I want an envied PC

[azcn2503]

So anyway, I'm going to get the most rockinest computer ever! At the moment, I've bought myself 2GB of RAM (Corsair XMS 2-2-2-5), 200GB HDD, and will get an FX-57 and an X850XT PE :)

It'll run like a slug, I expect, when Envy is released :(

[Dark Pulse]

It should actually do it alright, but prolly not Full detail.

[The_Head]

Its worrying to think that a computer with a spec like that might struggle :p

I Should Imagine it will run. my 3 year old computer Runs HalfLife2 fine, so you never know

[edhe]

You'll need a next gen gfx card & multicore processor (and XP64)...

probably :s

Nice ram ;)

[Tournament0]

Don't buy a new GPU now, wait when "Envy" comes out or wait for NVIDIA or ATI to make a new card. :tup:

[edhe]

The hardware will be out before the software...

[Bot_40]

imo this is just about the worst possible time to buy a pc ever. Wait for the next generation of graphics cards and dual core cpus.

[The_Head]

imo this is just about the worst possible time to buy a pc ever. Wait for the next generation of graphics cards and dual core cpus.

I'd agree to an extent. Dual core processers is going to make a huge difference. GFX isnt so bad, but buying in advance for a game that is coming out in 2 years time or somit is stupid. Computer Hardware doubles in speed every 18 months. Good ol' Moore's Law

[Tournament0]

imo this is just about the worst possible time to buy a pc ever. Wait for the next generation of graphics cards and dual core cpus.

Agreed. Don't buy a new computer now! Don't buy a new GPU now!
Wait for a while. Good things come to those who wait!
:D

[azcn2503]

Well, those dual cores might not be that good once they're released. ATI are on the verge of releasing a 512MB version of the X850 which is pretty swell.

I don't think I'll buy the computer just for the game though!! I just want a really top-spec computer that will last me a good couple of years before thinking about a serious upgrade, and will play UT2004 on a network and kick my brothers sissy backside. I know me though, I have friends who will mess their pants for an FX-57 when I get my FX-59, and similarly for an X850XT PE, so I'll constantly be buying new parts and selling my old parts.

Anybody looked up about the Cell processor? Google it. Brilliant!

[azcn2503]

As for waiting, well.. once I've waited, I'll just have to wait longer to get an even better thing. Good things only come to those who can liek, stop time or summink.

[kafros]

there is always pariah around the corner that you can play... until envy comes out.

[Arsenalvendetta]

While we are on the topic of PC specs, would you rather own a Pentium or AMD for games [yes, the long debated topic returns...]. If you do choose an AMD, would you rather choose an Athlon XP chip that is claimed to run at let's say 2.6GH at par with a Pentium chip or a simple Duron processor that does run at 2.6GH?

[BadAss84]

I think i'll upgrade (read: build a whole new machine :p) a few weeks or so before envy is released, then i will know what will be able to run it well :)

And since im assuming the release is still probably 1.5 yrs away, i have a lot of time to save up :D

;)

Edit: Very nice pc btw ^^

Wonder how that would fair with envy :)

[azcn2503]

About the processors, I wouldn't get one of the AMD Athlon XP chips, I'd go with a 64bit chip, even a budget one. You could buy a Pentium, but they'll be useless in a couple of years when everybody codes for 64bit only.

For games, I'd get the Athlon, but for multi-tasking, media and stuff like that, I'd get the Pentium... actually, I'd still get the Athlon, they just perform so well!!! My old AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Socket 754 was such a big difference over my Pentium 4 1.6GHz 400MHz FSB... There's less than a gigahert between them, in fact, about 600MHz, but the performance leap was HUGE!

I promise I'll get a pic of my new PC when I have it up and running. At the moment, I just have photo's of my case, motherboard and RAM chips just lying about. The case, by the way, is the Coolermaster Wavemaster, and it boasts a whopping 600W of Enermax power!

I'd put pictures on the net if Netfirms allowed me to upload anything greater than 256K, or I had my home server :( :( :(

[Renegade Retard]

I just built a new AMD 64 system this weekend. You wouldn't believe the difference in performance over the XP's. I can run UT2k4 with all details turned up to max, and my fps stays around 100 or more (offline that is, online limits to 85 fps). It is amazingly smooth. I could play fine with my old XP1900, but I didn't realize just how good a system could perform.

