New PC Recommendations for SL?
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Katier Reitveld
M2 News Manager
Join date: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 412
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07-12-2006 02:20
From: Striker Wolfe If you use an ATI card use an ATI chipset, if it’s an Nvidia video card use an Nvidia chipset. NEVER mix, we had a few people complain about instability when they mixed an ATI video card with a Nvidia chipset or vise versa and had nothing but problems. Even the Lindens clearly state this configuration is not wise and issues can / will occur. Personally, I only buy MSI motherboards due to the low defect rate I have had with them, 13 motherboards in 3 years, not 1 failure. I think you'll be ok NVidia Graphics on ATI mobo.. the only instability issues I've heard are ATI are on NVidia and they are by no means on all rigs. |
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Katier Reitveld
M2 News Manager
Join date: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 412
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07-12-2006 02:23
From: Greg Hauptmann Thanks Thili,
So you're saying (I think) I should be able to buy and use the SATAII HDDs in the motherboard I mentioned which has only SATA (not SATAII) support then?
I was just wondering whether the motherboard I spec'ed out might not be the best option if it didn't support SATA II HDDs?
Cheers gigabye boards never seem to be the best specced. Best to look at Abit, Asus, DFI and ok ok MSI  . Rest of the spec is fine although I'd go Samsung Spinpoint or Hitachi as the Hard Drives - both are the best balance of speed and quietness available at the moment. |
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Shirley Marquez
Ethical SLut
Join date: 28 Oct 2005
Posts: 788
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07-12-2006 08:44
From: Greg Hauptmann
b) is the graphics card overkill for SL?
Looks about right to me for a system in that class. My current rule of thumb for a gaming sytem (including SL) is that the CPU and the video card should cost about the same amount of money. So a low-end CPU (under US$200) would be paired with an NVidia 7600 or ATI X1600, a mid-range CPU (like you have) would go with an NVidia 7900GT or ATI X1800 (or the bottom end of the X1900 series), and a high-end (over US$500) CPU would go with an NVidia 7950GX2. (Given how great that card is and the small price differential, it's hard to recommend an NVidia 7900GTX or ATI X1900. For $100 more than a 7900GTX, you get the equivalent of TWO of them, and you're ready for quad SLI if you ever decide to go really crazy.) |
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Greg Hauptmann
Registered User
Join date: 30 Oct 2005
Posts: 283
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07-12-2006 13:17
tks guys Re the Gigabyte motherboard & Number of PCI slots- Heres the list of motherboards my shop has on their list (Motherboard List - www.umart.com.au/pro/pro...10&bid=2&id2=105). You see that in the 'Socket AM2 AMD' range there are only a few listed for ASUS.
- The ASUS of equivalent value (M2NPV-VM) seems to only have 2 PCI slots, whereas the Gigabyte has 4 PCI slots.
- I was concerned about this as I have right now 1 TV tuner card + 1 special audio card which I use to send the GV-PVR audio through and then onto the TV. If I wanted to add a 2nd TV tuner card then already I'd need 3 PCI slots no?
- The next step up in the ASUS (M2N-SLI Deluxe) adds about another $100 to the price and then only has 3 PCI slots (i.e. Gigabyte had 4).
- Any comments on this. What's the actual concern with the Gigabyte, is it buggy or just a SETUP useability thing?
Thanks again |
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Persephone Marx
Nymphetamine girl.
Join date: 26 Apr 2006
Posts: 18
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Usable PC config
12-22-2006 22:05
I have a fairly decent rig for SL. This is what I got.
Compaq Presario SR2002X Desktop PC
with...
ASUS A8M2N-LA Motherboard.
AMD Sempron 3200+ 1.8 GHz
1 GB PC2-5300 RAM
nVidia 7800 GS 512 MB
120 GB SATA, 7200 RPM.
It runs SL pretty good. Even with all the bells and whistles with a nearly full sim full of prims and scripts.
And I only paid like $350 for the base system, $170 for the ram stick and $95 for the vid card. So, rather economical if you ask me.
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Striker Wolfe
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Join date: 11 Dec 2004
Posts: 355
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12-23-2006 10:32
From: Persephone Marx I have a fairly decent rig for SL. This is what I got.
Compaq Presario SR2002X Desktop PC
with...
ASUS A8M2N-LA Motherboard.
AMD Sempron 3200+ 1.8 GHz
1 GB PC2-5300 RAM
nVidia 7800 GS 512 MB
120 GB SATA, 7200 RPM.
It runs SL pretty good. Even with all the bells and whistles with a nearly full sim full of prims and scripts.
And I only paid like $350 for the base system, $170 for the ram stick and $95 for the vid card. So, rather economical if you ask me. Persephone, Considering this thread is over 6 months old pretty much what everyone recommended here has changed. I'd say you got taken for that setup, you have you can get a much better system for about $80 more. The following are the prices from newegg.com as of today: Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive $69.99 eVGA 256-P2-N624-AR GeForce 7900GS 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 KO Video Card $175.99 CORSAIR XMS2 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X1024A-6400 $124 GIGABYTE GA-965P-S3 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard $124.99 Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6300 $179 Grand total coming to $694.65 after shipping of course if you don't already have a case for it you gotta throw in an extra $25 or so but overall not bad for the price
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AMD 4400+ X2 OC 4800+
MSI 7800GTX OC 256MB
2GB OCZ Platinum Rev2 2-3-2-5 1T Timings @ 218MHz
Western Digital Raptor 10K RPM 74GB
Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Music
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Striker Wolfe
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Join date: 11 Dec 2004
Posts: 355
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12-23-2006 10:38
From: Persephone Marx I have a fairly decent rig for SL. This is what I got.
Compaq Presario SR2002X Desktop PC
with...
ASUS A8M2N-LA Motherboard.
AMD Sempron 3200+ 1.8 GHz
1 GB PC2-5300 RAM
nVidia 7800 GS 512 MB
120 GB SATA, 7200 RPM.
It runs SL pretty good. Even with all the bells and whistles with a nearly full sim full of prims and scripts.
And I only paid like $350 for the base system, $170 for the ram stick and $95 for the vid card. So, rather economical if you ask me. Persephone, Considering this thread is over 6 months old pretty much what everyone recommended here has changed. I'd say you got taken for the setup you have, you can get a much better system for about $80 more. The following are the prices from newegg.com as of today: Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive $69.99 eVGA 256-P2-N624-AR GeForce 7900GS 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 KO Video Card $175.99 CORSAIR XMS2 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X1024A-6400 $124 GIGABYTE GA-965P-S3 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard $124.99 Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6300 $179 Grand total coming to $694.65 after shipping of course if you don't already have a case for it you gotta throw in an extra $25 or so but overall not bad for the price
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AMD 4400+ X2 OC 4800+
MSI 7800GTX OC 256MB
2GB OCZ Platinum Rev2 2-3-2-5 1T Timings @ 218MHz
Western Digital Raptor 10K RPM 74GB
Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Music
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