Realistic top of the range PC.

[Nexus]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

Ok, I know I've asked this before. But what would a realistic spec be,
using say... San Andreas as a benchmark.
I want something powerful, but I don't want go too ott, (I can still upgrade
at a later date, I'm just generally greedy.) lol

Considering going for a laptop again, all suggestions welcome, (within
reason.)

P.S. I still want to go the Alienware path, because they offer a good after
sales service.

TIA

Pagey

--
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

 

[Shawn]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

I have a AMD 2.5ghz 333 with 1gb pc3200, gigabyte 6600GT video 128mb, 36.4
RAPTOR 10K ata150 HD, 80gb ata133 backup drive, dual layer 16x dvd burner,
and a 300watt ANTEC 1040B case. It runs san andreas, doom 3, and star wars
battlefront with everything turn high as possible perfectly.

The speed of the machine isnt the bottleneck in a system, its the HD and the
video. Make sure you also run at least 1gb of memory.

Shawn

"NeXuS" <Diablo@hell.org> wrote in message
news:daefim$fi2$1@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk...
> Ok, I know I've asked this before. But what would a realistic spec be,
> using say... San Andreas as a benchmark.
> I want something powerful, but I don't want go too ott, (I can still
> upgrade at a later date, I'm just generally greedy.) lol
>
> Considering going for a laptop again, all suggestions welcome, (within
> reason.)
>
> P.S. I still want to go the Alienware path, because they offer a good
> after sales service.
>
> TIA
>
> Pagey
>
> --
> "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
>

 

[Glitch]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

NeXuS wrote:
> P.S. I still want to go the Alienware path, because they offer a good after
> sales service.

Don't know if they offer anything similar to these components ,but you
should be happy with this high-end system

DFI Lanparty UT SLI-D
A64 3500+
2x512MB Low latency (Alienware has Corsair AFAIK)
nVidia 6800GT/Ultra - this is for you to decide because 7800GTX is too
pricey but Ultra has really fallen in price since GTX came out. You
could also go the ATI path if you don't choose a SLI mobo.
Seagate 7200.8 250GB SATA
BenQ DW1640 / NEC ND-3540
The choice of PSU and case is ,again,up for you to decide.

Bye!

 

[Dan]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

>
> The speed of the machine isnt the bottleneck in a system, its the HD and
> the video. Make sure you also run at least 1gb of memory.
>
> Shawn

- Did you mean the Frequency of your CPU isn't the bottleneck? Your
sentence doesn't quite make sense.

Ok, I know I've asked this before. But what would a realistic spec be,
using say... San Andreas as a benchmark.
I want something powerful, but I don't want go too ott, (I can still upgrade
at a later date, I'm just generally greedy.) lol

Considering going for a laptop again, all suggestions welcome, (within
reason.)

P.S. I still want to go the Alienware path, because they offer a good after
sales service.

TIA

Pagey

It's really depends on how high end you want it. A very reasonable system
that would be able to hand any game today would be

Athlon64 3500 or greater
1GB or 2GB of low latency ram.
Geforce 6800GT (add another when you can afford to)
SLI Motherboard
Two 72GB Raptors in RAID or 2 of the SATA 7200 16MB cache drives depending
on money.
Nice beefy power supply with good current on the 12V rails.

I have Athlon64 @2.3GHZ (3600ish) and overclocked Geforce 6600GT 580/1140
and there is no game that I can't play at high detail so you should be in
heaven with the rig above.

And the most important aspect of any PC I think - the screen! Dell 24inch
widescreen is just heavenly gorgeous. Thats a luxury I cannot afford being a
student

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

San Andreas would have relatively weak system requirements because it is a
console port. Three game engines that would challenge today's PC's would be:
Doom3, Far Cry and Half Life 2. Like the previous poster said, graphics
cards are mostly where the bottleneck is in today's games.

