antioch said:
A friend is buying a computer from a well know 'off the shelf' builder.
It has the latest Intel ViiV technology Core 2Duo E4300 CPU.
He has NO tech knowledge re overclocking.
The GPU start level on customise is an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator
3000.
His main use for a system will be to play DVD films and music, browse the
net and emails.
He will not be downloading video or film editing of any kind - just using
the DVD RW to store digital photos.
Re the DVD playing, will an accelerator be sufficient for purpose or should
he have at least the entry level GPU card as offered.
Rgds
Antioch
If the builder is flexible on the OS, and the build is to be low end,
use WinXP, as it needs less resources. Vista runs better when it has a
lot of RAM. WinXP can get by with less RAM.
An E4300 is 1.8GHz, with an FSB of FSB800.
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SL9TB
Using the chart here, they don't list the E4300. But this particular
benchmark chart is scalable. The E6400 runs at 2.13GHz and benches at
19562. Scaling down to E4300 level, that would be 16531. The dual core
Pentium D 830 is the older technology, and runs at 3GHz, and it benches
at 13530. So the E4300 is at least as good as a 3GHz dual core of the
old "Netburst" design.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=433&model2=447&chart=158
Even the GMA3000 will have IDCT acceleration, for playback of content.
Which will help a little bit. That doesn't mean every stage of playback
is accelerated, just the one stage, and IDCT (Inverse Discrete Cosine
Transform) has been available on graphics designs for at least 5 years or
so.
If using WinXP, for my own use I'd put 1GB of memory in the machine.
512MB would also be usable, but tighter. If you are forced to use
Vista, 512MB will make it feel sluggish.
For 2D work, the GMA3000 would need room for frame buffers, but
other than that, doesn't have to bite into system memory that hard.
Try it without a separate graphics card first. Make sure the computer
has expansion slots, like a slot for a video card. On machines like
Dell/HP/Gateway etc, the lowest cost machines sometimes ship without
a good slot for a graphics card, making upgrading later difficult.
So, to prevent that error from being made, verify the machine does
have a slot for a separate graphics card. On older motherboards,
that would have been AGP 8X, while on newer it would be PCI Express x16.
The reason for specifying AGP 8X, and not something less, is not
the performance end of things, it is for compatibility with as many
modern AGP cards as possible. Similarly, on the PCI Express end
of things, you could run a video card even on a PCI Express x1 slot,
but the connector is too small for the majority of video cards.
Having a x16 slot, with its large connector, ensures that there are
a couple hundred options for video card upgrades later.
The power supply does not have to be beefed up too much for low
end graphics cards like 7300GT or 7600GS, so your main worry with
those, is the slot to hold the card. Those cards are in the 30W range,
and the power supply probably already has enough room for that. If
you were adding a $600 8800 series card, those use 145W of power, and
may be too much for whatever power supply ships with the system.
Working with High Definition content, is a separate issue. But you
aren't likely to be attempting that with a low end system anyway, as
the optical drive for either HD-DVD or Blueray would be quite
expensive. There are probably better articles than this one, as
this is just a quick preview.
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2798&p=3
Paul
