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Building A High-End Gaming Workstation
Alan writes "What's the best platform for playing games *and* doing work? That's the very question FiringSquad tries to answer in the sequel to last year's short but popular workstation building article. This time, they've went with a "no-budget, but don't waste money" approach. There are a dozen products reviewed in the article, some never before reviewed on the 'net, and this time, there's no system building detail left untouched. Discussed are AC line conditioners, 2D graphics performance, and more. This more than 12,000 word article is the most detailed article ever in its genre. "
Best platform for games, hands down, and you can do just as much work with it as you can on any other platform.
I like to dual-boot some random linux distro for when I need good old-fashioned CLI goodness that I can't get from DOS, but I mostly stay on Windows.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
I take all of these system building articles with a grain of salt, especially when it picks specific video cards, processors etc.
Most people usually don't have the $ for the 'latest and greatest' hardware. And by the time they can afford the lastest whiz-bang video card, it's already outdated.
I wouldn't invest in a high-end gaming stations because most high-end games seem to suck. They're all about graphics, but the game-play sucks ass. They are not as enjoyable as a lot of old games like the original quake. Any in-expensive system works great for the old games.
thats long!
What is this, high school?
These articles make me laugh. Please, all you "computer experts", go out and buy the most expensive, cutting edge hardware you can find. You absolutely need to spend $5000 to play video games, don't doubt the marketin^H^H^H detailed articles validity.
These folks are the ones who piss away their money, so folks like me can get useless and obsolete hardware, like the terribly out-of-date Radeon 9700, for cheap cheap cheap.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The Xbox of course! (If you install a decent operating system)
Nice article covering lots of little tech bits. However I would of thought that better performace might of been got from RAID-0 stripping of the disks or at least setup the swap and system on differenet disks to minimize the load
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
(this was back in 1999)
nothing like getting owned in counter strike, by my clanmate on a dialup with a crappy video card, while i was on a cable connection with a gf2.
-- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
Up next, "How to build a server (with no budget and things like anti-DOS capabilities)".
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Interesting artical, but what about the rest of the population that does not have the kinda surplus money that can blown on hardware for a state-of-the-art gaming system that will be outdated in six months. What kind of hardware is nessecary for a good low-end gaming system that the average twenty-something paying off student loans can afford? Also, what are the best recomendations for hardware that might be a bit higher-end, but will still be useful for a long time?
An old one:
.....
Train stops at train-station,
Bus stops at bus-stations,
Work stops
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... and furthermore
Step 1: Buy really expensive components.
Step 2: Put them together.
Step 3: l33t box that gets 1,000 FPS in Quake 3. Not surprisingly, this box will also run just about every other Windows app there is well.
Cost of exact same system next year: $500.00
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Am I the only one who sees the paradox in this story title? It says high end gaming workstation for fscks sakes! Why not just high end gamestation. I swear, this is worst than extra jumbo shrimp.
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
Personally, I wait a year for the *new* stuff to drop in price. I don't need a 3.06 ghz Xeon when my present 1.3 ghz laptop does things pretty fast. I will never understand why people need the bestest, fastest hardware when all their doing is trying to load Office quicker.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
By the way, if you into small, you should change your name.
A Gaming Web-Server Station Survive the Slashdot Effect 'omatic.
Get paid to code OSS
Well, first off, the video card could be very influential in that. Second, try playing something that, you know, came out after the 1.1 Tbird. Betcha you'd see a difference between the two playing UT2k3 or Halo. Or does your philosophy of buying older stuff apply to software as well? ;)
I know I saw a difference going from a PIII 866 to a P4 2Ghz.
Sure, paying out the nose to have the absolute fastest is silly...but decent stuff isn't *that* expensive (for instance, ~$90 for a Barton 2500+). If you wouldn't exploit the potential of a new CPU, great, don't buy one. There are others of us though that manage to find a use for the power. No ego involved.
Use a tool designed for the job.
:
An Xbox for gaming. 130
A cheap desktop for everything else 500
internet/email/netty thing, IM doesn't need power.
Office
Web Design
Perl/Java/C/whatever
None of the above need lots of computing power.
630
Beats any 1000+ machine for work and games.
and you can do both at once... leave the compiles running and watch them while you play Splinter Cell.
I'm confused as to the components of this system. Exactly how does a matrix-orbital lcd make your games run faster?
Oh wait, it's just for looks. So, basically this isn't about performance, it's about who'se got the largest computer testicles.
Yea, that's right, I'll own you with my duron 900 with no 3d accell in software mode, onboard S3, baby.
I've never owned top of the line hardware, nor do I plan to. My most advanced system is a duron 950 with a gig of ram and a 3dfx voodoo5 5500. I use it for photoshop and MAME. And you know what? It cost me all of $500 in components when I built it.
America - Home of the scapegoat, land of the Corporation
A Mac and a PlayStation 2.
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of course, with multi panel screens, and other pricey toys, etc. it is possible to go slightly bonkers.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Are there any flight-sims on consoles? How about strategy-games? FPS with controls that match keyboard/mouse-combo? No? that's what I thought.
Consoles are OK for some types of games, but they absolutely suck for some others. PC's excel at some genres are are at least OK in the rest.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
How much of this 'you have to buy the latest greatest hardware' crap is just an excuse to cover bad code? What if the only reason we need all this hardware is becuase a bunch of people can't write effecient game code?
