Tom's Hardware: Topic Upgrade With Minimal Amount Of $$$$ ??
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I was on NewEgg window shopping and I put together a list of upgrades and was wondering if the $315.00 US is worth putting into my rig since I plan on building a Conroe system when DX10 and Vista are stable sometime in 07.My current specs are on the Signature Line.I would appreciate all input.....
Thanks
Andy
Upgrades :
CPU Thermal Paste / Grease
1 Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM
Model #:ARCTIC SILVER 5
Desktop Memory This will give me 2Gig
2 CORSAIR XMS 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Desktop Memory Model CMX512-3200C2 - Retail
Model #:CMX512-3200C2
Fans, Heatsinks (Case, CPU, Chipset)
1 ZALMAN CNPS7700-CU 120mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan with Copper Heatsink - Retail
Model #:CNPS7700-CU
Headphone & Headset Accessories Keep wife out of my hair !!!!
1 SENNHEISER PC 150 2 x 3.5mm Connector Circumaural Headset - Retail
Model # C 150
Processors
1 Intel Pentium 4 3.0E Prescott 3.0GHz Socket 478 Processor Model RK80546PG0801M - OEM
Model #:RK80546PG0801M
Current Setup
ABS X-5 P4 3.0 Northwood
ASUS P4C800-E
SEAGATE 80G SATA RAID 0
CORSAIR XMS 1.0 Gig DDR PC3200
EVGA 7800GS AGP 8X 256
AUDIGY 2ZS
Klipsch Pro-Media 2.1
Saitek X45
How 'bout that :
Asrock 775Dual-VSTA $56
E6400 $227
Sennheiser PC 150 $38
Adds up to $321 and you get a C2D system from the get-go.
That Asrock mobo supports AGP, PCIe, DDR and DDR2, allowing you to upgrade smoothly as you transition to DDR2 and PCIe.
Replacing your current Northwood with a Prescott would be a waste of money.
Sid where did u see that MOBO and what Chipset is it ???I have to say it sounds promising and how is their reputation "ASROCK" can it be oced as well.
Thanks
Andy
| Quote : Sid where did u see that MOBO and what Chipset is it ???I have to say it sounds promising and how is their reputation "ASROCK" can it be oced as well.
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ASRock is a spinoff of ASUS, I believe.
I have the 775-VSTA, and it is working great with DDR 400 and my old AIW 9800 PRO.
As for the OC, it's not great, so I have heard, but I haven't tried OCing.
Mobo can be seen here: 775-VSTA
It used the Via chipset, which was a concern for me, but not anymore.
Sorry did not see the link I have never heard of VIA PT880 PRO and it does not support PCIE X16 for future graphic card.
Andy
| Quote : Sorry did not see the link I have never heard of VIA PT880 PRO and it does not support PCIE X16 for future graphic card.
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Yes, it has both AGP and PCI-e, but I think the PCI-e runs at 8x. It also runs on 2 sticks of either DDR or DDR2.
It's a very good board to use if you want to keep older components for now, and still use the Core 2 CPUs.
will I need to reinstall the OS or the RAID 0 I currently have will crossover using Their RAID controller?
Thanks
Andy
| Quote : will I need to reinstall the OS or the RAID 0 I currently have will crossover using Their RAID controller?
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More than likely, yes, an OS reinstall will be needed.
I have the RAID turned off, since I am using this board in my HTPC, so I don't know much about that section.
| Quote : Sid where did u see that MOBO and what Chipset is it ???I have to say it sounds promising and how is their reputation "ASROCK" can it be oced as well.
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ASRock is a spinoff of ASUS, I believe.
I have the 775-VSTA, and it is working great with DDR 400 and my old AIW 9800 PRO.
As for the OC, it's not great, so I have heard, but I haven't tried OCing.
Mobo can be seen here: 775-VSTA
It used the Via chipset, which was a concern for me, but not anymore.
