Calis does the Upgrade Thing

Dewd, I've got what was the near top of the line configuration last year. And that's a GF3. If you have a GF 2 MX, stop waisting our time with your nonesense because your "near top of the line" is far different what what it is in reality.

 

Maybe I only get stuff if I need to. So when I don't need to get it, I don't. That is why I still have exactly the same computer I have that I bought about a year and a half ago. It still runs pretty much anything fine though.

Some people though, seem to have the upgrade bug, where they absolutely MUST GET THE LATEST NVIDIA CARD BECAUSE IT IS TEH BSET DEWD!!!1111 Which I don't understand, because they don't need that card, they just want it. Which is what I was getting at. I don't plan on upgrading my computer until I have to (i.e. when Deus Ex 2 comes out) because until then I expect my computer to be handle pretty much anything I'm going to be throwing at it (i.e. Lionheart, which even Milo's old computer would be able to handle).

But getting a loan from a bank to upgrade your computer, that's just stupid. Surely you have something better to spend your money on?

 

As moore's definition of "top notch" your definistion of "handle pretty well" differs from mine. You see, when you own a console, a ps2 for instance, you get used to 60 frames. At least.
If you find playing a game on 1280x1024 with 20 frames cool, well, I simply don't. When I upgrade my computer I buy the best thing there is. Because I see no point in doing otherwise. To get what I have I had to save money for over 6 months, I also sold my old components 2 months before my upgrade. I'm going to keep what I have for at least another 2 years. There is no point in upgrading every month, but I don't see any point in upgrading to things that have been around for 3 years, and going "yea oh baby, now I have the |337 machine" "hey, this game sucks, I need to run on low settings!"
My friends who own shitty computers say the same thing you do, "it handles pretty well". I don't know what they are looking at.

I bought a GF3 and I ran all games in |337 1600x1200 FOR A WHOLE GOD DAMN YEAR!
Now, I have to run at 1280. (w3 1600x1200)

The first game I ran on my computer was Max Payne, I bet you cannot even imagine how much fun I squeezed out of that game running it on 1600x1200 without almost any skipping. Hey, I like games.

 

If you want 5.1, go for Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 or Megaworks 510D. I heard they are the top of the tier ones.

Some of the graphics cards, especially from ATI, are stable but is notorious for being supported by somewhat problematic drivers at their release. As for 9700, all of its features catering to DirectX9 are going to be inactive until MS releases it about a month later. The point of buying new graphics cards that are just released is when people do not want to commit to consistent upgrading (like Jinxed), or want to be that special person in the block who could pump out the highest 3DMark scores.

I do not want to pay the premium prices for the new card (over 350 to 400 dollars). Graphics are not that important to me, and I do not use resolutions larger than 1024x768 on a 17 inch monitor, which is fine for me. BTW I have a GF2 Ti with XP1600+

 

Well Jinxed, I wasn’t (and really shouldn’t) going to give any answer to you; but I find myself in a position of extreme boredom and pissed-offness (not with you though). So, three points:

1) That’s a video card isn’t it? Have I ever mentioned that my problem was that thing? Not that I can read. I just said that I can’t play Neverwinter Nights at the best resolution. I have no problems with Morrowind; but in larger areas, characters in NWN gain the annoying ability to teleport.
2) My point was only to say that I could understand the frustration of buying hardware. You can’t compare its lifetime with anything else (although your comparison with wives was pretty funny); videos, DVD players, fridges, almost everything can last for many years. My car has 10 years and my video 7; can you really compare it to the lifetime (in terms of utility) of a computer? Due to the possibility of many partial up-grades it’s feasible to think of the computer as a continuous, if inconstant, investment instead of a product that we just buy.

3) Are you taking lessons from Bortis? This is something he liked a lot to say, you only failed to call me delusional.
4) I only said you were wrong (in the sense of being just wrong instead of having a diferent opinion) in not spending money on beer, and nothing else.
5) I can’t count.
Well, I will stop wasting you time now.

 

Ok Dennis, tell us what computer you have exactly...

Some components of a pc are worthless after some time and some are not, depends when you buy them compared to how long they have already been on the market.

I have a 19 inch monitor for a year now, won't be changing it until it DIES.

My GF 3 has been inside my computer for a year, the only game which it couldn't handle AT ALL was SOF, and I mean TOTALLY. With setting "back wash" 16 bit graphics and 1024 resolution and setting the details to medium and minimum, I was getting a sizzling total of unsteady 50 frames. Yay! (Imagines shooting off chucks of brain after invading the raven software offices, just as in SOF)
I'm not playing that game.

Athlon 1.4, the same amount of time. I have no problems at all with it, it doesn't overheat it performs. A year after, to me, it's just as good as it was back then.