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Just wait 5 years and you will be able to buy any fancy system used for $250.
- Game developers need to test on their development boxes.
- Today's development box is tomorrow's mainstream gaming box (this may not be true of dual Opteron workstations for awhile;).
-
Games are the some of the most intensive non-pro apps out there and it's silly for the fastest hardware not to do both.
One other point that the author missed: the new dual G5 PowerMac is also a very nice candidate (especially with the 9800 Pro). The authors have declined to provide pricing for anything AFAIK, but I'm pretty sure the Mac will come in less expensive for similar features - and it runs MacOS X among many other advantages.A whole lot of the free software the author is enjoying on Linux also runs on MacOS X. There is way more commercial software and games for MacOS X than for Linux (less than for Windows, but then you'd have to run...Windows). The G5s should be ideally suited to scientific computing with the Altivec vector instruction set. The only nit with the G5s is not supporting ECC memory. Apple should do that, as an option.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
because some of us are doing stuff other than "loading Office quicker"?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
If I can't run the low tech games I like, these systems are useless. Rogue lives!
what else do you expect me to do all day on a government helpdesk... i can tech support lamers with my brain closed and read chunky /. links as I go.
bah!*@%!
I hear you, but then I thought of Penny Arcade, or any other decent game reviewer.
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
You should thank those people, not complain about them. If they have the money to spend, why shouldn't they? Good for you that you can save money and still get a great system.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
no-budget, but don't waste money
....
Seriously, what percentage of even the gaming community (let's not even count joe average, mum & dad or corporate users) does this actually cover? Now disclude all the writers who work for gaming/hardware review sites and are just angling for a "demo" of the latest hardware and just how many are you left with? I'm sure there are exceptions, but come on, gimme a break
"Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
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Or you could do it yourself and save 20-50% of the cost of your big dell. If you dont have the knowledge, time, or desire to build one, its fine to go buy one, just be prepared to pay for it. I build myself a good quality computer a couple of months ago, cost me around 700 or I could have gone to best buy and bought one with similar specs for around 1400. Personally, i enjoyed building it and definatly enjoyed my extra 700$.
Not for me. This is exactly where I sit right now. I'm in college and don't have so much cash to spend and I need to do both development and gaming - and I need to do it on one machine.
;-)
This review is exactly what I have been doing lately. I am thinking about getting a dual opteron (probably just opteron 242's though - like I said not much cash) because I can play games on it - AND do development (I do a lot of compiling and dual CPUs would help out a lot).
Not too mention that I do all of my development in Linux so I would run an AMD64 build - and get even greater speed improvements.
I'd like to say thanks to firingsquad. This article is both relevant and well done (well, 3/4 of it is - I got hit by the slashdot effect
Derek
My trick to beating the price is to stay 1 year behind everyone else's upgrade cycle. By the time I upgrade, I can get a decent system for about $500 and play the best games from 1 year ago... which you would probably find the bargin bin with all the bugs worked out. Once you've exhausted the games, repeat.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Yeah, yeah. IHBT. IHL. IWHAND. You don't build it to get the speed machine; you do it for the price.
Eg: my latest computer, I bought piecemeal; ended up with an Asus Nforce2 (400 Mhz FSB) motherboard, 2500+ Mhz Athlon Barton (actually speed: 1833 Mhz), 120 GB HD, 1 gig of 400 Mhz RAM, and a 256 MB GeforceFX card. Along with everything else new but a monitor, and it came in at just over $600.
I did some research, but not an extensive amount -- certainly not anything at the Tom's Hardware level.
Pricing something similar at Dell (2400 Mhz Pentium 4, only a 128 MB GeforceFX) comes out to $1258, after the $100 coupon. Granted, the Intel motherboard has a 800 Mhz FSB, but I'm sure that you couldn't tell a difference between using the two computers. Except that the Dell solution is a 200% price increase.
Many of these articles (including this one) read like they were written by the marketing departments for the respective hardware companies . . .including excerpts obviously taken directly from sales literature. I am finding it increasingly more difficult to trust any of these "independent" review sites . . .
Things just keep on getting better since I took back my time! My head is much more clear. I read more and my thinking is sharper than ever before. I have a girlfriend now, my skin has cleared up, and I'm doing much better at work. I feel healthier and stronger than I have in years. I am engaged in more active, outdoor pursuits, and I've taken up the guitar. The amazing part is that I didn't set out to do any of these things; they all just came to me naturally as my free time opened up and my mind sought alternative outlets so that I wouldn't be bored. It's like how it was when I was a child and there were no video games. I couldn't have done any of this without such a supportive group to help me through the hard times. Thank you!
If only I could have back all those thousands and thousands of wasted hours. .
-FL
Okay, this is probably not the answer that you're looking for, but I would recommend getting one low-end, cheap work machine and one high-end gaming system.
It's just too distracting to have "Quake 3 Arena" on your Start menu next to "Microsoft Word" when you're supposed to be writing your TPS reports. The machine that I work on has only the bare necessities to work, and no distractions.
On that note, I have to recommend Windows or Mac OS X for your work machine. There is way too much temptation when I'm working on a UNIX box to spend hours hacking around. For the gaming box, maybe a dual boot of Windows and Linux will suffice, with WineX on the Linux partition.
