Official RPM Computer & Electronics Discussion Thread

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Offline Jericho

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OK, after an interesting thought hit me in Nodoka's current gen console thread, I decided to make a bit of an unusual thread that will hopefully help the RPM populace. The purpose of this thread is simple, it's to be used to help anyone looking for a recommendation, facts or hands on impressions for electronics, laptops, desktops, and their parts. It's also going to be used to help educate our fellow members on a few topics I'm sure you'll all have questions on. So whether it's simple things like graphics cards, getting the best bang for your buck when shopping for your gadgetry, the ins and outs of drawing tablets, or getting your iPod up and running smoothly, this topic is for you!

Please note though, this topic is not meant for PC related problems. While I'm sure there might be some things along the way that will get brought up here at first, if your questions pertain to a specific problem you are having with your device and computer, see the Computer Problem Thread or our resident Meltyhead DominicanZero aka Shiki Tonho for more info to help you out.

Now with all of this covered, I'd like to leave you all to post and help one another out with information as the thread goes on. I'll be back to post in the thread soon enough to cover some interesting topics, mostly on the computing side of the spectrum.

Some things of note to post in here whenever you discuss your issues or want to share information would be:

  • Your desktop or laptop specs
  • Your level of proficiency with computers
  • Are you a light or heavy electronics consumer?
  • Your experience with a certain brand or device
  • "Futureproofing" (I.E. Buying the best with the future and longevity in mind) or "For The Here and Now" (Multiple purchases as they first roll out)?



Offline Psycho Yuffie

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Reply #1 on: August 25, 2009, 11:53:27 PM
Woo! So will this be the thread everyone posts their specs in?



Offline Jericho

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Reply #2 on: August 25, 2009, 11:54:40 PM
Actually, that's a pretty good idea. Bear with me though, the thread is mainly a work in progress, so I'll make a note of things that would be good to post in the OP.



Offline Psycho Yuffie

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Reply #3 on: August 26, 2009, 12:05:45 AM
Desktop Specs
HDD: 2x250GB
Memory: 4GB 667MHz DDR2 (Upgraded from 2GB)
Monitor: 22" 1680x1050
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT, 1GB VRAM (Upgraded from NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS, 256MB)
CPU: Intel Core2 Duo, 2.0GHz
OS: Windows XP Media Center Edition (Currently has Windows 7 installed)

Level of Proficiency
Above Average
I've only began down the road that'll take me down the path of the techie. I've done a lot of homework in researching computer parts and such for when I build my own computer in about a month and a half. I was also able to give my computer a huge upgrade for about $100.

Are you a light or heavy electronics consumer?
Considering that I'll be spending roughly $3000 on my new computer, I consider myself a heavy consumer. I'm willing to shell out a lot of money for computers.

Experience
Since I'm still pretty new, I really don't have any. I'll get back to you after I purchased the parts for my new beast of a computer.



Offline Rad Lionheart

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Reply #4 on: August 26, 2009, 12:14:22 AM
Desktop Specs:
Original Specs
+2GB of Samsung DDR 333 RAM
+ATI Technologies, Radeon X1600 PRO 512MB 128-bit Graphics card. (PCI-e)
+RetailPlus+ 465W PSU
+17" LCD Optiquest Q7 Monitor
+NexXtech 800-1600 DPI Laser Gaming Mouse
+Microsoft Pro Media Keyboard.
+Logitech 2.1 Stereo Speakers & Subwoofer.
Currently running Mandriva One Spring 2009.1

Level of Proficiency:
Not very proficient at all.

Are you a light or heavy electronics consumer:
I'm cheap as cheap can be.

Experience:
Not a whole lot.



