Just bought a new "monster" £270 :)

[RedEye]

my friend recommended this to me.......what do you all think?

Intel Pentium Dual Core 6Ghz Power PC
With ATI Radeon HD2400 PRO 1GB Hypermemory
DIRECT X10.0 & PIXEL SHADER 4.0
X-Blade Case & 450W PSU With Clear Side Panel

INTEL Pentium D 6.0Ghz With Dual L2 Cache

* 3.0Ghz x 2 (2 Cores Running At 3.0Ghz) = 6.0Ghz
* 64Bit CPU Backwards Compatable With 32Bit
* Dual L2 Cache - See Intel Website For More Info
* Intel® Dual Core
* Intel® Enhanced Intel Speedstep Technology
* Intel® Execute Disable Bit
* Intel® Advanced Smart Cache
* Intel® EM64T

ASRock CONROE-1333-D667R2 Motherboard
- FSB 1333/1066/800/533
- Dual Channel DDR667/533
- Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000
- High-Definition Premium 7.1 Sound
CPU - LGA 775 for Intel® Dual Core Core™ 2 Extreme
Core™ 2 Duo / Pentium® D / Pentium® Dual Core
- Compatible with all FSB1333*/1066/800/533MHz CPUs
- Supports Hyper-Threading Technology
- Supports Untied Overclocking Technology
- Supports EM64T CPU
*FSB1333-CPU will operate in overclocking mode.
Under this situation, PCIE freq will also be overclocked to 115MHz.

Chipset - Northbridge: Intel® 945GC A2
- Southbridge: Intel® ICH7
Memory - Dual Channel DDRII memory technology
- 2 x DDRII DIMM slots
- Supports DDRII667/533
- Max. capacity: 4GB*
*Due to the chipset limitation, the actual memory size may be less than
4GB for the reservation for system usage under Windows® XP,
Windows® XP 64, Windows® Vista™ and Windows® Vista™ 64.

BIOS - 4Mb AMI BIOS / AMI Legal BIOS
- Supports "Plug and Play"
- ACPI 1.1 Compliance Wake Up Events
- Supports jumperfree / SMBIOS 2.3.1 Support
Audio, Video and Networking
Graphics - Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950
- Pixel Shader 2.0, DirectX 9.0
- Max. shared memory 224MB
Audio - 7.1 CH Windows® Vista™ Premium Level HD Audio
LAN - PCIE x1 Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
- Realtek RTL8111B / Supports Wake-On-LAN
Expansion / Connectivity
Slots - 1 x PCI Express x16 slot & 1 x PCI Express x1 slot
- 2 x PCI slots & 1 x HDMR slot
Connector - 4 x SATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors
- 1 x ATA100 IDE connector (supports 2 x IDE devices)
- 1 x Floppy connector & 1 x IR header
- 1x COM port header & CPU/Chassis FAN connector
- 20 pin ATX power connector & 4 pin 12V power connector
- Front panel audio connector & 2 x USB 2.0 headers
Rear Panel I/O HD 8CH I/O
- 1 x PS/2 Mouse Port & 1 x PS/2 Keyboard Port
- 1 x VGA Port
- 1 x Parallel Port (ECP/EPP Support)
- 4 x Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports
- 1 x RJ-45 Port
- HD Audio Jack: Side Speaker / Rear Speaker / Central / Bass
Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone
Other Features / Miscellaneous
Hybrid Booster - CPU Frequency Stepless Control
- ASRock U-COP & Boot Failure Guard (B.F.G.)


