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DIY 4 GHz Dual Core Gaming Rig For $720
Tom's Hardware has posted the detailed results of their recent quest to build a beefy gaming rig without a visit to the poorhouse. The trick it seems is to find a processor with 'cores designed for a much faster clock than their nominal rating at a speed of up to 4 GHz without problems.' They provide shopping lists for both a 'budget version' and a 'top flight version'.
By the time I got to page three, Toms Hardware was reeeaaallly slow.
Maybe try using a Coral Cache version so other folks get a chance to see the article.
Cheers!
I love the idea of a dual-core 4ghz processor, but the memory and video card selections on that rig are pretty shabby.
Most game programmers optimize their engines around video cards these days, not the CPU.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
for those who dont want to browse through n pages http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/06/12/your_diy_ga ming_rig_for_720/print.html
And for those of you who will complain about the article being split into so many pages, here is the print version. Coral Cache Directly No ads and one page. Enjoy.
Never mind, I am behind the times, the XP-120 is no longer made. I meant the Ultra-120 heatsink:
m l
http://svcompucycle.stores.yahoo.net/ultra-120.ht
Not a big deal, prices of CPUs from both AMD and Intel are going to go way down in the next few months. Besides, for most gaming you don't need a very powerful processor. All you need is a good graphics card and enough RAM (I would say 1.5-2 gigs).
According to newegg the Intel Pentium D 805 2.66GHz CPU is $118.99 (free shipping). That's about $3 less than the article states.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/06/12/your_diy_ga ming_rig_for_720/print.html
Always add print.html to a Tom's Article, that way you can actually read it.
Heres some hard data.
Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer
While that's true, if you skimp on the processor too much, you're going to starve your expensive GPU.
Also, Tom's did a benchmark a few months ago comparing performance with various amounts of RAM. While they found a decent improvement going 512MB -> 1Gig, they didn't find much difference going 1Gig -> 2Gig.
That said, even after reading it I included a matched pair of 1Gig sticks in my upgrade; it didn't add much to the price and it can't hurt. (Besides which, being able to alt-tab out of a game without swapping like mad is very nice)
It's official. Most of you are morons.
This article is completely misleading, the true gaming rig is $1223. The $720 version has a water-cooled 4Ghz CPU, but a PCIe 128MB, 64-bit, 4-pipeline video card. "Gaming machine"? Maybe for Duke Nukem or Castle Wolfenstein.
I was able to easily obliterate this $720 "Gaming Machine" for under $700 with a configuration I originally did a month ago: $698 Gaming Machine
I'm actually a fan of Tom's, I like their method of LCD analysis...but the $720 rig is pathetically underpowered and the spending on it was ridiculously misallocated. After comparing their system to mine, Tom's credibility has taken a serious hit with me.
http://ultimod.org/?url=http://www.tomshardware.co m/2006/06/12/your_diy_gaming_rig_for_720/print.htm l
Use this url if you're too lazy to copy and paste. It should strip the referer header and take you straight to the one-page print version.
I only mod funny =D
Thomas Pabst (the guy who started the site) is from Germany. He just recently sold/left the site, but I doubt the blokes running the show have English as a primary language.
No, GHz really is of very little importance. Take a look at the benchmark differences between AMD and Intel chips. AMD's Athlon XP chips did more work per clock cycle than any Pentium 4 processor of the same vintage. Next, look at Intel's offerings compared amongst themselves. A 3GHz Pentium 4 and a 3GHz Celeron are also drastically different. A 1.8GHz Opteron will spank a 2GHz Athlon XP any day.
Differences in work done per clock cycle don't just apply to the PowerPC architecture. I know you were probably just trying to be funny/cute, but the fact remains that once CPUs started hitting the hundreds of MHz, the performance gap grew and people began to notice how architecture efficiency really played a part in performance. It's even more true today than it was then.