Building New Pc - 1 Question - Help Please!

[Owgasm]

Hey all.

Slowly figuring out what i want in my new pc.

Sadly i don't know much about them.

I currently have 2 options for my processor.

A Intel Quad Core 2.4Ghz with 1066mhz bus

and

a Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0ghz with 1333mhz bus

I don't know what the "bus" thing actually does, all i know is, its the speed at which it sends information to like the ram and stuff?

What i'm trying to find out is which is faster? Which would be better for me?

Let me know.

Thanks

[Skyrin3]

Quad get the Quad you will notice the difference. FSB 1333 is good. Make sure u get DDR 1066 as well. At least 2 gig 4 gig if u can afford it, I am a IT tech so yeah its what i run.

[Owgasm]

Thanks for that. But it didn't help me make my decission.

I know the 1333mhz is good. But the quad core only has 1066.

I'm going 4gig, so not a problem.

[RusH_]

u do realise that ur comp wont utilise the full 4 gig of ram, if ur runnin xp itll only use a max of 2 gig and if ur runnin vista itll be able to use up to 3 gig... other than that it wont make much of a difference running more unless the comp is a server or something...

the quad would be better imo, there shoulod be some decent ones around now... good luck

[Owgasm]

thanks for that stephen.

I clearly didn't know.

It'll run vista ultimate on a 8600GT 512mb.

4gb only cause it comes with the pack. It can't hurt

Only one quad from intel? Q6600?

I think that'll be worth while, quad is the future, duo is the past.

[RusH_]

yeh i got a duo only cos the quads were too expensive and the only cheap quad wasnt worth it, this was 6-8 months ago, but i did get an 8600gt too, runs games very nicely, sounds like youll have a nice lil package there

[N-DAWG]

I would go the Core 2 Quad (G0 Stepping), I have one myself. If you're a bit technically minded, it doesn't take much at all to get the Core 2 Quad to run at around the 3GHz mark.

You'll find that a quad core is going to be a lot better as more applications are starting to take advantage of multi-threading capabilities.

[R32Big_boy]

I run a Quad core Q6600 with 4 gig of ram, well actually 3.5 because of vista. It does run really quickly, espically with games like COD etc

As you said, quad seems to be like the next step foward.

[Leon.T]

I would wait for some good video cards that can play Crysis to come out, then build a nice computer.

[DivHunter]

a 1GB 8800GT can't play Crysis?

[Leon.T]

a 1GB 8800GT can't play Crysis?

Can it play on full specs?

[R32Big_boy]

Pritty sure they are 512 mb and i have screen shots of them at full specs playing crysis.

I have one in my pc, its the overclocked version (what ever that means)

[Marco-R34GTT]

Make sure you get more than 2GB of RAM...

I've got 2GB and Vista uses half of it just to run basic functions, generally, if your gonna be gaming, most games require more than 1GB for themselves...

Just a thought.

[Owgasm]

will be getting at least 3-4GB.

Anyone else had any problems with vista?

I've heard there are still heaps of bugs and getting a network up isn't as easy as it was on xp.

[DivHunter]

XP is still #1 for gaming until Windows 7 comes out next year. Vista is ok but unfortunately sucks a lot more resources. SP1 had no extra improvements just a cumulative patch really.

[R32Big_boy]

i tried playing Crysis with details up all the way. It runs very slow, so i put it back to medium settings and it runs just fine.

I have a 8800GT with 4 gig of ram, not very happy with it.

[THENIG]

Go get the feb(latest) issue of PC users magazine, it will answer all your questions for $8. I wish it was out before i built my comp a few months ago. it will basically tell you that you have to match your RAM speed to your FSB otherwise your just throwing money away buying faster RAM than your FSB can handle, basically if they are not matched one will always be waiting for the other to catch up.

It will tell you to go and buy the cheapest CPU out of the respected intel family and overclock it, it will tell you to NOT use vista when trying to play crysis because it will run like poo,

On the cover CD there is a patch to give you all the vista options whilst running it on XP and run heaps faster,

It will tell you that more than 2gig is just a wank unless you have vista and like having 200 tabs of SAU forums open at once,

(or a 64bit OS), or maybe some profesh photoshop/video editing/ CAD applications.

it will tell you quad processing is a bit of a wank, esp for games, most apps don't utilise it, maybe some encoding but thats about it, you are better off using a dual core with a faster clock speed.

It will tell you that the current direct X10 video cards aren't doing there job (and compare the best value ones).

It has heaps of motherboard and CPU comparisons. And no i dont work for the magazine, i was jsut reading it last nite and found the info really relevant to what is being discussed on this page.

Also disproves all the bullsh#t i was fed at computer stores by misinformed staff when i was building my system a few months ago.

[25GTT]

well said. Good Mag to read :-)

Ok quad core is the core for the future, games such as supreme commander are currently utilisiing this through vista so i would say for the future then yes, however performance wise at the moment to suit current games then the core 2 duos take the price, great overclocking speed etc, plus with some of the newer water cooling systems coming out the world is your oyster :-)

So for current games then go the dual core, if you want performance with future gaming in mind the quad maybe the best for the future (please note PC user mag also recommended this aswell)

Please dont get quad just to make vista happy..... with the next release of windows i am hoping it runs a lot more smoother as industry wide vista is known as a memory chewer!!!!

There are some nice advertised systems on the net at the moment, one of the ones i like can be found here:

http://www.netplus.com.au check out their advertised system page and look at their setup on the right, very nice setup for the price.

Now if your really into gaming and pcs check out this cool site, they even sell caffeine chewies and sh*T like that for full on gamer nights:-):

www.pccasegear.com.au

any other good sights you guys have seen for good cheap systems???? if so post em up.

Hope i have helped answered your questions a bit owgasm, some great feedback so far from everyone in this thread

[N-DAWG]

A 64 Bit OS is really required to run 4GB of RAM, though don't expect everything to run on a 64 Bit OS if you plan on running it as a primary OS.

Vista will be better once it matures and programs/games are built around it. Just like the transition from 98 to XP. Vista actually multiple threads and CPU cycles better than XP does (an article on AtomicMPC explains this better). Hence why a Quad Core CPU would be better value than a Dual Core once applications really start to take advantage of the multiple cores. Also particularly with quads being a lot better value than they were half a year ago, the demand for applications / games to better utilise them is now higher and would put more pressure on developers to take advantage of it.

Vista is required for DX10 gaming, though I believe that an update for DX 9 would basically emulate DX10? It's been a while I've been in the PC Gaming/Enthusiast scene so that may need a bit of clarification. For now I would use XP where possible for gaming due to the lower system usage..though if your a bit of a techy you'll know that there are a lot of ways to make Vista run a lot more efficiently and disable a lot of things that you may not need.

[R32Big_boy]

Any idea of how i can make vista run more efficiently, i really want to ramp up the graphics on Crysis! hehehe