Build an $800 Gaming PC 296
ThinSkin writes "Building a computer that can handle today's games doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. In fact, you can build one for less than $800, especially given that many hardware manufacturers have cut costs considerably. Loyd Case over at ExtremeTech shows gamers how to build an $800 gaming PC, one that features an overclockable Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 and a graphics-crunching EVGA 260 GTX Core 216. The computer exceeded expectations in gaming and synthetic tests, and was even overclocked well over spec at 3.01GHz."
all that power... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah but can it run windows7?
i kid i kid!
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Yeah, but can it run linux and work with modern eye candy enabled in X11 without any lockups?
I'm not kidding.
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I AM running Windows 7 on a Core 2 machine (1.8 GHz-ish) with 2 gigs of RAM. So far, everything works surprisingly well.
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Some of us prefer to have a computer over a console. I'd rather play Fallout 3 on my computer because I can't stand console controllers, especially for FPSs. Its nice to be able to Alt-tab out of games and check things out, and to be able to download patches for buggy games, and extra content for the expandable ones. Consoles also suck for RTS games, as in there aren't any to speak of.
Also PCs are cheaper to deal with, once you have one for gaming. Throw in a $80 video card every 2-3 years and your good
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There are definitely reasons for preferring a PC, but some of yours don't make much sense :-)
Some of us prefer to have a computer over a console. I'd rather play Fallout 3 on my computer because I can't stand console controllers, especially for FPSs.
It takes some getting used to, and you'll never be as good with a controller than with keyboard and mouse, but it's not as bad as many PC gamers pretend it is. Besides, lots of good FPS never make it to PCs.
Its nice to be able to Alt-tab out of games and check things out,
True, but on the other hand, nothing prevents you from also using a laptop, netbook or iPhone while playing a game on a console.
and to be able to download patches for buggy games,
In my opinion, that's not a plus, it's a minus because the main result of this is th
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Cost of PC multiplayer (Score:2)
Some of us prefer to have a computer over a console. I'd rather play Fallout 3 on my computer because I can't stand console controllers, especially for FPSs. Its nice to be able to Alt-tab out of games and check things out, and to be able to download patches for buggy games, and extra content for the expandable ones. Consoles also suck for RTS games, as in there aren't any to speak of.
Some of us prefer genres other than FPS and RTS, such as "party" minigame collections, "smash" platform fighting games, and other kinds of arcade-style multiplayer action games whose major-label publishers have traditionally ignored the PC platform.
Also PCs are cheaper to deal with, once you have one for gaming. Throw in a $80 video card every 2-3 years and your good to go.
Until they stop making video cards for your motherboard (e.g. the transition from AGP to PCIe). Or until the CPU is also inadequate.
Yes, more expensive to begin with
Especially if you have to buy four PCs at once, one for each player. Online play doesn't help when your friends are visiting your h
Re:Cost of PC multiplayer (Score:4, Interesting)
An entry-level $600 TV makes Wii look good. Not all genres need 1080p or higher resolution.
Correction: A shitty $50 TV makes Wii look good. I have a $600 TV (a 32" Sharp Aquos) and the Wii looks like total dogshit. What's puzzling to me is that the PS2 and Xbox both look better at 480i or 480p than the Wii. Does it just have some of the worst graphics output ever, or what?
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PC Gamers always loved to rag on console guys, bragging up our fancy graphics, user maps, multiplayer, etc while spending countless hours fucking with patches, drivers or tweaking hardware to get things to just work. It was sort of a labor of love I guess. Consoles always were a "it just works" option. Aside from blowing into a nintendo cartridge the most difficult technical thing you had to do was figure out which hole to screw the coax into on the back of the TV.
But we've seen a convergence as the console
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How exactly are you going to get good "PC games" on a console? There are still entire genre's that are just ass on a console. For the action types a console just isn't any good for FPS and RTS games. For MMO's you go PC or you don't play at all. Consoles have some good strategy games in the tactics style RPG's but the deeper strategy games like Civ 4 or Gal Civ are ignored on consoles for the most part.
