WoW, BSODs and drivers..

On Thu, 01 May 2008 20:07:29 +0200, Marcel <marcel.RemoveThis@marcel.invalid> wrote:

>You're getting me confused now.
>Did you or didn't you use the NEW monitor without the monitor driver
>without issues ?
>The way I read it is you bought a new monitor, installed it, installed
>the drivers and problems started to appear.
>As far as I know monitor drivers don't really exist for Windows XP.
>The driver is just a file which states the capabilities of your
>monitor and give it a nice name.

Yep, I installed the drivers (as the instructions told me to) before doing
anything much else with it. Uninstalled them this morning, no blue screen
of death as yet, so with any luck that's cured it... guess I'll know for
sure soon enough!
--
EU-Draenor:
Balgair - Human Rogue (lvl 70)
Naomh - Draenei Priest (lvl 70)
Sagart - Undead Priest (lvl 70)
Rosad - Human Warlock (lvl 70)
Sealgair - Dwarf Hunter (lvl 70)
Eilnich - Blood Elf Warlock (lvl 70)
Beag - Dwarf Paladin (lvl 60)
 >> Stay informed about: WoW, BSODs and drivers.. 

On Thu, 01 May 2008 16:07:19 +0100, Catriona R
<catrionarNOSPAM.RemoveThis@totalise.co.uk> wrote:

>
>On Thu, 1 May 2008 07:54:08 -0700 (PDT), "steve.kaye"
><nospam.RemoveThis@giddy-kippers.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>On 1 May, 15:33, Catriona R <catrionarNOS....RemoveThis@totalise.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> Considering the increased resolution has made a corresponding decrease in
>>> performance (I hit a new low of 8 fps in AB last night, normally it only
>>> gets that bad in AV! :-/), I suspect I'll go with the "new computer" option
>>> shortly, got to do that fast if I want Windows XP anyway, and I've not seen
>>> anything I like about Vista as yet
>>
>>I think that you may have missed the boat on that one unless you're
>>willing to buy a seperate copy of XP or you happen to have the OS
>>install disks for the machine you have.
>>
>>I've heard that OEMs aren't allowed to sell machines with XP on
>>anymore and that some have been getting around the restriction based
>>on the fact that the PCs they are selling XP with are not powerful for
>>Vista. Presumably, you wouldn't want those PCs anyway as they'd be
>>underpowered and would need replacing too soon.
>
>Nope, I'm not too late, it's still sellable on new PCs until the end of
>June - I've been doing my research But I do have to convince myself to
>buy a new one *soon*, if I'm going to do it... it's already not available
>on top of the range PCs, but that I don't mind because I'm not prepared to
>spend 3k+ on a pc; my limit is somewhat lower than that!
>
>Currently I'm looking at the following- is that good enough to last say 3-4
>years?
>
>Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz 6MB Cache 1333MHz FSB
>
I would go for a E8400 instead, better value for money.

>NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Motherboard
>
I would prefer a P35 or X38 chipset but that's personal.

>768MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800 GTX
>
I would take a 8800GT, eg the ASUS EN8800GT with 512MB.
Better value for money.

>High Performance 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM 4GB
>
Unless your thinking about overclocking 800MHz isn't needed.
You might as well pick 667MHz.

>500 GB Serial ATA 3 Gbit/s 7,200 RPM with 16MB Cache
>
Nothing wrong with this one
 >> Stay informed about: WoW, BSODs and drivers.. 

On Thu, 01 May 2008 20:12:18 +0200, Marcel <marcel.RemoveThis@marcel.invalid>
wrote:

>>NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Motherboard
>>
>I would prefer a P35 or X38 chipset but that's personal.
>

I had horrible luck with my one NVidia Mobo. Enough to scare me away
from ever buying another one.

Rgds, Frank
 >> Stay informed about: WoW, BSODs and drivers.. 

On Thu, 01 May 2008 20:12:18 +0200, Marcel <marcel.RemoveThis@marcel.invalid> wrote:

>On Thu, 01 May 2008 16:07:19 +0100, Catriona R
><catrionarNOSPAM.RemoveThis@totalise.co.uk> wrote:
>>Currently I'm looking at the following- is that good enough to last say 3-4
>>years?
>>
>>Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz 6MB Cache 1333MHz FSB
>>
>I would go for a E8400 instead, better value for money.

Hmm ok, my thought was to get the best reasonably affordable option
offered, take it it won't make much performance difference then? It's not
much cheaper, so I've nps paying for the better one.

