Next Gen ( Vista, Directx10, Quatro, etc. ) Discussion

What type of "things" would that be?

Actually, NVidia dropped the hardware DVD decoder several years ago - it is all done in software now. ATI is the only major card maker that still uses a hardware decoder built into the card. Although NVidia still offers a hardware decoder card, it is not routinely integrated into their graphics chips anymore.

With "software only", you get the best performance only when you use the NVidia software. If you try to use PowerDVD or another program, you notice a sharp reduction in quality.

And what sites do I hear that from? How about right here! There is a long-running thread on it right here:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=25809

In the last few months, I have seen a great number of posts in here about problems with NVidia drivers. And NVidia have themselves removed several driver updates in the last year because of problems like this. In one of the most infamous a month or so ago, it was because it would tell the people who installed it that they would be better of moving to SLI. Like who wants forced advertisement in a video driver?

I don't see why you would buy dual 7950GT. You can't run directx10 with this generation of cards, and you can probably play all games on max with only one of those.

don't developers for games and movies need pretty of ram?

Yes but in all honesty, Aman seens like a computer newbie. First off he's gonna buy an Aleinware, and has asked a lot of questions in this thread. Some people need 4 gb or even more RAM. I don't think for one second he does though. No offence to you Aman, we all have to start somewhere. Just stating my observation. If I'm wrong let me know.

Unless he is doing some heavy video editing he doesn't need 4gb. And he's not a game developer because those 2 7900gts would be usless for developing. You need a workstaion card for that, like a Quatro or FireGL.

I game a lot and I have 2gb. Mostly because Battlefield 2 is a RAM hog. But the more sticks of RAM you have the higher the cas latencies have to be. If your not using that extra RAM you'll get more performance without it.

I sreiously doubt that unless you're doing a ton of industry-level audio or video work, but ok.
That would lead me to question how much some people actually understand.

RAID 0 will exponentially increase your chances of data loss (double in your case) - this is not opinion or arguable - it's a pure fact. Look up RAID 0 if you don't understand why.

The speeds might have been impressive a few years ago, but 10k RPM drives and perpendicular recoding drives simple have aggregate write speed beat today.
Nvidia's decoder is a software codec, but it works with hardware acceleration and a hardware interlacer on their cards, which makes a huge difference.
Actually, you're wrong. First off, Nvidia doesn't have any software aside from the decoder. Secondly, Nvidia's codec in addition to an acceleration capable card is regarded to be one of the highest quality options available for DVD playback for home theater PCs. Check one of the many, many posts over on AVSForums if you don't believe me. (Kind of odd that ATI never gets mentioned in there, eh?)

Also, I'm pretty sure PowerDVD allows for use of the Nvidia codec and hardware acceleration and deinterlacer, being that it's a DirectShow player and all, so I'm not really sure what you're talking about there. I use my 7900GTX and the Nvidia codec to help decode and deinterlate DVDs and HD transport streams almost every day.


I guess the TV tuner might be a bonus, but a Hauppage card would be 100% better in terms of quality, software compatibility and even the option for using a remote.


As for Nvidia drivers, I've haven't had problems with anything in at least the past 4-5 years. Through a 4600Ti, 5950U, 6800GT and my current 7900GTX, I can't remember a single driver issue and I update whenever I see a new non-beta release.

For years now, I have seen people "over buy" computers, either because they think they need the "biggest and baddest", or because some salesman talks them into huge upgrades in order to increase their comission check.

And a lot of programs simply do not need as much as people think. I was editing video and sound professionally with an Athlon 1800 with 256 Megs of ram just a few years ago. My best friend still does it with his Athlon 2400 with 1 Gig RAM.

And I still do audio recording and video editing on the side. My system has only 1 Gig of RAM, but that does not hamper my use of both Adobe Premiere and Adobe Audition. And once in a while I still have to fire up my AutoCAD for some light drafting. Once again, no problems.