Really if you are a PC gamer there is still no way you can just dump your PC and survive on console g
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MMOs have been featured on consoles thanks to Square-Enix. Final Fantasy XI has been released for both the PS2 and the 360. I suspect you can play it on a PS3 as well. I know with the PS3 there's no real limitation that would make it inadequate to run an MMO client. You can connect a keyboard and mouse via Bluetooth or USB.
Personally, I think PC gaming will and has been going into decline. The last remaining genre that will hold out on PC gaming will be strategy games, but even those will go away. People sa
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You know the same argument can be applied to consoles, right?
Name a few console-only titles worth playing then.
Re:More to the point (Score:4, Informative)
Demigod
Left4Dead
Team Fortress 2
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Perhaps I am missing something, but Civ III just MUST be older than the parent's 4-5 year spectrum.
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doh, why do I even bother. He's going to be modded 5 and I'll be -859365834 troll for speaking the truth
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And Age of Empires 2 was released back in Feb 1996, which makes it 13 years old now.
dude age of empires 1 is from 1997 and 2 is from 1999
Re:More to the point (Score:5, Informative)
Hmmm...
Considering i have a 38.4MBps connection to the 'net supplemented by a backup connection (from another ISP) of 2Mbps, both of which are NOT throttled in any way, and i have the freedom to download anything anytime i want, plus indian equivalent of FCC actually man dating net neutrality as per law and sending to jail company execs that don't obey their advertised speed limits, and the fact i can buy a 9800GTX+ in the next door PC shop, AND got Spore one day earlier than released in US, yeah i guess we are pretty backward.
BTW, how's comcast treating you now?
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I'm guessing most people on Slashdot have an internet connection... they just don't feel the need to brag about it. Learn to recognize humor ;)
As for your government agencies "man dating", I don't even want to know what that's about... :p
Re:More to the point (Score:5, Funny)
Bragging that you can get better connectivity pretty much anywhere in the world other than the US is a bit like racing a legless kid. It isn't done in polite company.
(at other times of course...)
Re:More to the point (Score:4, Funny)
Oh wait...
you dont need this shit (Score:5, Interesting)
spend $400, get one thats 90% of this speed, in a year sell it for face value on craigslist, rinse and repeat.
I've been getting free upgrades for many years now.
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What's your suggested build?
Didn't we already have this story? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sure we had a story like this the other week. I am pretty sure we have it every couple of weeks. Considering this has been (more or less) the way of things for probably about five years (I have been following the 'good enough' philosophy for that long, from a Radeon 9600xt, through a GeForce 6800, to a Radeon 4850 today), it isn't news to any nerd. You stopped needing a top of the line computer for gaming around the turn of the century when clock rates stopped doubling every 12-18 months and ATi got good enough to really compete with nVidia.
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I am sure we had a story like this the other week. I am pretty sure we have it every couple of weeks.
Yeah, but the last article I remember [maximumpc.com] was $500. So this is new news because they're spending $300 more and not promising to run crysis. In the summary anyway. Oh, it's overclocked too.
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Absolutely.
Seriously; this article, the person who submitted it, and the editor who deigned it front-page-worthy, can fuck right off.
This is not news, not useful - christ, it's not even interesting. The interwebs are totally awash with articles of exactly this nature, and have been for fucking years. 90% of /.ers are already perfectly capable of building a PC to a spec which suits their unique requirements, cheaper than this, and don't need or want to read this. The other 10% can fuck off and learn a thin
Ars Technica System Guide (Score:5, Informative)
A $500 system is good enough... (Score:2)
I Just Don't Get It... (Score:5, Interesting)
I build a new computer almost exactly a year ago. 4 Gigs of DDR2 800 Low Latency memory, 7200 RPM SATA II hard drive with 32mb cache, an Athlon X2 5000 BE (I just bumped the multiplier from 13 to 15 to get it at 3ghz) and a HD 3870. With the exception of the CPU, everything is is running at stock speeds. These are the games I play:
Call of Duty: World at War
Fallout 3
Race Driver: Grid
NBA 2K9
Drakensang
I was sure my computer would be sluggish, but it runs all these games just fine with excellent graphics at a 1680x1050 resolution. The point? At the time of my building, all of the mentioned games were (for the most part) considered "current generation", and my CPU was lumped into the scrap heap with the "only if you have to" parts. When I actually started playing games, I soon realized that my performance was exactly what people said I wouldn't achieve.
