Windows 7 Pre-Order

i think it's actually been hacked via the network i'm forced onto to connect to the internet. my surfing habits aren't bad (i know what links to avoid etc, and avoid them), and i don't even use torrents any more (due to massive throttling). I just find it rubbish that, despite the same usage cycle as my vista install, which still runs fine after a few months, my 7 install is totally dead after literally 2 weeks... Hoping for a massive improvement in final version...

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Team Japan Owner - GPGNC

There must be some other uni students here so im going to post this :

[www.microsoft.com]

Beware as you don't get both 32bit and 64bit though, however for that price who cares.

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Help keep our forums tidy.

Use the search function...

i believe if you order the disk, you get the same home retail disk that you get if you buy it from wherever, so all you'd need is to apply for a serial number. I may be wrong though...

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Team Japan Owner - GPGNC

You don't get a disk, you get to download one disk image or the other, not both.

People buying retail will get both disks.

Wanna rattle your brain a minute Gav

Thermaltake Soprano - Black
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 PRO (Socket LGA775)
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3LR iP45 Socket 775
Sapphire Radeon 5870 1GB
2x 320Gb Samsung HD322HJ F1 SATA
2x OCZ 4GB PC2-8500 DDR2 1066MHz Gold Dual Channel (2x2GB)
Corsair 750W TX Series PSU
Akasa AK-ICR-01B internal Card Reader

Already have DVD-RW and Windows 7 64bit on the way.

How does this spec up for a good gaming machine? I mostly play driving games but play some more hardware pushing games such as GTA and Crysis. Will need it to play some newer games such as Dirt 2, rFactor 2 and run them at 1920 x 1200 screen resolution with AA/AF?

I have been put off Core i7/5 as it more expensive, especially the DDR3 memory prices and i5 doesn't have hyperthreading? :/

Edit:// Actually it looks like I could squeeze an i5 with 4GB of DDR3 1333 with my budget if I wanted to but how much better will it be than the 9950? It has no Hyperthreading and less cache?

Dont suppose anyone one has a Fanatec GT3 RS Clubsport either? Its either this or a G27 for me as my G25 has died.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2009 10:24PM by mika19b.

Core i5 is still quicker than the Q9650 despite the lower clockspeed, lack of cache and HyperThreading, even in multithreaded applications, so it'll be that bit quicker than the Q9550.

It's also cheaper and will overclock up to around 3.8GHz - 4.0GHz if you want to and get a suitable motherboard and cooler. It probably won't be cheaper when you factor in the motherboard and RAM, but that's where you weigh things up.

Have a [url=http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=19979&page=8
look yourself[/url] to see whether it's worth it. If you can't stretch to a P55 motherboard, Core i5 and 8GB of RAM, I suspect the spec you listed would give a more rounded result (it does have 8GB there, right?)... but there's only around £10-15 difference between the P45 (Q9550) motherboards and the P55s (Core i5) ones. RAM is around £20 between DDR2 and DDR3 for 4GB). BTW, that RAM you specced is way over the top unless you intend on massively overclocking, and even then there is very, very little difference (certainly not worth the extra cost).



Can't really fault the rest, but will offer some suggestions.

You're not going to get any faster graphics at the moment unless you buy 2 5870s (not exactly value for money!), so whether or not it is fast enough, who knows... but it's as fast as you can buy without buying dual-GPU solutions. I've got no idea how rFactor 2 will run on it... I doubt many of us will since it's not out yet. I can't comment on the rest, but of course they'll all be playable at high settings - maybe not top settings, but certainly very high. I'd consider the 5850 myself though - it's about 5-10% off the performance of the 5870, at around 70% of the price. The next NVIDIA cards are still some way off, and the rumours breaking out aren't too positive.

Hard drive - I'd go for single-platter 500GB drives if you can. They're quite a bit faster. If you can do that, I'll find out which are single-platter.

PSU - get the TX650W (non-modular) or HX650W (modular). They're made by Seasonic rather than CWT and will easily be enough.

was thinking about you lot today - read in the paper some hack going on about how windows 7 had to put microsoft back on track after the "train wreck" that was vista...is that still the consensus in the popular media? i friggin love vista

Vista is a brilliant OS. The only problem was, people forgot what XP was like when it was released, and it had a solid platform before it (it was to 2000 what 7 is to Vista - tweaking the OS and polishing the surface a bit), unlike Vista, so it had fewer excuses. Of course, internet bandwagons have sped up since XP was released, or it would have been in for far worse press than Vista had.

XP is now 8 year old. It's awful now, just as Win 98 is - a relic of the past that some struggle to let go of.

That said, everything about 7 has been brilliant, from the PR and adverts to the support from 3rd parties - even Creative have drivers for (some) old products before release - and they work!

Vista was awesome. Windows 7 is just more awesome. Still on Build 7137 here.

