes with a built in 6-channel Sound chip, anyway.
I'm almost tempted in giving him my 1.2 266FSB AThlon w/ MSIk7t-turbo. For this newer setup....He's getting a better price than I did, 8 months ago....and a faster system to boot.
[edited] 65 2001-12-13 05:17
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On 2001-12-10 22:40, Jari Huttunen wrote:
So, there we are, waiting for new $150+ CPU to be delivered because $10 fan failed. _If_ we are getting replacement CPU at all.
Sure it is better choice in every way... *cough*
Or just a simple trip to the computer store you bought it at :smile:
But if you have a good fan, it probably won't fail for a few years. And a fan on a P3/4 has just the same chance of failing and taking the system with it. A P4 will usually survive. P3 can, but will die alot of times.
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Remember, an Athlon might actually survive a dud fan. The big heat failure tests that Toms Hardware did (who I'm inclined to trust on hardware matters) did show the Athlon's going up in smoke in about 2 seconds, but that was when you removed the *heat sink*. They didn't test a fan failure but speculated the Athlon's thermal diode might have been able to deal with that.
I'm just waiting for motherboards with Athlon thermal protection on them anyway. Won't have to wait too long, then my Athlon wouldn't go up in smoke...
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On 2001-12-13 08:15, ficedula wrote:
The big heat failure tests that Toms Hardware did (who I'm inclined to trust on hardware matters) did show the Athlon's going up in smoke in about 2 seconds, but that was when you removed the *heat sink*.
I remember watching the video clip for that one.
Amazing how they can throw money down the drain like that.
I wish I could do that.
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Well I have a secondary config.....probably be better for my Dad, It's not like he's going to use it to play games, right?
Epox EP-8K7A+
MSI TNT2 M64
AMD 1.2 266fsb
Crucial 256 DDR 2100 unbuffered
Teac 1.44 Floppy
IBM 40gig 7200 ultra 100 (two)
Microsoft 114key 10 hotkeys
Micorsoft Intelli-mouse optical
Plextor 16x10x40 (I'll probalby keep it...and give him my Creative4x2x24)
Vantec CCK-603D
Total = 700.83 (includes shipping)
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If he's not going to be using it for gaming, you do realise you could halve most of those specs, right?
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I was just looking at the Koolance water cooling system. Oh man, it looks tempting to buy, but right now I don't have any reason for. I'm thinking of making my own computer with an AMD Duron, and if I'm going to overclock it then I'm definatelly will buy a water cooling system. Kinda make it look like a car, heh :grin:.
-vvalentine
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Water Cooling System? That sounds like an oxymoron, considering that normally electrical components short-circuit when it comes into contact with water.
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No; it's a great way for overclockers to keep the temperature down. Mostly because water conducts heat *very* well so it's an efficient way of moving heat away from the CPU.
Essentially you have a pump which pumps water through a pipe system in the PC. The water first goes into a block sitting on top of the CPU, then gets piped into a radiator with a fan on the top (like a hollow heatsink). The advantage is that most of the heat dissipation happens through this heatsink, which isn't on top of the CPU any longer. Water cooling is essentially the best CPU cooling system a home user can get; you can take an Athlon down to not much above room temperature.
Not as cheap as a fan, but you get an awful lot for it.
Dreamcast is water cooled too, IIRC.
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Wow. So, I assume there's no condensation that could form on the outside to where it could interfere with the comp hardware?
Also, I don't know if I've asked this before, but what does "IIRC" mean?
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The water system is totally sealed, as you'd hope! so no liquid can escape and fry your hardware :wink:
Condensation...? Hardly going to form in any PC, water cooling or not.
IIRC, IIRC stands for "If I Recall/Remember Correctly" :smile:
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If he's not going to be using it for gaming, you do realise you could halve most of those specs, right?
Umm yeah.....but it's like a guy thing, you know?
