Well, it's a boring Monday night...Time for Zephyr to do some soul-searching again . Lately, hardware has been coming out by the dozens. It seems like every week, there is a new technology, or a new form factor, or a new bus, yada yada. ATi and nVidia are locked in this head-to-head attempt to one-up each other, but so far it doesn't seem that anyone has come out stridingly ahead. Right now, an attempt to keep up with the "newest", or "best" hardware is fighting a losing battle. If I were to go spend my non-existant thousands of dollars on a brand spanking new machine, something would be out there, better than it in no less than a month or two. So where's the point of buying the "best" anyway? But then, who said I need to upgrade at all? I read everyone else's "uber-computer" specs, and see double my score in benchmarks. But then, when's the last time I couldn't do something because my system isn't powerful enough? Sure, I can't run full AA/AF, highest settings, 1600*1200 in every game I play, but I can run any 2d program I care to. Hell, that's why I spend hours optimizing my system. Not to make it an FX-55, but to give me the best performance I can get out of my system, not to compare it to someone else's system. Well then, what makes me unhappy about my system? Well, my monitors are flickery sometimes, my speakers are old and frusterating -- they distort anything I try to enjoy by turning up, and I am quite a music fan. My case, my gawdy horrid Xaser III is big, ugly, and rediculously heavy. Nothing matches, and I just haven't taken the effort to grab a few $7 cans of vinyl dye and make everything nice-looking. Now wait a minute... It's not my computer itself that I'm frusterated with, it's my peripherals. Hell, the actual thing inside that big ugly box works fine, it's what I'm using to interface it that frusterates me. So...I could go grab myself a pair of 6800Ultra's, stick 'em in an SLi, and feel manly. But, my monitor would still flicker...I have nearly every bit of recorded music in my house on my hard drive in nearly lossless format...but my speakers are still crackly. I think a good example of what I'm trying to get at comes right from Bit -- bigz has recently re-done his entire review procedure for graphics cards to reflect the prettiest, smoothest image a card can produce, not just an ungodly high number of frames per second. So we've hit a turning point as a whole then -- we don't just want performance, we want beauty. But then, isn't that where modding came from? Why buy a Lian-Li over a case with just as good of aesthetics, but ugly beige plastic? Why spend hours/days/weeks, deal with the frusteration (and, of course, the pride of creating something, something useful and your own) of "modding", and take the time to do it in the first place? Because it looks and feels better, damnit... Yes, I am guilty of having just ordered a Lian-Li PC-60 (and damn excited for it to get here, tbh) because I'm sick and tired of hauling this Xaser III all over the state, and being afraid of breaking the table at any given LAN I'm at. I'm also guilty of parusing LCD's, and gawking at the Logitech Z-5500's. To me, this almost comes back to a psychological thing...If I have the best system in the world, but have an old, crappy 1993 NEC monitor, that displays a max of 1024*768 @ 16bit color, it's going to be a lot less user friendly than a 9600Pro, on a pair of nice widescreen LCD's at sommat like 1600*1200 res. So basically, the long-winded point of this semi-rant has been to see what everyone else thought; Would you rather have an awesome interface, with beautiful peripherals and a comfortable, nice setup, or the newest, fastest, best hardware? I have come to the conclusion that until I can't run games anymore (or if something unexpected happens, like the scare a week ago that my beloved 9800Pro AIW was fubar'd), all of my "upgrades" will be peripheral. Case mods, monitors, speakers, desk chair, things like this. I thought about including a poll and decided not to, simply because I'm looking for qualitative replies rather than a quantitative collection of data. So Bit, how do you feel? I 'spose I could be completely off my rocker (wouldn't surprise me all that much), but I was interested what you all thought
aaah. another person satisfied with a mid-range system. the most expensive bit of kit associated with my computer is my monitor. 2 years ago when 16:10 monitors started hitting mass production I just HAD to have one. i spent a whopping 600$ USD on a samsung 172w, and i havent regretted it yet. conversely, i went with a budget gaming card and a middle road cpu, replaced my cd burner with a dvd burner. I feel it was the best bang for the buck i could have done. a year later i doubled my ram (and went from pc2100 to pc3200), and upped to a bit faster, yet still not too expensive cpu with a faster bus. throw in a new mobo with a faster chipset - but not the frilly big 4 model (went with a shuttle instead of an abit, asus, epox, or DFI - and got a fast, stable board for just over 50$). my box will play any game i throw at it decently at my monitor's native 1280x768, and i didnt blow 6 month's rent on it. i think people should buy what they will use and can easily afford instead of just buying the latest, greatest (and ridiculously overpriced) thing every time someting new is released. unfortunately i have ridden my current platform about as far as it will go. If i want more performace, i will pretty much have to start from scratch except for a few components. thing is, i will probably upgrade my monitor first, then do the rest later. there is a really nice 24" widescreen Dell that i want - and at 1/2 the price of a comparable Sony or Samsung. (and it uses a samsung panel - so theoretically i am not really switching brands).
