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Hello people have been reading around the forum and have noticed alot of people asking about computers and graphics cards and which to buy and what to stay away from well hopfully this guide will give you abit of knowledge about what and what not to buy.
Now i know some of you may not know how to build your own machine but to be honest they are very easy to build the new stuff comes colour coordinated
not like the old motherboards which could not be overclocked in the bios and there was no colour coordination to tell you what wire goe's here and there.
So are you gonna buy a prebuilt machine or build your own?
LETS START
When buying/building a machine you obviously have a budget and with this guide am gonna try and keep you within your budget and also help you gain a decent gaming machine i will also provide some links to sites i use to buy computer hardware.
CPU
What type of CPU (Processor) do you want? AMD or Intel
AMD
Is the cheaper solution to processors now days but they still perform great in games and any other task that you want to perform.
(The thing to remember here is cheap)
Intel
Well what can i say about intel there dominating the CPU market right now with there new C2De (Core2DuoExtreme) which supports dual/quad core CPUS with great power but power comes with expense.
(The thing to remember here is Expense)
Conclusion
Ok so you have had a look at some CPU's and you have decided to get which ever you choose but another thing to look at (only if your building your machine) is the socket type that your CPU will socket into.
AMD you will normally get 1 of the following socket types (939 or AM2)
939 is the falling out of the picture now and are alot harder to find some of the later AMD CPU's where AM2 is the new socket for AMD with there release of the 6000+ series of CPU's.
Intel if your about to buy a new CPU and its Intel you will obviously be buying a LGA775.
Now every CPU as a Clock speed this is normally in Ghz (Unless where going back in time) so lets say you bought a AMD Opteron 165 Skt 939.
That is a basic overclocking dont think because you know this that you should do it dont this is a basic overclocking thing just showing you what FSB actaully is.
I will be doing a overclocking guide for people soon.
So am gonna show you a few CPU's 1 for those who dont wanna spend so much and 1 for those who dont really care.
CHEAP BUT GOOD
AMD
939
Open Box: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Toledo 2.0GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor - OEM
So we have took alook at certain CPU's i would suggest the following if you do not plan to overclock which will be a guide i will post soon.
- Get a dual/quad core CPU (New games now support Dual/Quad optimization)
- Try and get a CPU that as 2.6Ghz Clock speed 5.2Ghz Effective clock speed (this will help for future games)
- Go with what you can afford (Buying a cheap CPU is just as good as the competition if you plan on Overclocking)
- Try to get a non stock HSF (Heatsink Fan) This will also help if you plan to overclock.
MOTHERBOARDS
Am not gonna go into every detail about MOBO (Motherboard) since we are only gaming and you just need a MOBO thats gonna give great performance and is as futureproof as possible.
Todays motherboards come packed with everything you need already installed onto the actual board rather then having to go out buy a soundcard, NIC card and in some cases VGA adaptor but since this is a tut for gaming PC's where gonna stay away from the boards that come with a VGA (Video Processor) built in.
WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM A MOBO?
Socket Type (Intel or AMD Support) SLI or Crossfire (Nvidia or ATI)
these are the 2 you need to think about since your the buyer and this all depends on what you like and who you think performs best for you.
SLI and Crossfire
SLI (Scalable Link Interface) is nvidias way of making 2 GPU's operate at the same time dont think oh i have SLI now i have double the performance because this is not what SLI doe's SLI basically rendors sections of the screen using 2 cards so 1 GPU will be rendering all the graphics on the top part of the screen and the 2nd GPU doing the same for the bottom part of the screen which increases overall performance.
SLI works best with big 22" or bigger monitors if you get SLI configuration in your system yet you only have a 17" monitor this is pointless since your GPU is not gonna ask for any assistance from the other GPU and yall maybe be using around 10-20% of other GPU.
SLI works based on resolution so the higher your screen resolution the more performance you will gain from SLI.
Since i have spoke about this in the motherboard section i will not mention it again within the GPU section.
Crossfire is pretty much the same as SLI its just ATI's version.
So if your gonna buy a MOBO try and get 1 that as SLI Support basically it will say 2 or more PCI-Express 16x Slots. NOTE: SLI shares the bandwidth meaning 2 cards in 2 PCI-E 16x slots will be sharing 16x bandwidth between them you will not be gained 32x.
So when buying a new system/board try to get 1 that supports SLI. here is an example board that is great for gaming but is pricey:
RAM is pretty much the cheapest upgrade you can do to your system and it increases performance at an incredible rate but now its not just about how much RAM you have its about the speed that the RAM talks to the CPU new ram is coming out all the time most new MOBO and gamers are now using DDR2/DDR3 at this moment in time i would stay away from DDR3 since its not all its knocked up to he and stay with DDR/DDR2 depending on how much your willing to spend.
DDR SDRAM - double-data-rate synchronous dynamic random access memory
So DDR what is it?
Remember we was talking about FSB (Front side bus) earlier well DDR increases the FSB without actaully increasing the FSB.
SDR - Single Data Rate - 100Mhz = 100Mhz
DDR - Double Data Rate - 100Mhz = 200Mhz
So DDR is like a dualcore CPU it as a clock speed 100Mhz and an effective clock speed 200Mhz.
then you have DDR2/3 same as above but they run at a faster speed again.
In systems today i would recommend using a minimum of 2GB RAM.
