Polarman

Radeon HD 2600 XT Preview from BCCHardware. Here's the link: http://www.bcchardware.com/index.php?optio...9&Itemid=40

Taken from another site: 65nm Athlon 64 X2 5200+ at 2.7GHz Coming Xbit reports that a 2.7GHz Athlon 64 X2 5200+ using the 65nm Brisbane process is coming this month. It is already on sale in China. It is significant because this is the fastest 65nm Brisbane chip at 2.7GHz. This particular sample was made on week 11 of 2007, i.e. in mid March. Has it been “aging” all this time stacked somewhere safe, or AMD was so carried away by the price war against Intel that they simply forgot about the K8 processor modifications? This CPU is available in Chinese retail at $158 for an OEM unit and the official wholesale price is $178. Note that AMD is going to drop the Athlon 64 X2 prices on July 9 by about 20%. Athlon 64 X2 5200+ also has a strategic mission to carry on: it will be the top processor in the Athlon 64 X2 family by Q1 2008. Higher ranks will be taken by Phenom processors. Athlon X2 BE-2xxx processors will be priced lower, while the lowest ranks will be occupied by the dual-core Athlon X2 LS-2xxx (Rana) from K10 generation but without the L3 cache onboard.

YES They will. Your card will run crysis or any other directx 10 games. The only features not accesible for your card will be the so called directx 10 extra eye candy. Which won't be anything more worth mentionning anyway.

My choice has been made, my purchase is made and is on the way! (2 or 3 days i guess) I went with two, yes TWO ATI X1950Pro 256MB wich i intend to put them in crossfire mode and blow away my previous score of 6050 in 3Dmark05 using my old X800XT + X2-4200. I stuck with the good old ATI brand name. I looked at various other 3rd party manufacturer like Sapphire, MSI, Powercolor, ect... Overall the ATI has better quality, the cooler is good and has been improved since the XT/XTX version. The Crossfire bridge, Composite and S-video cables, HDTV out cable, DVI to VGA adapters is included. I made a lot of research before making my final decision. I always want maximum compatibility and stability when i buy components. I honestly do not believe that a directx 10 card will improve my personal and casual gaming for the time being. Windows XP is going to rule quite a while and will not be buried by Vista anyday soon. The only thing that bugs me is that my new motherboard (K9A Platinum) that i should have received last week is back-order. GRRRR!!! I'll have everything else ready except the main piece.

Did you make some research and read some reviews about your card before you made your purchase? Maybe the card in question lacks proper video decoding! who knows? P.S: Why so many hard drive? I get along just fine with only two raptors (74) at 50% capacity.

You have plenty of time to put some ca$h away. Because those new socket and cpu's are going to be late. Like next year late. That's not counting all those fixes their going to need to get them running properly. If you start saving now. You MAY have money left to buy some DDR3 memory. Like ripken said, check out WIKI for AM2+, AM3 and AMD 700 chipset series.

I was looking a lot a the 1950pro in a crossfire setup. And the prices are getting more reasonnable now. The 1950pro is not a boiler and consumes less power than a XT or XTX. The native crossfire is a + too. The HD2600XT on the other hand is another story. Only time will tell. My guess, it will probably get killed fps wise if it tries to go at max detail (1680X1050) + directx 10 effects. Even in a crossfire setup! That's one of my biggest gripes: What's the point in having a fancy DirectX 10 card i you can't use those so called DirectX10 extra features and effects. Like everybody else... I'll put on my patience pantaloons and give the HD2600 a chance to prove itself before going out on my shopping spree.

I will soon upgrade my video card and more. I know, i know... what a pain (especialy on my wallet). I would like to point out that as reference i will be using ATI for the rest of my post. My final purchase will be ATI GPU card. My current and future gear will be AMD/ATI Based. THE END! I'm currently looking around review sites and waiting patiently for ATI's upcoming HD2600 and HD2400 models to come out with some benchmarks. The HD2900 needs an improved driver to be re-tested. I'm currently using an ATI X800XT (AGP). This was top of the line for a Shader Model 2 card at the time i got it. It runs everything i got now including SUPCOM but at the expense of graphical quality. Soon after, ATI introduce the X1000 series supporting Shader Model 3. And Now we have Shader Model 4. I don't really know what all the "ooplah" is with Vista + DirectX 10 that gives you Shader Model 4. If your like me and still happy to use the old reliable XP. I never tried a PC with a shader model 3 card. But i read about it and it looks awesome on a awesome card and it looks crappy on a low end card. But what i read recently about shader model 4 is very disturbing. It cripples video cards. I know that drivers are still at the early stages of development but hey! All those visual effects comes at a cost. Take for exemple a ATI X1300pro. Geez what's the point of having a shader model 3 card that perform twice as bad as my X800XT. ****... You have to put all the settings on low just to get a decent frame rate. The same will happen to model shader 4 cards, even on the almighty 8800 ultra, you will probably have to tone down some of the settings to get at least a viable frame rate going... Negating the shader model 4 effects in the process. WHAT'S THE POINT. The G84 and G86 will suffer a lot worse then the G80. That is Unless ATI and Nvidia can perform a miracle on those upcoming drivers. So this is my biggest question. Should i get a top of the line shader model 3 (directx 9.0c) video card that has had a lot of time to mature with decent drivers or go for those fancy new HD 2XXX. I probably won't at the end i guess. but you never know... I am partial for trying out a crossfire rig (and yes i can). I want some opinion on this post. I don't want AMD/ATI flaming and ranting.

