So do I have the crappiest rig here?

[FalseChristian]

I know a guy who's running a cruddy I7 920 at 4.2GHz with 6GB of G. Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1600 and 2 GTX 480's in SLI. He only has 6TB of storage. What a piece of shit!

 

[jones377]

I know a guy who's running a cruddy I7 920 at 4.2GHz with 6GB of G. Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1600 and 2 GTX 480's in SLI. He only has 6TB of storage. What a piece of shit!

You posted this 5 years too early

 

[Dark_Archonis]

Current main rig:

1.86 Ghz Pentium M Dothan
1GB DDR2 RAM (128MB shared video memory)
Intel 910 integrated graphics
5400 RPM hard drive
Windows XP SP3

Waiting for mid-range laptops with Nvidia DX11 cards to be available to upgrade. I have been dying to upgrade for a while now. I have already played around with Windows 7 on other people's rigs, and I really like the improvements Windows 7 brings compared to XP.

Also there are a few games I would love to play, but can't because they are a slideshow on this rig.

It is specifically this laptop:

Inspiron 1525, Intel Pentium Dual Core T2390 (1.86GHz 533Mhz, 1M L2 Cache)

Addies: 3GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm
15.4 inch Wide Screen WXGA+ LCD
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 Home Basic
IE8

Latest "DELL" drivers installed, etc.

I can watch youtube videos up to 480 just fine. 720HD and it will stutter/skip frames a couple times per second. (it is not a streaming issue either, plenty of buffer and it does it even when replaying an already downloaded stream)

I "upgraded" to this lappy from a DELL X200 that was a 12" w/800MHz P3. TBH if it weren't for the fact I got a much larger screen and the price was $550 for the Insp1525 versus $2k for the X200 I would have felt like I had just made a side-grade.

My laptop computing experience was not dramatically improved. I only use it for web browsing and some light mathematica stuff.

But it does help me feel like my Q6600 @ 2.4GHz (stock!) main rig is plenty fast :biggrin:

Wow, your laptop with the above specs stutters on 720p Youtube?

My ancient laptop, with the above-listed specs can play virtually any 480p Youtube video just fine. I wonder if this is a Vista issue or just poor optimization on your laptop?

 

[teddyv]

939 Epox 9NPA+ Ultra mobo happily soldiering on with an A64-3000, a gig of Corsair value ram and a "new" 3850 card (that replaced a failed x800...) Funny, Newegg still has my invoice online for it all from back in 2005 - the mobo was $105, the ram $80, the x800 was $150, and the 200gig WD HD was $90 (replaced with a current WD 640g Black from the Egg.) I bought the CPU and SonataII case from ClubIT for if I remember correctly, $150 and $100. The case came with a PS that died soon after, Antec replaced it with an Earthwatt 430.

Hoping to upgrade, those new hex-core AMD chips look good

 

[BathroomFeeling]

AMD AthlonXP 1800+, 1.5GB memory, 9800Pro 160GB Seagate, AND MY AXE.

 

[xd_1771]

Ah, the Intel video decelerator.

Have you tried disabling "hardware acceleration" in the video driver?

It seems to me that you should be able to play 720p pretty smoothly.

X3100 is definitely not (even close to) HD capable. CPU decoding could probably work pretty good on that processor, however.

I've been rocking my x6/SLI 250's/8GB RAM/SSD build for just over a year now (jealous anyone? ); before that I was stuck with a 2.8P4 machine that eventually got a 500GB HDD, somewhat more RAM and a video card that could at least do HD (3450), but was still not enough for me. That's probably the worst PC I've owned bar a 2001 1.1Ghz Celeron PC that I never really used back then anyway, so I don't really have that much a right to join you low-end folk.

K8 Athlons (even single core ones) are actually not that bad however. They will kick the crap out of any Pentium 4 any day.

 

[mindwreck]

It is specifically this laptop:

Inspiron 1525, Intel Pentium Dual Core T2390 (1.86GHz 533Mhz, 1M L2 Cache)

Addies: 3GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm
15.4 inch Wide Screen WXGA+ LCD
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 Home Basic
IE8

you're laptop should be able to do 720p. my tablet has a 1.2ghz ULV c2d and it handles 720p perfectly fine.

