Who plays sims 3?

[Stallion]

Tried that - the updated one I went to nearly fried the GPU as it disabled the fan control. The card is running with the driver it came with, and will be for the foreseeable future. Check out the Nvidia driver forums for some entertainment if you feel like it. :

I bought this one on the basis I'd only be upgrading the graphics card when I got the money together - this will be my machine for at least a decade, although I know it will be woefully inadequate gaming-wise long before then. I don't mind turning down settings, though.

 

[Thagarr]

this will be my machine for at least a decade, although I know it will be woefully inadequate gaming-wise long before then.

I think your computer will be good for gaming a bit longer than you think mate, most games still don't take advantage of multi-core systems the way they should. The only thing that will really limit you is your graphics card, and even that should still be an easily upgradeable option for you for a few years to come. You have a good system there mate!

If someone honestly knows any mark up percentages, I'll be happy to know

Trust me mate, you really do not want to know the retail markup percentages! But since you asked, It actually varies quite a bit and depends on a lot of different factors. Most of the reasonable dealers stay in a range between 20 and 30%, and on sale items, their markups are still around 10%. Some of the big, full of themselves retailers can reach as high as 50, 60 and even 70%, at that point it starts to get pretty ridiculous! If you can part out a complete computer system yourself and put it together, you can save a whole bunch of money!

 

[Jonty]

Thanks I was just curious as to how much I could possibly save from buying the components at near enough wholesale price. In my currency, I have a predicted budget of around £800 maximum, £600 minimum in just under a year's time. Given the maximum, hell, even the minimum, I could get a system that trumps a retail computer that sells for that price.

Aye, if I had £10,000 to spare on a computer, I could buy God's computer. One of these days though...

 

[tommy61157]

don't get your hopes up, not many people make enough money to pay for that, I know that no one in my family does, lol

 

[Thagarr]

Aye mate, for £600 to £800, you should be able to afford quite a good top of the line desktop system Jonty. The closer you can get to wholesale, the better the value you can get for sure. In converted dollars, that's around the same price range Stallion and I both were for ours. By the time your ready to order, 8 core systems should be reaching their max performance and stability thresholds, and motherboard manufacturers should have taken care of most of the BIOS quirks as well. You might actually be able to get a really good gaming laptop for even less though, especially if you went with AMD instead. I haven't got my hands on one yet, but I have read some fantastic things about AMD's new hybrid Lliano systems.

I am debating whether or not I need a new system myself, my current motherboard is quite frustrating to say the least! I made a poor choice when I decided to try this Jetway motherboard, I should have stuck with Gigabyte or Asus. I didn't realize at the time that they would never release native 64 bit drivers for it, so I am stuck with 32 bit, or running a crippled 64 bit system. It's actually a solid board, but it could have been so much better.

 

[Stallion]

Be sure to get an ATI graphics card too, Jonty! Nvidia is showing no sign of smartening up in the driver coding department as of yet.

I so wish now I'd gone with your suggestion, Thagarr, of getting an ATI card when I had this computer ordered. Of course, the Nvidia card NCIX put in is one made by BFG Tech, and now that they're gone, it has no warranty whatsoever left on it. Not really that big of a deal, but it was nice knowing I could get a replacement if need be. :

 

[Jonty]

Thanks again

I'll make a checklist of required components. Desired ones I'll look at in just under a years time, when it comes near to order, since new stuff is release all the time. The person I know, who is I'm guesing around the 40 mark, and is related to me, said he knows how to get computer components next to nothing. I'm assuming this is fully wholesale price, or at least very near that. If all this works out, I could easily get a kickass computer that trumps near enough every retail computer on sale.

AMD, 8 core systems, ATI, Asus or Gigabyte...got it. Although when I search around on the internet from time to time, I always see people saying Intel are better at processors, Nvidia are better than ATI etc etc. Intel fanboys everywhere though...e.g. "There's no comparison between these two at all. The Intel CPU is going to eat the AMD CPU alive, crap it out, and then piss into the crap. AMD CPUs in laptops only make sense if you're on a tight budget." Is a comment I found. Damn. k

 

[tommy61157]

well, it's true to a degree, If I want any real power out of my processor, I'm going to have to overclock it...