Besides:
Duron 800's are going for 35 dollars, but the 266fsb 1.2's are going for 83 dollars. What's 50 bucks these days?
I don't want to skimp on the Heatsink.
I could lose the CDRW for a CD-rom...save about 50 dollars)
I want to use a motherboard, that I know that will work with no problems and Raid is a nice feature to have built in. I could save about 130 dollars going non-Raid. Have to buy an extra Harddrive, and the Raid motherboard is about 20 dollars more. (Can't skimp on the "Motherboard". My conscience just won't let me. I just can't bring myself into putting an unkown, generic, Motherboard in the shopping cart...probably be a 40 dollar savings....and maybe a 10 dollar savings on Sdram...Durons are 200FSB....but I already discussed the price difference on that and a 266FSB 1.2).
I can't figure anyway to save on memory; it's already dirt cheap. I could get a cheaper case; it's about a 50 dollar savings, if I do (currently planning on getting an Antec1030 or 40).
I'm already picking a low end video card for 30 bucks.
I think an 1.2 Athlon DDR system running Raid for less than 1,100 dollars is real good price (still need a case, monitor, and little stuff, like, maybe some speakers and a powerstrip...reason the 400 dollar increase).
He could buy a prebuilt one, complete with printer, monitor and a other extras, cheaper than I could ever build. Of course quality and upgradeablilty are in question if he goes that way. No reason in me making a bottom end computer, if he can just pick up a complete Dell system for 800 dollars.
I could give him this old P200mmx......for nothing......... (but.....I'll miss seeing it :smile:
He won't have any braggin', rights. That's very important among co-workers, you know.
Guess it comes out to be about 300 dollars cheaper for basic system. (Guess I'll just run a price check and show it too him....lets see just how much he want to impress the guys at work.)
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OH...and water doesn't conduct electricity.....it's the foreign elements inside the water that do. Distilled water won't conduct electricity. Not that it matters in the real world. :wink:
[edited] 65 2001-12-15 02:29
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On 2001-12-14 21:27, Threesixty wrote:
OH...and water doesn't conduct electricity.....it's the foreign elements inside the water that do. Distilled water won't conduct electricity. Not that it matters in the real world. :wink:
Yes, yes, I know its not the water itself. (That's what you get when you've been reading high-school Physics books since 7th grade! :wink:).
Anyway, not many people would have thought of using distilled water. While in theory it would work without the danger of short-circuiting the system, impurities like dirt could be on the place where you pour in the water, thereby contaminating the distilled water, bringing you back to square 1 (no, not that Square! :razz:)
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Gee you learned that in 7th grade?.....I didn't know that until I took Chemistry in College. She even did a demonstration :cool:
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I hate when I misspell stuff....that's why you see just about all my posts with:
[edited] 65 2001-12-15 07:04
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No, I didn't learn it in 7th grade, at least not during school hours. I'm talking about the books I read at home. :D
Now, before you all think I'm some sort of "Steve Urkel" class nerd, I do read other stuff, like the novels "This Present Darkness" and "Piercing the Darkness" by Frank Peretti.
[edited] 239 2001-12-15 23:09
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i take that class next year.
goku> dont peirce the darkness.........
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LOL.
Don't worry. It's talking about a different darkness. Frank Peretti is a Christian author, and those two books are about a fictional spiritual battle between God's angels, and Satan's demons. It's really cool.
[edited] 239 2001-12-15 23:45
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Goku7: Condensation will probably not occur because the water temperature is usually above room temperature. If you install it well, and you don't mess with it so much, it should be safe.
-vvalentine
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I just watched that video of the the processors overheating, and it looks.... interesting. But I still wonder why they did it with no heat sink, isn't failing fans more common? I have had 2 failed fans but never a heatsink falling off.
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I did the same thing with a matrox G220, Glued on the heatsink only to watch as the glue caught fire then falling into a pci slot therefore rendering it useless. To this day I still can't be bothered to get the charred remains of that glue out of the pci slot.
