Yegas Hardware Thread

[YegaDoyai]

Hello there, this is where I shall keep my rantings from now on. I'll try and do a roundup of important/interesting news every now and again but mainly I'll just be posting the interesting things I see in the great sea of lies that is the internet.

Todays topic is AGP: Will it ever die?

http://www.firingsquad.com/news/pressreleasearticle.asp?searchid=305

No, says Sapphire. 'kin 'ell that's a swift card.

[YegaDoyai]

Currently you can buy a 3500+ AM2 processor for less than a Sempron 3400+ AM2 processor, where is the logic in that?

[YegaDoyai]

With a couple of exceptions it is pretty quiet on the hardware front.

AMD pricing is putting thier chips in the performance/cost ratio target of the lower end C2Ds but they don't clock as well and if you have 'real' money then a C2D will get you the most performance.

1TB drives are just around the corner. Anandtech did a test of the new drive (which should be available in the summer) and it outperforms EVERYTHING, including the much vaunted Raptor drives by WD. Quieter, faster, cooler and more storage, sounds like a dream come true but if you think about it, packing in all that data to the same form factor was likely to make the drive quicker that lesser counterparts of the same rotation speed, but the fact that they managed to make it cooler running than pretty much any other drive and quieter than even the spinpoint with cunning technology for multi drive setups means that even at £200-300 bracket the drive will actually be a decent purchase. But and it is a big but, they expect this drive to retail for under $300 which is nuts.

X1950 Pro is still the card to get, though, like I said the XT varient is not much more for a hell of a lot more card. Nvidia are getting ready to release thier next set of cards but appear to be waiting for the much delayed R600 to ensure they cash in on ATi lost sales when they can't get enough to market (just a prediction based on previous launches from ATi) Another rumour floating about is that the reason for the delay is that ATi is shifting to 65nm process for the retail card as this will see a better return on investment but that seems to be purely speculative based on recent AMD aqqusitions and the length of the delay.

There is a new version of the P180 out, it is essentially the "master pimp" version and fixies all the issues we have with the current case (like it is a minor pain that you can't adjust the fan speeds without modding or removing the side of the case.) And makes a few other improvements like painting the inside black and giving it a pimping chrome look to the outside.

[Sid]

it outperforms EVERYTHING, including the much vaunted Raptor drives by WD.

Not quite! :wink:

[YegaDoyai]

In real terms it does, who here measures thier HDD performance in I/O per second.

Also, for some reason ATi have decided to bring out a dulled down version of the excellent X1950 Pro, called the X1950 GT, it is slightly slower, and slightly cheaper (under £100 even at Dabs). BUT the really interesting thing is that the models that have been floating about at the moment come with 1.2ns memory that should be good for 800mhz, which is quite a bit faster than the stock 600mhz. Considering the core is only 75mhz slower than a stock pro, you should be able to clock it up to pro or beyond speeds (the Pro memory spped is about 700mhz @ stock) however there is no overclocking utility that works for this card yet so this is unverified at the moment.

[Hex]

There is a new version of the P180 out, it is essentially the "master pimp" version and fixies all the issues we have with the current case (like it is a minor pain that you can't adjust the fan speeds without modding or removing the side of the case.) And makes a few other improvements like painting the inside black and giving it a pimping chrome look to the outside.

I take it you're referring to the P182 (http://www.antec.com/uk/productDetails.php?ProdID=09182#). It looks nice, but it seems set to be a good £25 more expensive than the P180 for a couple of minor improvements. P180 seems better value tbh.

[CaNNoN_FoDDa]

The inside appears to not be black...

Sweet case tho.

[YegaDoyai]

W T F!!

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-192-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=803

[Hex]

W T F!!

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-192-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=803

Looks pretty good for the price, but are they not totally outperformed by the C2Ds?

[Bluepixie]

W T F!!

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-192-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=803

Cripes!

[YegaDoyai]

Not at that price. At that price it beats all the C2Ds up to a 6800

[CaNNoN_FoDDa]

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=535755

[YegaDoyai]

Sorry, I should just mention that the reason that I post OCuk stuff in general is that they have an excellent selection and generaly have the 'best kit' end of the market. I would never say they have the best prices.

[CaNNoN_FoDDa]

Yeah, i guessed that. I was wasnt posting that specifically to one-up you, but because oc have that price as this week only whereas scan have it as their actual price.

[LastChanceHotel]

Yeah, i guessed that. I was wasnt posting that specifically to one-up you, but because oc have that price as this week only whereas scan have it as their actual price.

They need that to spend the margin on hiring two people to handle the entire returns department, so they can spend 3 weeks "Testing my [faulty] RAM", in order to squeeze the absolute most profit from their customers.

[YegaDoyai]

I'm not sure when this happened but Intel seem to have released some new Conroes. Lower end and cheaper but have 4mb not 2mb cache. So the old 6300 is no more and instead we have the 6320. Not exactly ground breaking stuff but interesting enough to note as now there is no reason to get the 6600 as previously is was the first conroe (4mb cache) and now you can get conroe in the full range. Note that the 4xxx series still exists as the 'cheap as chips' varient with 2mb cache and slower FSB. If you are on a budget the 4xxx series is great, if it is not so tight then go wild and buy any conroe as they should all clock really well and throwing more moeny at it will give you a better springboard. Note that if you are not overclocking and cannot afford the 6600 or better then you are still better off getting the AM2 chips from AMD as they offer better stock performance for the price.

Is that confusing? Hope not.

EDIT:
Looks like I'm not the only one being surprised by this
http://www.dailytech.com/Intel+Slashes+Prices+and+Silently+Launches+New+Mod els/article7006.htm

[CaNNoN_FoDDa]

So what's this about K8L cores?

[YegaDoyai]

Now officialy known as the K10. Still the same deal as before, promises to be better but we'll have to wait and see.

[YegaDoyai]

This thread is now the:

"Atari is better than the Amiga thread"

Discuss.

Please note, resident troll is on watch to delete any posts by folk that subscribe to the DAve hardware thread.

[Hex]

Amiga > Atari, end of. The only thing worthy of note that Atari ever did is Pong, and that doesn't justify a whole series of shitty PC/console hybrids. Amiga on the other hand produced cheap but still cutting edge PCs with a ridiculously huge library of awesome games. Better still the serial ports they used are identical to those used on Sega's Master System and Megadrive, allowing the use of Sega pads on Amiga machines. You didn't even need drivers, plug and play ftw! So yeah, Amiga rocks, full stop.

[YegaDoyai]

You do not state even one valid argument. Cost wise the atari was cheaper, Commadore did not provided the library of games so can hardly be lauded for having one, although admitedly the Amiga library was more extensive than the STs but nothing like the disparity seen in the Mac v PC debate. The serial ports on the ST were compatible with amiga/sega and PC variants, I know because I had one and used my joysick and mouse on all my friends machines regardless of thier particular flavour.

Atari essentially invented consoles and gaming for the masses. Do your homework.

[Strings]

Pfft. Amiga all the way.

The Atari had a midi interface, that's why many composers/musicians used one. That's the only real advantage.

Amiga 500 had 4 audio channels and could display up to 4096 colors.
Atari ST had 2 audio channels and could display up to 16 colors.

Plus the games that were ported to the ST were pretty sloppy in comparison to the Amiga versions.

Just google around, its a no brainer.

[Fyndir]

Please note, resident troll is on watch to delete any posts by folk that subscribe to the DAve hardware thread.

I am?

I was not aware of this, please elaborate.

[YegaDoyai]

The atari supported more than two channels, however only two could be used simultaneusly for digital effects, upto 12 were available for music. Considering that when you mixed 4 digital sounds the amiga could not render anything it made zero impact on the games played. Thats right, for any game that mixed more it was doing what the ST had to do all along which is use interleaving, go back to your programming handbook (not blitz basic - it handled its channels differently) and you'll see I'm right.

The mode which you are talking about is the HaM mode and was rarely if ever used for games due to it's clumsy way of dealing with off screen pixels.

The Amiga had a larger fan base so of course the intarweb will support the majority of your claims, unless you look at the like of the little green desktop.

Games were in general not ported to the ST but developed at the same time, only a few exceptions exist where a decent game was poorly ported and that was generaly in the later years of the ST when noone in the right mind would have bought one due to lack of industry support.

C'mon folks lets have a challneging argument that cannot be refuted.

[Sideshow]

Damn, I was not going to post in this retarded argument, but: The Amiga sold for a comparable price to the ST, it had a vastly superior games catalog, it had vastly superior hardware... in fact, the only thing the ST was regarded as better than it for was in music-making as the ST's built-in midi port, and yet the Amiga had a better sound chip. No-one wanted an ST: anyone who was on the ST side of the holy war was someone who's parents had bought it for them.

Amiga had 4 full audio channels. It could get 8 by interleaving.

And you saying something is not refutation. Just so you know.

[Strings]

Sideshow pretty much beat me to the punch.

And even though the ST had the better capacity for audio utility, the composer /demomusic community grew up around the Amiga and not really the ST.