Here's my system specs:

AMD 64 3200 939
MSI Neo4 Platinum SLI 939
1G Corshair mem
MSI 6600 GT 128mb
80 GB SATA HD
Thermaltake SViking case
Enermax Noisetaker 470W

Note that I got a top mobo to give me a solid base for future upgrades (faster cpu, more mem, dual vid cards, etc).

About "waiting to upgrade" - I say upgrade when you're ready. Why? There will always be SOMETHING that's the next new thing that everyone will tell you to wait for. Last year, it was "don't upgrade now, wait for the 64 bit processors." Now that the 64 bit processors are coming out, everyone's shouting "don't upgrade now, wait for the duel cores." After they come out, it will be "don't upgrade now, wait for the cell processors." And on and on it goes.

If you're always waiting on the next big thing in technology, it will leave you behind.

[Bot_40]

I'm not 100% up to date recently but it was always the case if you are looking to get the best performance for the price then AMD is almost always better, but if you are loaded and money isn't an issue then the high end pentiums usually outperform the high end AMD processors, you just gotta pay more for em :p Not sure if that is the case right now.
Being skint most the time I don't even consider buying a pentium :p

[carmatic]

yeah , you gotta upgrade sooner or later... the only thing that should be holding you back is the cash you got, and maybe when something is obviously going to be released in the next 2 months or something... otherwise, i'd say go for it... and yeah, i was confused when you said 'fx-57' , it sounded like the geforce fx 5700 ... stupid naming schemes...
if you want seriously over the top performance, get one of the new dualcore pentium extreme editions, its like 2 whole processors in one... and the new intel mobo has sli too, so in addition to 2 processors running together , you get to use 2 video cards running together too... its the age of parallelism, baby

[azcn2503]

I'd rather go for the single chip solution with the graphics, though. I'm a big fan of ATI graphics, so I'll wait for their dual GPU configuration before I consider even using it. As for dual core CPU's, they'll be better at doing different things. I think, one of the main reason's we are going to multi-cored processors is because the way we use computers is diverging and becoming more varied... it would be impractical to make a CPU that makes UT Envy run at 400fps, but compressing a 2 meg file takes 4 minutes. I'm not sure how much of a big difference dual core CPU's will make at the time of release, keeping in mind that their clock speed will be significantly dropped.

[edhe]

Your analogy of dual core is very wrong.

Firstly i'd like to agree with Ren - if you don't upgrade because of 'the next thing' then when will you? you'll miss out on all the goodness of a fast machine until then. THen when it comes along, sell the old box to a student and buy the new one. I was considering upgrading recently, but i've lost the interest to, i would sell off my old 3200xp 2k4 rig in order to make a starter block for a 939 system that could go up to multicore & multiGPU. Like Ren did, you can buy a great system now that will do you well with multi* upgrades.

What i *am* waiting for, however, is the ATi answer to SLI, it could change mobos. I would also like a BTX system (if not a sff one) which will be more ergonomic... sadly i have to wait for them to come out - but Dell have jumped on it so it won't be long before OEM boards are BTX.

On to the post by azcn - multicoring will give great benefits to the smoothness of gameplay. Once things are threaded and scheduled properly then you'll find that, as with HT intel chips, you'll never get 'slow downs' in the input of the machine, they'll become far more real-time. The ability to spread the load will allow for smoother gaming overall. It will also increase the speed that most things are done, if not drastically then certainly well enough to be worth it.

The biggest benefit will be, imho, insteat of 2600MHz running one chip on all aspects of the game, you can have (say) 2000MHz focusing on world rendering & interface with another 2000MHz focusing on physics and AI. While code that's not enhanced for this type of multistuff won't benefit from it, it will eventually happen.

It's a moot point about upgrading to multicore. It'll happen and it will benefit you.

[azcn2503]

When something better comes out I will get it, which was what I was saying earlier. Dual core won't be brilliant for a while though, since to be used effectively, applications must be coded to use the second core.

[edhe]

Ue3 will be :)

[azcn2503]

We'll probably be on the verge of 4 core processors at that time. Will we even be using x86 architecture then? I'm hoping x86 will inherit features from Cell, we'll be rolling in our messed pants!!

