A few questions about a computer configuration.

Remember kiddies, its not the Volts that kill you its the AMPS. I also said "could" and "not suggested". There will always be people that are braver than me, this is why hospitals exist.

Both.


gogo12chars

My Grandpa is very smart, and he has been building computers since I can remember - has built me every system I've owned up until I could finally make my own from watching him do it.

But he is also old now, and has been through a lot, so you have to understand the unclear explanations I get from him. He probably meant when it was plugged in and stuff, I don't really know. Logic already tells me that I wouldn't have it plugged in while fiddling with it though, so I wouldn't have done that.

And if there really is that much of a risk then I probably wouldn't care either way, I'm not going out to spend 80$ on a new power supply just because a stupid company decided to put crap fans into their stuff. And I'm definitely too lazy to go back to the store, gas is money too!

Hmm.. and about over-clocking, maybe we should have an ultimate guide here on guru about it? , I'm sure theres tons out there on the internet, but *shrug*.

Well, I did try to start one, but it rapidly turned into "OMG, your PC's gonna asplode! Get cooling quick!!"

You're absolutely right - a nice overclocking guide, stickied at the top would be wonderful.

Oh, and the shock hazard about PSUs - the guy mentioned capacitors. They retain a charge even when everything is switched off, disconnected, stuck in a bucket of sand, whatever. They can still give you a nasty jolt. I've only experienced this working with old-style TVs (you know, those big old things with a vacuum tube). The retained current on those things is awesome - I've been thrown across the room by touching a HT lead without taking sensible precautions.

Or people with common sense. If you know what you're doing there's no risk of getting shocked at all.

I only said that thing about old people jokingly, I meant no disrespect to your grandfather. Even unplugged the PSU still presents a shock hazard because of charged capacitors, like others have already said, but the charge is unlikely to kill you. Altering your PSU safely while it's plugged in is possible but it does take a lot more bravery, confidence or plain stupidity.

But you're still alive.

I think I'm immune to electricity. Ever since I stuck a kitchen knife down the back of a wall outlet when I was 5 years old...

lol snog and i'll see what i can dig up and write in the form of an oc guide

Oh, alright thanks. Sometimes I get edgy about him cause he's one of the more important people in my life, but it's alright.

And yikes Snog, how was the flight?

And.. we kind of derailed this, I think, maybe she won't kill us.

I won't kill you if you answer the following:

When the processor works at 1600 MHz, the Motherboard at 1600MHz and the Memory at 2x 800MHz = 1600MHz (since you most of the time have 2 memory modules) wouldn't that create a very fast system?

And DDR3 is as fast as DDR2 I believe (eewww latency~).

I had some tard on another forum saying you honestly don't want every component working at the same MHz, WHY?!

PS When overclocking the MHz of a Processor, does the MHz of the Motherboard and Memory increase along with it? (got that from the same tard as well)

I'm not experienced enough to point out the flaws in your logic, but someone will be along to do so

Let's start with the fact that the motherboard doesn't have a speed. The chipset on the motherboard determines the maximum speed of a processor that can be installed.

Also, 2x800MHz does not equal 1600MHz - it's 800 whatever way you look at it. I've got 4 of them, and I'm sure not running at 3200.

Stand by for a post by someone clever.

When overclocking the CPU only the CPU increases.
When overclocking the FSB, the FSB and CPU increases.

the QX9650 can EASILY hit 1600 on air. (Mine is running at 1850 atm, on water of course).

800 memory = 400x2, not 800x2.
1600 intel processor = 400x4.

EDIT: The motherboard will only go at 1600mhz, if your chip runs at 1600mhz. Otherwise, it'll slow down to whatever your chip is running at.

Thus endeth the post by someone clever

So if I get a Motherboard with 1600MHz and Memory with 1600MHz and get the QX9650 and overclock the processor to 1600MHz everything will run at 1600MHz?

PS The MHz of the Motherboard is the Chip's MHz right?

I don't think you quite understand. So I'll explain again.

Motherboards don't carry a speed, so it doesn't matter which one you get when it comes to reference speed of what they can 'support'.

Intel CPUs are QDR, which means when they say 1600, they really mean 400x4, because it's cheaper to make a CPU do 4 instructions of 400mhz, instead of a full 1600mhz.

DDR memory is well DDR. Which means 800mhz is really 400x2. 1600 is really 800x2.

For the most stable system, you want 1:1.
That means getting 1600FSB and 800Mhz memory (because 1600/4=400, and 800/2=400, and 400:400=1:1!).

EDIT: Here's an example, my 780i says support up to 1333FSB, but I can do 1600FSB easily, even tho it's not supported, this is an OC'er board, and support is generally granted. The memory standard for this board is PC2-800/1200.

