Dream build for a gaming computer?
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Chris Losinger wrote:
1 wait 6 months until all the components are smaller, faster and more powerful. 2 GOTO 1
Heh, sounds like one of my bosses. He actually waited six years before getting a laptop, because "Why get one now when they will be smaller, faster and cheaper in three months?"
I stay on the cutting edge by buying cheap computers often rather than decked out computers infrequently.
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PIEBALDconsult wrote:
I'm a developer; I don't play computer games that I didn't write. And the games that I write are very simple.
When I can write my own clients for World of Warcraft and The Sims 3, I'll let you know ;P
My point (and I do have one) is... real developers don't play those. System Admins, maybe, but not developers.
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Not really a programming question, so I'll ask here. Three years ago, I built a gaming computer from scratch: Intel quad core, two joined high-end nVidia graphics cards, nVidia optimized motherboard, 2 500MB SATA drives in a RAID 0 array, 4MB memory. It has served me very well, but one of the graphics cards has burned out, and I'm thinking of upgrading, maybe even rebuilding from scratch. It does have to be a Windows machine; I have stuff that doesn't work right on Apple or Linux OSes (I have tried.) Other than that, anything goes. So, how would you build your dream gaming machine?
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Not really a programming question, so I'll ask here. Three years ago, I built a gaming computer from scratch: Intel quad core, two joined high-end nVidia graphics cards, nVidia optimized motherboard, 2 500MB SATA drives in a RAID 0 array, 4MB memory. It has served me very well, but one of the graphics cards has burned out, and I'm thinking of upgrading, maybe even rebuilding from scratch. It does have to be a Windows machine; I have stuff that doesn't work right on Apple or Linux OSes (I have tried.) Other than that, anything goes. So, how would you build your dream gaming machine?
Gregory.Gadow wrote:
Not really a programming question, so I'll ask here. Three years ago, I built a gaming computer from scratch: Intel quad core, two joined high-end nVidia graphics cards, nVidia optimized motherboard, 2 500MB SATA drives in a RAID 0 array, 4MB memory. It has served me very well, but one of the graphics cards has burned out, and I'm thinking of upgrading, maybe even rebuilding from scratch. It does have to be a Windows machine; I have stuff that doesn't work right on Apple or Linux OSes (I have tried.) Other than that, anything goes. So, how would you build your dream gaming machine?
Yeah, um... wait.
Gregory.Gadow wrote:
2 500MB SATA drives in a RAID 0 array
Gregory.Gadow wrote:
4MB memory
Um, yeah, you need an upgrade. :P Being a student, I tend to build an affinity for decent budget brands. Hence AMD. This is what I'd build though: CPU: AMD 1090T (Intel Core i7 980X EXTREME) RAM: 8GB DDR3 MB: Asus Crosshair IV Formula (Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9) HDD: (250GB SSD) + 2TB SATA GPU: XFX ATI 5970 (x2) OS: Windows Seven Note that the stuff in brackets is the slightly less sensible stuff :P I'd assemble it myself, btw.
Posted from SPARTA!!!!!!!!!! 2.0. Don't forget to rate my post if it helped! ;)
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Gregory.Gadow wrote:
Not really a programming question, so I'll ask here. Three years ago, I built a gaming computer from scratch: Intel quad core, two joined high-end nVidia graphics cards, nVidia optimized motherboard, 2 500MB SATA drives in a RAID 0 array, 4MB memory. It has served me very well, but one of the graphics cards has burned out, and I'm thinking of upgrading, maybe even rebuilding from scratch. It does have to be a Windows machine; I have stuff that doesn't work right on Apple or Linux OSes (I have tried.) Other than that, anything goes. So, how would you build your dream gaming machine?
Yeah, um... wait.