Obviously your not going to get any hard non-refutable evidence. If you want to have "challenging arguments", join a debating society.

[YegaDoyai]

One thing that made it better:
1. More popular.

Anyway I just wanted to get that out the way so we could move onto why the Mega Drive was better than the SNES.

[LastChanceHotel]

Oh, those things. I think I had an atari at one point, before I passed it onto a friend. I also seem to remember having a shit-hot 386 at that point :D

[Sideshow]

Atari essentially invented consoles and gaming for the masses. Do your homework.

Not really - Atari consoles were shit, and I don't know anyone who moved from them onto better systems. 8-bit computers were far more influential, in UK at least. In general it was the NES which made the huge impact.

SNES v Megadrive is a bit of a non-argument - it's only in the UK that the Megadrive was remotely as popular. US and Japan NES/SNES ruled all. Only the PS1 got in the way of Nintendo.

[YcMing]

don't know much of the hardware like you guys do ...

But snes > mega drive IMO, because of Street fighter!!!!!!!!!!!!

and also Final fantasy was on it too :)

[YegaDoyai]

Shall me now move to Mac vs PC or has someone caught on to the joke now.

[Fyndir]

The joke is about penis, right?

All jokes are.

[Hex]

don't know much of the hardware like you guys do ...

But snes > mega drive IMO, because of Street fighter!!!!!!!!!!!!

and also Final fantasy was on it too :)

Never understood everyone's love of SF for the SNES, The alpha series on PS/Saturn/DC are so much better games, same goes for the SF3 series. I wish SF3:Third Strike was cheaper, its pretty rare these days :(

[YcMing]

don't think if there is anything to understand.

I mean if u like the game, u just like it :).

[Phizz]

SNES had the original mario kart and starfox too.

[GingerPrinz]

ST was insane for music. My dad (pro musician) used the old cubase on a 1040STFM for years, always seemed to do well by him. Regarding the "massively superior" games catalog, what more do you really need other than

Dungeon Master/Chaos Strikes Back
Sensible Soccer
Speedball 2 (WHY HAS NOONE REVAMPED THIS)
Syndicate
Champ Man
Defender of The Crown (i think that's what it's called)
Cannon Fodder
the Dizzy series
Elite
Syndicate
Lemmings

All available on the ST

[Hex]

Speedball 2 (WHY HAS NOONE REVAMPED THIS)


Hmmm, methinks you have been under a rock for some years. Go read this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedball_%28video_game%29#Speedball_2100) and you will see that not only has it been revamped once (Speedball 2100 for PS1) but it is in the process of being revamped again (sadly not by the Bitmap Bros). Tbh if the future releases are anything like Speedball 2100, don't hold your breath. Sometimes the originals will always be the best ;-)

[Strings]

Hehe Gingerprinz, there are plenty... plenty of other awesome games for the Amiga. Don't knock 'em till you've played them ;)

[LastChanceHotel]

8-bit computers are amusing.

In fact, I made a combined weighing machine, electronic keyboard and central heating controller in Embedded Processors 2 / Design Project 2 this semester, on an 8-bit microcontroller that is faster than an Atari/Amiga/Other computer beginning with an A of "back then".


This microcontroller also cost about 50p to buy.

I can think of several toasters that are more powerful than an Atari/Amiga/Ap--other computer beginning with an A.

[Sideshow]

Dungeon Master/Chaos Strikes Back
Sensible Soccer
Speedball 2 (WHY HAS NOONE REVAMPED THIS)
Syndicate
Champ Man
Defender of The Crown (i think that's what it's called)
Cannon Fodder
the Dizzy series
Elite
Syndicate
Lemmings

...every game a port from Amiga, ZX Spectrum or BBC? Not really lauding the system there Dave.

[Uuurrahh]

Shall me now move to Mac vs PC or has someone caught on to the joke now.

*reads*
*reads down*
*beats head on something*

[YegaDoyai]

Thank you.

Back to the real news, Tomshardware have updated thier GPU charts and it has been changed to more Nvidia friendly titles (2 in an iD engine, and one loosely based on an iD engine) and all others - that I can remember - are all "better with Nvidia" or whatever that product branding is. Not sure who sold them that one but good call to Nvidia it shows them in thier best light and the numbers stack up nicely in thier favour. However, when you factor in cost - street price - then it shows a different story in the mid range. But Nvidia have the low and highend locked off.

[CaNNoN_FoDDa]

Is this the start of a Nvidia v Ati debate?

[YegaDoyai]

There is no debate on currently existing cards, the benchmarks and prices speak for themselves, however there could easily be a debate about who is going to go bust first (hint: not Nvidia).

[DAve]

There is no debate on currently existing cards, the benchmarks and prices speak for themselves, however there could easily be a debate about who is going to go bust first (hint: not Nvidia).
That is true, but the situations were reversed 2 generations ago. Besides, since AMD bought ATI just a few months ago, I doubt they'd buy a lemon. The company might have been struggling and AMD may have bought a bargain. Time will tell, I suppose.

There's no doubt that Nvidia are on top at the moment, mainly due to making shit hot cards and getting them to market when they said they would.

[LastChanceHotel]

My main bone with ATI is their lack of proper open-source drivers. They provide propreitary ones that sort-of work, but the lack of effort they're making towards making ATI tolerable on anything other than windows is terrible.

I'm buying an Nvidia card next time. There's no way I'm going through all that shite of making a square peg fit in a round hole next time, just to "save £20" compared to an Nvidia card.

[Muppet]

My main bone with ATI is their lack of proper open-source drivers. They provide propreitary ones that sort-of work, but the lack of effort they're making towards making ATI tolerable on anything other than windows is terrible.

Amen to that. Ubuntu + Beryl/Compiz + kiba-dock + ATi = lets freeze xorg

[YegaDoyai]

It gets very tiring supporting the underdog when the underdog keeps shooting itself in the foot. I have bought ATi through coincidence since the original Radeon and have never been overly upset at its performance/features or whatever but overall, even with the 1950Pro/GT you can't help but feel that if it had an Nvdia badge on it it would somehow just be a little easier.

Also AMD is fucked so it bought ATi in the hope to gain some foothold in the integrated market. Huge debt and falling profits with no hope on the horizon of any chip capable of taking the fight to intel suggest it's curtains for AMD. ATi is no lemon (strange to think that considering they are the ones that gave us the 'Rage' series of cards). AMD is back down to below 20% market share and is in no way going to recover that soon. Having taken out HUGE loans to buy ATi they are doomed unless they can get an integrated chipset out that fits in laptops and beasts the intel competition. Which they should be able to do but they need to do it soon.

[Hex]

Amen to that. Ubuntu + Beryl/Compiz + kiba-dock + ATi = lets freeze xorg

In my experience, Ubuntu ftl....I've never used it personally but some of my mates tried it out and had endless trouble with it, especially with laptops for some reason :-/ Personally I've tried Debian (mmmm a command prompt. Oh wait, thats it. 3 hours spent failing to install a GUI = in the bin), Fedora (neat enough), and Scientific Linux (my current install, pretty ideal for coding). I've never actually had the need to investigate gfx drivers, my Geforce 6600 has run seamlessly with linux (as did the 5600 i had before) w/o any need to install drivers of any sort, just using the defaults. Granted I don't use linux for anything even remotely graphically intensive...but hey, I like things that work straight outta the box as it were :-)

As for the old ATI vs NVidia debate, I've always been an Nvidia man, for the simple reason that the first PC i built was on a pretty limited budget, hence I had no AGP on the mobo, and the best PCI card I could find was a Geforce 2 MX 32MB. I couldn't see an ATI equivalent on a PCI bus for reasonable money, so I went with the nvidia, and stuck with them. I bought the 5600 and then replaced it with a 6600 for my current rig, and I'll probs buy an 8 series card for the next rig when I build it. My onyl experience with ati hardware is the x1600 my laptop carries. Tbh my bias towards nvidia is just about stickin with what you know, and the fact that upgrading one nvidia card to another on an existing machine is fuckloads easier than changing to ATI (drivers nightmare).

[Strings]

I agree with Jan on this one. Except not exactly with the open source thing.

I've just never had a problem with Nvidia drivers. Ever. If I upgrade and it's a tad unsuitable, back down I go. Flawless.

I've had about 3 ATI cards and each one was a nightmare with drivers. They either didn't work full stop, or were buggy... etc etc. Was always a constant battle against them.

I know that aint REALLY reason to go off a graphics card, but so far I've haven't had one problem with my 7800GTX.

It's the little things.

[YegaDoyai]

Driver nightmare?
Control panel -> add remove software -> remove drivers
Shutdown
Remove old card
Add new card
Turn on
Install drivers as prompted

Where in that sequence do you need to do anything different unless you are changing to a card from the same generation (like I did from the X700 - X800, then you don't need to uninstall-reinstall)

The idea of 'sticking with what you know' in PC terms is frankly pathetic. If you coded for the specific GPU you are using right now then sure I can see an advantage but really all you need to do is learn to use the other cards tool for turning on AA and AF through profiles and everything else is the same.