--
there is no .sig
"Dan" <d.d.com> wrote in message
news:42cb1c65$0$13703$cc9e4d1f@news-text.dial.pipex.com...
>
>>
>> The speed of the machine isnt the bottleneck in a system, its the HD and
>> the video. Make sure you also run at least 1gb of memory.
>>
>> Shawn
>
> - Did you mean the Frequency of your CPU isn't the bottleneck? Your
> sentence doesn't quite make sense.
>
> Ok, I know I've asked this before. But what would a realistic spec be,
> using say... San Andreas as a benchmark.
> I want something powerful, but I don't want go too ott, (I can still
> upgrade
> at a later date, I'm just generally greedy.) lol
>
> Considering going for a laptop again, all suggestions welcome, (within
> reason.)
>
> P.S. I still want to go the Alienware path, because they offer a good
> after
> sales service.
>
> TIA
>
> Pagey
>
> It's really depends on how high end you want it. A very reasonable system
> that would be able to hand any game today would be
>
> Athlon64 3500 or greater
> 1GB or 2GB of low latency ram.
> Geforce 6800GT (add another when you can afford to)
> SLI Motherboard
> Two 72GB Raptors in RAID or 2 of the SATA 7200 16MB cache drives depending
> on money.
> Nice beefy power supply with good current on the 12V rails.
>
> I have Athlon64 @2.3GHZ (3600ish) and overclocked Geforce 6600GT 580/1140
> and there is no game that I can't play at high detail so you should be in
> heaven with the rig above.
>
> And the most important aspect of any PC I think - the screen! Dell 24inch
> widescreen is just heavenly gorgeous. Thats a luxury I cannot afford being
> a student
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

left a note on my windscreen which said:

> Athlon64 3500 or greater
> 1GB or 2GB of low latency ram.
> Geforce 6800GT (add another when you can afford to)
> SLI Motherboard
> Two 72GB Raptors in RAID or 2 of the SATA 7200 16MB cache drives depending
> on money.
> Nice beefy power supply with good current on the 12V rails.

Agree with this spec - apart from the dual raptor drives. IMO that's
overkill for a gaming machine.

> I have Athlon64 @2.3GHZ (3600ish) and overclocked Geforce 6600GT 580/1140
> and there is no game that I can't play at high detail so you should be in
> heaven with the rig above.

Of course - your idea of high detail can be different from other
people's idea of high detail. I would imagine your system would
struggle with maximum detail on games such as San Andreas or BF2. No
offence intended but I doubt a 6600GT can average >30fps with BF2 at
1280x1024, all High, 4x AA etc. Having said that - it looks like that
is some overclock so I could be wrong - my main point being that even
with the above system specs there are still games out there which do
demand more power at maximum settings. San Andreas and BF2 are the two
which immediatly come to mind.
--
Stoneskin

[Insert sig text here]

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

"Glitch" <glitch_120@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:daej7o$9ba$2@bagan.srce.hr...
> NeXuS wrote:
>> P.S. I still want to go the Alienware path, because they offer a good
>> after sales service.
>
> Don't know if they offer anything similar to these components ,but you
> should be happy with this high-end system
>
> DFI Lanparty UT SLI-D
> A64 3500+
> 2x512MB Low latency (Alienware has Corsair AFAIK)
> nVidia 6800GT/Ultra - this is for you to decide because 7800GTX is too
> pricey but Ultra has really fallen in price since GTX came out. You could
> also go the ATI path if you don't choose a SLI mobo.
> Seagate 7200.8 250GB SATA
> BenQ DW1640 / NEC ND-3540
> The choice of PSU and case is ,again,up for you to decide.
>
> Bye!

I think the most important thing if you want the room to upgrade later on is
to choose a MB capable of dual-processors and SLI (I assume the above MB is
capable of those things).

That's what I'm doing. I can't afford dual processors or two vid cards right
now - but I'm gonna get an MB that can support those things. That way in
6-12 months I can upgrade very easily.

