New computer time :(

No new hardware works on my computer. No new software works on my computer. It's slow, noisy, old, and partly broken. Windows is all screwed up.

Current setup:
Windows XP Home Addition, Version 2002, Service Pack 2
AMD Athlon Processor, 857 MHz, 256 MB of RAM

Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 997 MB 19" flat-screen CRT (I wish to keep this)
I'm getting a new mouse and keyboard soon: Logitech Lasermouse (G5) and probably a Microsoft Multimedia Pro keyboard. (I would like to keep these as well)
Speakers: Cambridge SoundWorks, 2 speakers and a sub-woofer. (which are still working, so I'll keep them as well)

So, all I need is a new tower. Everything else I have is good. Now what I would like in a new PC:
good AMD processor(s), 1GB RAM(minimum), decent graphics card, 2.0 GHz(minimum).

I've been looking at some and I found a good looking one: http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10062682&catid=
Seems to have all the things I want, and it's $400 off. The dials on the front are a bit odd.

Is this a good choice? Any suggestions?
Here is a list of computers(I already have a keyboard, monitor, mouse, and speakers remember): http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/subclass.asp?logon=&langid=EN&catid=10607

-Thanks

I'm starting to find 2.2Ghz is becoming too slow for some software, if your splashing out i'd recommend you get something a little more up to date and with a faster bus speed than the 2Ghz motherboards.

With regard keyboard, mouse, and the speakers - dont let the inclusion of any in a machine you buy effect your purchase. They cost peanuts to the manufacturer although some systems do have expensive speakers, this is rare. In all it's a saving to them of about £4 not to include those items so you wont get anything off.

It should be OK, for me a brand-new computer just takes about one month of salary, but...... I have no time to go street and buy a new one and my major work computer is my notebook.

Bleh, 2ghz too fast? What the hell are you doing with it? My XP2600 is fast enough for anything and since i've just about given up hope for PC games I dont see the need for anything faster. Yup, i'm aware this 2600 runs faster than a 2ghz p4, but since you said. "2ghz", its in the range.

i've yet to push this system too hard with an app. no more than even 25%. 50% when its *really* working.

However, if you dont mind the buggy PC game releases and have the internet to download an infinite number of patches, then you'll need the power to play the games. Dual 3ghz reccomended or more.

When generating high res textures in texture maker you need all the cpu power you can get hold of!

Next time I upgrade I'll be going for a monster dual core thingy ;)

Whether or not you need a fast CPU depends entirely upon what you wish to do with it.

Email, Word and Excel and a specially minimal installation of WindowsXP will work absolutely fine on 350MHz CPU with 64MiB of RAM and a 2GiB HD.

If, however, you wish to edit video, play Serious Sam 2 (which you should) and catalogue your 50,000 pictures of pron, a 2, 3 or (just under) 4GHz CPU, 1GiB RAM and some 500GiB HD's might be what you need.

Shambler, for 3D design and rendering, i understand the need for power.
The only thing a 3ghz cpu will do for me is make kme design games that require extremely powerful cpus :P

I'm keeping my midrange so i can test it :P



I suggest you try that :P You'll be modifying that statement!! :P

700MHz and 256MB of RAM and a 10GB HD perhaps.

450mhz, 128mb and 10gb. :P Thats the low end system i've got and even that struggles with office due to its low Ram :)

You can modify a WindowsXP installation by creating an unattended install. One benefit is you can make installations very small and you can remove any services and components you don't require. Much like a custom install of Linux.

Windows + Office can fit perfectly well in 2GiB with room for a good year or so of emails with a busy inbox.

If you don't try and multitask, 64MiB RAM will suffice. WindowsXP actually performs quite well in low-mem situations. We all tend to forget this because of the many extra services we run at startup (including all the hidden things) and our tendency to leave programs open even when not in use.

I know I leave Visual Blitz open almost all the time, instead of closing it and opening it only when I actually intend to do some coding :)

I've also usually got NewsBin, multiple QuickPAR's, Opera and Thunderbird open as a kind of default working environment.

There's no need to close programs on a low end system if your not using them, the background application will get pagefiled. Just don't try task switching :).

A P200 with 32mb Ram will run office fine, just not XP & the latest edition of Office. The only reason you need the latest Office is if you are exchanging documents, and frankly ever since Office 95 you've been better off with a typewritter anyway.

You might think i'm joking, but I know someone who recently went back to a typewriter because she was fed up of "that bloody thing".

There are a lot of people who think Word 4.1 (if I recall correctly) is the best, most productive, version there has ever been.

Personally, I don't write too many letters, but when I have had to, Word has made a fairly easy job of it.

