The Energon Pub

News Credits: 38 · by **TheMuffin** » Wed Dec 17, 2008 5:45 pm

Definitely want to go with a Pentium Core 2 Duo. Which is their dual core setup. At least 2.4GHZ

Motherboard with PCI-Express 2.0 on it. Gigabyte has nice boards for good prices.

Nvidia Geforce 8800GT, 9600Gt or 9800GT

500+ Watt Power Supply

7200 or 10,000 RPM HDD from Seagate or Western Digital. NOT MAXTOR. SATA, not IDE.

2GB of Memory. G.Skill if you can find it over there. Budget memory with excellent reliability.

DVD-RW. LG makes some really good ones for cheap.

News Credits: 1 · by **Scatterlung** » Wed Dec 17, 2008 11:59 pm

A friend of mine who did me a great diservice some years ago and has been in my pocket ever since has lovingly offered to buy me a new computer. He picked out this'n from my list of computer-related needs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6883227097

This is pretty much what I'm getting, end of. What does you folks make of it?

by **Iron Prime** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:26 am

Looks pretty good to me. Especially compared to the nothing you were going to buy before. :grin:

News Credits: 38 · by **TheMuffin** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:46 am

To be perfectly honest, that's wayyyy overpriced for what you're getting. And it has Vista. And it doesn't have the new PCI-Express format. And Newegg doesn't ship internationally. And it wouldn't be able to plug into your wall socket without an adapter. If it would work at all.

by **Gutter Bunny** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:53 am

a)if by the sims you mean the sims2(is that the most recent...i dunno) your computer will run it with the 6200 you pointed to earlier

b)video editing i've heard is very processor intensive keep that in mind if that is your end goal.

c)ummm i just got off work, so i'm tired and also pointing at the muffin for helping you atm

d)I'll look into this later when i have more time

by **Iron Prime** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 9:12 am

TheMuffin wrote:To be perfectly honest, that's wayyyy overpriced for what you're getting. And it has Vista. And it doesn't have the new PCI-Express format. And Newegg doesn't ship internationally. And it wouldn't be able to plug into your wall socket without an adapter. If it would work at all.

It is a bit overpriced. But the unit should work in the UK - he'll just have to flip the switch on the power supply so that it's ready for 220V (240?) power instead of 110V. He will need an adpator to plug it in though.

I haven't had any troubles with the Vista machines I've fiddled with - though I know there are many that don't like it.

News Credits: 38 · by **TheMuffin** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 9:17 am

I only mention Vista as being a negative for him because of the video editing. It's resource heavy as it is, so having that run on top of his programs running might very well slow things down a bit.

And good point on the power voltage switch. I always forget about that thing since I've never had to use it.

Regardless, that system could be built for $600. $700 max.

by **Iron Prime** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 9:27 am

TheMuffin wrote:I only mention Vista as being a negative for him because of the video editing. It's resource heavy as it is, so having that run on top of his programs running might very well slow things down a bit.

Good point.

News Credits: 1 · by **Scatterlung** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 10:26 am

Wish I got back to this thread earlier D=

My friend tells me that with four.. core.. things.. it'll be able to handle video editting etc without a problem, with or without vista.

Also, he tells me he can take Vista off and replace it with XP. Cept I heard they made that really difficult but whatevers.

As for pricing, weeell that's his problem.

He's going to deal with the power, the mains, and he seems to think i might need more than 500GB so he wants to up that also.

As for PCI-Elessness... I didn't realise. Not sure I'd really need them anyway, I'd only have used em for graphics cards. What else can they be used for? I've only used PCI's for my old TV Tuner and my fire wire card thing. But that was only PCI.

by **Iron Prime** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 10:41 am

Scatterlung wrote:My friend tells me that with four.. core.. things.. it'll be able to handle video editting etc without a problem, with or without vista.

Here's the short version:
The cores are basically the number of processors. Computers used to have one processor and they just kept making them faster. As it got harder to make them faster they started putting 2, and eventually 4 processors on the same 'chip'. So now when the work comes in it gets divided up into 2 or 4 parts and each core/processor works on a piece simultaneously.

News Credits: 38 · by **TheMuffin** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 11:02 am

Honestly, it's not that hard to get rid of vista. Just have to do a complete format of the drive and install XP. I would suggest it just to avoid any possibility of slowdown.

500GB is plenty if you're not working with fully uncompressed video and audio. If you are, might be worth getting a terabyte.

PCI-Express is being used for more and more devices. Many new capture cards like Blackmagic's Intensity card uses a PCI-E 1x slot because the old PCI slots don't transfer bandwidth fast enough. Granted it captures fully uncompressed HD video.

News Credits: 1 · by **Scatterlung** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 11:14 am

TheMuffin wrote:To be perfectly honest, that's wayyyy overpriced for what you're getting. And it has Vista. And it doesn't have the new PCI-Express format. And Newegg doesn't ship internationally. And it wouldn't be able to plug into your wall socket without an adapter. If it would work at all.

Oh yeah so.. overpriced, yeah, his problem.

vista, swap it out for XP like you said.

PCI Slots (Available/Total) 1 x PCIExpress x16
1 x PCIExpress x1
2 x PCI

would ship to my friend who'll ship to me.

Think that's all things covered... I'll be pretty happy with this.

Chances are I'll be dealing with relatively small video files I think. Nothing too HDD consuming.