I need a new computer.

[Kermit de frog]

My 4 year old computer no longer will play AH.  Mobo doesn't like the game.

-------------------------------------------------
Video Card:

BFG GeForce 7900 GS OC 256MB PCI Express®
or
BFG GeForce 7900G 256MB PCI-Express Graphic Card
-------------------------------------------------
Processor:
 
Intel® Pentium® D Processor 945 - BX80553945 - Box CPU - Socket LGA775
or
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6300 - BX80557E6300 - Box CPU - Socket LGA775
-------------------------------------------------
Power Supply

Antec TruePowerTrio 650W Power Supply
or
Antec 500W Power Supply
 --------------------------------------------------
Motherboard:

Asus P5B-E Intel® P965 Express
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Memory:

Kingston Dual Channel kit, I will need 2 of these for a total of 4 sticks

KHX4300D2K2/1G  1GB kit DDR2 533MHz (2x512mb sticks)
or
KHX5400D2K2/2G  2GB 675MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL4 (2x1GB sticks)
 
--------------------------------------------------------
I will also buy SATA 3.0 120-200GB hard drives.  (Qty: 2)

I will continue to use my Audigy 2 Sound Card
My Hauppage WinTV PCI card
My Sony DVD Rom Drive
My Sony CD/RW Drive

I don't want to spend more than $700 unless I spend some of that next month, but I need my AH addiction soon!
What should I do?  I don't want to upgrade for 3 years minimum! A whole new system should not be needed for 4 to 5 years from now.

[NOT]

BFG GeForce 7900 GS OC 256MB PCI Express®
this one.

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6300 - BX80557E6300 - Box CPU - Socket LGA775
this one


Antec TruePowerTrio 650W Power Supply
this one


KHX5400D2K2/2G 2GB 675MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL4 (2x1GB sticks)
this one.




NOT

[Kermit de frog]

People keep telling me the duo core is better, so I'll go with the Dual core.

I'm going to go with the E6400 instead of the E6300 because I'll get the higher multiplier for overclocking purposes.  I promise not to overclock it too much.

7900 GS will be it!

Now the memory is iffy still.
Debating on going for faster memory.

Also the power supply.  Antec TruePowerTrio 650 or 550.  1A difference on each of the 3 12V rails.

So, faster memory and lower power PSU?

[Krusty]

Originally posted by Kermit de frog
People keep telling me the duo core is better, so I'll go with the Dual core.

I'm going to go with the E6400 instead of the E6300 because I'll get the higher multiplier for overclocking purposes.  I promise not to overclock it too much.

Even the 1.8GHz lowest of the Conroes blows away the Pentium D 945.

Folks have been pushing this thing, safely, to 2.8GHz on its stock HS fan. That's how robust these things are.

The answer, from this day on (until AMD ever catches up) is Conroe. Always Conroe. There is no other choice.

[HomeBoy]

Originally posted by Kermit de frog

Also the power supply.  Antec TruePowerTrio 650 or 550.  1A difference on each of the 3 12V rails.

So, faster memory and lower power PSU? [/B]

A 650w PSU is way overkill for this system.  550 is even more than you need.  I got a high wattage PSU for mine because of future growth (I tend to keep a case and PSU for a very long time) so if that is what you have in mind, a 650 is what you want.  If not, a 450 or 500 will be fine.

[Trog]

Hey Kermit

I'm upgrading too

I was going to go with:

Intel Core 2 duo E 6600 2.4 ghz (313.00)
ASUS P5W DH Deluxe LGA 775 975X(209.00)
Corsair xms2-6400 4-4-4-12 cas  lat 4 2x1gb(175.00)
Stay with my ATI x850 PCI Express card ( if it doesn't do the job will go with GeForce 8800 GTS. Stay with my xfi soundcard

I would rather not spend the extra money if i don't have to.

Will your system run AH just as well?
Is there truly a big difference between this here and yours
I'm also just looking for a system that will run AH for awhile with upgrading as needed.

Don't want to thread steal, but i think this applies to the questions about upgrading that will help us and others as it seems like some common concerns.

Tnx Kermit

[Kermit de frog]

I'll let you know my results troy.

[Tigger29]

Kermit, I was recently in the same predicament as you, except I had an even TIGHTER budget.  I opted for the E6300, and I'm VERY VERY glad I did!  The performance of this "entry level" Core-duo is amazing.. and the temperature rarely hits 90f with the stock fan.

Here's what I got:

- E6300
- ASRock 775Dual-VSTA motherboard (has both AGP and PCI-e slots)
- 2 GB DDR2 ram (kingston)
- WD 160GB SATA HD
- Lite-on DVD/CDRW combo drive

Total investment $370 with shipping from newegg.

I reused:

- Case and 300W power supply (for now, but seems to be holding up just fine)
- CDROM drive
- Wireless network card
- GeForce 6200 AGP video card (256MB)
- Keyboard/Mouse/Monitor
- Windows XP Home

Even with this video card that's two generations old, I still crank out 50-70FPS consistently at 512 texts, sliders about 2/3 of the way towards detail.  At 1024 texts with hi-res pack, I have to drop my sliders down to about halfway, and I still get 30-60FPS, but gets a little jittery during lots of action.  I can't even imagine what a high-end video card would do with this setup!