>>NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Motherboard
>>
>I would prefer a P35 or X38 chipset but that's personal.

Not much choice there, it's one of those customisable PCs but some things
are fixed, the motherboard being one of them - I'd have to go for a whole
different option which probably wouldn't offer XP

>>768MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800 GTX
>>
>I would take a 8800GT, eg the ASUS EN8800GT with 512MB.
>Better value for money.

Hmm, again, is it a big downgrade? Not being too knowledgeable with tech
stuff I like to just buy a pc that'll last as long as possible, as I don't
want to be messing around trying to upgrade parts; I can replace RAM fine
but anything more complex than that is asking for trouble with me, so if
the GTX is significantly better I'd rather take it, even if it's expensive
- the general look of it sounds like it's a fair bit better, but ofc I
don't know much!

So much fun trying to get a good quality PC while not knowing a lot about
them
--
EU-Draenor:
Balgair - Human Rogue (lvl 70)
Naomh - Draenei Priest (lvl 70)
Sagart - Undead Priest (lvl 70)
Rosad - Human Warlock (lvl 70)
Sealgair - Dwarf Hunter (lvl 70)
Eilnich - Blood Elf Warlock (lvl 70)
Beag - Dwarf Paladin (lvl 60)
 >> Stay informed about: WoW, BSODs and drivers.. 

On Thu, 01 May 2008 19:25:53 +0100, Catriona R
<catrionarNOSPAM.TakeThisOut@totalise.co.uk> wrote:

>
>On Thu, 01 May 2008 20:07:29 +0200, Marcel <marcel.TakeThisOut@marcel.invalid> wrote:
>
>>You're getting me confused now.
>>Did you or didn't you use the NEW monitor without the monitor driver
>>without issues ?
>>The way I read it is you bought a new monitor, installed it, installed
>>the drivers and problems started to appear.
>>As far as I know monitor drivers don't really exist for Windows XP.
>>The driver is just a file which states the capabilities of your
>>monitor and give it a nice name.
>
>Yep, I installed the drivers (as the instructions told me to) before doing
>anything much else with it. Uninstalled them this morning, no blue screen
>of death as yet, so with any luck that's cured it... guess I'll know for
>sure soon enough!

Ok, one nice BSOD, downloading latest driver from nvidia website atm...
sigh.

Something I've noticed as well - when it crashes, while it's sitting on the
blue screen my speakers make random clicking noises from time to time. Also
when playing mp3s very occasionally the music pauses for a second or so...
this only started at the same time as the BSODs, can graphics issues cause
that too, or could there be a sound issue in the mix too?

Using Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2, if that's any help... and yes, the
drivers are out of date, as with graphics drivers I like to leave well
alone until there's a problem
--
EU-Draenor:
Balgair - Human Rogue (lvl 70)
Naomh - Draenei Priest (lvl 70)
Sagart - Undead Priest (lvl 70)
Rosad - Human Warlock (lvl 70)
Sealgair - Dwarf Hunter (lvl 70)
Eilnich - Blood Elf Warlock (lvl 70)
Beag - Dwarf Paladin (lvl 60)
 >> Stay informed about: WoW, BSODs and drivers.. 

In article <67ukliF2q586oU1.RemoveThis@mid.individual.net>,
Catriona R <catrionarNOSPAM.RemoveThis@totalise.co.uk> wrote:

> On Thu, 01 May 2008 19:25:53 +0100, Catriona R
> <catrionarNOSPAM.RemoveThis@totalise.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >
> >On Thu, 01 May 2008 20:07:29 +0200, Marcel <marcel.RemoveThis@marcel.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >>You're getting me confused now.
> >>Did you or didn't you use the NEW monitor without the monitor driver
> >>without issues ?
> >>The way I read it is you bought a new monitor, installed it, installed
> >>the drivers and problems started to appear.
> >>As far as I know monitor drivers don't really exist for Windows XP.
> >>The driver is just a file which states the capabilities of your
> >>monitor and give it a nice name.
> >
> >Yep, I installed the drivers (as the instructions told me to) before doing
> >anything much else with it. Uninstalled them this morning, no blue screen
> >of death as yet, so with any luck that's cured it... guess I'll know for
> >sure soon enough!
>
> Ok, one nice BSOD, downloading latest driver from nvidia website atm...
> sigh.
>
> Something I've noticed as well - when it crashes, while it's sitting on the
> blue screen my speakers make random clicking noises from time to time. Also
> when playing mp3s very occasionally the music pauses for a second or so...
> this only started at the same time as the BSODs, can graphics issues cause
> that too, or could there be a sound issue in the mix too?
>
> Using Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2, if that's any help... and yes, the
> drivers are out of date, as with graphics drivers I like to leave well
> alone until there's a problem

Anything is possible... it's Windows. The video and sound drivers are
both notorious causes of intermittent maddening problems of all sorts.
Make a note of the current driver levels of each and upgrade em. You
can revert if required.