3 Times MSI owner here and soon to be 4 times. I've had issues with Asus years ago and switched to MSI. BTW - This is my personnal opinion. Some could have the opposite opinion. It's like owning a Ford and Flaming GM in a way.

You could go check out tom's hardware guide, they have a video card chart thing that could help you out (MAYBE). BTW the intergrated X1150 is really a X300 low end video chip. Are you trying to reach the moon using a scooter?

You could go here first to calculate how much power you would need to feed your future PC. http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp Then make a choice from there. Why spend the extra $$ for a 1000W PSU when a 650W could do the job equally. OCZ GamXstream 700W is my choice.

So... you want to cool of your PC Put your PC in a small refrigirator, drill some holes in the back to let some of the wire out (sarcasm)

I'm planning to upgrade my current pc in the coming weeks so when i do, that means a fresh install of Windows (Thank you Nlite). My main question is when i do, should i have my future pc connected to the internet? Right now, we currently have 2 pc's connected to the internet trough a router. Both are fully protected and updated on a regular basis. I'm a real single player gamer and like to have a extremely good and fast computer for this purpose. I like to have everything well tuned and optimized for a full gaming experience. My only use for the internet would be to download patches and driver updates. I go browsing the same sites on daily basis just to look at what's new. I figure that if i only use the internet for this purpose, i might as well do it on my wife's computer. Why should i keep mine plugged online... Most of the updates are for security reasons and to keep internet crap out of your system. The best way for a computer not to get infected or hijacked is not to have connected. I'm trying to imagine booting up Windows without: Windows Auto-update Security Center Windows Firewall (even if it sucks) Windows Defender Live Update (If you use Norton) 3rd party Anti-virus 3rd party Anti-Spyware 3rd party Anti-Malware 3rd party firewalls E-Mail software Live Messenger, Skype or whatever Bit-Torrent, News, Peer to Peer or Chat software All kinds of plugins like Java, Flash or Shockwave All of those auto-updating on a regular basis willing or not and interfering with my gaming AAAARRRGGG...Now i'm p***ed. Geez what a load of crap that you have to keep loaded in the backround sucking up your precious memory that your games really needs. My wife is an average internet user and not really a gamer at all (Zuma and Puzzle games). So i could use her computer to do my little internet duties, transfer what i need to a USB key and voila... My drivers and games are fully updated. I would only keep her computer fully protected from the big bad internet bugs. I don't think she even cares of having 50++ processes running in the backround. Comments welcome.

Here's another usefull link: http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/...title=Main_Page Lots of info. But i don't think your game is in there.

You could probably find a ATI X700 for around 85$(CAN) The 9800pro still beats it of course. But your father don't really care about GPU performance i guess.

Hi, I just replaced my CRT for a LCD. After some searching around, i finaly chose this: http://www.viewsonic.com/products/desktopd...eries/vg2030wm/ i paid 375 (Canadian $) you'll have to do conversion. 20 inch widescreen (1680X1050), 0.258 pixel pitch, 5 MS, crystal clear image, games are great, picture and videos look great. extremely satisfied. I got so much room on my desk now! My only negative comment for this thing is the onboard speakers are not very high tech. They sound like cheap 20$ speakers. But i can live with that. Hope this helps.

Use 2 hard drives One hard drive for capture and editing. The other drive should be used for rendering after your editing is done. This is the most efficient way for video editing. Using raid 0 is not better. The rendering part takes forever with one drive.

Here's my suggestion. 1. Install CCLEANER and run it. 2. Make sure you check "view hidden folders" in folder options 3. go to Windows folder and delete all folders that begin with "$Nt" 4 go to Windows/Downloaded Installations folder and delete all folders in there. I did. 5 go to Windows/Inf folder and delete all the files that start with "MDM", those are all modem files and there's 20 MB of those. Just install the one you use. Hope this helps

The early bird gets the worm!