Offline Jericho

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Reply #5 on: August 26, 2009, 01:16:17 AM
Previous Laptop Specs (Currently Dead)
HP Pavilion DV8000

AMD Turion 64 ML-32 Single Core Processor @ 1.8GHz
1GB DDR 333MHz Memory
100GB 5400RPM HDD
128MB ATi Radeon Mobility Xpress Video Card
17" 1440x900 Widescreen
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (<3)

Story: Was my first laptop and my first step into computing on my own. Was fairly reliable until a few choice issues cropped up (DVD drive stopped spinning whenever I inserted discs, laser was misaligned from the start, heat issues, motherboard fried, monitor and monitor backlights fried). Sent in numerous times for checkup during the warranty but no progress was made. Used the laptop through it's TV output after that, then the motherboard gave out completely.

Current Desktop Specs - Circa 2002

Dell Inspiron

3.4Ghz Pentium 4 Single Core Processor
60GB HDD
512MB DDR RAM
15" 1280x1024 Monitor
Integrated Intel Graphics Processor (DO NOT WANT)
Windows XP Home Edition

Story: The house PC that's way over the hill really. I just recently had to start a .NET Framework upgrade on it to get Paint.NET working on it. It's not too old, but it feels friggin ancient at times. Gets my posting and porn research done though. XD

Level of Proficency - Above Average to Moderate Enthusiast


Officially, I've only had one computer to my name, the laptop, but I've been working with and been interested in computer tech oddly enough since I first played video games. It's been a weird relationship ever since, with me actually piecing together and fixing software issues on older PCs in a few summers in the past, but it's only been recently where I got interested enough in the higher end to actively follow it all. That's done mostly so that I can avoid the mistakes and not be a victim of circumstance when it came to my laptop's issues and it's more rapid aging when compared to what tech was coming out seemingly a week later. It also helps that it's one aspect of the main three things that make up the route I'm going down for developing games.

Protips: Never buy laptops for Christmas as they're just cleaning out stock in most retailer places/OEMs. They almost always launch a new model as soon as the season is over (or in my case, a week later). XD

Are you a light or heavy electronics consumer?
I consider myself a heavy electronics consumer since almost 80% of my purchases of some sort involve electronic goods, however since my bottleneck is money, I don't spend nearly as much or as often as most other enthusiasts. I do follow up and ask a lot of questions though to show what I know and learn as I go about it all.

Experience

- Years of Microsoft Windows, Office, and system tools tinkering on the side (yay spending an entire summer trying to figure out how system32 got deleted on our first install of Win98 8D)

- A few years of putting together PC parts and installing them with the parents

- Almost my lifetime's worth of video game purchases and playing

- Lots of time with portable music players

- A bit of shopping savvy gained from the parents and furthered by the net. XD

"Futureproofing" or "For The Here and Now"?

I believe in future proof purchases since money is almost always something that I have to plan out well before using. I can't upgrade as often as the next guy, so I always try to choose the best for how much I currently have and plan around that for the future. I always consider adaptability to future products and accessories to be the biggest point that needs checking before a buy.



Offline Psycho Yuffie

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Reply #6 on: August 26, 2009, 04:31:29 AM
Here's my current wishlist for my new computer:

Tower: XCLIO A380BK Fully Black SECC 1.0mm thickness ATX Full Tower
Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair III Formula AM3 AMD 790FX ATX AMD
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 140W Quad-Core
Memory: 2x OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600MHz
GPU: 2x SAPPHIRE 100251SR Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB 512-bit (256-bit x 2) GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5"
Optical Drives: Sony Optiarc 24X DVD/CD Rewritable Drive Black
Pioneer Black 8X Blu-Ray DVD Burner w/ Software
Power Supply: COOLER MASTER Real Power Pro RS-C50-EMBA-D2 1250W
Input Devices: Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 B2L-00047 Black w/ Mouse
Monitor: LG W2753V-PF Black 27" 2ms(GTG) HDMI Full HD 1080P, 1920x1080
Extra Cooling: ZALMAN CNPS9900LED 120mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler
Speakers: Creative Inspire T10 10 Watts RMS 2.0

Price: $2616.01



Offline Jericho

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Reply #7 on: August 26, 2009, 04:41:22 AM
post

[tornado fang]ing awesome. Personally though, I'm waiting for the DirectX 11 cards from ATi just because they're right around the corner (September 10th apparently) and they sound like they have quite a bit of awesome benefits right out the gate.



