Looking at a new Rig.

[lugsy]

After some very loose looking I ran into
http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/hewlett-packard-hp-pavilion-intel-core-i3-530-2-93ghz-computer-p6334f-p6334f/10137940.aspx?path=241af8777f53afd8e8c6c8465b54d4d8en02
it didn't seem to bad (compared to what I have now) for the price... but I don't know much about this shit D: So I came to you guys who look like you actually know this shit.
Current POS:
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (build 2600)
Board: Foxconn 946 7MA Series
Bus Clock: 66 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG 09/04/2006
2.67 gigahertz Intel Core2 Quad Q6700
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
4096 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (4 total)
Not hyper-threaded
250.06 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
161.01 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
2048 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory (2x 1gb. only 2 slots)
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT [Display adapter]
Sceptre X9G-NagaV [Monitor] (19.1"vis, August 2006)
looked at prices of making my own, and I didn't think I got much farther for the same price. Positive of the future shop one is I can pick it up the day I pay for it.. lol :P not looking for anything above $1,000.

Reason for updating is this pc is getting hella old, and I'd like to be able to play BF:BC2 ! :D.. miss my old BF2

[Cosmic_Shame]

thats a rip off dude, build ur own so u can save some money. 800 dollars for an i3 is bad dude, i3 costs only 150 dollars at most for a processor, and i didnt even read the GPU that it comes with but i can tell its a bit of a rip off. U build ur own u save some cash

[Freaky_Angelus]

GPU was GT 220...... thats a 9600 chip or something.. no go!

That board is unknown to me.. can you OC the cpu? is there like more bandwidth on the fsb?

Friend has been running the Q6700 at 3.3Ghz for close to 2 years now.. It runs fine and can easily be even faster, so the real prob would be your current GPU of a 7300 GT...

[Clone]

Ya that's bad. You're only getting an i3 processor and a 220 G. Card. 220s are old and are close to what you have already with the 7---, the i3 can be easily upgraded to at a i5 possibly i7 by reducing it to 4gb or DDR3 which seems to be standard right now. Because really once you get so high with the amount of ram, you can't notice the diff. Numerous comments on ram products at new egg people said they decided to get an extra 4gb of ram (going to 8gb) and said their pc didn't get much faster.

[Zero Hour]

You already have a Q6700, that's not exactly a slow processor. I have a Q6600 (just a slower clock speed) and I bought a 5850 and I can run everything totally fine. Including BC2 @ 1080p (1920x1080) full graphics and it's still ~50fps. Your problem is your video card, 7300 is a pretty weak processor.

the i3 530 isn't exactly gonna blow your "old" cpu out of the water?
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=53&p2=118&c=1

I would upgrade your video card, monitor and get win7. You don't need a new computer dude! Especially for a slower one.

[Freaky_Angelus]

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What he says. Only main thing would be checking if you can OC your cpu.. I think both Zero and I run our (slower) Q6600 at 3.0Ghz and I know the Q6700 can easily run 3 at the stock cooler.. Just your mobo is unknown..

Any 5 series ATI card would increase your pc by a lot and if you even go to the 5850 or higher you got a more then fine system!

For as a new pc..

i5 / i7 minimum vs. AMD 965 quad
4Gb is plenty
any X48 or higher mobo
2x 5770 vs 1x 5850 or higher (you can always get a second 5850 later instead of 1 5870 now)
if the budget allows a SSD..

Look around at those items and by all means built yourself and don't buy Windows with it.. You got windows, you got a serial already and in worst cases the iweb provides with legal and free linux.. (witholding the illegal option ;) )

so... hold on your money, just upgrade GPU and save it for later.. If any.. wait till Nvidia release later this month so the prices drop for most GPU's!

[Zero Hour]

Yup, Freaky, 9x333FSB no voltage adjustment FTW! Though, my oc reset and I didn't even realize that it had gone back to 2.4GHz for nearly two months lol. That CPU roxors my boxors!

I would say 'live for the now', especially in technology. You could wait FOREVER to buy something because something new will always come out that's better.

[lugsy]

OK, so now on the buying list is
2x 2gb ram and a ??? Graphics card.. that's all I really need to upgrade? (I think I need to upgrade my power supply too). I don't know what ssd is.. I've never overclocked anything either.. lol
and this mother board is from 2005 or 2006 iirc, that's why I thought I'd have to go all new if I got new stuff.