You can't??!1? Xaser 3 pwns, if you going to be getting rid of it, call me first, i need parts. It looks nice sitting next to my 20" LCD and Logitech Z-5500s
I have to agree somewhat. I am content with my current system except for the gfx card which is starting to give me problems. The past couple of years I have been spending my computer money on the devices I use to interface my computer. I have gotten LCDs, a nice mouse, a decent keyboard, and a kickass 5.1 system (this is over the period of several years mind you). I could have used all that to upgrade my rig, but what's the point of having a kickass system and still using the same old cruddy keyboard, mouse, dying CRTs, and tinny speakers? For that matter why continue to sit on that same cranky old chair and use that desk that makes your wrists ache? A computer is more than bragging rights, it's something you use. Yes I am planning on upgrading my rig pretty soon (because simply buying a new agp gfx card for this machine would be a waste imo), but this is more of a "games are starting to act weird" upgrade than a "OMG NEW HARDWARE MUST HAVE!@!!111111" upgrade
I agree totally. A friend of mine advised me when I was building my first rig not to run out and buy this month's latest and greatest, because it was way more expensive than the performance could justify, and new hardware almost always has buggy drivers, especially if it's the first release of a new piece of hardware. Those of you on tight budgets would do well to remember this. I have never owned/built a top-of-the-line system. Mostly because I can't afford to, but also because I can get that same "powerhouse" system a year later at half the cost, OEM. I've been making the same kind of periph upgrades over the last year, i.e. 19" LCD, MX Cordless Duo, 5.1 speakers, etc. I'm more likely now to buy a decent chair or keyboard tray than I am to upgrade to a 64 bit system. Granted, I have to turn the settings way down on most games (Fx5200!) but I'm not a die hard gamer to begin with. I'm sort of the resident 'puter Guru where I work, and most people come to me for advice about what to buy. The first thing I always ask them is, "what do you want to do with it?" The answer is almost always, "email, listen to mp3's, print digi-pics, watch movies" and the like. For these types, I don't even ask what their budget is. I just recommend the $500 special at Dell and send them on their merry way. Even a system like that is usually overkill for what they do. If they've got more than the $500 in their budget, I recommend upgrading the RAM first, followed by HDD, and then monitor as funds allow. Good call on the topic, man. I hope that everyone here gets a chance to read it and take something meaningful away with them. Maybe we can slow down the crazy hype that these hardware mfg's are cranking out and make things more sensible. Oh, but don't tell them that.
