A few questions

Lac3y

Daemon Poster
Messages
1,110
Well I've gotten quite out of touch with computers lately so I have a few questions:

Do 10,000RPM hard drives make a huge difference in speed? Are they worth the extra money?

RAM seems to have moved on a huge deal, the amount of "PC" classes are overwhelming, and DDR3 is out. Which "PC" class gives you the best balance between performance and price?

For a powerful rig, what watt power supply should I be considering?

What is a nice 20" + monitor at a good price?

That's all for now. If I think of any more I'll post them :D
 
ok i got a few answers.

10K drives IMO are over rated, they are only necessary for high performace rigs, like a 4Ghz overclocked e8400 with 3GB RAM ann a 8800.
for general use and normal gaming 7200 rpm drive are perfectly capable.

ok RAM DDR3 is out but again i dont think the hefty price tags are worth it, it may not be the best RAM out or the fastest but definately the best price/performacne ratio is still DDR2 800Mhz, you can pick 2Gb up for as little as £30 or $60 probably $50 actually, and again DDR3 is only worth the extra in the high end gaming rigs, and even then the high timings still put me off.

ok for a powerful rig with say a e8400/Q6600 with say 3 hardrive 2 DVD drives a high end motherboard, 4 sticks of DDR2 RAM and an 8800GT id say a decent 650Watt or maybe a 700 to be sure.

ok a nice 20" or bigger monitor well thats debatable,

someone like me wants a big monitor with a viewable resolution that looks nice, someone else on the other hand would like a big monitor with a big recolution with great response times etc, i dont care about that stuff.

with all honesty when buying my monitor i went for the cheapest 22" monitor with a brand name, thats it. so ill reccomend 1 like me.

20" - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143960
22" - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143051

1 thing i will mention is none of those have DVI.

if you want a good response time monitor with high spec then im not your man wait till someone else posts
 
There is quiet a large increase with 10,000 rpm drives especially when setup in a RAID configuration. But, they are not necessary for the average user in a gaming rig. But if you just got to have the fastest, then they'll will fit the bill perfectly.

For a good powerful rig with a single card, a quality 500W PSU will work nicely as most of todays newer video cards need at least a 450W. For an SLI or Crossfire rig, at least 600W and up.

I like the Acer LCD widescreen monitors. They build quality monitors and offer excellent picture quality. Look for ones with at least 800:1 contrast ratio, 5ms or less response time and a DVI connection for the best picture quality.
 
Do 10,000RPM hard drives make a huge difference in speed? Are they worth the extra money?
If you've got the money. Of course! I don't think I'd ever buy one but I would if I had limitless funds.
RAM seems to have moved on a huge deal, the amount of "PC" classes are overwhelming, and DDR3 is out. Which "PC" class gives you the best balance between performance and price?
On a current Intel platform, DDR3 brings no performance increase because of the limitations of the FSB. The bandwidth of the memory can never be higher than the FSB's frequency. For example, if the FSB is 400 (1600MHz QDR), that's 12.8GB/s of bandwidth, 12.8GB/s = DDR 800, therefore using DDR3 at a higher speed than DDR 800 would bring zero performance increases because the FSB is still the limiting factor. And the potential frequency of the FSB is not high enough to benefit from DDR3.

So my advice is stick with DDR2 800 or 1066.

When AMD's Phenom supports DDR3, and Intel's Nehalem is released, only then will you see the full benefits of high speed memory thanks to the IMC (Integrated Memory Controller) which can make use of all the bandwidth.

Buy DDR2 now, buy DDR3 when Phenom DDR3/Nehalem is released, by then the prices will have dropped as well.

This is a great deal ATM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231166
For a powerful rig, what watt power supply should I be considering?
It all depends on the components, and whether the user will be overclocking. Always choose something quality over wattage specs though.
 
Back
Top Bottom