[Brains]

OK, so now on the buying list is
2x 2gb ram and a ??? Graphics card.. that's all I really need to upgrade? (I think I need to upgrade my power supply too). I don't know what ssd is.. I've never overclocked anything either.. lol
and this mother board is from 2005 or 2006 iirc, that's why I thought I'd have to go all new if I got new stuff.

yes you want 2 sticks of 2GB ram (so you have 4 total). if you do plan on moving to windows 7 (suggested since it's actually a really good OS) then having 4 GB of ram will be execellent (win7 requires 1GB which leaves you with ~3GB for your gaming/background processes)

for your rig, a 680watt power supply would suffice. an ati user should be able to tell you how much their 58xx ati cards need but 680 should be more than enough.

ssd = solid state drive = overpriced, silent, superfast hard drives. it's just a hard drive that has no moving parts in it so it's super silent, doesn't create much heat, and can read/write data like instantly ... but they are super expensive and the reasonably priced ones only go up to like 40GB...which in today's world, is nothing. windows 7 itself takes up like 15GB on it's own...vista takes up like 22GB....so ehhh, I would say just go with a 10,000RPM hard drive so you have really fast read/write times (great for gaming - they are cheap, fast, coupled with 4GB of RAM will give you really fast load times in games)

as for the motherboard, never heard of it, so some research might need to be done to see if you can even throw in a nice ATI 58xx card in it. make sure your mother board has a PCI-E 16x slot. quick google search should do the trick

[Freaky_Angelus]

well yes.. W7 is awesome, but still if on a budget XP SP3 is the next best thing and most peepz have that.

Anywho.. average 5xxx series require lil power and go around 200Watt max in the 5870..

To be more precise.. according to THIS (http://mark.zoomcities.com/images/gfx/GFXpowerchartby3d.png) GPU 3D power chart an OC'd HD 5870 (870/1250) will not exceed 200Watt at any time under 3D..

Yes.. it's a big list :(

Which would mean any PSU that can handle a 200Watt load on the GPU strain (well.. meaning 12V with at least 16A on the PCIe cables) can run your card.. If you could post what mobo exactly you got, we can check for the PCIe part.. is it 2.0 (doubtfull) and 16x ;)

[lugsy]

@ freaky
I don't know how to find out more than: Board: Foxconn 946 7MA Series
And right now I think my power supply is 350-400.. which my current graphics card recommends more than what I have already.

[Freaky_Angelus]

Current GPU doesn't mean anything, but 350W is a lil on the small size..

You can try it.. if it runs fine otherwise just get the PSU on a later stage.. Yoshi already posted having a 5850???? running on such a PSU.. No OC also means less consumption and any lower then 5870 card will also need less..

Main thing now is figuring what mobo you got.. No box? nothing?

-edit-
What I can find on this type of board is 1.. it didn't last long and 2 it prob has a 1066 FSB and a PCIe 16x chnl.. but PCIe 1.0 or 1.1 no 2.0..

That last part makes me doubt if a 5850 or 5870 would not be bottlenecked by the 1.0/1.1 part..

[Zero Hour]

PSU: I've got a 610W, so probably around that is a good mark. If it's towards 500W it should be alright. Can you give us the exact model for us? Worse case ~$120.

Mobo: It's actually a Foxcon 946GZ7MA-8KRS2H.
I looked it up and it's a 16x slot, PCI-2.3 spec, it should be fine with a 58xx series. The problem is this: Dual Channel DDR2 533 / 667. Meaning the fastest memory you can put in is DDR2-667 and only in 2 DIMMS. Don't you already have 4GB of ram?

Videocard: 5850 :D ~$350. 5870 is too expensive (15% performance for 30% price increase) and the 5770 is too weak (50% the performance increase for 50% more in price).

Monitor: Something in the 22" widescreen ~$250, buy at a local store if you can.

==================
150 + 350 + 250 = $750 and it will be fucking gnar! (approx. totals w/tax cdn pricing)

[lugsy]

I have 2gb ram right now. 2x 1gb sticks. And yeah.. I don't know how I can find out what model I have xD tell me how to find out, and I'll find out?
Also, 5850 card.. that's ati or whatever? xD if you give me names, I can look at, but I know nothing about pcs.

[Zero Hour]

Ram: Well, it's about the same price for DDR2-667 vs DDR2-800 and I can only get the value brand, so you're better off getting the DDR2-800 and then underclocking it (it will underclock itself). If you buy a better mobo, you can just transfer the ram over and then it will be at 800MHz again.