> Are there any flight-sims on consoles? How about
> strategy-games? FPS with controls that match
> keyboard/mouse-combo? No?
Yes! Well, granted you're not going to get a really in-depth flight-sim on a console without some kind of dedicated controller (the Steel Batallion one for the Xbox could probably be reused in a flight-sim quite effectively) or a radical rethink of the control system... but then how much does a qwerty keyboard resemble the controls of a flight deck? Anyhow, Pikmin has demonstrated that RTS games can be converted to home consoles (some refining remains, to be sure) and if you're after turn-based strategy, the GBA is the way to go at the moment. FPS controls that match keyboard/mouse... well, that's a matter of design, largely. You lose pinpoint accuracy and high speed, but you gain analogue controls for view AND movement, and analogue face-buttons. The gameplay changes, certainly, but not necessarily for the worse.
The things I do miss about PC gaming are the mod scene and access to in-depth level builders, and I'm considering getting a new Windows machine so I can get back into all that. It was nice to see a level builder in the Timesplitters games, for example, but you're not going to get the from-scrath limitless possibilities that something like UnrealEd offers. And since it's been a couple of years since I was active in that area, I dare say today's processors will go like the proverbial rockets compared to my last experience...
> Hard disk - I know SCSI is expensive so get a drive that does at least 7200rpm
Why on earth do you consider a high speed hard drive important? Games are one of the few things that generally *don't* hit the hard drive while running.
Get a regular ol' hard drive (granted, it's hard to *find* 5400 RPM anymore, though I tend to prefer 'em for the sound levels and the lack of heat.).
Get at least 512MB of RAM to avoid paging instead.
Graphics card is next, get a OEM version of one of the later Nvidia chipsets and you save a boat load of money and still have good performance, you should get at least 128MB of RAM on the video card
Here I agree with you.
CPU speed doesn't have to be the latest one out, right now your best bet is to get at least a 2.4GHz with a 800MHz front side bus, that way you will have hyperthreading and the operating system will see 1 physical processor and say that you have 2 CPU's
2.4GHz AMD or Intel? Bit of a difference.
System Memory should be at least 1 GB nowadays @ PC133 MHz
I disagree -- I think half of this is acceptable. memory is quite easy to upgrade, and it's cheaper the longer you wait. If you're extremely adverse to upgrading RAM, then perhaps buying all now is a good idea.
Things that I consider important that the poster didn't:
* Decent set of headphones, unless you're hooking your computer to your nice stereo system. Headphones are *far* cheaper (I'd say roughly order-of-magnitude) for equivalent quality than speakers. They also give a better stereo effect. Aim for at least $80, and listen to 'em. You will lose some bass, unfortunately, which a lot of people like -- but if you live in a college dorm or play games at night, you aren't going to be able to shake the neighborhood anyway.
* Consider a CRT. LCDs are insanely popular right now, but have a lower refresh rate, look more jagged (due to their nice, sharp pixels) on things that aren't supposed to look jagged (like edges of objects), don't have as intense colors, aren't as bright, and cost more. LCDs *are* nicer for reading text, though.
* Consider a gamepad and/or joystick (for emulation). If you'll have friends playing, get a couple. The majority of PC games focus on the mouse/keyboard, but not all, and for games that can be played with these, it's awfully pleasant to do so.
* If you like FPSes, get a mouse with at least four buttons.
* Dual processors, lights, case mods, fancy sound cards, luxury input devices, wireless keyboards, etc are a waste of money. If you want 'em, fine, but there's no point in getting swept up in the "I'm spending $n, so I might as well spend $n+m" syndrome.
May we never see th
It's an opinion.
If all I cared about was Java games on Yahoo!, then, well...
Solaris is the best platform for games, and you can do just as much work with it as you can on any other platform.
No dual booting requried there! And scales to 128 CPUs without breaking a sweat.
Never mind that the article doesn't even venture into this territory. Tsk tsk.
Can I get an amen?
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
I think a lot of people are confused here. There are three basic types of desktop machines.
1) An office PC. Runs some office package, web browser, acrobat reader, etc. a P3/800MHz with a low-end graphics card is FINE for this.
2) A gaming machine. You all know what this is.
3) A workstation. This is NOT the office PC. This is a serious machine for serious work--CAD, 3D modelling, number crunching, etc.
The requirements for a workstation and a gaming machine are similar but not identical. A workstation may have slower graphics, but accurate. No fudging or edge-blending to make things look prettier (or run faster) at the expense of mathematically correct representation. A workstation also is likely to have multiple processors, since they can be fully used by most software packages one would be looking at.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
1) Read article about whizbang rig.
2) Search forums about hardware that is equivalent to but slightly underclocked and sells for 1/2 as much
3) Ignore the $200 keyboard/mice recommended, LCD, silent DVD-ROMs, etc. and get unbranded Taiwanese OEM manufacturer's product line wherever possible.
4) Wait 4 weeks for shipping instead of going to retailers.
5) Assemble, overclock, pray, sacrifice old RAM sticks.
6) Enjoy near-equivalent machine for half to third price.
7) ???
8) Profit!
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
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PS2 at home, and a normal workstation at work. Preferably with Solitaire removed.
;))
;))
Gaming is in direct opposition to working.
But, if you want to attempt to make us believe you're capable of actually doing work (right, right, I bet. You probably waste hours on Slashdot at work each day!)..