It's quite true what you've said, and I can't really deny that. I must admit that I do get fed up from time to time, simply because I never seem to get the time to look at anything but video cards. I'm fascinated by 3D, but the endless slew of 'new' products being released means I could go on and on without actually looking at anything that was a real product - there are that many reference samples around, and it is out of control. I love tech, as I'm sure most of you do... one thing that I have attempted to do with video card reviews is to 'match-up' the video card with a CPU that you may well use with that card - you will see more of this in due course, as there are some low-end video cards just around the corner. If you are looking at spending money on a decent video card, or indeed a decent system upgrade, I do recommend having a decent monitor before you start, or factoring one in to your price matrix. I also recommend a decent pair of headphones (or speakers if that is what you prefer). Before I started reviewing computer hardware for bit-tech, I'd already got a fantastic pair of Sennheiser HD570's and a Sony G220. I've got a second monitor now: a Sony G400 which is a tad bigger at 19", and I could not game on anything less than these two fantastic monitors. I used to have a very poor quality LG 17" Fishbowl before I went out and dropped £290 on a 17" Monitor, and I've never ever looked back from that. I seriously couldn't use anything that is of worse quality than either of these Sony's now, it actually hurts my eyes when I use a poor-quality monitor for more than half an hour. It's just a real shame that Sony no longer make CRTs, because I'd buy a 21" G520 if they were still made.
I'm with bigz on the monitor issue. It all started back in 2000 with a little 17" trinitron tube. It's still with me ank kickin' (in the corner, unused atm) but ever since that i can't even think of owning anything without a quality flat face. I moved in that direction with a 27" WEGA in 2001, but the pincusion on the bottom got so bad it had to go. In walked a Philips 27" flat screen that still amazes me with component video. My desktop was just reorganized with a Philips 19" TFT, and I don't see myself ever going back the way of tubes again, with the exception of the living room. I had another interesting thought: Sure it's fun to own a big shiny new power rig, and to brag/gloat/show it off to people who understand just what the numbers and models mean, but what difference does that make to someone that doesn't know the first thing about computing beyond email and word processing? If someone were to sit at your puter and use it for 20-30 minutes for some routine tasks, would they appreciate the extra 4 fps you squoze out of your overclocked watercooled GPU? Prolly not as much as they would an ergonomical mouse/keyboard setup, a clear/sharp and properly placed monitor and a comfortable chair. Just more food for thought.
Totally Understand..... Currently I have a 5200 FX (K not great), and 2 monitors, 384 RAM, 400Gb HDD (I DL a lot). But why do I need a 6800 SLI card when there ar about 10 games that support SLI? I play games like Black & White, Homeworld, C&C Zero Hour (modded of course). So why do I need a £400 graphics card. The best thing in my system is my 5.1 Soundcard that cost a whole £130, and of course my 5.1 speakers that cost £420 :S (But when you have over 47Gb of music I would consider myself an audiophile) Hell my current computer didnt cost me a penny other then the soundcard, as I won it on EBay in the Xmas treasure hunt I am in the process of builing a brand new computer from scratch including case and watercooling, and this will just under the top end. And the only reason I'm keeping it just under is because software hasnt caught up with the technology yet, so theres no point. How many 64 bit programs are there???? Not a lot How many SLI games are there???? Only 2 mentionable ones (Far Cry & HL2) How many programs can actually full utilize DDR2 yet??? Until that day I will stick with my soundcard, prob upgrade to 2 BIIIIIIG monitors (prob LCD due to not playing a lot of fast action games so dont have to put with LCD Lag), and I'll be happy with my nice, but not spectacular system with the £600+ in my back pocket, that I saved from not buying stupid priced brand new on market hardware that no-ones utilized the hardware in their code yet! My 2 pence worth
i love hearing this line from people that havent gamed regularly on a tft - 16.66~ms = 60fps = DVI clock limit. as tft's do not scan as crt's do - only the pixels that actually change color/brightness move. in my experiance, 25ms screens only ghost when they are really really (think doom3) dark. 16ms over dvi is just as good as the best sony or viewsonic crt. samsung is now putting out 8ms screens. (little tip - everyone uses either samsung or LG panels nowadays - even dell ...) the human eye can not detect anything faster than 60fps on a tft. no headaches, no screen roll, none of that mess. the new generation of tft panels is the one that is going to kill crt technology for good. I'm a widescreen gaming junkie now, and i wont ever go back. ever.
