Post your computer specs & upgrades here

[Juba]

The previous topic was so messy and had other conversation so I made a whole new topic.


I just finally upgraded my GPU because I wanted smoother gameplay with Action Quake 2. I also bought new mouse, headset and speakers (previous speakers cost 9 ? and the quality was what you could expect...). I finally had time to fix and assemble my desktop computer (which I'm using now). Speakers are still on the way to the nearest post office.

Here are my upgrades and costs:
GPU: Nvidia GeForce 7300 --> Palit (Nvidia) GeForce GTX 260 Sonic 216 SP (896 MB) -150 ?
Mouse: Logitech MX400 --> Logitech G5 rev. 2 -52 ?
Headset: some cheap, basic Logitech --> SteelSeries Siberia Full-Sized USB headset (with 7.1 USB soundcard) -60 ?
Speakers: Logitech S120 (2.0) --> Logitech Z-10 (2.0) -60 ? + 10 ? postage

And my current system is listed here:
Motherboard: P5Q-Pro
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00 GHz
RAM: 2x 2GB Kingston HyperX DDR2 1066 MHz
Hard drive: WD Caviar SE 250GB, 7200 RPM, 8 MB, SATA
Optical drive: Lite-On LH-20A1S, DVD-RW, 48x, SATA
Case: Antec Sonata III with Earthwatts 500W power supply
OS: Windows Xp Pro (SP3)

+ some black floppy disk drive.


How about you?

[harold]

Not bad except I'd take a quad core and XP pro x64 (otherwise you can only use 3GB ram)
XP x64 doesn't have an SP3 (yet?) which is how I know you're planning 32bit.. All those horror stories about XP x64 not working at all are from the past, very old printers etc may not work anymore (due to lack of driver support)

[Juba]

I'd take a quad core and XP pro x64 (otherwise you can only use 3GB ram)

My friend upgraded his RAM too few weeks ago go and we had a very long conversation of this well-known 3GB argument but I think we manage to got some things right.

Xp can over 3GB memory of the whole amount of 4GB (3GB for one process when /3GB switch is in use, otherwise max. 2GB/process). The real amount of free memory is shown on task manager, the rest is reserved by the kernel. So I got 346828 kB of physical memory for processes. (The following may not be true but there were some unclear references to this:) However, Xp can't use the whole ~3,4GB if GPU:s own memory is in use.

^ But there may be still be some wrong information because Xp took up the Physical Addres Extension ("Fyysinen osoitelaajennus" in Finnish) after I installed the memory modules.

Few quotes from my e-mails which I sent to my friend:

1) http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx
2) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223
? http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/WindowsGeneralWeb/RAMVirtualMemoryPageFileEtc.htm*

* "In the normal, default 32 bit Windows OS configuration, 2 GB of this virtual address space are allocated to the process? private use and the other 2 GB are allocated to shared and operating system use."

1) linkist?: "The virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 2 GB unless the /3GB switch is used in the Boot.ini file."
2) linkist?: "Here's a list of how much RAM the various Windows versions and editions support (as of Nov 2004):

Windows NT 4.0: 4 GB
Windows 2000 Professional: 4 GB
Windows 2000 Standard Server: 4 GB
Windows 2000 Advanced Server: 8GB
Windows 2000 Datacenter Server: 32GB
Windows XP Professional: 4 GB ***
Windows Server 2003 Web Edition: 2 GB
Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition: 4 GB
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition: 32 GB
Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition: 64 GB"

1) linkist? "The maximum amount of memory that can be supported on Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 is also 4 GB." ***

Well, this information is from Mircosoft itself, I don't know if you don't trust Ms or hate them but I think they know what are the limits of their products so I believe in this information.

Anyway, I bought 4GB (Though it might be that I've never even used over 1,5GB memory. ) because I know that I'll upgrade my computer/OS for sure in the future and the prices were almost identical so I took the best option.


I don't need Quad Core because I don't use any applications which can use 4 cores at the moment (I don't even know any programs except games which can take advantage of four cores.)

As I've said before, this GPU is way too powerful to me, I don't have any use for it which would force the GPU to use it's maxium power. I thought first that I can invest most of my GPU-budget to the cooler but then there was a nice sale offer of this GTX. I just invested 20? to my budget and I bought it instead of GeForce 9800 GT. I think it was a good decision, now I'll survive very long time with this beast.

Well, what comes to Xp x64, I don't have any good need for that. I wouldn't waste so much money for that OS. I'll use 32-bit Xp Pro until I upgrade to Windows 7, then this Xp will be the OS of my second PC which will be used for old games, backups, KaM etc. (I'll keep using Xp as long as I can, remeber? )

[harold]

I got XP x64 for "free", but hey up to you

Anyway, the ram.. I had XP 32bit before, it only saw 3.2GB ram. Nothing I did could convince it to see the rest, although the 3GB switch let programs use slightly more than 2GB ram
XP x64 solved all issues, all 4GB's are in use now

[Juba]

Well, of course I could get it free, the problem isn't that I wouldn't know how to do it.

I like to play older games and do that on kind stuff - x64 isn't maybe compatible with every program I use atm.

Btw: I really loved this new GPU when I tried Action Quake.
Now my sniperzooming with isn't lagging anymore and I can use bigger resolution and the maxium maxfps-value.

I'm working on a another computer project: I'm collecting all old pc:s from nearvy neighbourhood and try to assemble powerful gaming computers (powerful mean this time computers made at least before 2000). Those would use Windows 95/98 and with different DirectX-versions so I could actually run any program/game I ever can find if I have three different Windowses from the three newest computer generations (95/98, Xp and W7).

I heard that when you buy Windows 7 retail version you'll get the both x86 and x64 versions. Is this true? I haven' tfound it out yet as I've been very busy with everything...

[harold]

Well things that don't work on x64 have to be 16bit (or require a driver of which there is no 64bit version), which is nearly nothing, apart from the TSK installer I have only found 1 other program that I wanted to use but was only 16bit.
I don't know about W7 though, I got some x64 version of it for free from my university (not sure which exact version, not Ultimate though), most of it works fine except the video driver (which is nvidia's fault)

[Juba]

Two weeks ago I decided to "move on to the 21st century", and bought a new game, Modern Warfare 2 which my cousins recommended. Almost every games I play are quite old but this is quite new.
Anyway, the stock cooler of my GPU didn't like about this, temperatures raised up to 70 C (Celsius), so I decided to buy a new GPU cooler, Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme GTX Pro.

It works great, idle temperature is 36-37 C, and while playing the game with full graphics & max. resolution my display supports, 1680x1050, temperatures won't raise over 50 C. Definetly worth buying.