You're right about the limited overclocking options, this is the kind of situation were Asrock had two picks out of overclockable, upgradable and innexpensive, they went for the former two as that combination made the most sense.
Asrock is an Asus brand, while they don't want customers to associate the two, you can expect the same level of reliability since both are from the same people.
That motherboard in particular really changed my opinion of Via chipsets.
dont upgrade
and what? 3 ghz to 3ghz? maybe im not getting you, and 478? socket?
| Quote : dont upgrade
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current is 3 ghz Northwood
Upgrade is 3.0E ghz Prescott which means more L1 and L2 cache among other things.
Andy
| Quote : dont upgrade
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current is 3 ghz Northwood
Upgrade is 3.0E ghz Prescott which means more L1 and L2 cache among other things.
Andy
I wouldn't waste the money on a Prescott CPU.
Save for Core 2, E6300, or even go with a 939 AMD setup, but not Prescott. That's just not a good idea, IMO.
If the upgrade CPU is free, then go for it...don't buy one.
| Quote : dont upgrade
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current is 3 ghz Northwood
Upgrade is 3.0E ghz Prescott which means more L1 and L2 cache among other things.
Andy
That bigger cache comes at the expense of higher L1 and L2 latencies, once you factor in the longer pipeline and the bloated thermal output of the Prescott, you're definetly not looking at a move foward.
Beside, that money would be better spent on the 775Dual-VSTA and E6400, now that's a worthy upgrade...
I'm working on a low budget upgrade as well.
My first thought is I need to set myself up for future upgrades as well.
Right now I have an AGP BFG 6800 Ultra OC that I don't want to part with yet. Later I want change to PCIe x16 video card. So my main concern was a mother board with AGP 8x and PCIe x16.
The only board I can find is the ASROCK 939Dual VSTA. The VSTA is Windows Vista ready.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813157097
It has both AGP 8x and PCIe x16 and PCIe x1 and PCI.
The thing is though, its AMD. I hear great things about the Intel Duo's, but I dont have a bunch of money to buy one. So the next best thing would be AMD.
The ASROCK is socket 939 and supports AMD Athlon/64/X2. X2 is dual core.
So with 939 you have a wide range of selection of very nice processors.
Also, for 70$ you can buy an addon card for the ASROCK that will support AM2 CPU's with DDR2.
I have faith in AMD, and believe they will have something that challanges Intel in the future. It will be socket AM2. And maybe 939. Either way with the ASROCK 939DUAL you are not stuck with one socket.
My new system:
ASROCK 939Dual-VSTA
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
3GIG OCZ High-Performance RAM
BFG GeForce 6800 Ultra OC AGP
X-Fi Extreme Music
Thermaltake PurePower 500w
3x Maxtor 250gig
Its a pretty nice rig... soon ill have a BFG 7950GX2 1gig PCIe
I promise you you don't want to buy any expensive pc 3200, you will have to buy a complete new memory kit for your c2d since it supports only DDR II as far as I know, you either don't want to upgrade memory, or by a damn nice memory kit that will last a while.
I think I am going to breakdown and order a new system based on the C2D E6600,320HD,74HD 10K and with 2gig PC6400.I am going lite on the Vid card since DX10 will require another purchase down the road.I am currently debating the following :
Purchase Direct From
IBUYPOWER 1750
ABS my current Rig 1979
Velocity Micro 2300
Or build my own for around 2K from New Egg
Any input would be greatly appreciated
Andy
The $283 upgrade that I priced out from Newegg would perform very close to a completely new build yet cost only a fraction of what you'd have to pay otherwise.
Beside, your 7800GS is worth migrating to a new platform as it is a very recent piece of hardware, this will allow you to wait until DX10 is properly implemented (the initial titles won't feature more than a few extra sprinkles of eyecandy) and DX10 hardware drops to an acceptable price range before jumping into the bandwaggon.
I don't see any reason for you to hesitate.