I use Excel a lot at work, I have yet to see anything else that compares in usability and speed of operation. I did uninstall Office and tried OpenOffice 2.0 for a good few months. I liked some of its features. The Word replacement was very good and I really liked the PDF exporting (as Frank Taylor will testify). The Excel replacement, I didn't like. Things that I used to do very quickly suddenly involved extra steps.

I did like the Access replacement, and I do infact have this installed (very unofficially) at work because they haven't licensed Access. I will convert them to databases (away from Excel) at some point but there's a lot of people to convince and a few people who will never change (because they are just waiting for retirement).

I also liked the little drawing program. It integrated very nicely with Write and was exceptionally intuitive to use.

I'll probably give it another go when it gets to 2.5 or 3.0.

Ghz don't mean what it used to... So don't look at that specifically... Especially since you are looking for an AMD system. My FX-55 runs at 2.66Ghz but I'd throw it up against a 3.8 Ghz P4 any day of the week.

Anything in the AMD64 range will do you right, though I'd go for a Athlon64 3800+ or better just because the price difference between the 3200 to the 3800 is negligible. But once you go to the 4000+ you see a significant increase in price for a not so significant speed increase. Of course if you are planning on dropping serious cash, the FX-57 can't be touched for gaming.

Kanati

But bus speed has always meant more than people have given credit for, especially for gaming.

Raw processing wants a faster CPU whereas games/multimedia want bus speed.

Few manufacturers even list it as a specification :/.

I would like to say what i had on my original PC.

24mb or ram, p60.

I had windows 98, office 2000 and Paint Shop Pro 7 on a 512mb HDD and PSP ran just fine. Also had a few audio programs that at the time used so little CPU that it ran the same on the p60 as it did my celeron 1200. I know i know- thats to do with the sound card latency, but it still uses the CPU to acually form the sound.

My first PC was a 25Mhz 386SX with 4MB RAM (or it may only have been 1MB, can't remember) - what a powerhorse that baby was. :P

I would want a PC that can handle Adobe Creative Suite 2 at a fastish speed. I won't be gaming THAT much, but I think I will play a few. I don't exactly do high-poly modeling, but it would be nice to have a fast cumputer.

Adobe CS needs ram, and planety of it. At least 512MB, although I would recommend more.

You mention 2.0 GHz minimum, but as mentioned before GHz doesn't really mean much anymore... although I would go with an AMD 2800+ minimum, there is so little price difference between those and the slower models that it's not really worth saving a couple of bucks there.

But not nearly as much as YOU give it credit for evidently.

I lowered my ram speed from 400mhz to 333mhz due to a stick that was acting eratically... And ya know what? I saw exactly 1fps difference in doom3.

AMD gets away with a slower bus because it has a better memory handler... Bus speed is important, but it's not something of primary concern.

I got my new computer:
Synergio Manufacturing Ltd
Touch System
Windows XP Home SP2
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+
2.20 GHz, 1.00 GB of RAM
DVD RW Drive, 250 GB Hard Drive, Radeon EAX 300 LE (?)
+Crappy keyboard, mouse, and speakers
+Free printer/copier/scanner

All for $1300 CAD

Did I make a good choice? Can someone tell me about that graphics card? Is that a Radeon X300 as in 10300?

I don't know the video card so I can't say much about that, but the rest seems pretty nice. :-)

If the printer/copier/scanner is a Lexmark Multifunction device (most likely, seems to be one of the most commonly included printers with a new computer), then don't count on using it much for printing. It will be cheaper to buy a new one than to replace the ink cartridge when it runs out. The printers are dirt cheap, but the ink is criminally expensive.

(Coindidentally, the speed in actual GHz of an AMD CPU is pretty much pointless, but the 4200+ rating is very nice)

Actually, it's an HP printer/copier/scanner, $120 value.

I remember when I first moved over to owning a PC (I'd been working with them since 386's but never bought one). The Pentium 150 was the flagship system at the time but I built myself a Pentium 133 that out performed the firms top model in all but fractal rendering. The difference was simply bus speed, I had 66Mhz but the 150 only ran at 60Mhz. Just 6Mhz difference (10%) and the impact on performance was substantial. It was a nice cost saver too.

So ner.

Doom is a diabolical example anyway because it doesn't actually worry about gameplay, AI, physics etc to process. It's just a graphics demo therefore it's final speed will be more down to the graphics card than anything else. I did actually specify "games" above, and clearly Doom and Quake do not qualify by any definition of the word in the English dictionary, foreign or otherwise, because they're just showcase reels for game engines which nobody can afford to use. It's only because there's mugs out there that'll buy the pretty shiny thing that they see the shop shelves at all.