 

[Glitch]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

Dragoncarer wrote:
> I think the most important thing if you want the room to upgrade later on is
> to choose a MB capable of dual-processors and SLI (I assume the above MB is
> capable of those things).
>
Yep,capable of both!
And the best thing, DFI is an OCers dream. You can pump the voltages up
to 3.4V for RAM ,and that is required for some OCZ,COrsair,Mushkin...
Low latency RAM.

 

[Nexus]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

"Glitch" <glitch_120@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:dagdko$nc8$3@bagan.srce.hr...
> Dragoncarer wrote:
>> I think the most important thing if you want the room to upgrade later on
>> is to choose a MB capable of dual-processors and SLI (I assume the above
>> MB is capable of those things).
>>
> Yep,capable of both!
> And the best thing, DFI is an OCers dream. You can pump the voltages up to
> 3.4V for RAM ,and that is required for some OCZ,COrsair,Mushkin... Low
> latency RAM.

Alienware are doing machines with either AMD DC or Pentium DC. So what's
the best?

 

[Nexus]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

"Stoneskin" <no@thanks.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.1d359d7ede79fb68989bac@nntp.dsl.pipex.com...
> left a note on my windscreen which said:
>
>> Athlon64 3500 or greater
>> 1GB or 2GB of low latency ram.
>> Geforce 6800GT (add another when you can afford to)
>> SLI Motherboard
>> Two 72GB Raptors in RAID or 2 of the SATA 7200 16MB cache drives
>> depending
>> on money.
>> Nice beefy power supply with good current on the 12V rails.
>
> Agree with this spec - apart from the dual raptor drives. IMO that's
> overkill for a gaming machine.
>
>> I have Athlon64 @2.3GHZ (3600ish) and overclocked Geforce 6600GT 580/1140
>> and there is no game that I can't play at high detail so you should be in
>> heaven with the rig above.
>
> Of course - your idea of high detail can be different from other
> people's idea of high detail. I would imagine your system would
> struggle with maximum detail on games such as San Andreas or BF2. No
> offence intended but I doubt a 6600GT can average >30fps with BF2 at
> 1280x1024, all High, 4x AA etc. Having said that - it looks like that
> is some overclock so I could be wrong - my main point being that even
> with the above system specs there are still games out there which do
> demand more power at maximum settings. San Andreas and BF2 are the two
> which immediatly come to mind.
> --
> Stoneskin
>
> [Insert sig text here]

Surprisingly San Andreas's requirements are pretty heavy.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

How could a console port with polygon counts and low-res textures which make
2000-era PC games look good have heavy system requirements? The game isn't a
new engine, it's just a tweaked GTAIII engine. I could play Vice City on a
1.5 Ghz T-bird with 512MB of RAM and a 32MB Geforce 2/GTS, I'll bet San
Andreas could run on that same rig. Doom3 regularly uses 768MB of my system
memory (and consequently resorts to the swap file). How much does San
Andreas use?

--
there is no .sig
"NeXuS" <Diablo@hell.org> wrote in message
news:dahal7$n8i$1@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
>
> "Stoneskin" <no@thanks.com> wrote in message
> news:MPG.1d359d7ede79fb68989bac@nntp.dsl.pipex.com...
>> left a note on my windscreen which said:
>>
>>> Athlon64 3500 or greater
>>> 1GB or 2GB of low latency ram.
>>> Geforce 6800GT (add another when you can afford to)
>>> SLI Motherboard
>>> Two 72GB Raptors in RAID or 2 of the SATA 7200 16MB cache drives
>>> depending
>>> on money.
>>> Nice beefy power supply with good current on the 12V rails.
>>
>> Agree with this spec - apart from the dual raptor drives. IMO that's
>> overkill for a gaming machine.
>>
>>> I have Athlon64 @2.3GHZ (3600ish) and overclocked Geforce 6600GT
>>> 580/1140
>>> and there is no game that I can't play at high detail so you should be
>>> in
>>> heaven with the rig above.
>>
>> Of course - your idea of high detail can be different from other
>> people's idea of high detail. I would imagine your system would
>> struggle with maximum detail on games such as San Andreas or BF2. No
>> offence intended but I doubt a 6600GT can average >30fps with BF2 at
>> 1280x1024, all High, 4x AA etc. Having said that - it looks like that
>> is some overclock so I could be wrong - my main point being that even
>> with the above system specs there are still games out there which do
>> demand more power at maximum settings. San Andreas and BF2 are the two
>> which immediatly come to mind.
>> --
>> Stoneskin
>>
>> [Insert sig text here]
>
> Surprisingly San Andreas's requirements are pretty heavy.
>