PSU: crack that case open, blow out the cobwebs and take a look at the side of the PSU (usually the thing at the top where all the power wires are connected to) It should look like below...
http://www.hardwarelogic.com/articles/reviews/PSU/OCZ_GameXStream_700w/OCZ_GameXStream_700w_Side_Label.jpg
There should be some sort of power rating on it. Also the brand/model if possible would be nice too :).

[eddo]

Buy yourself new/more RAM, GPU (video card), OS.

2048 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory (2x 1gb. only 2 slots

I think your motherboard only supports 2 slots of memory and you have 2 of 1gb memory sticks. Get yourself 2x 2gb of memory, so you get 4gb of memory.

Since you are getting 4gb of ram, you should go with windows 7 64bit.

GPU (video card)
Buy what you can with the money you got. Not sure what the power supply will say about it. :P

[Homfry]

Since you are getting 4gb of ram, you should go with windows 7 64bit.



?

You only need 64 bit if you have 8 gigs.

2^32 = 4,294,967,296 more than 4 gigs

2^64 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 some stupid number.

64 bit is better in many ways but it is not gonna case any problem having 4 gigs and 32 bit

[eddo]

Pretty sure Windows 32bit OS has issue utilizing entire 4gb ram due to MMIO.

[Zero Hour]

In 32-bit you will have between 3.0-3.5GB of RAM. You don't get the full address size in windows because other devices use the virtual addressing space which makes the usable memory smaller. So you don't get the full 2^32-1.

[Brains]

basically, there is no reason anymore to go 32bit. go 64bit so you can get full access to everything your computer has to offer.

[lugsy]

I heard there may be some problems with drivers for 64 bit though? like for my built in sound card or what have you?

[Brains]

I haven't had any problems with anything windows vista/7 & 64bit. (had vista 64bit from august 2008 to march 2009 and win7 since then). I have onboard sound also.

[Freaky_Angelus]

I found that even my pos printer that now does everything with a shade of gray... still is supported..

W7 does almost everything already fine with its own drivers and W7 drivers for parts usually are easy to find.. even for older mobo's etc..

[Homfry]

In 32-bit you will have between 3.0-3.5GB of RAM. You don't get the full address size in windows because other devices use the virtual addressing space which makes the usable memory smaller. So you don't get the full 2^32-1.

that sucks that means I getting boned on my ram even though Vista says I have 4 gigs. They don't need to lie to me I can handle the truth :)

[Freaky_Angelus]

No.. it is possible to adress 4 gb in a 32bit system.. You could have the version with that support for mapping ;)

[Zero Hour]

that sucks that means I getting boned on my ram even though Vista says I have 4 gigs. They don't need to lie to me I can handle the truth :)Well I think they had it reporting the *actual* ram before SP1, but people probably were calling MS saying how they didn't have 4GB of ram, so it's probably easier to lie to them, 99.999% of people won't know the difference :P

[Zero Hour]

No.. it is possible to adress 4 gb in a 32bit system.. You could have the version with that support for mapping ;)
"However, to avoid potential driver compatibility issues, the 32-bit versions of Windows Vista limit the total available memory to 3.12 GB. See the "More information" section for information about potential driver compatibility issues."
sauce:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605

Possible if you don't have windows.

[Freaky_Angelus]

Mike! Mike! Click this linky to Physical Address Extension by M$ now for only 19,95! (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx) is what I ment but was to lazy to look up. (and yes.. the price is bs)

As said before.. you can have more then 3.12 / 3.25 Gb of memory in a 32 bit system, however most people don't have the version with PAE and it's a kernel option, so you need a reinstall anyway (and that way.. well just go W7 64bit then)

Link includes the list of M$ products and the max of mem. when PAE is enabled.

[Clone]

What bothers me is that companies like Dell will sell you a 32-bit CPU and also sell you 4gb of ram even though you can only use 3gb. People like us won't fall for their dirty tricks, but the normal user will give them an extra 30 bucks for something they can't use.

[Brains]

well in Dell's defense, they just build your system and make sure it all works. Technically the system works perfectly...just you don't get everything you paid for....which is how pretty much all corporations/companies operate..."what people don't know won't hurt them"...like Toyota didn't get screwed for selling faulty cars (which they knew about) until the mass public got wind of it from knowledgeable sources.

[Zero Hour]

Technically it is being used, just not by you :). Whatever though, 64-bit win7 ftw. If you're a student you could have got Professional 64-bit for $40 (I think).

SIGN ME UP Freaky!! I'll take 10

[Clone]

well in Dell's defense, they just build your system and make sure it all works.

HAHAAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! You make me laugh.
:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:



----The laptop I have has had a mobo and a hard-drive go bad in less than a year.