250GB Serial ATA 2.0 With 8MB Cache
Connectivity SATA2.0
Transfer Rate 3Gb/S
Rotational Speed 7,200 RPM
Cache Size 8MB Cache
Major Brands Used - Maxtor/Hitachi/Western Digital Etc

2048MB DDR2 667Mhz PC5300 RAM Memory

Memory Configeration DDR2 200Pin Dimm
Memory Chip Stack 64*8
Transfer Bus 667Mhz
Rating PC5300
More Info Unbuffered, Non-Ecc, 64*8

WRITE SPEEDS
DVD+R @ 20 Speed
DVD-R @ 20 Speed
CD-R @ 48 Speed
CD-RW @ 40 Speed

READ SPEEDS
CD READ @ 48 Speed
DVD READ @ 16 Speed
ATI Radeon HD 2400PRO 1GB
Direct X10 & Pixel Shader 4.0
16XPCI-Express
(With Hypermemory Technolgy)

Chipset ATI Radeon HD 2400PRO

Interface PCI Express x16

Video HyperMemory Supporting Upto 1GB
Hypermemory Supports Upto 1GB, depending on the
OS that is being used. Check DXDIAG for actual size
Memory Type DDR2

Engine Clock 600MHz

Memory Clock 800MHz (400MHz DDR2)

Memory Interface 128-bit

RAMDACs 400MHz

Max. Resolution 2560x1600

Connectors VGA
S-Video (HDTV)
DVI-I

DirectX Support 10.0
Pixel Shader Model 4.0
OpenGL Support 2.0

Compatible OS Windows 98SE
Windows ME
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows Vista
32Bit & 64BBit Supported

Special Features Built for Microsoft Windows Vista
Full Microsoft DirectX 10
Shader Model 4.0 support
ATI HyperMemory Technology
Dual -link DVI output supports
2560x1600 resolution display
Unified Video Decoder (UVD) for
Blu-ray and HD DVD

Package Contents Quick Installation Guide
7 Pin S-Video to HDTV Lead
DVI-I to VGA Converter
Driver CD

Hypermemory Supports Upto 1GB, depending on the
OS that is being used & the amout of system memory
in the PC.