Take a look at this article on Cell: http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cells/Cell0.html

[Snax]

geforce 7 ^_^

[azcn2503]

/me pulls a sour face

[edhe]

x86 isn't used anymore :)
Not inside the processors anyway. They convert the legacy instructions into their own better ones.

afaik anyway. And yes they should hopefully be onto more cores per proc by that time, which shouldn't require too much work if the bios is already looking for multicores.

[azcn2503]

We still use x86 :)

[edhe]

x86 isn't used anymore :)
Not inside the processors anyway.

[azcn2503]

But I just said we still use it :P

[T2A`]

When something better comes out I will get it, which was what I was saying earlier. Dual core won't be brilliant for a while though, since to be used effectively, applications must be coded to use the second core.You could say that right now about 64-bit processors. Your point?

[azcn2503]

???

[Bot_40]

UE3 WILL make effective use of multiple processors. That's already certain. I imagine it will make a huge difference especially with the seamless loading.

[The_Head]

Here's my system specs:

AMD 64 3200 939
MSI Neo4 Platinum SLI 939
1G Corshair mem
MSI 6600 GT 128mb
80 GB SATA HD
Thermaltake SViking case
Enermax Noisetaker 470W

Note that I got a top mobo to give me a solid base for future upgrades (faster cpu, more mem, dual vid cards, etc).

Nice comp there. Similar sort of spec to what I'm gonna buid when I get paid. Except I'm getting a better Mobo :p DFI LANParty SLI-DR :D

Back Ontopic though. Dual Core graphics will make a huge difference once the software supports it fully, just like with 64bit processers. I've seen some benchmarks on a prototype Dualcore and it was v. nice indeed.

As Bot40 said Seemless loading will work well. Imagine One core working on running the game, and the second core is loading up the nect bit of the level.

[azcn2503]

My system will be rockin.. at least for a year or so...

AMD Athlon FX-57
2GB Corsair XMS
Abit AX8
Maxtor DMax+10 200GB SATA
HIS Excalibur IceQ-II ATI Radeon X850XT PE (or wait til they release 512MB?)
Coolermaster Wavemaster Silver
Enermax Noisetaker 600W PSU

Might get speakers, but haven't really thought about them much. Gave my old pair to my girlfriend, who had none.

And I have a dead monitor, it's about half as bright as it once was, and screws up most games without gamma sliders, so might get a 19" CRT.

[Bot_40]

As Bot40 said Seemless loading will work well. Imagine One core working on running the game, and the second core is loading up the nect bit of the level.

This is how sweeny said it would work. A lot of the games content can then be compressed and save a huge amount of disk space (ever zipped a UT2k4 map file? They compress down by about 70-80%). Then just dump the job of decompressing it in another thread, if you have 2 processors then it will be done on the second whilst the first processor is worrying about the actual game.

[Syri]

ATI are on the verge of releasing a 512MB version of the X850 which is pretty swell.
there's no real need for 256mb for textures and such, let alone 512mb... i can't see that changing in the near future either. we're only just starting to see 256mb cards actually have an advantage, in fact, some used to be slower than their 128mb counterparts on games that didn't use up over 128mb.

[Dark Pulse]

there's no real need for 256mb for textures and such, let alone 512mb... i can't see that changing in the near future either. we're only just starting to see 256mb cards actually have an advantage, in fact, some used to be slower than their 128mb counterparts on games that didn't use up over 128mb.
Epic's already said to see the game at full quality you'd need a 1Gig Videocard. This means Textures are likely going to be 1024^2 or 2048^2.

[azcn2503]

Indeed, http://www.unrealtechnology.com/

[T2A`]

Let's not forget that every surface and model polygon will be normal mapped (well, probably every one), so that's at least two textures for every polygon, not to mention all the shaders and stuff. It'd be ignorant to think that 256 MB will be overkill two years from now. Games of the future are going to be ALL about the textures. It wouldn't surprise me if UT3 comes with 15+ gigs of textures.

[Tournament0]

Epic's already said to see the game at full quality you'd need a 1Gig Videocard. This means Textures are likely going to be 1024^2 or 2048^2.

:eek:
I have a 64MB GPU.
:eek:

Which is why I'm getting a new computer.

[rhirud]

An fx57 is 64 bit! I'm not sure if it's venice cored, which can handle 2GB a lot better than the other AMD cores - for most AMD chips 1GB is better.

But you've forgotten to put a physics processor in your shopping list.