I haven't attempted any overclocking yet, but am considering it!

Good luck!  Let us know what you get!

[Kermit de frog]

I went with the E6400 (higher multiplier)

I over clocked it from 2.18 to 2.4

I changed the system clock from 266MHz to 300MHz
(CPU Multiplier is 8x) 2.4GHz is then accomplished.  Now it's at the same speed as the 6600 Processor and I only get an average of <3 degrees celcius increase, but minus the 4MB L2 cache vs my 2MBL2 cache.

My FSB is now faster than the E6600's from 1066MHz to 1200MHz
(FSB Multiplier was 4x)

400MHz = PC6400 or DDR2 800
333MHz = PC5400 or DDR2 667

I underclocked my memory from 400MHz to 375MHz.
So my FSB = 1200MHz while my Memory is now equivalent to 750*2 1500MHz
FSB - DRAM Ratio is 4:5.  This may not be a 1:1,  so I should kick back my memory to DDR2 600, which means 300MHz or 300*2 is 600MHz just to get a 1:1 FSB/DRAM ratio?  I guess I won't go for a 1:1 ratio unless that means I will get a stable system, otherwise I won't bother.

BTW, my dram speeds are set to 2x, 2.5x and 3x of my system clock.


Maybe I should increase my system clock to 400MHz.  I could get is up to 3.2GHz and a FSB of 1600 which will let me set my memory back up to 400MHz, thereby getting my full money's worth out of my memory.  But, my Vcore voltage will have to go up along with temperatures.  I've watercooled my system and I'm running at 37 degrees celcius, 2.4GHz FSB 1.2GHz.

system clock to 350 means, 3.0GHz CPU with 1400MHz FSB and dram (2x = 700 so I could get a FSB/DRAM ratio of 1:1

-------------------------
Brief description on DDR memory so people can follow the above info:
DDR means double data rate and they are also DIMM's.  Dual Inline Memory Modules(memory chips on both sides of memory sticks), each side operations on the DRAM frequency.  This is why I was multiplying certain numbers by 2 to get the full equivalent frequency.
1 PC6400 means it transfers 6.4g/s of data with two sides operation at a frequency of 400MHz thereby acting like 1 stick going 800MHz speed.  Put two sticks of memory in the system, one stick in each of the 2 memory channels and you got dual channel mode.  Dual channel mode then says you can transfer up to 6.4g/s x 2 or (800MHz x 2) which is then 12.8g/s or 1600MHz.
(Lower case g is for gigabits vs gigabytes (G). bit is a 1 or 0 and byte is 8 1's or 0's.)
FSB is the speed at which the CPU communicates with the chipset and other chips on the motherboard.  I've tested my Memory at 800MHz and 533MHz when my CPU/FSB were at stock settings (2.18GHz/1066MHz) and I saw a 0.1% difference in performance using a benchmark program.  Why get DDR2 800 if you are not going to overclock?

Can someone read this post and tell me if I am wrong.  It makes sense to me, but I'd like to make sure I'm understanding this correctly.

[Kermit de frog]

I turn my E6400 2.18GHz FSB 1066MHz into
2.4GHz with a FSB of 1600MHz.

Overall performance was the same for a 2.4GHz procesor with either a FSB of 1200 or 1600MHz.

I made sure my Vcore was set to 1.375V and that helps me overclock and keep the power/temp down so that it doesn't go over 41 degrees celcius under full load.
I'm going to kick down my Vcore voltage another notch to see if it's stable.

I've noticed that AH doesn't use my CPU to 100%.  The first CPU is about 60% and the right is about 30% so my bottleneck is my 7900GS OC video card.  I've got AH and my video card maxed out in settings.  FPS stays at 60 except when flying over CV's with lots of people (more than 10) it will drop to 38 and when I'm over a lot of forest about 1k or less above them, my fps will drop to 18.  I haven't tried AH with FSB to 1600MHz.

[Slash27]

Originally posted by Kermit de frog
II've noticed that AH doesn't use my CPU to 100%.  The first CPU is about 60% and the right is about 30% so my bottleneck is my 7900GS OC video card.  I've got AH and my video card maxed out in settings.  FPS stays at 60 except when flying over CV's with lots of people (more than 10) it will drop to 38 and when I'm over a lot of forest about 1k or less above them, my fps will drop to 18.  I haven't tried AH with FSB to 1600MHz.

Your FPS drops to 18 with a E6400 and a 7900GS? What the hell?

[Kermit de frog]

Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Antialiasing Settings: 8xS
Force mipmaps: Trilinear
Gamma correct antialiasing: On
Negative LOD bias: Clamp
Texture Filtering: High Quality
Transparency antialiasing: Supersampling
Triple buffering: On
Vertical sync: Force on


What are your settings? I'd like to compare.
My FPS are normally at 60 max, but drop to 18 when 100ft over forests.

[Slash27]

Im on a system that going on 6 years old so my "what the hell?" was due to being more than a little dejected your systems performance. I was looking at a very similar set up for my next rig and was expecting to be able to finally crank the sliders to max and go like hell.

[Krusty]

Sliders to the max doesn't really help much. It just displays trees further off into the distance before culling them.

[Slash27]

Maybe I want that.