Apache Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 Well, it's defintely time. Son has acquired himself Age of Empires 3 and, despite full driver updates, this machine I think is dying. It's certainly not state of the art today (AMD Athlon 2100 with a Nvidia Ti 4200 graphics card) but I'm surprised it crashes out and locks up as much as it does. Mind you this game of his does say a 1.4 Ghz processor is needed and it flashed up saying "yours is 1.3 - stand by for problems" (never have been able to get my head round how Intel Ghz readings relate to Athlons :-( ). Still, as long as what we get plays CM (and of course CMX2) I'm not that bothered. ATI Radeons were always a no no for me re the fog issues so on that basis I'm opting for another Nvidia. One small point, I've never bought a widescreen PC before but this comes with one by default. Presume it doesn't stretch the game screens out like some form of bizarre cinEMAScope?? Anyway, here's the spec: AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 4200+ with HT Tech. Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 Brushed Aluminium ATX Midi Tower +550W PSU- Silver ASUS A8N-E - Nforce 4 PCI-Express Mainboard - ATX 1024MB DDR400 Memory - PC3200 (2x512) 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer SONY 16x Dual Layer DVD-Re-Writable +R/-R/RW 512MB DDR2 nVIDIA GeForce 7300GS - TV out- DVI - PCI X (256Mb SMA) 19" Viewsonic VA1912W Digital & Multi Media Widescreen TFT Display 7.1 Channel Surround Sound Audio (on-board) (might upgrade this to an Audigy 4) Logitech Cordless Keyboard & Cordless Optical Mouse Classic Warranty - 3 Years Back-to-Base - Parts & Labour Additional features: 6x USB Ports, GB LAN, Dual Channel Memory, 8 Channel Audio, 4x SATA ,2x UDMA, RAID 0,RAID1,RAID 0+1 Free Cyberlink Video Editing Suite - 7 titles (oem) Tool-free Case Access Quick-release Drive Trays High Power Cooling System 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mies Posted March 24, 2006 Share Posted March 24, 2006 I'm kind of thinking along the same lines. I'd might go for onboard sound and a bigger or 2nd hd. Not sure if the case comes with it's own coolers. The machine I have now competes with the best jet engine out there, sound wise and I want something a little bit more silent. Mies 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted March 24, 2006 Share Posted March 24, 2006 My comments: Good choices all around. You have more processor than graphics power but for CM this will be right. An Athlon 64 X2 does not have hypterthreading ("HT"). Of course it's dual-core anyway. That Asus board has an annoying fan on it (but you can replace it later and it's hard to get a fanless board). I would not buy a "random" PSU. I would only buy a machine where they specify exact brand and model of the PSU. Same for harddrive, Maxtor is still on my "ban" list. You might be cheaper off getting an LCD display from Dell if you snarf a few rebate coupons from the web. Nothing of that is critical, it is actually a very nice combo. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Carr Posted March 24, 2006 Share Posted March 24, 2006 Just curious, what's the cost of this PC? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apache Posted March 25, 2006 Author Share Posted March 25, 2006 Thnaks for comments. That one is £899 I'm also contemplating the one below (£799). an't make my mind up. I have had Athlons on all my PCs so far and I wonder whether the Intel below would run cooler and as such need less cooling. I'm also not quite certain what the issues are with the wide screen above. IIRC not all games support wide screen format. I suppose if they don't you just get two vertical black bars either side (hoepfully the images aren't stretched out to the sides). I'm actually not too bothered about mega sound quality these days (mainly because I've gone off the countless wires and boxes with 6.1/7.1 etc) so I may opt for the ob board sound , save £30 and get some Itrigue 2.1. Planning to hit the order button today. Any comments much apprctiated. Intel® Pentium® D 920 Dual Core (2.8GHz,2x2MB Cache,800MHz) Windows® XP Home Edition Midi-Tower ATX Case +550W PSU -Black/Silver ASUS P5LD2-SE - Intel 945P chipset Dual-Core,DDR2,PCI Express, Mainboard - ATX 1024MB DDR2 Memory - 533MHz (2x512) 200GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB Buffer SONY 16x Dual Layer DVD-Re-Writable +R/-R/RW 512MB DDR2 nVIDIA GeForce 7300GS - TV