As for which graphics card to get-

If you will only be playing ut2004 for the next year - there is no benefit in getting anything faster than a vanilla x800 - for 1/3 of the price of a fully blown x850.

Save the money and in a year's time, you'll be able to buy better than an x850 for the money you've got left.

[azcn2503]

FX57 will be san diego cored, which will have a revised memory controller, and will be manufactured using the 90nm process. I want top notch performance!!

You're probably right about the graphics, though... prolly...

[Tournament0]

An fx57 is 64 bit! I'm not sure if it's venice cored, which can handle 2GB a lot better than the other AMD cores - for most AMD chips 1GB is better.

But you've forgotten to put a physics processor in your shopping list.

As for which graphics card to get-

If you will only be playing ut2004 for the next year - there is no benefit in getting anything faster than a vanilla x800 - for 1/3 of the price of a fully blown x850.

Save the money and in a year's time, you'll be able to buy better than an x850 for the money you've got left.

There will be better cards out by that time.
:rolleyes:

[JaFO]

I doubt that dual-cores will create a significant improvement in performance.
It certainly won't be x2 of a single core, because too many algorithmes depend on each other. So you can't really move 'physics' to core 2 and 'AI' to core 1 as both would have to wait for each other.

Even if you manage to split the load between them then the next bottleneck is going to be the memory which means that buying the right type of memory really is going to matter this time ...

I think that when it comes to buying/upgrading a new pc the best price/performance is usually offered by whatever is 1 step below the fastest possible.

AMD vs Intel isn't as obvious like it used to be as high-end AMD cpu's are just as expensive as the Intel cpu's.

[edhe]

:rolleyes: @ Tournament0

Jafo - no, the kind of performance increase will not be 2x, it could be equated to SLI style large improvements, on the whole, just not everywhere.

As for gaming chips... AMD is the way. Unless you're OGL when Intel & Nvidia are the beast, if you're using Directx the proven choice is AMD and Ati. SLI is another situation which is still to have a competitor..

[The_Head]

SLI is hardly worth it atm. Only gives benefits worth caring about in Half Life 2 and Doom3 iirc.
1Gig Graphics card. Now thats just insane :p.

[T2A`]

SLI isn't worth it yet, which is why ATI haven't done anything about it. Who wants to spend $1000 on video cards for a few extra frames in Doom 3? Only the very few insane, I would think. By the time the next generation stuff comes out, that $1000 in video cards will have been wasted because you'll have to buy two more new cards to keep up.

I agree with getting an X800 now to run anything in the immediate future well and waiting until the really nice cards come out in a year or year and a half. I mean, seriously... Do you really need to run Doom 3 at 1600x1200 with AA and AF? No, you don't.

[The_Head]

Not really. Only if you wanted to show off that your wallet is bigger than your brain.

[Bot_40]

I pretty much agree here. Two 6800s won't really do anything truely special in any games that are around at the moment unless you have some sort of AA fetish :p
Also, imo, it seriously wouldn't be worth going for the dual 6800s for any next gen game (UE3 included) simply because in 12 months time you will prolly be able to spend the same amount of cash on a single card that is 4x as powerfull anyways.

[Ignotium]

i'd like to see what's up with the friggin LongHorn
Then i'll see what to get or not to get



note for dummies: longhorn = first 64bit OS ever

[carmatic]

yeah, i jumped on the 64bit bandwagon early, got myself a very very early version of the athlon64... well that was just about a year ago , and sooner or later i should be getting a vastly different processor... the athlon64 still hasnt run any 64-bit code yet, and im too lazy to learn linux or anything that will make use of the 64bit instructions, so yeah im just waiting for windows xp 64bit... not so sure its called 'longhorn' tho, its not supposed to be windows xp anymore...
after windows xp 64bit is rolled out, maybe theres a patch out there to change ut2k4 to 64 bit? like theyve done a demo or something showing ut2k4 running in 64bit... that will be seriously seriously sweet

[Ignotium]

after windows xp 64bit is rolled out, maybe theres a patch out there to change ut2k4 to 64 bit? like theyve done a demo or something showing ut2k4 running in 64bit... that will be seriously seriously sweet


????

no, no patchs will be needed; to change ut2k4 to 64 bits, you need a new engine, not a patch :eek:

[edhe]

UT2k4 engine is 64bit capable. And can run on *nux servers at 64bits on opterons.

