Tips to choose a correct computer

Hello everyone,

I'm not sure I'm in the correct place to ask, but I plan to replace my computer and I'm a bit lost with all the tech details to choose a new one. I have a small budget so I picked 3 computers under 500 euros and would like some ranking opinions about the processor and graphic card.

1: HP SlimLine S3825FR
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ with 4 G memory, 640 G HDD & GeForce 9100

2: Acer Aspire X3200-PR7H
AMD Phenom X4 9550 with 4 G memory, 640 G HDD & GeForce 9500 GS

3: HP Pavilion A6723fr
Intel Pentium Dual Core E2220 with 4 G memory, 500 G HDD & ATI Radeon HD 4650

I don't want to start a flame war about the best graphic card and/or processor, I'm just looking for advices on a decent computer to run SL. I'm also mixing with traktor so if the computer can handle both it'll be great. (My current mac mini with intel integrated graphic card does, ok with shitty graphics but it does)

You would be better off with the Pavilion. The Radeon HD4650 outclasses the two GeForces by a pretty significant amount. With only a Core 2 Duo, it may not have the processor power of the quad-core Phenom; but when you are pumping heavy graphics such as within SL, more GPU power will give you better performance than CPU power.

Hello,

I just found another computer that meets my budget with the following configuration:
Aspire ASX1700
Quad core Q8200
1 To HDD
4 Go memory
ATI Radeon 4650 1Go

I think it'll be way better than the previous one, am I right?

my personal advice would be:

- avoid 64bit systems
- avoid quad-core CPUs
- choose an Nvidia video card if SL is important for you

if you have money enough, find a small but FAST hard disk for your system: you can expand storage size later

(feel free to ignore this, but a low-budget computer that aims to run Second Life should run on Linux:Linux SL viewer is OK, and you can save hundreds of dollars on software - and spend them on better hardware.)

The Core 2 will have more than enough CPU power if you have a good graphics card, in my experience.

Oh dear, a friend of mine is doing all of the above:
64 bit and quad core. Can you give me some info I can pass along to him about why not to do that?

I'd be interested in having some explanations too...

I can't think of a single good reason to avoid a quad core CPU.

As far as 64-bit Windows goes, XP x64 should be avoided because the driver situation for it is horrible, and it's not going to get better. It's a technological dead end.

Vista x64, on the other hand, is probably a better choice than 32-bit Vista. The driver issue is much less of a problem.

I've got a quad core computer running 64 bit Vista and it's the best SL computer I've ever had. I put it together myself and have had zero issues with it with SL or anything else I've tried to do with it.

Running a Quad-Core Phenom II @ 3 Ghz with an Nvidia GTX275 and everything runs peachy!!!

Havent had issues with SL either.

Ditto.

That said: If it comes down to getting the best prefab computer bang for the buck, and each dollar counts, the amount of extra money it would cost to go quad-core vs. dual-core would be better spent on things that would yield better immediate performance, like more memory, or a discrete graphics card (as opposed to integrated graphics), or a better video card. Don't get me wrong - a quad-core will give you phenomenal performance; but the gains made won't mean anything if inadequate memory or graphics performance are choking the life out of your computer.

As for 64-bit: There is no reason whatsoever to not get a 64-bit processor, particularly from a financial standpoint. A 64-bit OS, however, may be a different matter. However, 64-bit Vista, 64-bit Windows 7, and even 64-bit Linux, have all matured to the point where most people won't encounter any 64-bit-specific issues.

/me hugs her HP quad core I love mine!

Best advice I was ever given: Get the most that you can with the money you have to spend.

Correct

In my experience, Everything from CPU speed to vidcard has an affect on performance, except hard drive space. SL's cache uses 1 GB max.

My own personal experience.

Old system before it fried:

AMD XP2500 1.8 Ghz processor
1 GB RAM
ATI X1300 256 MB video card

Rebuilt with limited budget and an older gfx card:

Intel dual core 3.0 Ghz
2 GB RAM
Nvidia FX5500 128 mb video card.