As for ATi not having good support, you have to admit that this is the worst time for you to expect support for a non mainstream 3D OS. With Vista out, a feirce battle with Nvidia for the crossfire/SLI crown and a new chip just around the corner it is no surprise that the support for the latest gen ATi cards are poor. How is the support for the 8800? I expect it is not much better.

[Strings]

Driver nightmare?
Control panel -> add remove software -> remove drivers
Shutdown
Remove old card
Add new card
Turn on
Install drivers as prompted

Where in that sequence do you need to do anything different unless you are changing to a card from the same generation (like I did from the X700 - X800, then you don't need to uninstall-reinstall)

Yes Peter. That would be how it's done. Didn't stop the drivers being a pain the arse though, regardless of how much you want to simplify the process of installing them lol.

I know how to install drivers, ta, but I just had shit experience after shite experience with ATI drivers. Your concise little instructions won't make them go away.

Just the same with a lot of people have tremendous issues with steam.

Wait? Issues?

Just click Steam.exe surely.....

[YegaDoyai]

Wasn't talking to you, you had a bad experience with early ATi drivers and are well founded in your belife that drivers of that era were utter pap. They are just as easy to use as Nvidia drivers nowadays.

[Hex]

Wasn't talking to you, you had a bad experience with early ATi drivers and are well founded in your belife that drivers of that era were utter pap. They are just as easy to use as Nvidia drivers nowadays.

Well I assume you were talking to me then. The thing that springs to mind in my case was a mate of mine upgraded from a Geforce 2 to an ATI x800 right when the x800 was the hottest newst shit ever. He followed your instructions precisely (anyone can uninstall a card and install another ffs) and low and behold, his system proceeded to fuck itself, royally. I can't remember the exact problems but after a week of trying to fix it he eventually had to give up and do a clean install of XP in order to get his system stable again. Yes this was a while ago - maybe ATI's drivers have improved since. Tbh I suspect it was some sort of issue with nvidia drivers not uninstalling properly and then conflicting with the ATI drivers, but nonetheless he had fuck loads of problems....

[YegaDoyai]

I suspect that your friend is a muppet (no offence intended, most people are muppets).

[Hex]

well, you suspect wrong I'm afraid

[YegaDoyai]

I doubt that so very much.

[Hex]

Honestly dude, my mate alex is not a muppet, he knows how to build and upgrade PCs, I'd say he knows every bit as much as I do, and I'm no muppet. Besides I feel it's a touch weak to support your argument by assuming stupidity from someone you've never met ;)

[YegaDoyai]

Muppet is not the same as stupidity. As I said, pretty much everyone is a muppet. It would not be the first time I've completely rebuilt a machine because I thought it was fucked when in fact it was just that the new ATX power supplies came with a power switch on them where the olt AT style ones did not. I suspect that his issues are stemmed from his own error and would have been avoided most times but he was unfortuante enough to suffer a moment of muppetry and failed to do one of the crucial steps.

[Bluepixie]

lol! Cyber Snipa! hahahahahahaha!

http://www.bit-tech.net/content_images/Gaming_mice_shootup/cs-box-800-1.jpg

[YegaDoyai]

Yega does not approve of the last post.

[Hex]

See Fyndir, now the last two posts make no sense! See what a mess you've made?!?

[Fyndir]

See Fyndir, now the last two posts make no sense! See what a mess you've made?!?

They make perfect sense to me. =P

[Hex]

Well I don't approve of this whole thread ownership thing thats going down. And hence I will continue to ignore "Hex's Hardware Thread" and post wherever I damn well please.

[YegaDoyai]

Expect deletions abound.

[LastChanceHotel]

Hex, stop threadshitting.

Strings, the drivers you're talking about are on windows, so nvidia vs ati doesn't count.

Yega, keep the awesome rolling.

[Strings]

So ATI are allowed to make dodgy drivers... because it's Windows? Or is the primary market for graphics cards now Linux or something.

[LastChanceHotel]

So ATI are allowed to make dodgy drivers... because it's Windows? Or is the primary market for graphics cards now Linux or something.

I was unaware that the ATI drivers for windows were dodgy at all? Considering I run an ATI card, and previously ran an Nvidia card on the same windows install, I would presume I would have experienced the problems you have suggested.

[Strings]

Jan, did you actually read the thread?

I've never had problems with Steam. Yet LOTS of people I know have. Should I experience all their problems just because I also run a similar setup?

No.

I'm sorry if it offends you in some way, but I had a lot of bother with ATI drivers. This was a fresh install of Windows and everything. I shouldn't have to justify the verity of my statements. Yes, user error can be a big part of things... but I feel I have enough experience and knowledge to know when I've made a mistake when dealing with this sort of thing.

Edit: For example when my power supply melted. Completely my fault. :)

[YegaDoyai]

Strings, you HAD a lot of issues with ATi drivers back when they were pap, your opinion is now out of date as since last year the ATi drivers have been as stable as any Nvidia release (they may not be to everyones taste but they are STABLE, which granted they were NOT back in the day of the original Radeon).

Take this fight elsewhere if you want to continue it.

Yega has spoken. ATi drivers are as good as Nvidia in terms of stability.

[Strings]

Yah. I wasn't really commenting on their stability now. I was more enforcing the point that just because someone else has experienced no problems, doesn't mean it's fine and dandy for everyone else.

And I shall take the fight to the dockyards!

[Hex]

And I shall take the fight to the dockyards!

Can I watch?

[LastChanceHotel]

Can I watch?

join as spectator, they're playing on hdn_dockyards - and Yega is the Hidden!

[YegaDoyai]

Ok, there are a batch of new MOBOs about to hit the market, there is a press NDA currently in place regarding performance but I think we can assume that if it is not quicker it will be cooler/cheaper.

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2980&p=2

More details as they are released.

[Hex]

Some nice looking kit there, but no nvidia chipsets so no interest if you fancy an SLI setup....

[YegaDoyai]

If only Nvidia would agree to letting other folk do thier SLI it would be fine, it is known that the ATi solution would work on SLi boards if Nvidia would let it and Intels boards can support SLi again if Nvidia let them. Crossfire requires no board support so to speak so is less of an issue.

[Hex]

If only Nvidia would agree to letting other folk do thier SLI it would be fine, it is known that the ATi solution would work on SLi boards if Nvidia would let it and Intels boards can support SLi again if Nvidia let them. Crossfire requires no board support so to speak so is less of an issue.

In principle yes this would be fine and peachy for all concerned. However from nVidia's POV theres no sense in it - if SLI only works with nVidia's own mobo chipsets then they sell more chips all round, especially given their strong market position.

[YegaDoyai]

Yeah, just a good job they keep making good chipsets or they'd be screwed. Of course you could say that they are tying you into thier products and therefore creating a monopoly but that is getting political and here the politics affect me so I do vote with my wallet.

[YegaDoyai]

When the hell did this happen?

2Gb DDR2 800Mhz = £67

4Gb DDR2 667Mhz = £135

350Gb HDD = ~£50

Anyhoo, at these prices I expect to see at least one 4Gb at the next LAN, and certainly more than 1 at the freshers LAN.

Also, Hex the Dell you are looking at is on offer at OCuk

[Hex]

Also, Hex the Dell you are looking at is on offer at OCuk

Sadly only for this week, and I don't get the money for it until another month

[YegaDoyai]

I stand corrected

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-049-BG&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=877

Though it doesn't say 'in stock' and I suspect it never will.

[Fyndir]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-049-BG&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=877


It's...beautiful...truly truly beautiful..

[YegaDoyai]

Ok so you can now get 4Gb for £135, anyone want to hazard a guess at how much for 8Gb?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-094-CR&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=697

Lol, i suspect there are better deals but even so.

[Thanatos]

When the hell did this happen?

low prices and stuff



I know! iv just found i can get a 2Gb DDR2 kit for my laptop for £48, ok so its on the google checkout promo, but that was gunna cost like £120 last time i looked (xmas-ish i think)

[YegaDoyai]

Just so you all know I have found even more reason to go off and get the P182 case. The MOBO tray has been moved such that there is room to route cables from the PSU in the lower bay all the way behind the MOBO and either to the HDDS directly or over the top of the MOBO. This should make making your case tidy really easy provided you have long enough cables. I think a purchase of this case has to be followed by a purchase of PSU cable extenders.

[Hex]

Yeah I noticed that when I read through the bit-tech review of the P182, seems like a neat idea. I wonder how much extra length you'd need on the cables though....

[YegaDoyai]

Well for my tagan I'd say an extra 6" for the MOBO cables and the power for the CD/DVD and hdds should be ok, Unless you want your CD/DVD in the top tray.

[DAve]

Well for my tagan I'd say an extra 6" for the MOBO cables and the power for the CD/DVD and hdds should be ok, Unless you want your CD/DVD in the top tray.
That's the only (slight) problem I had with the P180 - the PSU is miles away from the power connector. I had to route the thick cable around the heatsink which is less than ideal, but the easiest option when the mobo has top-placed PSU connection.