Windows box. Don't skimp on the basic components. Go with top of the line mobo, load the sucker up with RAM, think about a nice SCSI drive. And expect to upgrade your video card every three months. Your main consideration is the video card. That is what 'runs' games. The rest, you want high quality so you don't need to switch out the entire box every three months. (Video cards are expensive enough!
'course, I expect the Slashdolts to whine about the Lunix!!!!1111. Please. Linux may be great for work, depending on your job description. It sucks the ass of CowboyNeal for gaming.
"BUT WE HAV TEH QUAKE3!!!!"
Please. Quake 3 is one game. As for the rest, I can count the number of high-quality Linux games/ports on one bloody hand. Windows is where gaming was, is, and will be for the forseeable future.
(Could always consider a dual boot, though. That certainly helps with regard to keeping gaming/working time seperate.
When you're in fun mode, your productivity is shot. When you're in work mode, you can't play worth a dang. Technology can't change that.
What does your PHB care about most - your ability at your job, or your mad crazy DOOM II skills?
This post made with the Dvorak layout.
"Friends don't let friends use QWERTY"
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Well, really. I'm surprised Ars didn't at least mention, if you don't want windows, you can get a God Box off-the-shelf from apple. PCI-X, GHz FSB, SATA, dual procs in the same class (Ars uses 2x3GHz Xeons), dual flatpanels (and nicer, too :P), all the same bells and whistles PLUS 64-bit goodness...prebuilt for less (i could be wrong, i didn't spec them both out to check..)
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
just to throw in my opinion here:
fps controls for consoles are absolutely fine.
i play unreal championchip on xbl and i play ut2k3 on my PC. there's very little difference.
yes, it takes time to get the hang of. but so does circlestrafing with wasd. and all the action games have sensitivity settings for the analog sticks that bring the speed and accuracy up to the same level.
yeah, a mouse is more precise. but when i'm playing on a 50" hdtv, relative precision is easily comparable.
furthermore, one huge advantage is that on the consoles, interfaces are forced to become streamlined. you can't simply expect a user to bind a dozen or more keys just to be able to pick teams or switch models.
as for mods and such - i'm hoping the xbox HD and xbl get used more for the custom content route in the future. downloadable content is pretty sweet - it'd be great to get mods or community made maps via the same mechanisms. i could literally play ghost recon just about forever if there was a map editor with shareable maps.
of course, the heavy duty sims will never be primarily sold on the consoles - its simply a contradiction in markets for the most part. though custom controllers can do anything you like on your pc, only better. there's a keyboard add-on for the xbox already (for PSO) and a ridiculous 100+ key mech sim (gimmicky, but existant). even classic PC-style RPGs and massmogs are moving to consoles.
the lines are going to continue to blur between which games are where (excepting hardcore sims), and the price/performance of consoles is bar-none the greatest in game hardware. i mean, this generation of consoles are playing top of the line games 3 years after their introduction. what top of the line PC 3 years ago is going to be able to play HL2?
then there's the added benefits of the xbl broadband only multiplayer, and the more cheat-resistant qualities of consoles vs pcs in regards to network gaming. cheat-free is a -huge- benefit for multiplayer gaming that you will not see on the pc side. it easily makes up for the analog control learning curve by itself.
(and console games aren't constantly patched and buggy).
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
1. Hard Disk speed is important! Take a deep breath, and think about how long it takes to load all the 4 layer textures you use playing modern games. Those do NOT store completely in RAM and have to be loaded dynamically. I have celebrated the wide adoption of 10k rpm SATA since it came available, as it removes the 'stutter' of turning corners when you use high res textures and anti-aliasing in 3d.
2. Older Nvidia cards are NOT Dx9 compliant, which will limit their long-term viability. Contrary to the tone of the post, high end gamers are not generally fools and are more up to date on hardware purchases than most folk. Theres a *reason* why the ATI 9800pro is heavily purchased. I know this because I benchmark my purchases to make sure I get the intended result, not from idle speculation...
3. AMD processors have a long history of problems with certain game vendors, most notably Sony/Verant. I personally use an AMD procesor, and love them, but the Intel and AMD architecture are not 100% interchangable, and unless the maker of your favorite game allows for that, your milage may vary.
4. 1GB of ram is WAY too small to cache all the textures of the newer games. WAY WAY too small. Ask Tim Sweeny why he's so hot on 64-bit architecture, and you'll find it's mostly the RAM ceiling.
5. Headphones get uncomfortable after awhile to me. I went with the klipsch promedia system and have enjoyed it for over 3 years now. This is coming from a trance DJ who has 2 seperate sets of Professional quality studio 'phones to try as well.
6. Under 20ms refresh LCDs *OWN* CRTs for both brightness and color representation. If ur seein jaggies, it prolly because you bought an nvidia card... (see above).
Performance is absolutely relative to the end user. If all you play is Tetris, whatever is fine. This article presumes ur aiming for the UT2003 or War3 quality games, and would want to have Hl2 and Doom3 run well on it. I personally am attracted to the mmorpgs like everquest that require spending a LOT of time (12 hrs at at ime sometimes) with your gear, so to me, the 5k I've dumped into my rig is worth it. That said, I absolutely read up on the various chipsets (the Nivdia Nforce3 MB chipset seems to be hot right now) and video card chipsets (ATI for the time being) and try to combine and benchmark all of it to assure that I feel as immersed as possible in the games I play. For me, TV is just boring, so as my primary form of entertainment the investment is worth it.