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hehe my glue got all soft and the heatsink (or whatever it was) slid off.
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Ok. My dad had me talk with this store rep that he knows, and now the current new machine specs we've settled on are:
CPU: Pentium4, 1.4Ghz
Mobo:I forget the exact model number onhand, but they are offering a Jetway board.
Memory:Still the same, and that is 256megs of DDR RAM.
Total Price of components:$410
These specs are still hypothetical, but this is what they're willing to give me, since my dad has worked with this particular store for a few years. (READ: he's a valued customer)
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wish my dad was a valued anything some where, besides goodwill(if it wasnt a major corpate company nw he prorably would be,not kiddin) like for instance he got me a "new" bike there, it cost $7. it was an old itialan pos roadbike. blew a flat on it the second or thirs day i had it. and he has botten atleast $1000 worth of records there. i hate goodwill for being coroporate
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just a little random irrelevance one post up......
you can get a 1.9 athlon, gigabyte mobo, and 512 meg of ram for about 50 dollars more.
btw: pentiums and ddr dont mix
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It's called Jetway. The main reason they suggested it was because it has support for DDR, P4, and an ISA slot.
The board also has a gameport, so if it does any better than the pitiful one my XG card has (the one that forgets the calibration every time windows starts up), then I can forego putting the SBAWE64 in, since I won't need its joystick port anymore......
Anyway, they said they're gonna let me bring my gamepad in to the store and test out whether or not the gameport on the Jetway board will forget the calibration. That'll be on this coming tuesday or wednesday.
SiS chipset? When I go back to test the gameport, I'll take a closer look at the board; see if the chipset is a SiS chipset.
[edited] 239 2001-12-16 23:24
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Well...the price is right. Go for it!
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I still like Athlon more than the P4, though.
However, if you must go with the P4....get the Rambus, don't go DDR. Your going to be really, really disappointed with DDR performance on a P4. Athlon can pull it off, but the P4 can't. The P4 was really designed around the Rambus architecture, for better or worse.
If you really want to go DDR, and don't want an AMD, look into the P3's. The architecture of the P3 is more suited towards DDR, than the P4.
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BTW: The 1.2 Athlon 266fsb CPU (that's revision C) is equivalent to the P4, 1.4. (give or take)
So...what exactly are you getting for the 410?
(you might not be getting a deal)
Epox EP-8k7a (with Raid chip) = $105 dollars (American)
256DDR Memory = $62
1.2 rev.C athlon = $83
Total = $253
Once you add the extras....case, storage, input devices, etc......you end up adding at least 800 dollars to the price. And if your cannibalizing another system....the Athlon is still, 160 dollars cheaper.
Honestly....If your going Intel....you might as well get a Dell system....complete with 17" monitor, printer, scanner, speakers, software. Probably can get a complete, P4 1.4gig for about $899, maybe less.
[edited] 65 2001-12-17 08:10
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I guess I should be here talking too... Intel hates gamers... AMD cares about them but has worse support for games than Intel. This is a strange world... :z
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Well...I'm not sure that applies anymore. AMD has a higher FPU calculation than Intel right, now. In the past that was what killed AMD. As far as Intel hating gamers.....I don't see it. If that's true, why are they playing a number game with the Mhz.
I may sound bias....but I'm, really, not. Right now it's AMD. Tomorrow it may be Intel. When Intel puts out a product that beats a mhz to mhz war. I'll switch alliegences....Or if AMD goes out of Buisness. It could happen...it happened to 3dfx.
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Ok. I've looked over everything, and it looks like everything will work fine. Thanks for your advice, everyone.
Oh, yeah --- one more thing of a slightly comical nature. You see, the store had all the components except for the P4 1.4GHz, which they they had to special order because they didn't have any in stock. So, we said, "OK" and right as we start up the truck, the same store employee walks up to us and says, "the P4 1.4's are in short supply, I won't be able to get any in time for christmas. BUT, they do have the P4 1.5GHz available in that time frame. There's only a fifteen dollar difference."
