309 replies to this topic

[glennhoffmania]

I need a new laptop. Basically I use it for MS Office, going online, and watching porn. So I don't need any fancy graphics or sound stuff. All I want to know is what general specs I should get at a minimum.

Processor type
Processor speed
RAM
Hard drive size

Thanks

[glennhoffmania]

Anyone? I know there's a bunch of IT people out there. Someone help a brotha out.

[bsj]

I'm not an IT guy...but I have been laptop shopping myself lately, and here is what I have come up with anecdotally...

Processor type: Seems almost universal that Intel blows away AMD...also seems like the Core 2 Duo is the way to go...not the Dual Core...there is a difference....the Core 2 Duo is a specific type of dual processor. One tip- avoid the Intel Celeron. Crappy processor.

Speed: For the laptop market, I think at least 2 GB MHZ is plenty for your purposes.

RAM: 1 GB is the bare minimum...its probably smart to have at least 2. I am planning on buying 3 GB as its a fairly cheap upgrade.

Hard Drive Size: This is probably user specific. I know that on my old laptop, with an 60 GB hard drive, I only have, maybe, 40% of it full. So for me, size is not a huge factor. That said, I think that I am going to buy something with at least 250 GB....

Edited by bsj, 03 March 2009 - 04:05 PM.

[FL4WL3SS]

Anyone? I know there's a bunch of IT people out there. Someone help a brotha out.

Honestly, if all you're doing is word processing and internet porn, any computer will do these days.

The most important thing is to have a couple gig's of ram and you'll be fine. 1 gig will get you by, 2 gigs are better. If you don't store a lot of shit on your hard drive, get a laptop on the low side (it'll have around 80 gig's, which is more than enough). If you do store a lot of shit on your hard drive, then go with something bigger (320 gig's is on the larger side for a laptop).

The onboard graphics card will be fine and any processor will be fine for what you want to do.

EDIT: I should point out that unless you're being really cheap, it'll be hard to find a laptop with a shitty processor. The Celeron is shitty, as bsj pointed out, but you won't see too many laptops with that processor anymore. AMD is a very good processor, it's just that Intel has the edge on the more expensive processors due to their Core 2 Duo technology.

The stuff you're doing on your computer is not very intensive on the processor. Don't spend a shitload on the processor if you don't have the money. Plus, some processors are very good at being overclocked, so you can get away with buying a cheaper processor and then overclocking it to get some more speed. Look into overclocking and which processors are good for it if it is something you'd be interested in.

Edited by FL4WL3SS, 03 March 2009 - 06:53 PM.

[glennhoffmania]

Thanks guys

[Orange Julia]

if you're running vista you cannot get by with only 1g of RAM. MUST HAVE AT LEAST 2.

[OttoC]

Windows uses swap files and when you have low RAM, your computer slows way down as things are moved from active RAM to the hard drive and vice versa. And when you start considering hard drive size, you need to take that into account.

[bsj]

if you're running vista you cannot get by with only 1g of RAM. MUST HAVE AT LEAST 2.

You know...I highly suggest 2 GB of RAM, but technically...Microsoft says you can have Vista with 512 MB of RAM. I think they are on crack. Thats why I said 1 GB

Edited by bsj, 03 March 2009 - 09:55 PM.

[glennhoffmania]

if you're running vista you cannot get by with only 1g of RAM. MUST HAVE AT LEAST 2.

I forgot about the Vista issue and I've heard that it uses more RAM, so that's a good point. Has the performance of Vista gotten any better? I'd love to get a computer with XP but they seem very rare these days.

[Nite Vizhun UV]

You don't need much to do what you want to do, so one consideration would be one of the netbook designs. Dell has an Inspiron Mini 9 laptop/netbook for $249 (Here it is). It runs Ubuntu which comes with Open Office, which is compatilble Microsoft Office. You can also run Firefox on Ubuntu. It's small, though (8.9'' LED display) like all the netbooks, but it's solid state.