* Direct X10.0
* Pixel Shader Model 4.0
* Dual Monitor Support

• 180 million transistors on 65nm fabrication process
• 64-bit DDR2/GDDR3 memory interface
• Unified Superscalar Shader Architecture
• 40 stream processing units
 Dynamic load balancing for vertex, geometry, & pixel shaders
 Common instruction set supported for all types of shaders
 Dedicated branch execution units & texture address processors
• 128-bit floating point precision for all operations
• Command processor for reduced CPU overhead
• Shader instruction and constant caches
• Up to 16 texture fetches per clock cycle
• Up to 128 textures per pixel
• Fully associative vertex/texture cache design
• DXTC and 3Dc+ texture compression
• High resolution texture support (up to 8192 x 8192)
• Fully associative texture & Z/stencil cache designs
• Early Z test, Re-Z, Z Range optimization, and Fast Z Clear
• Lossless Z & stencil compression
• 8 render targets (MRTs) with anti-aliasing support
• Physics processing support
Full support for Microsoft® DirectX® 10
• Shader Model 4.0
• Geometry Shaders
• Stream Output
• Integer and Bitwise Operations
• Alpha to Coverage
• Constant Buffers
• State Objects
• Texture Arrays
Dynamic Geometry Acceleration
• Programmable tessellation unit
• Accelerated geometry shader path for geometry amplification
• Memory read/write cache for improved stream output performance
Anti-aliasing features
• Multi-sample anti-aliasing (up to 4 samples per pixel)
• Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing (CFAA) for improved quality
• Adaptive super-sampling and multi-sampling
• Temporal anti-aliasing
• Gamma correct
• Super AA (CrossFire configurations only)
• All anti-aliasing features compatible with HDR rendering
Texture filtering features
• 2x/4x/8x/16x high quality adaptive anisotropic modes (128 taps per pixel)
• 128-bit floating point HDR texture filtering
• Bicubic filtering
• sRGB filtering (gamma/degamma)
• Percentage Closer Filtering (PCF)
• Depth & stencil texture (DST) format support
• Shared exponent HDR (RGBE 9:9:9:5) texture format support
CrossFire™ Multi-GPU Technology
• Scale up rendering performance and image quality with 2 or more GPUs
• Integrated compositing engine
• High performance dual channel interconnect
ATI Avivo™ HD Video and Display Platform
• Dedicated unified video decoder (UVD) for H.264/AVC & VC-1 formats
 High definition (HD) playback of both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats
• Hardware MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4/DivX video decode acceleration
 Motion compensation and iDCT (inverse discrete cosine transform)
• Avivo Video Post Processor
 Color space conversion
 Chroma subsampling format conversion
 Horizontal and vertical scaling
 Gamma correction
• High Quality Video Post Processing
 Advanced vector adaptive per-pixel de-interlacing
 De-blocking and noise reduction filtering \
 Detail enhancement
 Inverse telecine (2:2 and 3:2 pull-down correction)
 Bad edit correction
• Two independent display controllers
 Drive two displays simultaneously with independent resolutions, refresh
rates, color controls and video overlays for each display
 Full 30-bit display processing
 Programmable piecewise linear gamma correction, color correction,
and color space conversion
 Spatial/temporal dithering provides 30-bit color quality on 24-bit/18-bit
 High quality pre/post-scaling engines, with underscan for all displays
 Content-adaptive de-flicker filtering for interlaced displays
 Fast, glitch-free mode switching
 Hardware cursor
• Two integrated DVI display outputs
 Primary supports 18-, 24-, and 30-bit digital displays at all resolutions
up to 1920x1200 (single-link DVI) or 2560x1600 (dual-link DVI)1
 Secondary supports 18-, 24-, and 30-bit digital displays at all resolutions
up to 1920x1200 (single-link DVI only)1
 Each includes a dual-link HDCP encoder with on-chip key storage for
high resolution playback of protected content2
• Two integrated 400 MHz 30-bit RAMDACs
 Each supports analog displays connected by VGA at all resolutions
up to 2048x15361
• HDMI output support
 Supports all display resolutions up to 1920x10801
 Integrated HD audio controller with multi-channel (5.1) AC3 support,
enabling a plug-and-play cable-less audio solution
• Integrated AMD Xilleon™ HDTV encoder
 Provides high quality analog TV output (component/S-video/composite)
 Supports SDTV and HDTV resolutions
 Underscan and overscan compensation
• MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, & H.264/AVC
encoding & transcoding
• Seamless integration of pixel shaders with video in real time
• VGA mode support on all display outputs
PCI Express x16 bus interface
OpenGL 2.0 support
6 x USB2.0 Ports

USB is now the standard for connecting peripherals,
the transfer rate is much faster than the older
standard. Also this PC has USB2.0.

* 4 Rear USB2.0
* 2 Front USB2.0
2 x PS/2 Ports

* 1 x PS/2 Keyboard
* 1 x PS/2 Mouse
Gigabit LAN Port 10/100/1000

* RJ/45 Port For LAN
8 Channel HD Sound

High-definition audio that is capable of playing back
more channels at higher quality then previous
intergrated audio codecs like AC97. This takes HD
sound to the next level and the next best thing to
having a dedicated card, and this is 7.1 output
* 8 Channel HD Audio

[RedEye]

just want to know what alll you knowledgeabe people think.....im relatively new to this game....so any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.........(moderators)cough cough:p

also advice on what to upgrade........im planning to run Windows XP as i heard vista wont run most older games...:( there goes my directx10 :(

[George Hallam]

ok to tell the truth it would not be able to run a 2 year old game on high :(

INTEL Pentium D 6.0Ghz With Dual L2 Cache

Pentium :eek:

Chipset ATI Radeon HD 2400PRO

no no no no :p

you have 2Gb of RAM which is on the up side

So what are looking to use the PC for?
How much do you have to spend?
How much does your mate know about PC's :p

[RedEye]

:o wont be able to run a 2 year old game on high.......why? :(
i thought the RAM was the important part.....i mostly will use it to type up my course work and surf the net....although i will occasionally dabble in a couple of games when ive got free time.....but i would have wanted them to be high end.......

whats wrong with pentium?
whats wrong with ATI Radeon......

hmmm seems my engineer friend isnt that into the games scene then........sigh....if i could get any advice on OC and the like....to improve the gameplay that would be great.................

my friend is an IT engineer of 4 years experience......i trusted his judgement and bought it.......

sigh...........looks like i bought a box of stale chocolates again :(

i spent £270 english pounds.......

damn.......so what do i need to buy to get it up to a decent standard?

thanks for your comments.....and honesty....:(

[George Hallam]

Soz to disappoint you mate...