Going for REAL cheap (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, you can go 'cheap' and spend 'only' 800 dollars on a machine. But that's not REAL cheap - that's just a budget, new computer. Me, I can go REAL cheap and still have a reasonable gaming experience.
I bought a used Pentium IV with a 40 GB HDD and 1 GB of RAM for 50 dollars, with a crashed O/S. It's a Dell, and I have a Dell install CD, so don't need to worry about the OS code or Genuine Advantage. I dug for a bit at pricewatch.com to get a new AGP video card with decent 3D performance in a low profile. Reviews just a year or two ago indicated it was a good chipset. It came with a DVD drive, no burner. 25 dollars got me generic mouse, KB and speakers.
Spent an afternoon, loaded a new OS, (WinXP) drivers from Dell support, and video card drivers, and I now have a system that plays newish games like Star Wars, WoW, and GTA 3 SA and GTA IV at 1024x768 on the 17 inch CRT monitor bought at a yard sale. High end? Not a chance. But for bang/buck, the 650 bucks saved on this rig will go a long way towards helping to pay for my kids' college.
And still lots of fun!
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You were lied to.
Additionally, you are attributing vastly more responsibility to your CPU for the performance of all of these games. Why don't you underclock your CPU and see how much effect it has on your framerates? Yes, even to 2GHz and below.
The HD 3870 was released in October 2007, Fallout 3 was released in November 2008. Those other games, around the same time. Barely a year apart, those games were designed to run on those exact games: not the 4870 which was released barely months before.
On top of
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I used to preach the AMD mantra. Unfortunately, there are ALWAYS some issues when building an AMD system. I am just tired of discovering the obscure incompatability. For example, most of my old AMD systems had USB issues. My Athlon X2 system had major dual-core issues with certain games.
My last build is 2 years old - an Intel core2 duo system. The whole system is flawless - it plays all the games I want and runs my multimedia center on my home theater. I never have to worry about it.
I WANT to support
Short list of websites with similar guides (Score:5, Informative)
anandtech.com
tomshardware.com
maximumpc.com
pcmag.com (hard to find, though)
arstechnica.com
sharkyextreme.com
I mean, really....does anyone think it's hard to find this stuff?
You can even find sample builds on amazon.com and on newegg.com if you look around a bit.
Why Quad Core? (Score:5, Informative)
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-Quad cores don't go for much more than dual core processors do. The price between one Q6600 and a E8400 is approximately $20, so not exactly a tremendous price gap there.
-Given that, the quad core is a very viable option if you wish to future proof your PC. The clocking speed shows a lower number, but you're essentially given twice as many pipelines for information to go through. Right now, that's a substantial boost if you multitask.
-Not good enough? Even for gamers, quad core would be a better option. Su
Re:Why Quad Core? (Score:4, Insightful)
-Quad cores don't go for much more than dual core processors do. The price between one Q6600 and a E8400 is approximately $20, so not exactly a tremendous price gap there.
It's still crap value. That CPU is built on a 65nm process: older, slower, hotter and uses more power. The E8400 is a 45nm part. Unless the computer is a video-encoding machine, it's absolutely senseless to buy the Q6600 (and you should get a Q9300 anyway, it's faster and 45nm).
-Given that, the quad core is a very viable option if you wish to future proof your PC. The clocking speed shows a lower number, but you're essentially given twice as many pipelines for information to go through. Right now, that's a substantial boost if you multitask.
No it isn't. I have a quad core upgraded from a dual core, and there's no perceptible speed difference except in video encoding. Selling it on multitasking is just marketing.
You can't future proof a PC without wasting a ridiculous amount of money. Buy a quad core now and you already sacrifice real-world performance and value for money in exchange for a potential benefit in a few years except in specialised uses. By which time any game that actually needs it is released, your old quad will be obsolete. You can just buy a dual core, save money, and get higher performance right now and for a few years to come. It's obviously the more sensible choice.