Beware though, it actually weights a ton (well, just about) and is extremely large as cases go. If you do end up getting one, invest in a good quality LAN carrying case before you pop your back out.

It's a great case, well laid out, easy(ish) to install, and can be whisper quiet depending on components. If you can live with the down sides, then go for it.

[Hex]

The size of the case doesn't bother me, and the weight isn't too much of an issue, I'd only need to shift it about for LANs. I'll def invest in a carry case though, they look very handy! Incidentally where can you actually buy power cable extenders from? Can't say I've ever seen such things...

[Fyndir]

Beware though, it actually weights a ton (well, just about) and is extremely large as cases go. If you do end up getting one, invest in a good quality LAN carrying case before you pop your back out.

It's a great case, well laid out, easy(ish) to install, and can be whisper quiet depending on components. If you can live with the down sides, then go for it.

Puny human is P U N Y!!!

Troll carry much large heavy case with no carrying equipment, silly puny humans!

[YegaDoyai]

Your case is lighter cos it is made of Aluminium, so troll is weak. Also we all know you ride that case not carry.

[Bluepixie]

P-180 - 14.1kg

Troll's Lian Li - about 13.5kg (i think)

Not much in it mind, and depends what you put in it.

[YegaDoyai]

Having worked with them both, even empty, the P180 seems much heavier.

[DAve]

Having worked with them both, even empty, the P180 seems much heavier.
sounds like we'll have to get to the gym more ;)

I know what you mean though, the case is surprisingly heavy. I had the misfortune of lugging the case back from work after citylink (the idiots) failed to deliver to the flat.

[Hex]

sounds like we'll have to get to the gym more ;)

What is this "gym" you speak of?

[Uuurrahh]

What is this "gym" you speak of?

I too am in puzzlement.

[Fyndir]

What is this "gym" you speak of?

Have you ever played GTA: San Andreas?

Apparently some people liked the idea of making people less fat, faster and stronger that you get in that game when you go to the places with the boxing rings, so they copied it in real life.

[Uuurrahh]

Have you ever played GTA: San Andreas?

Apparently some people liked the idea of making people less fat, faster and stronger that you get in that game when you go to the places with the boxing rings, so they copied it in real life.

I used h4x.

[YegaDoyai]

Some things of interest to read.

WD 500GB drive is pretty much the drive to buy right now (http://tomshardware.co.uk/2007/05/15/the_spring_hard_drive_guide_uk/)

DDR3 (http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2989) yeilds marginal gains in performance, but interestingly the P35 is a beast for overclocking (read the conclusion).

Just so we don't get caught out again there is a new small form factor standard DTX (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=7286)

[Hex]

Buying a setup which uses DDR3 now would be a huge waste of money, overclocking or not.

Why on earth they keep introducing new form factors is completely beyond me....

[Sid]

Why on earth they keep introducing new form factors is completely beyond me....
New smaller form factors are a great step as far as I'm concerned. I intend my next PC to be based around miniITX or smaller.

[Uuurrahh]

Some things of interest to read.

WD 500GB drive is pretty much the drive to buy right now (http://tomshardware.co.uk/2007/05/15/the_spring_hard_drive_guide_uk/)


Picked one of these up last week. Needed more pr0n space.

[Hex]

New smaller form factors are a great step as far as I'm concerned. I intend my next PC to be based around miniITX or smaller.

Why out of interest? It'll be difficult to build a cutting edge rig into a small form case, but I guess it depends how cutting edge you want it....

[Sid]

Why out of interest? It'll be difficult to build a cutting edge rig into a small form case, but I guess it depends how cutting edge you want it....
Put it this way - I could build a machine that performs the same/better than the one you're talking about in your thread onto a motherboard that's 17cm x 17cm.

It comes at a slight price premium, but I like the idea of a tiny case that I can place anywhere and lift with one hand when I fancy going to a LAN.

[Hex]

I'd like to see you fit 2 optical drives and 2 or more HDDs into a small form factor case. Also my rig is being specced to include the option of an SLI upgrade, again unviable in a small case. I'm already about to pay nearly £1400 for my setup, I hate to think what your "premium" amounts to!

[Sideshow]

2 optical drive - unnecessary. 2 HDDs - totally unnecessary. You need one HD and at most 1 optical drive.

[Uuurrahh]

2 optical drive - unnecessary. 2 HDDs - totally unnecessary. You need one HD and at most 1 optical drive.

Lieeessss! Well, perhaps not. But I have 2 drives and 3 HDDs :P But then I'm silly.

[Hex]

2 optical drive - unnecessary. 2 HDDs - totally unnecessary. You need one HD and at most 1 optical drive.

2 Optical drives - cd and dvd copying on the fly. Not necessary but pretty damn useful. 2 HDDs (or more) - loads of drive space. You underestimate my passion for downloading stuff and for never uninstalling anything. Also surely miniATX and similar form factor cases would struggle to fit the extra large graphics cards around today?

[YegaDoyai]

Mini ITX tends toward the engery concious and multi media braket. You will never get the best performing kit at less than mATX standard. SLI is available at mATX but I have never seen it on the smaller mini or ITX standards. In general I'd say there is no 'need' for a machine to be any biggar than Ru's and I expect that when Ru upgrades he will keep his case. The reason I have a bigger case is that I fart about with it's internals more and want to have the space to be able to work freely and have the ability to run any component without worrying about case compatability. If I had enough money I'd run to similar machines so that for lanning I could take the mATX as it has been proven over the last year or so that it has been no real hindrance to Ru to have built his machine around this small form factor.

[Sid]

Absolutely. miniITX is meant for space/power-conscious specialist applications, however there are one or two 1066MHz core2duo capable boards out there with 16x PCI-E ports. Yes, they're not going to be *quite* as fast as the high-end ATX boards but I doubt there'll be much real world difference in it.

Hex: I could get everything into an 18cm cube. I'm not sure about 2 optical drives and 2 HDDs, mind you. Maybe, but it'd certainly be tight. I'd be using slimline optical drives anyway - although I technically only ever use a CD drive to install an OS anyway. SLI definitely isn't an option on these boards, but I wouldn't want SLI anyway.

It'd actually come to less than £1400. I didn't realize you were spending that much.

[Hex]

although I technically only ever use a CD drive to install an OS anyway.
...
It'd actually come to less than £1400. I didn't realize you were spending that much.

So you don't have any games that you install from disc? What happens when you buy new ones?

The £1400 includes £250 for a 22" monitor, the actual rig is only coming to....*checks OCuk basket* £1123.12 (plus the cost of a SATA DVD-RW that I need to order from ebuyer, so add about £30)

I realise that I could probs built a rig of equivalent power a bit cheaper than this but as I pointed out in the thread about my plans for a new rig, I'm splurging on quality components/bells and whistles. It's all good in the hood ;)

[YegaDoyai]

Sid, can I get a link to that board, I've not seen one with a full 16 lane PCIe before on miniATX, that is pretty mega, using the intel 945 chipset I assume?

[Sid]

Sid, can I get a link to that board, I've not seen one with a full 16 lane PCIe before on miniATX, that is pretty mega, using the intel 945 chipset I assume?

Yeah - 945. Admittedly the boards are pretty hard to source. I had a pretty hard time searching to bring them up again. Here's one (http://www.globalamericaninc.com/new_spec/spec2.php?id=901). Admittedly, that company seems like more of the "bulk supply to big companies" type - but the boards do exist.

Hex: In regards to using a CD-drive. I keep an ISO of everything I need on my "storage" hard drive. This allows me to never have to mess around with CDs and means I can do a full format, windows install, and installation of all my apps in a little over an hour. The only game I play outside the LANs is Counter-Strike and 1-2 games DoW games a month against Mark/Larry. If I ever buy a new game I admit that I'll use the CD once.

Edit: I was a little optimistic in saying I could fit it all in an 18cm cube - I forgot about the length of a 8800GTX. (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v213/craigjohnstone/itxplans.jpg)

[Hex]

"QUAD Marvel E8053 10/100/1000 Gigabit LAN"

Is that just a fancy name or does this board actually have 4 ethernet ports?

[YegaDoyai]

Fancy name, that is a pretty nice spec but can you:

1. Get it in this country?
2. Get it for under £200?

[Sid]

Not for under £200. but it is available in the UK. I found a UK distributer who would supply it for £250 inc VAT.

Expensive, but with a E6320 and 2GB of Corsair PC5400 it comes to £383, which is not bad for a *tiny* system as powerful as this.

[LastChanceHotel]

That's actually a pretty hot price if you ask me. Does it support Core 2 Quads?

*is pondering packing one into a tiny, tiny perspex case with a flexible PCI-E 16x extender, and an 8800GTX...*

Oh yeah. The length.

Hmm.

[Sid]

Jan: Yeah it supports Quads. The length of most graphics cards is the main problem - I'm trying to think of a solution.

[Captain_Caveman]

If looks are all then caveman has the answer:


A HACKSAW

won't work afterwards but it will fit :D

[Hex]

Jan: Yeah it supports Quads. The length of most graphics cards is the main problem - I'm trying to think of a solution.