RAM is important but graphics card is the most important at the moment and Pentium is ok but Core 2 Duo are the newer better, faster and cooler ones...

my friend is an IT engineer of 4 years experience......i trusted his judgement and bought it.......

It would be fine for surfing and coursework but not gaming

to get it to a gaming grade you just need a new graphics card a 8800Gt would be your best bet

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-038-EA&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1008

[RedEye]

sigh.......that is £149 for the graphics card........hmmm maybe i will have to wait a bit longer.....im travelling to USA christmas and im all maxed out at the moment......i will look into buying that in the new year......

thanks for your reply.... :)

would it be able to at least run halo2 at the best settings?

i havent actually got it yet......the computer is coming in about 3 days time.......

just thought.....if im travelling to the USA could i get it cheaper over there than i would over here? or could i import it form china or something......

[George Hallam]

may get it a little cheaper in the US....

hmmmm im not sure about playing Halo 2 on full maybe medium/low at 1280 x 1024 with 0 x AA and 8 x AF

[RedEye]

sigh.....cant even play halo 2 on full :( what have i bought :(

so if i get this graphics card......i can play halo 2 on full......what about crysis?

i noticed you have e6400 @ 2.8ghz......mine is 6.0ghz.....

why is yours better ?

sorry for being a novice :(

[George Hallam]

Crysis is the biggest bestest game ever :D

no system can play it on full :(

but that graphics card will be able be able to play HALO 2 to the max with like 60FPS and crysis (if you dont have an extreme screen) on high with 0 x AA and 16 x AF and still get 25FPS

heres some charts

http://media.tomshardware.com/2007/10/29/geforce_8800_gt/benchj.png

http://www.hothardware.com/articleimages/Item1045/crysis2.png

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/7942/image0071fedd4fid6.png

about my CPU hard to explain... yours runs at 3.0Ghz but you have to cores so PC manufacturers just say 6.0Ghz to make it sound good.. Mine has a complete different architecture.. More charts to show the red ones are mine and yours..

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/7760/898876434e417d0bfp4.png

[RedEye]

thanks for the info......looks like i will be getting the 8800Gt....thanks.....

also i will hav eto upgrade to a core 2 duo in the future.......thanks for the assist......i will let you know how it goes once i get it all sorted in the new year.....in the meantime.....i will stick to games like KOTR sith lords....ahahaha

please tell me it will play at least this in the best mode? please :(

[George Hallam]

never played it but by the looks of it should be a breeze for you card :D

[RedEye]

haha phew......at least i can play my old stuff in style :D

so the box of chocolates aint stale......just a bit out out date and okay to eat :D

[Ajmukon]

the only thing you should check is to see if your motherboard supports Core 2- if it doesn't...

and the Pentium D is best Pentium- it is at least Dual Core- and is essentially two P4 stuck together with duck tape- but it will work for games effectively

the only thing you should change is the GPU or graphics cards- upgrade that to the 8800GT and you will notice a huge difference in speed and quality of games.

[saphalline]

OUCH!!! :eek: That's quite the mistake your friend made! :eek: A very sticky situation...