Gregory.Gadow wrote:
2 500MB SATA drives in a RAID 0 array
Gregory.Gadow wrote:
4MB memory
Um, yeah, you need an upgrade. :P Being a student, I tend to build an affinity for decent budget brands. Hence AMD. This is what I'd build though: CPU: AMD 1090T (Intel Core i7 980X EXTREME) RAM: 8GB DDR3 MB: Asus Crosshair IV Formula (Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9) HDD: (250GB SSD) + 2TB SATA GPU: XFX ATI 5970 (x2) OS: Windows Seven Note that the stuff in brackets is the slightly less sensible stuff :P I'd assemble it myself, btw.
Posted from SPARTA!!!!!!!!!! 2.0. Don't forget to rate my post if it helped! ;)
Check out DigitalStormOnline[^]. I feel they are much better than Alienware, if you are thinking about going for a pre-assembled machine. 980X might be a good investment, you are going to have all the computing power you need at least for another 3-4 years. And you can safely overlock it (if you are using liquid cooling) to 3.8-4.0 ghz. Check out ASUS Rampage III if you want to future proof your investment. SSD is a really good idea if you can afford it, or you can just wait for the prices to drop further and upgrade later. A single 5970 might do for now, since its dual-gpu, you can probably upgrade later. I personally prefer nVidia, because I use CUDA, so you could also check out 580 GTX, which is their top of the line right now. It might also be worth it to invest your money in getting faster ram rather than more ram. 8GB of ram would be only dual-channel, core i7 and asus rampage III support tri channel so you can go for something like 6gb (3x2gb) 1866 mhz ram, which will really pump up performance.
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My point (and I do have one) is... real developers don't play those. System Admins, maybe, but not developers.
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
My point (and I do have one) is... real developers don't play those. System Admins, maybe, but not developers.
So you're saying I'm not a real developer? Am I a fantasy developer? Spiritual Developer? Or maybe just a crappy developer? I love games, including thoese mentioned, I just wish I had more time for them.
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I went with a smaller builder... iBuyPower... Would have gone with Alienware, but they're owned by Dell now, and I won't touch Dell with a ten-foot pole... (Yes, I'm typing this on a Dell computer at work, but unfortunately that's what my company uses)
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
Very thin wire, and ferrite beads.
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
OriginalGriff wrote:
Very thin wire, and ferrite beads.
My first job at Boeing involved setting up a flight simulator for the 747/Space Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. The state of the art computer we used? An EAI6400 with 64K of ferrite bead memory! :laugh: It was a couple years old by then but when it was purchased, it was so expensive that NASA had paid for half of it!
Melting Away www.deals-house.com www.innovative--concepts.com
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OriginalGriff wrote:
Very thin wire, and ferrite beads.
My first job at Boeing involved setting up a flight simulator for the 747/Space Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. The state of the art computer we used? An EAI6400 with 64K of ferrite bead memory! :laugh: It was a couple years old by then but when it was purchased, it was so expensive that NASA had paid for half of it!
Melting Away www.deals-house.com www.innovative--concepts.com
Snowman58 wrote:
it was so expensive that NASA had paid for half of it
I'm not surprised! If you have ever tried to make a 64 x 64 bit array, you will know that it takes for ever... A 64K array? Is there enough time to make that, before the sun goes out? :laugh:
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
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Not really a programming question, so I'll ask here. Three years ago, I built a gaming computer from scratch: Intel quad core, two joined high-end nVidia graphics cards, nVidia optimized motherboard, 2 500MB SATA drives in a RAID 0 array, 4MB memory. It has served me very well, but one of the graphics cards has burned out, and I'm thinking of upgrading, maybe even rebuilding from scratch. It does have to be a Windows machine; I have stuff that doesn't work right on Apple or Linux OSes (I have tried.) Other than that, anything goes. So, how would you build your dream gaming machine?
send me ur computer, that's my dream pc xD If one of ur video cards is damaged, check if the pci-x port of the mainboard is fine, and if u have a good bugdet, spend some in water-cooling solutions (haven't tried but I think it should be good) How many monitors do u have? I have a 22" and a 19", good for c#/any database programming... if u put 3, can be better for racing/shooting
_class MySignature _{ __public override void toString() __{ ____return "hi ;)"; __} _}
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My point (and I do have one) is... real developers don't play those. System Admins, maybe, but not developers.