 

[Thagarr]

Stallion, I really doubt you have to worry about the warranty on that card, BFG made good cards, they just sucked at marketing them properly. Besides, you will need a new one soon for DirectX 11, once more games start actually supporting it that is. Nvidia's biggest drawback is their drivers, they have been really bad the past few years, AMD on the other hand have really concentrated on improving their drivers and it really shows.

One of the reasons I am thinking about a new motherboard is that the new AM3+ socket boards support both Crossfire for ATI(actually officially AMD now) and SLI for Nvidia, so we are not locked in to one or the other like we were a couple of years ago. Cool stuff!

Yeah mates, as far as brute force number crunching Intel wins, but in my opinion, AMD represents a better value with more bang for your buck. With Intel, your paying for a lot more than just the CPU. Both brands give you way more stock computing power than your likely to ever need anyway, the real system performance increases are in SSD's, but they are still way to finicky for my tastes. I'll take slow and rock solid over quick and flaky any day.

I don't do much overclocking anymore myself, it has kind of lost it's appeal for me. Now you can just set everything in the BIOS and reboot, not much of a real challenge there. I learned overclocking by actually desoldering and replacing IC's, or rerouting current flow. That kind of information was a LOT harder to obtain back before the internet existed. And if you made a mistake, you didn't just fry a $100 motherboard, you screwed a $3000 dollar system! Now that was a challenge!

 

[tommy61157]

well, yeah, nowadays you just use the bios program, and if the processor/cpu doesn't crash within an hour of setting a specific setting, then, you successfully overclocked.

 

[rupertlittlebear]

well, yeah, nowadays you just use the bios program, and if the processor/cpu doesn't crash within an hour of setting a specific setting, then, you successfully overclocked.

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/426870-having-trouble-with-4th-core-on-amd-help/
or one day one of your cores could simply burn out permanently

 

[Thagarr]

Nice find rupert! :

I especially found this amusing :

[PowderdToastMan]
posted 31 August 2011 - 03:08 PM
Thanks, i'll have to look up how to reset CMOS unless you happen to be willing to coach me. i am a novice when it comes to bios.

 

[rupertlittlebear]

don't do this at home

these are trained professionals

 

[tommy61157]

well, that person clearly overclocked it too much, even if it did work, I would never go above 2.6 GHz on my processor...

 

[Akella Fan]

Well, anyway, @Jonty, from what I understood you play Build 14 mostly. You don't need a very powerfull computer for that, do ya'?

 

[tommy61157]

No, the build mod 14 doesn't require a powerful computer at all, pretty much any computer you buy these days can handle it easily

 

[Stallion]

I'm not into the whole overclocking thing. Heck, the graphics card I've got now came factory overclocked, and I turned that back to stock after seeing how many games acted up due to the "increased performance".

 

[tommy61157]

Overclocking a graphics card is very risky...

 

[Peter Willemoes]

I am with you all the way, Thargarr and those are good recommendations.

I´ve got an aged Intel P43 set, 4GB ram and a 5770 budget graphics card, running 64 bit Win 7. I can still run everything new at high settings, and especially the games in here. I do have a little trouble with the ENB-shader, though..

If I were to upgrade, I would go for a 400-450£ solution based on Sandy Bridge. Not pushing you in any direction here, Jonty, but 1000£ is too much - better save the money and upgrade in 3 years again I deeply rely on Gigabyte, everything they throw out is quality, so it would probably be their B3 motherboard and the Intel i5. Memory seems to be quite cheap these days, but would never go over 4GB it´s not worth it. PSU is the backbone of your system and I´d choose either a Corsair TX or a OCZ modstream, would´nt recommend any fancy Bluray-drives or highspec graphics card. Tom´s Hardware are usually good at finding best buys for the buck


Thargarr: Ever heard of "baking" your GPU? I has become quite common nowadays and it just seems too crazy for me, but if you´ve got nothing to loose - read this

 

[Thagarr]

Thargarr: Ever heard of "baking" your GPU? I has become quite common nowadays and it just seems too crazy for me, but if you´ve got nothing to loose - read this

Aye mate, indeed I have!

Solder melts at a relatively low temperature, and PCB's and IC's are designed to handle much higher temp. I grew up around HAM radio, and I got familiar with the concept starting with baking flux off various old radio equipment parts. It's an interesting concept that most people never really even consider, but it does work well, as long as you take the necessary precautions. Of course, it's also easy to screw up if your not paying close attention, but if your card isn't working, it can be a life saver!