Another Computer Question

General Forums Off-topic Chat
#1

I have been thinking about buying a new computer for the past couple of years, saving up my money untill I had enough. However, I have been playing around with blender for a while, and I am wondering if these specs would work.

Processor
AMD 4000+

Case
Aspire X-Dreamer

Harddrive
Maxtor 200GB

Motherboard
Asus A8N-E

DVD/CD
LG Super Multi

Ram
Kingston 1GB

Video
ATI X1800

The video card is iffy at best, I may go with an X800. I am leaning more towards ATI because I have heard that there is some problems with Nvidia Drivers for Linux.

As Well, I am not buying from newegg or somewhere else because I was hoping to stay with canadian prices and companies (well, tiger direct isn’t really canadian, just the canadian website).

I already have a monitor, keyboard, speakers, mouse, etc, so I don’t need to buy those.

Thanks,

waffle

#2

Yeah, but Blender has issues with ATI. Other than that, I think it looks pretty good.

-Laurifer

#3

The video card is iffy at best, I may go with an X800. I am leaning more towards ATI because I have heard that there is some problems with Nvidia Drivers for Linux.

Really? I’ve heard the ATI drivers are the iffy ones, the Nvidia ones i’ve heard are much better in Linux…

#4

Well, I’m running X on nVidia gl drivers. Was dead easy to set up and has worked flawlessly.

Seriously, go nVidia.

Alex

#5

Ditto. I just switched from ATI to nVidia, and I’m glad I did.

Also, your motherboard supports SATA 2, but your hard drive is SATA 1. That’s compatible, but you might as well take a speed boost and go with a SATA 2 hard drive.

#6

If you’re willing to spend $439.95 on a single core processor, I’d take a look at the Athlon FXx2s or the Pentium Ds. Around the same price as the processor that you’re looking at, but dual core.:smiley:

DwarvenFury

#7

hey, yeah:

for $30 less, you can get 2x2.0 gHz cores isntead of 1x2.4 gHz cores. That’s probably a good idea.

#8

Thanks for all of the replys.

-knellotron- the X2 3800+ has two cores, but each is at 512k. The 4000 is at 1mb. Wouldn’t the 1mb cache have more performace?

I have always had ATI cards, so I was leaning more towards buying one, however, I was taking a look at buying a 6800 or 7800. But which company would you buy the card from? My friend bought an ASUS, but companies like BFG and Gigabyte make them as well.

Again, thanks for all of the replys, I still have a while to over what I am going to buy (probably a couple of weeks) so it can still change.

waffle

#9

Have you tried looking around newegg.com, they seem to have better prices on some of the stuff you’re looking for…oh and if you get that 7800 make sure to get at least 450watts psu, 350 won’t cut it…I speak like I have one! lol

#10

I’ve an x2 so I’ve done quite a bit of research on this, and the extra cache makes very little difference. The two cores makes a 90% increase in speed. The 2.4 is not 90% faster than a 2.0.

However X2 s are not as simple as that. If you play a lot of games bear in mind that on an X2 system you will need to do some tweaking to get them to run, but once you do that they will run just as well.

I’ve a Gigabyte 6800GT, and the cooling solution sucks. It is gorgeous, but it sucks at removing heat. Go for something ugly but effective (check out the reviews and forum messages).

Alex

#11

The new 7 series runs much cooler than the 6 series. If you have the cash, go with the 7800.

Also, perhaps 2 512mb ram sticks? The mbo says it supports dual channel memory (not sure what that means :-? )

Also, what about two of these in raid 0 striping mode? :o <= cheaper + better performance

Also, ditto about the PSU- whatever high end card you get is going to suck a lot of wattage

Also, I would chose abit or gigabyte over asus for the mbo, but thats strictly my opinion (v. recent bad experience with asus bios things)