 

[Nexus]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

"Doug" <pigdos@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:WUWye.1776$Tc6.189@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
> How could a console port with polygon counts and low-res textures which
> make 2000-era PC games look good have heavy system requirements? The game
> isn't a new engine, it's just a tweaked GTAIII engine. I could play Vice
> City on a 1.5 Ghz T-bird with 512MB of RAM and a 32MB Geforce 2/GTS, I'll
> bet San Andreas could run on that same rig. Doom3 regularly uses 768MB of
> my system memory (and consequently resorts to the swap file). How much
> does San Andreas use?
>
Have a ganders at this...

http://www.tcmagazine.info/articles.php?action=show&showarticle=154

P.S. Just because it's a console port, doesn't mean it has to be exactly
like it. Modern PC's are far superior the the aging PS2, why not push the
boat out and make it even BETTER on the PC?

 

[Glitch]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

NeXuS wrote:
> Alienware are doing machines with either AMD DC or Pentium DC. So what's
> the best?
>

For the time being,AMD CPUs are better because of several things.
1. The generate less heat and require less wattage.
2. They have an integrated memory controler and thus have lower latency
and better memory performance (if you put some low-latency RAM in the
system ,off course )
3. They are curently faster than Intel CPUs and are cheaper if you
evaluate same power CPUs.

Bye!

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

Doug left a note on my windscreen which said:

> How could a console port with polygon counts and low-res textures which make
> 2000-era PC games look good have heavy system requirements? The game isn't a
> new engine, it's just a tweaked GTAIII engine. I could play Vice City on a
> 1.5 Ghz T-bird with 512MB of RAM and a 32MB Geforce 2/GTS, I'll bet San
> Andreas could run on that same rig. Doom3 regularly uses 768MB of my system
> memory (and consequently resorts to the swap file). How much does San
> Andreas use?

I'm sure it would run on that rig. But certainly not at it's highest
settings. Although GTA:SA is a console port the PC version allows you
to extend the draw distance significantly and apply up to 3x AA. Both
these settings hit your graphics hardware pretty hard.
--
Stoneskin

[Insert sig text here]

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

As for the HD i wonder why no one is saying go SATA2?
http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/hgst/menuitem.51bae6e47efca5938797c532aac4f0a0/
Hitachi Deskstar 160gig would be my pick 2 of them or even 3 in a raid 0
setup.
the are stock set up at sata 150 so you must get the tool to set them up for
sata2 for the 3.0 Gb/s from the web page.

a game rig realy dont need raid drives other than loading the game to start
with. but its nice to have if you ever want to mess with video editing or
something like that.

"Stoneskin" <no@thanks.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.1d359d7ede79fb68989bac@nntp.dsl.pipex.com...
> left a note on my windscreen which said:
>
>> Athlon64 3500 or greater
>> 1GB or 2GB of low latency ram.
>> Geforce 6800GT (add another when you can afford to)
>> SLI Motherboard
>> Two 72GB Raptors in RAID or 2 of the SATA 7200 16MB cache drives
>> depending
>> on money.
>> Nice beefy power supply with good current on the 12V rails.
>
> Agree with this spec - apart from the dual raptor drives. IMO that's
> overkill for a gaming machine.
>
>> I have Athlon64 @2.3GHZ (3600ish) and overclocked Geforce 6600GT 580/1140
>> and there is no game that I can't play at high detail so you should be in
>> heaven with the rig above.
>
> Of course - your idea of high detail can be different from other
> people's idea of high detail. I would imagine your system would
> struggle with maximum detail on games such as San Andreas or BF2. No
> offence intended but I doubt a 6600GT can average >30fps with BF2 at
> 1280x1024, all High, 4x AA etc. Having said that - it looks like that
> is some overclock so I could be wrong - my main point being that even
> with the above system specs there are still games out there which do
> demand more power at maximum settings. San Andreas and BF2 are the two
> which immediatly come to mind.
> --
> Stoneskin
>
> [Insert sig text here]

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

mangyrat wrote:

> As for the HD i wonder why no one is saying go SATA2?

