Some Shameless Shinobi Showing-off :-)

[Shinobi]

Since (as many of you know, due to my in-game moaning about fps) way back in 2000 I have owned what you could politely call a 'fairly below average' computer system:

-Systemax beige case
-Supermicro P6SBA MoBo (it's from 1997 ffs!)
-Pentium III 450MHz
-32Mb RAM (have had 384Mb for bout a year now)
-2 x Fujitsu HDDs, one 40Gb and one 8Gb
-Creative GeForce 4 MX 420 PCI 64Mb (originally a voodoo 3 2000 AGP)

BUT NOW...


I've just finished building what I would call a 'slightly above average' system...

-Antec 1200 Gaming Case
-EVGA nForce 790i Ultra MoBo
-Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 (stock @ 3.16, running at 3.6Ghz)
-4Gb OCZ ReaperX HPC 1333MHz RAM
-EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX 512Mb Graphics
-2 x WD VelociRaptor 300Gb 10,000RPM HDD in RAID 0 config
-24" Samsung SM245B Monitor (truly gorgeous)

Well... whaddya thinky?? I know it's not THE most amazing gaming rig on the planet, but it was a labour of love choosing parts for this build, as I wanted a good balance between future-proof upgrade potential and price.

Coulda got a Quad Core but since I don't do video encoding or anything other than playing fairly old games I didn't see the point lol.

Quite proud... only took 3 hours to put together, and it's only my 4th build, with all my other builds being fairly old and less complicated.

Coming back to DX in October, can't wait to get playing again. Gonna be an awesomely different experience on this hardware.

Btw - Vista Ultimate or XP Pro SP3? Opinions please.

[Dex]

Nice.
XP Pro SP3.

[Dae]

I've got almost the same system except I use Q6600 and HDDs in RAID are only 7k RPM (or whatever). Congrats with the new system, I understand your excitement after moving from P3!

GeForce 9800 GTX 512Mb Graphics

Good thing, Crysis with above average settings @ 1680x1050 runs with 50 fps, that ain't bad at all.

On all new systems I build/buy I install legal Vista Home Premium. I don't need any of additional features from Ultimate - like hard drive backup/restore or encryption, which I won't ever trust.

[Dex]

As he said, he is going to play older games, so I recommend XP, since Vista typically eats memory in some cases. However, if he wants Vista, then I'll let him have it, but my advice is to install DirectX9 if he is going to play games like Deus Ex because of missing components in DirectX10 that were available in older versions of DirectX, but since DirectX10 was made from a scratch, it's different.

[Siva]

-EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX 512Mb Graphics

-EVGA nForce 790i Ultra MoBo

What.

[Dae]

As he said, he is going to play older games, so I recommend XP, since Vista typically eats memory in some cases. However, if he wants Vista, then I'll let him have it, but my advice is to install DirectX9 if he is going to play games like Deus Ex because of missing components in DirectX10 that were available in older versions of DirectX, but since DirectX10 was made from a scratch, it's different.

I hear everyone saying Vista takes more resources, but performance tests show that there are no differences to XP (sometimes Vista is a little better). I guess MS isn't as stupid as we think, or the performance tests lie.

Also, Vista has D3D9 installed by default (or possibly comes with an update).

I'm not a Vista fanboy, just I like to use newer things.

[Dex]

Yes Vista IS faster than XP. It has been tested. However, for some reason, it is always slower than those tests say should be.
Done those tests myself and yes, better than XP, but when I play games or something, the performance is crap. But oh, might be just my crappy PC.

My Vista and a lot of other Vista's came with DX10, never heard before that it has DX9 installed as a default.

[UT]

EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX 512Mb Graphics

It sux. You should buy the same that me.

Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2 1024mb

[Siva]

It sux.

With you so far, yup

Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2 1024mb

HAHAHAHAHAHA

[Dae]

Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2 1024mb

I bought this one for my dad's computer. I'd say it is 20-30% faster than my GeForce 9800 512MB.

[UT]

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Why are you laughing? want a little kick in ass in UT? ;P

[Shinobi]

Nothing at all wrong with that graphics card Chloe. Yes, the 1 Gig dual core card is obviously better Dae, and from what I've read the 20-30% sounds about right, although the difference becomes obvious at higher resolutions, where the 1024Mb has a serious advantage over the 512Mb, coz textures don't half eat video memory!!

Had a few teething problems with the computer, but XP is all set up and happy now.

Also - Chloe - be real!! I'm not rich, y'know. Those 1 gig GX2's are rather expensive.....

[Siva]

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Why are you laughing? want a little kick in ass in UT? ;P

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