Actually, combining the tessellation engine with their procedurally-drawn texture generation process sets this architecture up to be a whole lot stronger. Still, the gains today can be matched by NVIDIA in the future and prolly won't count for much unless the price drops and/ or performance goes up...

I mean, who else makes server hardware that overclocks? Well, other manufacturers actually do. Although it's more of workstation hardware, and supposed to be not for overclocking. Consider passing on the R600. Reviews have not been kind, except the ones only using artificial benchmarks. And using n...

For me the key thing is stability. I am not big into gaming and I will never overclock.

What demanding tasks do you have? That might determine whether you need ECC ram or not.

If nothing serious, take value ram. If you're doing CAE, on the other hand... ECC all the way.

Maybe. To be honest, I don't trust Intel; they're flowing like water, changing priorities, marketing and just whatever. May have decided to sell off their reputation in mobos on the desktop market. Their server boards are fine, though, not as good as Tyan or Supermicro, but better than Asus and othe...

Since you are going with a QX6700 and ATI, not Nvidia I’d suggest an Intel reference board such as the D975XBX2. Comes passively cooled and can Crossfire it, when you feel the urge to upgrade to a 2nd card. In any case, if your going to spend retail for a QX6700, make sure you don’t cheap out o...

starbuck wrote:Am currently speccing a major upgrade at the moment.

Thought about getting a raptor(prob 2 36gb raptors in raid).

What do you need them for?

Fancier ram usually has a lifetime warranty whereas cheaper ram does not. With no overclocking, pc2-4200 ddr 533 is all you need for your core 2 duo. They give warranty on RAM because it very rarely breaks, unless you overvolt it (in which case warranty might be void, due to overheat signs). 533 is...

Unfortunately I can't find it in Sweden. I'll probably pick a cheap Seasonic. Seasonic is an excellent choice, better in many regards, so why not - just costlier, but fine. You're right. However, the extra €30 spent on dual core is probably a good investment in the long run. Not sure... But, well...

Any reccomendations for a Good ATI Crossfire motherboard? One with a lot of space between the 2 PCI-E slots, so I can add coolers + fans. I personally don't like Gigabyte, as they are unreliable (break often) and full of not thought-out solutions. Asus or Abit do better, so seek for them. Well, act...

FSP Green is the way to go for a high-quality inexpensive PSU. The review is here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article280-page1.html That PSU is from the GLN series, which use high-efficiency components, loaded at less than half their max power, even at full load. As a result, the efficiency is ju...

I also want it to be quiet because I plan to keep it on 24/7 and it will be sitting in my dorm room.

If it's just to dl pr0n, you can cut on OC and do it only for games.

PC Power and Cooling silencer 610W PSU
ASUS P5N32-E motherboard.

Seasonic or Corsair 520 is better. Is the mobo passive?

The second one, but I think both aren't remotely worth the price. Don't expect them to overclock better than others, because if they could, they'd be sold as 1000+MHz ones. You can just set it as lower-type and overclock all the same with way cheaper modules. Well, you'll lose maybe 1-2% of PC perfo...

3. The 'sound card' is a diy USB DAC -- a DDDac 1543 Mk2. (www.dddac.de). Powered by a DIY Mosfet-based 12v regulated PSU. 4. DIY Buffered active crossover -> DIY Class A-A/B monoblocks (volume controlled in software) -> DIY speakers (Scanspeak drivers). That quite deserves to use lossless. to say ...

Without a case, wouldn't you have to worry about RF? That really might be a minor, but an issue. Though I guess it won't have much effect (after all, internal radio and TV tuners work fine, and even sound cards are OK), but still might be a reason against going caseless. Jeez...the way you guys nig...

1GB PC6400 Elixir - £32 Take 2GB. Extra L32 won't make a lot of difference. Any opinion on the ram, I've found cheap Elixir 6400 or Geil (4.4.4.12) 5300 for the same price? You can take 5300, but 6400 will be a bit faster, even with higher latencies. Elixir isn't top brand, but not infamous either...

-) Very good audio card! Well, if you've got a stereo system and use analog output, then E-MU 1212M or ESI Julia are the best options today. The first is a professional board with very high quality, the latter semi-professional, more optimized for home use, up to having RCA in addition to 1/4" jack...

The thought of re-ripping my collection doesn't exactly thrill me, but my question is, about how many tracks did you get on your 500 gig drive using FLAC? Well, a typical CD takes 250-350MB, up to 400 for metal, so 500GB can fit over 1000 discs, more likely around 1500. So you'll probably get tired...

No. They actually can do bad, since the thermal resistance of the interface (glue) offsets the temperature, often rising the actual chip temp. They should only be used when memory chips are very hot. Or when designing a heatsink which would block the normal convection.

As the title said, I just put together a new PC for audio playback in the living room. What sound card are you using, and what's the rest of the audio system? but I did some blind tests and read about some of those online and basically nobody can tell the difference between a good mp3 and the origi...

Is there difference between air running left to right or right to left? In theory, a little, but practically it's important that it runs. Though I find the whole negative pressure difference only case a bit undesirable idea. First, heat actually makes air expand (and not negligibly), which helps to ...

Yep. Well it'll equal G80, but it'll not be the clean kill that some folks have been winding themselves up into a lather about and insisting is necessary given that it's six months behind G80 getting to market, has a stupidly wide memory bus, and so on. I think we should wait for the tests. Maybe y...

Mounting an external fan on the Zen, defeats the whole fanless PSU thing. I don't think so... When you mount an external fan, you can choose any you like. You can take a 120mm 800rpm fan and set it on 5V to spin at very low speed, completely noiseless unless you really try to hear it, yet creating ...

found a review, not sure how credible the site is I think they made some mistake in using the heatsink. It takes a mistake to get such high temperatures with it. Maybe too much thermal grease, or lack of grease, or a grain of sand, or some wrong placement. Whatever, with a fan even much smaller hea...

With respect to upgrading the video card, I am considering the x1950Pro AGP, but I may also consider the older x850XT if only because it comes with the analog/D-sub output (I don't know if using a DVI-to-VGA converter is a good idea for image quality) and also because I can get an original ATI mode...

First, the review of Scythe: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article251-page1.html For TT 103, try searching. In general, Scythe Ninja is very good in all aspects. TT not in all, although also cools well. Scythe's wide spacing is good for fully passive cooling, and it imposes little load on the mother...

Most people seem to forget the energy conservation law - that power consumed in a PC (most of it for AC) goes into heat and not somewhere. It's OK not to know that DDR2 consumes less than DDR, and that it takes overvoltage and overclock to get just 5W out of a module, but I guess all overclocking en...

I've had a look through eBuyer and these are the modules I'm considering - they are all Corsair, but only because they are the cheapest brand name on eBuyer. Check less cool brands like Samsung - it's where many best chips come from. Actually there are a few less known, but good brands. Generic chi...

Remember that gfx card producers take into account several things: that the user's PSU might not be hi-end and will actually be lo-end, that the user has a powerful & OC'ed CPU and a huge RAID etc. Not just that. Really, how many people have decent brand PSU? A small minority. Most take whatever go...

Mostly out of academic interest.

Efficiency... Well, a decent transformer-rectifier-capacitor block can reach efficiency of 95%. Stabilizer has to offset it, but devices with linear PSU use fans only when pumping really high loads. So it shouldn't be bad, or at least worse than usually.

I don't think I'll do it even if it's going to work, but I'm still wondering. What about using a linear PSU for the computer, like ones used in amplifiers, and basically all analog equipment? Transformer, rectifier bridge, filtering capacitors, stabilizer circuit - seems feasible enough. Enough qual...