Building/Upgrading a PC for TS2

[BlueSoup]

With DrBeast's help, I've configured a PC that I am going to get in 3 weeks!  Woo!  (just had to share that).

[Hegelian]

Cool! Wish I could say the same.

[DrBeast]

*sigh*
It's really a joy for me to config computers. I did that for a friend of mine about a month ago, and he's very happy. I hope Blue will be happy with the config I cooked up for her. But to he perfectly honest, I do feel a bit jealous because I know I won't be able to get a new 'puter in the near future 

[BlueSoup]

You don't want to know what I'm doing in order to afford this new computer. 

Let's just say Chinese noodles will be extremely popular next month.

[ZiggyDoodle]

Let's just say Chinese noodles will be extremely popular next month.

At least you've got your priorities right, Blue.   From experience, I can also recommend tomato soup and ziti.   More filling than Chinese.   

[Edit.  Staying on topic, am still fiddling with my page file numbers.  Too low and XP kicks in with yellow warning signals.  I now have my initial setting at 750 - much less HD whirring noises.  A work in progress]

[BlueSoup]

Ewww, tomato soup.

It's actually not quite as dire as Chinese noodles only for the month, but let's just say I will actually be cooking as opposed to going out for every meal like I do now.

Say, who can tell me how a stove works? 

(Kidding.  I know how it works, but I've never used my oven, I don't think.)

[J. M. Pescado]

You don't want to know what I'm doing in order to afford this new computer. 

I didn't see any ads for BlueSoup ass for sale, so it can't be that bad.

Let's just say Chinese noodles will be extremely popular next month.

An ancient Chinese proverb states, "If you want to be Chinese, you have to eat nasty food."

So get used to it, and amazingly enough, you'll start to actually build up a cash surplus. You may even realize how much FUN it is to build up a cash surplus and learn to enjoy hoarding.

[witch]

Say, who can tell me how a stove works? 

No good asking me mate, I BURN all my food and keep setting off the smoke alarm.

[artemisia]

Just a quick question. I read the article about the new Intel processor, and it says that it's for desktops. Does that mean that if I'm going to buy a new laptop, there's no reason to wait until July?

Thanks!

[Hegelian]

There will be a mobile Core Duo CPU ("Merom") that Intel claims is 20% faster than its current "Yonah" dual-core laptop CPUs at the same level of power consumption. I don't know if these processors will be released at the same time as the desktop models.

[IgnorantBliss]

OK, just a little update on the CPU update discussion: I decided to go for a "regular" one, not a dual-core, since it seemed like I wouldn't benefit from a dual-core processor at the moment, and I wanted to get most out of my money with a single-core one. I was planning to wait a while until the predicted price cuts would take effect, but then we heard that AMD stopped making processors suitable for my motherboard at the end of June, so I decided to go for it before it was too late. So, now I have an AMD Athlon 64 3800+ (2,4 GHz) that my hubby just installed. Haven't really used it enough yet to tell if there is any noticeable difference in how the game runs and such.

[MutantBunny]

After reading thru this, I set up my system to log my page file usage...but instead of waiting being slightly impatient...I cut my page file in half, you know just to see what's it do. I fired up the Sims. For the first time ever I zoomed out to look at my hood and the PC responded immediately, cruised around the corners. Zoomed in, cruised around. Nice and smooth.  Thank You!

[Jarsie]

Okay, I'll freely admit to being an end-user here. Wouldn't know the first thing about building my own pc. I usually rely on my son-in-law for those chores, but since he's busy these days...

Can anybody recommend a solid store bought machine that will run my Sims 2 and all the EP's with no problems? That's about the only game I have on this machine...plus a couple of minor games that I seldom play with.

I'm looking to replace the CPU on my current seven year old machine, which is a modified Gateway. I see that some stores are just selling the CPU and not the whole package, and that's really all I need. Everything else is good. Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this kind of question, but like I said...I'm an end user. What do I know? Not a whole lot.