-Not good enough? Even for gamers, quad core would be a better option. Sure, right now you're going to see dual cores cranking out the numbers because most games have really been optimized for use with two cores. But you said it yourself, video encoding delivers results due to utilizing all four cores on the quad core. It's only a matter of time until the standard for game developers include optimizing for more than two cores. When that time comes, those people will start wishing they bought that quady.
This is terrible advice. The vast majority of games aren't even CPU limited, and only now, years after their release are dual cores becoming widely used. And of course, 'future proofing' was pointless: early dual cores are obsolete now unless you spent a ridiculous amount of money back in the day.
-By the way, this same argument used to take place when dual core was introduced. Some gamers suggested buying single cores due to their higher clock speeds, but those recommendations were short lived once the software caught up.
Single -> dual isn't the same transition as dual -> quad. The first has other benefits, like a single program being unable to bog down the OS, and even single threaded programs benefit a little because all the background processes can use the other core.
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Tomshardware just recently did an article where they measure performance of games in PCs with different numbers of cores (link: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/multi-core-cpu,2280.html [tomshardware.com]).
Their conclusion is that at the moment, for the current crop of games the ideal number of cores is 3.
In India... (Score:5, Informative)
You can build it a lot cheaper with branded components that cost way less: Here's my rig and prices translated into USD at INR47:$1
M2N-E-SLI mobo: 189
AMD Athlon X2-63 bit dual core 4200+: 96
9800GTX+ AND 8600GT (yeah two): 189
LG 17" monitor LCD: 93
Case: 20
OCZ Vanquisher cooler: 35
Point of View PSU: 170
Total: 792
Hell, the shops here will fix it up, assemble and home deliver free if you spend this much amount at one shop.
I got a free MS Natural keyboard, Microsoft Mouse and a 8GB JetFlash card free
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I forgot to mention that it includes 4GB RAM
Pendantry (Score:5, Funny)
See, that's because you got a 63 bit processor. The problem with 63 bit processors is you have no end of bizaar problems trying to run modern 64 bit, or even 32 bit software and that's why you save the $8. Myself, I'd spend the extra $8 on 64 bit. :-P
Funnily enough, this is the second reply to this story by someone with a -1 bug. Someone else mentioned their old 485DX33 system.
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Probably got it from eBay as a "b-stock, factory refurbished: 1 bit disabled"
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Well sure, if you take into account wages, standards of living, infrastructure maintenance, laws and regulations regarding work, laws and regulations regarding pollution, etc. and so on and so forth, then you can have things for cheap*
Heck, as it is, things in the U.S. tend to be cheaper than in Europe.
'Unfortunately', not everybody lives in Poland / India / China / whichever place happens to be cheap because, well, they're cheap, at the time.
So any comparison there is absolutely moot unless one can actuall
So the real question is... (Score:2, Interesting)
What is the optimum configuration that yields the high-enough FPS/high-enough resolution/lowest latencies with the minimum of price?
In other words - Build a system configuration at the minimum price after which any incremental gain in performance is disproportionate to further input in price?
An optimization problem there.
The point is not that it costs $800 this time (Score:2)
the thing is, if you want to run current games, you will have to spend about that same amount every 18 months or even sooner.
It just isn't right: game developer should settle down once and for all, and make games that run on a 1 year old platform just as their 1 year old games did/do. Luckily I'm not a gamer (not a fanatical one anyway) or I'd be bankrupt.
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IMO the best eras of games occurred when the platforms stagnated in technical advancement. For example the Commodore 64 was the most popular gaming platform for years after all its video resources had been exploited to their fullest. The lack of new ground to break forced game developers to break new ground in game development rather than video exploitation.
When I put it like that, it makes complete sense. Funny how nobody under age 25 seems to grasp it.
And don't get me started on movies...
