Thinking of this system to buy-opinions?

Hi,

I have been reading through the forums, but, I do not understand all the in's and out's of the technical info provided.

I would like to purchase a new pc with the following specs. Would appreciate feedback, opinions, "get, this, don't get this.. etc"

I only get a new pc about every 5 -6 years, so, I want to be able to play SL for many years to come.

Thanks for your feedback!

James..

Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 3.0 Ghz 12 mb cache 1333mhz FSB
Graphics Processor: Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2
4 GB Patriot Low Latency DDR SDRAM
liquid cooled
Motherboard: Nvidia nforce 790i Ultra SLI
Windows Vista Home Premium with SP1
250 GB SATA 3Gb/s 7,200 16 mb cache
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-FI XtremeGamer 7.1 Audio
standard keyboard20X Dual-Layer Burner
Power Supply:1000 watt Mulit-Gpu approved power supply
3 button mouse w/scroll wheel

Looks great. I can't vouch for SL in 5 years but I don't think they can do too much more to trick it out with the old code it all relies on.

You should do well with that. It is better then the one I just built and I expect mine to be able to handle SL for quite awhile to come.

Macphisto,

Thanks so much for the quick response. I will get this system shortly, and look forward to running SL!

Cheers!

James

personally I think it's unlikely SL will be able to take proper advantage of the GX2 (dual GPU) but 5 years is a long time. I'd still go with a GTX if it were my money, but it's not, it's your money, I don't have any money. SLI likewise. Unless of course you want to play other games too.

The quad-core won't do much unless you run four instances of SL (and have an internet connection that can sustain that). Tho again, 5 years down the line *hopefully* LL will have threaded things.

Is it really DDR ram? that don't make sense. It should say if it's DDR2 or DDR3 not DDR(1). So I'd check that.

Is Vista "Home Premium" 64bit? With 4GB ram it should be. (I'm not a Vista person do they even sell 32bit anymore?)

Liquid Cooling is usually not worth its price tag, but fanboys will disagree with me. Performance wise anyway, unless low-noise is *that* valuable to you.

This is all splitting hairs cause you asked for opinions. Honestly, it's a damn good machine anyway you slice it.

Hi Vampaerus,

Thank you for replying.

I should point out the pc will be used for other applications.. day to day stuff also..
The thing is, I do not replace my pc very much, or update for that matter, that is why I used the 5 year use as a guideline.

Therefore, I am trying to stay "reasonably" up to date as long as I can!!

The DDR ram states "4 GB Patriot EP+ Low Latency Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz- 2 X 2048MB (me bad, I forgot the "3"after DDR)

Regarding Vista, I think maybe staying with XP might be better, but, I may not have a choice. Operating system states "Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1-DirectX 10 Ready"... I can followup with this and report back.

The reason for the liquid cooling is trying to "future proof" again...I don't want to end up melting things.. lol

I hope I answered all your questions, and thank you for replying!

Cheers!

James

XP has "issues" addressing more than 3GB of system RAM. Vista32 does as well. A 64bit addressing scheme is required to efficiently make use of 4+GB RAM. Since the machine comes with 4GB I would *assume* they are bundling a 64bit, but best to be sure.

The biggest drawback to Vista was that Microsoft abandoned OpenGL (they have never "liked" it anyway as they want to push DirectX). But since alot of video cards have OpenGL optimizations in the hardware anyway, new video drivers take care of it themselves. Someone who actually has an up-to-date Vista install may wish to correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe Vista is no longer considered a "problem".

Hi Vampaerus,

I checked, and was told that the only versions were 32 bit. I am really confused!!
Home premium and ultimate with SP1 are both 32 bit. They do not offer it in 64 bit.
As I said, I do not know Vista very well, so, I do not know how to proceed now..

Thanks for any other assistance you can provide.

James

The system itself sounds great, James. I might suggest a couple of minor changes, though. First, I'd avoid liquid cooling. I learned that the hard way when I had a liquid system leak on me. The CPU and a good portion of the motherboard ended up getting soaked. Luckily, the machine was unplugged at the time. Had it been plugged in, it would have been absolutely disastrous.

The same machine is now air cooled (Zalman 9800 CPU fan, and multiple case fans), and it runs about 10 degrees cooler across the board than it ever did with the liquid. It's also significantly quieter. The Zalman speaks at a whisper, compared to the radiator/fan assembly that was in the liquid system. The case fans are each individually a little louder than the Zalman, but even the lot of them combined is quieter than that radiator used to be.

In my opinion, liquid cooling is nothing more than a gimmick. It's fodder for misguided bragging rights, nothing more. With it, gamers get to go to LAN parties and say what amounts to "look what a good plumber I am" when they show off their funky tubing and water blocks. Meanwhile, their systems are running hotter than they otherwise could, and they're constantly a risk of leakage if there's the slightest flaw in any of the components or assembly. Go with air cooling.

The other thing is I'm not totally sold on the 9800 GX2. While it is the fastest graphics card on the planet in terms of processing speed, which is great, it falls a little short on memory, in my opinion. nVidia advertises it as a 1GB card, but that's a little misleading. It's actually 512MB, doubled for the two GPU's in the card. In other words, it won't store a gigabyte worth of graphics in its memory. It will store half that amount, and then duplicate the same data so that both processors can access it.

