Looking for advice about a new setup - run WoW smoothly

[jterrell]

Originally posted by: anniesek
So, just as a quick update. I checked Microcenter and they didn't have the e8400, but Fry's did. I paid $225 for it, and feel quite good about it (maybe I paid too much, but I get the feeling that it's worth it). So, in the end, I've got the 8800gt vid card suggested by Marc, 4GB Ram, the original mobo I had chosen, a 500 GB HD per suggestion from Marc as well, and finally, the PSU that Marc linked in his first post. I am about to place the order, and it has come out to a total of right under $900, which I am comfortable with because I feel that the changes made to my original plan will be that much of an improvement.

Once again, thank you all so much for your help. It has been an educational experience, and you have all been very helpful, taking your time to assist a newb like me. I really appreciate it.

Thanks!

-Annie

As hard as it is to even find an e8400 right now I think that was a good move.

The e4500 is 100 less but you could honestly take the e8400 and put on ebay for 250 and it would very likely sell. They are that in demand currently for those wanting to run demanding games and apps.

The quad cores run much warmer than then dual cores and are much harder to overclock.

An e8400 will get some serious clock speeds.

I think all your parts will work quite well but you probably spent a bit more than necessary but thats not always a bad thing. The 8800 GT was a good deal for sure if you are persistent about rebates and can afford to be out the 30 bucks for 6 weeks or so. I detest rebates so seldom consider an AR price much of a factor.

And with 4 GB of ram you are quite safe running Vista. It is actually a lot more secure than XP which makes for less hassle.

 

[jterrell]

Originally posted by: chinaman1472

Originally posted by: s44
8800GT is sort of overkill for WoW, but why not I guess.

Do you have Vista 64 to take advantage of all your RAM?

Obviously, you've never ran into Ironforge on a Friday night.

Unfortunately not even 8800 GTX SLI'd can help with server side lag and bandwidth issues

 

[Glavinsolo]

Originally posted by: jterrell

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Price/Performance wise the 8800gt for 185$ or so is the best card if you ask me. Not sure how the 9600gt 'shines' in dx10 games, and how it is going to outperform the 8800gt because of new drivers or something. I'd like to see a link to back up that claim.

Ask and ye shall receive

Their final conclusion... With the introduction of the GeForce 9600 GT, NVIDIA?s finally provided a compelling sub-$200 DirectX 10 graphics part. If you?re a gamer on a budget who craves the best performance in DX9 and DX10 games, the GeForce 9600 GT is the best card on the market right now.

http://www.firingsquad.com/har...performance/page16.asp


There are a ALOT of owners of 8800 GTs out there and they work quite well but most reviews note they are likely to stop making them because they are more expensive to make then the 9600's.

There is a knee jerk on the forums for AMD owners to defend AMD and whatever parts owners to defend those as well.

The 9600 reference cards with the initial firmware versus an 8800 GT on about its 3rd firmware is not exactly fair now is it?

links bad

 

[anniesek]

Hello again,

I placed the order last night, so I hope that this thing will be built by the end of the week. I will definitely let you all know how it turns out.

I am still a little concerned about the issue of which OS to install. I don't want to encounter a lot of difficulty finding drivers, or with incompatibility with XP64, but I don't want to gimp my brand new system with 32-bit XP either, which I understand will not take full advantage of the available resources. I will be doing further reading on this dilemma.

I may eventually upgrade to Vista, but I'm not sure that I want to do so right now. It is good to know for the future, though, that this system should be more than capable of running it optimally.

Thank you all again for your very generous help with this. I never thought I would receive so much excellent and well-thought-out feedback. I will certainly continue to check back, and once I have it all together, will let you know how it turns out.

Thanks so much!

-Annie

 

[Roguestar]

XP-64 is a terrible abortion. If you absolutely can't get Vista x64, or even Vista x86, just stick with vanilla XP Service pack 2.

 

[MarcVenice]

Abortion ? You mean abomination ? Or what ?

The link is indeed bad btw, I'll go look it up though. And Anniesek, it was our pleasure, hopefully you'll really enjoy your new PC

 

[Roguestar]

I mean both!

 

[jterrell]

Here's the link:

http://www.firingsquad.com/har...00_gt_sli_performance/

stinks because you have to forward ahead 15 pages

asp is yuck! lol.

