Gonna pull the trigger - Micro Velocity - Any Input

F

Fazzar

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 22, 2004
Messages
290
I've decided to buy, instead of build for a number a reasons. I've settled in on Micro Velocity as the company to buy from. That said, I'd appreciate any input on what I've selected given my computing needs.

I'm only concerned with gaming for this rig I play Vanguard, Company of Heroes and will be playing Crysis the second it's released. That gives you an idea of the genres I like.

I don't need the absolute lastest and greatest. I'm looking for the best price point for performance. It's also my understanding that the lastest/greatest processors are not providing much addtional performance above a solid dual-core released a few months ago.

I plan to get a MB that supports SLI and get a second GPU later:

850 Watt Velocity Micro® Power Supply - Nvidia® SLI™ Certified

EVGA nForce 680i SLI, Socket 775, PCI-E, DDR2

Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme processor X6800, dual 2.93GHz cores, 4MB L2 Cache

4096MB Corsair™ DDR2 PC5300 DDR667 (4x1024)

768MB EVGA GeForce 8800GTX DDR3 PCI-E w/HDCP

250GB Western Digital WD2500KS 7200rpm SATA/300, 16MB Cache

Genuine Microsoft® Windows® Vista Home Premium 32-bit

Thanks in advance!
 
One thing I noticed pretty quickly is your choice of RAM along with your choice of OS. Any 32-bit operating system can only support 3 gigabytes of RAM. The full four gigabytes will not be used. However, if you switched your OS to Vista Home Premium 64-bit, you'd be able to use the full four gigs of RAM.

You also said "I plan to get a MB that supports SLI and get a second GPU later:" That EVGA mobo does support SLI, if I'm not mistaken. You might be talking about something different here, just throwing my point out there though. Other than that, great rig you have set up there. Good luck!
 
Hi,

Unless you're getting this machine at a significant discount, several of the components you've listed offer terrible performance for their price, and that's assuming you're not paying more than the sum of the retail prices for each part, which given most boutique builders, is never the case (you'll be paying more.)

To be more specific, the following parts offer very little performance advantage over much, much cheaper alternatives:

- An X6800 for $800 offers little more performance than a E6600 for < $300. Furthermore, every E6600 should easily overclock to stock X6800 speed, if not more. In fact, the max overclock of an E6600 has often found to be higher than the max overclock of an X6800. However, the X6800 does have an unlocked multiplier, leaving you more OC wiggle room if you're limited to a low FSB. In most people's opinions (including mine,) the X6800 is a genuine waste of money.

- At least 1 Gig of your 4 Gigs of RAM will go unused if you purchase the 32-bit edition of Vista. If you get 4 Gigs of RAM, get the 64-bit edition of Vista. However, 2 gigs is more than enough for your stated needs, so I suggest going with that. If you go with 2 gigs, get the 32-bit edition of XP. Furthermore, if you get a cheaper processor and want to over clock, then upgrade to 800Mhz RAM.

- An 850 Watt PSU is overkill if you're not going SLI. If you can select a smaller PSU, do so and save some $$$.

I can offer more advice if you provide a) your budget, and b) how much that system will cost. In most cases however, it is hard to optimize price / performance when buying a rig. If price / performance is of the upmost importance, I highly suggest you build your own PC.

Good luck,

Mark.
 
Thanks all. Good input. If this is in the wrong forum please feel free to move it.

Is the 64 bit version on Vista available? My plan for the ram was looking forward to 64 Vista, however, it doesn't appear to be available through Micro yet.
 
64 bit Vista has been available as long as the 32-bit edition. Both are considered equal first-tier product, unlike XP-64. Whether or not Velocity Micro offers 64-bit Vista is another story. If not, then get 2 Gigs and XP, then upgrade to 4-Gigs and Vista later down the road.

Mark.
 
Hey Fazzar,

Just wanted to give you a heads up on checking out some Vanguard forums like SilkyVenom .com or tentonhammer.com for any issues with the 8800GTX & Vista with Vanguard.

When I used to play the game a few months ago, I did recall some serious problems with the 8800 series with vista in combination with that game.

Be wary as you mentioned that as one of the games you'd be hoping to jump in, so just giving you a heads up to check whether Sigil has fixed that issue as it could save yourself some stress down the line.
 