Needless to say, we took him up on the offer. So, now my system's gonna be a 1.5 instead of a 1.4! :D
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Not only do AMD's chips beat Intel's in speed rating, but I think that AMD's chips have been alot more stable lately. Remember the P3 Recall a little over a year ago? And the RAMBUS P4 recall (which brings up another point . . . I thought the P4s that were being manufactured today were little more than beefed up P3 coppermines, I not really sure.)
Back when it was PII vs K6-2, Intel was by far the winner; but AMD's gotten much better, and, IMO, Intel's going downhill in their quallity.
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Well, I believe congratulations are in order.
This is the first message I'm typing on my shiny, brand-spanking new 1.5Ghz system. :D
Yes, it's an Intel P4. I tested FF7PC, FF8PC, and FF9 PSX (running on the ePSXe emulator, at 640X480 resolution) on it already.
I'm still drooling from the smoothness and speed of everything! Heck, I'm even thinking about testing FF8's software render in full screen mode and see how fast it goes.
In case your wondering how the transition during the upgrade went, crash-wise, I am happy to report Win98SE detected everything, and installed all the mobo drivers perfectly, without a single crash or conflict.
Again, thank you for your advice. Now, I'll think I'll go play FF9 at a resolution that will make the people using a PS2 for that envious!!
MWHAHAHAHA!! :rotfl:
ahem....Sorry. I just don't know what got into me.
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I. HATE. YOU. the best upgrade i'm getting in the near future is a new geforce 2 and 256 more mg of ram.
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you can play ff9 at different resolutions? your joking....
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On 2001-12-24 00:57, Darkness wrote:
you can play ff9 at different resolutions? your joking....
I'm not joking. (Thank God for 3dFX!) ePSXe has the potential to use a 3d acclerator card to go to resolutions higher than 800X600. Lemme see.... the max resolution my card supports for ePSXe is 1600 X 1200.
So, in theory, I could.....hey, put the knife down! :erm:
PurpleSmurf: I forgot to mention that its also got a 400Mhz Front side bus.........
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Yes, the above post was by me.
Guess I forgot to log in since I'm so excited about my new system!
Well, I guess my friends at school don't having bragging rights anymore.....
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ok now your the devil my current system only has a 133mhz front side bus. :( . how much did you pay for it?
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Goku...what GPU plugin are you using? Pete's OpenGL 1.55 is the best in my opinion. Makes everything look so nice. And the best way to emulate PS1(and N64 for that matter) is 640x480 in 32bit color with the best FSAA your card can use. The 2D objects look best that way.
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I'm using pete's D3D renderer; version 1.55 I think. It uses the DX7.0 interface. It runs pretty well.
32bit color & FSAA? Well, I'm still using my 3dFX Voodoo3 2000 PCI. You named the two features it DOESN'T have. It's not that bad though, being stuck with 16bit color. Don't get me wrong, the card can go to 32bit color for windows, its just the 3d graphics buffer was not designed for 32-bit texture quality, and therefore does not support the 32-bit color option for hardware acceleration.
Now, you know the part where Zidane, Vivi and Freya are making their way toward Burmecia? I think the place is called "Gizamaluk's Grotto." Anyway, I was fighting the boss, and I noticed that one of his attacks created a graphic glitch. It looked like the plugin didn't know how to draw it. Other than that, and some missing colors on the background sky during battle scenes, the plugin works well.
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Oh yeah, I forgot to answer PurpleSmurf's question. I paid approximately $425 + tax for the upgrade. Remember, it was only a bare-bones upgrade (CPU, RAM, PSU & case; and motherboard.)
Speaking of motherboards, the sound chipset the mobo came with has HARDWARE DLS! (enter hallelulah chorus). FINALLY!!!!!!
