The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

I can entirely understand why you wouldn't want to install SP3 and IE8, however, when I used XP last I used both as SP3 was required in order to use remote desktop above 1600x1200, and ie8 is, in my opinion, better than ie7.

 

That's subjective. IMO both IE8 and IE7 are terribly designed, copy-cats, and resource hogs. I don't even bother to use them at all. I don't even think my current format of Win 7 has started IE up once yet.

 

I just remember ie7 being extremely slow and very unstable. Don't mistake me for saying ie8 is good, it isn't. However, it proves a handy backup browser for when chrome fails. For example, uTorrent's WebUI is now only compatible with ie and firefox.
ie also has a better downloader than chrome, as it is not cache-tagged.

 

is ie8 any quicker than 7?

 

It depends. It seems like it on high-end PCs, but not for everyone...

 

I wouldn't even bother. Currently running Firefox 3.6 exclusively and happy as a clam

 

I abandoned Firefox after the absolute travesty that was 3.5. Maybe I can be tempted to use it again, but chrome suffices for now.

 

Supposing you had the same stability issues as me? It crashed about 3-4 times a day for me. 3.6 seems to have fixed that though. Haven't had a single issue since the update. Not to mention the new "Personas" feature is cool as hell

Yeah same here. It's relatively well made, but I just don't like the interface at all. It's an absolute pain for me to use.

I wouldn't be quite so harsh, except that I also found Netscape easier to use and much more intuitive

 

More than 3-4 times a day, it crashed whenever I loaded something more content rich than google, utterly unusable.
The chrome interface is reasonable I think, it's not great because as you say, it's so barren, but on the other hand it's un-cluttered, and it performs better than any other browser I've used.

 

That's on an individual basis then. It only crashed for me when having more than a few tabs open, which is quite often...

LOL does the performance of our web browsers even matter at this point? You can run Crysis just about maxed at 2560 res and you're commenting on browser performance XD

I'll admit though that Firefox can be a resource hog in its own right. It commonly breaks 1GB of RAM usage for me... though part of that may have been a memory leak fixed in v3.6(also might have had something to do with the stability) because it doesn't seem to do that as often anymore.

 

Chrome does use a lot of RAM, but nowhere near as much as firefox. I do often keep a lot of tabs open with both, typically I can keep chrome below 1.3GB, but Firefox could easily run past 2GB if unchecked.

 

using FF3.6 myself, not had a problem. have ie8 as a backup, and not seen the need to swtich to chrome. if i wasnt lazy, chrome would be my back up.

but i seem to only need ie when doing asda/tesco online shopping lol.


XP users, you might want to upgrade for newer hard drives soon:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8557144.stm

 

Any thoughts on this CPU

http://blogs.zdnet.com/computers/?p=1747&tag=nl.e539

 

Indeed, 4KB cluster size drives are starting to appear, the WD10EARS is the first I believe.
Not much to say about the 980X really Fred, it's out of the price range of everyone here. Although it could give some interesting info about how 6-core CPUs may perform in applications, it's not a new CPU in its own right, just a Bloomfield i7 with two extra cores. I'll reserve any judgement about how 'good' they are until the mainstream versions arrive, which won't be for some time to come (last I heard).

 

okey dokei

 

That's a presumptuous statement innit?? lol. I can't afford it, you can't afford it, but who knows the finances of "everyone" here?? lol.

 

lol sam, thats a bit mean, who knows who can afford it?

its a typical extreme CPU, priced out of the norm, but this time there is nothing that can get to its level ont he mainstream, as there noramlly is (ala 920 and 965).

3d modelers and video guys with love 6 cores though.

 

Indeed. I have money seeping from my pores! LOL!

I wonder how hot it gets...