[glennhoffmania]

One more question. If I get the Core 2 Duo, does it matter which one? Here are the options:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T6400 (2.00GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache) [subtract $50]
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T6600 (2.20GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache) [Included in Price]
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8600 (2.40GHz/1066Mhz FSB/3MB cache) [add $75 or $2/month1]
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9550 (2.66GHz/1066Mhz FSB/6MB cache) [add $250 or $7/month1]

[czar]

One more question. If I get the Core 2 Duo, does it matter which one? Here are the options:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T6400 (2.00GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache) [subtract $50]
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T6600 (2.20GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache) [Included in Price]
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8600 (2.40GHz/1066Mhz FSB/3MB cache) [add $75 or $2/month1]
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9550 (2.66GHz/1066Mhz FSB/6MB cache) [add $250 or $7/month1]

For WP/Net/Porn?

Not really. The T6400 or T6600 would be more than sufficient for basic computing.

[CaptainLaddie]

http://www.buy.com/r...amp;dcaid=17654

Talk to me. I am in the market for a new desktop - one that I can do video editing on. Quad Core is a big deal here - 6 GB of RAM is also helpful. Is this PC (refurb) a good idea? My current desktop is slow as shit when it comes to doing video editing, this would replace it.

[CaptainLaddie]

Anyone? Blacken? Czar? I kind of want to finish this purchase today

[OttoC]

Anyone? Blacken? Czar? I kind of want to finish this purchase today

I can't help that much because I don't do video but I did look up the video card and saw that there have been complaints about the fan on the card--very noisy, prone to failure and overheating and THE system only has a 90-day warranty. I just bought a new Dell that has a faster processor but only 4 GB of RAM (however it's DDR3). Everything else is about the same and I paid $300 more.

[Saints Rest]

You don't need much to do what you want to do, so one consideration would be one of the netbook designs. Dell has an Inspiron Mini 9 laptop/netbook for $249 (Here it is). It runs Ubuntu which comes with Open Office, which is compatilble Microsoft Office. You can also run Firefox on Ubuntu. It's small, though (8.9'' LED display) like all the netbooks, but it's solid state.

Has anyone had any experience with any of the mini's/netbooks? How is the performance of the machine itself? How is it to operate (small keyboard, etc)? The one that Nite cited above lists at 9"x6"x1.5" at 2.28lbs. Is the smaller size and weight noticeable better for carrying around than your basic lightweight laptop (my Dell Latitude weighs in at about 4lbs).

[AlNipper49]

honestly laddie what I would do is head over to the forums of toms hardware. Most folks lay out their configurations with courtesy links to newegg. Just read through the threads of the configs that you're interested in, there can be some good follow up advice in them

[roundegotrip]

Laddie, for what it's worth, I've had good luck buying Gateway refurbs from tigerdirect.com. In fact, I'm on my refurb PC right, and it's a little beast of a machine for what I payed for it. You're always going to be rolling the dice a little with a refurb, but my personal experience in that department has been great over the past few years.

[czar]

http://www.buy.com/r...amp;dcaid=17654

Talk to me. I am in the market for a new desktop - one that I can do video editing on. Quad Core is a big deal here - 6 GB of RAM is also helpful. Is this PC (refurb) a good idea? My current desktop is slow as shit when it comes to doing video editing, this would replace it.

It's not a bad deal at all-- a couple years ago, when I build my current desktop; the Q6600 was running around $250-300 itself.

The Q6600 was the last of the Kentsfield processors; now Intel focuses on the Yorkfield, so the technology is a couple years old. That said; it's still fairly powerful from the user end for most A/V activities. It would likely be fine for what you do.

It IS 6 GB of RAM, but that depends on what OS you run. If you run 32-bit Vista, the mobo will only utilize 4 GB. The specs say it comes installed with 64-bit Vista; but it's a consideration you will have to keep in mind if you want to use XP/Linux as an OS. The board has 4 slots that support 2 GB PC2-6400. So theoretically; the only upgrade you can make on this front without swapping the board is adding another 2 GB stick over what the comp will come with. Again; 6 GB is a lot of RAM, so no worries now.