*plugs in XG card to get hardware XG with FF7*
Ah, fiddlesticks! It wants to use only one of the two. I tried to install them one at a time, but windows simply removes the mobo sound chip drivers and replaces them with the XG card's drivers; thus disabling the hardware DLS the mobo sound chip has.
Is there any way I can get both the XG card and the mobo sound chip to run concurrently in windows?
[edited] 239 2001-12-25 03:26
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wow only 450? i might have to star saving so i can have nice new system bus like that :)
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Hehe, yeah, I'm well aware of everything V3 can and can't do :)
Somewhat strange though, as I've only used V3's in friends systems and such, never owned one. I have a V5 though(beautiful FSAA).
Yes, Geforce2's FSAA is an iffy thing...I hate the method they use...works horribly with direct framebuffer writes and many other effects. I prefer Geforce3's 2xRGMS method when forcing 64 tap anisotropic filtering.
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Check this out:
I tested how well FF8PC's high-resolution movies ran. Strangely enoughly, there's still gaps in the sound :-?. Not as bad as with the old system, but you can tell it's not streaming the sound properly.
This leads me to believe that my cd-rom drive can't keep up with the rest of the system. Let's see....its a Toshiba 24x, with the DMA option enabled.
The sustained transfer rate for a 24x drive w DMA is what, 2megs per second? That would explain why I'm getting gaps in the sound stream......
Oh well, it's not gonna matter much. The cd-drive on the computer that my sister uses from time to time is failing, so my dad had originally planned to replace that with a 50x drive. After hearing that my current drive isn't keeping with the rest of my system, he told me he's gonna replace my drive with the 50x, and use the 24x drive to replace the failing one on my sister's computer.
This keep's gettin' better and better! 8)
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I'll try it without the DMA later. Gotta go to grandma's now, so I can't try it out now.
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On 2001-12-24 14:17, PurpleSmurf wrote:
ok now your the devil my current system only has a 133mhz front side bus. :( . how much did you pay for it?
Well actually, The P4 uses a 100mhz FSB.....they just say 400FSB because of the Rambus (the speed rating of rambus is said to be 4 times faster than normal Sdram). Unless he's got that DDR SDram board....then he has a 200mhz FSB. (DDR basicly stands for Double Rated....2 times the speed of normal Ram)
Current Athlon chips are really running at 133FSB, then they times it by 2 because of the DDR, so it's listed as a 266mhz FSB. If they ever made an Athlon that could run with Rambus you would see a number of 532mhz FSB. I doubt that will ever happen though. I imagine Intel would go to the lawyers, if they did.
It's just a numbers game. there is only about a 10% increase between DDR and normal SDram. So that means that there is about a 10% increase between 133FSB and 266FSB. And the difference seems to get more exaggerated, the higher you go.
But from an overclockers point of view....a 133mhz board overclocks a lot better than a 100mhz board. ;)
Do you guys remember when Athlon first came out? They where saying that their FSB was at 200mhz......what they didn't tell you was that they meant it was 200mhz with DDR Ram. I imagine that they thought that when the DDR was finally put out on the streets (Back then DDR was experimental) that all you would have to do is plug it in your current Athlon motherboard and it would work.....guess they were wrong, huh.
You see....Intel isn't the only one guility of playing the numbers game. Those older Athlon systems really had a 100mhz FSB (SDram), and AMD was claiming it as a 200mhz FSB.(DDR SDram)
[edited] 65 2001-12-27 03:24
[edited] 65 2001-12-27 03:27
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Oh well. It's still fast enough to get the feeling of "Weeeeeeeeeee!" (say that from a little kids perspective. I'm not talking like some sicko here.) from the frame rate alone.
Anyway, I just found the coolest thing to use for FF9 on ePSXe. It's Eternal's SPU version 1.1. If you've got a really fast comp, click on the reverb checkbox until it's both greyed and checkmarked. You've just enabled some high quality reverb by doing that.
How good is it? It sounds like someone piped the PSX sound output through EAX! It might be a little louder than usual, though.
