Getting a new PC ... need advice.

[Sephira]

<p>Hi I am getting a new computer soon, and I was hoping to get some advice on if the following is a good system. I play EQ2 and Vanguard (I care more about EQ2 tho)</p><p>PC: Gateway gt5692</p><p>       AMD phenom 8450</p><p>       500GB hard drive</p><p>       4GB of DDR2 memory</p><p>Graphics Card: pny GEFORCE8500</p><p>                        512 mb gddr2</p><p>Monitor: gateway 24" hi def</p><p>              1920x1200</p><p>              3ms response time</p><p>              1000: 1 contrast ratio</p><p>              1080pHD ready</p><p>Thats the info as the sales rep gave me. He also said that with this system i could have a dual monitor thing going ... is that a good idea?</p><p>If this isn't a good option any recommendations?</p><p>Thanks <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[TSR-DanielH]

Dual monitors work fine with the game.  I run a dual monitor system at work and I can play Everquest 2 on my lunch break without trouble.I'd recommend using an 8800 instead of the 8500 if you have the money to do so.  I don't think there's much of a price difference these days and the 8800 is a great mid-range card with solid performance.

[Cassea]

A BIG no on the Phenom!You want the faster 2x or 4x core "MHZ" wise you can get.I love the AMD's for their price vs performance which is why I got an AM2 Motherboard (AM2's will run both x2's abd x4's) and the Black edition x2 which is clocked at 3100mhz now.There are some 4x's (not the model you mention) that can do about the same speed but for $235 vs $90ish for the same speed x2 so if nothing really uses more than 2 cores right now why waste the $$$ now? Get an x2 and someday when the x4's are cheaper and/or faster then pop one into your AM2 motherboard.One other point... running two monitors will slow down your video a bit... maybe 10% over running a dedicated single monitor. This is not really that big of a deal these days but there is "some" drawback to running multiple monitors.-JBP.S. Two monitors means little in 99% of the games out there as you will still only get one display during your game. A few games (Supreme Commander comes to mind) do support more than one monitor but which EQ2 will run fine with 2 monitors the 2nd monitor does nothing.P.P.S. The Phenom you do want (if you insist on a Phenom right now LOL) is the 9950 which is AMD's latest )and fastest)<a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103273" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16819103273</a>

[Llach]

<p>Any reason why you are choosing a slow AMD processor?  20-30% slower than intel chips (at the moment) and not likely to improve with time if the latest offering are anything to go by.</p><p> As already said; the 8500 card is a no go especially for games (other than EQ2) at that resolution.</p>

[vochore]

definatly dump the phenom and go with the amd 6400x2...fastest 1 sold rt now by amd except for the black edition which you can overclock even faster....just have a tower that can move a lot of air and a topline cpu cooler....maybe even go water cooling.

[Cassea]

<cite>Aollish@Splitpaw wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Any reason why you are choosing a slow AMD processor?  20-30% slower than intel chips (at the moment) and not likely to improve with time if the latest offering are anything to go by.</p><p> As already said; the 8500 card is a no go especially for games (other than EQ2) at that resolution.</p></blockquote>You must be reading Intel's marketing hype. AMD's are NOT 20-30% slower $$$ for $$$. If people want the best bang for their buck then they stay with AMD. Intel "currently" makes fine CPUs (how quickly people forget about their older crap cpu's) and I'll not dispute that Intel makes the current fastest CPU but let's look at price.Compare the fastest $100 AMD to the fastest $100 Intel and now lets see who is fastest?For $90 I can get a 2x core AMD CPU that does 3100mhz. What would an Intel cost? I'm not anti-intel (aside from reminding everyone that if not for AMD intel's cpu's would cost 3x as much and be half as fast) but I would MUCH rather save $100 on the CPU and use that savings to get a better video card or more memory.Look at this chart:<a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2007/quake-iv,389.html?p=1273%2C1271%2C1268%2C1265%2C1266%2C1 264%2C1262%2C1248%2C1239%2C1235%2C1234%2C1255%2C12 33%2C1299%2C1295%2C1223%2C1220%2C1279%2C1318%2C128 5%2C1286%2C1277%2C1313%2C1315%2C1218%2C1282" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...5%2C1218%2C1282</a>It shows the AMD 5200+ 2600mhz at 94.8 and the Intel 6750 at 117.8At Newegg the AMD 5200+ 2700mhz (faster than the rated CPU above) to cost $77 and the Intel 6750 at $179So for $100 more you get a CPU than is about the same speed as the $77 AMD.I remind you I'm no knocking Intel. Their high end CPU's are really sweet but their mid-range CPU's are a rip-off!As the high end... I agree Intel is much faster but at the low-mid range you pay dearly to go Intel.-JB

[Llach]