OttoC mentioned some issues with the gfx card. I don't have a lot of personal experience with the 9500 GS, but noise issues you hear about are likely defective units. There IS a noise/temperature tradeoff-- some individuals will turn down the RPM on the GPU fan to make it less noisy and subsequently cause it to overheat. If you are not doing intense real-time gaming; the 9500 GS will not be a huge detriment to A/V work and it will be one of the easiest/cheapest components (along with RAM) to upgrade.

HD space is up to you. By Q3 of this year; you'll be seeing 1 TB drives really drop, and 2 TB drives will probably be around the $100 range.

One drawback I can see for A/V; it uses an onboard sound card-- and it only has one PCI slot available; so if you wanted a high-end dedicated sound card, it would be all the card expansion you have. No Firewire if you need that; and if you do; that expansion slot would be needed.

I haven't sat down and checked out the specifics of the manufacturers for each component (HD, RAM, etc.). These stock machines usually have slightly less quality with regards to these add-on components; but then again, as long as you treat the system well; they typically have no issues.

The price is pretty good for the system, but as someone above mentioned-- the warranty makes me a bit leery. I assume that's on the system as a whole and not the individual components of it. I don't know much about buy.com refurb, so that's something you'd have to look into, but if everything is on the up and up and the system works (and you have a nice set of periphs- monitor, keyboard, etc.) it's a reasonable bang for the buck and should be sufficient for what you want to do with it.

[czar]

Has anyone had any experience with any of the mini's/netbooks? How is the performance of the machine itself? How is it to operate (small keyboard, etc)? The one that Nite cited above lists at 9"x6"x1.5" at 2.28lbs. Is the smaller size and weight noticeable better for carrying around than your basic lightweight laptop (my Dell Latitude weighs in at about 4lbs).

Depends on what you want it for.

They are cute and good little PC's to follow you to the airport/hotel on trips. Most of them come with underpowered processors (Atoms, etc.) and <= 1 GB RAM to keep down heat and keep up battery life--

If you want to surf the net, answer e-mail, run Office, etc. they aren't bad machines whose size makes them ideal for certain individuals on the move or who have space/weight restrictions. However, they lack power (and comfort*) to do most anything more.

* = the keyboards ARE somewhat of a pain to type on, at least for me personally-- if you want one, try one out at a big-box retailer first

** = Beware of anyone who is trying to pimp Vista on these things-- really, the only OS that 95% of the specs that these netbooks (<10") can handle are XP/Linux--

[Resonance Wright]

For the price, that's an OK box. Not awesome, but you don't need awesome.

[CaptainLaddie]

It's not a bad deal at all-- a couple years ago, when I build my current desktop; the Q6600 was running around $250-300 itself.

The Q6600 was the last of the Kentsfield processors; now Intel focuses on the Yorkfield, so the technology is a couple years old. That said; it's still fairly powerful from the user end for most A/V activities. It would likely be fine for what you do.

It IS 6 GB of RAM, but that depends on what OS you run. If you run 32-bit Vista, the mobo will only utilize 4 GB. The specs say it comes installed with 64-bit Vista; but it's a consideration you will have to keep in mind if you want to use XP/Linux as an OS. The board has 4 slots that support 2 GB PC2-6400. So theoretically; the only upgrade you can make on this front without swapping the board is adding another 2 GB stick over what the comp will come with. Again; 6 GB is a lot of RAM, so no worries now.

OttoC mentioned some issues with the gfx card. I don't have a lot of personal experience with the 9500 GS, but noise issues you hear about are likely defective units. There IS a noise/temperature tradeoff-- some individuals will turn down the RPM on the GPU fan to make it less noisy and subsequently cause it to overheat. If you are not doing intense real-time gaming; the 9500 GS will not be a huge detriment to A/V work and it will be one of the easiest/cheapest components (along with RAM) to upgrade.