out- DVI - PCI X (256Mb SMA) 19" Viewsonic VA912 Digital & Multi Media Flat Panel Display 7.1 Channel Surround Sound Audio (on-board) Logitech Cordless Keyboard & Cordless Optical Mouse Advantage Warranty - 2 Years On-Site + 1 Year BTB-T&C Additional features: Free Cyberlink Video Editing Suite - 7 titles (oem) Network Ready integrated 10/100 Ethernet 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apache Posted March 25, 2006 Author Share Posted March 25, 2006 I was also pondering another system which has a Radeon X800 GTO 256M graphics card in. I presume that as this is an £80 upgrade on the above systems this card is better than a 512Mb Nvidia 7300 GS?? There are still some elements of PCs that baffle me (I don't read as many PC mags now as I should). I would have thought 512 better than 256??? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hpt. Lisse Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 You definately want to get something with a little more graphic muscle than that 7300 - review here Remember that, as good as ATI cards are, it will leave you sans fog in CM. That makes NVidia a good choice if you like your CM eye candy. You may want to grab (2 x 1 GB) memory sticks while you're blowing your dosh, some games (and others soon) can have a memory footprint larger than 1 GB... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apache Posted March 25, 2006 Author Share Posted March 25, 2006 Hmmmm. I've sort of ordered (but it's still changeable) the following: AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 4200+ with HT Tech. Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Midi-Tower ATX Case +550W PSU -Black/Silver ASUS A8N-SLI PCI-Express Mainboard - ATX 1024MB DDR400 Memory - PC3200 (2x512) 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer SONY 16x Dual Layer DVD-Re-Writable +R/-R/RW 256MB nVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT - Dual DVI,HDTV & TV-Out + DVI - PCI-Express 19" Viewsonic VA912 Digital & Multi Media Flat Panel Display 7.1 Channel Surround Sound Audio (on-board) Logitech Cordless Keyboard & Cordless Optical Mouse Advantage Warranty - 2 Years On-Site + 1 Year BTB-T&C 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hpt. Lisse Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 That's fine. I don't have much experience w/Media Center OS. And remember, you'll probably be able to stick 2 more 512MB sticks in the motherboard if you wish... 7600GT is a much better choice. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 The Intel dual-cores, P4-based take a whole lot more power than the AMDs, at lower performance for many applications. The numbers are all over the review sites. The choice of graphics card is mainly dependent on the games you plan to play. I am sure a 7300 will handle CM2 fine. Don't get a 512 MB card, the 7300 or 7600 is not even fast enough to make use of 256 MB. The 512 Mb cards are for dummies buying by memory size only. The processor is something you always profit from, a big graphics card you only need occasionally. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted March 26, 2006 Share Posted March 26, 2006 In my opinion the AMD64 was a good choice for a processor. For most applications that people run it probably performs a bit better than some of the Intel cores (which do have their particular strengths). While 2Gb of RAM isn't any sort of necessity right now, if it is an affordable option you may want to consider it (2 x 1Gb sticks). As for the videocard, the 7600GT should be fairly good for quite awhile. The ATI X800 is no slouch either, but the 7600GT is probably a tad better, plus you get full compatibility with the current CMx1 titles. Here's some benchmarks from Tomshardware that show the 7600GT with the other top hardware cards available right now. I don't know much about the monitor, but here's one review of the Viewsonic VA912. I can't really vouch for the veracity of the reviews on this site, but it is one of the few available for this specific model. All in all, I'd say your choices are very good and should provide the computing power you need for the next few years. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apache Posted March 26, 2006 Author Share Posted March 26, 2006 Thanks for jelp/views. Very useful. I'll stick in the extra 1G of RAM too I think. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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