-chitlenz
Imagination is the silver lining of Intelligence.
They seem kinda ridiculous, I don't even know if I believe that they really exist, but they have an option for a multigig ram drive just to store the OS (with nearly zero latency and 80GB/sec IO... yes GB) and a bunch of other stuff.
Their monitors look killer too...
Go-l
Today we're
[Next Page]
going to build a
[Next Page]
High-End gaming
[Next Page]
PC using expensi--
[Next Page]
ve and in-expensive
[Next Page]
parts.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
1. I can map my own controls any way I want.
2. I can save my game any time I want and thus reload it at any point during the gameplay.
3. I can pause it at any time. Especially useful for when something extremely urgent in that place called "real life" comes and you're in the middle one of those spectacular FX scenes in a game such as FF9. Just hit escape in EPSXE and it's paused. Can't do that on the real playstation.
So, sir, computers are the future of gaming whether you choose to accept it or not.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
*laughs* I'm usually not much of a grammer-nazi, but that was such a blatant violation that i cringed when i first read it. They have went?!?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Don't mind the price, that's why you are getting paid for, to be able to buy a system like THIS ONE!
And if you really want to be bleeding edge then you need to have a good MONITOR too.
Bunch of dollar saving monkeys! Spend your dollors now!
What power has law where only money rules.
Gaming rigs are not a waste of money. The only marginal cost of a gaming PC over a business PC is the video card and game controllers. So you spend $150 more for a midrange video card (or $400 for top of the line, but you could justifiably call that a waste of money) and you get a fast PC that you could use for work too. On the CPU side, you might feel stupid for buying a $500 CPU that drops to $200 in less than a year, but that's it. The cases, power supplies and motherboards have pretty stable price points, and with all those components, quality costs more.
Groovy ... now all he needs is a High-End Webserver
People who buy PCs because they are cheaper than the competition makes me laugh like its impossible.
Most of them, MOST, want to play games on their computer, only a very few are buying PCs for high-end 3D workstations or other type of intensive work. Most high-end computing is done on UNIX, Linux or OSX anyways where people seems to have understood that by paying less you get less not equivalent. The high-end PCs used for intensive work cost as much if not a shitload more than the competition to do the same work in the same amount of time.
That said, if you consider that you are saving money while you spend 1000$ on a computer to play game, consider that you will get a problematic computer that will need a lot of maintenance (how many PC zealot keep saying their computer is super stable but manage to tell you that they had to reformat their hard-drive twice "last year", but this year it will remain stable (like they have been saying for the last 10 year or so...)), that will need to be updated every year or once every 3 years, if you are the economic type, so you can play the newest buzzwords-compliant game adequately and patch each game for a average of 3 times before it runs as advertised. Now consider that, to get the latest and greatest, you will need to spend 5000$ on a PC worstation that will be good for 3 year anyways.
If you consider that 1000$ is cheap for a gaming box, or even worse 5000$, you are a moron, sorry no sweet words to place there, moron is the good expression.
Fact, if you buy one Gamecube, one Playstation2 and one Xbox it will cost you less than 1000$ AND you will be able to run Linux for all your stealin... [cough] networking needs and office work. Plus you will have access to A LOT more games, mostly bug free (except on the Xbox...), tested, that you will play with peripherals made to play games and with all setting carefully calibrated to run best on the machine you own, games released on those consolle won't require an upgrade to run adequately, the hardware won't need to be changed, the games are made within those specs, period.
So anyone telling you a PC is good for gaming is good for the mental institute or the incredible world of IT where people make you buy stuff that will never work so they can keep their jobs!
Oh yeah, well I have my enitre motherboard sitting in liquid nitrogen and my cpu covered in solid hydrogen. I thought my cd player would work well but I needed a better bus so I replaced the wires with supercooled (thanks to my liquid helium cooling system) pure silver wire, the only superconductor I could buy. And to make it run better I built my own nuclear reactor to power it so its up from 3.3 volts to now working at 1.21 gigawatts, not to mention I purchased an lcd screen the size of a thousand football fields and plan on launching it into space so that I can watch stuff on it. Yep, Quake at 1 million fps here I come! So get the best stuff and cover it with material from the core of Jupiter and bump up the voltage to the power of a small scale nuclear detonation.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
What are you gonna play on that baby-RISC machine?
Blar.
"Verb", it's what you do (to make car sounds)!
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Man, if I could piss money...
But anyway, I imagine you just repeated his point, just in a different, even somewhat condescending, tone. While we're all thanking the people who spend so much on expensive, new stuff, so it becomes cheaper for the rest of us, let's not forget that most people buying those expensive things are buying on credit, which results in spiraling debt, which is only good for Banks, but really good for no one in the long term.
If everyone really only spent what they could afford, prices wouldn't come down so fast, but our economy might be healthier...
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All that time you are wasting on reading, guitar, the outdoors, your girlfriend, you could've been racking up some awesome high scores or finding those rare artifacts!
So many wasted hours...
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
The best gaming system with the least amount of $ spent. Anyone can put together an impressive gaming machine with a huge budget, but I have always enjoyed the challenge of getting the best performance using the least amount of money.
If you can read this sig - the bitch fell off.