DUAL CHANNEL - Is basically making RAM run and talk to the CPU faster instead of 64bits they operate at 128bits.
You will normally see on your MOBO that your RAM slots are coloured these colours normally indicate the slots for dual channel for example:
SLOT1 SLOT2 SLOT3 SLOT4
Slot 1/2 = dual channel
Slot 3/4 = dual channel
SLOT1 SLOT2 SLOT3 SLOT4
Slot 1/3 = Dual Channel
Slot 2/4 = Dual Channel
In most cases when you first boot your computer it will tell you if your memory is running in dual channel or look inside the motherboard manual.
FINISH THE REST SOON SINCE AM BUSY WITH OTHER THINGS BUT WE ARE NEARLY DONE
Yea thats a nice computer the CPU is 1033mhz FSB dunno about the ram and i dont know about the motherboard but that computer will play games fine the GPU is pretty decent aswel.
I never buy pre built computers since i like to build my own but yea thats a nice system price seems fair.
get a 7600GT or somthing that plays alot of games in moderate settings post the 1 here before you make a decision and i will tell you if there is a better 1.
Get Nvidia dont go ATI unless your gonna get a 1950 there pretty nice series of card.
Other then that what interface are you in need of AGP or PCI-E?
If you need any help dont hesitate to contact me VIA post or PM
yeah amd is dual core, but don't wanna spend 300 euro for only a grapichal card. And i don't get why 2gb ram is better than 3gb ram
Ok its not the case of being better its more of how are you going to use 3GB of ram?
Do you play games?
Do you design graphical images/videos?
Dual Channel RAM is better then single channel ram because you are using its full potential when your in single channel your RAM is operating at 64bits in dual channel its operating at 128bits which = alot faster performance and your ram and CPU work together faster.
Dual channel RAM is also somthing they brought out to reduce the chance of bottlenecks between the motherboard/cpu/ram Trust me i know it sounds wierd 2GB better then 3GB but remember this.
Everything inside a computer or that is being made today always multiplied by 2.
for example:
RAM 32/64/128/256/512/1gb/2gb/4gb Get the picture theres no 3GB in there.
The most important things inside a computer if you plan on gaming are the following:
CPU = Processor
RAM = Memory
MOBO = Motherboard
GPU = Graphics Card
These are the 3 main things to look at for a great gaming system others would then be:
PSU = Power Supply
HDD = Hard drives
These are things you may upgrade but not essential since we are looking at the first selection.
Once you have decided on the MOBO you want its time to take a look at what speeds (BUS) the motherboard supports so lets say the MOBO supports 1033MHz FSB this would mean a Core2Duo Extreme CPU would be perfect for this MOBO using its full potential.
So that would mean MOBO BUS speed =1033Mhz.
Get a CPU with 1033MHz FSB or you can get a lower grade lets say 800MHz FSB.
Now heres where RAM comes into play, so you have just gone out bought your new MOBO & CPU the current FSB is bottlenecked on the MOBO since your CPU supports a Max FSB of 800Mhz.
The best bet here is to buy RAM that also supports 800Mhz FSB (PC2 6400) this is 800MHz FSB RAM so now you are currently running a 1/1 ratio with your CPU/RAM = Best performance this also means that if you overclock you CPU you will also be overclocking your RAM at a 1/1 ratio unless you modify certain ram settings like placing a divider on the ram then obviously you will be slowing the ram down and then losing the 1/1 ratio with the CPU.
Graphics card is basically somthing you wanna look at if you are going to be a gamer choosing which GPU depends on how far you wanna go with your gaming if you wanna play games on Max settings at a high screen resolution then you will be looking for somthing like 7900GT DX9 or 8600GT/GTS for DX10.
These 2 cards are lower budget models of the better stuff like 7950GT and the 8800GTS/GTX/Ultra.
Alot of people look at the RAM when they buy Graphics cards they see 512MB and think its the best buy this is wrong.
You only need lots of RAM on the GPU more for Graphics Design not game play since RAM doe's not increase performance all that much for performance increase you need to look at these things:
The pipelines are what increase performance the most like the 8800GTS as 96 Stream Processors and the GTX as 128 this is where the performance is gained plus the GTX as a higher clock rate but lets say you pumped the clock rate up on the GTS to be the same as the GTX the GTX would still perform better since it as the extra 32 pipelines a GTX is basically a 8600GT + 8800GTS in 1 considering its pipelines.
Anyway after reading this i hope you have a better understanding on how things perform within the system if i was gonna go out buy a new gaming rig these are the min specs i would rec:
CPU = Dual Core Intel or AMD lowest clock 3.6Ghz
RAM = 2GB 2x1GB sticks just incase you decided to update to Vista
MOBO = 1 that supports a max FSB of around 1033MHz and SLi (This is for future proofing yourself)
PSU = 800Watt SLi Verified (Incase you decide to run GTX / Ultras)
Case = Full ATX (Size Helps)
HDD = 7200RPM 16Mcache 2x 120GB RAID 0
And the rest of the stuff is up to you at the end of the day get what you need if its a gaming rig but your not to bothered about the max settings then just get the lower end stuff 7600GT will do that fine.
If you just wanna go on the next download a few tunes and chat websites wateva you people do then u dont need dual core cpus get a Pentium 4 3.0/800/1MB this will be fine plus 512MB ram.
PS
If i made any mistakes please let me know and i will edit thanks again.