Here's my little story. I made a small upgrade and in the process... I got to kill two birds with one stone. I decided to change the stock CPU and GPU fans. I was getting really annoyed with the noise coming out of my pc and i had some concerns with GPU heat after running the artifact scan from ATITOOL. After checking out many reviews about different products, i finally chose: Zalman CNPS9500 LED for the CPU and VF900-Cu for the GPU. The whole installation took me about an hour and a half. I was carefull and took my time. I used a special 3M cleaning solution to get all the gunk off the CPU and GPU. The GPU (X800XT) was overflowing with compound. Geez... way to go gonzo on the compound ATI. After it was all nice and clean, i used Arctic Silver 5 before putting the fans. OMG!!! These things are so amazingly quiet! I can finally hear my hard drives!!! I was really blown away at the results. see for yourself: Idle CPU temp Stock = 41 Idle CPU temp Zalman = 29 Low speed Idle GPU core temp Stock = 41 Max GPU core temp Stock = 82 after 2 minutes of ATITOOL artifact scan. Idle GPU core temp Zalman = 32 Low speed Max GPU core temp Zalman = 51 after 2 minutes of ATITOOL artifact scan. Still at low speed!!! For those of you who care about their computers health, this is a worthwile upgrade. BTW... Never forget to dust out the inside of your pc. It really accumulates fast.

Check this place out. It's a power supply calculator. Just input all the stuff who got on your pc and it's going to give you your consumption. http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp

My computer is on a Seperate 15 Amp Breaker. The line goes directly from the breaker box directly to my desk via a jonction box. Then it is split in the 2 switches that control 2 power outlet each. One switch controls the UPS (PC, Monitor, internet) and the speakers. The second switch controls the printer, scanner and whatever. I only open the second when i really need too. So when after i shutdown the computer, i switch the power off. This way, i know that there's nothing sucking juice for no reason. I feel that the computer likes it better this way. It has it's own line of electricty that's filtered by the ups to make it nice and clean. Never notice that some people who have wierd computer problems never questions the power outlet ?

Get 2 brand new 8800gtx put in SLI mode with latest drivers and restart the game. Honestly. I have the FSX and i run it with a AIW X800XT. There's NOTHING you can do about the lousy FPS rate. Even a killer overclocked system runs like crap. check out the Ultimate Game Machine for 2006 article on Extremetech and look at the benchmark results.

This is hard choice. So many great games. So my personal all time favorite is : Heroes of Might and Magic Series (1-2-3-4) by the late 3DO. Yes. I still got all of them with all their expansion packs. (priceless!) P.S:I have no intention to purchase Homm 5 from Ubisoft. I don't own any Ubisoft game. I'm very picky in my game purchases.

Guess it's my turn now. Here's a picture of my computer desk. The desk was custom made by myself with a single sheet of laminated presswood (39$). On the left is my APC Back-UPS Pro 500 with my power switches on top. On top is a Viewsonic E90F Monitor, Logitech Media Elite Keyboard, MX-518 Mouse, and Speakers. Left of the screen is my eDimensional AudioFX Force Feedback Headset and next to that is my old reliable AGFA Snapscan E50 Scanner. Below my scanner is a little space that has my Dlink router, cable modem, my games and below that is a Canon S-520 Printer. Now to the good part. THE BOX... Here's the picture first. The case is a Antec Sonata 2 with little modification made to that air duct thing. I cut the and sealed the upper part to suck in fresh air an blow it directly on the video card (ATI AIW X800XT Stock) wich keeps it at 40C idle and 58C full. Notice that i kept all those wires out of the way to help with air flow. The motherboard is a MSI K8T Neo 2-F (Socket 939/VIA KT800/AGP). CPU is a AMD Athon X2-4200 with stock cooler (the CPU never really goes above 41C). I'm using 1 Gig Corsair TwinX DDR400 of memory. There's also a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS hidden behind the air duct. On the right side are two Western Digital Raptor 74G that keeps all my data safe and my games speedy. And finally... There are two dvd's on top. One is a regular LG DVD drive and the other is a Plextor PX-708A that keeps all my stuff backed up. My system is running Windows XP Home with all the latest drivers and updates. I have 35 Processes running on idle when fully booted. Boot time is about 40 seconds (time between pressing the power on button and everything loaded). I Scored 6050 in 3DMark05 (Demo). Nothing is overclocked and all is nice and cool, no hiccups, bugs or instability. I super satisfied with this setup and will run it for quite a while before i change it.