For the first time, I bought all the pieces for a new machine online, from Newegg. Shipping took three days.
.5 miles from Fryes. But aside from lower, prices, buying online had other advantages:
It was a bit of decision for me, as I work less than
1. You can browse by Vendor. So for example, the DVD writer I bought is an NEC. The ones at Fryes are boxed under a variety of names, but you rarely can tell who manufactured them.
2. Most products have customer reviews, which can tell you quite a bit. For example, I avoided buying a (cheaper) KVM which had a few comments that mentioned degraded video quality. The one I bought was still only $39, and works flawlessly.
3. The web site entry has a lot more information than you can get at retailers. This is how I learned about the different grades of DDR RAM, and led me to get the PC2700. At Fryes, there's just a hard-to-read board with the prices.
4. And speaking of prices: You get decent prices online without having to deal with rebates.
While we're on the topic of monitors, did anyone notice the one used in their setup?
Call me picky, but I find it slightly, mildly, completely insane to spend big bucks on the kickassest system you can afford and then hook what looks to me like a plain vanilla monitor (I looked around the article to see if I could find any comments on it, but a horribly slow server and broken up article means I didn't RTwholeFA.) Not to shit on Iiyama (which I believe that is), but there are a few better options, and I'll have to agree with you on the TFT issue. In fact, I love the 15" 1400x1050 screen on my Asus L3800C notebook so much, I don't even find a use for an external monitor.
I for one welcome our new SCOviet Russian overlords to whom all our base are belong.
Just about every crack about buggy closed-source software is followed by a claim that it would be better had it been done open source. I was just heading that off. Sorry if I made an incorrect assumption. So...how exactly do you know the quality of code is 'bad'?
Blar.
I don't normally say this, but... Mod parent down!
Yes, the article suggests getting high-end parts, but justifies each decision in a way that even CompUSA-level techs could understand and adapt to their own needs.
The discussion of the memory types and banking implications for dual Opterons I found particularly informative. I might choose to go with slightly less expensive parts when I finally build such a system (when the Opterons come down a bit in price), but not knowing what the article describes could easily make a careless $50 savings in parts translate into a 50% reduction in performance (definitely not a worthwhile tradeoff).
Yes, PC hardware loses value rapidly. But a well-designed system can remain useful long after most people wouldn't even consider buying it based just on its specs. As an example, my own main desktop uses a dual PIII/933 with only a half gig of RAM. You might consider that barely even worth picking up off the curb if you saw someone throw such a machine away. I can assure you, though, that thanks to very careful choices made when building it, that it runs everything I want just fine (as you might guess, I don't care about Quake 3, but for anything but an all-glitter-no-substance FPS, It runs just fine).
Sadly enough, WRT my last paragraph, I think you may have meant exactly what I describe. However, you should perhaps refrain from slamming an article as meaningless until you read it.
Back to work...gaming...
-----
"Cogito Eggo Sum: I think, therefore, waffle."
Who says you need to spend a few thousand dollars. $1000 will buy you a XP 2500+ system with 512 MB Ram and a midrange video card (Radeon 9600). If you don't like building systems yourself. Falcon Northwest will sell you one for $995 (although it has "only" an XP 2200+ processor). Such a systems should be able to run Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 at decent (though not spectacular) framerates, provided that both games actually get released.
Agreed that it is cheaper. But, it takes time. Some may find it "fun" but others just want to open the box and use the computer. Oh, and you're price doesn't include OS or monitor, while the Dell's price does. The Dell also probably includes some software (MS Works, etc.), which you don't include. Of course, if you already have a monitor and OS, or plan to use free (beer) software, paying for it again is a waste of money, but you're not making a fair comparison if you don't include them. Your system would still cheaper, but not $600 cheaper, only about $200 cheper.
You were doing so well and then you say something stupid like this. Please show me an AthlonXP with a (stock) 800MHz FSB and Hyperthreading. In the AMD world, your best bet is to go with the XP2500+ (Barton) which is the low end of the 400MHz FSB parts.
Granted, we're really talking about the same 200MHz signal, just that one is a quad-speed and the other is only double, but the end result is some -major- differences in memory bandwidth.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
I was thinking more along the lines of Steel Panthers, Civilization III, War in Russia, Europa Universalis, Combat Mission etc. etc.... Those are turn-based (although Combat Mission with a twist) and I don't think they would be playable on a GBA.
You can hae analog controls on PC as well. The reason why they aren't that popular is because people prefer mouse/keyboard.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
i didn't even go with the high end speakers or audio card as i already have a studio setup, but here are the prices i got from pricewatch:
Zalman CNPS7000-AlCu x2 = ~$60 shipped
Opteron 246 CPU x2 = ~$1600
Tyan Thunder K8W = $500
Corsair CMX512RE-3200LL memory x8 (4GB) = $1272
GeForce FX 5900 Ultra = $379
Digital 37 GB Raptor 10,000 rpm S-ATA drive with FDB motors = $115
Optorite DD0203 DVD+/-RW Combo Drive = $110
SuperMicro SP450-RP power supply = $138
Monster Power PowerCenter PC1000 with Clean Power Stage 2 v2.0 = $150
SuperMicro 742i-450 Server Chassis = ~$250
Griffin PowerMate = $50
Matrix Orbital MX2 LCD panels, LCDC software = $100
total = $4,724
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
I was just mentioning that sometimes you have to wait if stuff if it is out of stock and is backordered, or maybe you ordered a part from a foreign website because it's not markted here, or you're having something heavy (like a case) shipped from Buttefuck, NM, etc.
