Old school techie needs a crash course

[nick1985]

Hello my General Hardware friends!

Its been a while since I posted here, and a lot has changed in the hardware world since I left. College and gaming got the best of me this past year+, and I havnt kept up on the latest hardware news. Now that I graduated I got all the time in the world to get back into the swing of things. I started reading articles here and from other sites, but I need the laymens crash-course on whats good.

Basically I left off when the rig in my sig was what people drooled over, and there were rumors that Intel was coming out with a AMD killer, and that AMD was coming out with an AM2 and switching to DDR2.

Help an old-timer out! Fill me in on whats happened since I left ><



Hello to those who remember me!

 

[bamacre]

What kind of budget you got in mind?

Intel Core 2 Duo is the way to go.
DDR2 memory is cheap as hell.
Optical drives have gone SATA.
AMD bought ATI and Nvidia pwns the video card market.
Oh, and cases have gotten uglier.

 

[nick1985]

Im not looking to buy

I just want to familiarize myself with the latest gizmos. hehe


AMD bought ATI???? WTFLUX???

**edit**

Why is AMD's stock on the gutter?

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: nick1985
Why is AMD's stock on the gutter?

Intel Core 2 Duo.

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: nick1985
Im not looking to buy

I just want to familiarize myself with the latest gizmos. hehe


AMD bought ATI???? WTFLUX???

**edit**

Why is AMD's stock on the gutter?

Cause they're getting their ass kicked by Intel, they're in huge amounts of debt from buying ATI and after 6 months of delays, they failed to beat nvidia's 8800GTX.

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: nick1985
Im not looking to buy

I just want to familiarize myself with the latest gizmos. hehe

Well if you don't have any specific questions, why not read the AT articles and browse your way through the AT forums.

 

[Roguestar]

Read this forum, CPU forum and motherboards forum, and go through the AnandTech reviews and articles. :thumbsup:

 

[nerp]

Wait for Phenom!!!!!

hehehehehe.

 

[oldman420]

well let's see ddr2 replaced ddr1 sata is replacing ide pci is replacing agp dvdr is replacing cdr.

soon on the horizon ddr3 is replacing ddr2 all new boards will only support sata no more agp or ide channels and blueray/hddvd will replace dvdr.

 

[GuyeNoir]

Wow, OP and I are in the exact same situation (even the machine in his sig is roughly the same as mine), except I haven't graduated yet, just on a 6 month paid internship; and I am looking to build a new rig and would like some advice on how to spend the crazy dough I'm making (other than motorcycle lessons).

Specific Questions; are Quad-core and/or SLI worth the price, or are they just ways of bragging about how much you've spent? Should I splurge on a +30" monitor, and if so what's a good one? Can anyone recommend a good case (with lots of fans, I have nightmares about water-cooling)?

 

[oldman420]

Originally posted by: GuyeNoir
Wow, OP and I are in the exact same situation (even the machine in his sig is roughly the same as mine), except I haven't graduated yet, just on a 6 month paid internship; and I am looking to build a new rig and would like some advice on how to spend the crazy dough I'm making (other than motorcycle lessons).

Specific Questions; are Quad-core and/or SLI worth the price, or are they just ways of bragging about how much you've spent? Should I splurge on a +30" monitor, and if so what's a good one? Can anyone recommend a good case (with lots of fans, I have nightmares about water-cooling)?

Quad-core and sli are worth the price if you are an avid gamer not really needed but worth it You can get along just fine with a dual core and pci-e card for the next 1-2 years till the dx-10 games become ther norm, then you might need that plus a physics converter as well.

 

[Trevante]

Quad core might help a few games right now. Most games coming out in the future will support multiple cores, but for now, a dual core should be sufficient. On the other hand though, Intel is cutting prices on July 22nd, and their Q6600 (Quad core at 2.4ghz) will only be $266 so it might not be a bad idea to get a quad core anyways. But that's on July 22nd.

SLI isn't worth the price unless you game at really high resolutions and you SLI two really good cards. People with low end to mid range cards shouldn't bother with SLI, they should just go buy a high end single card solution that'll easily whoop the lower end SLI'd cards.

 

[GuyeNoir]

Originally posted by: Trevante
Quad core might help a few games right now. Most games coming out in the future will support multiple cores, but for now, a dual core should be sufficient. On the other hand though, Intel is cutting prices on July 22nd, and their Q6600 (Quad core at 2.4ghz) will only be $266 so it might not be a bad idea to get a quad core anyways. But that's on July 22nd.

SLI isn't worth the price unless you game at really high resolutions and you SLI two really good cards. People with low end to mid range cards shouldn't bother with SLI, they should just go buy a high end single card solution that'll easily whoop the lower end SLI'd cards.

What's so special about July 22? Is Intel the way to go over AMD nowadays?

I'd get an 8800GTX either way, I was just curious if getting two of them was worth the cost.

Another question: Why does AT's High-End Buyer's Guide recommend Windows MCE? Is it really better for gaming than regular old Windows XP?