Both had Win XP Home 32 bit.

Difference in how SL runs, is now I run about the same speed, with less flashy graphics. So even though I have a better processor and twice the RAM I'm worse off than before.

Buy the best you can afford for now and something like RAM and a video card are easy to upgrade later when you have the funds.

Thanks! this was exactly what I meant.
It would have taken me a day to write it correctly, though


re:64 bit
my experience is -long story made short- I had issues in the past with 64-bit systems, but they may have been caused by specific OS issues. The other reasons why I don't suggest them are price; and the fact that I don't see many applications that really leverage 64-bit systems.
If you can buy a 64-bit CPU for the same money as a 32-bit CPU, and you're sure the operating system you're going to use will handle it well, I say go for 64-bit!

My new 64-bit Vista laptop way exceeds the performance of my Dell super duper desktop that I got last fall.


This is definitely true. Your graphics card and memory are going to be the two biggest factors.

I'm pretty sure all modern AMD & Intel CPUs are 64-bit.

Vista loves memory, and Vista x64 will let you use as much as your motherboard and budget can handle. Even if you aren't running 64-bit applications, having more memory available means 32-bit software can use all they want without having to use virtual memory.

32-bit Windows is really only for systems with less than 4GB of memory now.

Quite right. To amplify:

64-bit XP was a poor relation of the Windows family. There wasn't much incentive for most people to adopt it, since computers with more than 2GB RAM were scarce during the XP era. Device drivers had to be redone for 64-bit XP and few manufacturers did. Unless your corporate IT department sets you up with 64-bit XP, and a set of applications and hardware that is specifically designed for it, there is no good reason to run it.

64-bit Vista (and Windows 7, which is a less radical departure from Vista under the hood than Vista was from XP), as you point out, are another matter. Device drivers had to be redone for Vista anyway, and nearly all things that got Vista drivers at all got both 32 and 64-bit versions. (Manufacturers are required to provide 64-bit drivers if they want to use the "Designed for Windows Vista" logo on their products.) Acceptance of 64-bit Vista has been much greater now that computers with 4GB or more RAM are common; HP was the first big company to pre-install the 64-bit version by default on consumer systems with 4GB RAM, and other companies have followed. You won't actually get much benefit from the 64-bit OS if you ONLY run SL on the system (there is a possible minor benefit from being able to cache more of your hard disk), since a single 32-bit app can't use more than 2GB of your RAM, but if you also run other things alongside it then each program will be able to get up to 2GB.

As for the quad-core CPU... at one time there were odd performance problems with SL and multiple cores. They have all been fixed, and the software now has some support for more than one core. (To get full advantage, make sure that Advanced/Rendering/Use Multiple Threads is on.) SL doesn't scale all that well with more than two cores, because the app isn't fully multithreaded, but you do get some gain, and even more if you want to be able to run other applications at the same time.

Finally, I don't recommend ATI video cards for SL; they have had too many driver problems. The company's recent move of a lot of their products to "legacy" support (in other words, little or no support) was the last straw; some of the products that they moved were only three years old, and you can still buy laptops that contain the now-unsupported video chipsets! I don't like the idea of my video card maker artificially limiting the useful life of my product by prematurely dropping updates for it. NVidia's track record of continued support of older products is much better.

Nearly all. The one notable exception: the most popular version of the Intel Atom (the one found in nearly all netbooks) does not have 64-bit support. (The desktop variants of the Atom do have 64-bit support.) As the motherboards used in most netbooks have a 2GB memory ceiling, the lack of 64-bit support is not a major shortcoming.

Yep, I had those problems, too. As, I'm sure, has every other 64-bit early-adopter. My problems were driver issues in Vista; and lack of proper Flash support, and specific compatibility issues with the SL viewer, in 64-bit Ubuntu Linux. Most of these issues have long since been resolved (though SL viewer compatibility problems with 64-bit Gstreamer in Linux still remain).