Sid my only concern is with the board not supporting PCIE 16X and I have a lot of software surrounding a specific game that I really dont want to reload when I do a changover so I think my new plan is to do a major upgrade and use the current as a storage system via network. what do u think of my latest post regarding a new system ?
Andy
Not a big issue since video card I/O through the bus usually won't come close to the maximum theorical bandwidth of PCIe 8x, let alone PCIe 16x.
While there is a performance hit from running a high end video card using the four lane PCIe port found on the 775Dual-VSTA (and the various overheads due to the rather complex chipset), it is not particularly significant, we're looking at 3~10% depending on the resolution (see This AnandTech review), nothing to be worried about when you consider the flexibility of that board as far as upgrading is concerned.
Asrock had to make some compromises but those are totally acceptable given the benefit of migrating your hardware to a new platform.
A networked storage system won't need a 7800GS, it would be a waste to ditch that video card.
As for your RAID array, you'll have to rebuild it no matter how much you pay for a new system, this unfortunately is a necessary evil as RAID arrays (except for RAID-1) can't be easily migrated between different controllers.
My stance remains the same, building a new system would be a waste of money considering how innexpensive the alternative is.
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The ASROCK 775Dual has a PCIe x4 not x16.
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That is why I didn't want to go the 775 route, because I plan on having a really high end videocard in the future. I do not want ANY loss by using a PCIe x4. I want a PCIe x16.
The ASROCK 939Dual has PCIe x16, and AGP 8x. No performace loss on either of them.
It is the better choice.
You are exagerating the impact of 4 lanes vs 16, just look at the benchmarks I linked to in my previous post, you'd be hard pressed to notice the real world difference without a FPS counter.
You realise that a single digit % shorter e-peen won't make you less of a man ?
I actually have 1 Raptor 74 gig 10 K rpm drive in my computer and honestly it is not worth the price at all, AT ALL, if you are not running them in a raid array. 7200-vs. 10k isn't much, UNLESS you are running RAID 0, because that sort of magnifies the difference by a relative factor of 2
Well, AMD really isn't that bad of an option. Socket 939 offers more reliability, as it's more mature. However, yes, Core 2 Duo will outperform it, albeit for a little more money.
You have to figure since he's not going to be able to overclock a cheap Core 2 motherboard very much, he'll basically be stuck at little more than stock speeds. With a 939 motherboard, for the same price (spending the money saved on the CPU on a better motharboard), you could get more overclockability out of a 3800+.
They both have their pros and cons, but in the end the e6300 and 3800+ are both good CPU's. You might get a little more performance out of a Core 2, but when factoring in overclocking, there won't be a very big difference between a stock low-end Core 2 and an overclocked 3800+. And there's always reliability...
It's more of a personal choice I guess.
Here is a new rig I am either going to build or buy from avadirect run about the same $$$.Any input would be great
THERMALTAKE, Tsunami Dream Silver Mid-Tower Case w/ Window, ATX, 400W PSU, Aluminum
ANTEC, TruePower 2.0 TP-II 550, 550W Power Supply, 24-pin ATX, SLI Ready
INTEL, D975XBX, LGA775, Intel 975X, 1066MHz FSB, DDR2-667 8GB/4, PCIe x16, SATA II RAID 5, Audio, Gb LAN, 2x FW, Retail
INTEL, Coreâ„¢ 2 Duo E6600 Dual-Core, 2.4GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 4MB L2 Cache, 65nm, 65W, EM64T EIST VT, Retail
ZALMAN, CNPS7000B-CuLED Copper CPU Cooler, Socket 478/754/939/940, Blue LED
CORSAIR, 2GB (2 x 1GB) XMS2 DDR2 Pro PC2-6400 DDR2 800MHz CL5 (5-5-5-12) SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC, Platinum
eVGA, e-GeForce 7900 GT KOâ„¢, GeForceâ„¢ 7900 GT, 256MB DDR3, PCIe x16 SLI, 2x DVI, TV-Out, Retail
WESTERN DIGITAL, 160GB WD Caviar® SE, SATA II 300MB/s, 7200 RPM, 8MB cache
WESTERN DIGITAL, 74GB WD Raptor®, SATA 150MB/s, 10000 RPM, 8MB cache
RAID, No RAID, Independent HDD drives
LITE-ON, SHD-16P1S Black 16x48x DVD-ROM Drive, IDE, Retail
LITE-ON, SOHR-5239S Black 52x32x52 CD-RW Drive, EIDE, OEM
MITSUMI, Beige 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Drive, Internal
MICROSOFT, Windows XP Home Edition
WARRANTY, Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, 3 Year Labor Warranty)
I have a thermaltake tsunami in black with the case window, it's pretty rockin. like I said earlier though a single raptor is pretty much a huge waste of money, 1/3rd the storage twice the price, and almost no noticible performance increase. Unless you raid it. The 7900 gt's are great cards. the intel bad axe is a sick board, I would personally suggest a p5b premium though, more features, still badass black, champion oc board. Still uses the intel chipset even though it's a 975. With the extra money saved you could buy some DDR II 800 with a lower cas.