Yeah, Real Developers don't even play games anymore, because Real Developers are too busy trying to clone mainframe and arcade games from the 1980s, like Rogue / Space War / Zork / Donkey Kong. They all eventually succumb to hyper-detailed feature creep (while major important parts go unfinished), bad/non-existent multimedia, clunky interfaces, hardware incompatibility, copyright infringement suits, and everything else that comes with not staying informed of the current state of the art in their genre of games. Some of the more ambitious Real Developers do release their projects and some of those releases are fantastic, like Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft, but those really are an exception to the rule. Those games have equal parts "Pssh, I could do that better" and "Yeah but I won't because I want a life outside of work". Anyways, I like the idea that a few hundred servers might be involved in my gaming experience!
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Not really a programming question, so I'll ask here. Three years ago, I built a gaming computer from scratch: Intel quad core, two joined high-end nVidia graphics cards, nVidia optimized motherboard, 2 500MB SATA drives in a RAID 0 array, 4MB memory. It has served me very well, but one of the graphics cards has burned out, and I'm thinking of upgrading, maybe even rebuilding from scratch. It does have to be a Windows machine; I have stuff that doesn't work right on Apple or Linux OSes (I have tried.) Other than that, anything goes. So, how would you build your dream gaming machine?
As a dev and a gamer (yes you can be both) Here is my suggestion. i7 980X or if you don't want hex core, the i7 quads will suite you just fine, the triple channel ones are better than the dual channel ones obviously (intel retook the cpu crown with the i series cores, if you went with intel during the 90's through to the mid 2k's you were limiting yourself severely as the athlon and everything AMD offered prior to the phenom core left Intel for dead due to intel's unwillingness to fix the inherant problems with their x86 platform). Going nVidia these days will also severely limit you as you need 2 of them to get any decent graphics, they are literally only about half the GPU of what ATI currently offer, and they run hot... DAMN HOT! the ATI 5970 based cards are currently the most powerful on the consumer market and NVidia doesn't look like they are going to be making any real effort any time soon. NVidia has attempted to solve the problem of lackluster GPU's by dumping more VRAM on the card, the average is around 1.5GB's per card stacked up against ATI's more powerful GPU cores with an average of 2GB on higher end cards (the black edition cards have 2 or 4 GB and have unlocked GPU's for some serious overclocking), the question of which brand of GPU to get kinda doesn't even need to be asked. Personally I would go with 2 ATI 5870's, the Gigabyte ones, as they have some serious cooling on the cards (2 fans and a heat sink that covers the whole card) over a 5970, as 2 5870's are slightly more powerful than a single 5970, that is because a 5970 based card literally has 2 GPU's, the same ones that the 5870 used, but they are slightly ramped down to keep the card within the 400W bracket. You could go for complete overkill and get 2 5970's, and hey while you're at it why not go for the eyefinity ones... space for 12 VDU's can't be a bad thing right? As for system RAM, I personally wouldn't use anything other than Corsair unless I really needed to for whatever reason. The dominator series, the heatsinks on those babies is serious, plus you get a RAM fan in the pack. For the motherboard, again I would go for gigabyte, one of the higher models, personally I think they make the best desktop boards on the market, as they have a 2 oz copper heatsink on the board for the cpu and a bunch of other features such as dual bios USB3.0 sata2 6Gb's and a bunch of other nice features. They've been rated as the best for several years by every PC magazine you care to mention, and get a decent rating from TOm's Hardware as well.
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PIEBALDconsult wrote:
My point (and I do have one) is... real developers don't play those. System Admins, maybe, but not developers.
So you're saying I'm not a real developer? Am I a fantasy developer? Spiritual Developer? Or maybe just a crappy developer? I love games, including thoese mentioned, I just wish I had more time for them.