 

[anniesek]

I'm back already....

I am a college professor, and it turns out that the school offers us some great deals on software through a work-at-home program.

They offer Windows Vista Business for $7.00. I already ordered a copy, which I should be able to pick up in the next couple of days. Usually the software packages they give us come with both 32-bit and 64-bit editions (hence my possession of a copy of XP 64x). So, is this going to end up being the best possible solution for my OS question?

If it doesn't come with a 64-bit version, then I am left to choose between:

XP Pro 32-bit
XP 64x
or Vista Business

Which would be my best option?

I am doing my reading (which was what convinced me that it was really time to leave XP behind) , but since I'm not sure what will be in the envelope that I pick up from tech services, I want to be prepared for every eventuality.

Thanks so much!

-Annie

 

[Roguestar]

Enquire as to whether or not your college is a member of the MSDN Academic Alliance; we can get Vista Business x64 for free.

 

[jterrell]

Originally posted by: anniesek
I'm back already....

I am a college professor, and it turns out that the school offers us some great deals on software through a work-at-home program.

They offer Windows Vista Business for $7.00. I already ordered a copy, which I should be able to pick up in the next couple of days. Usually the software packages they give us come with both 32-bit and 64-bit editions (hence my possession of a copy of XP 64x). So, is this going to end up being the best possible solution for my OS question?

If it doesn't come with a 64-bit version, then I am left to choose between:

XP Pro 32-bit
XP 64x
or Vista Business

Which would be my best option?

I am doing my reading (which was what convinced me that it was really time to leave XP behind) , but since I'm not sure what will be in the envelope that I pick up from tech services, I want to be prepared for every eventuality.

Thanks so much!

-Annie

I would use Vista Business given that price

 

[trexpesto]

Annie, E8400 is 199 at Microcenter now, at least on line. Just FYI since you drive past anyhow.

http://microcenter.com/single_...tml?product_id=0281097

 

[sutahz]

I read thru the first page.... well you already got the 8400 so suggesting the 21xx series is pointless. Its wow people.. not crysis!
DX10 performance is pointless (as someone stated the 9600GT shines in DX10) I highly doubt wow's 2nd expansion is going to utilize dx10 (i've read nothing of it).
Who cares if she buys 4GB and she cant use all of it. Besides even if she is running XP x64 or Vista64, its still up to the program (wow) to address the availible memory and wow is a 32bit program and is not specialized so im willing to guess it only addresses 2GB of RAM max. I'm sure the stock cooler will be enough for her as she has no need to OC and if she does it should still be sufficient.
The 8800GT for $185 is the best bang for the buck in my opinion too.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: sutahz
Besides even if she is running XP x64 or Vista64, its still up to the program (wow) to address the availible memory and wow is a 32bit program and is not specialized so im willing to guess it only addresses 2GB of RAM max.

That's not how it works. A 32-bit program can allocate as much memory as it wants, it's up to the operating system to map that into actual addresses, and a limitation of the operating system to not utilize all of 4GB (or more).

 

[anniesek]

Well, after all of your help, I got all of my components and have managed to get this thing together with the help of some scotch tape, string, and silly putty (j/k).

Everything seemed to be going well enough. I kept getting disk boot failure messages when trying to install Windows from the SATA optical drive, so, after some extensive reading, I switched to an older PATA drive and got the Windows install to start up.

The problem is that this thing is just not detecting the SATA HDD in any way. Windows setup terminates because it can't find an HDD, and the drive does not show up anywhere at all in the BIOS or on the POST screen (although it beeps on startup and does spin). Supposedly this mobo (Gigabyte GA-P35-Ds3L) should not require manual installation of SATA drivers (and none seem to be available either online or on the accompanying CD). Even so, I can't help but suspect that this may be the root of the problem. Either the system thinks that I'm trying to do a RAID setup, which would necessitate manual driver installation (which I can't find anywhere in any settings that I could manipulate), or for some unknown reason, the HDD is just not communicating with the mobo. I have jiggled, connected and reconnected, and quadruple-checked every cable. I have tried different SATA ports on the mobo (there are 4 total). The drive did detect when plugged into my husband's computer.

I hate to be a pest, but I was wondering if anyone here might have any insight or suggestions.

Thank you so much for all of your help. I am very optimistic that this is going to be a great system once a few things get ironed out.

-Annie