| Quote : You are exagerating the impact of 4 lanes vs 16, just look at the benchmarks I linked to in my previous post, you'd be hard pressed to notice the real world difference without a FPS counter.
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I AM EXAGERATING THE IMPACT?
Only a moron would accept PCIe x4 for a x16 card.. That link you show clearly shows how much it impacts performance.. and its NOT small, its a HUGE impact.. you must have been day dreaming when you read the review.
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You have to be an idiot to buy a MB with x4 to run a x16 on it. Especialy if you are looking for high performance.. THERE IS A NOTICABLE DIFFERENCE.
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You are talking about e-penis? How old are you 10? First off, the only one worried about their e-penis is YOU, because you recommended a shitty board and didn't realize its PCIe x4, and thought it was x16. When I corrected you, your e-penis shrunk and went into "lie out of your ass" mode. Second, some people strive for a perfect running machine. SOME cards don't even work in a x4 slot. Trying to put an x16 card and getting all the performance out of it with x4, is absolutly STUPID. Those benchmarks on AnandTech should be erased, and never concidered. PROFESSIONAL computer builders would never do such a thing for a final rig. Maybe for testing, but not for a final upgradeable rig, EVER.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/09/16/asrock_939dual/
get a clue kid. Go back to EA forums..
^^^^^^this guy might be a total jackass, but at least he is correct^^^^^^^
I'm not a jackass, I'm just sick of punk little kids thinking they know wtf they are talking about.
It's professional computer builder (me) vs professional idiot.
| Quote : How 'bout that :
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I'll second all of his recommendations.
| Quote : Replacing your current Northwood with a Prescott would be a waste of money. |
Not to mention a loss in performance 
.
lol, ok I can understand getting fed-up
Sandy, you may be a builder, but your two posts above don't come across as very professional. Also, considering Sid's post count and join date, I doubt he is a punk little kid. (Hmmm, how long have you been around? A few hours?) Actually, I like both your and Sid's recommendations. I'm also considering an upgrade (for my wife's computer), keeping her AIW 9800 Pro and memory. I'm currently leaning toward the AMD platform, but still watching prices drop before a final decision. (Have the 939 X2's bottomed out yet?) Thanks to you both for the good info.
| Quote : You are exagerating the impact of 4 lanes vs 16, just look at the benchmarks I linked to in my previous post,
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I AM EXAGERATING THE IMPACT? indeed
Rants on about a single digit % performance delta
[...]because you recommended a shitty board and didn't realize its PCIe x4, and thought it was x16. When I corrected you, your e-penis shrunk and went into "lie out of your ass" mode[...]
Some more useless ranting
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/09/16/asrock_939dual/
get a clue kid. Go back to EA forums..
Wow, a link to a year old review I already used extensively in this very forum along with an insult, I'm done for
Heheh, I definetly struck a nerve here, you're exciteable as a youngling, resorts to namecalling and can't even keep track of who said what in a thread. Regardless if you are a child or not, your demeanor is juvenile.