Accessing Fabio's profile... yeah, I don't see "developer" there. :-D When you were born I was just learning BASIC-Plus on a PDP-11 -- I wrote Master Mind and Magic Square (from Merlin) and took a stab at a clone of a Dungeons and Dragons hand-held* and other simple games to give myself a challenge -- the class assignments were things like Fibonacci sequence and graphing functions X| . I've since written several others, some of them many times -- to learn new languages and frameworks, etc. Writing games can be fun and are a good way to give yourself a challenge when learning something new. Occasionally someone on here will ask "Can someone give me an idea for a program to write?" They should pick a simple game they like and try it. If I ever try to write a program for a smart phone X| I'll start with a very simple game. Playing (computer**) games, I don't enjoy very much -- they tend to be stressful and I don't learn anything. (But give light-bot[^] a go.) Most of my spare time is spent writing programs to further my experience with whatever language and framework I'm working with -- otherwise I'd rather just read a book. But computer games? Maybe I'll power up my old NES and play Mario and shoot ducks and try to shoot the dog... :cool: * I did that one during Christmas Break, I had to ask the principal to let me into the school to use the computer. ** Board games, card games, dice games are much more fun -- plus you get to interact with other people. P.S. Don't take anything online personally.
modified on Monday, November 22, 2010 9:46 PM
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Accessing Fabio's profile... yeah, I don't see "developer" there. :-D When you were born I was just learning BASIC-Plus on a PDP-11 -- I wrote Master Mind and Magic Square (from Merlin) and took a stab at a clone of a Dungeons and Dragons hand-held* and other simple games to give myself a challenge -- the class assignments were things like Fibonacci sequence and graphing functions X| . I've since written several others, some of them many times -- to learn new languages and frameworks, etc. Writing games can be fun and are a good way to give yourself a challenge when learning something new. Occasionally someone on here will ask "Can someone give me an idea for a program to write?" They should pick a simple game they like and try it. If I ever try to write a program for a smart phone X| I'll start with a very simple game. Playing (computer**) games, I don't enjoy very much -- they tend to be stressful and I don't learn anything. (But give light-bot[^] a go.) Most of my spare time is spent writing programs to further my experience with whatever language and framework I'm working with -- otherwise I'd rather just read a book. But computer games? Maybe I'll power up my old NES and play Mario and shoot ducks and try to shoot the dog... :cool: * I did that one during Christmas Break, I had to ask the principal to let me into the school to use the computer. ** Board games, card games, dice games are much more fun -- plus you get to interact with other people. P.S. Don't take anything online personally.
modified on Monday, November 22, 2010 9:46 PM
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
Accessing Fabio's profile... yeah, I don't see "developer" there.
HAHA. Just because I like to party? :laugh: I agree that developing simple games are fun and an excelent way to learn new stuff. I've never finished any, but I've tried a few times long enough to realize I wouldn't have the time to finish and that I had other priorities to acomplish. But I hope to finish one someday :)
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
Playing (computer**) games, I don't enjoy very much -- they tend to be stressful and I don't learn anything.
Well, that depends on the game and how you take the disappointments of when you don't achieve something in the first try. I really don't get stressed by games (used to when I was a little kid playing console games). I really enjoy them, but lately either I don't have time or prefer to interact with people that come over to have some drinks and barbecue. And my free time is only on weekends so I don't code on free time anymore, but I hope to get back on that after next year. And I'm sorry you never got to learn anything from them. I learned a lot. I learned the english language, european and japanese history (this ones I learned a lot from the Total War series), american history and more... Some actually are very good on improving logical thinking.
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
otherwise I'd rather just read a book. But computer games?
I think that comes out of personal preference, if one have a loving wife, he should probably spens some quality time with her. If not, play games, read books ( X| = AllBooks & ~Programing Books), socialize :cool:. But that's really personal, can't blame anyone for choosing any of them.
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
Board games, card games, dice games are much more fun -- plus you get to interact with other people.
I agree that it's fun too and much more socializing. But sometimes things get ugly (there's always one that don't take loosing very well) and this can get stressful. I like them though. Once I went out to buy my 3 year old son a gift (oh yeah, that's from the extreme partying time) and saw these board games on the shelves and couldn't resist. I bought two of them that I missed from my childhood and got all family to play, it was nice but I rarely see them in homes nowadays, too much video games.