K7 Master MSI Motherboard. Well, this is a hunk crap. If I new it wouldn't let me get more than 256 ram, I would have laughed my ass off instead of actually purchasing it. Maybe it's got some sort of defect? Lucky me that I found out EXACTLY 2 DAYS AFTER THE WARRANTY FINISHED.

I plug in a home theater system into my computer... so.. I won't talk about that. What I can mention about sound, is that I had a Guillemont Maxisound card before, that had an optical output, the reason why I bought it. (it was cheap too) the sound quality was low but it was cool, of course it wasn't so cool when it suddenly croaked and forced my to buy a new card. I got lucky that time because it's when the new SB audigy cards came in, putting of the regular SB live! Off the market, so I got a 5.1 Sblive! For even less than the regular card. The sound is really good now.
I've had the same CD-Rom for 3 years, now it's dead and I'm using a 2 year old dvd reader instead.
2 years ago I bought a 40 gig Maxtor 66 7200 which was top of the line. (don't ask me how much I paid ) Now, because of a faulty fan which sent the fan into a long period of unhealthy vibrations, it's kinda faulty, sometimes I need to reset my pc because it doesn't get detected on start up. Half a year after the maxtor, I got 2 40 gig samsungs for an ass cheap price.
That's it excluding my gray box, couple of fans and the floppy drive.

 

Like I said I wasn’t the least pissed with you, but with other stuff. I only found it funny that you of all people would make a Bortis’ style remark.
I don’t know my configuration by heart as I only use my computer to play a few games (I haven’t the slightest idea of what are those games that you have mentioned) and edit texts; this past year I haven’t changed it (except to update drivers) so probably some minor change will make it much better. In truth, I even have a slight degree of technophobie, gained a few years ago when I worked as a programmer, which was a bit before the Internet became popular.
If I manage to get a job I will look at it and will celebrate with a “Dennis does an upgrade� thread; but until then it will only make me depressed. But when the time comes I hope to have your help.

Funny that the continuous investment thing seems now more close to the mark than I have thought at the beginning.

 

Well, it is that time of decade again and I have a small amount of money to blow on a new computer.

The only things that will be able to make it through from my small-form-factor-all-onboard-compaq are the flat panel and the modem, but that's okay. Since I don't have the luxury of buying top of the range but bloody well need something better than I have now (HDD is doing the whirrrr-clunk thing), I'm just going to get something from Dell. Anyone have any advice?

I'm currently thinking:

- 2 GHz PIV
- 256 DDR SDRAM
- 64 Mb GF4

The rest will be as Dell fits as standard, unless I ask different. I'm toying with going for a decent HDD, but frankly am fedup with high spindle speeds equating to low durability, so might not bother. Anyone think I should be paying more attention to other areas of the system? Motherboard? CD?

 

DUDE!

Dell isn't going to give you much choice when it comes to the other areas of the system. They're pretty good at letting you choose the configuration of your system, but not what the components actually are. For instance, you're pretty much guaranteed a crappy motherboard, power supply, and depending on your tastes, case when you buy a Dell. The other peripherals are good, but a little overpriced.

Since you're pretty good on the software side, why don't you build your own? Installing and properly configuring the operating system is probably the hardest part of putting one together. Besides troubleshooting, that is. But with the net as a resource, even I could troubleshoot problems by going to forums for the specific parts manufacturers.

Let's see, for ~$1,000, I put together this system:
-Asus P4S533 motherboard
-Pentium 4 1.8ghz Northwood (running at 2.4ghz, 133mhz FSB)
-512mb stick of PC3200 DDR (running at 400mhz, 4:6 FSB:Mem ratio)
-GeForce 4 ti 4400 (running at ti4600 speed, 300mhz/650mhz)
-Western Digital 80 gig HDD, 7200rpm 8mb cache
-LiteOn 32x12x40 CDRW
-LiteOn 16xDVD/48xCD ROM
-Nice Antec case with a good 330w power supply

I saved money and I was able to cherry pick components. I had a few problems putting it together, mostly due to errata in the manuals, but this was easily found and fixed by checking out hardware enthusiast forums. The Pentium 4s overclock so easily, it's ridiculous. The amount of overhead when Intel bins them is amazing. The LiteOn CDRW wasn't the fastest available, but I needed a black one to match the case. It also burns sub-channel data and all that other shit very well, so you can even copy SafeDisc 2 copy protection using CloneCD if you're into making completely legal backup images of software that you legitimately purchased at the store.

The case and power supply are going to last more than a couple of upgrades because of the quality. Even with a slight bump in voltage to the processor, all the drives, and a bunch of fans, the +12v +5v and +3.3v lines stay right on and never fluctuate or drop. Very quiet, too.