Just speculation here but surely shuttle cases exist that are the same width and depth as the standard, but are longer to accommodate the longer cards? If not, there's an obvious gap in the market just waiting to be filled!

[LastChanceHotel]

Jan: Yeah it supports Quads. The length of most graphics cards is the main problem - I'm trying to think of a solution.

Oh, fuck YEAH.

I'm sure I could come up with some pretty ridiculous solutions (soak the board in vinegar for 24 hours, then bend it around a rounded steel girder, clamp, and allow to dry) to the whole 'card too big' problem, but I have a few plausible ones.

I found PCI-E 16x flexible extenders up to 15cm in length a while ago when pondering the molestation of that Amstrad 486 box I found... You could therefore hide the card away behind the mobo if you so desired, perhaps using the space below for the PSU or whatever, so all you see is the diddy, diddy motherboard and a ribbon cable.

[Sid]

Just speculation here but surely shuttle cases exist that are the same width and depth as the standard, but are longer to accommodate the longer cards? If not, there's an obvious gap in the market just waiting to be filled!
Shuttle cases do not use the miniITX standard that we have been discussing and there is no gap in the market as very few people build miniITX systems with PCI-E cards.

----

Jan: The length of the card is the real problem. If you look at the model I came up with (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v213/craigjohnstone/itxplans.jpg) you'll see that the height and length of the graphics card is the determining factor in the case dimensions. The case would still be small, but to get it to a ridiculous level of tiny, you'd need to do some playing around.

As it stands, I would probably try to get the power supply behind the motherboard (there's space there anyway due to the length of the card). You could also possibly mount the graphics card horizontally beneath the motherboard which would lower the overall height (and width slightly) but the length would remain the same. 17cm wide, ~10cm high, ~25cm deep is probably about as small as you could get it.

[LastChanceHotel]

On another note, how many machines (no graphics cards, just barebones machines plus a gigE switch) do you reckon you could get into a 1u enclosure?

If it works out relatively cost effective (ie, I don't have to pay £50/month for each machine), then it might well be an option for some of the server colocation stuff I had in mind. If I only pay for colocating one box, and manage to get five or six in there, then it'd pay for itself pretty quickly...

Jan

[Sid]

On another note, how many machines (no graphics cards, just barebones machines plus a gigE switch) do you reckon you could get into a 1u enclosure?

No more than one (http://app-rpt.qrvc.com/systems/mini-itx1.jpg), to be honest. A single board is just over half the width of 1U, I think.

Have a read of this though:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3032138730.html

Edit: Those are actually 15x15cm Nano-BGA, not mini-ITX. They only have 1.5Ghz Eden processors.

[Hex]

Have a read of this though:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3032138730.html

Beasting! It's a pint-sized render farm! That is teh sex, I must admit.

[LastChanceHotel]

You can fit four into a full-depth 1u rack - see this pic:

http://www.linuxdevices.com/files/misc/via_cluster_1u_block.jpg

I had a look at these if I remember correctly when I was trying to cheap out on my entry into the hosting business, then I realised that hiring a Blade from somewhere was about the same cost over a year.

If they're reliable and cost less than £200-300, then they'd be in with a chance. Not with those processors, mind you...

[YegaDoyai]

Price cuts (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3038) motherfucker! Do you like them?

[LastChanceHotel]

Mmmm.

Intel really is making AMD bite the kerb pretty hard.

[YegaDoyai]

AMD throws in the towel on the price war. (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070717-intel-matches-price-cuts-amd-cries-uncle.html)

[YegaDoyai]

Ok, so my dad got a new Dell monitor from work, apparently his 20" simply wasn't cutting it. So he got the new 24", the 20" came home and he has that, and I have the older 20". Bright, crisp display but not convinced with games yet. Native res is 1600*1200 so everything is sharper than the 17" @ 1280 * 1024 I was using before but it also has a faster response time than the 17" I was using so everything looks better. But I am not as quick in LFS as I was when using the 19" CRT @ 1600*1200 not sure if it is just a practice thing or that I cant see the apex as well. Might just be symptomatic of having SUCH a large screen that I need to actually look around it more to focus on what I need too. RTSs are fine and HL2 looks great, Q3 is playable.

I shall continue to update as I can. I should get to play with the 24" sometime next week and will report on that.

However, one thing I will say is that a twin 20" Dell setup for working is sweeeeeeeeet.

[Hex]

Twin 20"s is just obscene tbh...pretty much every OS on the market offers virtual desktops either by default or thru extensions (google XP powertoys if you want this on XP) so it's really not neccesary to use two monitors of that size IMO...still each to their own. Personally speaking I've been totally loving my 22" Samsung, performance is ace so long as the game I'm playing is optimized for widescreen resolutions and you turn vertical sync on to avoid screen tear.

[YegaDoyai]

Try it Hex. I've done virtual desktops before and this is MUCH better. Also reduces eye strain as the focus distance for the two screens are slightly different.

I'd go triple head for LFS and other sims but I think 2 is fine for working.

1 Reference monitor (where you have contacts/accessories running)
1 Main working monitor

At a glance all your info is there and is there at the same time.

Not sure how you'd use three monitors, but I guess I'd have one linked up for playing media of some kind constantly, kind of a chill out monitor. The Dell also supports PiP which I've never been a fan of but as it has a composite in I can hook the TV up and have it in a windows of its own which might be handy come the GP.

While developing for the S60 I've got the Virtual console on the main scree (where you write the program), and the manual and emulator running in the reference window. Instantly see the output and code step through, v.handy.

[Muppet]

Managed to get a hold of a friends PC a while back to try out 3 monitors for flight sim, was great. If i was a hardcore flight simmer and had the desk space for 3 monitors, theres no doubt i would indeed do it.

I'm the same with yega, although i dont dual monitor with windows, i use a program called synergy to link my windows + linux machines together to acheive almost the same results (except dragging windows across platforms) and it just makes things so much easier. I can even change focus levels when switching between machines. So if im playing CSS and someone messages me on MSN when im dead in-game, i can simply drag my mouse across the screen and type away (uses 1 mouse, 1 keyboard for both aswell) and drag back and continue playing CSS when round starts without the game minimizing (which always happened when i was dual monitoring with windows alone).

[LastChanceHotel]

I'm buying a 30" 2560x1600 Dell monitor to bring home with me: There's no question about it. My employer/friend is using mine in lieu of me not having a machine with DVI (on the laptop at the moment), so we swapped (30 for 24, both dell).

I just played Counter-Strike on it, and it's a thing of beauty. you don't even need antialiasing, the resolution of your eyes is lower than the monitor!

I'm also starting to get back into 3D modelling and stuff again, and I have to say it's awesome beyond words for work. I'm using a 24 for work currently, and want the 30, as I can only fit Firefox and a terminal side by side on this monitor. On the 30 I can get four good sized windows on it with no bother!

In other news, the front page breaks at 2560x1600...

I'm going to be rotating my existing widescreen 23" to vertical orientation so I can run chat clients on it, and also put code reference on it. Dual monitor (or more - the limit for what you can really use is 3 in my opinion) is the way to go!

Synergy is also the way to go: Run windows on the 30, run linux on the other boxes, VNC across if I need to.

Jan

[Strings]

You really are the king of nonsense ^^

[LastChanceHotel]

You really are the king of nonsense ^^

indeed! ^^

[YegaDoyai]

ZOMG!?!

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=8&subid=697

it might not be the fastest but 4GB for < £60 has GOT to be good news!

[YegaDoyai]

Just to confirm, the quad cores clock well

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/07/25/overclocking_intel_core_2_quad_q6600/6

[YegaDoyai]

Physics processing:

I'd been wondering why it was so quiet on the physics front, so had the anandtech boys. Here is what they had to say:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3048&p=1

Also:

Logitech have updated the G5, now has the extra thumb button that has been missing since the switch from the MX518. A few other tweaks to make it the mouse to die for? No, but should definately be on the shortlist for those needing a mouse. Those with decent mice need not think they need to change just for this.

I am looking for reputable reviews of Geils new brand of Black Dragon memory, looks the part, is nice a cheap but as it is new I'd like to check it out before buying it.

[Hex]

Nice links, but triple posting is kinda lame dude! Edit would suffice methinks :P

It'll be interesting to see if physics cards take off at all - I suspect they'll be a technological fad which will either disappear entirely or just be incorporated into GPU architectures by the likes of nVidia.

[Sideshow]

DBAT

[Sid]

Nice links, but triple posting is kinda lame dude! Edit would suffice methinks :P
I would prefer it if people actually didn't edit their posts that are over an hour or two old - it means people who have already read the first post won't realize that there has been an update. It's particularly applicable in a thread like this where Yega is effectively just posting daily tech news.

[YegaDoyai]

Which is why I did what I did, if you check if it is a post from the same day it gets an edit unless I think most folk have read it in which case it gets a new post. Exceptions being very important news like price cuts which will ALWAYS get a new post.

