sdkfz
I'm a bit out of touch...
1.
Looking at buying a new desktop, something like this: http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/d...-457526765.htm
(edit: or this http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/d...-457526765.htm )
When using one of the CPU's with integrated graphics, while also having a separate graphics card installed, is it usual to be able to use both?
2.
Intel i7 or AMD FX 8 ?
Matters? Doesn't matter?
Cheers,
Last edited by pzkpfw; 19th March 2012 at 16:29. Reason: Forgot 2nd URL
Measure once, cut twice. Practice makes perfect.
Forum whore
It either uses the integrated graphics or a graphics card not both.
Go Intel.
$2000 is a quite a lot for a PC. What are you using it for?
sdkfz
Thanks,
(I have an idea I once had an AGP card working at the same time as the on-board graphics on an old 1Ghz Celeron desktop here, but that may be a faulty memory. Seems such a waste to put the effort into making a CPU+Motherboard do graphics, then so many machines don't even use it).
Mostly I just do .Net programming, with SQL Server, IIS and stuff. With a little casual gaming on the side.
I'm sure I could probably get away with spending way less, maybe $1200 or so, (from what I've read, an i5 might be just fine for me; and with my gaming being barely above Civilization II level, a cheaper graphics card would probably be fine) but for once in my life I feel like getting something up the curve a bit.
It's actually bloody hard choosing. I can't be arsed building from bits, so looking among the shops (Quay, Advantage, Xtremesystems) and Dell : and it's all such six of one, half a dozen of another stuff.
This lot can do SSD's, that lot can't. This one has a 1Tb HDD, that one is 2TB but is slower. This video card is worse than theirs, but their system RAM is bigger. It's hurting my head.
Rant over.
Measure once, cut twice. Practice makes perfect.
Forum whore
Don't worry I feel your pain. Far too many parts and opinions on PC builds!
Important things
Get at least 4GB of ram.
Get an i5 or i7.
Get an SSD if you can live with less than 150GB of data on your drive.
Don't forget to bring a towel
Buy an i5 2500K with a Z68 board and an M4 64GB SSD. A 6950 will top it all off and you'll have a nice package for a reasonable price.
Forum whore
Give me a ring.
If a man is alone in the woods and there isn't a woke Hollywood around to call him racist, is he still white?
sdkfz
Yep.Originally Posted by sil3nt
Yeah, I've heard that can make quite a difference. Messing with the system builder at Advantage, I can get a not-so-good but good-enough video card, and use the $ instead to get a 60GB Intel SSD first HDD and a 1TB second HDD. Probably make more real difference to me than a faster graphics card.
Measure once, cut twice. Practice makes perfect.
Forum whore
actually, that first advert is misleading. It DOES NOT have 13 Ghz, it has 4 3. something ghz cores. They may or may not be used all at the same time.
I normally recommend intel, but lately I have been using the new AMD CPU's and they are good - alot cheaper too.
4-8 GB RAM (most probably dont bother with more than 4 unless you are using 64 bit - 32 bit only allows the use of 3.3 GB).
Everything else should be as big and as fast as you can get (SSD for the operating system is good, if you can afford it).
These days you dont really need a separate graphics card unless doing video/graphics/etc (note, things like media encoding (video/audio) use CPU and not video). For the most part the on board graphics cards are decent. But then, they do use (share) RAM, so for a hundy you can get a budget 1 GB RAM video card - might as well if you can.
"If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." - Anatole France
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't." - Anatole France
ZRXOA #9170
Don't forget to bring a towel
Sandybridge is still a whole lot better than Bulldozer. Put a 2500K against any quad core AMD chip and the Intel is much faster and better value for money. BD was a bit of a disappointment after SB.
Forum whore
dunno, I assemble pcs from ordered parts for people from time to time eh.. quite a fan of the AMD chips.. cheaper than Intel and grunty as - plus u can overclock them with great sucess and no reliability problems if your that way inclined (and even know what that means lol) these days the chipsets come with auto clocking software too so you dont have to do anything but push a button and away she goes, self tuning.
SSD's are pricey, and 64gb or 100gb is Fall.. I have 2TB and out of space.. anything less than a TB is f all these days in my opinion. not when some software packages/games n stuff are running in the 10's of gbs installed and high res photos, songs etc etc all in best quality are large file sizes
if u can put a battery in a bike you could build your own for a fraction of the cost and have exactly what u want in it.
try pricespy.co.nz to get the jist of what shops are charging what for the bits you want.
its piss easy and u will save money which should be used on motorbikes anyway
Highway Biker
MY opinion is ensure u have shit load of ram for virtual machines (so maybe go for 64bit?) so u can chuck SQL Server in one of them - of note, SQL Server 2012 is out if u want to be bleeding edge even though ur customers probably not. Sure u can run different versions concurrently but nothing like seperation of concerns.
Scumbag junkie-looking biker
Integrated graphics are complete garbage. Also, the series of graphics card is usually more important than its RAM capacity.
Forum whore
I have a 250GB HDD that has around 50GB free. Whenever it gets full I just delete games and the download folder. God knows what people keep to fill up 1TB!
AMD is good value for money. It is what I went for. Whenever I am doing video editing I do wish I went for Intel though....
Forum whore
They aren't garbage at all.. I have a linux box running XBMC and a gigabyte mainboard with onboard graphics (an nividia chipset) - it plays 1080 video on my plasma without any issues at all...
It just all depends how much money you have to spend.. if you dont have much, you make do.. if you have money to squander, go spend a grand on a video card.
"If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." - Anatole France
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't." - Anatole France
ZRXOA #9170
Forum whore
Yup, if you're editing/encoding video, intel is the way to go.
I have 7.5 TB worth of disks on my media machine. 2 TB for "work related" files (customer backups, etc), 2 TB of music/movies/TV, 2 TB of misc stuff (where I download from my torrent server in England), and 1.5 TB for the OS and misc other stuff.
Plus I have a laptop (640GB), and a second PC with 1.5 TB, and a few USB drives of varying sizes (from 120GB-2TB). Storage is cheap, and when you have had to deal with as many clapped out HDD's as I have, you learn to have as many as possible around with your important stuff on them.
"If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." - Anatole France
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't." - Anatole France
ZRXOA #9170
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