Castellon said:
But that is just the problem I was describing, he is on a tight budget. And I really have not had any touble with good qulaity memory chips, of the same type, running two or four. Even if you do swap out the chips for bigger ones it is still one of the easiest and least expensive things to upgrade for the end consumer.
Hi Pete! Sorry, this is a long post, but read what you want, and skip the rest. I know a lot on this subject, so here goes.
Like Castellon, I tend to buy the components I want and then build the systems myself. I build two or three a month for me, my family, my corporate office, and friends. I find this -- fun... This option is def not for everyone, but I say it because I def have an opinion on your question and want to help. Your system will work with any Paradox game currently out there, but its already far behind the tech curve for a lot of other applications in weird ways. For any of the sections below or help later, you can private mail me and I will respond usually in a day or two.
1)Ram
I also have to agree with Castellon that it is unusual (though not outside of my experience) that so long as you match parity, buffer (or un) and dd or sd (data rate types and speeds 2100, 2700, etc) it is unusual to have instability except under very high-pressure conditions with high-end 'puters or servers, even with differing latencies and so forth. This is not what our friend is envisioning in purchasing a home computer to play low-graphic-need Paradox games.
Non-geek translation: don't buy cheap Ram if you buy it later, but if you do, it will probably work if you have a decent motherboard and pay attention to a few bits if info that should be on the maker's site under specifications. Like the other poster, I would say get more ram if you can, but 512 is way enough for any current Paradox game and to spare, but for other games and applications with heavy graphic needs, (Rome:Total War, Republic Commando, or making 3-d atmospheres with loads of action for QUEST come to mind) 512 of Ram may be inadequate.
2)Vid Card (graphics card)
Um, did I read that right that the vid card is a PCI card? Once again, this will work for Paradox games (although even there you may occassionally see _some_ lag under unusual conditions!) and typing your resume or thesis, and checking out the scores on ESPN, but it will absolutely be waaaay slow for even slightly more than modest graphic applications. What you are looking for in a video card is an agp card, which is the standard in speed these days. Most m-board makers have agp slots on their m-boards so you can get better speed for graphic applications. AGP slots and the cards that go in them have their own private route to the CPU as it were, and are usually 4 or more times faster than a comparable card in a PCI slot (and never less than twice as fast). Trust me that anything that adds 10% or more to speed is significant and here we are talking about magnitudes!
Non-geek translation: DON'T BUY a computer with a PCI vid card (I don't care how much onboard ram it has) unless you are NEVER going to play or use a graphic-rich program that requires speed, and for which you do not want a jerky, flickery picture. You should not suffer for Paradox applications at all, however, even with a PCI card. I tend to avoid ATI these days, but that is entirely a personal issue as I just like the way nvidia cards resolve some graphic situations better.
3) CPU
Your CPU is killer. It is also way more than you need and is sort of like a musclebound giant that has tiny little legs like Johnny Bravo. Your 800 fsb isn't bad, but with only 512 ram and bizarrely paired with a PCI vid card (if I am reading that right) it can probably run faster on its hands!
Non-geek translation: It might be wiser to get a system that doesn't weigh so much just on the CPU (which after all is highly reliant on the rest of the pieces of the highway to your monitor) and gives you either more ram or an agp vid card (or both!).
4)Hard Drive
Ditto to #3. Uh, I don't really want to know what your buddy will put on 160 Gigs but, by the time he gets near to doing that the machine will loong ago have become antiquated with the other limitations it has, so this is another area where you could go with a little less to get a little more where it counts.
Non-geek translation: It might be wiser to get a system that doesn't weigh so much on the Hard Drive size and gives you either more ram or an agp vid card (or both!). Here it really IS true that its not size, but how you use it that matters!
5)Monitor
If you're on a budget, like the good folks said above, don't get a new one! Only exception to this is if you can't get to a 1024x768 resolution or better with your old one, then I _would_ say get a new monitor!
