I want to build you a computer

[Dhsu]

Because not everyone has $200. Better to put that money towards a better monitor IMO. Otherwise a lot of the "max settings" are totally wasted because you can't even tell the difference on smaller monitors.

Edited August 14, 2010 by Dhsu

[Nabeel Ansari]

Because not everyone has $200. Better to put that money towards a better monitor IMO. Otherwise a lot of the "max settings" are totally wasted because you can't even tell the difference on smaller monitors.

Actually, I'm pretty sure the GeForce 8400 can't run games on max even at the lowest resolution possible.

[Dhsu]

Yeah, my point is, if you have $200, it makes more sense to spend $70 on a slightly weaker card and spend the rest on a monitor that will actually let you appreciate the higher settings than blow it all on an awesome graphics card if your monitor only supports 800x600.

[prophetik music]

Actually, I'm pretty sure the GeForce 8400 can't run games on max even at the lowest resolution possible.

actually, an 8400 is totally capable for older games. my old laptop had the rough equivalent of a 6600 in it, and i was able to almost max Freelancer on it, at 1440x900. don't just automatically rule it out because it's a few years old, or a budget card. a GTS 240 can destroy an 8800 =) and a 7950GX2 can annihilate it. and an 8400GS with a decent processor (like the i3-530) is way better than an 8800 with a last-gen pentium dual-core or early core 2.

dhsu and bardic, i think you're speaking two different languages. resolution is more closely tied to vram than it is to anything else - meaning that the difference between a card that can drive a 1920x1200 monitor and a 1440x900 monitor is usually 512mb of vram, not necessarily processing power. that said, a GTS 250 would kill anything and make up for a crappy processor on that setup, and they're relatively cheap. a 260 would perform VERY well, as well - as much because of the extra mbs of ram as anything else.

kevin, that card's not that great mainly because PCI is on the same bus that handles everything else (like USB) on your computer. PCI is already limited to a 133mb/s transfer rate, so your tubes are likely just clogged =)

return the card and get a radeon 4650 (55$ or so), buy a new motherboard, probably buy a new processor, maybe some new ram. likely a bigger power supply.

actually, why don't you tell me what computer you've got and i'll tell you what to buy. or you can give me moneys and i'll do it for you.

man, i leave town for two days, and the world explodes. haven't seen this much news in months on this thread.

that said, drumultima is ordering a system from me =) yay! he'll get a quote sometime in the next 12 hours or so, when i'm back home and not on a phone.

[DrumUltimA]

actually, an 8400 is totally capable for older games. my old laptop had the rough equivalent of a 6600 in it, and i was able to almost max Freelancer on it, at 1440x900. don't just automatically rule it out because it's a few years old, or a budget card. a GTS 240 can destroy an 8800 =) and a 7950GX2 can annihilate it. and an 8400GS with a decent processor (like the i3-530) is way better than an 8800 with a last-gen pentium dual-core or early core 2.

dhsu and bardic, i think you're speaking two different languages. resolution is more closely tied to vram than it is to anything else - meaning that the difference between a card that can drive a 1920x1200 monitor and a 1440x900 monitor is usually 512mb of vram, not necessarily processing power. that said, a GTS 250 would kill anything and make up for a crappy processor on that setup, and they're relatively cheap. a 260 would perform VERY well, as well - as much because of the extra mbs of ram as anything else.

kevin, that card's not that great mainly because PCI is on the same bus that handles everything else (like USB) on your computer. PCI is already limited to a 133mb/s transfer rate, so your tubes are likely just clogged =)

return the card and get a radeon 4650 (55$ or so), buy a new motherboard, probably buy a new processor, maybe some new ram. likely a bigger power supply.

actually, why don't you tell me what computer you've got and i'll tell you what to buy. or you can give me moneys and i'll do it for you.

man, i leave town for two days, and the world explodes. haven't seen this much news in months on this thread.

that said, drumultima is ordering a system from me =) yay! he'll get a quote sometime in the next 12 hours or so, when i'm back home and not on a phone.

yeah! I'm excited

[Dhsu]

actually, an 8400 is totally capable for older games. my old laptop had the rough equivalent of a 6600 in it, and i was able to almost max Freelancer on it, at 1440x900. don't just automatically rule it out because it's a few years old, or a budget card. a GTS 240 can destroy an 8800 =) and a 7950GX2 can annihilate it. and an 8400GS with a decent processor (like the i3-530) is way better than an 8800 with a last-gen pentium dual-core or early core 2.

