In article , "Đavīd"
wrote:
snip
Thanks again Paul for your valued response. Wow! I dunno where to
start. As for the cash, I do not need the latest and greatest cutting
edge technology as I'm not going to attempt to squeeze every bit of
performance out of it by overclocking. My main reason of asking for
advice from this newsgroup is to hopefully avoid problems that plague
some motherboards and/or new releases.Yes, I want to spend my hard
earned money wisely and get it right the first time. I was
considering a full flavor Pentium 2.8 or 3.0 800FSB processor for
reducing an expendure. Starting out with 512 RAM and doubling it at a
later date. Utilizing the onboard audio saving the expense of a sound
card.
Pretty much everything else is laying around the house for use or
reuse, case, power supply, hard drive, CD writer, monitor, speakers,
cables, keyboard and mouse, except for the PCIe video card. Ouch!
That is where I'll prolly spend more than I intended from the onset.
What I want is at least 256mb. At this point, everything about the
video card is undecided. Heck, I'm not certain if I should go with
ATI or nVIDA. Should I purchase a value priced video card now and
update later when the price comes down on the nicer video cards?
Also, I'm wondering if this strategy would be prudent towards the
evolving technology of the PCIe video cards.
I went to memtest.org and saw a lot of downloads. Not being certain
which download to select along with the apprehension of downloading
anything to see what it does, I will need a bit of advice before I
attempt this. I guess Prime95 and 3DMark are similar type test.
Again, thanks Paul for your advice.
Davīd
Greenville, NC
Asus has just about ever conceivable technology combination
covered in their product line. So, you can reuse as much or
as little of your existing gear, as you want.
The situation with regard to the marketing of video cards,
is about as poor as it can get. High end products exist in
both camps, that are hard to find, and prices in some cases
are $200 above MSRP. We call that gouging, where I come
from.
If the yield of chips is that poor, then these products are
not ready for market. Period.
The cards are not even carefully labelled in every case, as
to whether they are PCI Express or AGP. You could consult
one of the larger web sites, like newegg.com, and see what
versions of cards are actually available, but for the high
end cards, some of them are only available in ones and twos
from the smaller retailers. This is a horrible environment
to be shopping in, because it is easy to get taken for your
hard earned cash, if you don't spend the time determining
what the best price is.
Will the situation improve ? I think the thing is, video
card design is in every bit as much trouble as processor
design. Will there be higher performance video cards ?
Could be, but how hot will they be. Where video cards
go next, depends on whether 90nm or 65nm chips are going
to allow even faster cards to be constructed.
SLI is a bandaid solution, and with a computer dissipating
300 watts while gaming, is not very practical. Not all games
are accelerated by SLI, which means a single card is still
the most compatible gaming solution.
What would I do in such an environment ? Punt.
Wait a bit, until video card availability improves, to get
a better price. I'd be damned, if I'd waste money on a
cheap video card now, and an expensive one later. That
would be getting gouged twice (as the price on all video
cards is higher than the tech curve). I'd do the upgrade
a bit later this year.
What you can conclude from that, is my personal opinion is
that an AGP video card slot is still the choice _at this
instant_ in time. At the rate that computer design is changing,
it is really not that practical to invest in future
upgradability, so find the solution that solves your
problems now. A P5P800 with AGP slot would allow you to make
one (expensive) AGP video card purchase now, and use it for
a couple years.
Where are we with technology ?
S478 - dead and gone. Buy a 3.4GHz if you don't plan on
upgrading.
S775 - where Intel wants you. Up to 3.8GHz available.
Not dual core ready. So S775 is a dead end. The
writing is on the wall.
S462 - AMD will discontinue this soon.
S754 - AMD will discontinue this maybe this year
S939 - where AMD wants you. Up to 4000+ P.R. rating.
Is the socket dual core ready ? Dunno.
S940 - Oh so dead.
DDR - where the customers want to be. Best price.
DDR2 - where Intel wants you.
FB - fully buffered DIMM standard. the next generation.
Introduction date unknown. The cynic in me says
this could displace DDR2, but who is to say. FB
is like registered RAM, and uses a buffer chip.
AGP - dead and gone. Where the customers want to be, as
you could get a better price.
PCIE - where the industry wants you. Nvidia uses bridge chip,
to convert AGP to PCIE. Which means the bandwidth
of PCIE is not necessary. ATI does theirs with a native
interface, and the only saving is in product cost and
a bit of heat. The power envelope will limit future
performance. Video cards are all about the width of
memory chips on the video card, and number of pipes.
The bus interface is immaterial. Chip supply constrained.
Why ? Either yield, or evil gouging.
BTX - Pointless case design. Irrational motherboard layout.
Where Dell wants to be.
All I can suggest, is buy for today, pick the solution with
the best price, and let tomorrow sort itself. The very reason
these technologies are being introduced, is to prevent you
from having an upgrade path. As a customer, all we can do,
is retaliate by upgrading less often, using the most cost
effective components on the date of purchase.
Memtest86 (memtest.org):
This is a program that formats a blank floppy disk for you.
The disk will end up with a self booting program on it, that
tests all of memory. For computers without floppy drives,
there is also a version suitable for burning an ISO CD. Set
boot order to floppy/CD first, and let the computer boot
with the disk. You can run this test, before even connecting
a hard drive to the motherboard.
Prime95 (mersenne.org):
This program is intended to find prime numbers. As a side
benefit, it also has a test of processing integrity. In other
words, it can detect when the CPU isn't 100%, and it heats up
the processor by running at full speed. Also seems to be
effective at finding speed faults in memory (faults that
memtest86 might have missed). Prime95 runs under an OS, so
you run it after installing an OS on the hard drive.
3DMark (futuremark.com):
Once the processor and memory are known good, you can run this
benchmark. Compare your benchmark, to other comparable
benchmarks, as a test that the drivers and software are
set up properly. On an AGP machine, get a copy of Powerstrip
from Entechtaiwan.com , as a simple way to get a listing of
what capabilities are enabled on your card. (The versions of
3DMark I use, like 3DMark2001SE, have a demo mode, which can
be left running overnight. If the video is stable, it should
be running the next morning. Otherwise, you'll find the computer
crashed or hung.)
************ Bus standards ************
Southbridge ----+----+----+----+----+----+ PCI bus
| | | | | |
Southbridge PCI Express
| | | |
1 2 3 4
The PCI bus is a multidrop parallel bus. The bus is unterminated
and signals ring and bounce off the ends of the bus. A bus
standard tamed by determined engineering and 1000's of hours
of simulation. Typically offers more slots than PCI Express.
PCI Express is private and point to point. One card cannot
interfere with another (except if there isn't enough bandwidth
between North and Southbridge).
Northbridge ----+----+----+ Memory channel(s)
| | | using either DDR/ DDR2
Northbridge FB memory
| | | |
FB memory will be a similar improvement like PCI Express.
Point to point interface, preventing interference between
memory slots. DDR and DDR2 modules can interfere with one
another (which is why there are speed versus number of
memory slot rules, and why overclockers use one module
per memory channel).
Whether bandwidth/latency/cacheing issues can be solved for
FB remains to be seen. Also unclear, with AMD and Intel
taking different architectural paths, is when it will roll
out. An FB DIMM could use DDR or DDR2 chips, as the memory
chips go through a buffer chip. It is like registered memory,
on steroids. And conveniently, makes more of the memory you
own, obsolete.
HTH,
Paul
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