Also be open to the idea of coincidence -- a virus may be the culprit
but the monitor is blamed. Anything is possible... it's Windows.
 >> Stay informed about: WoW, BSODs and drivers.. 

On Thu, 01 May 2008 19:33:42 +0100, Catriona R
<catrionarNOSPAM.DeleteThis@totalise.co.uk> wrote:

>
>On Thu, 01 May 2008 20:12:18 +0200, Marcel <marcel.DeleteThis@marcel.invalid> wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 01 May 2008 16:07:19 +0100, Catriona R
>><catrionarNOSPAM.DeleteThis@totalise.co.uk> wrote:
>>>Currently I'm looking at the following- is that good enough to last say 3-4
>>>years?
>>>
>>>Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz 6MB Cache 1333MHz FSB
>>>
>>I would go for a E8400 instead, better value for money.
>
>Hmm ok, my thought was to get the best reasonably affordable option
>offered, take it it won't make much performance difference then? It's not
>much cheaper, so I've nps paying for the better one.
>
Don't know about prices where you live but overhere the E8500 is about
60 euro (40 pounds I guess) more expensive and the difference is only
0.16 GHz.

>>>NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Motherboard
>>>
>>I would prefer a P35 or X38 chipset but that's personal.
>
>Not much choice there, it's one of those customisable PCs but some things
>are fixed, the motherboard being one of them - I'd have to go for a whole
>different option which probably wouldn't offer XP
>
Fair enough.

>>>768MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800 GTX
>>>
>>I would take a 8800GT, eg the ASUS EN8800GT with 512MB.
>>Better value for money.
>
>Hmm, again, is it a big downgrade? Not being too knowledgeable with tech
>stuff I like to just buy a pc that'll last as long as possible, as I don't
>want to be messing around trying to upgrade parts; I can replace RAM fine
>but anything more complex than that is asking for trouble with me, so if
>the GTX is significantly better I'd rather take it, even if it's expensive
>- the general look of it sounds like it's a fair bit better, but ofc I
>don't know much!
>
Performance between the two of them is almost the same but the 8800GT
is about half the price of a 8800GTX.

>So much fun trying to get a good quality PC while not knowing a lot about
>them
>
I can imagine
 >> Stay informed about: WoW, BSODs and drivers.. 

On Thu, 01 May 2008 21:51:17 +0200, Marcel <marcel.DeleteThis@marcel.invalid> wrote:

>On Thu, 01 May 2008 19:33:42 +0100, Catriona R
><catrionarNOSPAM.DeleteThis@totalise.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>
>>On Thu, 01 May 2008 20:12:18 +0200, Marcel <marcel.DeleteThis@marcel.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>On Thu, 01 May 2008 16:07:19 +0100, Catriona R
>>><catrionarNOSPAM.DeleteThis@totalise.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>Currently I'm looking at the following- is that good enough to last say 3-4
>>>>years?
>>>>
>>>>Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz 6MB Cache 1333MHz FSB
>>>>
>>>I would go for a E8400 instead, better value for money.
>>
>>Hmm ok, my thought was to get the best reasonably affordable option
>>offered, take it it won't make much performance difference then? It's not
>>much cheaper, so I've nps paying for the better one.
>>
>Don't know about prices where you live but overhere the E8500 is about
>60 euro (40 pounds I guess) more expensive and the difference is only
>0.16 GHz.

How big a difference does that 0.16 GHz make? I just assumed more would be
a good thing!

>>>>768MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800 GTX
>>>>
>>>I would take a 8800GT, eg the ASUS EN8800GT with 512MB.
>>>Better value for money.
>>
>>Hmm, again, is it a big downgrade? Not being too knowledgeable with tech
>>stuff I like to just buy a pc that'll last as long as possible, as I don't
>>want to be messing around trying to upgrade parts; I can replace RAM fine
>>but anything more complex than that is asking for trouble with me, so if
>>the GTX is significantly better I'd rather take it, even if it's expensive
>>- the general look of it sounds like it's a fair bit better, but ofc I
>>don't know much!
>>
>Performance between the two of them is almost the same but the 8800GT
>is about half the price of a 8800GTX.

