Jamie_Kurosawa Wrote:There is a good reason I recommended the 9800 GT... look carefully at the card... it's called space. The GTS 4xx and the Radeon 5xxx series all take up 2 slots whereas the 9800 GT takes up 1 slot. 20~30 bucks more to take up valuable air flow space or the possibility of a replacement network adapter or maybe even a replacement SATA adapter? No thank you.
Yet, the single slot 9800GT will run considerably hotter. There's also a reason why Nvidia switched from single slot to dual slot coolers around the time the 8800GT launched. Oh yeah, they were hitting 90-100C. Don't complain about airflow when your card is going to run considerably hotter than a dual slot design. I also have no clue why he would even need a NIC or SATA controller when the onboard ones are sufficient.
Btw, we're in the year 2010, not 2007. Motherboards and video cards are designed the way they are to keep cool. The only reason I would consider a single slot card is if I was building an ITX rig or something along the lines.. rofl
I'll admit, I find it funny how you're ignoring the performance aspect of the matter.
Big deal if the Ph1s don't reach 3.0Hz or more... quad-core CPUs will run programs more effectively than the dual-cores will. Most programs are now optimized to use multiple CPU cores for multitasking purposes. More cores means more tasks that can be performed at once. It's not just about speed and raw power for one program, it about how many tasks and operations a PC can perform at once.
Big deal? It IS a big deal when your processor bottlenecks your graphics card. Also, please please please list the REAL world programs that take advantage of quad cores. Unless you're encoding, a quad core won't benefit the average user or better yet gamer unless the actual game allows for multicore rendering.
The original phenom's were complete junk, they had horrible IMC's and required massive amounts of voltage which lead to heat problems on chips with bad binning. Overclocking? forget it.
And as a licensed PC tech I don't rely on benchmarks. Benchmarks are biased at a single PC specification that's unrealistic in normal everyday models and usage factors.
The last time I checked we were configuring a GAMING computer. Benchmarks matter whether you do this for a living or not. If you want to talk about being unrealistic, lets talk about WHY he needs a quadcore, shall we?
He has Windows 7 Ultimate anyways. A quad-core CPU will be better for this OS as it will allow for better multi-tasked operations for the system services. 7 and even Vista utilize a lot of resources. More CPU cores will allow the processes, services, and task to have more resources to pull from.Yes the Dual-Core Ph2 is faster, but it has less resources to offer for the system to draw from, and resources are now more valuable than raw speed and power.
You seem to be contradicting yourself.
Oh and this is killing me...Please show me the real world benefits of running an OS with a quad opposed to a dual core using the same amount of DDR3 ram. I've had/used machines with i7's to i3's to Athlons to Phenoms and to be honest, you sound like mumbo jumbo at the moment.
If you want the truth, the most beneficial thing you can buy for the OS would be a SSD. As long as you have an up to date ICH10R or 850SB, you'll never want to go back to a standard mechanical drive. I'm to a point where I can't even stand using my laptop due to how slow the drive is.
Just because Anandtech or Guru3D says something is good, doesn't mean it's good for everyone for a wide spectrum of situations.
They compare and show the difference in performance between hardware. The main purpose of his build is a gaming computer, not a rendering powerhouse. IF that was the case I would have to recommended him the AthlonII x4 620 or AthlonII x4 635 if he happened to be on a budget, which he isn't.
I haven't really had the chance to really recommended him ANYTHING yet. I'm still waiting for his response as to whether he wants to go Intel or AMD. I was honestly just using the 555x2 as an example to counter your recommendation.
Read this:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2906
This is why the 9800 GT still costs as much as it does. It still beats the GT 240 series which is a more modern GPU/VPU. Yes it's 1 DirectX specification lower (DirectX 10 compared to DirectX 10.1) but really what uses this stuff other than a Benchmark or some over-hyped crappy game that comes after a whole year after a card is released that it's designed for. Nothing really even uses DirectX 10, 10.1, or 11 really. Everything is still built for DirectX 9.0c with maybe some extensions for DirectX 10, 10.1, and 11 specification eye candy. Why else does Microsoft distribute the DirectX "X" libraries for their developers to include with their games? Even the latest DirectX SDK from Microsoft is only DirectX 9.0c specification but it has extension and managed libraries added for developers to add DirectX 10, 10.1, and 11 features, most of which are still unused if not underused.
Whoa! You found the GT240! Guess what? It's nothing more than a rebranded 9600GT with DX10.1 capabilities... Wanna guess what the GTS250 really is?
"Nothing really even uses DirectX 10, 10.1, or 11 really. Everything is still built for DirectX 9.0c with maybe some extensions for DirectX 10, 10.1, and 11 specification eye candy"
Shattered horizons, Just Cause 2, Battlefield 3, and MAYBE Crysis 2 have no DX9 support. They're pure DX10 with DX11 extensions. You can argue that there's no need for a DX11 card, but I certainly like the extra eyecandy. Besides, I'll say it once and I'll say it again. The 9800GT is old and cant handle games as well as a lot of the newer cards.
As for DX10/11 games that use extensions.. Battleforge, Battlefield Bad Company 2,, Medal of honor, Alien VS Predator, Bioshock, Bioshock 2, Crysis, Crysis Warhead, Devil May Cry 4, Farcry 2, Just Cause 2, Metro 2033, Resident Evil 5, STALKER: ClearSky, STAKER: Call of pripyat, Tom Clancy HAWX, Dirt2, Dirt 3, Civilazation V, Cryostasis, Crysis 2 (?)...
I can't think of anymore.
To be honest, I'm not trying to stear anyone away from buying a quad, but there's a lot of misinformation going around.
A quad core is normally the better choice, but it dosen't really benefit the average real world user unless hes encoding, or using a program built for multicore rendering. A dual core with an up to date architecture will almost ALWAYS be superior to older tech, regardless of how many cores it has in it. I mean, look at the Quad core i7's.. They're destroying the brand new Phenom x6's in mutlicore benchmarks and rendering due to a revised and faster architecture..compared to AMD's K8/K10 which dates back to 2003.. lol
K lata.