As for the All-In-Wonder, I still use mine fairly often. Although it is an older one (Radeon 9200 GPU), it still works great for recording TV. I have found that the software that comes with it is the best I have ever found for scheduling shows I want to record. I can even tell it I want to record any show that is called "Enterprise", and it will go to the right channel at the appropriate time and record.

However, I stopped useing it for the capture of anything I do professionally in 2003. That is when I finally broke down and bought a Matrox RT.X100. I am still considering if I want to spend the $200 to upgrade to the RT.X2.

And I agree about RAID. Most people simply do not understand what it was designed to do, or how it works. The only RAID I ever recommend is 1 (Mirrored), 5, (Striped with parity), or 0+1 (mirrored striped set). And this is for data security purposes and no other. What a lot of people do not realize is that while a striped set may seem faster, a lot of overhead is involved in maintaining the array. Any boost from the speed is often lost in the maintenance of 2 (or more) hard drives.

And with SATA and SATA II, it is even more meaningless unless you are running a server, or dealing with critical data that can't be lost. Nobody professionally has worked with RAID 0 in years, because it is so prone to failure and complete data loss. Yet for some reason people still brag about haing it, because it is "faster".

If you really want faster access, spend the extra money for SAS or SCSI. Do not waste your time (and data) with RAID.

Ok no lie i am a newb that's why i ask you guys

second i i need all that ram for rendering my programs like 3D studio max takes lot of ram and the more and the faster ( so for exmaple more complex shapes longer to render depending on your ram )

Third i have my backups in external hardrive. So i would rather have more space for my renders...

PS. what's overclocking?

nvm about my question about overclocking

anyway i should be able to overclock about 5.4ghz with liquid cooling

Now someone find out how much of diffrence

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz 2MB Cache 1066MHz FSB and
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6700 2.66GHz 4MB Cache 1066MHz FSB are on screen and their overclocking speeds.. I could save some money if if the 2.13 works just as fine..

5.4gz with liquid cooling...

You're seriously spending 5k on a computer you know nothing about? And now you want to overclock it? I looked at the cooling Alienware was using, it looked like an 80mm radiator with a super-constrictive waterblock. It's not going to help you overclock that much.

Go to a computer forum and read stickies in there, you'll learn a crapload and save money in the process.

http://www.ocforums.com

Here is my standard answer about overclocking:

Don't.

If you really need more speed, just break down and buy a faster processor. Among other things, overclocking voids your warranty, and shortens the lifespan of your computer.

And it requires both more maintenance, and is more prone to locks, crashes, and if part of the cooling fails total system failure.

And a lot of programs are notorious for not likeing overclocking. For example Adobe Premiere is OK overclocking for editing, but when it comes time to render, you end up with out of sync sound and other strange effects if you overclock.

And realize that you are paying a bundle for your computer because of the name. Putting the name "Alienware" on a computer is similar to putting the name "Mercury" on a car. You will pay $15k more for a Mercury Sable, and all you are getting is a slightly glorified Ford Taurus. Nowadays, Alienware is simply the more "elite" brand of Dell.

Oh, and go with XP Porfessional, not Media Center Edition.

OMG Aman, you are willing to pay over $5,000 for that thing? And wait over a month for delivery? Are you nuts? Other then the case (which is made by Alienware) and their name all over the thing, almost any good local dealer could probably build you the same system for about half that much, and in less then a week.

And I see several things that scream "bloat" to me. For one, dump the 2 DVD-RW drives. At most you only need 1 DVD and 1 DVD-RW drive. And you can buy brand new Lightscribe drives for around $70. They are willing to let you buy an "upgrade" to Lightscribe for an extra $80. We sell standard DVD-RW drives for $60. They are so nice, selling you an upgrade that should be no more then $10 for $80.

And on the second drive, the price difference normally between a CDRW and a Lightscribe DVD-RW is only around $30. They are willing to let you have that upgrade for only $60.

And the RAM price is way high for what it is. You can get a good quality Kingston for just a little over half the price. In fact, almost every componant you "added" can be bought for 70-80% of the price that Alienware is going to charge you for adding it on.