All that same stuff is probably even cheaper now than when I bought it. The warranties are pretty good for all the components, HDD for 3 years, CPU for something like 5, Memory forever, etc. If anything breaks, RMA it. The only thing I miss out on is "That Dell Support". I think I can do without it. I already know how to set up my e-mail client and which button to push to turn my computer on. I can shut down windows without unplugging the box.

 

Thanks, Milo. I'll check into what you've said. One concern off the bat is support. With Dell, my 800 quid gets me a 3 on site support agreement. If I buy from the net vendors, I'd better pray nothing goes wrong, because even the ones who offer support make you sit in a phone queue for 3 hours before you can speak to someone.

That reminds me, I'd like to warn UK buyers to never, EVER use Scan for parts. Don't let their marginally lower prices convince you. All three people I know who have bought stuff from them ended up needing to return it, which is a 3 month hit or miss process.

----------------2 hours later----------------
[EDIT]I went over my budget trying to get the parts you wrote. I hit £915 without even looking at CDRW, CDROM or HDD.

Getting a Dell makes me feel a little uncomfortable, precisely because I won't know the quality of some parts (they don't publish MB specs on their site - surprise, surprise). Also, some of those parts you put down look really cool. My budget is £800, though, and unless the UK starts doing something about prices in the next day or so, I think I'm either stuck with the Dell or have to make compromises on system spec.

One option that occurs to me: I could stick with my Win2000 and not pay the £150 for XP. Everyone says XP is so good, though, I'm not sure about doing that.

 

Win2k is good enough Fatman. Who gives about WinXP anyway? MS wants everyone to get the new OS they haven't released yet with Palladium anyway!

Your vid card and mobo are likely going to be the most expensive components. I'm personally not going to upgrade next till January next year or so (Deus Ex 2 baby, yeah!). I'd wait if I were you for the next generation stuff to come out and come down in price as well.

 

Maybe, maybe ...

I'm not all that up on XP yet. From what I have heard it significantly improves system performance, but I don't know whether that is just people repeating MS sales rubbish or accurate observation.

The more I look at it, the more I reckon I'll be getting the Dell. I found a bit more info on their MB's and it doesn't seem all that bad (they make their own).

 

I like XP because there are days in which I experience no freezes at all. Which is quite an accomplishment for MS. Compared to ME for example, which I once installed and it worked for around 6 seconds then crashed showing me mutated icons with purdy colors. Had to reinstall. XP, for me, FOR ME, is stable. But for my friend, who can't even install any upgrades cause it crashed, it's a different story.

 

HAve you ever tried 2000? Before my recent HDD access problems, I almost never had lock ups or crashes. The few I did have were caused by non-native problems.

The main unknown quantity for me with XP is performance. If the performance is significantly better than 2000, I want to change. If not, I'd rather stick with 2000, since it is the best operating system I have used to date.

 

Well, I've heard it over and over and over. I have a friend who is going to school for computer shit, and he has a job in which he repairs? upgrades? whatever.... Anyway, when I first got my Dell computer (Dude, I got a dell!!!) it came with Windows ME. He has been bitching how bad ME is from day one. I finally told him, look man, "WHAT is so bad about ME?" He can't tell me anything except, "Well, everybody is having problems with it." (He's not a real conversationalist, my friend.)

Now you guys are saying it. What is wrong with ME other than it being a tool of the devil and all that rot? I, for one, have experienced no, I repeat, NO crashes with my OS. I mean, I will experience the occasional 'Civ 3 Crash-To-Desktop' (TM). But what, in laymans terms, is so butt-quiveringly bad about ME?







Sorry bout the term rip-off, Milo.

 

One question retard, do you have access to the internet via that computer? I mean real access, not dial up.

 

No. And when I get the net on that computer, it will be dial-up.

 

There you go! You see, windows is a entirely different thing when plugged into a stable internet connection... There are people who know what I mean.

 

I don't know what you mean, unless you're referring to the old IE glitches. They can be fixed with IE upgrades, though, I think.

My experience of ME has been relatively small,and all bad. Lysa had it when she first moved in, and boot up was accomanied by various missing DLL error messages, etc. Win2000 was the first MS OS that had robust enough start up, shut down and recovery to minimise such things for typical users. Other bad things included difficulty finding device drivers, frequent blue screens and (the biggie for us) horrible network incompatibilies. ME is it the most difficult MS OS to put on a p-p LAN with 2000, I believe. We ceertainly couldn't get it to work. In the end, I nuked it in favour of 2000, and Lysa (who was kind of reluctant) has admitted the whole system seems improved (runs faster and more reliably).

I should point out that various monkeys had been let loose on Lysa's comp before I got to it, so ME may not have been responsible entirely.

Retard, I would guess that your Dell will be fine with ME for some time, since they use their own device drivers. As long as you don't want to change any of the hardware or network it with a 2000 (or XP?) machine you should be okay until you've installed and uninstalled enough software for your system to destabilise. That usually takes a while.