Having failed to start for the last time, I finally decided my 4yr old PC was due for a complete refit, not that I had any option but to replace everything as it was all archaic and totally obsolete. I pulled down some specs from the web, and so decided on something with a little potential - an overclock. I headed on over to TukCom in Patts and ended up buying the following:

 

Pentium dual-core 1.8GHz (E2160) - B2300

Gigabyte GA G31M S2L mobo - B1990

2Gb Kingston DDR2 RAM 800 memory - B1650

Lite-On DVD drive - B980

XFX GeForce7600GS graphics card - B1900

Case inc. 500W PSU - B1000

 

A SATA2 HDD would also have been nice, but an unnecessary expense at this stage. I was planning just to use the on-board VGA, but it just hasn't the balls to run even the more basic games, plus the display quality is poor (soft looking, lack of contrast) so an oldie but goodie (and cheapie) graphics card was in order. Opening up the BIOS I managed to overclock the CPU to about 3Gz, could have run it up to 3.4 but I believe it would have needed a better cooling solution plus a vcore adjustment to improve stability. 3Gz is just fine for me.

Reformatting and then installing first XP Pro and then Vista, I was amazed at how much better Vista is when it has enough power - XP is barely improved and still bogs down with all my software installed despite all the improvements. When I slipped in a thumbdrive to use the ReadyBoost function in Vista things got faster still - all my stuff opening in a quarter of the time now. Boot time is still slow though - too many Gb's to load up I guess.

 

So far, I'm very happy with it and should have done it months before. I think we often forget just how much a part of our daily lives the computer takes up, so an upgrade like this is always well worth the trouble and expense given the enjoyment it brings.

 

This is a rather odd post for a Patts related forum, but I figured that as P-A is rather more tech-orientated than most it might be of some interest to a few who were thinking of running the upgrade path in the near future.

 

Chock-dee!

I too upgraded a short while ago although my old PC was still running OK with XP Pro SP2

 

Now have...

AMD 6000+ dual core

Asus M2N Motherboard

4 Gb RAM

Video Card 512 Mb

Power Supply 580 watt

Samsung DVD-RW

Benq DVD-ROM/Combo drive

Vista Ultimate +SP1

 

I reckon Vista is no real improvement over XP for normal tasks,just it looks nicer especially with Aero turned on

The more I use Vista the better it gets - there's no way I'd ever go back to XP now, especially running at 1280x1024 res on the desktop.

Laawman,reckon I have to agree with you on that,Vista is growing on me every day.

Turned off that User Account Control thingy though as it bugs the life out of me

I costantly upgrade my computer all the time since I play lots of high performance video games.

 

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core processor 5200 (2x2.6 ghz)

4 gb of ram.

Nvidia 9600 GT

Vista Home

I just got my new PC yesterday;

 

Intelcore2quad Q6600 2.4Ghz

1066Mhz FSB speed

 

4Gb DDR2 667 Mhz RAM

 

750 Gb Sata II hard drive.

 

I still can't type any faster but my porn movies play back a lot smoother!

Edited July 13, 200818 yr by Dr.Winston O'Boogie

I'm suprised deadman hasn't found this thread yet... it ws made for him!

Overclocking? No way, I dont void warranties. And my desktop system is far speedy enough for anything I want to do.

Mainboard: Intel S3000AHLX

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Extre Yorkfield (4x 2,83 GHz)

RAM: 4x Kingston ValueRAM DIMM 2 GB DDR2-667

Graphics: Matrox Parhelia APVe (128 MB)

Storage: HighPoint RocketRAID 3540 in Level RAID 10 (8 disks) - 1TB total available

Sound: Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio

Power: Tagan TG1300-BZ PipeRock 1300W

Case: Chieftec LBX-02B-B-B

Trendy Operating System (of course not that vista crap): FreeBSD 7.0-STABLE

 

And yes, there is a bit of a smooth base noise you can hear all the time from that machine.

It would be funny if someone digs up this topic in a couple of years time, then we can all see what antiquated rigs we had to put up with!

Mainboard: Msi P35 Neo2 FR

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4ghz G0@ 3.6ghz

RAM: 2 x 1GB Geil Black Dragon DDR2-800 @ 1100mhz

Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 3450

Storage: 1x500gb, 1x250gb, 1x160gb, 1x40gb, 1x30gb

Sound: Creative 5.1 Audio

Power: Tagan 530

Case: Thermaltake Xaser III

Custom Windows XP SP3

Edited July 14, 200818 yr by deadman

I'm in the process of putting together a dual - quad system.

 

At the moment I'm running a Pentium D 935 (First gen 65nm) 3.2 OC'd to 3.6 on air. 2GB DDR2. Nothing exciting.

Quad cores are great at pretty much everything but I hear it sucks compared to dual core for gaming if you are a gamer which I am.

Quad cores are great at pretty much everything but I hear it sucks compared to dual core for gaming if you are a gamer which I am.

 

I don't know about gaming but it's great for video processing and file format conversions. I can encode a DVD from a Divx file in under 20 minutes now.

Nice I am jealous though I don't do much video editing I love to multitask and run 10 or so programs at a time which quad core would kick butt on.

Nice I am jealous though I don't do much video editing I love to multitask and run 10 or so programs at a time which quad core would kick butt on.

Yes, that's one of the things I have noticed is that I don't get problems I used to get when multi-tasking. I love it.

Quad cores are great at pretty much everything but I hear it sucks compared to dual core for gaming if you are a gamer which I am.

If you've got an ancient memory bus, you can't draw the most out of your system, but it will not decrease the performance.

Don't believe what you hear, gamer.

Well I wasn't too sure but quick google and boom.

http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/new...eless-for-games

Well I wasn't too sure but quick google and boom.

http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/new...eless-for-games

Well I am sure and I suggest, that you read the whole page.

Quad Cores won't decrease your gayming performance. (But they won't boost it like steroids, too)

I admit defeat but yeah they won't be any better than dual core but won't hurt your performance only your pocket.

but won't hurt your performance only your pocket.

It's not about the cash, it's about being elitist.

Fear me, if I switch on my fileserver, there won't be any electricity left in LOS.

I was thinking about buying a laptop so I could surf the net in my room without fear of my information won't be stolen but that's like 500-1000 us dollars which could get me 10-20 LT. I have used the internet cafes and tried to check what was running in the background but am never too sure what may be hidden in those things. I just make sure to never check out my bank info or anything I want safely hidden on them.

I just make sure to never check out my bank info or anything I want safely hidden on them.

For sensitive data like mails or ssh I always used a private key stored on an USB stick. And with my laptop and wifi I always sticked to building up a ssh/ipsec tunnel, even if there was WPA. So I could be sure, that nobody knows my data.

 

10-20 LT for a laptop? The exchange rate for the USD muste be somewhere in the cellar.

nerds, here i come

 

 

 

OS: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

OS Service Pack Service Pack 2

 

CPU Typ AMD Athlon™ 64 Processor 4000+

Motherboard Name ECS nForce4-A939 (3 PCI, 2 PCI-E x1, 1 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN)

Motherboard Chip nVIDIA nForce4, AMD Hammer

RAM 2048 MB (PC3200 DDR SDRAM)

 

Grafikkarte NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (512 MB)

Soundcard Realtek ALC655 @ nVIDIA nForce4 (CK8-04) - Audio Codec Interface

 

HDD MAXTOR STM3250310AS (232 GB, IDE)

DVD HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-H62N

 

 

works very well with actual games and also in encoding /image creation etc