The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

Russ, the constant security pop-ups are called User Account Control(UAC) and can be disabled easily and permanently. I did it right away.

I completely agree. Anyone that can show proof of purchase for Vista should get a free upgrade to the equivalent version of 7. Especially considering how 7 was basically released because Vista was such a major flop.

 

im just the oppisite Russ i find CPUZ dead on for me.. and everest is way off. i dont hardly ever use everest for anything anymore i dont think its that reliable. and he is useing everest now. i cant get him to use another program to check stuff. so for all my concerns im done with it. he doesnt want to listen to anything and tinks he knows it all, so ill just wait, in about a month if that long he will have burnt up the CPU(which he still has the intel cooler on it and the temps under IBT have hit 104c) yea he can boil water on that bad boy. you cant help someone who dont want help or thinks he dont need any..

 

Yeah I'm a performance freak. I always try for the best blend of OS functionality and performance. I just can't stand it if something is slowing me down even in the slightest. The only reason I don't switch my desktops to some sort of Linux is because I play games. I might have a dual boot though fairly soon.

Indexing is enabled by default just FYI.

 

That's a very good point actually, I'm willing to say there are a lot more computer users in terms of generations now than there used to be. A lot of older relations who got by perfectly without a PC are starting to either ask if they should have one, or already do. To an XP user, "they moved everything!", To a new PC user who started out with Vista/Win7, it actually makes quite a lot of sense.
It's actually got to the extent that when I use my XP PC the interface annoys me.
I also agree with the next point, XP to Vista for me was rough. Apart from owning a board not compatible with the installer which wasted an entire day of my time (P5N-E SLI), the next attempt with the X38-DS4 was a lot more fruitful, and while I won't say I grew to like the random needless bugs every day or more often, I became accustomed to the interface and it does now make more sense. Being able to search for stuff is especially handy if it's something you never used before, XP or Vista.
Win7 is still far from perfect, there are plenty of needless features they removed, and the display properties is one of my biggest nags, followed by not being able to save the password for network drives and a few other things. Still, given you essentially have to 'hack' the control panel to get network drives working at all, I'm guessing that that's a feature they haven't really considered in the development process.
I don't turn off indexing, but the last couple of OS installs it's come turned off by default. Strange. No bad thing of course, I do want at least a few miliseconds between my HDD seeks when I'm not using the system.

Not really, the Programs and Features is not at all hard to find, the control panel can be displayed in two different ways, and the two names for that section share the same word in the title, Programs.
Also, moaning about office support is really moaning at office, not windows. Knowing the relationship Office and Windows have, I'm surprised you didn't see that one coming. As it happens, I will openly admit I use office but don't pay for it.
UAC? Turn it off. Makes that little annoyance go away. As far as I'm concerned UAC is a good idea if you've got a complete numbskull using the PC. You can turn it off, which is good enough for me!
PowerDVD, we're now into conspiracy theories. Cyberlink didn't program PowerDVD 7 with Vista in mind. If they didn't release a patch to fix that, you can moan at Cyberlink - oh wait, they'll tell you get the new version. MS can hardly do the legwork of every software developer ever to force them to modify revisions that aren't even the one-behind to support their OS. Everything you moan about for Windows 7, pretty much none of it is MS' fault. Who'd have thought I'd be sticking up for them?


Making Win7 free? I hope you're not serious. There are pretty few companies that would render such an expensive piece of software non-profit on that basis, Microsoft are hardly going to be one of them. Yes it would be good, but to expect it from most big businesses I think is ludicrous.

Creaky: One of my main complaints about Vista and Win7 is the network structure. It's pretty much as if when you install the OS you get a million 'network credits'. When they run out, ah tough luck, no internet until you reformat. It's infuriating but it can happen with no logical reason. It can happen when your PC is switched off, when your network is unplugged, you needn't install any software, that's it, it's just gone.

 

not had any network for just die.

but i agree, russ fair enough if dont want to use it, but why hate on it then? we are all happy with it. and to most it makes sense.

and as sam has said, its not windows support that application developers are lazy as they were for drivers for vista. i remember when it was nvidia drivers causing 28% of vista crashes! lol.

guess i havent had a problem being with ati on vista then

 

Well, to say I've not had issues with graphics drivers would be laughable, but to say I've not had any that were the fault of Vista/Win7 is probably pretty close to the truth.