Hmm it is a pretty big price difference on the options, yeah - if
performance is that similar then I may go with the cheaper one. I just
figured 768MB sounded like it'd be significantly better than 512
--
EU-Draenor:
Balgair - Human Rogue (lvl 70)
Naomh - Draenei Priest (lvl 70)
Sagart - Undead Priest (lvl 70)
Rosad - Human Warlock (lvl 70)
Sealgair - Dwarf Hunter (lvl 70)
Eilnich - Blood Elf Warlock (lvl 70)
Beag - Dwarf Paladin (lvl 60)
 >> Stay informed about: WoW, BSODs and drivers.. 

In article <67ull6F2q98gkU1 RemoveThis @mid.individual.net>,
Catriona R <catrionarNOSPAM RemoveThis @totalise.co.uk> wrote:

> On Thu, 01 May 2008 21:51:17 +0200, Marcel <marcel RemoveThis @marcel.invalid> wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 01 May 2008 19:33:42 +0100, Catriona R
> ><catrionarNOSPAM RemoveThis @totalise.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>On Thu, 01 May 2008 20:12:18 +0200, Marcel <marcel RemoveThis @marcel.invalid> wrote:
> >>
> >>>On Thu, 01 May 2008 16:07:19 +0100, Catriona R
> >>><catrionarNOSPAM RemoveThis @totalise.co.uk> wrote:
> >>>>Currently I'm looking at the following- is that good enough to last say
> >>>>3-4
> >>>>years?
> >>>>
> >>>>Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz 6MB Cache 1333MHz FSB
> >>>>
> >>>I would go for a E8400 instead, better value for money.
> >>
> >>Hmm ok, my thought was to get the best reasonably affordable option
> >>offered, take it it won't make much performance difference then? It's not
> >>much cheaper, so I've nps paying for the better one.
> >>
> >Don't know about prices where you live but overhere the E8500 is about
> >60 euro (40 pounds I guess) more expensive and the difference is only
> >0.16 GHz.
>
> How big a difference does that 0.16 GHz make? I just assumed more would be
> a good thing!

It's about 5% faster if whatever you're running is cpu-bound... not
something you're likely to notice even if that's the case. But WoW, web
browsing, emailing, spreadsheeting, etc are rarely bound by cpu on
anything newer than 10 years old, so overall you might see something
like a 1% difference. I have to agree with Marcel that it's not worth
the money.

On the other hand, you need another disk. The second disk configured as
RAID 1 (simple mirroring) will protect you when (not if) one disk fails
and you will avoid a complete re-install. It also speeds up some I/O
since you have two "read" sources.

> >>>>768MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800 GTX
> >>>>
> >>>I would take a 8800GT, eg the ASUS EN8800GT with 512MB.
> >>>Better value for money.
> >>
> >>Hmm, again, is it a big downgrade? Not being too knowledgeable with tech
> >>stuff I like to just buy a pc that'll last as long as possible, as I don't
> >>want to be messing around trying to upgrade parts; I can replace RAM fine
> >>but anything more complex than that is asking for trouble with me, so if
> >>the GTX is significantly better I'd rather take it, even if it's expensive
> >>- the general look of it sounds like it's a fair bit better, but ofc I
> >>don't know much!
> >>
> >Performance between the two of them is almost the same but the 8800GT
> >is about half the price of a 8800GTX.
>
> Hmm it is a pretty big price difference on the options, yeah - if
> performance is that similar then I may go with the cheaper one. I just
> figured 768MB sounded like it'd be significantly better than 512

As I recall, the GPU RAM limit comes into play mostly when running
texture-rich games. Hit the limit and the performance takes a dive-bomb
since the vidcard is now "thrashing" (in a sense) to mainboard RAM..
Whether WoW ever bursts that 512MB limit is a good question.

But in the next few years it's reasonable to expect new games to break
all these limits, since no amount of graphic richness or screen
resolutions is ever good enough... definitely not for me. A good
strategy might be to get the cheaper card today and plan to replace it
in two years with something even better than the 768MB model you're
passing up now.
 >> Stay informed about: WoW, BSODs and drivers.. 