But no one runs RAM at 1200 Mhz... because... that's crazy, 600 FSB (rememeber! 1200/2=600!) is just unobtainable, and just an illusion for the public

EDIT: When I say 600, I don't mean it's not unobtainable for the RAM, I mean it's hard to get the CPU at 600 FSB (you'll have to have 2000 effective QDR!)

Just to re-iterate, it makes no difference how many sticks of memory you have. If you have one stick of DDR2-800 or 2, 3 or 4 - it will run at 800MHz.

All the memory runs at the same speed. In the old days when memory prices were astronomical, it was quite common to upgrade memory just by adding a new stick to what you already had. You could end up with odd amounts like 480MB by combining a 256MB with a 128, a 64 and a 32. In that case, the whole 480MB would run at the speed of the LOWEST stick - so if you had 1 at 100MHz and 3 at 133MHz, the whole lot would run at 100MHz.

Sorry for that slightly off-topic history lesson (I'm good at those )

So... DDR2 800 + Overclocked QX9650 (1600MHz) + a nice Motherboard (that supports 1600MHz chip thingy) = my future awesome computer?

Thats probably going to save me $900. >.>

And I thought all new motherboards supported DDR3 because it's "the new thing".

Are there actually any motherboards out there that support 1600MHz, DDR2 and the QX9650?

PS I'm blond, tried changing it but didn't work.

The 780i is the highest end board that supports DDR2. The downside is... it's a Nvidia chipset.

Nvidia isn't bad, but they make horrid chipsets (motherboards, so to speak).

If you want a stable system, I'd suggest you'd go for a X48 based mobo. It's an intel chipset and DDR3. While DDR3 does have slower looser latencies, the performance allows the CPU to be pushed further.

The 750i and 780i both support DDR2, and will take your QX9650. But they're Nvidia chipsets, so it's your call.

As in... faster, or just overclocking?

And a friend of mine told me to get an Nvidia chipset or he would hurt me. >.>

Nvidia chipsets are utter garbage, only if you compare to what else is on the market. They make badass cards, and just bad chipsets.

DDR3 is faster when it comes to overclocking, because of the limitless (so to speak, because CPU is slow) potential!. With time, I'm sure they will produce better DDR3 chips with tighter latencies, it's just a matter of time. But when that time comes, wouldn't you be glad to have a DDR3 board?

Nvidia isn't so bad that you can't use them, but they're just not as good as intel. It's like comparing a pound of gold to two pounds of gold. The latter being intel. You obviously want a better product for the same price.

Great... now I don't know what to pick, DDR2 or DDR3. v.v

I've heard of at least one mobo that supports both DDR2 and DDR3 - though not at the same time

Whether there's any point at all in getting one of those as a stop-gap, I don't know. I'm sort of guessing it's just a gimmick and that the rest of the board will be poo, but who knows?

GigaByte EP35C-DS3R (1333MHz)
MSI X48C Platinum (1600MHz)
Those support both DDR2 and DDR3

The MSI X48C Platinum sounds somewhat good, but I currently have an MSI video card (passive cooling) and it keeps overheating in the summer (only when running Guild Wars + a video on the background)

I resent this statement. Our chipsets are phenomenal, and leaps and bounds more advanced then our competitors counterparts. Provided you pair one of our GPUs to our mainboards, the union is perfect. None of the competitors chipsets can outperform the nVidia 790i chipset, period. I detest statements with no basis whatsoever backing them. You can have your opinion, that is fine; but telling another person that your opinion is the end all be all isn't fine. I do lab tests with our chipsets and the competitors chipsets. I can tell you that on average, our chipsets beat the competitors in 85% of the tests. Mind you, there are always configurations that may do much better or far worse, and that can make results skewed. However, as far as implemented technology goes, nVidia is ahead of Intel. The MCP and SPP chips on the 780/790 mainboard sets are impeccable, and the fabs that my team along with countless other teams helped make are superior to anything that our competitors have right now. Our fab technology is very advanced, and made by the best and brightest minds in the industry, and I pride myself on my work and that of my coworkers.

It is my professional opinion, that if you are indeed going with a single card solution, you are on a stricter budget, and you don't mind hits in the overall enthusiast performance areas such as crossover platforms, memory mapping, seek and write times, and data rewrites, then you can go with the competitors chipsets. However, if you want the best performing PC on the market, and you have the money, building your system around the 780/790i (particularly the 790i) chipset and SLi technology is a sure way to achieve absolutely the BEST PERFORMANCE AROUND.

Intel makes great processors, but as far as chipsets go, my personal opinion.... they are a tepid 7 out of 10 on the amazing scale. The 790i is a blistering 9 out of 10. Just wait till you see what we have for you next though.


Like I said, go with a liquid cooling solution. You can buy a prebuilt kit; you lose performance versus DIY cooling projects, but it tends to be a safer investment for a first time LC adopter. The Thermaltake bigWater 2U and 3U systems are not too shabby, but beware of the single slot systems, they are terrible.