Gaiden133 said:
Hey Fazzar,

Just wanted to give you a heads up on checking out some Vanguard forums like SilkyVenom .com or tentonhammer.com for any issues with the 8800GTX & Vista with Vanguard.

When I used to play the game a few months ago, I did recall some serious problems with the 8800 series with vista in combination with that game.

Be wary as you mentioned that as one of the games you'd be hoping to jump in, so just giving you a heads up to check whether Sigil has fixed that issue as it could save yourself some stress down the line.
Click to expand...

Yep, same experience. The Nvidia drivers released about 2-3 weeks ago cleared up most of those issues for me (forget the number of the driver set). I know VG doesn't optimize dual video cards yet or DX10, I've heard maybe Fall. Hence my just stick to one card for now approach.

*edit* Doh, just realized it was Vista AND 8800 issues in combination you were mentioning. Thanks, I'll look into that.
 
Thanks for the continued input. Great community here.

Thought of something, does a RAID configured rig do much for gaming other than maybe the initial load? With Vanguard, when one crosses into a new area, the system needs to load new textures. While there is not zone boundry or loading screen, this can cause the system to 'hitch' as it loads the new information. RAID handy here?
 
Fazzar said:
Thanks for the continued input. Great community here.

Thought of something, does a RAID configured rig do much for gaming other than maybe the initial load? With Vanguard, when one crosses into a new area, the system needs to load new textures. While there is not zone boundry or loading screen, this can cause the system to 'hitch' as it loads the new information. RAID handy here?
Click to expand...

Hmm i didn't hear that a RAID setup helped with those hitches. Even on my end, with the rig in my sig, I never found hitches to be more than 1-2 seconds with the exception of a few 3-4 second ones. Most of them were low and fairly livable. I did hear a lot of people bitching about it though, which makes me feel as if the answer would be no as I am sure there are quite a few people out there with RAID setups who would've stated if there was no hitching on their end.
 
To be honest, since your budget seems to by sky high, Velocity Micro isn't what you want :D (Can anyone guess where im going with this? :p)

overdrivePC. for your price range, youll get hyperclocking as well, which is stupid fast overclocking, guaranteed by oPC for the life of the PC :eek:

itll be a bit more expensive, but god knows the performance to be had is INSANE

if you want to stick with the VM, which while not a bad computer by ANY means, and they are an incredible company (who now own oPC :p ) then i wouldnt bother with an extreme processor TBH... they arent worth it IMO

cut the ram back to 2 gigs of FASTER ram

and with the money you save by cutting the extrem to an e6600 or e6700 go with 2 8800GTX's :D and just overclock the processor
 
Purchased a VelocityMicro Gamers Edge on the 24th of March, with the below spec's. VM does not come nor do they have for the time being the 64 bit Vista, and I had to go out and purchase the OEM Vista Premium 64 bit version for about $ 119.00. That will arrive on Wednesday.

Just learned, for what ever reasons, VM installed a custom bios, that I cannot flash to another version, as I found out. Tried but does not work. Sent an E-Mail to tech support asking about this on Sunday ( They do not work on Sundays ) and even though its Tuesday afternoon, I still have not heard back from them on this Custom Bios that I cannot upgrade. I have the P-25 version, they told me it would be sent with the P-26 bios version, but failed to do so, and that is why I emailed VM about this custom bios and if it is possible to upgrade to a newer bios someday. I'll give them a day more, than I'll make the call.

http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/311/failedbiosupgrade001si1.jpg


If I had to do it all over again, I would have gotten the LiqiCooler instead of Arctic Cooler 7. I live in Florida, gets pretty hot, and need the extra benefits of the LiqCooler instead. Not that my CPU temps are very high, around 45c Idle with the Ambient temp inside my home at 80 degrees. I also would have gotten the Raptor instead of the WD 250 Gb 16 mb cache hard drive.

Over all experience is very good. Just wish the bios could be upgraded by me and having VM offer the 64 bit OS in addition to the 32 bit version ( Interesting that one of the lead tech team members told me I could upgrade the bios, and to be gental. But I tried but failed. It will not take, so I do not know whats going on with this Custom Bios and why it was necessary to have it, and why did VM not know about this when I asked if I could flash the bios someday )


VelocityMicro Gamers Edge PCX

680i SLI Bios P-25
E6600 core 2 duo
4 Gb Corsair DDR2-8500 1066 mhz C5D memory
8800 GTX (1)
250 WD hard drive 16 mb cache
Arctic Cooler Pro 7
Vista 32 bit Ultimate / Additional purchase 64 bit Premium Vista
Floppy drive
850 watt power supply ( Seems loud )
 
Get the e6600 CPU and overclock it instead of the x6800.

