Newbie needs help

Golly, gosh oh gee... sure are alot of choices out there!
I'm about to purchase a new system and am in need of advice. Would you-all recommend the dual core? ... the Athalon? ....Nvidea Vs. Radion? ....do you think I need ultra high speed drives? ...suggestions on size of power supply? ...fav brand? ...any other suggestions?

Thanks!

Chimera

It depends entirely on what you're gonna be using it for; care to elaborate?

I sure would like my new system to rock on SL.

What's your budget?

Do you have a friend who can build computers?

Trust me, custom built computers rock. The customization is amazing, and you often get better performance than a factory built computer (because of your selection).

Personally, I would recommend an AMD dual-core processor, and NVIDIA.

Yeah, I'm with Kekhnev... AMD and NVIDIA all the way. You'll probably also want to put 1gb of RAM in the box... although I can run SL with only 256, it's not pretty. 512 is a noticeable improvement, but it still hammers swap -- thusly, I advise 1gb.

Getting a machine specifically for SL really is a case for a custom build. Pick your parts, and have someone put it together for you.

Sorry I can't be more specific but hope this helps...

For SL to run well (as I understand it) you'll want to put your money into the processor, memory and graphics card. After that good access speed and cache on the hard drive might be nice.

I don't think I can say much on which brands will be best because a) I haven't been keeping up with latest developments (last time I checked I think AMD & ATI were the best choice for games) and b) it's gonna be about what instructions etc. SL uses.

There probably won't be much of a difference though so I guess whichever the cheaper equivalent is (check some comparisons on Toms Harware or something as the numbers the marketing people give you often don't mean a thing).

As far as I know SL doesn't take advantage of dual cores so there'd be no point in the extra expence involved in that.

I usually pick a power supply that's a bit above what I need to power all my components for stability.

A PC is a big investment so I'd really recommend you check reviews and comparisons of the components (especially the motherboard) online before you buy. I've never come across a brand PC I liked but there's a lot of places that'll build you a PC from the parts you specify if you or a friend don't want to (it really is very easy BTW).

Last but not least setup is very important to how a PC runs after the first couple of months, at very least you should have separate system and data partitions on your HDD.

What do you mean, "separate system and data partitions"?

It's where a single physical disk (or array) is split into multiple sections (think virtual drives - each section has it's own drive letter) in order to keep different data separate. System data (OS, apps etc.) doesn't change much whereas the data you work with (documents, SL cache etc.) does; so if you separate them you'll get less fragmented system files and your PC runs better for longer.

Plus you can do a clean install of your OS (which I feel Windows needs once every 6-12 months, but then I'm a bit of a clean freak when it comes to my system) without having to find something to transfer your files onto while you do.

I know what partitions are; I've done dual-boot systems and such before.

But, seriously, that's pretty stupid. Lots of things HAVE to be on the C: drive anyways, like My Documents, and most things default there.

Fragmentation is a very small problem with NTFS and a striping RAID array.

Actually, very little has to be on C:, I've got my 'My Documents' on E: and I haven't found anything I want to move that I haven't been able to yet. Is there some reason this is stupid that I'm overlooking?

To be honest, I would have been worried if someone with their title as 'programmer' didn't know what partitions are, it was more of a just in case/for other peeps statement. Sorry if I offended at all.

And I'm affraid I've seen NTFS systems almost grinding to a halt because of fragmentation (okay, so it wasn't a very well looked after one but still it does happen). Although, come to think of it, I haven't tried running with one partition for ages so I could be a bit out of date with my knowledge.

With a 320 gig RAID array running almost equivalent to 14400 RPM, fragmentation really doesn't matter.

*stunned silence at Keknehv's 1337 box*

...And then, on the other hand, fragmentation becomes downright painful with a Pentoolium 100 with 5400 RPM (That's optimistic--it might be 3200). Ah, the joys of FAT.

For SL and general purpose

: 1 gig ram MIN 512 is a waste of time nowadays, utter slow to.
: Nvidia 6600 - 6800 - 7800 (you never said how much you wanted to spend ;P)
: 500-600watt psu (watch this one, some cheat on their spec's)
: AMD Athlon 64 - 3-4+ ghz
: Harddrive i leave up to you, alot of decent ones out there,
i use raptor 10.000 rpm's and some older scisi's (total 890gig ish)
: Most motherboards come with inbuild nic/soundcard so those are easy to cover,some also come with wireless nic as pci addon.

If you can dont use a onboard vid card in motherboard,, i haate those so much.

Self buildt, or customs beat any brandname out there , (;p the one i seen anyway), i Brand name pc's ? - avoid them like the pest.

Like I said, I'm not up to date on my stuff, but isn't an Athlon 64 gonna cost more and run 32bit apps (like Second Life) slower because it'll be running some type of emulation?

I have repeatedly heard that with a system configuration that is ably up to par and won't bottleneck it, the GeForce FX 6600 GT (by Nvidia) is a solid choice at a good price, and the price will be likely dropping more in the near future.

Anyone use this card and would like to share their personal experiences with it?

Athlon 64 is cheap , and it runs alot faster then the 32'bit cpus' those exist more?

Go look at cpu prices for the Athlons64 , and dual' ones, not to bad nowadays, dual is still "new" so high priced yet, give it to xmas then they will be half (/predicts!)

No, it's not emulation. It supports the x86 instruction set fully, but it also has 64 bit registers, and more possible memory addressing. That may not make sense if you don't know assembly.