Regarding the GPU, did you actually read the article Hex? Doesn't sound like it.

[YegaDoyai]

AMD demonstrates the Barcelona chip running @ 3Ghz, Anandtech cite the 3 -yes 3 - X2900s in crossfire as "a nice backup singer".

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3050&p=1

Interesting times ahead.

[DAve]

8- and 16- core CPUs and a fusion between the CPU and the GPU?

What's next? A crossfire mouse?
It's just got silly.

[Fyndir]

Old people always say that kind of thing about technology. ;)

Is that some grey I see in your hair, DAve? ;)

[Strings]

I personally don't mind how ridiculous they progress. Just means prices for the hardware that you actually need and is practical are being driven down something beautiful.

[DAve]

Old people always say that kind of thing about technology. ;)

Is that some grey I see in your hair, DAve? ;)
What!?! Who said that?

/me starts sucking on a Werthers Original.

[YegaDoyai]

Alrighty, the new 'hot' product are these SSD (Solid State Drives) they are now shipping in volume and overclockers have them available at the following prices.

16Gb £166
32Gb £291
64Gb £575

As you can see price per gb is just plain shocking, what is worse is that this stuff is nowhere near as quick as your ram so you can sack that idea that this will give you instant load times. Compared to a fast 2.5" drive it is faster at reading, quite a lot quicker infact, and it is on par for writing, random writes are its folly but you shouldn't be too concerned about that. Anandtech and Tomshardware have both got reviews that are worth reading if you have £300 burning a hole in your pocket but I can safely say that at least this year they are not worth it. If however you plan on building your own mini ITX rig and want some storage that you know will perform with low energy usage and pretty much invulnerable to knocks then it is well worth while. All other callers can wait until it is a little cheaper. While NAND memory prices continue to drop at 40% per year it will not take long until it is worthwhile having one of these as your system and cache drive backed up by a 1Tb drive for storage.

[Sideshow]

link?

[YegaDoyai]

To what? anandtech? (http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3064) tomshardware? (http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/mobile-storage,review-2391.html) overclockers? (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=14&subid=910)

[YegaDoyai]

at work I am using this (http://salestores.com/iima22in2dcn.html) monitor, its a bit of a beast.

[Bluepixie]

DIAMONDTRON. That's all I need to know. :)

[Strings]

at work I am using this (http://salestores.com/iima22in2dcn.html) monitor, its a bit of a beast.

You and your smegging CRTs ;)

[YegaDoyai]

Not through choice Strings, the Diamondtron screen has significant failings that I found hard to notice on Nialls monitor but are far more pronounced on this monitor. Mainly the two dead lines and the thickness of the glass at the edges. Not to mention the weight 28kg!! and the bulk.

I am requesting a new mouse (they still use ball mice!!!!). And a fancy Dell 22". Which should pair nicely to my (fastest in the office) P4D @ 3.2 Ghz and a miserly 1GB ram. Though it does have an X550 so I guess I could get a spot of CS: S going.

[Hex]

Think yourself lucky tbh mate, I develop Java with Eclipse, and I have a measily P4 3Ghz with 1gb of RAM. My *laptop* let alone my desktop is a freaking dual core with 2Gb of RAM! What with running Eclipse, Tomcat, Firefox and all the rest of it I'm lucky to have 20meg of ram free at any given moment :(:(:(

As for monitor I've got a bog standard 19" IBM CRT. Occasionally when I get home from work I hug my 22" widescreen....

[YegaDoyai]

Enermax claimed that one of thier 2 year old PSUs was more than enough to power a new power hungry system with the latest graphics card. This (http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=442&type=expert&pid=1) is the test.

Quite nice and detailed and as I intend on getting one of the PSUs for my next build I was particularly interested in the noise. Looks like I need to replace the fan :(

[Fyndir]

Speaking of PSUs, I exploded one in an old PC my friend was donating to me for fun.

Plugged it in and BOOM, PSU is dead.

Still don't know for sure if the rest of the PC is ok, because I don't have a spare PSU with the two connections for the motherboard.

This was a major setback for Fyndir Radio. =(

[Strings]

This was a major setback for Fyndir Radio. =(

AHAHAHAHA

[Fyndir]

I don't get the joke. =(

[YegaDoyai]

Not really relevent in here guys. Troll, earliest I can get a spare PSU to you is the next LAN, Jan/Sid etc might have one though.

[Sid]

I've got an unbranded 200W here that you can have for free, that's about it I'm afraid. :)

[YegaDoyai]

I've not had a chance to do a full review of the details but it would appear that with the current drivers the new ATI X2900 pisses all over the Nvidia cards in Bioshock. The XT model X2900 is beasting even the GTX model at silly high res (and all through the other resolutions too). When I get home tonight I will try and get better evidence because this is VERY important considering the price difference.

Also I think that the game is designed from the ground up to be played as widescreen which is an interesting design descision and yet again drives home the attention to detail that has gone into this product.

[Hex]

From what little of the demo I've had a chance to play it certainly does look very good in widescreen. Tbh it's not surprising at all that they've focused on widescreen optimization; after all the game has received a simultaneous release on xbox360 & windows, so I'd imagine that between x360 having HD (and all HDTVs being widescreen) and the increasing popularity of widescreen monitors, over half the game's potential players are gonna play it on a widescreen. Just a guess, but it's easy to see the motivation :-)

Good news on the ATi card front, hopefully this will see a surge in sales and an increase in stock buoyancy, leading to the healthy competition between ATi and nVidia that has in the past lead to some breathtaking technological achievement. In the meantime, I'm off to finish the Bioshock demo :-D

[YegaDoyai]

You forget that it also boosts AMDs ability to fight with Intel. It's all good.

[YegaDoyai]

Sexy AND cheap?

http://www.eclipsecomputers.com/product.aspx?code=MP-QM26-2GB-BK

[Chesire Cat]

Not enough space on it! It is pretty sexy tho...;)

[Hex]

Not as sexy as this (http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/). Not exactly the same price range mind ;-)

[Phizz]

but it's still apple. :-P

[Hex]

but it's still apple. :-P

How exactly is this relevant or insightful Phizz?

Apple suffer this worst than most, but other companies also receive unfair criticism for one reason or another. Here's an idea for you, how about you start judging a product based on it's merit as a product rather than based on who made it?

[Sid]

Not as sexy as this (http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/). Not exactly the same price range mind ;-)
That thing is insane. It's a shame they don't do it in the 160GB capacity that the new ipods are in. The iPhone is an almost perfect portable device if only it had more than 8GB capacity. I'd be looking for at least 100GB from any portable media player before I'd buy it.

[Hex]

I know what you mean, it'd be absolutely awesome to have an iPod touch 160Gb. Problem is I really doubt they could keep it in the same dimensions - the thing is only 8mm thick! I guess it's a trade off between size and capacity, as ever. What'll be interesting to see is whether they'll translate the technology to the big iPods - after all they could easily make an iPod Touch 160Gb with a standard hard drive, it'd just have to be thicker. I for one would be interested in such a device!

My trusty old 20Gb 4th Gen iPod is starting to give out I think, and as I have it insured for £250 including accidental damage I might take a hammer to it and get a 160Gb model off the insurance :-D

EDIT: Apologies to Yega for the slight bit of thread hijacking, but it was on topic at least ^^

[YegaDoyai]

It was on topic and it had some relevance, +1 yega point all round (except phill).

[Chesire Cat]

even though Phill was right in pointing out that it was apple and 'nuff said?

[YegaDoyai]

-10 Yega points to ches for questioning me.

S60 3ed Quake (http://www.pocketpicks.co.uk/latest/index.php/2007/09/06/quake-for-s60-3rd-edition-handsets/)

[Chesire Cat]

not 1337.

but did i ever have any points to start with? >_>

[Hex]

even though Phill was right in pointing out that it was apple and 'nuff said?

What part of my post immediately after Phil's didn't you read/understand? Let me state this more plainly:

ONLY IDIOTS BASH PRODUCTS BASED SOLELY ON THE COMPANY THAT MADE THEM

If a company is guilty of making shoddy products on the whole, it might be wise to exercise caution when investigating anything new they put to market. That doesn't mean that if a company makes one bad product, or even a host of bad products, that they should be treated as a corporate leper forever more. More to the point, Apple for the most part make good products, even if they are somewhat overpriced compared to their competition. Seriously here, if you want to hold a ridiculous prejudice against a particular company, go ahead, but don't bring it in here without at least justifying your ridiculous prejudice.

[Phizz]

I'm not bashing it just because of a prejudice. I really really hate the idea of having to be tied to one company because of protection on their media. It's one of the reasons I still have issue with micro$oft. Dominance of the market is not good for anyone apart from those market leaders.

[Hex]

Firstly, minus ten points for $ in the microsoft, that joke is getting a bit old.

Secondly, you're only tied to apple if you purchase media from their store, and at that only if you buy the cheap stuff. They've recently started selling DRM free media (slightly more expensive) which will work with any player AFAIK. If (like most) you get your mp3s by ripping from CD, you're tied to nothing....