On 1 May, 16:07, Catriona R <catrionarNOS....DeleteThis@totalise.co.uk> wrote:

> Currently I'm looking at the following- is that good enough to last say 3-4
> years?
>
> Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz 6MB Cache 1333MHz FSB
> NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Motherboard  
> 768MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800 GTX
> High Performance 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM 4GB
> 500 GB Serial ATA 3 Gbit/s 7,200 RPM with 16MB Cache

I've just bought a PC with very similar specs. I got the 3GHz Intel®
Core™ 2 Duo and the 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800 GT and the 4GB of
667MHz memory. Pretty much what other people have said that you'd get
better value for money with With that machine I run at 1680x1050
with all settings on max and Level of Detail off and the framerate
stays at 60 fps*.

One thing to note with your setup - you may as well buy 3GB RAM if
it's an option unless you are going for a 64bit OS. 32 bit OSs can
only reference 4GB of memory total and your video memory is included
in that so you'll only be able to use a maximum of 4GB - 768MB of
memory. Plus a few other bits of hardware will take more memory off.
With my 4GB machine and my 512MB graphics card I have 3.3GB memory
available to me. As you're looking at a bigger graphics card you're
not likely to get more than 3GB.

steve.kaye

* my view freezes occaisonally for a very short time - much less than
a second - but I'm fairly that an addon is causing that. I just need
to find it
 >> Stay informed about: WoW, BSODs and drivers.. 

chocolatemalt wrote:
> In article <67ull6F2q98gkU1 DeleteThis @mid.individual.net>,
> Catriona R <catrionarNOSPAM DeleteThis @totalise.co.uk> wrote:

>>>>>> Intel® Core� 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz 6MB Cache 1333MHz FSB
>>>>>>
>>>>> I would go for a E8400 instead, better value for money.
>>>> Hmm ok, my thought was to get the best reasonably affordable option
>>>> offered, take it it won't make much performance difference then? It's not
>>>> much cheaper, so I've nps paying for the better one.
>>>>
>>> Don't know about prices where you live but overhere the E8500 is about
>>> 60 euro (40 pounds I guess) more expensive and the difference is only
>>> 0.16 GHz.
>> How big a difference does that 0.16 GHz make? I just assumed more would be
>> a good thing!
>
> It's about 5% faster if whatever you're running is cpu-bound... not
> something you're likely to notice even if that's the case. But WoW, web
> browsing, emailing, spreadsheeting, etc are rarely bound by cpu on
> anything newer than 10 years old, so overall you might see something
> like a 1% difference. I have to agree with Marcel that it's not worth
> the money.

I'd have to disagree here - from all I've seen WOW is certainly CPU
bound (at least with >= 2Gb RAM and a graphics card not older than 3-4
years. Prior to that is bound there). And the more addons you run the
worse it gets.

>>>>>> 768MB NVIDIA® GeForce� 8800 GTX
>>>>>>
>>>>> I would take a 8800GT, eg the ASUS EN8800GT with 512MB.
>>>>> Better value for money.
>>>> Hmm, again, is it a big downgrade? Not being too knowledgeable with tech
>>>> stuff I like to just buy a pc that'll last as long as possible, as I don't
>>>> want to be messing around trying to upgrade parts; I can replace RAM fine
>>>> but anything more complex than that is asking for trouble with me, so if
>>>> the GTX is significantly better I'd rather take it, even if it's expensive
>>>> - the general look of it sounds like it's a fair bit better, but ofc I
>>>> don't know much!
>>>>
>>> Performance between the two of them is almost the same but the 8800GT
>>> is about half the price of a 8800GTX.
>> Hmm it is a pretty big price difference on the options, yeah - if
>> performance is that similar then I may go with the cheaper one. I just
>> figured 768MB sounded like it'd be significantly better than 512

I'm not too sure where the curve on GPUs goes along - but it might be an
idea to look for an 96/98xxx whatever instead of a 8800 GTX. The lower
one might give you the same performance but can be cheaper I think.

Urs

--
Mano - Orc Shaman 70 - Jewelcrafter & Leatherworker - Slayer of Illidan
Myno - Tauren Bear 70 - Skinning & Herbalism
Ratoma- Troll Rogue 28 - (Dis)Enchantress
Melony - Human Mage 16
and various others
 >> Stay informed about: WoW, BSODs and drivers.. 