Offline Psycho Yuffie

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Reply #8 on: August 26, 2009, 04:45:14 AM
[tornado fang]ing awesome. Personally though, I'm waiting for the DirectX 11 cards from ATi just because they're right around the corner (September 10th apparently) and they sound like they have quite a bit of awesome benefits right out the gate.
That's a tentative wish list. It's already gone through a lot of changes. I'm not going to buy the parts until after Windows 7 gets released [October 22], and there's supposed to be a lot of new hardware coming out before then.



Offline Solar

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Reply #9 on: August 26, 2009, 04:48:35 AM
Current laptop's specs
2.2 GHz AMD Turion X2 Dual-Core Mobile Processor RM-75
3072 MB RAM
320 GB HDD
ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics
14.1” WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)
Windows Vista Home Premium


So, how good is my laptop and what would it have trouble running?


My life is currently bears and Jojos and everything is great.



Offline Jericho

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Reply #10 on: August 26, 2009, 04:53:22 AM
That's a tentative wish list. It's already gone through a lot of changes. I'm not going to buy the parts until after Windows 7 gets released [October 22], and there's supposed to be a lot of new hardware coming out before then.

Hmm I see. I guess I should also note that I'm actually much more interested in the mobile DX11 stuff ATi is putting forth. If it offers even 10% more efficiency than the current desktop cards plus the DX11 support, I think it could be a real killer performance wise and may make me consider getting a laptop over a desktop for now.

Current laptop's specs
2.2 GHz AMD Turion X2 Dual-Core Mobile Processor RM-75
3072 MB RAM
320 GB HDD
ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics
14.1” WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)
Windows Vista Home Premium


So, how good is my laptop and what would it have trouble running?

Really, it's just the graphics card here that's holding you back. That model is quite old and when it was new, it was somewhere around entry level IIRC.



Offline Solar

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Reply #11 on: August 26, 2009, 04:56:22 AM
Heh, really sucks how you can't customize laptops doesn't it?


My life is currently bears and Jojos and everything is great.



Offline Psycho Yuffie

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Reply #12 on: August 26, 2009, 04:59:51 AM
Heh, really sucks how you can't customize laptops doesn't it?
Yes, it does. I'm considering getting a laptop at the beginning of the next year. If I could, I would custom build a laptop too.



Offline Jericho

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Reply #13 on: August 26, 2009, 05:00:25 AM
Heh, really sucks how you can't customize laptops doesn't it?

Most laptops. And even the ones that you can customize after the fact, which are anomalies themselves, still require above average knowledge of things and a good source of income. XD

Yes, it does. I'm considering getting a laptop at the beginning of the next year. If I could, I would custom build a laptop too.

Are you getting both a desktop and laptop? If so, how much money do you have to use at any given time? XD



Offline Psycho Yuffie

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Reply #14 on: August 26, 2009, 05:20:39 AM
Are you getting both a desktop and laptop? If so, how much money do you have to use at any given time? XD
$2800 now and in January. Since I'm planning on buying Adobe CS4, I'll probably get a rather cheap laptop.



Offline Align

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Reply #15 on: August 26, 2009, 11:18:26 AM
I have 2 sticks of 1 GB of RAM. How much would I get out of replacing this with 2x2 GB?



Offline Psycho Yuffie

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Reply #16 on: August 26, 2009, 01:38:33 PM
I have 2 sticks of 1 GB of RAM. How much would I get out of replacing this with 2x2 GB?
Depends on your OS. If you have a 32-bit OS, there's really no point in getting 2GB sticks. The only reason you would do that is if you're planning on upgrading to 8GB of RAM in the future and a 32-bit OS can only detect up to 4GB. Most motherboards have four slots, so you could get 4GB of RAM by just buying two more 1GB sticks. If you do this, remember that you have to buy two sticks. Keeping Side A and Side B of your memory the same is key to system performance and stability.



