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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 And by the time they can afford the lastest whiz-bang video card, it's already outdated.
(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!
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that does not have the kinda surplus money that can blown on hardware for a state-of-the-art gaming system that will be outdated in six months.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?
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
Yes, from reading the article it looks like the problem most people face is not which component provides the best price-quality ratio, but which component is the most expensive and how I can justify wasting 2 times more money than needed on that.
I am sure more people would find an article useful if it was written from a somewhat realistic viewpoint. He says "I'm paying careful attention not to waste any money either" in the beginning of the article. But if spending $40 on an "incredibly well-built USB aluminum knob that acts like a super scroll wheel" with "a pulsing blue LED light at the base of the unit" is not wasting money, I don't know what is.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
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"
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.
Interestingly enough, everyone seems to think that the "golden era of gaming" was whatever era they starting playing games in. That was when "graphics didn't matter, it was all about the game play." Ask kids that today, and they will tell you that "Game X (from 3 years ago) was 'all about the game play.'"
Do you think any game company today could make a profit or even stay afloat if they made SNES-level games today? While I agree that a lot of newer games are mostly fluff, let's not sweep the entire market under the rug in favor of Double Dragon and Rad Racer.
> 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
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
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.
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