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theRacingLine.net
SportsCarArchives.com

@gav, you can pay a few quid extra and they'll send a disk in the post, which is useful for me, cos at my current internet speed it'd take 2 years to download...

Still, won't actually need it now, decided that media center PC is to be sold, and there is no way i'm putting 7 on my laptop for daytoday usage...

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Team Japan Owner - GPGNC

gav Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Core i5 is still quicker than the Q9650 despite
> the lower clockspeed, lack of cache and
> HyperThreading, even in multithreaded
> applications, so it'll be that bit quicker than
> the Q9550.

Ah thanks for that I thought it must of been as it was newer technology but the numbers didn't add up.

> It's also cheaper and will overclock up to around
> 3.8GHz - 4.0GHz if you want to and get a suitable
> motherboard and cooler. It probably won't be
> cheaper when you factor in the motherboard and
> RAM, but that's where you weigh things up.

I did plan on overclocking when I needed the extra performance so thats good to hear!

> Have a to see whether it's worth it. If you can't
> stretch to a P55 motherboard, Core i5 and 8GB of
> RAM, I suspect the spec you listed would give a
> more rounded result (it does have 8GB there,
> right?)... but there's only around £10-15
> difference between the P45 (Q9550) motherboards
> and the P55s (Core i5) ones. RAM is around £20
> between DDR2 and DDR3 for 4GB). BTW, that RAM you
> specced is way over the top unless you intend on
> massively overclocking, and even then there is
> very, very little difference (certainly not worth
> the extra cost).

Yep I did have 8GB listed there, what is a good DDR3 spec then? Lower speed?

> You're not going to get any faster graphics at the
> moment unless you buy 2 5870s (not exactly value
> for money!), so whether or not it is fast enough,
> who knows... but it's as fast as you can buy
> without buying dual-GPU solutions. I've got no
> idea how rFactor 2 will run on it... I doubt many
> of us will since it's not out yet. I can't comment
> on the rest, but of course they'll all be playable
> at high settings - maybe not top settings, but
> certainly very high. I'd consider the 5850 myself
> though - it's about 5-10% off the performance of
> the 5870, at around 70% of the price. The next
> NVIDIA cards are still some way off, and the
> rumours breaking out aren't too positive.

Will have to look into it then, see if the price difference is worth it and look at some benchmarks.

> Hard drive - I'd go for single-platter 500GB
> drives if you can. They're quite a bit faster. If
> you can do that, I'll find out which are
> single-platter.

If you can list me some with the prices that would be great

> PSU - get the TX650W (non-modular) or HX650W
> (modular). They're made by Seasonic rather than
> CWT and will easily be enough.

That could be quite good actually, I know Seasonic is a good make and it could save a few £.

harjinator Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> @gav, you can pay a few quid extra and they'll
> send a disk in the post, which is useful for me,
> cos at my current internet speed it'd take 2 years
> to download...

But surely they'll only send the disk which you ordered.



mika19b Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> what is a good DDR3 spec then? Lower speed?

Nah, just get some bog-standard stuff. Ironically, the DDR3 standard stuff is the same speed as the DDR2 stuff you specced, so 1066 or 1333MHz. For DDR2, 800MH is fine. Faster RAM makes sod all difference with the newer Intel chips.

mika19b Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you can list me some with the prices that would
> be great

The 500GB Samsung F3 is single-platter. £36 + del. I'm normally a Western Digital whore, but these things are the things to have at the moment apparently.

Thanks for that Gav, much help as always

Intel Core i5 750, S 1156, Lynnfield, Quad Core, 2.66GHz
Titan Fenrir TTC-Nk34TZ/R/V2 Copper base with aluminum fins for Intel 1366
Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L, Intel P55 Express, Sok1156, PCI-E 2.0(x16), DDR3 2000, SATA 3Gb/s, RAID, ATX
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS3, DDR3 PC3-10666 (1333), (2x For 8GB)
500GB Samsung HD502HJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ, OEM
1GB Sapphire HD 5870, PCI-E 2.0, 4800MHz GDDR5, GPU 850MHz, DP/ 2x DVI/ HDMI + Dirt2 + BattleStation
650W TX Corsair PSU, single 12V rail, energy efficient, quiet & cool, fully compatible, 5yr warranty
Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 (v9) UK Edition 1 Year - 1 User - *OEM Edition
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit (Already on Pre-order)

How does this look? Obviously I can add another 500GB HD if I ever needed and at some point I will probably put a Blu-Ray player in it. I can lower the the Graphics Card if I wanted to save some more £ and that CPU fan should be ok for overclocking? Probably wouldnt push it above 3.4GHZ tbh unless I really needed too!

Edit:// By the way did I see you say in another post your trying to get a new PC build? Or was that someone else lol.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2009 10:31PM by mika19b.

I'm not building a new PC. Quite happy with what I've got at the moment. Or did you mean something else?