HD space is up to you. By Q3 of this year; you'll be seeing 1 TB drives really drop, and 2 TB drives will probably be around the $100 range.

One drawback I can see for A/V; it uses an onboard sound card-- and it only has one PCI slot available; so if you wanted a high-end dedicated sound card, it would be all the card expansion you have. No Firewire if you need that; and if you do; that expansion slot would be needed.

I haven't sat down and checked out the specifics of the manufacturers for each component (HD, RAM, etc.). These stock machines usually have slightly less quality with regards to these add-on components; but then again, as long as you treat the system well; they typically have no issues.

The price is pretty good for the system, but as someone above mentioned-- the warranty makes me a bit leery. I assume that's on the system as a whole and not the individual components of it. I don't know much about buy.com refurb, so that's something you'd have to look into, but if everything is on the up and up and the system works (and you have a nice set of periphs- monitor, keyboard, etc.) it's a reasonable bang for the buck and should be sufficient for what you want to do with it.

Thanks. This was very helpful. I actually own a few USB sound cards that I would use as my sound card if necessary (Maya44 cards). I am not doing any gaming whatsoever (except baseball sims). The things I really like about this (considering the price) are the TV tuner card (which I really need), the quad-core, and the RAM. I am running a 64-bit system on this without a question. At this point I just need something faster than my P4 3 GHz from 2005. Is it honestly worth considering getting a newer processor for this and waiting for a different deal?

[CaptainLaddie]

honestly laddie what I would do is head over to the forums of toms hardware. Most folks lay out their configurations with courtesy links to newegg. Just read through the threads of the configs that you're interested in, there can be some good follow up advice in them

I will do that. Thanks.

Laddie, for what it's worth, I've had good luck buying Gateway refurbs from tigerdirect.com. In fact, I'm on my refurb PC right, and it's a little beast of a machine for what I payed for it. You're always going to be rolling the dice a little with a refurb, but my personal experience in that department has been great over the past few years.

Yeah? I'll check them out too.

Thanks to everyone for the help.

[czar]

Thanks. This was very helpful. I actually own a few USB sound cards that I would use as my sound card if necessary (Maya44 cards). I am not doing any gaming whatsoever (except baseball sims). The things I really like about this (considering the price) are the TV tuner card (which I really need), the quad-core, and the RAM. I am running a 64-bit system on this without a question. At this point I just need something faster than my P4 3 GHz from 2005. Is it honestly worth considering getting a newer processor for this and waiting for a different deal?

The Q6600 is absolutely no slouch-- it still goes for $150-200 although it's begun to pop up for ~$125 with rebates. I dabble in A/V, I'm using an E6600 (Core 2 Duo) and I still manage-- the quad core should put this thing to shame.

If you are comfortable with the Buy.com policies and the individual components in the box, I'd say there is nothing wrong with buying this comp and upgrading the CPU in the future for a couple hunski if it ever came to that.

[Resonance Wright]

As far as upgrading, you need to find out what the motherboard will accept -- there are some that'll take a q6600 and won't take the sort of chip it'd make sense to upgrade to down the road (i.e. upgrading to a q6700 won't make a ton of difference and it'll likely be about as expensive as upgrading to a Penryn, which is the way you'd want to go if you bothered to upgrade). That's if you really envision needing to upgrade. Find out what sort of motherboard is in it.

The q6600 is a workhorse chip. If I were assembling a computer from scratch at this point I would likely not go in that direction simply because there's better stuff to be had. For a buy as-is refurb situation, though, you can do a lot worse than that; if you find yourself, down the road, wishing that your processor was a little faster, most people have zero problem OCing a q6600 to 3.0ghz and most are able to take it past that. OCing isn't w/o risk, of course, but if you're already looking to upgrade and drop some cash on a chip, you have comparatively little to lose by seeing if an overclock will solve the problem.