A single 8800 Ultra would give you 50% more usable memory. It would process the data more slowly than the GX2 would, though, so I'm not really sure which one wins out in the end. If SL is your main concern, I suspect you'd be better off with the Ultra, since texture memory abuse is so rampant in SL. But I should stress that that's just in theory. I've never actually used a GX2.

Finally, I'll echo Vampaerus's warning about system memory. All 32-bit operating systems have a hard limit of 4GB of total memory. That includes all video memory and system RAM. So if you've got a 1GB video card, you'll never be able to use more than 3GB of system RAM. If you want to be able to use all 4GB, you need a 64-bit OS. Both XP and Vista are available in 64-bit versions.

Information on the 64-bit versions of Vista, and their various memory limits, is at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/64bit.mspx

Information on XP 64-bit is at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/default.mspx

If a retailer is telling you 64-bit versions are not available, all they mean is they don't happen to carry them. It doesn't mean they don't exist. Frankly, it's a little alarming, I think, that they'd give you such a misleading answer. I might suggest dealing with a seller who will give you more complete information. The fact that this one would even offer to sell you a "4GB" system without also offering you an adequate OS to support it seriously calls their integrity into question.


As for whether or not Vista is "fixed" yet for OpenGL, benchmarks would seem to indicate the answer is no. My understanding is that at this time, Vista still runs OpenGL applications more slowly than XP does, and that there are no signs that that is likely ever to change. And with the recent announcement that Windows 7 is based on Vista, it looks like we're in for lots more trouble ahead. I'd really been hoping that Windows 7 would be something totally different, and that it would allow Vista to be discarded as a bad egg, the same way XP served to erase the disaster that was ME. But it seems that's not gonna happen. Oh well. Like it or not, it seems Vista is here for the long haul.

Pretty tricked out; it should run SL pretty well. About the only things you could do to get even MORE extreme would be a quad SLI pair of 9800GX2 cards and a faster hard disk; both of those are upgrades you could make later if you want to gild the lily some more.

Vista is now officially supported by Linden Lab. So long as you have modern hardware, current video drivers, and plenty of RAM, it's no longer a problem for Second Life. You'll need about half a gigabyte more RAM than with XP to get an equal experience, but the original poster has more than enough.

Vista home ed. now supports 4GB of ram. The SP1 download fixed that. Before only the pro version could see 4GB.

What is the total cost? Spend 1/2 as much, and get an acceptable PC, I got one at Best Buy for $500 and upgraded the video card for $125. The money I save and will buy a new PC in 2 years. The PC I have has 2Gb of RAM, a fast AMD dual core processor and Windows Vista. This is much cheaper than buying bleeding edge, and will allow you to upgrade much sooner when you need to. Meanwhile you either make interest on the money you save, or you don't pay Visa Card interest if you are buying with a credit card.

Much better overall, trust me. And SL runs beautifully on this system, not one problem.

Since looking at your proposed specs, I'd say my solution was about 1/4 as much or even less... and I will have a better experience over 5 years because I will replace it sooner.

Your high-end PC will be mid-range in a year, and will be obsolete in your last 2 years of your proposed life cycle. Way overbuy. Save your money.

All cooling methods have their pitfalls.

Air cooling works, but if the ambient temperature is high enough it doesnt do any good. Heat Sinks with heat pipes help a bit more. To combat the fan noise, try using heat sinks that allow larger fans.

The only catch with Liquid Cooling is Maintenance & Care. There's always filling the resevoirs, watching for air bubbles. And it makes a pain-in-the-ass trying to swap out parts. IF you're living in a hot area, like Arizona, then it might be a better choice.

As for fears of "Leaks", that's taken care of with non-conductive coolants like PrimoChill. It was pretty neat watching their videos, where they dump the coolant onto a running PC and it just keeps running.

There's also Vapor-Phase Change Cooling, but that gets REALLY pricey. You're turning your PC into a mini-fridge. Uses the same method to cool things off. The catch with it is, you need to seal off the CPU with a gasket to prevent condensation. One lil' hole or gap and it'll short out.

While some folks will tell you not to go with water cooling, all the benchmark sites will say otherwise. I've seen it. I've done it. I did the benchmarks myself. It works. Buuuut... it just aint worth the hassle for me.

lol,

Thank you all for the very informative and valid points! Great points regarding
the liquid cooling, video card and Vista, etc. I will do some more research on the various components and make a more "educated" decision at this time.
That is what I love about these forums, many intelligent people, that help us less fortunate souls!! lol...

Thanks again for all of your advice, I really appreciate it!

Cheers,

James

technically, *every* program runs slower on Vista than XP on the same hardware. The more advanced/complicated OS eats up more in overhead.

Microsoft says they'll support XP til 2014. That's 6 years, kinda surprising. But personally I'd be skeptical of drivers. You need specific XP64 drivers for everything. Just cuz MS supports it, doesn't mean everyone else will. Oh and you'd have to buy it before the end of June. I'm sure you can find it after that, but the price will likely jump.

I'm a wannabe tree-huggy hippie type, so I despise the "disposable" world we live in. But sadly, I'm sure your completely right from an economics point of view. "future-proofing" a PC is impossible. Disposable is the norm.