Better with a Quad Q6600 (Score:2)
I've just recently assembled a new gaming PC (to make a long story short, I wanted to upgrade my old machine to a new CPU architecture, which meant also upgrading motherboard and memory, but the upgrade hassle factor was so large that I just ended up buying the rest of the parts and making a new PC) and I've go a Quad Q6600 (G0 stepping, the easier to overclock) running rock-stable at 3.2 GHz, when the stock speed is 2.4 GHz (while, thanks to using a passive water-cooling setup - a Reserator V1, temperatur
slow news day on slashdot huh (Score:2)
Tell us (geek crowd) more pls.
Seriously its like waving a flag in front of a bull. Cue the epenis discussion, none of which will be news to any slashdot reading PC gamer. Why don't you just post a snapshot of today's discussion on rage3d or overclock.net or the like.
Better go break out my 3Dmark vantage benchies and waste hours and hours tuning my ram timings for a 0.5% gain. Then I post links to newegg for the benefit of international readers.
oh wait, I wasted them already on slashdot
Oh please, come back with something new (Score:5, Informative)
At the moment a Radeon 4770 would be a better choice, if the not the #1 on bang for buck, as touted by most reputable sources. Highly clockable e7xxx or e8xxx range core 2 duo still kicks quad core ass for less money (easy stable 4ghz), less power draw and subsequent heat problems. What really gets my gall with these kind of websites, is the ram recommendations. That quad core has a 1333mhz bus, thus DDR2 faster than 667mhz gains almost no improvement in memory bandwidth and latency, yet somehow there is a huge market for this kind of crap.
I hate to sound like a greybeard but back in the day it was all about making dirt cheap parts outperform four-figure parts. Now overclocking parts cost more and are much less challenging to work with. If anything overclocking is boring now, it's all about bling. Remember the Celeron 300A?
Yep, CL5 800 is just fine. If you want another 5% in benchmarks you can blow your dosh on CL4 1066mhz. Even if you overclock your FSB speed, you'll watch your bandwidth scores scale up, even holding ram speed at a fixed 800mhz! Even if your FSB is stepping up faster than your ram speed, your memory benchmark scores will continue to go up. It only really makes more sense to come down in latency, 667 CL3 is lower *realtime* latency than 1066mhz CL5, and even reasonable 'value ram' will reach those timings with a voltage boost. Yep the socket 775 platform is that crappy. Spend your money on other areas please.
No IT professional worth their salt recommends anything above reasonably priced and reliable 800/1066 ram, unless you really are going to push high FSB speeds on a core 2 duo, maybe worth paying a whisker more. You don't really need heat spreaders either, and a strip of aluminum and 3M thermal tape will do the job better than $20 set of aftermarket spreaders.
Honestly, you could blow this thing away in benchmarks for less money.
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The people who write these articles seem to have a tenuous - if any - grasp of the concept of value for money.
Maybe you should write a piece on this and submit it here as you plainly know your ass from your elbow, unlike the article writer. (Budget quad core gaming PC? picard.gif)
There's also a thread full of good advice on the Something Awful forums, here. [somethingawful.com] If anyone is building a PC right now, check out this thread first.
Small hard drive and what about the noise? (Score:2)
The article seemed to be confused about the size of the HD in the gaming rig. Initially, it states that they found a 320GB drive for $43, but the final table says it's actually a 250GB drive. Either way, isn't that quite a small drive - you suspect that installing 15-20 games on that rig could potentially fill the 200GB or so that would be available after the OS install. Newegg have the excellent 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F1 for $84.99 - four times the capacity (and I bet faster, cooler and quieter too) for twi
HDTV Version? (Score:3, Funny)
How about a version of this project that targets 1080p HDTV/DVR instead of gaming? To run Linux of course - for the horsepower, and the thrill of finding drivers :).
Parts List (Score:2)
Here is the parts list for the PC they built:
And a bit about why the Intel vs AMD:
Another alternative is to go all AMD. You could build an $800 gaming rig based on a Phenom II X4 840 and 1GB Radeon HD 4870. That would be close in performance to our $800 system, but would probably fall just a little short overall.