My only concern, one I forgot to mention earlier, is that my Corsair DDR3 (mine is 1066MHz) has had 3 dodgy sticks now, and I'm about to have a 2nd RMA. I'd look at another brand personally (OCZ, Geil or direct from Crucial are my usual ones, but we've got a Scan account at work and they only really sell Corsair ).

gav Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm not building a new PC. Quite happy with what
> I've got at the moment. Or did you mean something
> else?

I thought I see a post of yours saying you were building a new machine but it was obviously someone else

I didn't realise you have DDR3 though? I thought you was running Core 2 Quad?

> My only concern, one I forgot to mention earlier,
> is that my Corsair DDR3 (mine is 1066MHz) has had
> 3 dodgy sticks now, and I'm about to have a 2nd
> RMA. I'd look at another brand personally (OCZ,
> Geil or direct from Crucial are my usual ones, but
> we've got a Scan account at work and they only
> really sell Corsair ).

Ah I see :/ Hmmm might be worth me getting some from Aria or Ebuyer then! Cheers for that tip

Edit:// Does this look ok? [www.aria.co.uk] Its cheaper than the Corsair too by quite a bit



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2009 10:54PM by mika19b.

mika19b Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I thought I see a post of yours saying you were
> building a new machine but it was obviously
> someone else
>
> I didn't realise you have DDR3 though? I thought
> you was running Core 2 Quad?

Nah, got an i7 last November as my PC was encoding the panto DVD (which I put together over the Christmas hols) for around 12 hours on each export the previous year. That quickly got boring, so this shaves a few hours off. The C2Q is now my PC at work.


mika19b Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ah I see :/ Hmmm might be worth me getting some
> from Aria or Ebuyer then! Cheers for that tip
>
> Edit:// Does this look ok?
> [www.aria.co.uk]
> DR3/DDR3+1333+%28PC3-10666%29/G.SKILL+DDR3+1333+PC
> 10666+4GB+%282GB+x+2%29+?productId=37610 Its
> cheaper than the Corsair too by quite a bit

I've not exactly seen widespread reports, so it's probably just me being unlucky, but it's enough to make me look elsewhere when recommending, especially as there are plenty of other top brands.

GSkill are fine. No idea what their returns are like, but they make solid sticks, especially overclocking ones. Only think to look out for there is that the top of the heatsink doesn't affect the CPU heatsink - it doesn't look that tall though, so shouldn't be a problem unless the CPU heatsink sits very low. That CPU heatsink isn't one I'm familiar with (but reviews seems positive), so I can't really tell you if it will clear the RAM.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2009 11:03PM by gav.

gav Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Nah, got an i7 last November as my PC was encoding
> the panto DVD (which I put together over the
> Christmas hols) for around 12 hours on each export
> the previous year. That quickly got boring, so
> this shaves a few hours off. The C2Q is now my PC
> at work.

Fair shout, not exactly fun encoding DVDs for hours on end!

Just out of interest what GPU are you running? As I know you play iRacing etc.

> I've not exactly seen widespread reports, so it's
> probably just me being unlucky, but it's enough to
> make me look elsewhere when recommending,
> especially as there are plenty of other top
> brands.
>
> GSkill are fine. No idea what their returns are
> like, but they make solid sticks, especially
> overclocking ones. Only think to look out for
> there is that the top of the heatsink doesn't
> affect the CPU heatsink - it doesn't look that
> tall though, so shouldn't be a problem unless the
> CPU heatsink sits very low. That CPU heatsink
> isn't one I'm familiar with (but reviews seems
> positive), so I can't really tell you if it will
> clear the RAM.

Good point, I will have to double check first to make sure it will all fit and if it does I think that will be me sorted

mika19b Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just out of interest what GPU are you running? As
> I know you play iRacing etc.

And that's about the only graphics intensive thing I do play (GPL doesn't really count now .

4870 myself. But my cousin has an old graphics card of mine (I think it's a X800XT) and he's just started playing iRacing, so it's very scalable.

No way I could justify a 5870 myself any longer.

yay - dispatched today, now its in the hands of the royal mail *shudder*

gav Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And that's about the only graphics intensive thing
> I do play (GPL doesn't really count now .
>
> 4870 myself. But my cousin has an old graphics
> card of mine (I think it's a X800XT) and he's just
> started playing iRacing, so it's very scalable.
>
>
> No way I could justify a 5870 myself any longer.

I had the 4870 before, good card!

Not quite sure what I will get yet. Maybe the 5870 just to get Dirt 2 which is the first DirectX 11 game.

ferrariman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> yay - dispatched today, now its in the hands of
> the royal mail *shudder*

We should get it within the next year ...

Edit:// Last question Gav, I promise!

How much better will i7 be over i5? My budget is about £900 and for £885 I can have the same spec as above with an i7 CPU (diffrent aftermarket fan), Gigabyte Mobo and 6GB Memory as it has to be tri-channel? :/

Or is it worth going i5 and saving some £ as i7 wint be any better for gaming and general use?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2009 07:54PM by mika19b.