I think that may depend on the game...I started out with an E6300 (1.86GHz stock) with an 8500GT, and upgrading to a HD4850 did a lot more for my framerates than overclocking my CPU to 3.15GHz ever did. I have an E7300 now and I've left it running at its stock 2.66GHz because I've never felt it's been the bottleneck.

Edited August 15, 2010 by Dhsu

[Nabeel Ansari]

actually, an 8400 is totally capable for older games. my old laptop had the rough equivalent of a 6600 in it, and i was able to almost max Freelancer on it, at 1440x900. don't just automatically rule it out because it's a few years old, or a budget card. a GTS 240 can destroy an 8800 =) and a 7950GX2 can annihilate it. and an 8400GS with a decent processor (like the i3-530) is way better than an 8800 with a last-gen pentium dual-core or early core 2.

Anything can run older games? I was talking about games like Star Craft II which is what linkspast bought the 8400 for.

Now tell me you've got a system with an 8400 that can run that on max.

[prophetik music]

Anything can run older games? I was talking about games like Star Craft II which is what linkspast bought the 8400 for.

Now tell me you've got a system with an 8400 that can run that on max.

you don't have to run games on max to enjoy them? i'm talking about games, in general. buying an 8400 wasn't a good idea for that game, but it's a capable card that does a lot. there's a common misconception that a graphics card is required to do anything at all with a computer. actually, gfx cards are ONLY for gaming and the like. so, even the most basic card is a huge increase over integrated graphics, and makes a big difference in performance. the 8400 isn't the even the most basic card available.

dhsu, it really does. a game with a huge draw distance, like a Fallout 3/Far Cry 2 style game, will always struggle with something like that. a game with a limited amount of visual requirements, like Alien Swarm, wouldn't have too much of a problem with higher settings.

Edited August 15, 2010 by prophetik music

[Nabeel Ansari]

you don't have to run games on max to enjoy them?

Was that the point?

Edit: Nevermind, you don't seem to have read what I said or what I was replying to, you're too busy bragging about how much of a smartass you are. :/ (Yeah i read your real replies dude)

Edited August 15, 2010 by Neblix

[linkspast]

so, even the most basic card is a huge increase over integrated graphics, and makes a big difference in performance. the 8400 isn't the even the most basic card available.

This is what i thought too... but like I said either im retarded, or the 8400 really made things worse (which it did)

Ill post some specs of my hardware in a bit.

[prophetik music]

Was that the point?

Edit: Nevermind, you don't seem to have read what I said or what I was replying to, you're too busy bragging about how much of a smartass you are. :/ (Yeah i read your real replies dude)

of course i read them, man. you're so busy trying to sound like you know what you're talking about that you're missing the original point - that, while it can't run the newest, most graphically demanding game on the market right now, budget cards like the 8400GS have an important niche in the market. did kevin buy the right card for his setup? nope. does that make the 8400GS a terrible card? nope. they're great for people who want to give their IGP motherboards the ability to play some basic games without spending more than, like 40$. what kevin should have done is go review Tom's Hardware. they write an article every other month or so and rate what's the best gaming cards for 50, 70, 90, 125, and etc. he probably just didn't know about it yet.

if you're still offended that i called you a dumb 14-year-old with no practical experience in the field of computer hardware a few months ago, you're not doing anything to change my mind =)

Edited August 15, 2010 by prophetik music

[Dhsu]

Fight fight fight fight

[Nabeel Ansari]

did kevin buy the right card for his setup? nope.

This is all I've said in the thread.

[prophetik music]

Fight fight fight fight

agragragragra ANGRY

edit: cool story, got two or three more interested parties at all ends of the pricing spectrum. looks like business is going to be picking up a bit.