The bottom line is that for the money you're talking about spending, the raw power in a q6600 is serviceable. Can you do better? Yes, you can do better, you can do about 40% better (that's a back of the envelope calc) for about double the money and that's the point at which you start facing diminishing returns. It all comes down to what you can comfortably spend and what you need and what annoys you more, giving up a few hundred bucks you could spend a lot of different ways or having things be not quite as fast on your computer as they might be. It doesn't sound like you do much intensive stuff on your computer.

Edited by Resonance Wright, 08 March 2009 - 10:06 PM.

[Resonance Wright]

If you have serviceable external sound hardware (I'm just hazarding a wild guess and saying that you do, given what you've said so far) it's more than likely going to be superior to a computer sound card unless you want to pay a few hundred for the sound card. There's no real additive effects -- your computer will use either the internal or the external device to do the sound work, try and make both of them do the work and suddenly you're facing an advanced troubleshooting session.

[Bleedred]

Available on Woot today: the HP Pavilion 17" AMD Dual-Core 2.1GHz Entertainment Notebook
$549.99 ---

Experts, what do you think?

Features:

AMD Turion X2 RM-72 2.1GHz Dual-Core Mobile Processor
17.0” Diagonal WXGA+ High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1440×900)
Integrated webcam
320GB (5400RPM) SATA 5400 RPM Hard Drive
ATI Radeon HD 3200 Video Graphics RS780M
802.11b/g WLAN Wireless Connectivity
Integrated 10/100 Ethernet LAN Network Card
LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support Multi Media Drive
eSATA with USB 2.0 port
Altec Lansing speakers
Touch Pad with On/Off button and dedicated vertical scroll Up/Down pad
HDMI port allows you to display video from the notebook on a HDTV
Full size keyboard, with full size keypad
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit with Service Pack 1

[Gagliano]

Another computer question: I'm building a PC that will be used to test some animation projects I'm working on. I'll be developing in Java3d, Blender, and Maya, plus will be running a bunch of other stuff in the background (mssql server and a few other server apps).

I've speced out the I7 processor, 6G of ram, Vista Ultimate, etc, but am having a problem choosing a graphics card. The geek at the store recommend the NVidia Quadro (?), since it is specifically made for rendering. But then when I looked at message boards, everyone says that the processor does all rendering anyway and a graphics card doesn't help that much. So, am I better off going with a top of the line NVidia card instead?

I'm not a gamer, but I know some people here are, so I thought maybe someone has already "been there, done that", since I assume that some of the newer 3d games would require similar performance that I am going for.

[Resonance Wright]

No to the Woot computer, unless you just need a laptop. Note that your list doesn't include the RAM. You want to know how much it has, trust me.

Re the video card --

Gaming cards and Quadros are two different breeds of cat. Quadros are meant for workstation graphics crunching. Gaming cards are meant for 3d gaming quality. A top of the line workstation graphics card can cost a couple of grand. I've never tried gaming with one but I've heard of people going 'they have to be awesome, look at how much they cost' and then discovering that their game framerate sucks.

Maybe the industry guys will have some insight here. I'd look at getting the Quadro, though.

[Blacken]

A modern nVidia workstation graphics card is generally a similar card to the consumer gaming card, but with different drivers--to the point where there are ways to hack an nVidia card to exhibit the behaviors of the other series. (Not always doable 100%, though, and often Quadros are built to higher tolerances and quality standards so the consumer card may not be able to hack it.)

There's a crucial difference between the drivers on the consumer and workstation cards, and a reason why the framerate tanks out in Quadros. Essentially, it's a difference in goals. The Quadro is designed for correctness. As such, it tends to be a good bit slower, because it's aiming for completely correct display. The consumer cards are made for speed. It's okay if there's a rounding error once in a while or whatever, because the goal is just to make it go really really fast.

I'd avoid the Quadro, personally, unless you have a serious hard-on for the accuracy. For what it sounds like you're doing, I don't think you need it.

Edited by Blacken, 19 March 2009 - 01:46 PM.

