(Pssst. It's OCZ. ) Surfguy, like the specs. I have a few comments: Memory: Get Corsair XMS or OCZ with low latency. Matched pair would be nice. Get at least 1 GB. Might consider waiting for DDR2 memory (although that would probably require another motherboard). Video Card: I like nVidia, but I'd rather have an ATI x800 XT. Might want to wait for PCI Express video cards to ship (ATI announced their lineup). Would require you to wait for a motherboard that doesn't exist yet (since I think every PCI Express mobo out right now is for Intel chips only). Hard Drive: Excellent choice. I'm getting one of those Raptors soon, myself. Might want to think about buying 2 and setting up a RAID. Motherboard: ASUS boards are great! Good choice! If you want an overclocking demon, though, get an ABIT board instead.
I originally was looking at Corsair XMS 1 Gb memory module but I noticed it is more expensive and I think the differences may not be noticable(or barely noticable). Again, I think your driving the price way up with those upgrades. I'm looking for high performing while still cost efficient. I'm not looking to have cutting edge at cutting edge costs. From looking over the benchmarks comparing the motherboards, the ASUS board seemed to outperform the competition. Of course, bios updates may have changed the results since then. I can overclock the ASUS and I'm not really an "overclocking demon" type so I don't need hardcore overclocking. thanks
I was kind of hoping to buy all the components from one on-line place but that may not be possible based on availability...lol. Thanks for the link to the video card. The sites I'm probably looking at purchasing from that each has their own price benefits depending on the component are: tcwo.com newegg.com zipzoomfly.com Any other quality, low price sites? Fun. Surf
Oh...I want a cool looking case that lights up and stuff. Can any of you pc gurus recommend one? I've been researching them but I'm not clear on the winner at this point. Thanks.
ATI's poor performance is probably due to their lackluster OpenGL support. I would be surprised if they didn't get to work on that immediately, especially if there will be other Doom engine based games coming out.
From what I've heard, Doom3 is optimized for Nvidia cards, Half Life 2 will be optimized for ATI cards. Both the X800 and the 6800 are solid cards and you probably won't notice the difference either way. Personally, I'm going to wait until the games actually come out to get people's reactions on how their cards perform with the game. Oh....don't install Win XP home if you can avoid it. The limitations on that OS are astounding compared to XP Pro.
Well, I read that and I don't think the differences are performance related in any way. XP Pro is obviously geared toward business users so it has more useful features for business purposes, like Internet Information Server(IIS/webserver). There are other utilities and software available on XP Pro that are not on XP Home. Other than that...they are essentially the same is my understanding. I'm going off of what I've read on the subject in comparisons of the two.
I'd have to disagree. That low end system - with the exception of possibility of the video card maybe - should be AT LEAST around what anyone who may be actually looking forward to this game should have. 512 megs of RAM are pretty standard. And a 1.5 processor far from 'cuts out' 90 % of the PC gaming community.
I wonder what running it with the low end specs will look like...the original Doom graphics? If I upgrade my memory and graphics card only, then I could meet the low end without buying a new PC. LOL. Oh...whomever that was who was touting PCI Express? Can you explain the differences between that and AGP 8x? Is it more bandwith? More MegaHertz? Both? The thing is...I could buy an Intel-based Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz 512 MB DDR2 SDRAM @ 533 Mhz with the 128 MB ATI X800 SE PCI Express for about the same as building the rig I outlined previously in this thread and it would save me the hassle. Performance would be about the same or a little less than the AMD 64 3400+ I was going to go with. I dunno...just looking for opinions and the explanation on why PCI Express is the way to go now other than everyone will be gravitating to it eventually cause it is going to be the new standard. Surf
I know you'll are ignoring me now ( ) but I just got back from Fry's Electronics. That was my first visit. I priced the components for the AMD-based system I outlined above and have come to the conclusion Fry's prices suck. I don't know why anyone would buy PC stuff there but, apparently, they do. Amazing. I guess they have some good deals and stuff marked down but it was few and far between. I dunno...just my impressions. I would have walked out with all the components had the prices been a little less but every component I ran into was at least $30 more than on-line. I guess that is to be expected. I just figured Fry's might be competitive based on the amount of product they stock and sell. Whatever...bah!
got the game, this game blows all the resident evils, silent hills, ect out of the water. close your door, turn off the lights, turn the volume up... scary man, scary.
It must be pretty good if it is scarier than those games, but tell me... Is is scarier than Britney's Dance Beat, the Mark Kate & Ashley games, and the Barbie Pony riding game? Those games scared the crap out of me, and if this is scarier, I may have to wait until I am at least 25 yrs old.
I'm gonna wait a while before I get it. I've got finals next week, then I go home, but my PC stays here.