That is what I am talking about when it comes to "bloat". Companies like that will add on item after item, each one costing roughly what the retail price is. And they do not take off very much for the item that comes "standard". Because that is where they make the money.

I can buy brand new Seagate 500 Gig SATA drives for around $340. Yet they are willing to charge you an additional $300 to "upgrade" from a 250 to a 500. We sell 250 gig drives for around $120. So when you upgrade, they make an additional $80 in the price difference, above and beyond the price of the items normally.

And lastly, there are a lot of super-quality watercooling kits that run around $150. I can't imagine why somebody would spend double that much, just because of the Alienware name.

well i can't build my own and the closest computer shop is like 3 cities away.

I understand alienware prices are high..but that's the only company i found so far that met all my requirments..dell doesn't offer any liquid cooling...

if you know any other your welcome to let me know..

If you can't build a computer, you have absolutely no business overclocking.

Quoted for the damn truth.

You need a computer shop near by? You can't buy parts online? I've bought 98% of all my computer parts from NewEgg.com.They have good prices and great service.

Also if you think you can get a core 2 duo to 5ghz+ then you have no business overclocking, as your gonna end up damaging your overpriced purchase. Your not going to get it that high without liquid nitrogen, and that's only for bragging rights.

Do yourself a favor. Buy a cheap Emachine and pop more RAM and a video card in it. That what I did when I was starting out. Worked great at the time.

Im buyign it. Period.

I just need help with specs..

It's so interesting to see how you guys act like it's your money.

If you have any questions, direct them to Alienware. You paid for it.

Let's play along though to keep the weekend mods away.

CPU -- lower processors will outperform the E6700 when mildly OC'd. But you won't. As for 5.2 GHz, if you even manage to actually get a 975x board and LN, you'll enjoy the speeds for a day or two.
XP Media Center -- the new XP Home for mom & dad
nForce 4 -- LOL? Nice outdated motherboard. That won't overclock anywhere.
4 GB DDR2 -- XP only supports up to 3 GB IIRC unless you go 64-bit
RAID 0 2x250 -- slower than Raptors, RAID 0 performance is neglible in normal use
Additional 250 storage -- if anything, you should RAID 1 2x250 for your storage for the security, and single drive Raptor or RAID Raptors for the system. What's Alienware smoking?
Dual 7950GT SLI -- DX10 cards will be out in a few months.
High-performance 7.1 Audio -- i.e. onboard ftl
X-530 -- only 5.1?
Warranty: 4-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support -- you should call them every day, you paid $2000+ for it. In fact, they should personally come to your house and service you.

The Ageia card is probably the biggest PC scam in history.

For one, dump the water cooling. It is totally unneeded, unless the ambient temperature in the room you will be in is so high that conventional cooling does not coll the unit down enough. (Ex: you are outside in the desert at 120 degrees).

And forget overclocking. I already listed several reasons earlier. Especially if you plan on useing this system professionally.

And if you really want a professional system, why not go to a professional company to have it built? There are hundreds of companies that specialize in building computers that do exactly what you want to do. Here is one that I used to work for when I lived in California:

http://www.digicompint.com/

They specialize in high-end units for the Movie and TV Industry. When I worked for them, I built units for Disney, Nickelodean TV, NBC, CBS, Warner Brothers, and a major supplier of documentaries for PBS.

They can build you a complete "Professional Level" system, that is designed to do exactly what you want it to do. This is much different from Alienware, which is really nothing but an over-priced elite version of Dell.

Another thing that really turns my stomach about Alienware: their outrageous price bumps. That is true, it is your money. But it makes me sick to see companies like that stealing your money. That unit comes with XP Media Center. That retails for $120. If you want to use XP Professional, that is $100 extra through them. Wow, they are charging you $100 extra, for an OS that only retails for only $20 more then Media Center.

But hey, don't listen to us. You admit you are a novice, and we all were at one time. I am simply trying to keep you from getting ripped off. AW used to be a much better company, before they were bought by Dell. Now they charge outrageous prices. And I simply can't believe a 30 day wait for that system. You are willing to wait 30 days, but not drive a little bit to find it closer?

