Atlantic Roleplay Community Boards

[Molly]

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They hit it on the head. I'll go over the general things to know when buying performance parts... And note that I am not going over compatibility and motherboards, just performance parts:

CPU:
It used to be all about the 'GHz', aka, how fast it is, but that isn't all anymore. Granted, you need a fast enough CPU, but speed isn't everything.
AMD vs Intel: Intel is 'faster', as in, they have 3ghz cpus and faster, and AMD is in the 2-3 range. Here is the key: When it comes to actually PROCESSING that data, instead of just shoving it through as fast as possible, Intel's Pentium processors actually slow down to compensate, and end up roughly where the AMDs are. So really, when buying AMD, treat it as 1.0ghz higher, or treat Intel as 1.0ghz lower. Game box requirements now generally say "Intel Pentium 3.0GHz+ cpu or equivalent", and it is that last bit that is important. An AMD that is 1.0ghz lower than an intel is indeed its equal. I in fact prever AMD, as pentiums overheat a lot faster.
Cache Size: The first few lines of this wikipedia article will give you the general idea. Basically like RAM specifically for the CPU to use to figure out how best to, well, process. Those old cheapie Celeron CPUs were cheap because they had like a 256k cache size, which is pure trash. 512k is the standard (if my memory serves me, that is). If you want a performance CPU, you might want to look into a cpu with a megabyte cache (1024k) or even more.
Cores: All the hubbub is about dualcore and soon quadcore. So what the crap is it? Basically, it is indeed two (or four, in the case of quadcore) cpus in one. Now, you might think that two cpus work better than one, but as for now, think again. Currently, 99% of programs out there (even games!) don't automatically take advantage of multiple cores. So you do it manually. You use Task Manager (that thing that pops up with Ctrl+Alt+Delete) to set a "Core Affinity" (aka, assign processes to a different core). This is amazing for games, because you can basically throw your game on its own core (its own CPU), and let the other CPU manage windows (which is heavy in itself), ventrilo, icq, IE/firefox, aim, etc etc etc etc. Very handy for multitaskers or gamers, though it is a bit pricey right now. You also need to be a Level Two Nerd to be able to use it, aka, knowing how to identify what process your game/program is that you want to set to core 2, and then knowing how to do it. Until programs (or perhaps windows might someday automatically take advantage of it, I don't think that Vista does this yet) automatically take advantage of multiple cores, you might not want to invest the extra money, though planning ahead is always good.

RAM:
RAM is RAM, usually, though not all ram is created equal. You generally can't get "faster ram" without getting a mobo that can support uber ram, but you can get a good company, like Corsair, for performance. There is really only one performance thing to note off the top of my head with ram:
Dualchannel: Dualchannel ram is actually two sticks of ram that work synergetically to work faster than a single stick in its place. The vast majority of new motherboards are dualchannel ready, but about half the ram out there is not dualchannel. You buy dualchannel as a "memory kit" or something similar, which is always two sticks of half of what you want, AKA, a "gigabyte dualchannel ram kit" is actually two 512MB sticks of dualchannel that total a gig. So really, it is a smart investment to get dualchannel, as dualchannel is rarely more expensive than regular. In fact, it is sometimes cheaper, as I found out when I had someone buy all the same PC parts as I did a few months later, only to find that the gig of dualchannel I reccomended was 25$ cheaper than the single 1GB stick of nondualchannel ram I am using now. One last note on this: You can mix and match dualchannel, aka, you can have two sticks of dualchannel, then one or two sticks of non dualchannel. I plan to do this myself soon and have a gig of dualchannel, and a gig of regular; the computer should automatically take advantage of the dualchannel ram first, and anything that overflows will use the regular. That way you don't have to toss your old ram out, unless you are out of ram slots. XP should have 1GB of ram, and Vista should have 2GB of ram for optimal performance, dualchannel or not.

