Hardware What Hardware Should I Buy? - Nov 2009

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2009/11/10/what-hardware-should-i-buy-november-2009/1

Another month and another set of hardware recommendations fresh from our labs. Has the AMD's latest CPUs or Kingston's SSDs made a difference? What about memory price increases? Read on to find out!

 

The first rig says that cheap Nvidia 250's aren't available in the UK anymore, then the folding rig says you can get 4 of the 'green' type for a bit over 300. Which works out about the same each as the 4850 alternative in the first rig setup. I am confused.

 

i dont suppose some benchmarks could be whipped up to show us some performance figures?

 

erm...

linky

 

nVidia has discontinued all of it's top end just before the xmas period, and don't plan on releasing Fermi until the new year?

something doesn't add up there...

 

The Green one is downclocked: it's good for Folding, but not equivalent for gaming.

Nvidia are plowing all its remaining GT200b dies into Tesla cards because they make more money.

 

Thanks for the guide as always.

This still needs correcting as it's been pasted from last months guide without the url being sorted out:

 

Is it possible to fit the parts for the Gaming Workhorse and Premium Player components into an Antec P193 case?

I'm aiming for as quiet a system as possible, so I'd like to sub the PSU for BeQuiet units... or is there no great benefit between them and the listed PSUs?

Thanks.

 

Under Premium Player, the Crucial M225 says "£252 inc VAT" but the link lower down says "£290 inc VAT"

 

To expand on Rich's point - ATI's GPUs are currently rubbish at folding, even if the same GPU is faster than the equivalent Nvidia GPU when it comes to gaming. It's something to do with driver optimisations I believe - ATI is going for the gaming crown almost exclusively, while Nvidia has an eye on Performance Computing via GPUs at the moment.

Err, no, as that's two PCs...

If you were to pick and choose bits of either to make one PC, then yeah, everything would fit fine. The P193 is massive, so will handle just about anything.

 

I told a friend of mine to hold off buying about a month ago on the basis that nVidia were about to release new gear.

Does this advice hold true?

 

It would be nice if you could create a buyers guide for laptops

 

in the "Gaming Workhorse" category, the text for the HD4890 is wrong, as it is about the case

 

I read ex not inc: fixed it now

Fixed, ta.

At this point, we've no idea when NV will get something out. But it's not like you can buy ATI anyway.

 

lol. Yeh.. sorry about that Claave. I'm planning on building 2 PCs... 1 for me and 1 for my younger brother, so just wanted to ask if that case would house components from both builds.

Thanks for your reply though m8. Much appreciated

 

So we shouldn't hold for NV. But right now, we can't get ATI, and NV have discontinued anything worth having.

Thus it's still a crap time to buy a PC and it isn't likely to change until NV release their new stuff which may be months away.

Ugh?

 

Ahhh, I see! Yes, definitely no problems with that plan - glad to help!

 

Meh. Disappointed to see SSD prices going up along with ddr3, I was planning to grab one by the end of the year... think I'll pass this time and upgrade my rather hideous antec 902 to something more elegant. (I was thinking about ATCS 840).

Also, better grab the parts for a gaming rig I was planning to build for my wife's nephew as a christmas gift now before prices get even higher.

 

Where's the HTPC guide?
There hasn't been one for ages, are you planning one soon?

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2009/10/27/reader-advised-htpc-buyers-guide-oct-09-1/

I've still got to sit down and read all the replies to tweak it for #2