Spring RTS Engine

Remember those days I kept saying "no, wait until late '06, early '07 to upgrade"... I've come to gloat.

Pentium D 805 (2.66ghz) @ 3.2 GHz w/ Zalman 9500 (all copper, no ghey led) (47c idle, 61c maximum cpu-burn x2 load) - $105 + $76
Geforce 8800 GTS 320mb @ 650mhz/1900mhz (54c idle, 71c maximum load via ATITool) - $289
Asus P5B-E Mobo (30c idle, 33c load) - $155
4 gigs Patriot DDR-6400 RAM @ 840mhz (only 3.08 gigs recognized by WinXP, need Vista or Win2003 to recognize higher) - $388
500 gig RAID 10 4hdd array - $240
Ultra Aluminus case (black, fully closed except for fan ports) - $110
Ultra 600 watt modular PSU - $98
3 120mm near-silent fans - $14
1 80mm silent fan - $9
Miscellaneous crap (DVD drive x2, floppy, sata cables, shipping, canadian TAX of DOOOOM) came to about $390

Total price: $1874, give or take 50. 2 weeks pay plus tax return. Woot muffins.

My 3DMark 06 score is.... 6923, before I added the last 2 gigs of RAM. Up from 3044 with my old computer:

Pentium 4 3ghz @ 3.75ghz w/ Zalman 7700 all-copper heat sink
Geforce 7800 GS at equally outrageous overclock
Generic case with all sides and slots removed to help with heat dissipation
1 gig ram
3 hard drives amounting to about 400 gig
DVD drive
Audigy SE (don't ask me why, it was an impulse. I feel dirty about it every day)

If you've held off until now before your big upgrade, I'd highly recommend you make the 8800 GTS 320 meg a part of it. It's an amazing card, great overclocking room (I have the BFG model), the only thing that gives me second thoughts is the R600 card from ATI coming out when it ceases to be perpetually delayed (but I'd take nvidia to ATI any day), and the fact that when the new ATI card is released, nvidia will release their new-new card and bring the prices of existing, perfectly good ones, down.

With all quality settings to maximum @ 1280x1024, SupCom runs like silk. 10x10 maps load in roughly 5-8 seconds.

So... what's the deal, is everyone here dead/gone? No new community news posted for like 5 months.

You came back just to gloat about how you have teh pwnzorz box!!11!!1!~?

Welcome back!

Looks great and all...

Pentium D 805 (2.66ghz) @ 3.2 GHz

Why did you get the Pentium D 805? That thing is last gen stuff released in 2005, and is the cheapest of its range. The cheapest Core 2 Duo and most of AMDs range are far better. Its almost a joke to compare the performance. If you got a decent CPU you might be getting a 3dmark of up to 8,500.

What was the point in waiting a year for 2 year old stock?

Edit: And devs have been to lazy to update the front page lately.

Relative wrote:Edit: And devs have been to BUSY to update the front page lately.

just look at the number of revisions in the past week alone:

https://taspring.clan-sy.com/wsvn/log.p ... =0&isdir=1

Why did you get the Pentium D 805?

Because of its spectacular overclocking ability, as documented here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/10/ ... ghz_cores/

As I understand it, it's actually a high-end Pentium D, underclocked to save manufacturing costs for designing a whole new CPU. Same way you can unlock extra pipelines on certain graphics cards because they were made from the same die, different firmware. Pentium D is 64 bit and dual-core, and at stock settings my 805 runs at 33 degrees under full load!

Plus, it's socket 775, and P5B-E is compatible with up to quad core... so if I decide to go conroe it's ready for me.

Only reason the CPU is clocked so "low" right now (only 3.2 ghz, as opposed to 3.7 or 3.8 ghz as is possible) is because my memory is so bloody fast that I can't raise my FSB anymore or else it'll be running at over 880mhz and my computer won't post. I guess I should've gone for slower memory!

Anyways, I think I'm mostly futureproof now. Shouldn't have to upgrade any component for at least 18 months, and I'm hoping it'll remain competitive for around 3 years. When I do have to upgrade, I'll have lots of options because of the common socket type and fast maximum FSB of my mobo.