You want this for professional work, fine. Then go to a company that specializes in exactly what you want it to do. The company I recommend above specializes in Audio and Video editing computers. There is very little difference other then some of the hardware. And if Disney is happy with their Avid computers, you should be happy with one for graphics editing.

Oh, and I no longer have any professional ties with DigiComp. I worked for them from 2002-2003, before I moved to Alabama. The only times I have contacted them in the last 3 years was as a customer, to buy equipment & software for AV systems I have sold out here.

But I enjoyed working for them, and was always impressed with their professionalism, and the quality of equipment they sell. Any system they build will not be cheap, but it will be a true professional-class system, without all the bloat for having a fancy name on it. And it will be the way you want it, not the way some company things you need it.

For example, I notice that the AW system only comes with NVidia cards. That is fine, unless you like ATI. Then you are SOL, cause you do not have a choice.

There seem to be some of you who have posted in this thread who really know your stuff. I'm looking to buy a new computer to replace the five-year-old system I'm running right now -- Pentium4 1.75ish Ghz, 750ish RAM, old GeForce vid card. The current system is adequate to play GW and can limp through Civ4 (at low settings and only for an hour or two at a time before requiring a reboot). I don't play any other games atm and only do word processing, .mp3 ripping/burning, and other low-tech stuff with the machine. It handles all that just fine. In the future, I might start playing games like BF2, Doom, etc., but that can likely wait depending on the answer to the first question below. So . . .

Question 1: If my current system is (barely) adequate to do the things I want to do at the moment, should I wait six months for Vista (and maybe DX10 cards) to come out before buying a new machine, should I get a mid-line machine to use for the next couple years before jumping into Vista, or should I get a near-top line system now and upgrade to Vista/DX10 afterwards (this option seems likely to be overly expensive)? Any other suggestions along those lines will definitely be welcomed.

Question 2: If it's recommended I go ahead and get a pretty strong mid-line set-up now, how's this look? I'm not computer illiterate, but I don't feel comfortable building my own system. I found this one at CyberPowerpc.com. I've eliminated basic things like the mouse and keyboard. If anything else isn't listed and you think it should be, please comment. Here's the system:

CASE: X-Discovery Mid-Tower Case 420W W/ WINDOW & LCD Temperature Display [-$70]
CPU: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo X6800 Extreme Edition @ 2.93GHz 1066FSB 2x2MB L2 Cache [+$870] a Core 2 Duo 2.67Ghz is $500 less
CD: Sony DWQ-120A 16x Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive [+$6]
CD2: 16X DVD ROM
FLOPPY: 1.44 MB FLOPPY DRIVE
FAN: CoolerMaster Liquid CPU Cooling Fan System Kit + 2 EXTRA CASE FANS
HDD: Single Hard Drive (400GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD [+$121] as opposed to a 250GB drive)
HDD2: NONE I have a 200ish GB drive I'm going to salvage from the current system
MOTHERBOARD: Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe nForce4 SLI Chipset LGA775 Supports Core 2 Duo CPU FSB1066 DDR2/800 Mainboard w/GbLAN,USB2.0,IEEE1394&7.1Audio [+$105]
MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory [+$180] (Corsair XMS2 Xtreme Memory w/ Heat Spreader [+$45])
MODEM: Creative Labs PCI 56K v.92 FAX Modem [+$16]
NETWORK: ADDITIONAL PCI 32 BIT 10/100 NETWORK CARD [+$9]
OS: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition w/ Service Pack 2 XP Pro is $40 more
PRO_WIRING: None "professional" wiring is $19 extra
POWERSUPPLY: Apevia 600W DARK SIDE POWER ATX Power Supply [+$79] as compared to a 500W supply (ATX-AS600W)
RUSH: NO; READY TO SHIP IN 5~10 BUSINESS DAYS
SERVICE: STANDARD WARRANTY: 3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY PLUS 24/7 LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT
SOUND: Creative Labs SB Audigy SE [+$30]
SPEAKERS: (MULTI-COLORS) Creative Labs Inspire P7800 7.1 Surround Subwoofer Speaker System [+$61] (BLACK COLOR)
UPS: OPTI-UPS VS575C 575VA/345W UNINTERRUPT POWER SUPPLY [+$46]
USB: Build-in USB 2.0 Ports
VIDEO: ATI Radeon X1900XTX PCI-E x16 512MB VIDEO CARD [+$80] the 1950xtx is an extra $106 over the 1900xtx
PRICE: $2864 + $30 Fed Ex two day shipping