I personally like to support AMD given that the alternative is to have Intel monopolize the m
Dude, get a dell (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless you have a specific need- HTPC/Silent PC/foo. Just get wait for a slickdeal on a dell vostro. Up the ram and stick a real video card in there and you've got a sweet machine for less bucks and less work. Usually they come with a gigantic widescreen monitor, too.
It's not 1998 anymore, BYO doesn't make sense most of the time.
Cheaper solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Buy a $300 Dell loaded with bloatware and OEM garbage. Make sure it has at least Intel Core 2 Duo, two ram slots and a PCI-E video slot. Format the hard drive (getting rid of bloat and OEM garbage), upgrade to 4gb ram, buy a decent 3d video card (what are they now days, about $200 for a good one?). There's a $550 solution (if you already have keyboard, mouse, monitor).
It's worked well for me for well over 10 years now. If you have to go through the pain of owning a Windows based system, you might as well buy cheap, upgrade cheap, dispose of cheaply when it outlives it's gaming worthiness (about 2 years).
Sure will (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sure will (Score:5, Insightful)
Sort of like how the tri-core Phenoms are quad-core Phenoms with one of the cores inoperable. Yes, sometimes they have in the past down clocked them just for supply and demand reasons, but I'm not aware of that happening in recent memory.
Re:Sure will (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sure will (Score:5, Informative)
Of course not. It's called dividing up the market (I'm sure there's a technical term for it), and it's completely legitimate. If someone can't afford your top product, you make a scaled down version for them. You can't just give them the top product for a lower price, because then no one would pay that higher price. But at the same time, there's no reason to waste development money purposefully making a worse design. So you just modify the existing design to be worse.
Consider TV or internet services. There are tiered plans, not because the Cable company runs out of premium packages to sell, but because they know that not everyone wants to fork over the dough to 2000 channels.
Re:Sure will (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly, it is called segmenting the market.
You might as well complain that Microsoft sell different versions of Windows, they all cost the same. They all have the same media, box, it doesn't cost any extra to burn a different image.
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No it isn't, because of the nature of how the consumer demands they price their CPUs.
Lets look at the P4 to C2D jump.
They still need money for R&D, so what are they supposed to do? Charge $100 for a 3.6ghz Pentium D(R&D all paid up), and $800 for a 1.8ghz Core 2 Duo? Good luck selling that to consumers.
Nope. We demand prices based on the performance we get - not the realities of the product. If a P4 costs $100 then an equivalent performance C2D must cost close to that - lets say $150 - or we won't b
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Segmenting is not 'anti-trust'. You'll find that many electronics manufacturers create the same electronics, just disable special features for a product family because it is cheaper to fab one kind of part than it is to manufacture 5 different pieces of electronics with similar function but different features. It is much, much cheaper to 'cripple' hardware by limiting what the software will allow.
I bought a DV camcorder a few years ago that was a model step below the 'premium' one (difference of a few hun
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Overclocking is still a gamble. And given that we don't actually know how many chips are binned down artificially vs. the number that are binned down for a reason, there's no way to know the odds of taking that gamble. Getting your hopes up on buying a cheaper chip and overclocking it is just setting yourself up for disappointment.
That being said, why do I never see anyone reviewing an overclocked system report on the actual ambient temperatures during the test? I'm sure there's a difference in what speed y
CPU speed explanation (Re:Sure will) (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a friend working at an AMD factory. He toll me the manufacturing process isn't precise enough to produce specifically 3GHz, 2GHz or 1GHz CPUs. Or at least this model helps in diminishing costs, they could probably make the process precise enough but it would raise costs.
So how do they do it ?
They produce 3GHz, 2GHz and 1GHz CPUs in one process all at the same time, there is no difference between the manufacturing process for each speed.
They then test each produced CPU to see how much clock speed it can handle then classify them with regards to this criteria.
When demand for higher clock speed CPU goes down and they have too many CPUs that can handle 3GHz on shelf, they just stamp "2GHz" on them and sell them as "2GHz" CPUs to diminish their inventory.
So overclocking would seem like a gamble, it might work perfectly because the company actually sold you a CPU that was rated for a higher clock speed. It may also not work because the company sold you a 2GHz CPU that was rated to handle only 2.000352 GHz.
