- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Hey to anyone here, I have always wondered about the technical names about these things: Am I correct in thinking that the money-costing, hard-work-doing piece of machinery that you buy is a graphics card, and that the downloadable, making-a-slight-difference-in-gameplay part is called a video driver?
Depends. If you buy nVidia; you paid for a card; if you buy ATI, you just bought yerself a mess of driver updates.
JK; drivers are software on the card. The reason new drivers come out is because card makers do not run every program under the sun before they release a card. Often times, a program that should run stabily on a card with its factory set drivers, doesn't. Easier solution next to shutting down the factory line and rewriting the software installed on each card? Internet and let people DL updated drivers as problems arise for certain programs. Also, as new programs are written and distributed, they may not take advantage of one chipset and its drivers, so card manufacturers are called on again to remedy the issue. This is why you can run a month old game on a year old video card; up to date drivers.
Though a quick refference to the difference between ATI and nVidia chipsets will help this post.
This guide shows promise. I do, however, have to disagree with the pricing versus viability to gaming. While the upper end systems will cost in the 1200$ range to build, a 400$ system, including processor, can run just about any game on the market right now and run it well. Thats a P4/AMD from a barebones kit with aftermarket video card and extra RAM included in the price (being thrifty and shopping around). OS not included. These figures were accurate, but market prices on single core Intels have dropped recently, and PC build prices with them. The key selling point for home built systems is not in the initial cost though; its in upgrades. Building a system from the board up lets you customize with more flexibility later. By building a PC now (and an upper end PC to boot) you have more options in a few years when your store bought friends are starting to lag. Also, home build parts, when carefully considered, are of much higher quality than the Dell or Gateway you buy that claims simular performance. While my friends 3.2HT Intel is faster than my 3.0 Ht, because my Motherboard is more able to bear the load, i can dust him on processing times...because my system can actually run with the same speed as my processor. All parts can keep up with each other in stead of one great processor being shoved into a box with a bargain basement board, surplus video card and 2 year old RAM.
I'm more in control ;) So while a 400$ barebones system can run just about anything out there today, spending a little more money on your PC to build it well means more time between upgrades, less things to upgrade, and--in short(for me)--money saved in the long run.
AMD is WORSE for multitasking (running multiple programs at one time) when compared to dual core processors(which are actually capable of RUNNING multiple processes at one time), but considerably better for gaming(which is running one very big program and its subprocesses). AMD's pipelines use much better archetecture too, allowing data transfer to move faster with less data lost per transfer. But, for all the names they put in front of it, an AMD Athalon is still just a single core processor, running one process per tic. Your analogy is backwards. Intel is the 8 lane highway; AMD is the 4 lane. But while Intel has more road to work with, AMD is an interstate 4 lane, meaning everything is moving faster...until it bottlenecks. In the end, unless you're maxing out the processor, we're talking potAtoes and potAHtoes.
Also; memory is cheap; i reccomend getting as much as you can afford; and go SATA drives, as IDE is on its way out. RAM; go for DDR; and grab a gig minimum these days. DDR2 is a lot more money for not much more speed. Again, its cheap (DDR is anyway) and the fastest upgrade for any computer to see an immediate performance improvment. And remind people to make sure the Mboard they buy supports DDR/DDR2 RAM, not just old SDRAM, as you did for PCI-E versus AGP (which should be moved or added to the video card section as well)
Speaking of out=478 Intel Sockets. Within the year. Gone. As Intel migrates to 64 bit tech, the pins are going up too. Off the top of my head, its 775 Socket for Intel 64 bit creeping its way back into direct competition with the AMD Athalon 64 bit core. Someone plz check this for accuracy.
Also, you (shall we say) gloss over Operating Systems. huge factor in game performance. While Windows XPHome can run games, Windows XP Pro is about 5 times more stable and can actually be set to use FEWER resources than its Home counterpart. i hear XP media is equally as stable(at least for gaming), but have had no occasion to test that yet. Do a little research on OS and find the best for the mid-line to uber builds; all XPs are cheap atm with Vista on the way, so an upgrade to XP Pro might be a good idea for gamers. Personnally, Vista smells like Windows ME to me; i'm going to steer clear for a good while.
Last: Bold Italics Underline and Quote both to punch up imporant words/information and preserve credibility.
Don't PM a mod and ask that this thread be sticked though. Use this thread to fine tune your guide (since its already here) and then repost, asking a mod to lock the original draft and sticky your finished piece. they shouldn't mind the double post in this case; its for a good cause.
[Edited on 12/30/2005]