<p>Being an ex AMD person I don't do hype.</p><p>So far my experience has been that AMD Phenom are anything but a Phenom!  Plus we must be looking at different charts as the 5200 reads at 94.80 as opposed to 117.5 for the 6750 (which incedentally does 3ghz with no changes to voltage and on stock cooler).</p><p>Regardless of all the I would still say (from experience) that the 6750 is a completely different class to AMD (all of them).</p><p>Let's face it out of all the mags and websites that 2 years ago were jumping over AMD proclaiming them to be the best, are now doing the same for Intel.  They can't all be wrong surely.</p><p>I will agree that at the lowest end of the spectrum AMD "may" be slightly better, but I would rather do a few more hours overtime, save up and get something that won't be a disappointment.</p>

[Cassea]

<cite>Aollish@Splitpaw wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Being an ex AMD person I don't do hype.</p><p>So far my experience has been that AMD Phenom are anything but a Phenom!  Plus we must be looking at different charts as the 5200 reads at 94.80 as opposed to 117.5 for the 6750 (which incedentally does 3ghz with no changes to voltage and on stock cooler).</p><p>Regardless of all the I would still say (from experience) that the 6750 is a completely different class to AMD (all of them).</p><p>Let's face it out of all the mags and websites that 2 years ago were jumping over AMD proclaiming them to be the best, are now doing the same for Intel.  They can't all be wrong surely.</p><p>I will agree that at the lowest end of the spectrum AMD "may" be slightly better, but I would rather do a few more hours overtime, save up and get something that won't be a disappointment.</p></blockquote>The 5200 on the chart was only running at 2600mhz while the one I listed at newegg was running at 2700mhz. I did not bring up OCing because both companies CPU's OC pretty well and like you I was not impressed with the Phenom at all. My Black Edition AMD that I got for $85 does 3100mhz with stock cooling and is fully unlocked. I could clock it higher but what is the point? EQ2 runs like a dream on it even with shadows so who go higher?When I built my new system a few months ago I wanted the best for the least amount of $$$ and Intel could not touch that speed for anywhere close to $85 and yes I could afford to get Intel. I'm not watching pennies but I learned long ago that if you go 2nd or 3rd best you can get a system that performs at about 75-80% of the speed for less than half the cost.When I was looking at CPU's I looked at the average game speed in fps. Not CPU benchmarks. All I wanted was over 40fps sustained and you know what? On 99% of the games I could get that speed without having to pay $200+ for a cpu and I could do it without paying $300+ for a video card. EQ2 is the sole exception as it's so CPU dependant due to out of date programing. I did not build my system to run EQ2... I built it to run everything and run everything it does so with my lowly $85 AMD CPU and my lowly $130 Nvidia 9600GT I get 25-45fps in EQ2 with a 1650x1080 resolution with almost everything turned on including shadows. Do I get a shudder here and there? Yeppers but so do I in LOTRO which is a much newer MMORPG with state of the art graphics... the hard drive loading of textures is still the issues in many games that have to load textures on the fly.I made sure I got an AM@ motherboard just in case AMD ever pulled their heads out of their collective backsides and fixed the Phenom and fix the Phenom they did. The 9950's are pretty sweet and once they do a die shrink I "may" pop one in as long as I can get a higher MHZ. If not I'm happy with what I got now.I do not begrudge people who want to pay top dollar for the latest and greatest. I used to do the very same years ago but after so many years you start to see the trend and learn that keeping up with the joneses is very expensive... an expense I would rather not incur as long as tech is moving forward as fast as it is.If I know in my heart that spending $200+ for a CPU and $300+ for a video card would get me a few years out of them then I would go for it but we all know this not to be true when every 6 months you can get a faster cpu/vid card for less money than before. Look at how many people bought an 8800 when it came out for almost $400 and just over a year later you can get a 9600gt for $130ish that is faster. Same goes for CPU's but I suspect I'm not telling you anything you do not already know.So in closing yes I could afford an Intel CPU but I personally choose not to because it just does not make sense to me. Others feel differently and I respect that but I still maintain that on the mid-low end you are much much better off going AMD and taking the savings and investing in more memory or a faster vid card than putting all your eggs ($$$) into one basket and blowing your wad on the Core 2 Duo just so you can say you own Intel because it's the "in CPU" right now. The cheapest Core 2 Duo at Newegg right now is still $120, the cheapest AMD x2 is only $49 and while I'll grant you that the $120 will be faster than the $49 AMD, if you are on a tight budget I would rather they get the AMD and a better video card over the Intel with a slower vid card. Far too often people get these Core 2's and they you read that they had to sacrafice and get some el crappy video card and wonder why their games run like !@#$% with their fast Core 2's and an ATI 2600 or Nvidia 8600 video card and 1gig of memory.Nuff said-JB

[Miladi]

Personally I wouldn't bother so much about what CPU he's getting, I'd rather steer him away from anything with the Gateway name on it. They've been junk since they were introduced and haven't gotten any better over the years. I used to work for Gateway as a computer tech back when they had the Gateway stores, I know what I'm talking about when it comes to knowing how poorly those computers are made.