Look, honestly, just buy the following parts before I go insane and start ripping people to pieces in this tech forum....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115036
You don't need a quad core, save your money. I don't care how much multitasking you do, the compilers on today's operating systems and program are not anywhere near advanced enough to utilize quad core technology. They are just now catching up to dual core tech. This processor will run very cool, and you can overclock it quite safely.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813188025
Best motherboard on the market in my personal opinion (I can't officially endorse a company, at least not professionally, but I can personally) Personally, eVGA is THE COMPANY at the moment, with the best customer support, amazing products, and the step up program, which is the best thing to happen to the IT industry in years.

GRAPHICS CARDS: Well, considering we are launching our new GPUs (the nVidia Geforce GTX 280 and GTX 260) on June 18th, you should wait until then to purchase. You will be pleasantly surprised. If, however, you are that impatient, go with this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130339
2 of those, maybe 3 if you are feeling really daring, although with liquid cooling, I would go with only 2.

So it's true that Nvidia is going to buy the license from VIA to develope processors?

AMD is kind of running behind and Intel is in the lead of processor development, but if Nvidia gets into the battle it should be balanced again.

Just imagine a computer 100% out of Nvidia technology/hardware.

Oh, well, I can't comment on that. I was referring to our next mainboard lineup. No dates, or additional info beyond that though.

Ah, but what if AMD did..

...never mind.

Damn - just checked that out (step-up, that is). It is available in the UK - wish I'd known that a year ago ><

Ah well, their 680i is not too shabby - see no reason to upgrade (without upgrading everything on the board )

Yeh, the 680i was a rock solid chipset. I didn't have the privilege of working on that little beastie.

If they're using VIA for cpu's then they likely wont be very fast machines.

Like 10 posts before I said I like the Thermaltake BigWater 760i because it's funny and small but I don't know if it's any good. xD

A what, who, why, when, where? >.>
Prebuilt = case with all the cooling thingies in it before you buy it?
DIY = .....?
LC = .....?

I know the 7, 8, 9 series but I never heard of GTX280 or GTX 260 >.>

But but but isn't a quad core able to do more thingies at the same time than a dual core? (and you can always manually set the Processor Affinity)

Does eVGA have a motherboard that supports both DDR2 and DDR3?

And I think eVGA is dangerous. n.n
They have thingies like these on their site:
Told you I'm blond!

Ok, lol. I will answer each question as they come, hahaha.

Here are the Thermaltake systems (and one Coolermaster kit) that are good for first time liquid cooling system installers (like yourself)

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/72...?tl=g30c83s765
I read some reviews about this kit, and I was surprised. People really thought it was high quality. It is definitely worth a look.

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/63...?tl=g30c83s136
That one is pretty decent. Definitely and option.

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/72...0c83s137#blank
This one is amazing, but carries a hefty price tag, and will be a bit more difficult to setup, but I think with some patience, you can do it.


Prebuilt = yes, a case with fully integrated liquid cooling system. Typically not a great idea. However, it also can mean a prebuilt system, like the Bigwater system or Coolermaster system I linked you to above, which are typically decent.

DIY = Do It Yourself, which basically means you buy individual parts and make a custom system. These are amazing if you know what you are doing, and can keep your CPU and graphics cards very chilly if you have high quality components or install everything carefully and correctly.


That is because they are not out yet. I work for nVidia. I am permitted to break a small amount of news about these cards. However, the same news can be found on Tomshardware at this point, so I won't be bothered to vomit the same numbers back up here.



There ya go. Fresh batches of GTX 280s, ready for you to buy them.

You are not using any application that would require a quad core chip. A dual core can do everything you want to do, and 4x that. A quad core would simply produce more heat, use more power, and give you maybe 5% performance gains for 40% more money. Not worth it. You can always upgrade down the road. You won't be stuck.

eVGA is simply warning customers about motherboards that contain lead solder. That is a good thing, not a bad thing, lol.

As for DDR2 and DDR3 support. Just go with DDR3 support, and forget DDR2. It is being phased out. You can upgrade to a super fast low latency DDR3 in a year from now for cheap, and get a nice performance boost. You won't miss the 1%-4% loss of performance in 20% of the things you will be doing from the high latencies of DDR3 vs its "faster" DDR2. If this terminology confuses you, I would invite you to read my memory guide. It should help shed some light on the situation.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10288946

Make sure you post in that guide, so it gets bumped up for others to see, since apparently this section officially lacks a moderator... /pickme?

Hmm.. *Walks in and takes a few racks of GTX 280's* You saw nothing.

I'd say go with DDR3 too, I am going to - but I'm waiting for a while till I do that, probably later in 2008-early 2009 when GTA IV and GW2 are close to being released, because I want to spec out a system that can play both of those games on max settings with 60+ FPS.