 

[richierich1212]

you're laptop should be able to do 720p. my tablet has a 1.2ghz ULV c2d and it handles 720p perfectly fine.

The culvs are actually much more faster than the core duos, even while only clocked at "1.2GHz".

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

I still have an athlon 3200+ on a K8N with 1GB RAM and an ATI Radeon 9600 acting as a file server/mum's main computer.

 

[mv2devnull]

Pentium II w/MMX
128.0MB Ram
Win98

Actually does basic forum/internet stuff ok. Just no big flash and forget YouTube!
Yes, currently shopping for a new box. I'd at least like to get up to 2005.

I had a dual P.Pro (so 200MHz), 256 MB RAM, and Matrox Millenium I up to 2005. W2K and Linux. It was just fine, "multi-core" and all.

 

[RussianSensation]

Reallly? How does a 1.8GHz Core 2 stutter on Youtube HD? The CPU should be powerful enough just to handle it by itself. On my 2.4GHz Core 2 it was using 20% CPU running 1080p Youtube.

Ya, the 1M L2 Cache, X3100 video, 533FSB and clock speeds < 2.0ghz are the culprit most likely (Plus the fact that it's a Dell ) My C2D T5800 2M L2 Cache @ 2.0ghz + Intel GM45 plays 1080P Blu-ray and I can watch any 1080P video on Youtube or otherwise. Sucks that so little difference in CPU makes such a huge difference in usability.

IDK, I would never use Dell drivers. Just get them directly from Intel's website.

The culvs are actually much more faster than the core duos, even while only clocked at "1.2GHz".

I think you are talking about Core i architecture ultra low voltage CPUs. The fastest Ultra Low Voltage C2D was the SU9600 clocked at only 1.6ghz and ranked #175 on mobile processor charts. There are a handful of Low voltage C2Ds that perform well such as the SL9600 but they are rated at 17W, not 10W, and thus are not classified as ULV.

 

[tweakboy]

My heart goes out to all of you. I pray for you to one day get at least a dual core 4GB system.

I had my Barton 3200+ 2GB RAM x800 xt pe ASUS a7n8x-e deluxe until nov 21 2007 when put together my ubber rig...

 

[Absolution75]

I still use a dell 8200 with 512 MB ram, 2.0 P4 (non-HT), and a GF TI4600 to play Wc3. Its a rock'in box!

 

[tweakboy]

All you guys need is like 400 dollars for a major upgrade. You keep your monitor and drives and keyboar and mouse...

Mobo 70 dollar
CPU 120 dollar
RAM 90 dollar
VC 100 dollar.

save up and do it!

 

[twinrider1]

Pentium II w/MMX
128.0MB Ram
Win98...

Jesus, that's your main box?

You have my sincerest condolences if that is a rig you use daily...

lol, it has been for the past year. Years back my first build was a P4/XP box. It died so I went back to the old box. But yes, it sucks. Avast updates take forever!! That's actually what is finally pushing me to build a new box...antivirus people just don't support Win98 these days.

 

[Dark_Archonis]

All you guys need is like 400 dollars for a major upgrade. You keep your monitor and drives and keyboar and mouse...

Mobo 70 dollar
CPU 120 dollar
RAM 90 dollar
VC 100 dollar.

save up and do it!

Not really an option for all of us unfortunately. While I would love to have a new desktop as my main rig, due to a number of reasons my next main rig is going to have to be a new laptop.

Upgrading for me is going to cost quite a bit more than that, and a laptop with the specs and price that I want does not yet exist on the market.

I will keep my Logitech gaming mouse however for my new rig .

 

[mv2devnull]

All you guys need is like 400 dollars for a major upgrade. You keep your monitor and drives and keyboar and mouse...

You know, I went from PS2 keyboard and mouse to USB only this year (and I still need the old keyb occasionally). Have you noticed the disappearance of double PS2 connectors from boards lately? (During the previous shift one at least could have used an AT-to-PS2 adapter for the good old keyboards.)

