A nerd project for all you hardware fetish people out there. Simply: Build me a comp that meets most of these requirements: - Must handle multi-tasking (In heavy programs like Photoshop, XSI and more...) - Must not cost more than 1k $ / 750-800€ / 650 £ - CAN NOT HAVE AMD! (For the love of god...) - Can't really decide between nVidia and ATI. (halp!!) - 4 GB RAM is all I need. - Can at least run Bad Company 2 on full resolution @ (at least) medium. (On my 19 (1400x1050) inches screen) - I don't need more than 500-400GB space. - No fancy cabinet. A black box works fine. Make me proud.
Also, I ignore everything (bullshit brand loyalties) except the price. http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=17747387
ATI = AMD. Done. The ATI name was retired finally. Not that it makes any real difference, the drivers and hardware still blow chunks. Also, if you go Core i7/triple channel goodness, 6GB is what you get. Or 3 GB, and no one wants 3GB.
ATI's drivers are still that bad? I mean cmon, how old is that saying about how ATI's drivers suck cocks? Figures that they would hire some competent people to make that stuff already.
From what I have heard about AMD lately, they have got some pretty good processors, maybe rivaling Intel in some aspects for cheaper. And how many processor cores you want? For 1 k you maybe able to get a quad core if you wait a month or two for hex-cores to become popular and they lower the price of the quads. This knowledge is from a while ago but nVidia tends to be extremely expensive but you get a video card that will still play games made 2 if not 4 years later (if software video use growth stays relatively the same), that is as long as you keep it cool, they can overheat and damage themselves easily. ATI tends to be cheaper and maybe not as long lasting in terms of future proofing as nVidia but they still work well. Sometimes they do require some maintenance to work, like with Supreme Commander 2, the engine it runs on uses graphics instancing which ATI cards (or at least mine) default to off. TL;DR : I suggest ATI Edit: @ZM100000M: Surprisingly they have gotten a lot better since my first run in with them which was with a 256 MB radeon about 6-7 years if not more ago. I have gone from that one to nVidia back to one of the latest ATI radeons and I actually really like the ATI a lot better, that is after I did some maintenance with it.
You can't simply say nvidia lasts longer and costs more, or ati is cheaper or other bullshit. Each reference card is different. Some are more powerful and some cost more. Power price efficiency varies with each card both companies pitch, however each one trys to have a card in each price range. Cards maintenance is bullshit. Except for duster gas, there isn't anything maintaining to do. Drivers are effectively the same for each company. Updates happen frequently for both, ATi I know puts out a new one each month atleast for the 5xxx series. Basically nvidia lets you software overclock the CPU with the RIVAtuner part of the drivers. I only had one *compatibility* problem with 5770 and thats when I ran overclocked in HoN back in beta. Its fixed now. For processors, processor cores don't really matter. For the most part, you will get what you pay for, or a better way to put it, the sum of the advantages of a CPU will add up to the cost. Generally speaking, AMD doesn't have anything that beats an i5, the new hexcores are debatable, but everything under than price point, AMD competes heavily especially since AMD on average have cheaper MOBOs of the same type.
Moot point, Macs are pretty much over his monetary limit :p The DVI outputs on my card died. I had to overclock my card's 2D mode and up the voltage just to prevent the system from crashing. If I didn't install any AMD drivers, system was stable (no throttling)...install drivers, the system hard locks within a mintue. Getting the profile set to OC that was a bitch. Anymore, I just go into the registry and manually do it while in safe mode. Those two together mean in my eye AMD/ATI still blows fucking chunks. There's a DAMN good reason that the latest AMD drivers aren't making it on to Windows update I suspect. Thermal protection on the Intel systems is WAY better. If we're talking i5s (not X58) mobos aren't so bad...and you're back in dual channel mode, so again, things aren't so bad.
Thermal protection is glitter. 1156 mobos are still more expensive than AM3. One bad experience with ATi that likely have no fault with ATi at all (DVI ports are outsourced to the card manufacturer) My old Nvidia overheats and the drivers freeze my computer.
Rampant you think a dead DVI port is due to AMD drivers? Also the 2d underclocking (to what? 157/300?) I thought was raised a bit in around CC10.6. You make it sound worse than it actually is; AMD has a feature that throttles the card when its not in use. Intel, nVidia, and AMD processors do the same thing. AMD just took it a tad too far..simply raising these clocks helps. Also the hexa-core CPUs such as the 1100/1095T would easily beat an i5. Though for gaming's sake they're relatively close. I'd wait for ATI/AMD's newer cards to come out around this November. Run off of integrated (probably HD4200). *Edit Just from this article where the 1090T beats the i7-930 in nearly every test (if it doesn't, it's close).. This one from Guru3d shows it just under the i7-860 in some cases, and above the i7-940 in others. This one from Hexus shows it beating the i7-940 in most cases.
What I got so far: CPU: i5 760 (Saw 750 for the same price, so why the fuck not take 2.8 over 2.66) GPU: Decided to go for Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 Vapor-X (Overclocked) after reading this. Mobo: ASUS P7H55-V (Not sure yet) RAM: OCZ Platinum Triple Channel 6GB Kit (1600MHz) (Not sure either) Power: Chieftec Super Series CFT-750W I'll pick a random 400- GB HD when I find one. Pick out what's shit and I'll look for something different.
400gb? pfft... LOL! <wipes tears from eyes> ok really, what size you gana get? 1TB is at good price IMO. ~69$ 1.5TB ~79$ 2tb ~99$ Newegg Prices (Best place for everything ever!) if you got 4.1k $ burning a hole in your pocket you can get a 1TB SSD(card). LINKY
The last HD I had was only 360, and I remember the most space I ever used was about 230-250GB max. That was with all the games I have on my steam account installed. (+ loads of mods)
As usual postweakness, you can't fucking read. I know the drivers throttle, they throttled until the hardware lost stability, the drivers crashed, windows tried to restart them and failed, because the hardware was wedged. Don't lecture me on thier drivers, I know them all too well. This is a reference board. Thermal protection DOES matter when you OC.