But I too prefer to wait a few days, the experience is much more consistent. Selection is always much better.
But nothing beats the convienence of being able to cruise by (Microcenter, Fry's, etc.) and make a quick exchange in the heat of a system build.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
...but you lost me at the first mention of a $99 keyboard. If "understand[ing] what you are doing and why" means being stupid with your money, please count me out.
I still use the old IBM keyboard I got at a computer show for $9 four years ago - you know, the ones you could just about hammer nails with and still use.
Some notes:
Dell price does not include monitor.
Dell price does include Windows XP (Home, not Professional), because there's no way to not buy Windows XP from Dell. So, yeah, that's $100 there.
As for the productivity software, to get that price, I selected the crappiest (read: cheapest) of the possible options, which is the WordPerfect Family Pack, for $60.
That's $160 worth of questionable stuff, and it still leaves dell at slightly under $1100.
Yeah, sure, for someone who doesn't know anything about computers and doesn't want to know, I wouldn't recommend they go out and do put one together. But for anyone who does have a clue, I can't imagine buying from Dell. Even if you're going to buy a full system, buying from a place like Tiger is cheaper. I'd only recommend Dell to someone who needs the 24/7 technical service, and has no other alternative for it.
The whole point of upgrading your system, IMO, is ensuring you avoid the multi-upgrade effect. To upgrade your CPU, you need to upgrade to a new mainboard. The new mainboard also needs new RAM, because your 512MB 133Mhz SDRAMs won't work on DDR-based boards(almost all today). And, you might also need more power-juice, so you gotta upgrade to a nice 350W or 400W power-supply.
/w A7V & 512MB SDRAM, I gotta upgrade ALL three components! That sucks!
This is what I'm facing right now: To upgrade my Athlon 1.2Ghz
So:
- Make sure you get a good motherboard that can expand memory and CPU readily. You don't want to buy a motherboard that can only house a 2.4 Ghz, but not the top-of-the line 3.5 Ghz. This protects your investment down the line when 3Ghz hits the sub $100 range(canadian) and you want to upgrade.
- Memory - get the best you can. DDR400, so that when you upgrade 1 year or 2 from today, the new mainboards can still work with DDR400.
Gotta have one of these on gaming machine. People say you can use it for other stuff (graphics editing, or anything else that you could use a keyboard macro for).... I'll believe them. Actually had to use a keyboard the other day for BF1942.... that was tough. Think Geek Plug
...Install Windows XP.
elFarto
Honestly, reading this article, it was a great fit for my "what's the fastest video compression workstation I can build that I can also play games on." Seemed to meet those needs quite nicely. I'm running a dual Athlon 2800+ MP system right now, but some next gen gear is PCI-X only, so it's getting near time to update.
One big issue in getting a real workstation from Dell or HP or whatever is that they tend to be configured with high end 3D and SCSI. I'm not doing 3D animation or running a database. I want good gamer 3D, wickedly fast 2D (for playing back HD video), and S-ATA RAID (video requires high bandwidth, but isn't very sensitive to latency). The SCSI premium is still way too high, especially compared to the nearly-as-good S-ATA.
So, I'm quite likely to be building a box quite similar to this, and found the article generally helpful. Honestly, if anything it was a little low end. The audio system (professional 7.1 channel) for testing HD and DVD content costs way more than the workstation will.
My video compression blog
And for the headphones - I can't hear in my right ear, you insensitive clod!
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
I doubt you'll be able to find a dual Opteron 246 system for $500 next year. This article was a lot better than the Linux Journal's annual ultimate Linux box article.
Headphones that achieve a good seal in/on/around the ear can be flat down to DC.
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Ahem, BS! just look at the success of the GBA!
This has SNES style graphics and the games are so much more fun then most newer 3d games. I'm pretty sure Nintendo is "staying afloat"
i guess you havn't seen it, if you got a cable modem i highly suggest you download the 600 meg video demo. Gaming will never be the same. get it here, gamespy free
Well, of the games you mention, I've only played Civ3 (which is wonderful). No reason that couldn't be ported to, say, Xbox - with some control tweaks. The biggest burden for the console user there, I'd say, would be display resolution. But it could surely be done - the original Civ made it onto the Snes, so the GBA is feasible, with the same display caveat. I'd rather play it on a PC, of course - no argument there.
But, of course, these titles don't appear on consoles, primarily - I assume - because they just wouldn't sell, which in the game industry is probably the most dominant factor of all.
With controllers, yes, there are some nice options for the PC - including console pad adapters - but the difference is that console controllers are standardised. When you know that everyone playing your game is going to have a Dual Shock (or equivalent), you can approach the control system with more confidence, and tie it more effectively to the gameplay. Not that everyone does, by a long shot, but when it works - as in Halo, Sons of Liberty, or Mario Sunshine - it works beautifully. You know every player will have analogue face buttons, so you can make button sensitivity a core part of the game - something I can't imagine you could ever do on a PC. I guess a good example - albeit a niche title - is Shake It Bravoes / Mad Maestro on PS2, where button sensitivity accounts for half the gameplay dynamic. On the other hand, there are clearly times when the knowledge that every play has a full keyboard and a mouse is similarly liberating...