Yep. I'm still on a Athlon XP Non-barton. Does the trick, perfectly. I was gonna upgrade just for sheer 'having-the-latest'ness but thought - what's the point? If you look after a system it should be competent for 3-4 years at least, I reckon. All I really feel I need is a new GFX card perhaps.
That's an extremely subjective comment. Unless there is stuff like motion blur used which higher FPS emulates by "smoothing" things out, but it's dependent on the user tbh.
I'm currently running an XP2500+, ATI988SE AIW, and GB RAM. Only considered upgrading recently because I might be getting a dSLR and PSing 8MB images is going to be fun on the best of machines! That Dabs offer on the 3000+ A64 is tempting. Won't replace the GFX though as I just don't play games. Like, ever. If I want to, I can just flick on the GC. I'm more a practical person these days anyway. Use my AIW for GC relay as well as Sky, and some PVR functionality. Mid-range! Go team!
how about VGA? I'm sure there is a threshold as well. but y would they make a monitor that supports 75Hz refresh if DVI can't go over 60? Same with response time: is 12 or even 8 ms really needed? Overkill? Marketing hype? I'm not so sure about killing CRTs. Yes, LCDs are now comparable to CRTs in terms of visual performance, but nowhere close for resolution or refresh rates. And until they can make LCDs that have 100% no-dead-pixel guarantees all the time, and a life span of even half that of a tube, there will still be competition. I think either "maim" or "mortally wound" would be closer to the mark. [TANGENT]On a side note, I am amazed by how far Korea has come with its technology production. Think about it: the penninsula was bombed flat, Seoul was overrun by both sides TWICE, and in only 60 years they have become a leading manufacturer (dare I say powerhouse?) in the semiconductor and technology market. When I was first here a few years back, I was skeptical about the "local" brands (samsung/LG) but have since learned to respect them as high quality goods. I was pleasantly suprised to find that my Philips TV was actually made by LG. Cars, on the other hand... [/TANGENT]
My current system will do everything I need it to do at the moment, except for maybe my graphics card and too little RAM. I did go through a spell of upgrading for a while , but my upgrades were more overclocking biased. I went through various Athlons from an XP2000 pally to an XP2400 t-bred to an XP 2500 Barton, then an unlocked XP2800 barton followed by an XP2500 Barton mobile and finally an XP 2600 Barton mobile, Then I started on the RAM from some samsung PC2700 to OCZ EL3500 then Kingston HyperX BH-5 followed by Muskin level II BH-5 I went through about 6 different motherboards before finally settling back to the NF7-S (now on a Shuttle) Upgraded my asetek waterchill so that only the blocks were original, power supply, various cases, mice etc. TBH It was becoming too costly to keep up, mind you I did get some back by selling my old stuff, so now I have settled on my Shuttle with the XP2600 mobile, OCZ EL RAM and my 9600XT it works and its quiet. But I'm not rushing into the upgrade path at the moment, that will happen sometime in the summer I think, probably go the socket 939 route.
It doesn't seem long back since Tom's Hardware was claiming a Duron 850 system would do all the work a SOHO user wanted, and having upgraded from that to 2600+ I'm inclined to agree it's still a reasonable claim. Big suites like Corel Draw & Office are marginally slicker, but maybe the extra faster memory is as much to thank as the cpu. I'm happy with the features on a decent Socket A board, and the price has probably bottomed out, unlike a new 64-bit one. I'm concentrating on improving the quality of my user experience - a better monitor, printer, scanner, a quieter system - fps quantity is enough for me.
Actually, having said what i said above - there's nothing (computationally) more satisfying than like firing up a 3.4EE/4000+ on a new motherboard with a 6800GT and playing uber res and visual lubblyness up full full in Dolby AC3 surround sound.