You also didn't get the e-peen pun, ever heard of the colloquialism "e-peen marks" to jokingly refer to the obsession toward benchmark scores in general and 3dMarks in particular ? This was meant to lighten up the mood of this thread when you started being antagonistic, not to light up a flamewar.
On top of that, you didn't correct me, take a look at this post where I clearly mention that we're dealing with a four lane PCIe port on the second line, it was in response to this question captandy addressed to me. Beside, you even quoted that particular part of my answer to him here, so please, show me where I went into that "lie out of your ass" mode, can you back up that accusation without making stuff up ?
You do realize that you're throwing a tantrum over a few percent difference ? My guess is that you have yet to learn how to cope with slightly diverging opinions in a civil maner.
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I know who you are, and I want to kill you, I just fucking hate your guts.
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See you are profiling.. why on this fucking earth do you think "benchmarks" are a big deal to everyone? Is that what your world revolves around? I don't give a flying fuck about benchmarks, I just want a fucking computer that isn't bogged down or bottlenecked, and that runs good. YOU ,on the other hand, recommend people use x16 video cards in an x4 slot.. you are a fucking idiot.
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since you don't have the brain capacity to re-read this thread. "You lied out of your ass" when you told everyone there is no major difference when running an x16 video card on a x4 PCIe slot.. That is a fucking lie... and you are a fucking idiot for saying it.
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Dude, stfu, a "few percent difference" is an exageration on your part. ITS MORE THAN A FEW PERCENT YOU IDIOT. WHO THE HELL RECOMMENDS A UPGRADE THAT ACTUALLY WOULD ACT AS A DOWNGRADE???
You are STUPID. You are a fucking idiot, and should be shot and killed and burnt into ashes and pissed on, so that your ashes will sink into the ground, so my dog can shit on you.
Learn to read you faggot.
Well I have to say I am astonished at the immaturity here at THG.I am new to this forum and I can only say I would of expected better from those of you who name call for sake of hiding behind a firewall where anybody can be nobody.I am a long standing member at AVSIM and the moderators would of pulled the plug on a few of you by now.I apprecited Sid's advice on his recommended mobo but it would not serve in my best interest since I use my rig for MSFS and that game is the most overlooked when it comes to benchmarks.The arrival of FSX is days away and i am trying to prepare myself for this since my current rig struggles with FS9 when all sliders are maxed.I hope in the future my I can get the information I am looking for here at THG.
Thanks
Andy
| Quote : dont upgrade
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current is 3 ghz Northwood
Upgrade is 3.0E ghz Prescott which means more L1 and L2 cache among other things.
Andy
in some things the northwood is better adn it runs cooler.
As AddictiveHerring said, the Raptor isn't really worth getting - I sometimes use them as boot disks for non-SCSI servers where response/seek time is naturally more important than capacity and outright speed, and SBridge controller can handle them without the latency of an independent RAID controller. In big RAIDs they are of course faster drive-for-drive, but as they are so much more expensive, a larger array of slower (and probably bigger) disks gives the same data transfer, much more capacity, and not much disadvantage in seek.
I'd probably go for either the WD 'RAID Edition' drives or the Maxtor Maxline, the 320/300 respectively is the best value.
Motherboard-wise I'm not a big fan of Intel's own efforts, I'd lean towards one of the ASUS P5D variants.
Possibly go for one of the ATI X1900s instead of the GeForce 7900, basically personal preference and the prices you can find to choose between them.
THG recommended the intel mobo overall in their last article.
Andy
Don't worry about the trash Sander spewed out, just a drive-by flamer that will hopefully be gone by next week. Given his very recent join date, don't base your opinion of THGC on him.
My father (he's almost 60) never had a problem with migrating his MSFS installs to a new platform on his own (happened quite a few time since I give him most of my "old" hardware) despite the massive amount of 3rd party content he has and his limited knowledge of computers.