[Chesire Cat]

But its an iPod therefore it sucks. iPod's ahve such crappy quality!

[Hex]

But its an iPod therefore it sucks. iPod's ahve such crappy quality!

iPods sound fine if you connect a decent set of earphones and the mp3s you place on the device are of high enough quality, same as any mp3 player. Seriously do you guys even think before you type this stuff?

As for you Fyndir, where was the need for that comment? If you aren't interested in the current discussion there's a simple remedy - don't read it. Suggesting that we should discuss your penis is trolling of the worst kind; please stop it.

[Sid]

iPods sound fine if you connect a decent set of earphones and the mp3s you place on the device are of high enough quality, same as any mp3 player. Seriously do you guys even think before you type this stuff?
Remember that most of the time, audio quality is a subjective thing. There's absolutely no reason why someone shouldn't say that they think iPod sound quality sucks - it's actually a common complaint.

[Hex]

Hmmm...it might be a common complaint, but I suspect it's because of the common occurrence of bad quality earphones or bad quality mp3s. I'd challenge anyone to say an iPod had bad sound quality given an iPod loaded with an EAC rip of their favourite album converted to mp3 at 320 or V0 using LAME, with the iPod connected either to an expensive set of earphones or an expensive amp/speaker system.

Sound quality is a subjective thing to some extent, but it's largely affected by the source (i.e. the CD or in the case of iPods the mp3s) or the output (headphones or speakers). Let's face it - an iPod is just a harddrive with an interface, primary factors leading to bad sound quality will be poor quality ripping, low bitrate mp3s or bad speakers/headphones. Until such time as I see any real evidence that there is something wrong with the output the iPod itself produces then I'm gonna refute any allegations that the iPod itself is responsible for poor quality sound!

[YegaDoyai]

Subjectivity is all well and good but there are several members of this Soc that are known to profess good audio when their hearing is demonstrably poor. I know people who can't tell the difference between bass and quality, and worse, I know people who told me the main difference between the speakers in-built to a monitor and a set of nice monitor speakers was volume. Ches has every right to dislike the quality of the iPod but unless you justify why you dislike it it is meaningless. I've asked for advice on headphones in another thread, I trust most of what I've been told but I'm not buying anything till I've heard it. However this thread is not about subjectivity. It is about me professing my opinion on hardware and there it shall be laid out thusly:

AMDs new core is finally available, I'm not sure yet when we'll get our hands on them but as I want to wait for at least a couple of decent reviews before singing its praise's I think we can assume end of the month at least. Only Optys at the moment but as Jan will attest there is NOTHING wrong with getting an Opty and then clocking its little balls off.

Intel, not to be outdone by AMD released their first Quad Core processor this week. First quad core? I hear you cry. Well yes, the quad core for the desktop market is just two dual cores slapped in a package together, there is a very slow connection between the two separate dies and this is considered (by AMD if no-one else) to be a cheap and nasty way of implementing quad core. Anyhoo, it is only released as Xeons right now and prices are the high end of painful but later in the year we should see this same architecture filtering into the desktop market with prices that we can all live with. Interestingly this is the first Server chip from Intel that on release comes in an energy efficient package (50W TDP).

Sad news, one of the better shops Overclock.co.uk has ceased trading, rumours were that they were just hacked but they still aren't back. I'll keep an eye on it but chances are with almost 3 days outage and counting they really are finished. (note that overclockers.co.uk is still running fine)

[Hex]

mmmm quad core Xeon *drools* I got to use a high end Mac Pro for a few minutes in a store yesteray (yeah, that's dual quad core Xeons). Didn't get a chance to give it much of a real test, but by god was it fast! Still, the pricetag was ludicrous lol, don't think I'll be buying one anytime soon!

[YegaDoyai]

And to think, those were the 'slow' quad cores you were using.

[Hex]

Indeed. By the time I next need a PC upgrade, those things will be on the consumer market for reasonable money. I've gotta wonder how long hardware can keep improving until we actually have no use for it! In a decades time (or maybe even less) we'll likely have photo realism from our graphics cards, CPUs or physics processors powerful enough to simulate our world exactly, and enough processor cycles left over to do six other things in the background. Surely eventually the bottom is gonna drop out of the market due to a ceiling on possible achievement?

[Uuurrahh]

Indeed. By the time I next need a PC upgrade, those things will be on the consumer market for reasonable money. I've gotta wonder how long hardware can keep improving until we actually have no use for it! In a decades time (or maybe even less) we'll likely have photo realism from our graphics cards, CPUs or physics processors powerful enough to simulate our world exactly, and enough processor cycles left over to do six other things in the background. Surely eventually the bottom is gonna drop out of the market due to a ceiling on possible achievement?

And AI will still be shit. :P

[YegaDoyai]

A nice comparison of the various flavours of C2D.

http://www.nordichardware.com/Reviews/?page=1&skrivelse=514

Product value
So far we haven't discussed the product value of the processors. A direct comparison isn't possible as there is no common speed in the product assortment. The perhaps best comparison would be between E6320, E4300 and E2160. The prices today are about 1430kr, 1026kr and 783kr. If we're talking performance per buck, E2160 wins hands down, since it costs no more than half of E6320. On the other hand, the E6320 model adds value on the performance front in the form of a higher initial bus frequency, for those that don't overclock. If we add overclocking to the discussion we can once again have to go back to recommending the cheaper models as they both have higher multipliers.

[YegaDoyai]

Bout bleeding time this happened with current phone (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6987784.stm) density I don't see this being a limited functionality network in most places.

[YegaDoyai]

Monitor roundup on Xbit labs here (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/other/display/20inch-4_26.html#sect0). Short story, buy a Dell. Really is that simple, excellent colour/viewing angle, very good pixel response, good price.

As Sid has rightly pointed out I do not stand by this conclusion, but as they have not included my preferred screen the Viewsonic 922, nor is it generally available any more I am at a loss for a better solution.

[YegaDoyai]

An interesting move from intel
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=8896

No idea how accurate this is
Nvidia 8900 pricing (http://www.tweaktown.com/news/7055/geforce_8900gtx_and_8950gx2_pricing_and_informatio n/index.html)

Also there is talk about AMD using duff quad cores by 'turning off' the duff core and releasing it as a triple core, as there will be virtually no competition from intel on this it would seem like a smart move.

[YegaDoyai]

An interesting article from Anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.aspx?i=3097&p=1) detailing the performance difference of an out of the box water cooled solution to an after market HSF. Bottom line the 120 eXtreme that we have come to know as the best performing HSF beasts the out the box water coolers in performance/noise and cost. It is only fair to mention that a tuned system (ie one that is built by hand and customised to your build) has the potential to beat an out of the box solution but even so, the underlying message here is clear:

The top of the line HSF are actually very, very good.

[YegaDoyai]

A nice little technology preview of the upcoming K10 from AMD

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/AMD-K10-architecture,review-29630.html

Pant wettingly exciting (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3098) new mobo from ASUS.

[YegaDoyai]

Bizzare, Canon technology can now provide you with 3, yes 3 shades of black!

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=PR-095-CA&groupid=702&catid=52&subcat=429

Hey d00ds, guess what?

That's right we have a server review! Wooooo. Seriously, first test of the new K10 core v the new 45nm Xeon from intel. Very interesting results. The lowdown:

AMD:

Pros:
Better performance/watt than intel
Better performance/£ than intel
Fits in existing socket F slots

Cons:
Slower clocked
Less performance
Needs FB RAM

Intel:
Pros:
Fastest available processor

Cons:
Only works in P35 and above chipsets (i think)
More heat
More base cost

So as usual there is no direct comparison, if the AMD is fast enough then get it. If it is not fast enough then you'll always get the Intel as it IS fast enough (being the fastest available). So how does this look for the desktop market I hear you cry? Well tbh pretty good. The changes AMD are forcing intel to make are only good for us, they are forcing Intel to produce faster and less wastefull processors that either generate less heat or have better OC headroom (sometimes both). The problem (if you can call it that) is that Intel ARE producing these processors. It's not like back in the day when someone would trump Intel and Intel simply waited for them to go out of business, Intel are reacting to the the AMD threat and putting up a very good fight. I think in order to ensure we have a healthy processor market every 6th machine built in pause should be of the AMD variety. This means that my machine will be an AMD probably and I'll have to start working on Craig and the comitee to convince them that the AMD route might be what we are looking for.

link to the article here (http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3099&p=1)

[YegaDoyai]

Wow, I can't belive how long ago it was that I did this but considering my above coments I'm going to try and spend this weekend making a new one of these (http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3099&p=1). You guys seemed to totaly ignore it at the time but it certainly helped me know where things stood. Some of the n00bsters might like it too.

[YegaDoyai]

The new X2900pro is now available from Ocuk. Anyone looking at spending £150-£200 should definately check it out. For the last 2 generations the Pro variant of the top end card has proven the clear price/performance winner.

[YegaDoyai]

Noobs guide to overclocking
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=459&type=expert&pid=1

Really rather good actually.