[OttoC]

For what it is worth, the latest version of Adobe Photoshop (CS4) will use the Graphics Processing Unit on your graphics card for speed up rendering of certain functions (card needs to support Shader Model 3.0 and OpenGL 2.0). I suspect this will become the norm for certain types of graphics programs.

[Gagliano]

I'm not that concerned with accuracy in the way an aeronatical engineer would be. My goal is to display an animation of robotic machines at a frame rate as high as possible. I've already got it working pretty well with Java2d, but 3d is a different animal, and wasn't sure if a consumer grade card would be the best choice. But if I understand you guys right, I should go with a consumer grade card, since I'm not doing stuff like AutoCad rendering. Makes sense.

So, which card should it be? Any favorites?

[Blacken]

For what it is worth, the latest version of Adobe Photoshop (CS4) will use the Graphics Processing Unit on your graphics card for speed up rendering of certain functions (card needs to support Shader Model 3.0 and OpenGL 2.0). I suspect this will become the norm for certain types of graphics programs.

I don't think Intel, ATI, or nVidia even sell anything that doesn't support SM3 these days.

I'm not that concerned with accuracy in the way an aeronatical engineer would be. My goal is to display an animation of robotic machines at a frame rate as high as possible. I've already got it working pretty well with Java2d, but 3d is a different animal, and wasn't sure if a consumer grade card would be the best choice. But if I understand you guys right, I should go with a consumer grade card, since I'm not doing stuff like AutoCad rendering. Makes sense.

So, which card should it be? Any favorites?

I personally am liking the ATI 48xx series, but I've been a bit anti-nVidia ever since one of their TNT2 cards fried my motherboard years back. The nVidia GTX 2x0 series may be worth a look.

[OttoC]

I'm running an ATI 4850 with 512 MB but CS4 sometimes complains even with that.

[roundegotrip]

I personally am liking the ATI 48xx series, but I've been a bit anti-nVidia ever since one of their TNT2 cards fried my motherboard years back. The nVidia GTX 2x0 series may be worth a look.

I'd give the 295 the edge over the 4870 X2, but it's also pricier.

[Resonance Wright]

The GTX 295 and the Radeon 4870x2 are the best options, but be warned that both are a) large b) noisy and c) will require a lot of juice. It's really difficult to say off the cuff whether you need that much power, and for either one you may need to upgrade your power supply. What are the specs for the system you're considering dropping these into?

[Gagliano]

Ok, I've got a Gigabyte EX58-UD3R motherboard, an Intel Core i7 920 Processor, 500 w power supply, and 6GB of DD3 ram. A card with dual-monitor support would be nice too. As I said, this is just a development box where I can test and demo some user interfaces I've made that contain a fair amount of 2d and 3d graphics (not gaming).

As a comparison, I've been developing on a Dell XPS M1730, 4GB ram, with an Nvidia GeForce 8700M GT video card. The results are ok (actually much better than on some middle of the road PCs I've tested it on), but the frame rates peak out at around 15fps. I would like to test it out on a faster machine and see if this limit is due to my code, the overall software architecture I'm using, or the hardware.

[Resonance Wright]

Ok, I've got a Gigabyte EX58-UD3R motherboard, an Intel Core i7 920 Processor, 500 w power supply, and 6GB of DD3 ram. A card with dual-monitor support would be nice too. As I said, this is just a development box where I can test and demo some user interfaces I've made that contain a fair amount of 2d and 3d graphics (not gaming).

As a comparison, I've been developing on a Dell XPS M1730, 4GB ram, with an Nvidia GeForce 8700M GT video card. The results are ok (actually much better than on some middle of the road PCs I've tested it on), but the frame rates peak out at around 15fps. I would like to test it out on a faster machine and see if this limit is due to my code, the overall software architecture I'm using, or the hardware.

This isn't easy.