Edited August 15, 2010 by prophetik music

[Dhsu]

Good to hear. I imagine it's getting harder for computer builders to make a profit nowadays, with prefabs getting so cheap. I've been seeing deals where the computer is practically worth buying for the RAM alone.

[prophetik music]

there's a ton of value on the low end, and a ton of power and customizability on the high end, but there's still a minimum of quality systems in the 700-1200 ranges. that's where probably 90% of my systems usually sit.

[Dhsu]

GT 240 512MB GDDR3 for $20 after rebate

Picking one of these up so I can finally get some hybrid PhysX action going.

Edited August 16, 2010 by Dhsu

[prophetik music]

two months (almost) - so a bump is in order.

i've been saving for a while to finally split my home system (i7-860, 4gb DDR3 ram, 5tb of space, GTX 260 core 216) into two systems - one for gaming and online use, one for offline-only music. i'm getting close. it'll be the first time i'll have two dedicated machines with unique uses at any given time. looking forward to it =) depending on how i scale it and how i work everything, it'll be anywhere from 600-1000$ for the upgrades, but it's been over a year since i've done anything major to my home machine. i'm past due for an overhaul.

moving my music onto an offline-only machine will not only bring productivity benefits, it'll allow me to experiment more with overclocking than i've been able to on my primary system in the past (always been worried that losing a CPU would put me out of business musically for the months to save up for a new one). it'll also allow me to fotz around more with custom setups, as i won't have to have a million hard drives sucking power and generating heat in what for most cases is the primary air intake port on the system (the front lower bay).

[prophetik music]

i'd like to note that i recently branched out into doing DAW slave computers and render farms for graphics and distributed computing. just pm me for more information.

[prophetik music]

i'd like to note that i recently branched out into doing DAW slave computers and render farms for graphics and distributed computing. just pm me for more information.

just a quick bump. i've got a build coming up for xenon odyssey and (hopefully) sinewav, so you'll hear some more testimonials pretty soon =)

[Schwaltzvald]

Share the specs would ya? It'd be appreciated here!

[prophetik music]

Share the specs would ya? It'd be appreciated here!

bobby's system is likely going to be an i7-870 cpu (overclocked to whatever i can get stable), my used GTX 260 core 216, 16gb of ram, a 128gb SSD boot drive, 4tb of storage, dual optical drives, and a 750w PSU. in other worse, a monster that blows my primary system away =) i'm looking forward to playing with that much RAM combined with eight cores of awesome!

i'm pretty sure that we priced it out, after my fees, to just under $2000 or so. we're still tweaking, though, so that's probably not the final build.

sinewav's system isn't confirmed yet. it depends on how much his parents want to pay we're looking at a build that features an i5-760, 4gb of ram, a GTS 250 1gb gfx card, and around a terabyte of storage. that build was looking like it'd be around 900$, if i remember correctly, but i'm not sure.

[prophetik music]

for those who didn't see the build pictures from bobby's machine, check them out at the thread: here.

in more recent news, i just got the payment for a computer for greg michalec (sole signal). we'll be using the brand-new Sandy Bridge processors for his system, which is primarily a music and video editing machine.

i'm also talking with josh whelchel of indie music fame to build two systems - a primary DAW with 4tb of storage and a monster processor, and a server box with 6.5tb of storage. it's still in the works, but promises to be pretty awesome =)

Edited January 18, 2011 by prophetik music

[prophetik music]

whew, almost five months later...

bump. done a machine for jam stunna recently, too.

[HalcyonSpirit]

I know you can do beastly machines, but what about budget machines as well? Like, really budget. Nothing special, probably not going to be doing much that would strain a processor... Yeah, it's for my dad. Something really cheap. I was thinking about building it myself, but I guess I should ask your opinion on what might be best. I know much more about the higher end stuff than I do the lower end.

EDIT: Probably would need a separate graphics card, though not a really powerful one. He does occasionally play a game or two on it (flight simulation, golf, etc.), and as far as I know, integrated graphics still can't properly handle many Flash things without slowing the whole damn computer down in the process (my workplace computer comes to mind).

Edited June 5, 2011 by HalcyonSpirit