You say the system hasn't arrived yet? Is there any chance of returning it? Technically speaking, that's not a bad system for the price. It's just a bad system for your needs. :p

My advice is to return it for a full refund if possible. Upgrades alone won't cut it. The main underlying technologies in that thing (such as the chipset) are about 24 months old! :eek: That's an eternity in the world of PC gaming! Upgrading a "new" system upon arrival when you're already fighting an uphill battle of obsolescence is not a good way to spend your money. So the system cost you £270, now you're looking at a £149 vid card upgrade, the chipset is already 2 years old, and it won't even arrive for another 3 days!? I'm sorry, but that's unacceptable!! I wouldn't stand for that if I were you, especially considering the upgrade path, which is almost entirely used up as of this moment (no 1333 FSB unless you want to OC?? forget about the upcoming 1600 FSB, huh?). It's just not a good way to go...

i noticed you have e6400 @ 2.8ghz......mine is 6.0ghz.....No it isn't. The Pentium D 830 is a 3 GHz CPU. It is indeed a dual-core CPU, but that does not magically make it twice as fast! No matter how twisted the marketing is and how much they try to fool you, a 3 GHz dual-core CPU is not the same as a 6 GHz single-core CPU. That's like saying two 4-door cars in your garage is the same as having one limousine! :eek: That just doesn't make sense!

And by the way, I also suggest returning the system on principle because advertising a 3 GHz dual-core CPU as a 6 GHz CPU could probably be proven to be illegal advertising! That is NOT the way Intel advertised the Pentium D's, and it's certainly not the way current dual-core and quad-core CPU's from both Intel and AMD are being advertised! This vendor or seller or whatever sounds disreputable; and if they put up a fight about refunding your money, start getting your local authorities involved! Threaten them with a misleading advertising lawsuit! That's just atrocious selling behavior!! :mad:

[RedEye]

thanks Ajmukon, looks like i will have to purchase the 8800 gt then......not sure if it supports core 2....:( knowing my luck it wont.....so then i suppose i would have to replace the whole MOBO then :o.....dam.....this computer lark is expensive :(

[RedEye]

thanks....Saphalline......yes it is a very expensive mistake.....im not made of money :( yeh he said thats why he recommended it.....quite cheap and okay for the occasional game......to be honest though im not a 100% gamer that i used to be..so the top of the range CPU and the like are not really on my agenda........as long as i can enjoy a decent outing on a PC without feeling like im playing my old NES i will be moderatley satisfied.....but...i will eventually upgrade to the 8800 gt graphics card.....

yeh i see your point with the CPU.......sigh......yeh it seems i have been duped into thinking i had a powerful computer.....when really it is.....only 2 years later :(.......
yeh i will think about returning it though.....as you said.....they did advertise it as 6 Ghz.....which is a big lie.......i got suckered.........and my engineer pal.......the RAM is probably the only thing thats decent.....they have already took the cash form my account........so i will have to return it when it arrives.......that means a return fee....and an administration fee.....and a fee fee.........:( anyway.......heres to another box of chocolates.........this one is stale.......and full price :(

[saphalline]

to be honest though im not a 100% gamer that i used to be..so the top of the range CPU and the like are not really on my agenda...That's not really the point when it comes to computer technologies. It's not that you don't need the latest & greatest, it's the fact that the system you listed is already old!! Buying the low-end cheap hardware is fine, but get the newest low-end cheap hardware! There's no point in buying the low-end cheap hardware from 2 years ago! That's just silly! There are plenty of low-end cheap components being made every day that will work just as well (if not better) and have an infinitely better upgrade path!

That Pentium D 830/930 is a dual-core CPU for cheap, but so is a new Pentium Dual Core E2140! And that i945 chipset is a great mid-range offering, but so is the new iP965 chipset! Just because you're not made of money is no reason to settle for 2-year-old sh*t! If you're going to be stuck with sh*t anyway because of your budget, it might as well be new!

[RedEye]

yeh your right....i researched the E2140 and it only cost £45 also the chipset is cheap too....sigh :(....point taken...i bow my head to you.......:) thanks....i will return it and start a fresh with my budget......dam, i should have came on here first :( thanks for the feedback.....

[RedEye]

a little bit of advice for people thinking of buying a good deal or an advertised PC "monster" come on here first and ask......below is the link for the PC that i bought...take a look and be warned.......