Don't take for granted that because your friend or blog posters successfully overclocked a given CPU model, you will automatically have as much success.
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>When does the demand for *faster* processors ever go *down*?
Especially in though economic times when people want to pay less for their computers. Also, overclockers never buy the fastest CPUs ;-)
Look around a bit, you will find your answer; a whole lot of people don't buy the latest/fastest CPU bit and settle for something at half the price. In fact, the fastest CPUs sells are only a fraction of the market.
I for one never buy the fastest processors because I get less for the buck.
By the time I buy a 2GH
Re:Yay, overclocking! (Score:4, Informative)
First, most of the overclocking taboo today is just marketing gimic.
Yea, you can fry out your processor being stupid with it, but the vast majority of people will be able to OC their processors in a very stable way for long periods with no problems. Chances are unless they are doing really crazy crap, the processor will be outdated (like by the time it got out of the box) before it looses any life from an OC.
The AMD black edition for example. Yea, AMD does not endorse it but they are actively marketing a processor for overclocking. The MB makers are providing all the tools including on many motherboards the auto features that stop newbies from burning it out. point and click over clocking, with an edge of danger to get people to do it without really doing it.
I even buy my low end workstations at my office with the intent of overclocking them when they start to reach their end of life. Gives me another year out of them, when I would have replaced them anyway. At that point I got nothing to loose. Well, at least it gives me something cool to do with them before retiring them to spare parts.
Re:Oversucking (Score:5, Funny)
Mine's way cooler, it's got a "Turbo" button on the front that switches it from 8Mhz to 16Mhz. It's freaking awesome!!!
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I finally got rid of mine, mostly because the boat anchor case finally rusted itself apart.
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My original 485DX33 box had the old 'turbo' button on the front to switch between 8 and 33 Mhz. The thing would never boot if it was set to 33Mhz, always froze after POST, but once booted in 8Mhz 'mode', you could happily press that button and feel that 33Mhz power blowing your hair...
Never did work out what the problem was.
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Man, those were the freaking days doing support. I lost track of how many times various reports of "my PC is too slow" were magically remedied when it was noticed the turbo button had been accidentally poked/kicked/nudged.
Simpler times!
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Re:$800 bucks? Is it diamond encrusted? (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not gaming PCs. The only one that comes close is the PS3 which could run Linux, but since it can't actually access the GPU it's not exactly going to be a gaming behemoth.
I know that consoles are a perfectly legitimate gaming platform, but posting about their cheap cost in article about PC gaming is like posting about the specs of a high end PC in a thread about console gaming.
Re:$800 bucks? Is it diamond encrusted? (Score:5, Interesting)
True, it can't access the RSX under Linux, but it's still a PS3. One:
in a terminal and it boots right back into GameOS so you can play your PS3 games or in my case, my PS3/PS2/PS1 games.
And even under Linux you can still play games, there's always Nethack, or Jools, or Megamek, or Epyx Rogue under Dosbox, or the PC version of Diablo under QEMUized Win95.
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though the two are coming very close to merging in some way. there was a time when i would NEVER consider a console for games, but considering where the development has gone, i find very few appealing titles that are exclusive to the PC- most i can get on my console and not have to worry about compatibility, framerates etc. at an $800 price point you could get a PS3 and a netbook and do everything that gaming rig does, but do it better, have a laptop and a gaming rig and not really have to worry if the cons
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But then, it really depends how much money you want to spend on your games.
I pick all my games up on Steam when those 75% off sales come around.
TF2 - $10
Left4Dead - $20
Assassin's Creed - $10
Universe at War - $5
I imagine by the time I've bought 20 games, I've saved money by spending more money on a gaming PC.
But y'know, if you have no morals(or are a college student), PC games cost nothing! :P
most i can get on my console and not have to worry about compatibility, framerates etc.
Plus, you know, it's a PC, so you never have to worry about framerates like you do on a console. Have you seen the sh
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Ah, but you're not spending $800 on a toy. You're taking a purchase that you would have made anyway, and upgrading it to also act as a toy. Those upgrades (graphics card and maybe a better CPU than you'd otherwise get) cost around $300.