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I just got that 52x cd-rom drive I was talking about earliear installed on my comp!
Anyway, I have another question. On the box, there's a list of cd formats it can read. One item in particular it lists is "CD-ROM/XA"
Is this refering to the XA audio format that PSX games use?
[edited] 239 2001-12-27 20:44
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On 2001-12-26 22:03, Threesixty wrote:
Do you guys remember when Athlon first came out? They where saying that their FSB was at 200mhz......what they didn't tell you was that they meant it was 200mhz with DDR Ram. I imagine that they thought that when the DDR was finally put out on the streets (Back then DDR was experimental) that all you would have to do is plug it in your current Athlon motherboard and it would work.....guess they were wrong, huh.
You see....Intel isn't the only one guility of playing the numbers game. Those older Athlon systems really had a 100mhz FSB (SDram), and AMD was claiming it as a 200mhz FSB.(DDR SDram)
The 200MHz figure is correct. Sort of... AMD licensed the Alpha EV6 data bus technology for use in the Athlon. It operates at 100MHz physical, 200MHz effective because it sends data at the beginning and end of each pulse. 133-266 for the newer ones.
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Well, I think it's fishy.
Especially since Intel claims their P4 has a 400FSB and the chip itself is running at 100mhz bus (basicly, saying that the Rambus allows the multiplication of four). And Athlon is using a 133mhz Bus, and using that DDR memory and comes up with a number of 266. (I have no proof, I'm just ranting.....using my own logic)
And isn't it said that DDR Sdram sends data at the beginning and end of each pulse....could it be that that Alpha EV6 data bus was just the highway....but needed a car that could actually go that fast....the car being the DDR Sdram? I think.....yes.
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That's it! I've decided to upgrade my lowly Celeron 300A overclocked to 450. I'm gonna get myself a P4 1.8Ghz chip (maybe a 2.0Ghz chip) and a compliant motherboard... probably an Iwill. (I've NEVER had a problem with those boards.) Only thing I'll have to get other than those two things: an Antec Server case. (1030 SX I believe... The one with a switch on the back.) I already have the RAM... 256 should suffice for now...
(Checks prices...) That's gonna cost me... about $600. Let's see... if I work full time... I can have that in... 6 weeks. (I dump half my earnings into my savings account for school.)
Well... Looks like I'll be busy soon... Probably after New Years...
Sephiroth 3D
"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Sephiroth 3D.com (http://www.sephiroth3d.com)
[email protected]
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Don't go for the P4...way overpriced. Get an AthlonXP 2000+ (1.67GHz). Much better performance.
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Really? My Athalons are crap unless you're rendering, in comparison to our P4s that is.
Sephiroth 3D
"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Sephiroth 3D.com (http://www.sephiroth3d.com)
[email protected]
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An Athlon will perform better clock for clock than a P4. Hence the naming convention on the AthlonXP. The 2000+ really runs at 1.67GHz, but performs on the same level as a P4 2GHz. And is usually cheaper.
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(See above post.)
Sephiroth 3D
"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Sephiroth 3D.com (http://www.sephiroth3d.com)
[email protected]
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Athlon what against P4 what?
Athlon Rev-C with what motherboard and what Gigahert, against P4 what gig. with same components?
Get whatever you want.....
And I don't think they have a 2000xp yet, the 1.6 is rated at 1900xp.
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Let's see...
Athlon T-Bird 1.2Ghz w/ 256megs RAM (non-DDR) & 2 45gig HDs VS P4 1.5Ghz w/ 512megs Mushkin (DDR?) RAM & 36gig SCSI HD. Otherwise identical...