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110195935289&ssPageName=ADME:B:EOIBSA:UK:11

[rond36]

thanks Ajmukon, looks like i will have to purchase the 8800 gt then......not sure if it supports core 2....:( knowing my luck it wont.....so then i suppose i would have to replace the whole MOBO then :o.....dam.....this computer lark is expensive :(

Although it is not the best motherboard for a Core 2 processor the ASRock CONROE-1333-D667R2 Motherboard does support them.

- FSB 1333/1066/800/533
- Dual Channel DDR667/533
CPU - LGA 775 for Intel® Dual Core Core™ 2 Extreme
Core™ 2 Duo / Pentium® D / Pentium® Dual Core
- Compatible with all FSB1333*/1066/800/533MHz CPUs
- Supports Hyper-Threading Technology
- Supports Untied Overclocking Technology
- Supports EM64T CPU
* non-native support

[RedEye]

thanks rond36.....it was right under my nose...haha.....yeh your right its not the best motherboard.....apparently its not the best anything :( ive been duped.....the only decent thing on there is the RAM...and i bet thats out of date too......sigh.....live and learn huh?

[rond36]

Look at the bright side it was only £279 ($555.23 USD)

A real "monster" would cost between £1000 and £1500 ($2000 and $3000)

[RedEye]

yeh your right.....and the worst part is it didnt even have a monitor or any other peripherals with it :o....oh well.....im going to USA for christmas......maybe i can pick up some decent parts :)

speaking of monster.......yours seems quite powerful.....how much did yours cost all together?

[rond36]

Originally the one in my sig cost about $3000 (£1500) but it has had some upgrades after it was built.

INTEL Pentium D 6.0Ghz With Dual L2 Cache

* 3.0Ghz x 2 (2 Cores Running At 3.0Ghz) = 6.0Ghz

If that was true I have 2 PCs @ 12GHz

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850

3.0Ghz x 4 (4 Cores Running At 3.0Ghz) = 12.0Ghz

and 1 @ 24GHz!

Duel - Core 2 Xeon X5365

3.0Ghz x 2 x 4 (8 Cores Running At 3.0Ghz) = 24.0Ghz

[RedEye]

Originally the one in my sig cost about $3000 (£1500) but it has had some upgrades after it was built.



If that was true I have 2 PCs @ 12GHz

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850

3.0Ghz x 4 (4 Cores Running At 3.0Ghz) = 12.0Ghz

and 1 @ 24GHz!

Duel - Core 2 Xeon X5365

3.0Ghz x 2 x 4 (8 Cores Running At 3.0Ghz) = 24.0Ghz


haha funny :D

thats how they advertised it...........very dodgy huh?

wow £1500....thats a lot of money.....:o

3Ghz cores..how do they work together ....if its not 6Ghz then....is one just sitting there doing nothing?

im new to this malarky...so forgive the dumb questions.....:D

also i will save my money.......when i get to America i will start to shop for my first custom build......maybe a bit premature......as im a newbie......but hey we all have to start somewhere huh....and besides, it will be a cheap as possible build anyway......although decent enough to sell on at a profit to my brother haha :)

[mjc]

They way multi-cores/processors work is that they 'split' the load...some tasks are done on Processor 0 and others on Processor 1 (or 2, 3, 4, etc).

They operating system is what really does the splitting, but the basic idea is the load is shared across the processors...

So, you have a system, that is basically two (or more) of whatever processor working together, but not doubling the speed...just the 'processing power'.

[jlreich]

Yeah, Saphalline's analogy earlier was quite good.

Having two 4-door cars in the garage doesn't make it a limousine, or an 8-door car. But if you have a lot of people you can drive both at the same time. Or have 6 in one car and two in the other. Or if only a few people you can leave the second car at home if you like.

Or to take this is further, you can assign persons 2,3,4 to always ride in car two, persons 7,1,5,6 to always ride in car one....

:p :D