Compare your PC

[ocellis]

This thing doesn't even work work with Internet Explorer 5. Deal's off then.

[Thoran]

My second best system (Athlon64-3000, 1.5Gig ram, Geforce 6600GT, 7200rpm SATA array) was "in the top 13%"

My best system (Dual Opteron 270's, 4Gig ram, BFG Geforce 6800 Ultra OC, 15krpm SCSI array) crashed out in both xp-64 and normal xp pro (could be the program doesn't like multi-processor systems)

[Gimli]

I was exactly in the middle, 50% are better than my system apparently. Not too shabby though considering I bought it about 3 years ago.

[ 02-16-2006, 07:41 PM: Message edited by: Gimli ]

[Felix The Assassin]

Originally posted by RoSs_bg2_rox: Felix - interested to know what A64 CPU you've got running at 3300mhz...? Opty by any chance?

Remember, not all things are as they appear. I'm still a very active member in the AMD overclockers society. With that said, this rig is one of my custom creations, which houses: Custom=Cooling-GPU,CPU,Case,and Memory; Wiring; HDD rack system; Insulation; PSU (fan) reversal, and a few other oddities.
With this setup, I'm O/C'd at a beer-math 26%, or geek terms, over 750Mhz of rated CPU cycles, while maintaining a CPU temp <45*C, M/B <38*C, and case <32*C.

Also, you just talked about upgrade, why would you want to upgrade if you had a 3.3ghz processor already, chances of getting another beauty like that are quite slim, no point wasting the money on an FX60! As for 4gbs RAM - un-needed really in todays apps, unless you're running a few strenuous tasks, and you already have the best ATI card out there, what would you be upgrading to? Double 512mb GTX's - that would be more expensive. Cross Fire's not woth a look yet. [/QB]

Again, refer to first line. As an aspiring photographer, (hobbyist level) with lots of digital, and film pictures, I find that on days 4GB is yet two shallow. Try this, open GIMP in your primary work space, load 5 medium format pictures of 400-500 Mb each. Load a landscape Cad program in your 2nd space. Print a full duplex color picture in your 3rd workspace. And finally, scan a full duplex film picture @ 1200-DPI X 48-Bit in your 4th workspace.
Now, move back to your primary workspace, open; Apps=Sys-Tools=Sys-Monitor=Resources, and check your physical memory.

The upgrade quotes were just a shock-blast of what kind of money it would take to build a super desktop right now. That is an FX 60, the ATI, 4Gb of branded memory, and the MSI M/B. The market is extremley volatile at the moment, and those prices may in fact be inaccurate already.

[Thoran]

I agree with Felix... top shelf is expensive.

My Dual opteron systems was $9k early last year. Some of the components could be compromised to save money (that system has a crazy fast scsi array... towards 2 grand for 136gb, and it also has a terrabyte of archive space on a SATA array).

Most folks don't need 4 processing units, and gamers would be better served by one of the fx or extreme processors, and 4gb is also wasted on a gaming system... XP limits the memory allocation of a process to somewhere around 1.2gb.

Graphics is the only area where the money goes directly into gaming performance, but even there you don't need the $500 super-fast video card to get a quality gaming experience... I just finished NFSMW-Black edition, on my athlon64/6600gt system it ran very nicely once I added a gig of ram to the 512 meg it started with. I could play at 1280x1024 with visual options maximized and frame rates were plenty fast. The Opteron system (the 6800 is now getting reasonably affordable) played it fully maxed out at 1600x1200. Is that a big difference in performance? Sure... but subjectively it doesn't make a huge difference in gameplay (the biggest differences was superfast load times of the Opteron system).

[Ziroc]

Isn't futuremark spyware? No way I'd install that directx plugin. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Sir Goulum]

Is it? Sorry, I didn't know.

[RoSs_bg2_rox]

No. Futuremark the company behind 3D Mark etc. It's the worlds largest benchmarking site, used by thousands. Check out the main page

[Ziroc]

Yeh, I know about 3DMark, but I never install browser plugins.. thats a big no-no 90% of the time [img]smile.gif[/img]

Cool util though, just picky about what is installed.. hehe

[Thoran]

Futuremark is a reputable company... I'd be very disappointed in them if I found they were hawking a spyware app. I've been using their benchmarking utilities for years.