Well... Intel will launch their new Socket in the end of 2008 along with a new series of processors, and DDR3 should be awesome by then. Maybe I should do the same as Brianna. -Blames her- >.>

And I will probably have enough money by then to buy the best of the best of the best.

only take Nvidia chipsets when you're running sli, else go for intel chipsets.

DDR3 isn't worth the money atm only gives around 2-5fps more atm.

However, buying a DDR2 motherboard would be silly.... just plain silly.

From an enthusiasts stand point this is true. From a min-maxer's stand point this is false. DDR2 ram is MASSIVELY less expensive than DDR3. What you would pay for 1 gig of ddr3, I can get at least 4 if not 8 gigs of DDR2 ram. The latency's of ddr3 are still less than ok. The end user will not notice the difference all that much.


Those new graphics cards look literally, huge are those 2 or 4 in a layer?. I thought the 9800 series was big lol looks like I was wrong. I don't know if it will even be possible to water cool those monsters in a mid atx case. (for others reading a mid case is not very small)

BTW Nvidia stole all my money , that I gave them, and I could not be any more pleased with my performance. Nvidia is the best!

The difference in a DD2 vs. DDR3 system with = amounts of ram is near 1000.00 USD.

To those looking to build that 5 year machine, best of luck to you. Until the latency in DDR3 is lower or equal to DDR2 ill be on a DDR2 machine. My logical conclusion after studying hardware in the NOW is:

Get the 780i mobo, a Q6600, 9800gx2 a decent sound card and let it ride. There is no game out there that will need more than this for a long time. By the time that game is out you prob just need to grab another 9800 gx2 and a Qx9850 chip which will also be alot cheaper at that time.(near 5 years?)

Getting a 790i now is like lighting money on fire. It will not (to the best of my knowledge) support the 32nm chips from intel, which are not out yet. DDR3 is still needing work. When the time to upgrade to a DDR3 system is needed, It will be time to completely upgrade the whole system. The general problem is the software, XP is a world wide OS and as a game developer you want as many people to be able to buy your product as possible. This too will change with time.

A little history lesson:
http://mugur.roz.md/computer-science...ce/lib0041.htm

Soon and I mean soon, we are going to hit a hardware wall, physics starts to come into play, ie. you can only push an electron through a wire/path so fast. The next step is light, and then????

To get on and stay on the bleeding edge of technology will make you poor and probably bald. To build a machine that is near the edge, then watch it race forward until you need to upgrade, makes you smart.

BTW I run a pure DDR2 SLI system, The human eye can not tell a difference in 40 + FPS vs 300 FPS unless you are near death(and the near death is under debate). Your monitor will not display more than it refresh rate. So think about this when building a system. Are you building it to play and use or are you trying to impress people, like the kid that sqeels the tires around the corner. Yes there is faster machines than mine out there but in game it will not save you from my wrath or give you an edge over me.

They are dimensionally the same as the 9800GTX, not the GX2 series.

You don't have white papers on the 32nm chips, so it may be unwise to suggest anything regarding them.

Let's not go into nano electrical/magnetic debate. That is my career field of expertis right there.

Some of us do have that white paper, though...

What are you guys looking into to solve those disappearing and reappearing electrons?

I was under the impression, which means I may be wrong. I literally know nothing about them other than what I have dug up and "heard" about. I can not confirm anything. From my understanding, the 32nm chips will use a new form factor. A different form factor means a different motherboard.

Thanxs for the size info.on the new cards, I was a little worried by those pics.lol

Most of the average computer users will never make use of the bandwidth ddr3 has to offer anyways, gonna need a damn high fsb!!! 250+$mobo list goes on.

LOL. I suppose you are referring to the electron count in a single transistor at a given size, where that size is very small, thus entropy can actually "destroy" the electrons, resulting in data loss, resulting in an error, or did I miss a meeting again?

Typically, when you create a fab, that given fab is under the laws that govern the material if was created using, which in our case is SiO2. Si02 caps are decent, but aging technology. As I was made aware, the 32nm chips Intel is offering are utilizing a full trans op Hafnium coating over a tied slot gate. If that be the case, a transistor area would be about... 15 atoms of Si across, which could create (and is very likely to create) electron surges in the lower most gates, while the upper most gates would suffer from data loss. You would need to put parasitic diodes in between the gates at set points where you had significant electron buildup, buildup that would create varying heat pockets throughout the translayer? Seems a bit....odd... Oh well, I will need to take a peek at the white papers if I can, and if I can get my hands on it, a schematic of the gate controllers. Time shall soon tell, but 55nm technology was hard enough to deal with this cycle. I have yet to start my next project, at least as far as die shrinks are concerned. Have no idea if the other teams are doing such things.