It's not easy for two reasons. The first is that with the rig you mention, assuming you have a standard loadout otherwise (2 optical drives, 2 hard drives, sound card, a couple of fans) putting in a 4870x2 will put you RIGHT AT 500 watts. Just a touch over it, in fact. No allowance for aging (PSUs degrade over time, esp. with heavy use), figuring in 85% processor usage, you're right there, the Antec calculator I use recommends you have right around 504 watts. If you only have one optical and one hard drive, then you will probably be OK at least for short term use, assuming that your power supply has the two plugs needed to feed the behemoth (a 6 pin PCIE and an 8 pin PCIE). It's one of those situations where being OK means you save $100 and not being OK means you have a very frustrating problem to troubleshoot, and then you spend $100 anyway.

If you go by what the manufacturer says -- usually a little more conservative for several reasons -- they'll tell you to have 600, 650 watts in the PSU. With that sort of wattage you will likely be just fine no matter what, and your system will probably run a little cooler (i.e. not as loud, dunno if that matters), but it means you're buying a good power supply, and spending $100 on it on top of the $450 you're putting into, say, an XFX 4870x2. (You can buy a cheaper power supply, but don't -- I usually go with PC Power and Cooling, OCZ, Antec or Silverstone.)

The second reason it's not easy is that I'm not entirely sure you need that strong of a GPU for what you want to do. An 8700M GT is, I'm told, roughly the same as a 9600GT, and a single 4870 -- depending on what you're doing -- is anywhere from two thirds again to twice as fast as a 9600GT. I think your Java 3D will use OpenGL and I'm not as versed in OpenGL, but there's a reasonable chance that a single 4870, or a GTX 280, will give you a framerate that you're not ashamed of (I'm assuming that you can't solve your problem just by lowering the resolution of the screen).

However, if you don't wanna 'think' and you need to be able to 'know' then count on spending the $550 for both pieces of gear. For what it's worth I'd probably get the 4870x2, as the GT295 is still brand spanking new, will come with a heavy 'fastest' tax and may still have some issues needing ironed out.

Edited by Resonance Wright, 20 March 2009 - 07:18 PM.

[roundegotrip]

gpureview is a good place to measure video cards against each other. Here, you can see the 280 blows the 8700M out of the water with 5 times better fill rate: http://www.gpureview...a...5&card2=567

Edited by roundegotrip, 20 March 2009 - 09:14 PM.

[Gagliano]

Wow, great info here. Thanks for your time.

This PC will not have an optical drive (well, only for a few minutes while I install the OS). It most likely will also never have a second hard drive except when I'm ghosting. So, I guess the 500w power supply should be ok, right? Still, I haven't opened it, so I can take it back and get a different one too.

So, I probably should go with the GTX280. But, looking at TigerDirect, they come in a bunch of different flavors. Is the "BFG GeForce GTX 280 Video Card - 1GB GDDR3, PCI Express 2.0 x16, SLI Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV, HDMI Support, VGA Support" a pretty good deal? Or would one of the other give more bang for the buck?

[Resonance Wright]

I usually recommend EVGA or XFX but that's a pretty good price on the BFG board -- it's a brand I've only used once and had no problems with, for what it's worth. The differences between the manufacturers aren't huge -- some brands are better known for quality, but the components themselves all come from the same place. Mostly it's a matter of where they clock the chips, (usually the more expensive boards are stable overclocks that run faster, although there are other differences) and a matter of how good customer service is if something goes wrong. To answer your question, I think it'd be fine. Keep in mind that you'll hear the noise difference. Good GPUs suck more juice and put out more heat than most CPUs do, and the fans that keep them cool are audible. Since I doubt you want to watercool your rig or spend a lot of time putting custom aftermarket coolers on things, that's the price of having fast graphics.

Anyway --

Even with the optical drive, and even if you have six sticks of RAM instead of 3 2GB sticks, and even if you have a sound card installed and a few fast fans and, say, three devices drawing full power from USB ports and even allowing 15% tolerance for capacitor aging, with the GTX280 your 500 watt PSU will be adequate. And yes, just about any good video card you buy these days will let you use two monitors.

[Gagliano]

Ok, I took the power supply back and exchanged it for a BFG 650w one. That way, if I decide to use this PC for something else later, I'm covered.