[YegaDoyai]

Nothing that interesting to report but this looks like it could be an expensive but excellent solution.

http://www.theregister.com/2007/10/06/sun_magneto_hydrodynamic_heatsink/

[Hex]

If/when that reaches the consumer market, it'd be a pretty awesome bit of kit (assuming it works as well as it should). Likelyhood however is that we'll probs not see this for a reasonable price anytime soon.

[YegaDoyai]

Patent was filed in '05, I know Sun are not exactly mainstream but I'd imagine that they'll get someone to make this for them soon if it is in anyway price/performance worthwhile. We are currently looking at cooling setups from about £30 - £100 (HSF to low end water cooling) if this can compete and get in the same price bracket but not require a fan then we have a winner.

[Hex]

Seems that Asus have started shipping a motherboard with embedded linux (http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/07/0614246). Allegedly it can boot to the embedded OS in 5 seconds to allow web browsing and VoIP. Looks neat!

[YegaDoyai]

We have had this discussion Hex, NOT IN THIS THREAD!!!!

[Strings]

Seems that Asus have started shipping a motherboard with embedded linux (http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/07/0614246). Allegedly it can boot to the embedded OS in 5 seconds to allow web browsing and VoIP. Looks neat!

Find that quite curious actually. Certainly more interesting than what Intel/AMD may or may not be doing in the future :P

[Hex]

We have had this discussion Hex, NOT IN THIS THREAD!!!!

Sry man, but I really couldn't be half arsed looking through the forum for whatever other general purpose hardware threads are about just to post this minor tidbit of information. I thought that you might actually be interested in it above all else :-P

[YegaDoyai]

The system on a chip idea is more appealing as it would allow you to take your flashdrive and plug into any terminal and always have the same performance, I don't really see the advantage of having linux on my MOBO.

[Strings]

I figured it would be quite a useful tool for system recovery purposes.

Seems to get quite a positive review. If they advance the functionality of it, I could see it being a pretty valuable tool.

[YegaDoyai]

If your OS is dead then dropping to Linux isn't really going to help. The issue is that if you run linux you want your own linux install custom tailored. If you don't run linux then you are unlikely to use this.

[Sid]

It'd be nice to be able to have some sort of facility to create custom BIOS chips with your operating system of choice compiled onto it. Could store the settings that you change more often on a hard disk.

[YegaDoyai]

That, I'd pay money for.

[neogramps]

well when my harddrive failed and windows was unbootable i used linux live CD's to boot and recover all my data before replacing the disk, so that situation would benefit from the linux on a chip.

[YegaDoyai]

not really as you ably demonstrated

[Strings]

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/shopping_teams.png

[DJ_Evil]

gotta love xkcd :)

[neogramps]

well i didn't keep linux boot disks on hand, so i had to trapse (sp?) up to uni and burn a copy, so on-chip would be beneficial.

[Strings]

well i didn't keep linux boot disks on hand, so i had to trapse (sp?) up to uni and burn a copy, so on-chip would be beneficial.

EVERYONE has live CDs on their person, don't be ridiculous ;)

But yeh, I still say that an on-chip Linux is a great idea, and will hopefully spawn further ideas like the one Sid mentioned.

[YegaDoyai]

porn

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3129&p=1

[Hex]

porn

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3129&p=1

I feel your definition of porn is somewhat flawed.

[saladin]

I feel your definition of porn is somewhat flawed.

Yega touches his mobo at night...

[YegaDoyai]

I don't touch my MOBO, i would definately be tempted to sleep with my £200 MOBO if I had one. Theiving bastards everywhere.

Not a flawed definition, a flawed application maybe.

[Hex]

I don't touch my MOBO, i would definately be tempted to sleep with my £200 MOBO if I had one. Theiving bastards everywhere.

Lol, I protect my £200 mobo by virtue of housing it in a P182 - I challenge anyone to break into my house and steal 20kg+ of steel chassis case without waking me up!

[YegaDoyai]

o rly? A challenge you say. Sounds worthy to me.

[Hex]

/feels glad that Yega doesn't know my address ;-)

[Sid]

Lol, I protect my £200 mobo by virtue of housing it in a P182 - I challenge anyone to break into my house and steal 20kg+ of steel chassis case without waking me up!
Should be no problem for the Grey Fox.
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b180/gtochad/Oblivion2007-04-0617-40-01-45.jpg

[Fyndir]

I'll take that challenge.

20kg of case is nothing to Trollish Might. ;)

[Strings]

I'll take that challenge.

20kg of case is nothing to Trollish Might. ;)

I think even an 1/8th of your "Trollish Might" would wake Hex up ;)

[Hex]

I think even an 1/8th of your "Trollish Might" would wake Hex up ;)

I really, really don't wish to be woken by any sort of "Trollish Might" :-P

[Uuurrahh]

I know where hex lives and the layout. I am selling this information for a fair price.

[Tiberio]

I will happily provide my LOTR ring for anyone who's daring enough to undertake this quest:P

[goose]

Yo peter... it's Stu here.. long time no speak.

My laptop died whilst playing poker - only lost like $60 but decided I need to buy soething decent. Went to PC world. That was fun.

Anyways, as opposed to read through this whole thread and trust my own judgement in filling out an overclockers form.... can u help me. I have a decent budget for you to play around with.

[YegaDoyai]

As some of you are aware I'm very happy that I still have 20/20 vision however I noticed that wearing Nialls glasses helped my focus on CRT screens and other things, once I'd adjusted to the lens correction. In general this left me with an improved claarity when looking at screens and was principlays down to the polarising anti glare coating on the glasses. Now it appears that someone has picked up on the idea and is marketing 'shades' that do only that. I saw the advert on firingsqaud will post more later.

Or not as it is utter wank.

[YegaDoyai]

Bad news, Phenom is just not as good as it should be. Stick with intel for now. :(

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3153&p=11

[GigaFuzz]

Bad news, Phenom is just not as good as it should be. Stick with intel for now. :(

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3153&p=11

I don't think I've ever upgraded just my CPU. It's always been CPU/Mobo/RAM all in one go. I thought that my next time might be different. I thought AMD's AM2 was going to have some legs, and that I might be able to upgrade my 4600+ to something competitive, but it looks like Intel is still way out in front, which means it looks like I'll be upgrading the whole lot again sometime.

[YegaDoyai]

Nah, if you already have an AM2 board then go for it as cost wise it is a better quad core option, but if you ARE upgrading everything anyway intel is by far the better route.

[Hex]

Heh, for once I'm actually gonna be able to upgrade just the CPU rather than going all out. The mobo I bought for the current rig will support Quad core as well as dual core, up to 1333 FSB. It'll also support an extra 2Gb of RAM over what I currently use. Hence I can easily upgrade from the current setup (C2D 2.4Ghz, 2Gb of RAM) to a Quad Core, 4Gb RAM effort in say a years time when quad core might actually be useful. I'll probs slap a new graphics card in there too by that stage, but the bonus is that if I stick to nVidia GFX cards, I could perform the hardware swap without even changing my card drivers :-D

[YegaDoyai]

if you go from dual to quad and increase memory by 50% I'd suggest a full reinstall as windows is gay. For instance while I actually quite like XP if I install XP on my machine when it is not overclocked and subsequently overclock it I don't get as good times (loading/running/benching) as I do if I install while it is overclocked. Now if you were to ask me I'd say that it is plainly symptomatic and has no real relationship but having reinstalled several times to validate my claim I can assure you that this level of faggotry is real. So while you could do a straight swap I'd suggest that it would be less than optimal to do so. Vista might be different but I REALLY doubt that.

[Hex]

Nah actually you've just reminded me, when I slapped an extra gig of RAM into my Macbook Pro my fps in CSS fell from ~100 to ~20. Stupid Windows :-(

[DJ_Evil]

Yeah Phenom got fucked.

got teh aids should of used a Condom lawlawlawl :)

Anyway... Q6600 G0 for me next year hopefully if I can sell my 6000+ and AM2 Microatx Asus board :)

[YegaDoyai]

Like I said, price:performance it is still viable if you already have AM2. It is not much slower than the C2Q in the same price range and in games and certain tasks can be quicker. It is priced at the same price point which is why if you are buying an entire system the intel route makes more sense as it is a more stable platform and the new year will bring the 45nm FAB chips (Penryn) and you sure as hell want to get them over the G0 as they piss on it from such a great height it is just not funny. The advantages of the Phenom are still there, it is the first commercially available true quad core. Nothing has been optimised for it's cache architechture yet, everything has been tooled for the daft twin dual core + FSB bridge that intel has done. Why do you think intel have been cranking up the FSB on every iteration of thier chips? Why because that is the one area where they are completely beaten by AMD and they have needed to jump from 800 to 1600 in order to put up a fight. Every generation of the Phenom will see marked improvement just like the C2D. If you are on AM2 I'd stick with it as it is £170 to go to one of the fastest chips available and gives you the option of seeing what they will bring out with the next generation. Going intel still seems like selling out so I'm still waiting till the new year to decide.