[witch]

You might be very lucky to even find a cpu for a seven year old machine I'm afraid Jarsie. A lot has changed in that time. I think Gateway are not high end anyway. Laeshanin recently got a really good package deal with reasonable quality components, it might pay to look for something like that.

Your board probably wouldn't take today's video cards either.

[Jarsie]

You might be very lucky to even find a cpu for a seven year old machine I'm afraid Jarsie. A lot has changed in that time. I think Gateway are not high end anyway. Laeshanin recently got a really good package deal with reasonable quality components, it might pay to look for something like that.

Your board probably wouldn't take today's video cards either.

Okay, excuse my ignorance, but I thought the CPU was the tower with everything in it. That's what I was talking about, not the hardrive. I'm talking about replacing the whole enchilada, but just the tower with the main components.

I realize that CPU means central processing unit (if I'm not mistaken) but I thought that was included in the machine when you bought the tower with all its components (like the hard drive and the dvd/cd drives that come with it.

And some stores are selling the towers with the components, so I shouldn't have to replace my monitor, mouse or keyboard. That's what I'm referring to, and if anybody knows a good brand, please let me know, because, frankly, I don't have the know how or the time to build it myself, and I don't trust anyone but my son-in-law to do it for me.

[Hegelian]

Any of the top brands should be more than satisfactory:  HP, Dell, Gateway, Sony, Acer; even eMachines has turned out a few decent budget PCs (thankfully Packard Bell is no more). You can get a really nice PC without monitor direct from HP for about $600 including shipping, although you may want to add a separate graphics board at some point to replace the integrated graphics (but this will be true of any budget PC).

[witch]

Okay, excuse my ignorance, but I thought the CPU was the tower with everything in it. That's what I was talking about, not the hardrive.

Sorry Jarsie, I misunderstood. Generally the CPU - which is the central processing unit you're right - is the chip, the brain, that sits on the motherboard. Roughly about 2-3inches square it can be swopped out and replaced by a faster chip on the same motherboard inside the same box. That was what I thought you were asking, it's something I do as often as I can afford it really.

I guess Tower is a better word for the whole enchilada.

This is a picture of a cpu.

When I was googling for a picture I saw many people actually call their box, tower, machine, PC - whatever - I see many call it a CPU. A CPU is actually just a component.

I know many Brits also call the machine a 'hard drive' - a hard drive is just another component inside. The bit that stores information like your files and the operating system. Very confusing eh?

If the CPU is the brain, the IQ, then the hard drive is the memory.

[jsalemi]

If the CPU is the brain, the IQ, then the hard drive is the memory.

No, the memory is the memory -- the hard drive is the library.

[witch]

Yeah I suppose. Though I was thinking of it in relation to a real brain, where the permanent storage / hard drive is the memory. RAM would be short term memory because it's dynamic.

[jsalemi]

Yea, that analogy works too...

[Jarsie]

Thanks for the explanations.

I plan to spend some serious money on geting  a new comp when the time comes.

[lowlucious]

I was looking into getting a new computer and I am hoping someone could help me with a few things. I love to play different types of games on my computer as well as the sims 2 and expansion packs and on my computer i have now i get a lot of lag so i would like to upgrade to a computer with more than 512mb of memory and 80gb and this is the computer I am looking at right now. I was wondering if this computer would be more than sufficient for running games.
 