In article <6805kgF2qtmi0U1.TakeThisOut@mid.individual.net>,
Urs Steiner <invalid.TakeThisOut@darkstone.ch> wrote:

> chocolatemalt wrote:
> > In article <67ull6F2q98gkU1.TakeThisOut@mid.individual.net>,
> > Catriona R <catrionarNOSPAM.TakeThisOut@totalise.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >>>>>> Intel® Core? 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz 6MB Cache 1333MHz FSB
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> I would go for a E8400 instead, better value for money.
> >>>> Hmm ok, my thought was to get the best reasonably affordable option
> >>>> offered, take it it won't make much performance difference then? It's
> >>>> not
> >>>> much cheaper, so I've nps paying for the better one.
> >>>>
> >>> Don't know about prices where you live but overhere the E8500 is about
> >>> 60 euro (40 pounds I guess) more expensive and the difference is only
> >>> 0.16 GHz.
> >> How big a difference does that 0.16 GHz make? I just assumed more would be
> >> a good thing!
> >
> > It's about 5% faster if whatever you're running is cpu-bound... not
> > something you're likely to notice even if that's the case. But WoW, web
> > browsing, emailing, spreadsheeting, etc are rarely bound by cpu on
> > anything newer than 10 years old, so overall you might see something
> > like a 1% difference. I have to agree with Marcel that it's not worth
> > the money.
>
> I'd have to disagree here - from all I've seen WOW is certainly CPU
> bound (at least with >= 2Gb RAM and a graphics card not older than 3-4
> years. Prior to that is bound there). And the more addons you run the
> worse it gets.

I might've overspoken about WoW in particular, which will take up all
the cycles on single-core processors from five years ago. But even
there I'm not sure all those cycles are legit "work" -- you can improve
one of those systems massively with a better video card and 2GB of RAM,
while the cpu shows itself as bound both before and after the change. I
suspect a large part of the cycles is input polling and some idle loops
that would show up as system idle if WoW didn't internalize it.

I've got an E6750 dual-core now that runs about 40% idle with WoW, which
has a load of addons including Recount and Titan Panel (cpu hogs).
 >> Stay informed about: WoW, BSODs and drivers.. 

On Thu, 01 May 2008 19:13:29 -0600, chocolatemalt
<myothername.DeleteThis@dim.com.removethis> wrote:

>In article <67ull6F2q98gkU1.DeleteThis@mid.individual.net>,
> Catriona R <catrionarNOSPAM.DeleteThis@totalise.co.uk> wrote:
>> How big a difference does that 0.16 GHz make? I just assumed more would be
>> a good thing!
>
>It's about 5% faster if whatever you're running is cpu-bound... not
>something you're likely to notice even if that's the case. But WoW, web
>browsing, emailing, spreadsheeting, etc are rarely bound by cpu on
>anything newer than 10 years old, so overall you might see something
>like a 1% difference. I have to agree with Marcel that it's not worth
>the money.

Hmm ok, I'll have a think about that one then, it's not so much price
difference that I'm all that bothered though, so I may take it anyway!

>On the other hand, you need another disk. The second disk configured as
>RAID 1 (simple mirroring) will protect you when (not if) one disk fails
>and you will avoid a complete re-install. It also speeds up some I/O
>since you have two "read" sources.

Well I have an external hard drive for backup, never seen a reason for
anything more than that? Seems an utter waste of money to have more than
one hard drive, when I can't even half fill the one I have.

>> Hmm it is a pretty big price difference on the options, yeah - if
>> performance is that similar then I may go with the cheaper one. I just
>> figured 768MB sounded like it'd be significantly better than 512
>
>As I recall, the GPU RAM limit comes into play mostly when running
>texture-rich games. Hit the limit and the performance takes a dive-bomb
>since the vidcard is now "thrashing" (in a sense) to mainboard RAM..
>Whether WoW ever bursts that 512MB limit is a good question.
>
>But in the next few years it's reasonable to expect new games to break
>all these limits, since no amount of graphic richness or screen
>resolutions is ever good enough... definitely not for me. A good
>strategy might be to get the cheaper card today and plan to replace it
>in two years with something even better than the 768MB model you're
>passing up now.

Might be, but I hate replacing stuff partway through a computer's life,
always leads to problems like I've been getting with this new monitor... so
if I can get something that lasts a while to begin with, I'd rather do it.
Although it could well be the 512MB is fine anyway, given I'm currently
using a 256 MB card.
--
EU-Draenor:
Balgair - Human Rogue (lvl 70)
Naomh - Draenei Priest (lvl 70)
Sagart - Undead Priest (lvl 70)
Rosad - Human Warlock (lvl 70)
Sealgair - Dwarf Hunter (lvl 70)
Eilnich - Blood Elf Warlock (lvl 70)
Beag - Dwarf Paladin (lvl 60)
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