There can be many reasons to stick with the old. For example, you might have an important application that simply will not work on anything more "modern". If it ain't broken, then ...

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

All you guys need is like 400 dollars for a major upgrade. You keep your monitor and drives and keyboar and mouse...

Mobo 70 dollar
CPU 120 dollar
RAM 90 dollar
VC 100 dollar.

save up and do it!

What about the old drives that are PATA, and the motherboard has either 0 PATA connections, or only 1, enough to connect 2 drives?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

It's not that big of a deal. I ran 2gb + Opteron 170 for 4 years. I finally dumped my bonus check a few months back on an i7+6gb+new mobo. Totally worth it.

I guess I had also been doing HD upgrades and stuff so it's not that painfully slow. That and I did buy a 4850 off FS/FT in 2008.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Don't badmouth the 3800+. I put together a system around one with 2 GB of OCZ plat DDR, OC to 2.5 GHz, and it NEVER crashes and it does everything just fine, including substantial Adobe CS3 work. Chugs along, but super freakin' stable and no complaints (except for the space it takes up). It's probably getting replaced by a laptop shortly.

 

[universeis42]

Laptop
CPU: Intel Celeron 2.8 GHz
RAM: 256 MB
GPU: Intel Media DeAccelerator
HDD : 80 GB

It was a few hundred when I bought it .

 

[xd_1771]

All you guys need is like 400 dollars for a major upgrade. You keep your monitor and drives and keyboar and mouse...

Mobo 70 dollar
CPU 120 dollar
RAM 90 dollar
VC 100 dollar.

save up and do it!

I built an Athlon II x4 build with 4GB DDR2 RAM, 785G chispet mobo/HD 4200, a 500GB hard drive and the cheapest case I could find. $250. Sure it involved a bit of scouring for deals (including taking advantage of a vacation to San Francisco, going to Microcenter and snagging a win deal) but it's possible.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Heck, you see many deals on prebuilts that kick the pants off all of the builds here, except for the i7 build.

I remember after building my PC and seeing a Q8200 HP prebuilt, 4GB PC6400 and a cheapo GPU for only $350. There are some deals to be had on slickdeals or fatwallet every few weeks.

 

[Arkaign]

The culvs are actually much more faster than the core duos, even while only clocked at "1.2GHz".

That laptop should still be able to play 720p youtube no problem. I just reloaded a customer system before last weekend with the following specs :

Dell Optiplex Tower
Intel P4 2.8ghz
512mb ddr-2700 (333)
Intel 865g Video (much older than the x3100)
80GB 5400RPM IDE
etc.

Formatted, loaded XP SP3 + latest drivers + IE8 + Firefox 3.6.x, after loading flash and disabling 'hardware acceleration' 480p and 720p videos work fine. Tested some 720p MKV TV rips as well, no issue at all (CCCP codec pack, playing in WMP). A 1.8ghz C2D class CPU with X3100 is no problem for 720p, youtube or MKV/AVI. Quicktime HD is a little more hit or miss, and I haven't tried a system with BD-Rom with that low of specs, but would imagine 1080p is asking too much. 1920x1080 is a LOT heavier than 1280x720.

Seems like flash has been having some growing pains with the releases during the past 12-18 months. It first happened to me on my current notebook with ATI HD3200, 4GB DDR2, Dual-Core 2ghz, etc, and it led to me nearly pulling all of my hair out until I discovered that the 'acceleration' was the culprit the entire time.

 

[yours truly]

I'm still using my old Dell Dimension 8100 here. My mother bought it back in March 2001 as a family computer. It's spec was 1.3ghz P4, 128mb RAM, 20gb HD, Geforce 2 MX, USB 1 - she paid just over &#163;2000 for it. It's a shame my mouse is probably worth more than this machine now but I can surf the net AND listen to music - at the same time!

I'm holding out for something better - those 8 core Sandy Bridges look ok. But that Ivy thing looks good too..



damn that almost sounds like a joke post..