Best Gaming Build for ~$600?

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: NexLevel

[*]Do games and the gaming experience actually benefit from dual-core systems? Dual core is nothing more than a dual-cpu setup, so if we regress back to the years gone by, can anyone definitively say that dual CPU systems actually improve gameplay? Are, in fact, games designed so that concurrent threads can run on different processors? Aren't all games designed so that the most demanding of calculations are handled by the graphics cpu with it's dedicated ASIC's and GPU's -- so that the traditional CPU has no requirement other than to shuffle commands and memory chunks to and fro? I really need to nail this down.

Currently, there are only a few games that see a benefit if you tweak them for multithreading - oblivion, half life 2, maybe a few others. however, the benefits are minor (maybe a few fps) and the games are few and far between. so, today, the benefit of dual core isn't so much for gaming, but for everything else: multitasking is amazing (e.g. playing a video game while ripping music w/ no lag) and many other programs can take advantage of multiple cores, such as audio and video encoding apps, graphics programs and so on.

games coming out in the next few years reportedly WILL take advantage of multiple cores, such as Alan Wake and future Valve projects (read about it here)... this doesn't necessarily mean that those games will run "faster" (more fps) but that they may take advantage of multiple cores to create more realistic physics, AI, etc... multicore is definitely the future and i can think of very few reasons to NOT go multicore today, especially since the c2d systems today are the fastest in both single and multithreaded applications.

Originally posted by: NexLevel
[*]Do modern games benefit from MORE THAN 1GB of RAM? In a well tuned system with 700MB of system physical RAM (not virtual) available to a game, will it actually need more than that? I can tune an XP system to deliver this kind of available RAM, and so I'm not really sure that any more than 1GB would be needed. Some may argue that having more than 1GB enables multi-tasking and the ability to keep many programs open and available. My counter to this is that I'm only gaming. I won't be burning DVD's, chatting with people, surfing the web and compiling custom PE discs while I'm fragging someone else. I'm just not that talented. So, I'm going to research this as well. The thing I may find is that dual-channel memory (2GB in a dual channel yields 1GB availble, correct? Dual channel setups are like RAID 0 - striped, right? Fast.

certain games today do benefit from more than 1GB of RAM, such as battlefield 2 and oblivion. these are typically games that have HUGE maps with lots going on, which is typically rare. you can definitely get by with 1GB for a while and with RAM prices sky high today, that's probably the way to go for now. however, future games and apps will (as they always do) increase in RAM usage (Vista is expected to be a massive memory hog), so an upgrade to 2GB will go a long way in terms of future proofing.

as for dual channel RAM it is NOT like RAID 0 at all. to have dual channel RAM, you need pairs of identical sticks of RAM in your motherboard (e.g. 2x512MB, 2x1GB, 4x512MB) and whatever RAM is in there is what's available to the system (2 sticks of 1GB give you 2GB of available RAM, as you'd expect). a very simplified explanation i read a while ago described it in this way: RAM transfers data in strobes (blinking on and off like a strobe light) so dual channel RAM is timed so that one stick strobes on while the other is off, theoretically providing more bandwidth. in practice, it's debatable how much faster dual channel RAM really is, but if you can get it (by buying pairs of RAM) it's typically a good idea.

Originally posted by: NexLevel
[*]Do mobo/vidcard combos yield performance benefits? In other words do I benefit from coupling an AMD/ATI/Radeon mobo-vidcard combo? What about GeForce? Are there GeForce/NVidia friendly setups? And I don't need (nor want) the SLI setup either.

Thanks all again. I appreciate the response I'm getting, and I'm quite sure I'm close to deciding.

afaik, there is no benefit to such combinations. that is, nvidia video cards work on ATi boards and ATi video cards work in nvidia boards. however, if you got an SLI/Crossfire board and wanted to give yourself the option of going to multiple GPU's in the future, then it might be worthwhile in getting appropriate brand of GPU initially (nvidia/ATI, respectively)

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: brikis98
Currently, there are only a few games that see a benefit if you tweak them for multithreading - oblivion, half life 2, maybe a few others. however, the benefits are minor (maybe a few fps) and the games are few and far between. so, today, the benefit of dual core isn't so much for gaming, but for everything else: multitasking is amazing (e.g. playing a video game while ripping music w/ no lag) and many other programs can take advantage of multiple cores, such as audio and video encoding apps, graphics programs and so on.

Also, something to be aware of, any system/Windows tasks are pretty much out of worry now because of the other core being there to pick them up if need be. Although it's not always so perfect like that. Unless you set the affinity, a single program will jump across cores quite a bit.

Originally posted by: brikis98
as for dual channel RAM it is NOT like RAID 0 at all. to have dual channel RAM, you need pairs of identical sticks of RAM in your motherboard (e.g. 2x512MB, 2x1GB, 4x512MB) and whatever RAM is in there is what's available to the system (2 sticks of 1GB give you 2GB of available RAM, as you'd expect). a very simplified explanation i read a while ago described it in this way: RAM transfers data in strobes (blinking on and off like a strobe light) so dual channel RAM is timed so that one stick strobes on while the other is off, theoretically providing more bandwidth. in practice, it's debatable how much faster dual channel RAM really is, but if you can get it (by buying pairs of RAM) it's typically a good idea.

It all depends on how much RAM access you've got. If a program has very little and is mostly simple user actions, then Dual-DDR will not help much (as most of the accessing is probably a couple variables here and there and the program code/counter, etc). Dual-DDR can definitely speed up any memory hungry program, though. You're right in your description of how it works. Also, an important thing to remember is that Dual-DDR can increase speed, but low timings can help quite a bit as well. I remember when I changed my Command Rate (the amount of time a message is sent across the memory bus) from 2T to 1T... that was quite a difference with just that! If you can, dropping your CAS (Column Address Strobe, this time says how long it takes to find the current column in the row buffer that you're looking for and start sending it across the bus.) Essentially, no matter what memory operation, CAS and CR always affect your performance where the other 3 performance numbers (RAS to CAS, RAS Precharge and umm the other one that eludes me at the moment...) only affect performance in certain cases.