(Lightwave Loading & Rendering test)
P4 loaded scene in about 10 seconds. Athlon took about a minute to load identical scene. In rendering time, Athlon rendered identical scene in 6:37 while P4 took 7:10. (minutes:seconds)
Even taking into consideration the differences between these two systems, this is why I say Athlons are good for rendering, a bit of gaming, and not much else. That's my opinion based upon evidence I have personally collected. You can never really trust what companies say about their clocking, cause they tend to distort the truth. Get other opinions, and give it a try yourselves. A field test of the chips is always better than "clocking" the chips. Keep that in mind...
Sephiroth 3D
"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Sephiroth 3D.com (http://www.sephiroth3d.com)
[email protected]
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Seph3d: The loading time difference there is quite possibly due to the hard disk. For a fair test they should be the same; but the P4 disk is SCSI (faster) and smaller (faster) than the Athlon's.
And also the RAM! If the scene involves calculating 200MB of associated data, or something, the P4 gonna do that in RAM while the Athlon's swapping...
In impartial benchmarks (I tend to go by PC Plus and Toms Hardware) the *only* things P4's have proved faster in is running programs designed specifically for the P4. That's all, and I'd hardly call that an achievement...
And yes, the PC Plus benchmarks are carried out on real world user tasks: gaming, 3d rendering, database searching, audio/video compression/decompression...and of course, they try to use as near-as-possible identical hardware to make it fair.
The *only* valid reason to buy a P4 would be a) if you did a LOT of stuff which involved a program heavily optimised ONLY for the P4. I don't think anyone does, though... or b) For it's better thermal protection, if you can't wait for Athlon mobo's with proper thermal protection to come out. P4 is still better in that sense.
For the rest of us - which is most users! - the Athlon kicks much ass compared to the P4.
[edited] 68 2002-01-02 19:26
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Yeah....double the Ram would make a difference.
And a slow harddrive can make all the difference in the world....The biggest bottleneck on a PC is the Harddrive. They make me use a P3 866 at work....The guy in charge of all the PC's, there, just slapped it together with components laying around the office (we are talking very old stuff...It has a Dimond Media 8meg video card...gee-whiz, Wally.), the only thing new was the motherboard and the CPU. The computer I had before was a P3 500mhz with a TNT2 card. I'm a draftsman, and do a lot of work in Autocad. Guess which one was faster.....the 500mhz. It had a better harddrive, and loads files a good 50 seconds faster on huge drawings....the 866mhz is quicker on those small drawings. I don't know what the Harddrives are....but I do know that the old 500mhz one had a very quiet harddrive and the 866's is very, very noisy. So I'm going to guess that the 500mhz has a 7200rpm U66 (drive index = 17000). It may be a u100 7200rpm (Drive index = 24000), but I doubt it, the place I work at is kinda cheap. The 866mhz probably has a 5400rpm U33 (drive index = 8000). A slow harddrive will kill performance....That's why I use two U100's in Raid 0 mode (drive index = 36860).
And the 1.2 Athlon's came in Rev C and Rev B. Rev C is the 133 bus, Rev B is the 100 bus....that, too, would make a difference.
Tell me one more difference....what's the 'price' between the two computers. :D
[edited] 65 2002-01-03 00:17
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Wouldn't the bottleneck in any new system be the CD-ROM drive? I mean, unless you're running a game or program completely off the hard disk, then the cd-rom would be the "weakest link".
I just got a shiny new 52x cd-rom drive, and the box says its sustained transfer rate is 7megs per second. I don't know if that's using DMA or not, though. However, it's still WAY slower in terms of data throughput compared to today's hard disks.
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Ok. Mine comes with a speed-adjust utility.
But, what's up with XA audio decoding?! While the new 52x drive claims to support the XA audio format, the hard drive is still running like crazy when it plays it! I can't play MegaMan X5 anymore on bleem! or ePSXe because its XA audio was practically the entire soundtrack, so the hard drive's heads were in use for a good solid hour or however long I played the game. My old 6gig drive (a Quantum Fireball model) completely failed after prolonged use of that game. Why can't it simply use just the cd-rom, like when it plays a normal cd-audio track?
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The XP2000+ just recently came out :)