I upgraded my old college desktop to a gaming rig 4 years ago, at a price of $350, and still have no problem playing modern games. I'd say it's about even with consoles in terms of bang for your buck.
On the other hand, there are those who always have to have the latest har
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I know that consoles are a perfectly legitimate gaming platform, but posting about their cheap cost in article about PC gaming is like posting about the specs of a high end PC in a thread about console gaming.
Then why don't more PC game publishers make console-style multiplayer games to be played on PCs connected to TVs?
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How much for gaming rig + cinema display?
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and seriously, spreadsheets are so 90s!
That doesn't make them any less useful.
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What the hell do you get paid, $500 an hour?
PCs are not hard to put together. Even if you got every little screw and piece not assembled, it wouldn't take more than 3-4 hours.
Multiple restarts (Score:2)
PCs are not hard to put together. Even if you got every little screw and piece not assembled, it wouldn't take more than 3-4 hours.
Install Windows, restart. Apply service pack, restart. Apply more updates, restart. Install network driver, restart. Install video driver, restart. Install sound driver, restart. Install Ubuntu or Mandriva for dual-booting into an actual work environment not targeted by the majority of malware authors, restart. Install updates for that, restart. That's what takes hours when building a PC.
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Slipstream your service pack and network driver, and you can cut out at least two reboots (and the time of installing the service pack.) You can even slipstream on Unix.
Slipstreaming is so easy too (Score:2)
I work on enough computers that I build up an OEM and Dell image of XP a couple times a year in case I need to do reinstalls.
I've never slipstreamed Vista updates, but if your net connection is fast enough, you really don't need to reboot more than once or twice to apply every update.
That said, I'd love to figure out how to slipstream IE8 and WGA and so on, as the process I mentioned above *does* leave a few things out.
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But here on /., fiddling with computers is supposed to be your hobby! And sex life!
Gonna go cry now and comfort myself by trying to install linux on my nintendo DS...
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...and the 2 hours it takes me to uninstall all the crap Dell puts on my box or reformat and reinstall is free?
Granted, OCing is a bit much, but it's pretty trivial to put a system together in an evening...assuming you know what you're doing. If not, congrats, you've just saved yourself a $300 community college course;)
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but it's pretty trivial to put a system together in an evening...assuming you know what you're doing.
And the "knowing what you are doing" is exactly the problem. I don't buy many PCs, because there simply isn't a need for an upgrade every two years, instead I am more in the 5+ year range. So each time I look around for new stuff pretty much everything has changed. Almost all knowledge of previous generations is close to worthless, as power supplies, cables, cards, cooling, cases and so on all have changed. The screws holding things together are still the same, but thats about it.
Re:Time is not free (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say that learning how to put a computer together is as important to use a computer as knowing how to change a wheel is to driving a car, and it's not hard either.
But hey, if you prefer to pay rather than learn, you can get it for far less than $1000 anyways. Your local friendly neighbor geek wouldn't charge you more than $50 for it, and it's possible he'd still do it for half that amount.
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$30 and a $5 Little Caesars pizza if you find the right geek.
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$30 and a $5 Little Caesars pizza if you find the right geek.
Bring the parts and the pizza, I'm good. Oh, and that "spare" machine you put in the garage after you let the magic smoke out last year.
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So even if you save time getting them to do it, it costs you tim
£60 ($96) (Score:2)
Should I waste my time?
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Puting it together: $96
Installing the software: $144
Knowing it's done right: Priceless
Re:Time is not free (Score:5, Insightful)
If this topic was about playing chess, why would I bother to pay $58/hr to play chess?? I'd have to be a fool!! Umm. Maybe I like playing chess in my spare time. Same goes for DIY'ers who like to build their PC.
Oh and as others have said, what in the world would take u that long to put a machine together? Do you make $200-300/hr or somethin?
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Teeheehee! I've got a Porsche
Or to put it another way, isn't the whole point of TFA to spend less on a worthy gaming rig? How on earth does that turn in to an excuse to flop out your more expensive penis extension?