Computer Question.

[-eViL-]

Please be serious guys, i don't need to read bullmalarkey spammed onto this thread, i need to figure this out.

since particle wouldn't respond to my ICQ messages, i will post these questions:

1) Which CPU would you rather have, AMD 2800+ w/Barton or Intel 2.8C?

2) Which GPU would you rather have, nVidia 5700 Ultra or ATI Radeon 9600XT?

If Responding, Please Give A Reason As To Why You Would Choose It

Thanks in advance guys,
-eViL-

[Bice]

i dont know what processor i would take but i would take the nvidia 5700 ultra. it is BY FAR the best card i have ever seen. if you want to see some pics with it or ask questions go to http://www.Ngemu.com and look in the forums for pics.

[UnderGod]

Bice, the 9800 XT IS the best card on the market right now.. Between the 9800 pro and 9800 xt, there is nothing that can get higher fps and max performance.

And the 5900 Ultra would blow the 5700 away.

EDIT: As for what to choose.. The CPU is more of a matter of preference. For the video card, The 5700 is decent performance wise, but the 9600XT will give you better fps. Especially on newer games.

[-eViL-]

Well, just for some more info on the CPU choice.... from everything I have read, the Intel chips require absolutely 0 overclocking while the AMD's require fsb overclocking just to compare to the new "C" series Intels.  So as of right now, I am looking at the 2.6C ($175.00) and the 2.8C ($214.00) [Both have 800mhz fsb].  and so i will probably end up with the 2.6C just due to price.

[Darwin]

You have been pinging this off my head for like... 2-3 weeks eViL, now you go to the forums?  LoL...

Ditto on processors.  Matter of preference.

9600 Pro XT cause I said so!
(Isnt the 5700 Ultra supposed to be noisy?)

[Particle]

I'm an AMD man myself, but in all honesty, the 2.8C P4 is going to outperform the 2800+.  It'll be more expensive, but if you've got the cash, buy it instead.  AMD went way too aggressive with the PR ratings for the Bartons.  I currently own an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton; OC'd to 2.3GHz)  The newest Bartons are completely locked as well; you CANNOT change the multiplier on them, making OC'ing harder.  I believe they took this step because people were selling computer systems with blown bridges and wires in the sockets (wire trick) to be able to sell them as higher chips without paying for those higher chips.  I've got one of the really old style Bartons that is very OC-friendly.

The Radeon is also a better card than the nVidia.  I used nVidia chips from my first TNT to a GeForce3 Ti500, but the nVidia FX line just doesn't compare to the latest Radeons.  A Radeon 9600 Pro will defeat an nVidia 5900 Ultra in almost everything from what I've heard.  I am using a 9500 non-pro at the moment and enjoy it.  nVidia still has better drivers, but ATI is quickly catching up and their drivers work for just about everything I've played.  The only thing I've really noticed it doesn't work with is Tenebrae.  Unless you find yourself playing Quake 1 with new game engines, you shouldn't have a problem.  (Except there is a conflict with MSN--when a "blah blah" has logged in" message occurs, I've noticed that sometimes it messed Half-Life up momentarily.  You can see through walls and the screen flashes the frames; choppy/bright until the popup goes away.)

===

The reason I didn't respond to your ICQ messages is because I blocked you a long time back--I never got them.  When you had something important to say, you seemed to usually find a way to get it in front of me.

[-eViL-]

The only thing I've really noticed it doesn't work with is Tenebrae.  Unless you find yourself playing Quake 1 with new game engines, you shouldn't have a problem.  (Except there is a conflict with MSN--when a "blah blah" has logged in" message occurs, I've noticed that sometimes it messed Half-Life up momentarily.  You can see through walls and the screen flashes the frames; choppy/bright until the popup goes away.)

I have those turned off just because they are very annoying.

The reason I didn't respond to your ICQ messages is because I blocked you a long time back--I never got them.  When you had something important to say, you seemed to usually find a way to get it in front of me.

Apparently I have done it again then .

and I thinking of going with intel if i can find a motherboard that doesn't cost $150 and still has some huge bios problems... every board I have seen has had some sort of huge Bios gap and lots of problems from it.

P.S. - What is the MSI CoreCell suppose to do exactly?  I know its something about overclocking abilities...

[Lidge Farkley]

Well... here are my cents, as I have been looking in to video cards, cpu, and mother board specs lately.