6) Via drivers and chipsets
JPD is absolutely right on these although I want to restate his point to make clear whats going on. There are chips on the M-board that as JPD said control the interface between the CPU and everything else. Intel and Via are two of the big players in this area. Via chips and their drivers work great, I repeat, great with AMD (read Athlon, Barton, Thouroghbred, whatever) CPUs. I am writing this to you on a machine with these chips now, and have five others in my house that all use via chipsets and AMD CPUs. It is wise to avoid via chipsets if you plan on getting a computer or M-board that is going to use a Pentium (read Intel-made) CPU. It is worth stating that making the choice between a Pentium or an AMD chip will also change other things like what RAM speeds will work with your machine, and which Mboards you can have and so forth.
Non-geek translation: Via chipsets are ok if you are buying a computer that has an Athlon CPU, but they are worth avoiding if it will be using a Pentium or other Intel CPU (like a Celeron). If you have any doubts about what some "off the shelf" (premade by a major brand computer maker) machine has for guts and chipsets and drivers, look up their site on the net and look up the machine's specs. It will tell you everything you want to know and then some. That way you don't have to listen to or remember what some techno-geek like me starts rattling off in the store.
Pentium chips are in general more expensive, and they have some superior qualities for specific applications in the high-end of math-coprocessing and very high-end of specific graphical production. For 95% of the applications that cover 100% of the applications that most users will have, they are not neccessarily superior to comparably priced AMD products, and in a number of cases, dollar for dollar, they are not quite as good and have limitations.
Non-geek translation: For many applications you can get as good or better results from AMD CPUs for less money. I am not saying that equally speed rated chips from the two makers are equal, but that you might make a better deal using a non-Pentium CPU. AMD CPUs do run hotter, and the cases they come in need fans and whatnot to keep the temp under control, but I have been using the AMD 850 mghz on the table next to this one since 1999, and I doubt I will need to replace it anytime soon.
7) CD Burner
I didn't see any CD mentioned, but I will assume there is a burner with it also? CD burners are pretty much standard at this point since the prices have been falling so quickly they must get nosebleeds when the put the pricetags on them. If your system doesn't have one, it is overpriced.
8)Dell and proprietary production
We have a few Dell machines left at the corporate office here (I am slowly getting rid of all but laptops now since I don't build those) and as we frequently have to update our machines, we usually go through the ones that need it and figure out if they can be updated or sent to the junkpile. Most makers, though Dell is the worst in this regard by far, make their products in a "proprietary" way, meaning that they make components such that only other components from their factory or subcontractors will work in them, they usually won't work on any other machines not made by them, and they are often not even interchengeable! This means that we have found in some Dell machines that no matter what we did, many non-Dell factory components would not function properly or at all in "off-the-shelf" machines. Upgrades, updates, improvements and whatnot not involving us sending the machine out to their factory with their "special" (read ridiculously high) price attached to their upgrade were impossible. Because many of these itmes are engineered within inches of their functionality and sold with planned obsolesence in mind, you quickly find yourself buying a new machine in less than three years.
Non-geek translation: Pete of Prussia is right if there is a good store near you that has "the geek section" with all the components and aisles and aisles of slack-mouthed geeks like me fingering all the shiny components and cards... AND if they are service minded (your judgement) and will build a system to suit, DO THAT with your $1k. Fry's Electronics probably has a store in Boston, though not all their stores are well-staffed. The two in Phoenix are like night and day, where one has the best service I have ever seen and the other should be avoided like the plague. Find the one near you and check it out. I swear it is worth the call and the drive.
Sorry I don't live closer, or I would build it for you for free.
Cheers and good luck!
~~Scott
). That's just inviting system instability, as most system's chipsets cannot cope with the amps and voltage requirements to drive a four module memory bus. Which means that, in order to remain on the safe side, you must throw out our old modules and replace them with new, bigger ones. Unless you want a reserve set of memory on the shelf, that's just a waste of money, provided you have the cash to buy the bigger modules initially.
