Graphics design/gaming config for friend, budget 1700 firm.

G

GForce64

Gawd
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Mar 7, 2005
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He's going to be doing 3ds, PS, etc. work, and catching up on all the games he missed running a mid-range P4 rig for a few too many years.

Here's what I came up with.

Coolermaster Centurion 5: 44.99$
FSP550-60PLN PSU: 93$
AMD Athlon X2 4200+: 400$
ASUS A8N-SLi Premium: 163$
4x1GB of G.SKILL Value: 350$
200GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10: 87$
eVGA 7800GT: 299$
NEC 3550A: 39.99$
Microsoft Windows XP Home: 86.95$

Anyway, I have a couple of questions.

1. Worth the upgrade from 3800 to 4200?
2. Mobo selection. Worth it to spend extra for the A8N32?
3. Memory. Will he see an advantage from 4GB of memory, and is it worth the price delta over 2GB? Also, what kind of memory controller stress/issues will he be looking at with 4 sticks?
4. Worth the hop to 7800GTX?

Anyway, I'd like a couple more opinions before we set this config in stone. He's ordering on New Years if all goes well. Thanks ahead of time.
 
Maybe you should get windows x64 instead of xp, so you can really use all the ram your buying
 
that's crazy-to spend $400 on AMD Athlon X2 4200+ when you could get probably the x2 3800+ and OC it to 4200 Speeds..
Your friend probably also wants the extra 1 mb of l2cache....
Go with a $400-435 Opteron 170 or a $330-360 165...
 
{NcsO}ReichstaG said:
that's crazy-to spend $400 on AMD Athlon X2 4200+ when you could get probably the x2 3800+ and OC it to 4200 Speeds..
Your friend probably also wants the extra 1 mb of l2cache....
Go with a $400-435 Opteron 170 or a $330-360 165...
Click to expand...

So will 200 MHz or more cache mean more? He's not a huge fan of overclocking, otherwise I would have provided more expensive ram.
 
I'm that friend who is building this rig. I would've posted something sooner, but I was waiting on this account to activate.

I'm thinking of toning down to 2 gigs ram, 3800+ overclocked and switch to dual eVGA 7800GTs. I can upgrade the ram later for only $160 or so back to the 4 gigs I originally desired, and my fear of overclocking must be overcome at some point.

I need a lot of memory though for the 3d animation I do. I do professional level work, and that's pretty intensive on ram, especially when I'm trying to work with background images in 3dsMax(huge memory hog on that procedure) and particle systems.

I think dropping to the 3800+ and getting the extra cache would also help me a lot so it doesn't have to recalculate all the particle movements each time I move the slider bar around to the different frames.

Then, do dual GTs for my gaming needs. I've been running a 2.4ghz with a 5600 ultra and 1 gig ram for a few years now and I'm getting really angered with it. I can tolerate graphics on low settings, but I've reached the point where I can't even play stuff anymore.
 
WIth an SLI rig, you'll really be hurting trying to actually use >2GB ram. Devices suck up memory addresses in the first 4GB. The only way to deal with it is to run a 64-bit OS or get Windows Server. XP 32-bit doesn't support PAE fully.

I've been using XP64 as my main OS for a few months now, and so far I haven't really had any serious problems. My USB TV tuner (ran out of PCI slots... :( ) doesn't work. I've run into games that wouldn't install on it, but ran just fine on XP64 if I installed them on XP32. There are, however some programs that just don't work on it. Which ones I'm not sure, but games using a certain nasty copy protection scheme are one of the main culprits.

If you start with 2GB I'd probably just go with 32-bit XP. With 4GB I'd say dual boot them like I do. The one thing I'd do when you build the machine is partition the HD for both so you can upgrade memory & install XP64 later w/o having to reformat or buy Partition Magic. You can install both to the same partition, but according to MS it's not recommened. I have no clue what would happen.
 
While I'm far from computer illiterate, I know nothing of dual booting.

