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Looking to get a new gaming pc
- Thread starter warren123
- Start date
Thanee said:Uhm... yeah, I know. See above?
The difference is between "would be" and "actually is".
The thing is that the technology existed to make inexpensive multi-socket systems at least in the Pentium II era (with the BH6 dual-Celeron motherboard). There wasn't a compelling argument to ramp on the volume on it (or similar solutions).
Thanee said:IIRC there was an Amiga with two CPU-sockets.
I guess my general point is that if something is generally useful, it doesn't stick in the professional / server / enthusiast with money to burn ghetto. It gets into general use. 3D graphics cards did. Heck, hardware floating point did (with the 486).
Calico_Jack73
First Post
I recently purchased a Dell XPS 420 and I love it.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=DXDWQJ6&s=dhs
I upgraded it to the 24" widescreen and got the Core2 Extreme (Quad Core) 3.0GHz 12Mb 1333Mhz FSB chip with 4 GB Ram. I also upgraded the graphics card to an NVidia GeForce 8800 GTX card that Dell doesn't seem to offer anymore (768 MB on board). Luckily I have a company discount program because I ended up saving $1600 on what it would have ended up costing. Dell is running a sale right now on the 420 for an instant $600 off. The model I bought starts at $1700 so I am sure you could keep it within your price range, especially if you already have a monitor.
I downloaded VMWare Server (it's free if you didn't already know) and installed Solaris 10 and Windows XP for backwards compatibility on some of my older, non-Vista games. No problems so far at all.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=DXDWQJ6&s=dhs
I upgraded it to the 24" widescreen and got the Core2 Extreme (Quad Core) 3.0GHz 12Mb 1333Mhz FSB chip with 4 GB Ram. I also upgraded the graphics card to an NVidia GeForce 8800 GTX card that Dell doesn't seem to offer anymore (768 MB on board). Luckily I have a company discount program because I ended up saving $1600 on what it would have ended up costing. Dell is running a sale right now on the 420 for an instant $600 off. The model I bought starts at $1700 so I am sure you could keep it within your price range, especially if you already have a monitor.
I downloaded VMWare Server (it's free if you didn't already know) and installed Solaris 10 and Windows XP for backwards compatibility on some of my older, non-Vista games. No problems so far at all.
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Couldn't comment on games which are probably programmed to follow the common hardware and not vice-versa but its simply not true at all that software wont use the extra cores. It depends on what the task is. My apps have been multi threaded since they began and the one I have been working on for a while now would use as many cores as you could throw at it and it would scale proportionately. I know for a fact that it runs almost exactly twice as fast on a quad vs a dual. It depends whether the problem is one that Amdhals law affects. I would suspect that in games thats somewhat true given the real time nature of it.
I would go with the Dell XPS if those 2 are your choices. Alienware stuff is way overpriced. You're paying for a shiny plastic case and a logo when you buy an Alienware. If you want a super high end machine, you should learn to build it yourself, because you'll save a lot of money. All manufactured gaming PCs are over priced. The only question is by how much.
If you upgrade that Dell to the Q6600 quad-core and 4GB of ram, it's a pretty sweet gaming machine for $1500. The 8800 GT that's already in it is a really good gaming card. The upgrade to the GTX is NOT worth $400. The cards aren't that much different.
If you upgrade that Dell to the Q6600 quad-core and 4GB of ram, it's a pretty sweet gaming machine for $1500. The 8800 GT that's already in it is a really good gaming card. The upgrade to the GTX is NOT worth $400. The cards aren't that much different.
Redrobes said:
There are certainly some tasks that scale almost perfectly with extra cores (mostly things that can be broken down into large numbers of independent tasks). Video encoding almost does (if you were writing to something as fast as RAM, rather than a hard drive or optical media, it would come even closer). But the thing is that you need very nearly perfect scaling out of your app to get any use out of more than 4 cores.
Real-world testing has shown that very, very few games today get any benefit out of a quad-core over an otherwise identical dual-core (i.e. same CPU architecture, clock speed, etc.). This isn't surprising; it's hard to figure any way a multithreaded game would not have a lot of interprocess communication (and therefore run right up against Amdahl's Law).
Sugarmouse
First Post
May I chime in with a question/query? (or two?)
I'm also in the process of upgrading my computer, and it was recommended to me to get 2x Galaxy 8800 GT 512mb cards instead of a single 8800 GTS, citing that this would be just below par performance for a 9 series NVidia. My own research seems to suggest that this kind of rigging can be equivalent to a 9600, with only a slight drop in comparative performance.
Price wise, a single 8800 GTS would cost about $50AUD more.
So, anyone able to give me some input on whether or not this is a good idea, and why? Pretty please, with sugar on top?
I'm also in the process of upgrading my computer, and it was recommended to me to get 2x Galaxy 8800 GT 512mb cards instead of a single 8800 GTS, citing that this would be just below par performance for a 9 series NVidia. My own research seems to suggest that this kind of rigging can be equivalent to a 9600, with only a slight drop in comparative performance.
Price wise, a single 8800 GTS would cost about $50AUD more.
So, anyone able to give me some input on whether or not this is a good idea, and why?
Pretty please, with sugar on top?