As far as processor power, the P4 2.4c, 2.6c and 2.8c will all out perform the AMD athlon and barton series up to the 3200+ model, BUT, you need an OS which supports Dual CPU's and have that option turned on for the Hyper Threading to work, as well as have a HT enabled Mother board.  I don't know if wind98se support 2 cpu's but I am guessing no.  As far as windwods goes you'll need win2k, NT, or XP for the HT feature as well as a mobo that supports HT (hyper threading.)

It has been reported that a standard 2.4c is the same exact architecture as the 3.0 P4 (but with a lower default clock speed of 2.4c), and that you can over clock it up to 3.0 safely because of this.  BUT, it has been specualted that the reason why the 2.4's are being sold as such is due to die quality.  I don't know much a bout die quality, but I do know that die quality dictates chip quality and chip quality dictates price.

I myself was looking at the 2.4c untill just recently.  I may go with the 2.6c or 2.8c because I am not in to over clocking (though my board supports it quite well.)



As far as video cards, the ATI cards do not yet meet the standardization for visual quality that NVidia set up for the actual appearance of textures being rendered during a scene.  I would have said go Radeon until I read and saw the difference on tomshardware.com just last week.

The Radeon does have a higher frame rate, but at a visual cost to textures rendered for details on explosions, lens effects, and similar effects.  

The NVidia options will all have a lower frame rate that the Radeon comparables, BUT, they will be rendering more textures and details per detail level than the Radeon, due to above mentioned problems.


I have a personal kind of dislike for NVidia... but that is because they used the same tactics that ATI is now using for gaining control of the video card market, and closing the doors on 3Dfx (which I think was the greatest of it's time detail, Anti-Aliasing, and blending of a scene to get rid of the jagged feel.)


THOUGH, NVidia is now making texture rendering standards and suprisingly sticking to them... I would o with their cards, just because I am more interested in more detail, and not more FPS  (hell, the average human eye can only see about 35 per second they say... seems kind of pointless to have all those extras, even if I can see them.)

So........  You will get lower FPS with the comparable Nvidia model, but Higher qualitty than with the ATI, which will in turn have higher FPS with lower image detail renders.


As far as video cards, it is your pick.

As far as CPU and mother board, it's your wallet, but Intel does have an edge these days.

I suggest yoou read the video card review and mother board review sections from http://www.tomshardware.com before you make a final decision.

Peace!

(not that it matters, but I am going to run the pentium and a nvidia together.  The mobo and ram are all I have purchased, and they were both LE at 428$ total!  arG!)

[Particle]

The rendered quality (and most notably 2D quality) of my Radeon far surpasses what my GeForce3 ever was.  I don't know what you are talking about.

[Darwin]

....(hell, the average human eye can only see about 35 per second they say... seems kind of pointless to have all those extras, even if I can see them.)

I think this forum discussed this earlier.  I think we found something that says the human eye can see at a much higher frequency is able to see way more than 30fps.

[Particle]

The whole 30fps thing is very wierd.  Let's not go into it here.

[Silvanoshei]

I can definitely distinguish between 40 and 60 fps.

[UnderGod]

You can't see more than 30 fps.. You can tell the difference because of the drop..

Every movie you every watch is no more than 35 fps.

As for requiring more fps.. You are misinformed about how the whole fps thing works.

Nvidia has lower fps.. Sure it is over your average visable range, but when the fps drops, the fps drops slowing everything down at rather large amounts.

ATI on the other hand, has the more stable fps models. You have higher fps, but when there is enoughto cause the fps to drop, it isn't HARDLY as much of a fall as it would be with nvidia. Thus not noticing slowdowns, and proving to have the better handle on graphic stress.

[Particle]

Movies are 24fps.  Television is 29.97fps (60 fields per second).  Cartoons are often 15fps, but frames are pretty much just doubled.  Computer animation is the main exception.

Eyes can tell the difference between a 60Hz refresh and an 85Hz refresh quite commonly.  What you have to understand is that a monitor strikes the phosphors on the screen that many times per second.  The image fades until it is struck again.  Because of how the refresh rate works, you cannot directly relate a refresh rate to a frame rate (in why what frequencies seem choppy or smooth) so let's not take that path.

Your brain operates from the upper twenties to the mid-thirties Hertz.  Your eyes cannot sense faster than your brain.  It will only process one image at a certain time.  While you may not be able to actually see all 40 frames in a 40fps video, you can sense patterns between a 60Hz and 85Hz refresh rate.

I'm done with this thread, since this topic usually elevates to a bloated argument.