Stratoos - you do realise that the winxp 64 bit OS is probably the Last OS to upgrade to 64 bit?

So, do some research ;)

[Tournament0]

SLI is hardly worth it atm. Only gives benefits worth caring about in Half Life 2 and Doom3 iirc.
1Gig Graphics card. Now thats just insane :p.

I agree, SLI is not worth it, and, in my opinion, it will never be worth it.
1GB graphics cards, it will happen, ATI are making a 512MB card at the moment, it's inevitable.

I also agree with Turn2Ashes and Bot_40.

[edhe]

/me wonders who cares about the above's opinion.


Fact is, SLI is there for those gamers that earn silly money, and the pros who'll spend on it. It's also there for other reasons - CAD, CG and Dev work, it's not just gaming :)

It does give a nice upgrade path, i would consider it if buying a new system at the moment, stick in another card about 6 months down the line before the 18 month rule comse into affect.

You have to remember that the GFX card Tech is always ahead of the Current Games tech.

The possibility is there, also, hopefully, of having 4 GPUs on an sli setup.

[azcn2503]

I don't like nvidia :P

[Bot_40]

I think I vaguely remember hearing somewhere Unreal Engine 3 will require 1GB of video memory to run at full detail.
This doesn't really surprise me at all tbh. UT2k4 has mainly 1024x1024 textures, UT3 will have 2048x2048 textures for a lot of the content so that takes up 4x as much memory already, then when you add in rgb normal maps on top of that you can double it again. Suddenly instead of 128MB you need 8x as much memory - 1GB.

[edhe]

Ati will have a competitor to sli well before Envy's out.

[Renegade Retard]

/It does give a nice upgrade path, i would consider it if buying a new system at the moment, stick in another card about 6 months down the line before the 18 month rule comse into affect.

:tup: That's my plan with my SLI board. I'll be throwing another 6600GT in there later this year.

BTW - Windows XP 64 may be out sooner than you realize. The beta has been out for quite a while, and a buddy of mine who is an "insider" has a copy of what he says is actually the final release, it just hasn't gone public yet.

[The_Head]

Fact is, SLI is there for those gamers that earn silly money, and the pros who'll spend on it. It's also there for other reasons - CAD, CG and Dev work, it's not just gaming :)

If your doing CAD work and the like you wouldn't buy a gaming card. You would buy a card designed for CAD work. Like The NVidia Quadro series......

note for dummies: longhorn = first 64bit OS ever

LOL. Computer n00b. Linux has been 64bit capabable for quite a while now. iirc they were 64 before te Athlon64's where out. And before anyone had really heard of the Opteron. ALso WinXP64 is out end of May

[Bot_40]

Maybe he just said "note for dummies" because dummies would be the only people that would be fooled by such a statement :p

[azcn2503]

ATI were yapping on about a 512MB graphics card earlier this year, and early last year too, to my surprise. I wonder when they'll release the 512MB beast?

[Denny]

Well, by the time the next UT is released i'll probably just be making the move to UT2K4 so hmmm....lol. I'll have a new PC by then though, i'm going with AMD this time, the prescott's suck and i wish i never bought one.

Oh can't forget Windows Server 2003 comes in 64-Bit flavors as well. Not sure about 2000 Server, i doubt it.

[Bazzi]

To clear up some statements:

a) The Athlon 64 X2 will be 2x2.2 / 2x2.4GHz so not much clocked below the FX series
b) Best would be to have asynchronous CPUs, say 1 core runs with 2.4GHz the other one with 1.2GHz, because for most uses, we'll use 100% of one core (say: gaming) and the lower clocked core would handle, say winamp and all those other tasks running in background.
c) SLI suffers the same problem, ATI addresses is by enabling to run 1 high end GPU with 1 lower end. ATI SLI (called AMR) isn't final yet, though, things might still change.
d) Win Server 2003 is patchable to support 64 bit
e) The new GPU gen will be out due sommer, featuring R520 + co and will give you an up to 100% speed boost again.

[azcn2503]

I generally only do one thing at a time with my PC, and I doubt that a multicored processor will change the way that I use my computer. If I wanted to play a game, I'd play it. Hopefully, though, it could drain away the OS stealing all the CPU bandwidth.. as long as it does that I'm happy.