Gateway® FX510XT
  Intel® Core™2 Extreme processor X6800 (2.93GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 4MB cache)3 
  Genuine Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 (Update Rollup 2) w/ XP Media Center Backup2 
  Microsoft® Office Basic Edition 2003 (Includes Word, Excel and Outlook)2 
  Intel® 975X Chipset with DDR2 and Intel® Core Duo support 
  4096MB PC5300 Dual-Channel DDR2 667MHz SDRAM (4-1024MB modules) 
  1000GB (1TB) Serial ATA II/300 7200RPM with Raid 0 (2-500GB hard drives - striping)4 
  9-in-1 media card reader 
  16x Double-Layer Multi-Format DVD Writer (DVD±/R±RW/CD-R/RW) and 48X/32X/48X CD-RW Drive 
  Desktop Value Service Plan -- 1 year parts/labor/no on-site/1 year technical support5 
  Gateway 7-bay tower case 
  Integrated Serial ATA Controller 
  (2) PCI expansion slots (filled), (1) PCI-E x1 expansion slot (available). (1) PCI-E x16 expansion slot (available) 
  (6) USB 2.0 (2 in front and 4 in back), (3) IEEE 1394 Firewire (2 in front and 1 in back), (1) Serial, (2) PS/2, (1) RJ-45 Integrated LAN, (1) VGA, (1) Microphone, front audio ports 
  Energy Star® compliant 
  FPD2185W 21" Black Widescreen High-Definition LCD Analog/Digital Performance Flat Panel Display with 4 Powered USB Ports (Includes height-adjustable stand) 
  Dual card ATI Radeon® X1900 XT CrossFire™ solution w/512MB DDR3 memory (per card), DVI, VGA (via adapter), & TV-Out 
  Gateway® elite multimedia keyboard and soft-touch USB optical wheel mouse (no mouse pad included) 
  2-piece speaker solution
 

[Hegelian]

This would be more than sufficient for running just about anything you can load under WinXP.

Unless you're editing video, buying this in anticipation of Vista, or intend to upgrade to the 64-bit version of WinXP Pro, 4 GM of RAM is a waste of money. In extreme circumstances, WinXP can use 4 GB of RAM, but individual processes (such as games) can only have up to 2 GB. If you do stick with the 4 GB, don't be surprised if Windows reports only 3 GB in your PC; see here for more.

I would be a bit skeptical of the 1000 GB RAID 0 drive array. Unless you're doing video editing or archiving every MP3 in the known universe (and if you are, you should be archiving to DVD and not your hard drive), that's more space than you can possibly use. Also, by striping with a RAID 0 array, there is no data redundancy so if one drive goes down your whole installation is hosed.

For the amount of money you would be spending on this, you'd be better off with four smaller drives in a RAID 5 array (three data drives and one parity drive for data integrity). For best performance you'd put the OS and applications on 10K RPM drives, and have large 7200 RPM drives for storage. An example would be a single Western Digital 150-GB Raptor (10K RPM) for the boot drive (or a pair in RAID 0) plus large-capacity (≥ 250 GB) drives in RAID 5 (two striped plus parity drive for data integrity); you lose the capacity of the parity drive but if one of the other fails, you can rebuilt your data on a replacement drive without having to reinstall anything. Of course, you don't protect your OS installation in this configuration, but it is less expensive than a RAID 5 array using five 10K RPM drives.   

If it's an option, forget Media Center and get WinXP Pro, especially if you plan on doing any networking.

This system could be enhanced by the addition of a Sound Blaster audio board, but I see that both PCI slots are used, so that's not an option. It might be useful to find out what is in those slots, because if you want to add wireless networking, you're probably better off using a PCI adapter than a USB adapter.

Don't get the McAfee security software—it's junk. For antivirus, do a Web search for AVG Free Edition by Grisoft. If you need a stand-alone firewall, try Zone Alarm (if you're going to be using a router, you don't really need a software firewall, but sometimes WinXP's networking seems to function better with the Windows firewall activated). The utilities in Norton Systemworks still work very well, and are worthwhile (SpeedDisk, Disk Doctor, Win Doctor). The Norton anti-virus works well but isn't worth the cost of the subscription renewal as long as AVG Free is available. Also, some viruses are designed to by-pass or break Norton AV (while the Norton products are still quite good, they aren't what they were when it was still Peter Norton's company).

[lowlucious]

I am not that computer literate  . I really would like a computer that handles the sims games really well and a few other programs that run in the background. I tend to have a problem with my virtual memory and that is the basis of me wanting more space and memory. That particular computer would run me almost $4500.

[Hegelian]

Keep in mind that for best performance, the more physical RAM you have, the lower your paging file (virtual memory) settings should be. With 4 GB RAM, your paging file should be quite small—probably under 500 MB.

The primary factor in TS2 performance is the CPU, followed by the graphics board and physical RAM.