Video Card:
Holy crap, I almost hate to write all this up. I hope someone saves this for later use, instead of getting autodeleted <.<
ATI vs NVidia: Preference, I like NVidia more. It seems to be more widely supported, drivers dont crash as much, and Dual-SLI seems more widespread than Crossfire (I'll explain this later). Go with whatever you want, but honestly, I feel NVidia is a bit easier to find support for, and easier to use.
Memory size: The biggest misconception with video cards is that the memory is everything, and this is not true. You could have a brand new card with a gig of video ram, and that same card with 128megs of video ram, and it wouldn't make a single difference in performance unless the game requires more than 128megs of video ram. No game requires more than 128 right now, though 256 is HIGHLY reccomended. 512 is overkill unless you are planning way ahead, and honestly, that is only if you have $600+ to drop on a DirectX10 card (I'll cover this later too). So if you are getting a new card, get 256 for sure, 512 if you have the money to drop, and more than that is probably a huge waste right now.
DirectX10!?!?!?: Yeah, the big craze floating around is DirectX10. It is absolutely amazing, and only cards built specifically for DX10 can run DX10. The cards that support DX10 are extremely expensive (NVidia only has one, the 8800, and I think ATI's is coming our soon, or has just come out recently), and DX10 itself is years away from being seen in a game sold on shelves. You don't make a game that nobody can play, nor do you make a game that players -NEED- to drop 300-800$ on a video card to play. So, this is a craze, don't buy into it now. By the time games actually USE DX10, the cards will be half or less that price, and better cards will be out.
DualSLI/Crossfire: This is the name given to running two video cards with the same chipset; DualSLI is for Nvidia cards, Crossfire is for ATI cards. More or less, the cards work synergetically and share video ram to work on one display, render one game, one image. Very powerful, but in my opinion, don't bother unless you have four digits to drop on a nice new insane gaming system. Also note that by same chipset, I mean the same card entirely. a 7600GS won't SLI with a 7600GT, and a 7600GS certainly wont SLI with a 7900GS. Two of the exact same make of card, preferably from the same company just in case, the only difference being in memory (a 7600GS with 256megs of video ram will SLI with a 7600GS with 512 megs of video ram). Also note that the Nvidia 7950 is actually dual SLi in one card, with two chips, much like a dualcore CPU. You can indeed Dual-SLI two 7950's together, effectively having four video cards in two slots working on one image. Insane performance.
GS vs GT, and other such confusing letters after the numbers: Supports, like I said before. It isn't about the memory, it is about what it supports, what kind of performance it puts out. GT/GTX will indeed be more expensive than the lower end GS models, with more pixelpiplines, faster core/memory, but that does not mean GS's are worthless. I run a 7600GS that cost me 90 bucks and it runs prettymuch any game on the market on the highest settings without slugging up terribly, and can run anything FLAWLESSLY on low/medium settings (depending on the game). For the "Oblivion Test", a 7600GS runs Oblivion flawlessly on the highest settings possible with zero slowdown whatsoever.
So what do you reccomend?: Honestly, the current game market will run fine on anything 7 series (starting with a 7... 7300GS all the way up to 7900GT's or 7950's (I forget the letters behind the 9750's)). A 7600GS is a quick 80-100$ investment for a good card that'll last you a few years yet, but remember, you get what you pay for; cheap cards will be not as cool all the quicker, and more expensive cards will likely be strong enough for you for a longer period of time, though 'expensive=quality' is definately wrong.

What the crap is a Physics card!?!?
Long story short since info on Physics cards are floating around, a physics card is an expensive PCI card that can draw up to 10,000 onscreen objects, be they players or wooden chips flying every which way after two boats collide (the example there being that Pirates of the Burning Sea, an upcoming MMORPG, says it will support but not require physics cards). I believe there are maybe 1-3 games total out on the market that actually support these 300$ beasts as an OPTIONAL component, and I don't know a single person that owns one yet. The rumor is that UT2k7 will support it as an optional part as well though, so if you are insanely rich, it might be a nice investment.

Performance HDD's
SATA: Serial ATA, which is the new hard drive connector. Much better transfer rates than normal hard drives, but your mobo must support it (aka, have the connectors available).
RPM: The higher the RPMs, the faster the data will read and write. Laptops run 5400RPM, desktops run 7600RPM (give or take, i forget), and performance drives run 10,000RPM or even 15,000RPM.
RAID: RAID is basically two hard drives that work together synergetically and pretend they are one hard drive, so it reduces the workload on each drive. Say you have two 100GB hard drives of standard desktop speed (7600RPM or so) and you "RAID 0" them together; they essentially become a single 100GB hard drive that is twice as fast as any normal 100GB hard drive, as every other byte of data is sent to a different hard drive. Note that this is probably a waste of time with old hard drives (non-SATA drives), because they still run off the same connector, which won't make it much faster. The performance increase is there though; I know someone running two 10,000RPM Raptor drives in RAID mode, imagine the sickening speed of that. However, note this important point: if one of the hard drives fail, you lose all the data on both, as they were working together and only have half the files with the bytes perfectly split between the two. If one goes, your data goes, end of story. Lastly, there is a setup called RAID 1 that is as common as RAID 0, but it has to do with data security or something, and I have no idea what it does or how to work it, so if you RAID, use RAID 0. There are even higher levels of RAID that are extremely uncommon that use 4+ hard drives, RAID 2 and RAID 3 and so forth, but I only discovered that they even existed just now by hitting wikipedia, so consider that a toy in maybe ten years from now.

I hope this covers most of the common gaming performance questions.
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Grand Duchess Molly Kaldhel
Oracle of Truth
The House Gauntlet
Sanctus, Luna, Malas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXoGDbJ5nLU
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