What would be the reasons for me to do this? I stated why I want all that RAM, and I know there are paging file issues with XP, and I know how to turn them off, but beyond thatI'm kind of unknowledgable. The last time I really knew computers, SDRAM was still the industry standard, so that's how long it's been since I've known fully what I'm doing.
 
To summarize, XP-32 would probably see only 2-3GB of ram... likely closer to 2GB if you go SLI at some point. XP64 has some compatibility issues.
So far I've only had trouble with games and my cheezy USB TV tuner.

The reason you'd want to dual boot is to be able to use lots of RAM. 32-bit processors can only address 4GB of memory. Many IO devices are memory mapped, meaning the memory on the device is mapped into that 4GB address space. The AGP aperture (not sure how this applies to PCI-e) also seems to use some space. On my system if I set my AGP aperture to 512MB I only have access to 1.9GB.
Supposedly 3-3.5GB is typically available, but that's assuming a relatively ordinary office type system. Start tossing in multiple video cards, etc. and that number drops fast.

On any relatively recent CPU there's an address extension called PAE (physical address extension I think) that allows more than 4GB of ram. Great right? Not so fast. Windows XP doesn't support using >4GB of ram to avoid some possible device driver compatibility issues. Personally I think this is lame, and you should at least be able to turn off the blasted compatibility mode & see what happens. Windows Server does allow >4GB, but that costs lots of $$$. A heck of a lot more than a $140 copy of XP64, and you may still end up dual booting.

Dual booting 2 versions of Windows is quite easy. Much simpler than messing around with GRUB or LILO to boot Linux. You just need 2 drives/partitions. Then you just install XP32 on C:, and XP64 on D: or whatever. The installer will automatically add it to the boot menu. The Windows installer will always make the version it's installing the default. So if you install XP64 second, it'll become the default.

You can change how long it waits for you to pick and the default system by editing C:\boot.ini
It's hidden by default, so you'll have to turn off the hide hidden files option under Tools -> Folder Options -> View. Might have to disable hide system files as well.

The file looks like this on my system:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /usepmtimer
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

The timeout is in seconds. Just change it to whatever you want.
To set the default, you just replace the part after the = with the part before the equals from one of the lines under [operating systems].
 
Hmm...I see why I'd want to dual boot, but what are the uses for XP64? Would that be better used on my graphics work? If it has compatibility issues with games, I can't rely on it there, but what about my graphics work? Would it be best to set up a C: partition for 2gb, 32-bit OS and gaming, and a D: partition for 4gb, 64-bit OS and graphics?
 
Visual77 said:
Hmm...I see why I'd want to dual boot, but what are the uses for XP64? Would that be better used on my graphics work? If it has compatibility issues with games, I can't rely on it there, but what about my graphics work? Would it be best to set up a C: partition for 2gb, 32-bit OS and gaming, and a D: partition for 4gb, 64-bit OS and graphics?
Click to expand...

Possibly. If your graphics apps are compatible XP 64 would let them use more physical memory. The question is will they work properly on XP64. They probably are, but I can't guarantee it. That's left as an excercise to the reader (ie- you), since I don't know. I'd probably start with Google and the Vendor's web sites to find out. Or maybe give tech support a ring.
Currently there isn't much of a point to XP64 for gaming. The only 64-bit game I can think of off hand is Far Cry. Most games work just fine on XP64 though.
 
We did some discussion today, and he seems to be leaning torwards getting an Opteron 165, 2GB of RAM, a 7800GT, and XP32 now, and getting a future upgrade to 4GB of RAM, XP64, and another 7800GT or whatever card is tops then later.
 
Yes, he listed my current thoughts. He recommended that I switch to the Opteron for OC potential, so I'm considering doing that, and then set myself into a position for some later upgrades to a 64 bit OS and SLI card. I also looked at page that talked about certain programs and how they work with a 64-bit OS and almost all of the ones i use(3ds, Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, Flash, InDesign) work just fine or better.
 
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