4GB of RAM is overkill for present gaming. If you do want 4gb, I agree about getting the 64-bit version of vista.
 
SR45 said:
Purchased a VelocityMicro Gamers Edge on the 24th of March, with the below spec's. VM does not come nor do they have for the time being the 64 bit Vista, and I had to go out and purchase the OEM Vista Premium 64 bit version for about $ 119.00. That will arrive on Wednesday.

Just learned, for what ever reasons, VM installed a custom bios, that I cannot flash to another version, as I found out. Tried but does not work. Sent an E-Mail to tech support asking about this on Sunday ( They do not work on Sundays ) and even though its Tuesday afternoon, I still have not heard back from them on this Custom Bios that I cannot upgrade. I have the P-25 version, they told me it would be sent with the P-26 bios version, but failed to do so, and that is why I emailed VM about this custom bios and if it is possible to upgrade to a newer bios someday. I'll give them a day more, than I'll make the call.

http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/311/failedbiosupgrade001si1.jpg


If I had to do it all over again, I would have gotten the LiqiCooler instead of Arctic Cooler 7. I live in Florida, gets pretty hot, and need the extra benefits of the LiqCooler instead. Not that my CPU temps are very high, around 45c Idle with the Ambient temp inside my home at 80 degrees. I also would have gotten the Raptor instead of the WD 250 Gb 16 mb cache hard drive.

Over all experience is very good. Just wish the bios could be upgraded by me and having VM offer the 64 bit OS in addition to the 32 bit version ( Interesting that one of the lead tech team members told me I could upgrade the bios, and to be gental. But I tried but failed. It will not take, so I do not know whats going on with this Custom Bios and why it was necessary to have it, and why did VM not know about this when I asked if I could flash the bios someday )


VelocityMicro Gamers Edge PCX

680i SLI Bios P-25
E6600 core 2 duo
4 Gb Corsair DDR2-8500 1066 mhz C5D memory
8800 GTX (1)
250 WD hard drive 16 mb cache
Arctic Cooler Pro 7
Vista 32 bit Ultimate / Additional purchase 64 bit Premium Vista
Floppy drive
850 watt power supply ( Seems loud )
Click to expand...

Did they overclock your CPU?
 
go for better ram, and IMO those x6800's are rip off, go for a q6600 for the future proofness (slight) or an e6700 and overclock!
 
Fazzar said:
I don't need the absolute lastest and greatest. I'm looking for the best price point for performance. It's also my understanding that the lastest/greatest processors are not providing much addtional performance above a solid dual-core released a few months ago.
Click to expand...

Just to clarify, what people are saying is, you said you don't need the absolute latest and greatest... but that's pretty much what you configured. :)
 
Send me an email with your invoice number to [email protected]...we'll discuss your BIOS issue and what can be done about it. I looked for your email, but I don't see where it came through to us, so it might have just disappeared into the depths of cyberspace.

Custom BIOS or not, you shouldn't be having problems flashing to a newer version--you've got something else going on.

Please contact me!

Fazzar, welcome to the family.
 
Thank you VM for the response.

My system did not come overclocked as was asked on this thread. I have not done anything to it besides overclocking the video card about three times then returning it to default settings. I have gone into the bios to take pictures for later use, but nothing else.

Cannot figure why the custom bios, and do not know what custom settings they were, not included in the documentations with the system.

I am getting some freeze ups on just about every program I use, and the internet a few times per day, and by looking at the eVGA board, they to are having this same issue. Thought it was the 680i chipset, Bios, the Ram or Vista, but not sure. In task manager when the freeze starts, the program shows its still running, but it clearly is not. Go figure VM.

Thank you for trying to straighten this interesting matter out VM, and look forward to knowing what I do next....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edited : Want to thank Heather and the rest at VelocityMicro for the fix on this small issue about the Bios not being able to flash up to. It was just a simple cmos cap being set onto the wrong pins all this time, and now things are back to normal..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top