Offline Solar

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Reply #17 on: August 28, 2009, 05:54:47 AM
Ok...this is quite weird. When I try the SFIV benchmark it needs to have the settings at the absolute lowest to even be able to get 60FPS, but with the actual game I can use higher settings than that. I have no idea what the hell is happening, I was wondering if someone had an explanation...I'm not complaining though XD


My life is currently bears and Jojos and everything is great.



Offline Jericho

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Reply #18 on: August 28, 2009, 09:01:00 PM
Well, I'm glad to hear that you got a bit ore out of your system Tai! XD

Now then, new bits of info regarding the ATi cards:

Quote
The name of the Evergreen family remained a well kept secret as long as it stayed within AMD. When AMD decided to tell partners what the new name would be it didn't take long before the information leaked. VR-Zone was quick to snap up the information supplied to partners and it clearly states that Cypress will become Radeon HD 5800, where Cypress XT becomes HD 5870 and Cypress Pro becomes HD 5850. No performance specifications were mentioned in the first post.

However, in a related discussion it was revealed by CJ that the series will sport performance equal to 2FTLOPS. If the individual shader performance remains about the same we would expect the specifications to be around 1600 shaders and 80TMUs (speculation). The bus is back to 256-bit, and not the odd numbers we heard rumors of before, and the memory amount is 1GB, 2GB with pimped up versions coming later.

The new Eyefinity technology deserves to be mentioned too. It will enable users to use up to three displays with a single card.

Sources to Donanimhaber have informed them of the prices of the Radeon HD 5800 series. The faster Radeon HD 5870 is said to be priced at $299, while the slightly slower HD 5850 will be priced at $249. This is pretty much the same as the launch of the Radeon HD 4800 series. Once again AMD is aiming for the sweetspot in terms of Price/performance with a single GPU rather than raw performance.

Link

Honestly, I'm quite surprised at this development. Those prices are extremely affordable. Looks like I did the right thing in waiting a bit before building a new PC for the house or getting one for myself. 8)



Offline Psycho Yuffie

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Reply #19 on: August 29, 2009, 12:11:59 AM

Now then, new bits of info regarding the ATi cards:

Link

Honestly, I'm quite surprised at this development. Those prices are extremely affordable. Looks like I did the right thing in waiting a bit before building a new PC for the house or getting one for myself. 8)
So those are the names of the new ATI GPU? When are they coming out?



Offline Jericho

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Reply #20 on: August 29, 2009, 12:18:59 AM
There's word of a September 10th release going around that's tied into a event they're hosting in California on the same day (launch party perhaps?), chances are the full details will be had around then.



Offline Psycho Yuffie

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Reply #21 on: August 29, 2009, 12:27:02 AM
I'm going to get two 5870 X2's if they're released before I buy my new system. For anyone who doesn't know, the X2 versions of the 4870 and 5870 mean they're dual cores. Anyway, according to the specs released, the 5870 X2's core clock is going to be higher than the ordinary 5870. The first dual core GPU to be higher than a single core.



Offline Jericho

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Reply #22 on: August 29, 2009, 12:31:25 AM
Let's not scare the technically intermediate away now Nobo, though I do understand what you're saying. Also, 2 of them? What are you doing programming Crysis 4 or something? XD



Offline Psycho Yuffie

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Reply #23 on: August 29, 2009, 12:33:04 AM
Let's not scare the technically intermediate away now Nobo, though I do understand what you're saying. Also, 2 of them? What are you doing programming Crysis 4 or something? XD
Because two is better than one. Why two? Silly question.



Offline Jericho

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Reply #24 on: August 29, 2009, 12:33:56 AM
Point taken.