 

well i guess using a single gpu means its not laughable for me

 

To be fair, the majority of the issues are in fact just ATI-related in general, not crossfire issues. As far as driver bugs go, Crossfire isn't so bad of late, but as far as game support goes, it's slowly declining, the percentage of new games that will work in CF out of the box is decreasing rapidly, and the time taken to profile them is increasing. It's partly this reason why I'm intending to drop back to no more than 2 GPUs next generation. The other is of course expense. My two HD4870X2s cost me £530 between them. That will barely buy you one HD5970 at the moment.

 

Hi Everyone i just aquired a new motherboard from my brother and its an Abit IN9 32X Max. Now i dont have a cpu and i am on a bugeit of £250 to get this problem sorted. So here is what i have come up with can you give me your recermendations as what to get for gaming, i have my ram XMMS DDR2 800mhz and i have 2 x2gb sicks. I need a power supply aswell here what i got.

So heres what i thought

CPU: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Inte...S775-283-GHz-1333MHz-12MB-L2-Cache-85x-Retail

PSU: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/650W...rgy-efficient-quiet-and-cool-fully-compatible

Or Same PSU and Core 2 Duo E8400, this will all come together with an 8800GTX and 4gigs of ram.

witch is best?

thanks

graham

EDIT:Fixed Link

 

System looks good. If you've already got the RAM then go for it. If you haven't I'd recommend considering an i5 instead and selling the Abit. The Core 2 system isn't as good value for performance as the i5 is, but the i5 costs a little bit more overall.

 

i have alredy go the ram i am going to nip to scan in the morning because its just round the corner as much as i would like an I5 system i have things to consider this would be a one time op for me. Or i would still be on my dinki dual core 5000+ system. so i am going to go for it would you like me to do any test when i have got it up and running?

thanks for the reply sam,

cheers

 

Yeah sounds fine to me, the Q9550 is still an excellent performer, I should know
No specific tests will be necessary unless you encounter any problems...

 

Yeah that's about it. My grandpa just made the upgrade to 7 as well and he's having a much easier time with it than XP. I personally find the re-arranging of the directory structure refreshing. Old gramps is a light gamer as well and he plays Medieval II Total War all day problem free on an 8800GTS 320MB. Had a much easier time of getting stuff set up with Win 7. He was especially pleased with the auto-loading chipset drivers. He can figure out video drivers well enough but he has a hard time with figuring out his hardware.

Yeah looks good overall. I'd say get a newer video card but the 8800GTX is actually still quite good, if a bit outdated. I have an 8800GTS 512MB(and HAD a 9800GTX) and it seems to get by just fine even with new games. The Q9550 will serve you well too. Personally have a Q6600 which blew my mind and the Q9 series is faster so you should be all set for quite a while.

As far as tests I would check out CPU-Z just to make sure you're running the correct clocks. Other than that, as long as it seems to perform within the right ballpark you shouldn't need to do any tests.

 

I believe my 8600Gt got a 5.2 or slightly higher score. I don't think thats too bad. Not sure what the 260Gtx is. I imagine its a great deal higher. I really don't hold much faith in the windows index score. To the laymen, I imagine it tells them what they need to know though. If there getting a 3 with graphics, and a 6 for processor, then that should tell them that their graphics processor is not very good, or only adequate. But if its getting a 3, I wouldn't call that adequate LOL! My 6200 got a 3. something, and couldn't handle aero. But that card had issues in that board anyway...

 

I don't hold any faith in it. Two 4870X2s score 6.3...

 

I read somewhere that the RC version is bugged, and that 7200 build+, fixes the Graphics/Gaming scores. Does that apply to you?

 

Quite possibly, I'm still using the RC. I did for about 10 minutes have the full retail version but I had to reformat again, long story.

 

I'm waiting on my retail version til after christmas. I don't like spending money on myself before christmas LOL! Although I did just buy another WD1001FALS Quite possibly the last mechanical drive I'll buy. Definitely the next Drive will be SSD. I'd sure like to see how the FALS run under Raid. The new one will probably have had those preventative measures done though. But I have 2 others that I'm curious how windows 7 would run under. Just for $h!ts and giggles of course. I would never run a configuration like that 24/7 Too risky. Although I wouldn't mind Raiding 3 or more Intel SSD's! THAT would be a thing of beauty

 

A friend of mine is RAIDing three WD15EADS drives in Software RAID5 under Windows 7. I'm keen to see how that turns out, if it works well, I'll be following suit. Assuming Software RAID5 works reliably, that's enough for me, I don't really care about the CPU overhead, relatively low transfer rates or not being able to resize an array. If it works and it safeguards my data, it's happening. So much cheaper than spending HD5970 sort of money on a RAID card, and no new motherboard required! (Unless I want to use a S-ATA port splitter that is, in which case I need an ICH9, the little EP31-DS3L only has an ICH7...)