What I love is, my $300 card is running faster than the very best SLI setup worth $1500 from just a few months ago! GREAT value. My wholehearted recommendation.

(No, didn't come back JUST to gloat, I wanted to complain about STALKER too)

3DMark crashes when I try to run it on my family's pentium 4 and FX 5200.

But I ordered a "multimedia" laptop yesterday, in spite of everyones warnings.

Lindir The Green wrote:3DMark crashes when I try to run it on my family's pentium 4 and FX 5200.

But I ordered a "multimedia" laptop yesterday, in spite of everyones warnings.

Double phailure.

Oh no! Think of the children!

my old PC had a pentium D 805, but it also had a crappy psu and it was very underpowered so it ran like cr*p.

I'm guessing you never heard of the conroe Even when overclocked (I am aware that the 805 has some great overclocking potential) it is nothing compared to the Core 2 Duo (Allendale/Conroe) a stock settings, let alone when overclocked. You can't get away from the fact that the Pentium D you bought is 2 year old stock that wasn't even the best when it was released compared to AMD's mid range CPUs. Plus, the amount of cooling required to reach frequencies of 4Ghz would cost you more than buying a mid range conroe.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sh ... =2795&p=16

NetBurst is dead!

Intel's Core 2 Extreme X6800 didn't lose a single benchmark in our comparison; not a single one. In many cases, the $183 Core 2 Duo E6300 actually outperformed Intel's previous champ: the Pentium Extreme Edition 965. In one day, Intel has made its entire Pentium D lineup of processors obsolete. Intel's Core 2 processors offer the sort of next-generation micro-architecture performance leap that we honestly haven't seen from Intel since the introduction of the P6.

Lindir The Green wrote:But I ordered a "multimedia" laptop yesterday, in spite of everyones warnings. :twisted:

Don't say it is a dell...

Oh, it is.

Dell was just so much insanely cheaper than the competition, and most of the recent complaints have to do with the customer service, which I hope to not have to use.

edit: For $1,703 including tax and shipping I got a 2 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2 GB of 667 Mhz RAM (I don't remember which kind, but it was the same that all other modern laptops had), a 160 GB hard drive, a GeForce Go 7900GS, a screen with Trulife (10% higher contrast), and a good wireless card.

did you also ask them to include some anthrax in the package?

Yes. Yes I did.

i would have.

btw: My Athlon XP 2700+ Thoroughbred will own you all!

And some ground up kittens.

I thought those were standard.

Well, I wanted to make sure.

Lindir The Green wrote:Oh, it is.

Dell was just so much insanely cheaper than the competition, and most of the recent complaints have to do with the customer service, which I hope to not have to use.

edit: For $1,703 including tax and shipping I got a 2 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2 GB of 667 Mhz RAM (I don't remember which kind, but it was the same that all other modern laptops had), a 160 GB hard drive, a GeForce Go 7900GS, a screen with Trulife (10% higher contrast), and a good wireless card.

Wow, that is pretty good.

Plus, the amount of cooling required to reach frequencies of 4Ghz would cost you more than buying a mid range conroe.

Ah, but then I wouldn't be crazy-overclocking! Where's the thrill!?

Intel's Core 2 Extreme X6800 (the most expensive CPU in existence, quad core, $1,600+) didn't lose a single benchmark in our comparison; not a single one. In many cases, the $183 Core 2 Duo E6300 (a completely different chip) actually outperformed Intel's previous champ: the Pentium Extreme Edition 965.

An 805, clocked at 2.66 GHz with a 533 MT/s bus, appeared in early 2006. The relatively cheap 805 was found to be highly capable of overclocking; running the processor in a stable state at over 3.5 GHz was easily possible with standard air cooling. Running it at over 4 GHz was possible with water cooling, and at this stage the 805 outperformed top-of-the-line processors (May 2006) from both major CPU manufacturers (the AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 and Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 965).

X6800 ($1600, 2007) > E6300 ($180, 2007) > D805 ($90, 2006) > EE965 ($1000, 2005) > Athlon FX-60 > Your CPU > Anything from Dell