In the end, I suppose, it's all good. We should really just be thankful we have the choices we do...
I agree that XBL and content download are great additions to console gaming (and Ghost Recon is great fun), but I don't see consoles ever approaching the community content level of PCs - the manufacturers won't allow it, because a poorly made game map that crashes an Xbox, say, is going to shatter the no-maintenance, plug-and-play appeal that consoles are founded on. The two main options, as I see them, are to impose a QA regime on released levels and maps, which will be a major bottleneck, or restrict the level building capacity as in the Timesplitters series, which greatly restricts the kind of content users can create. In addition to that, console manufacturers rely on software sales and licences for profit, so they won't want you getting two years of extended modded play out of Unreal Tournament (say) for free; more likely they'll throw out the occasional free map to keep your interest up, and then start releasing commercial expansions; I understand a few companies are sizing up paid downloads via Xbox Live, for example. Nothing wrong with that per se - if the quality's good enough, I'll gladly pay. But the level of community contribution regularly seen on the PC would stifle such a scheme pretty quickly, IMO. It's a shame... but, as you say, we do get cheat-free, consistent level playing fields, which is great... swings and roundabouts...
Hard Disk speed is important! Take a deep breath, and think about how long it takes to load all the 4 layer textures you use playing modern games. Those do NOT store completely in RAM and have to be loaded dynamically.
That's ridiculous. Your system is paging, or the game engine you're using is rather poorly written.
A system with a gig of memory easily has space for the OS, working space for the game, and enough room to store a full CD worth of textures. Most games I know of ship on CDs, and it's unusual for a game to take up more than three CDs. As a general rule of thumb, most of the space in a modern game is devoted to FMV. Audio data comes in second. Finally, it's quite rare for a game to be using *all* the textures in the game anywhere near each other.
Last of all, game designers are not stupid. If they're trickle-loading levels, they allow for a pretty healthy margin of safety. You don't wait until the first time you need a texture for the current frame to start loading it. You are not going to be in a deathmatch and have the game suddenly decide that it needs a texture, because that game is going to have been playtested and testers are going to have complained about something like this.
Finally, the best speedup you can possibly see is cutting such a delay in perhaps half. If you're hitting the disk at all, you're going to have a noticeable delay. Throw that same money at RAM. It's a much better investment.
2. Older Nvidia cards are NOT Dx9 compliant, which will limit their long-term viability.
Apparently we have a different meaning of "long-term viability". No existing video card is going to be a fancy card three years from now. Furthermore, OGL and DX are designed to make it awfully easy to gracefully degrade if the hardware doesn't handle a favorite feature. Furthermore, game developers design around what hardware exists, not around what the APIs can support. I remember when Matrox sold the first cards with hardware environmental bump-mapping support. There were a tiny handful of games that supported it. Sure, the API was out there, but nobody was interested in blowing time on a feature that most people wouldn't get the most out of.
I know this because I benchmark my purchases to make sure I get the intended result, not from idle speculation...
Let me guess. You use a dedicated benchmarking program, *not* an actual game. 3dmarkwhatever. And yes, it's designed to very carefully exercise the entire feature set of the API. This is *not* what actual games do.
AMD processors have a long history of problems with certain game vendors, most notably Sony/Verant
The primary issue with AMD has been supporting chipset problems with hardware, not with the CPUs themselves.
1GB of ram is WAY too small to cache all the textures of the newer games. WAY WAY too small. Ask Tim Sweeny why he's so hot on 64-bit architecture, and you'll find it's mostly the RAM ceiling.
Sweeny's an optimistic guy. With the most influential chip vendor pushing 32 bit hardware to consumers, with existing 64 bit hardware inducing a 32-bit performance hit, and with zero existing installed base, Tim can require a 64 bit architecture for his next game if he wants. Of course, it'll flop in the market, but he's welcome to do so. Apparently he's forgotten how (not) smoothly the transition to 32 bits went. Remember that for prices to come down and a product to take off as a non-luxury item, it has to sell to businesses and to a lesser degree, to Joe Sixpack home users (remember the fate of Aureal, who forgot that).
Headphones get uncomfortable after awhile to me.
Fair enough.
I went with the klipsch promedia system and have enjoyed it for over 3 years now. This is coming from a trance DJ who has 2 seperate sets of Professional quality studio 'phones to try as well.
(A) You're a DJ and you use computer speakers instead of stereo speakers?
(
May we never see th
[shrug] I did skip over the rest when I saw the 2.4 GHz line.
May we never see th
" Decent set of headphones, unless you're hooking your computer to your nice stereo system. Headphones are *far* cheaper (I'd say roughly order-of-magnitude) for equivalent quality than speakers. They also give a better stereo effect. Aim for at least $80, and listen to 'em. You will lose some bass, unfortunately, which a lot of people like -- but if you live in a college dorm or play games at night, you aren't going to be able to shake the neighborhood anyway"
Yep....totally agree here........in fact, if I may make a suggestion...... a good set of sealed headphones may make a huge difference as well. Not only won't they wake the neighbors, they won't even wake the cat in your lap. And they, by nature, tend to be a bit bassy. I've found the Sennheiser HD280Pro or HD212Pro to be a nice, inexpensive choice............. $99 or $50 from headphone.com.