So I finally upgraded my PC (review!)

[NikFu S.]

Upgrading from:
Pentium III Tualatin 1.13Ghz, multiple puny specs I no longer care about, L2 etc.
Gigabyte board, also forgotten but it only had 4x AGP.
2x256MB "Crucial" SDRAM, 100 and 133Mhz I think
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
2 40G ATA IDE HDs
other stuff

Half Life 2 was playable at slightly above the lowest settings. Even Lost Coast was playable. Damn fine system for it's age. Never had to replace the lithium battery.

Upgraded to:
Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86Ghz, cheapest/slowest of the line.
Asus P5B-E, x16 PCI-E, 6 channel onboard sound, socket 775, awesome board in general.
1GB "G Skill" single channel DDR2 running at 1.8v
Sapphire Radeon (ATI chipset) x1900 GT, cheap relative to a DirectX 10 card, and it's PCI-E x16. Great specs, better customer reviews, kinda long.
I got this stuff from Newegg.com

My original Hard drives would not boot for some reason so I went to Best Buy the day I was putting this together and got a WD 250GB SATA 300 drive. Great capacity, great brand, great price.
I was walking around and saw the keyboard I wanted was knocked down $30 from 100 to 70, so I picked up. Logitech G15. Awesome customer reviews and well deserved, and my old KB is 7 years old and has seen much action, including a recent milk attack.
I already had a new case that I got at CompUSA about a year ago and hadn't even opened the box until this time (my old case is around 7 years old). I discovered the included 400W PSU was outdated at this point. So I had to get one of those. Antec Trio 430W SATA/socket 775 supporting 20/24pin PSU.

I've cobbled all these things together and have the best machine of everyone I know personally.

I need to get an OS still, as I installed XP Home from someone elses activated CD. Problem is I know Vista should be released in the coming months and I don't want to buy XP just to use it for a short time.
Other than the 30 day countdown of doom this system is performing beyond all expectations despite not being the top of the line series of components available.

Half Life 2 puts the biggest strain on any machine I've used. My P3 was constantly at 100% duty while it was running HL2. Merely loading the game took around a minute, minute and half on slow days.
Today, it will boot up in a matter of seconds. There is almost no delay anywhere in the system, though it has hung twice, probably due to my own misuse, ie running Unreal 2 right after installing it, using SP1, screwing with settings and drivers.
I clocked just over 200fps on the video test with the settings on high. In CS:S I will run at about 300fps, which is pointless so I software limit it to 100.
According to my read outs the CPU and board stay pretty cool.
Everything is perfect. (:

I think if you include my monitor (samsung Syncmaster 204B), my old soundcard (SB Audigy 2 ZS), my old optical Explorer mouse, and my Linksys wireless NIC, the whole system runs about 1600-1700 dollars, which is a steal.

I highly recommend everything I have listed here. Knowing me, I'll run this setup for another 4 years, at which point I will probably just double the RAM and replace the CPU with whatever is the highest model right now, and replace the video card if I need it.


Here is a very large picture showing the internals of the two systems next to each other for comparison.
http://www.subaru-svx.net/photos/fil...u_S./40662.JPG
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Comment/critique/agree/disagree/review your own machine.

[Crazy_pilot]

Sweet deal! Ya, the DX10 cards are a little crazy right now. I'm running a Radeon 1600 now, soon to be two of those in Crossfire. I'd love to have a 1900. I'm also running an ASUS board, no complaints from me!

My beastie:

http://www.subaru-svx.net/forum/show...light=computer

A little more power than yours in general, but you out-video card me. I also blew a bit more cash.....

You definitely needed to get something better than that old machine!

[Earthworm]

Good choices. I'm working on a similar setup. I have the case & MB on order. Waiting for a drop in CPU prices and will use current RAM/Video/HDD for now. My next video will probably be an ATI X1950 Pro for <$200.

[NikFu S.]

Originally Posted by Crazy_pilot

Sweet deal! Ya, the DX10 cards are a little crazy right now. I'm running a Radeon 1600 now, soon to be two of those in Crossfire. I'd love to have a 1900. I'm also running an ASUS board, no complaints from me!
My beastie:
http://www.subaru-svx.net/forum/show...light=computer
A little more power than yours in general, but you out-video card me. I also blew a bit more cash.....
You definitely needed to get something better than that old machine!

Wow first thing I noticed was the liquid cooling. That's pretty hot, so to speak.


Forgot to mention I'm running digital video as opposed to analog, not that my current card has an analog output, but digitial slows everything waaaay down, relatively, on the P3. Can't compare on the C2D, but refreshing takes a little longer than I would expect sometimes. Probably just the monitor.

Here's my case. Not much to look at, but I'm not really into flashy stuff. It reads out temps and fan speeds, and has some blue light dealy I have yet to figure out. Got it at Comp for like a hundred bucks.
http://www.subaru-svx.net/photos/fil...u_S./40675.JPG
Almost forgot I don't have even have a DVD drive yet. Looking at a Sumsung writer.

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I downloaded HL: Episode 1 and it used up almost all of my RAM according to my G15. ): Played great though.

[Crazy_pilot]

The cooling system is pretty awesome. The CPU temp is low 30's C at idle, down to 16 degrees once when I held ice cubes against the rad , and since I'm not blowing hot air off the CPU heatsink into the case the rest of the system is cooler as well. At least it was until the pump went ka-poof. So now I'm running the Intel stock heatsink and fan, which are adequate, but I had to pull back my overclock. Waiting on a new pump.

Nice case. I felt like something flashy, but I appreciate functional stuff too. How big is the side fan? Big opening, but I think I see a 90mm fan grill. Either way, 'tis quite spiffy.

Make sure it's dual layer. Single layer DVD's are just...blah.

[NikFu S.]

30*C is pretty good for 24% OC.

Bah, that's a pretty standard size fan on the side, idunno, but I just noticed it isn't spinning.
Must have missed a power thingy somewhere for my fan and blue light dealy.

Temp is reading 26.9-27.4 at idle, up to 29.5 running Ep 1.

Stock cooling is plenty adequate for stock speeds. My friend's P4 idles at something like 32-34, and runs apps around 39.

[Electrophil]

I use a G15. Love those lighted keys, since I lurk here in the dark.

[SubaSteevo]

Originally Posted by NikFu S.

Stock cooling is plenty adequate for stock speeds. My friend's P4 idles at something like 32-34, and runs apps around 39.

Yeah, that's about right for a P4.

[NikFu S.]

RAM is defective.

System is randomly rebooting or crashing at high loads.
Various applications fail and fail to load at random intervals.

Today sucks.

[Crazy_pilot]

That's one reason I dislike buying things online. When something goes wrong you have to ship it back, wait for new one to arrive...

[NikFu S.]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231099

This is the one, so if you're thinking about buying it, maybe look for some Crucial or something..