[JohanSWE]

you can easily run any modern game on a celeronD 3Ghz.

[discobay]

Not DOOM3 or QUAKE4.

[Laughing_Monkey]

the (tomshardware) benchmarks put celeron D's in about the middle of the pack...

what should i be looking for for number crunching ability then? Bus speed?

Agh!

[YOHAN]

Actually, I'm tooooo lazy to reasearch on that. All I know is Celereons are not ideal, nor are they marketed for games.

Man, have you tried FEAR yet? Golly gee! That thing's a system hog!!! Imagine this...

AMD Athlon64 3500+
Corsair TwinX 1gb Dual-Channel
GeForce 7800GTX 256mb
7200rpm Maxtor HDD

And it can only run on MEDIUM settings @ 1024 resolution. Higher than that and it gets REALLY choppy! So if you plan on playing this game anytime soon... I don't think even Celeron Ds can make it run. But who knows.

[Laughing_Monkey]

Okay, simple question here.

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ Vs Athlon 64 X2 3800+
roughly the same price, same platform...

For Principally Graphics work but has to be fairly good for gaming... Which is better (value)?

[JohanSWE]

look now your losing it again.
Going for the big expencive stuff... and as usual people will give you the advice of how to build THEIR dream machine.
Fact is, i gave you the options i thought was what you needed and a 4000+ isnt exacly what i would say is what you need.
You will gain alot more preformance from faster and more amount of ram, than you will of a few 100Mhz CPU speed.
Since your a 3D rookie get a lower spec CPU and make sure to get a Mainboard that will support a more powerful CPU once you whis to upgrade.

[Laughing_Monkey]

yerh, sorry, i spent a while reading the graphics card and rec. hardware threads on the egosoft forum and it unbalanced my decision making ability...


i'e been looking into motherboards recently, i read a pretty good review on the ASUSTek A8N-SLI PREMIUM - but when i looked the stats of the other ASUSTek motherboards on hkgolden they were all pretty much the same. Is the only way to tell the real difference to look at benchmarks?

Also, i cant really see the point of SLI unless your a super high end techno wizard - but all the reviews of boards i read seem to think its important. And PCI express? Sounds like a good idea but apparently isnt all that much better in benchmark tests?

Agh! I almost knew what i wanted after talking to JohanSWE but now im confused again. (but thinking an AMD on a SOCKET939 platform)

[YOHAN]

Take it easy there, dude.

You know, before I build a machine, may it be a dream machine or a low-end machine, there's ONE step that I have to finalize first before proceeding with anything else... and that is the BUDGET. Unless you know your budget, you aint going anywhere. Decide on a FIXED budget and we'll all start from there.

On dual processors vs single ones, duals go faster with multi-tasking. If you are comparing a single core and a dual core with the same speed, then running one application would not make a difference... but running two or three apps at the same time--- you'd notice the dual ones would go faster. Gets? Cool!

[Laughing_Monkey]

Yerh i get all that, and a dual-core does seem like the way to go, and like i said, after JohanSWE gave me some advice i pretty much knew what system i wanted (and worked it out in-budget), but then i got looking at the forum for the only game im likely to be playing on it and it all got a bit more complicated.

See, my needs are mostly those of a 3D rookie - but i also want to run the odd comp game on it - and apparently Celerons just dont cut it for the game i wanna play...

Im leaning towards AMD for a number of reasons, and the 939scket seems the way to go, but it all gets confusing when u look at motherboards....

As for a budget, im looking at around 7k, excluding the monitor and software.

[punk]

You should consider a mac. For creative work, there's no substitute. Look into cost before you rule it out. With 3d work the pc might be the better option. If the emphasis is more on 2d the mac would be a better choice. Skip Corel Draw and get the Creative Suite...