I'm surprised to hear that your 7800GS is struggling with FS9, based on the feedback I recieved from my father after I gave him my previous Abit NF7-S, XP-M 2500+ (OC'ed to 2.1GHz), Radeon 9700 and a GB of PC-2700, he is consistently getting very good FPS with the eyecandy almost maxed out.
I'll give him a call to get his opinion.
I am a huge Asus fan, and an asus board with an intel chipset is something I can almost promise you will love, not to mention a p5b deluxe costs less than a badaxe, looks as good, has equal cooling, better ocability and cooler features. They also update bios's and all kinds of goodies very regularily.
As for the video card, I would most likely check Neweggs open box deals, I have bought about 8 videocards to date from neweggs oem deals, I have always recieved all the cables with the exception of one time. And I just made my own. Whatever is cheapest there will almost certainly be the best deal. Although if ATI/Nvidia comparable options are similarliy priced I would go nvidia, the 7900 series makes less noise, and uses less energy, plus I have found them to perform slightly better as well. Of late however I think I have seen many more good deals through Ati on enthusiast level cards.
Sid I have been using MSFS for the past 20 yrs and it all comes down to what addons you use in addition to the simulator itself.I have atleast 1K invested in the current FS9 in scenery,planes,weather,ATC,AI,NAVAID etc... MSFS or the current FS9 in its base format runs fine on my rig even with the sliders maxed and AI @ 80% but add the above mentioned and it drags it down.MSFS is extremely CPU and RAM dependent moreso than the gfx.
Andy
My dual Xeon died on me so I wanted to upgrade and reuse what parts I could use , like memory, drives, AGP card, etc, so I did a little research and I bought Asrock 775Dual-VSTA and an E6300, I instaled my AGP Geforce 6800GT and 1gig of DDR1 PC3500 OCZ the SCSI card and hard drive, the IDEs , DVD writer, and I am very happy with the machine.
Teh motherboard is base on VIA, true, but the system did not crash once on me, I managed to raise the FSB to 300 and use it rock stable at that freq. and overal I am very very happy with my cheap purchase and I can recomend it for the ppl who want to use the parts they still have from older machines.
The reason I advocate the cheapest core 2 duo, is in November the new quadcore is coming out and then I will be able to build a system brand new, with PCI express, DDR2 etc, and keep this cheap but very fast system with what I have like a secondary machine.
MSFS??? Is that microsoft flight sim? If so I would be very interested in learning about addon packs and latest software and such. My wife and I are very much into the avaiation scene and we currently have microsoft flight sim 2004 and I must say it look fairly craptacular. I wasnt impressed at all with the graphics and would really be interested in some major visual upgrades.
Hey Andy I just got an ASRock 775Dual-VSTA and an E6600 and it has worked great for me. I migrated my old ddr 400 RAM over, along with my GeForce 6800 GS AGP 8x card. Anandtech has some great in depth reviews, and I wouldn't buy anything without looking at their Core 2 Duo buying guide here:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdo [...] =2797&p=10
Pretty soon I'm gonna get 2 G of decent 667 or 533 Ram, and I'll upgrade my mobo and graphics card when directx10 hits... meanwhile, the E6600 performs fine without overclocking and will fly with a decent mobo when the time comes. As for this mobo, ASrock has great support (bios revisions frequently, most recent one cited VISTA support) and at ~$60 shipped, you'd be hardpressed to screw up.
I'd definitely go with core 2 duo, though, as the technology will stay relavent for a while, and the gear will only get better.
| Quote : MSFS??? Is that microsoft flight sim? If so I would be very interested in learning about addon packs and latest software and such. My wife and I are very much into the avaiation scene and we currently have microsoft flight sim 2004 and I must say it look fairly craptacular. I wasnt impressed at all with the graphics and would really be interested in some major visual upgrades. |
Well, FSX will be going gold within the next month (AFAIK) and is leaps ahead of FS9 as far as graphics are concerned (according to the screenshots I saw) but 3rd party FS9 content add a lot of depth and value to that game even though is is getting long in the tooth.