I also picked up the GTX280 I mentioned above and took back the Quadro, so we'll see how this all pans out. I'll probably put it together with my son next weekend. I'm very curious as to whether I'll see cleaner graphics.

Thanks again for your help.

[Resonance Wright]

Let me know how it turns out. In gaming terms, there is very little that a single GTX280 can't run very smoothly at a high resolution, so I'd be frankly surprised if you don't get a buttery smooth framerate with this system. A Core i7 920 kills just about every chip that came before it, the GTX280 is a big, big jump forward from your old 8700 mobile card, and you have enough RAM to handle just about anything.

[ManhattanRedSox]

Does anyone have any experience programming on a Macbook? I would like to learn to program C++ and am about to pull the trigger on a Macbook.

Thanks

[SeoulSoxFan]

Does anyone have any experience programming on a Macbook? I would like to learn to program C++ and am about to pull the trigger on a Macbook.

Thanks

Programming on a Macbook is great, as it's an essentially a Linux machine. Put enough ram, and run Parallels/VMWare if you need to run Windows. I work with a lot of coders and most are on a Mac.

[SeoulSoxFan]

No to the Woot computer, unless you just need a laptop. Note that your list doesn't include the RAM. You want to know how much it has, trust me.

Re the video card --

Gaming cards and Quadros are two different breeds of cat. Quadros are meant for workstation graphics crunching. Gaming cards are meant for 3d gaming quality. A top of the line workstation graphics card can cost a couple of grand. I've never tried gaming with one but I've heard of people going 'they have to be awesome, look at how much they cost' and then discovering that their game framerate sucks.

Maybe the industry guys will have some insight here. I'd look at getting the Quadro, though.

The huge price difference for Quadros are not necessarily for actual performance or board specs, but because workstation (i.e., for 3d rendering, architectural applications, etc.) and video cards like Quadros have to be certified against the myriad of applications out there, to be 100% compatible. That testing and certification process for both the board and the driver easily adds $$$, but if you are not making a living working for an architecture firm or making your own Lord of the Rings, it's throwing money out the window.

Gaming with those are okay but you have enough trouble with video drivers on gaming cards as is - why take a chance? Plus any mid- to high-end "gaming" cards can flex its muscle when doing hobby/light 3d work.

[Blacken]

Does anyone have any experience programming on a Macbook? I would like to learn to program C++ and am about to pull the trigger on a Macbook.

Thanks

The newer Macbook revs have excellent specs, but the keyboards are killer to work on for long periods and I find it uncomfortable as hell. Also, XCode is the shittiest shit that ever did shit when it comes to an IDE. The only IDEs I would even consider for C++ programming are Eclipse (big, slow, and shitty on OS X), NetBeans (big, reasonably fast, but shitty on OS X), and Visual Studio (which you can't get on OS X, and no, Parallels/VMWare aren't the same thing so get ready to dual-boot or run a non-seamless VM).

Also, C++ support for OS X libraries (beyond the libg++ basics, that is) is a little hit or miss. Older libraries tend to be much more C++-friendly, and also much more deprecated.

OS X is a platform with a One True Programming Style, and it has little to do with C++. Your options will reflect this.

[Blacken]

gpureview is a good place to measure video cards against each other. Here, you can see the 280 blows the 8700M out of the water with 5 times better fill rate: http://www.gpureview...a...5&card2=567

Uhm...not to be a douche, but do you know what fill rate means and why "five times better" is basically unimportant?

[CaptainLaddie]

I ended up getting this:

# Intel® Core 2 Quad Processor Q8200
# 8GB DDR2-800 SDRAM
# 750GB 7,200RPM Hard Drive
# LightScribe SuperMulti DVD Burner
# 15-in-1 Memory Card Reader
# NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GS
# 10/100/1000 Network
# 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless Network
# Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit)

It was open box and therefore $200 off. Came with no cables; etc. But I couldn't say no to that deal.

[Resonance Wright]

How much?