Computer Question.

[marburyisgod]

Building a new computer, and so far this is what I have it specced out to be;

Windows XP Media Center 64-Bit
Intel Pentium Core2Duo 2.13Ghz 4MB L2 Cache
Intel 946GZ Micro ATX Intel Motherboard (I would rather find something a little better)
Kingston 4GB DDR2 667 RAM
Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
256MB Nvidia GeForce 8600


I was wondering if there was a better processor/mobo combo for the price.
I wanted to be able to slap one of the SLI vid cards on my computer when I get one.

 

[Yoda007]

Intel boards are crap IMO, unless your building a server. Look at an ASUS P5B (Deluxe if you want)

Are you buying the 8600 or do you allready have that ?

With the price of the 8800GTS cards, there is very little point in buying an 8600

The other thing to consider is the new Quad cores price drop as of yesterday, possibly one of those is in your price range ?

 

[harvey]

XP 64 bit is garbage. Either go XP 32 bit or if you NEED (and you don't unless you are hard set on 4 gig of RAM) 64 bit, go Vista.

For the motherboard, try to go with one of these chipset's:
P35, P965, 680i, 650i.

These are by far your best 4 choices.

Intel just had price cuts so you would be well served to try and get a speedier CPU. Dual core>Quard core IMHO. There are about 8 programs in the world right now that even would make use of quad core. For the same cash you are better served getting a much faster dual core.

The Hard drive you picked is very good.

The 8600 is /meh You really will be kicking yourself if you do not get at least the base level 8800.

 

[marburyisgod]

I own the 8600.

I want XP 64-bit for the 4 gig mem usage, I want something that 6 accounts on one computer won't lag up on. With the new EQ expansions, 1gig and 1 toon is pretty hard on your computer.

Checking out an ASUS board.

 

[JimJohnson]

you can run 6 acconts on 2 gigs ram in TBS if your video card is good.

Video Card/Ram I still consider about equal factors. 2 good video cards would give a better performance boost then 4gigs ram

 

[sparky13]

Honestly, to make use of the 4gb of RAM (and yes I'm putting together a laptop with 4gb in it)

Would you go with XP-64bit or Vista for EQ?

Not much more than EQ and some low-level apps are going to be on this laptop.

 

[marburyisgod]

I would either run Media Center 64-bit or the XP pro w/ 64-bit

 

[sparky13]

OK, because I'm spec'g out the LT with XP-Pro 64bit atm. Just wanted to be sure.

 

[kukmuk]

There are about 8 programs in the world right now that even would make use of quad core.

This is not entirely true, please be more specific. If you are trying to say that running a single process spread over all 4 cores, then yes you might be correct, however this is pretty much never the case. All OSes out right now support multi tasking, and therefore will be running more than one process. Since the quad core architecture is handled at the hardware level, the machine will spread the load of multiple processes and multiple threads over the cores, attempting to equalize the load. This is very nice for multi boxing, as each instance of EQ is a separate entity as seen by the computer and each runs in its own address space. Right now with my web browser, pidgin and tsmmc running I actually have 53 processes running. All four cores would indeed be utilized to do some work.

I apologize as I have not used a consumer quad core, however I use a dual socket Clovertown (8 cores total) at work everyday, and the SMP performance is very noticeable while working.