For all I know, he get his FS9 stuff from Here.
Hi ... i went the AsRock way aswell i bought the 775i65G motherboard from AsRock its an intel chipset and its also reviewed on anadtech.. here are my specs
E6600 @ Stock
mobo 775i65G Intel 865 Chipset (temp measured 32 celsius @ 1066 fsb)
2x 512 mb Corsair XMS PC3200 at 2-3-3-6 (Dual channel)
150 gb WD Raptor
Inno3d 7800 GS agp
Scythe Ninja Plus CPU cooler (36 Celsius at full load with PRIME95 Extreem heat test and at 2.7 ghz it only went up to 37C with prime95 extreeme heat test )
PCMARK05 score = 6500
Okay a little info about this motherboard for people that might be interrested about this board. first off if you run 1066 mhz FSB the chipset is overclocked at 33 % the max bus speed is 1200 mhz and which yeilds a 50 % overclocking of the chipset..
With that said this system is (as)ROCK SOLID at 1066 mhz FSB and i also tried to crank it up to 1200mhz fsb and it still ran solid..
THE MOBO LAYOUT IS Following:
MAX BUS = 300
AGP (ONLY)
DDR1 ONLY (2 Slots) 2x SATA connector
BEAWARE !!!
(You have to have ram that are either CL 2,5 or better IT WON'T RUN STABLE WITH CL3!!! )
I had to sell my kingston ram to get it working since it wouldnt boot and run correcly with CL3 Ram.
But all in all im very happy with his budget upgrade from AsRock
I can run all games in top Res (Oblivion runs so smooth in ultra high settings)
Sid have him goto avsim.com (reviews,freeware,forums etc...)and flight1.com for 3rd party payware.I am an expert in this as I have been with MSFS since its start and before that used SubLogics ATP simulator.I have no issues commenting on which payware is good and so on.I have alot of $$$ invested in FS9 and all or most will be ported over to FSX as the SDK are updated.I will also post my e-mail in a PM if anyone is interetsed in how to become more involved in the MSFS community.I can also tell u that FSX will be a slide show on my current rig so that was the need for the major build.BTW newegg shipped yesterday so should have parts by Tuesday.
Thanks
Andy
| Quote : MSFS??? Is that microsoft flight sim? If so I would be very interested in learning about addon packs and latest software and such. My wife and I are very much into the avaiation scene and we currently have microsoft flight sim 2004 and I must say it look fairly craptacular. I wasnt impressed at all with the graphics and would really be interested in some major visual upgrades. |
Yes that is Microsoft Flight Simulator and yes I sent you a PM but I can aalso recommend many upgrades that I know are from reputable developers in the field.
Andy
| Quote : Hi ... i went the AsRock way aswell i bought the 775i65G motherboard from AsRock its an intel chipset and its also reviewed on anadtech.. here are my specs
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I got the same AsRock 775i65G m/b with the E6300... o/c to the maximum 300FSB since Day 1 with no problems at all. I have one 512 stick of Samsung Cas 2.5 DDR400 and one stick of Cas 3 ram. Fortunately they both run at 2.5 in Dual Channel Mode. I think some others have had trouble o/c to 300FSB with Cas 3 ram.
This is a pretty cheap upgrade as the m/b can be bought for $45, even saw it for $35 OEM! And the E6300 for under $200. With the upcoming E4300 cpu with 800FSB you could probably o/c the cpu to over 2700 ghz with this board (1200FSB)!
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AsRock 775i65G m/b / E6300 @ 2.1ghz
Samsung 512 x 2 DDR400 2.5-3-3-7
Leadtek 6800 ultra
Seagate Barracuda 80G
Soundblaster Audigy 2SE
Leadtek TV Xpert DVR/Capture
Tom's Hardware > Forum > CPU & Components > CPUs > Upgrade With Minimal Amount Of $$$$ ??
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