Because there is no benefit to be derived from doing so. SATA2 is, for
single user machines, pure hype. No disk on the market can fill an SATA1
pipe and command queuing is mainly of utility in _heavy_ multitasking
environments such as servers under high load, not in the very light
multitasking that is encountered in most single user machines.

>http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/hgst/menuitem.51bae6e47efca5938797c532aac4f0a0/
> Hitachi Deskstar 160gig would be my pick 2 of them or even 3 in a raid 0
> setup.
> the are stock set up at sata 150 so you must get the tool to set them up
> for sata2 for the 3.0 Gb/s from the web page.
>
> a game rig realy dont need raid drives other than loading the game to
> start with. but its nice to have if you ever want to mess with video
> editing or something like that.
>
> "Stoneskin" <no@thanks.com> wrote in message
> news:MPG.1d359d7ede79fb68989bac@nntp.dsl.pipex.com...
>> left a note on my windscreen which said:
>>
>>> Athlon64 3500 or greater
>>> 1GB or 2GB of low latency ram.
>>> Geforce 6800GT (add another when you can afford to)
>>> SLI Motherboard
>>> Two 72GB Raptors in RAID or 2 of the SATA 7200 16MB cache drives
>>> depending
>>> on money.
>>> Nice beefy power supply with good current on the 12V rails.
>>
>> Agree with this spec - apart from the dual raptor drives. IMO that's
>> overkill for a gaming machine.
>>
>>> I have Athlon64 @2.3GHZ (3600ish) and overclocked Geforce 6600GT
>>> 580/1140 and there is no game that I can't play at high detail so you
>>> should be in heaven with the rig above.
>>
>> Of course - your idea of high detail can be different from other
>> people's idea of high detail. I would imagine your system would
>> struggle with maximum detail on games such as San Andreas or BF2. No
>> offence intended but I doubt a 6600GT can average >30fps with BF2 at
>> 1280x1024, all High, 4x AA etc. Having said that - it looks like that
>> is some overclock so I could be wrong - my main point being that even
>> with the above system specs there are still games out there which do
>> demand more power at maximum settings. San Andreas and BF2 are the two
>> which immediatly come to mind.
>> --
>> Stoneskin
>>
>> [Insert sig text here]

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

"NeXuS" <Diablo@hell.org> wrote in message
news:dahaic$n69$1@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
>
> "Glitch" <glitch_120@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:dagdko$nc8$3@bagan.srce.hr...
>> Dragoncarer wrote:
>>> I think the most important thing if you want the room to upgrade later
>>> on is to choose a MB capable of dual-processors and SLI (I assume the
>>> above MB is capable of those things).
>>>
>> Yep,capable of both!
>> And the best thing, DFI is an OCers dream. You can pump the voltages up
>> to 3.4V for RAM ,and that is required for some OCZ,COrsair,Mushkin... Low
>> latency RAM.
>
> Alienware are doing machines with either AMD DC or Pentium DC. So what's
> the best?
>
>
It's generally felt that if you want a gaming machine, or if you want a
machine that performs very well at one task at a time (eg., playing a game),
go for AMD.

If however, you're looking for a business machine, or a machine that is able
to multi-task extremely well, go for Intel/ Pentium.

There are heaps of sites out there that compare and review these two
manufacturers across the entire spectrum of their range. Ultimately it's
going to come down to what you think is most appropriate for your machine.

A couple are:

www.tomshardware.com (my favourite)
www.anandtech.com

HTH.