Will anything else speed me up?

[J. Clarke]

Remember it is the All-In-Wonder 128 9600 Pro I am getting. not jus the
regular 9600 Pro.

Doesn't change anything that I wrote. The AIW adds the Rage Theater chip
and supporting components and some different connectors but the GPU is the
same RV350 as for any other 9600 except the XT that uses the RV360.

 

[James Brown]

So do you think I am still getting a good card? I can't afford the extra for
the 9800.

 

[Gordon Scott]

I have just ordered the following system:

Intel Pentium 4
2.6Ghz (512K, 800mhz Bus)
1GB Ram DDR 400mhz, PC3200
200GB Western Digital Drive (7200rpm, 8MB Cache, 8.9ms)
ATI All-In-Wonder 128 Radeon 9600 Video Card
LG 52X CDRW
LG 8X DVD/RW
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live (my current card)
Panasonic 1.44 Floppy
ASUS 478 Socket Intel 865PE Motherboard
(8) USB 2.0, (1) Parallel, (1) Serial
10/100/100 Ethernet
300W Power Supply
Microsoft Internet Keyboard & Optical Wheel Mouse
Black Mid-Tower Touch Systems Case

I want to use this box to convert my VHS home movies to DVD, and have a
great gaming PC for the kids. I hope I have made the correct choices, and I
have 1 week to change any items.

Any thoughts from anyone? (any way I look at it, it will be better than my
PII 450 w 256MB Ram)

James

My only suggestion is about the HDD
you only have 1, so the bus will be very busy with system requirements
and transfering data.
I believe its not uncommon to have a dedicated HDD for storing/working
the video, while the other bus/drive is dedicated to system/program use.

Gordon

 

[J. Clarke]

So do you think I am still getting a good card? I can't afford the extra
for the 9800.

Certainly--just bear in mind that the 9600AIW has no DVI capability.

 

[Dam6]

I have just ordered the following system:

Intel Pentium 4
2.6Ghz (512K, 800mhz Bus)
1GB Ram DDR 400mhz, PC3200
200GB Western Digital Drive (7200rpm, 8MB Cache, 8.9ms)
ATI All-In-Wonder 128 Radeon 9600 Video Card
LG 52X CDRW
LG 8X DVD/RW
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live (my current card)
Panasonic 1.44 Floppy
ASUS 478 Socket Intel 865PE Motherboard
(8) USB 2.0, (1) Parallel, (1) Serial
10/100/100 Ethernet
300W Power Supply
Microsoft Internet Keyboard & Optical Wheel Mouse
Black Mid-Tower Touch Systems Case

I want to use this box to convert my VHS home movies to DVD, and have a
great gaming PC for the kids. I hope I have made the correct choices, and I
have 1 week to change any items.

Any thoughts from anyone? (any way I look at it, it will be better than my
PII 450 w 256MB Ram)

James

The 'ONLY' area I would look at (apart from the PSU) would be the CPU. The
Athlon 64 3000+ is only another £30+. Just a thought, but it does require a
socket 754 board which it's future is uncertain... but then again, with PCs,
a future is irrelevant seeing as things change all the time. Maximum bang
for your buck.

Just a thought

 

[James Brown]

I guess I would only use that if I had a Digital Video camera, right?

 

[James Brown]

Here in Canada to move from the intel 2.6 to the 2.8 is $300, and to move to
the 3.0 is $385. I would rather crank up the ram than pay that much for not
that much extra umph.

 

[Darthy]

I've never seen anything that suggested that the 9600 was "better" than the
9700 in any regard but power consumption and possibly fan noise. There is
very little performance difference between the 9700 and the 9800--the only
real change between the two was an improvement in the pixel shader. The
9600 replaced the 9500 and didn't bring any real improvements, just
hard-locked the performance at a level lower than the 9700/9800s--some
9500s could be soft-modded into full 9700s, but the 9600 can't be modded
into anything but a slightly faster 9600.

The 9800 is about 10% faster... which is something, but NOT an upgrade
over someone who already has a 9700Pro.

Looks like todays 9600Pro is still a little bit slower (8%) than the
9500Pro.

 

[Darthy]

The 'ONLY' area I would look at (apart from the PSU) would be the CPU. The
Athlon 64 3000+ is only another £30+. Just a thought, but it does require a
socket 754 board which it's future is uncertain... but then again, with PCs,
a future is irrelevant seeing as things change all the time. Maximum bang
for your buck.

AMD64 3000 Is faster than the P4 4.2 and sometimes FASTER than Intel's
P4-EE (Actually a re-packaged XEON server chip) that costs $1000!

Future uncertain? yeah, that maybe true, perhaps another 12 months.
The 939Socket is supposed to take over (AMD fubared this) - but who
knows? For the AMD64 (socket 754)- theres the 3000/3200/3400 and 3700
in about 6 months. But they may keep it for longer... AMD is using
the 64bit CORE CPU that doesn't pass and turning them into cheap 32bit
CPUs that fit 64bit boards. Kinda cool, ain't it? It means you could
get a 64bit mobo, pay $100 for a CPU today (not quite yet) but upgrade
to a $400 CPU later... or wait till its cheaper as well.

Besides, even the current P4 socket is being phased out, the first gen
P5 will work on current P4 boards, but in less than 12 months the true
p5 board will be out and will not work with OLDER P5 CPUs and
vise-versa.

Check this out: http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1946&p=5

If you PLAY UT2003 and have an ATi9800Pro (I know, youre getting a
9600) , there would be about a 33FPS performance hit with the 2.6Ghz
vs the AMD3000. (100fps vs 68) (This is based on the score of the
AMD64 3000 vs P4 3.2, and that its about 6fps slower per 200mhz)

 

[GTD]

Are their problems if I do not have a 400W?
What is the disadvantage in not doing it?

It's hard to say for certian if you will have problems or not, but
lets assume for a moment that it DOES cause problems. What I envision
happening, is a person with PSU problems first sees fairly
non-descript, often random-seeming problems. This app crashes
sometimes, sometimes you can play a game, sometimes not, some games
work and some don't, ect. The problem is (and this is assuming you are
buying a completely assembled system), is that tech support will often
chase a bunch of little problems that aren't the root problem. Random
errors, must be the memory, not the memory?, must be the CPU. System
crashes when transfering files from CD to HD, must be one of those.
Crashes when you try and attach your firewird DV recorder, must be
that. Can't find the problem, send the whole system back. That kind of
thinking.
If the PSU IS a problem, it will probably not be as simple as getting
a new or upgraded PSU sent to you.
This is just my opinion, but it has worked well for me: Get a good,
quality PSU, with a decent amount of overhead, incase you add
hardware, and feed it good clean power, like what is gotten from an
APC UPS. I live in Alaska, and quite frankly, the power up here sucks.
Brownouts all the time, overvoltage from when snow builds up on the
lines and then gets blown off and the lines bounce around, blackouts.

L8r


You should start drinking prune juice and KY jelly cocktails right now,
that will make things a lot smoother.
-Felatio Love