If you could put whatever response you give in "newbie friendly" terms, with the more details the better, that'd be very helpful. I'm sure others have similar questions, so I hope y'all will forgive me putting this question here instead of in a new thread.

If your getting an SLI Motherboard, go for GeForce

however much I HATE GeForce this is the way, whilst you can use an ATI card on an SLI board, should you ever choose to use 2 GFX Cards (SLI / CrossFire) you cannot do such with ATI on an SLI Board..

I would also suggest If you do choose ATI, go for an AMD X2 CPU, not only is it better priced (lower) but 64bit applications and things that support Dual Core are better equipped for AMD (like how windows XP 64bit was released and it was ONLY for 64bit AMD Machines, you couldnt use it on an Intel machine)

Also, if your going for such a killer machine, i'd reccomend a Sound Blaster X-Fi over the audigy, OR go for the The Razer Barracuda AC-1 card (amazing card)

Also, Go for XP Pro, over XP home, (with the savings on the CPU you should beable to afford Pro over home) PRO has much better support for dual core..

Over the things I have discussed, there's some things to concider..

Should you choose ATI + CrossFire, You should ideally choose an AMD CPU and board, make sure its an Socket AM2 (not 939) as thoes are the DDR2 boards (that can confuse people)

also.. Why are you adding a second network card? the motherboard has one built in... (as do most motherboards now)

and are you planning to use a Dialup connection? why include a modem?? ;\

It also looks like the case comes with a PSU, so i'd look for a case that doesnt, and save a little $$ there also..

If you can, go for 2x DVD R/W drives, instead of a DVD R/W drive and a seperate DVD Rom, the price difference is negliable so you might as well..

You diddnt say what make the HardDrive is that you have chosen... a word of warning, avoid Maxtor like the plague, i have had 4 Maxtor SATAII in 3 months, (recently) every one has died with drive errors, I get a Seagate Barracuda SATAII, and there's not a problem with it, been running it almost a month now (on 24/7)

I cant see anything else i'd suggest, the ATI x1900XTX makes me jealous, as Im only on an X1800 at the moment, I'd love a 1900 but cant afford it

Over all, on a personal note, I HATE GeForce and dont like Intel much either... but the above I was trying not to be biased..

For those suggesting XP Pro over Media Center, you realize they're basically the same thing right? Media Center has all the features of Pro, except with the addition of the Media Center applications. If he wants the media functionality there's really no reason to opt for pro.

As for sound cards, you won't get any better than this for PC 7.1.

But he was saying XP Home, Media Center or Pro are the best options for him on a system like that..

i don't have a network and windows media center is lowest they got.\
Also is there a problem with my motherboard? people say it is a old mother board.

It is an older motherboard, with an even older chipset.

This is the norm when it comes to delaing with the "mass makers". They are often 2-3 stepd behind the technology curve. That was a pretty awesome board, when the Pentuim-D was a new CPU. But because it is LGA775, they simply put the newer chip in the old board and it works fine.

And AW will continue to sell them until they run out. They probably have several thousand in the warehouse. Do not expect that to change until they sell out of what they got.

I see this type of thing every day. 6 month old Compaq and Dell systems with SATA on board, but an IDe drive inside. This is because they still have a lot of IDE drives, so will continue to use them until the supply is gone. Plus they save about $5. Multiply $5 by the volume they sell, and it turns into big money.