Processors 101

[WildGoose]

right, recent quest to try and understand a bit more about modern hardware, with a view to building my own pc...eventually

been scouring the net, but finding it hard to find info that doesnt already assume at the very least that you are a competent geekist

so i would like anyone willing to spell some things out for me in black and white idiot language

been looking at intel site

now why they cant provide the simple differences in simple language i dont know, but its hard to decipher all the crap

they list the following under desktop:-

Intel® Core™ Duo Processor
Intel® Pentium® Processor Extreme Edition
Intel® Pentium® D Processor
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor Extreme Edition supporting Hyper-Threading Technology
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor supporting Hyper-threading Technology
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor

what exactly is the extreme edition, as ebuyer doesnt seem to say fuck all about anything extreme edition, and the processor numbers corresponding to the extreme editions seem hard to find to buy, are they out yet?

whats the "pentium processor extreme edition" without the pentium 4 moniker all about?

basically what are the differences between all the above, and what do you need for your basic, but reasonable sharp end desktop pc at home for playing games

i want a high end system, but if you just pick the product that boasts the highest numbers, same for mobo, and ram, then you can spend thousands, and 60% of it would probly go unused...

im finding it hard to find the balance, particularly someone like me who is drawn to buying the thing with the highest numbers

if you havent got time, then please dont send me to google

but if you fancy clearing some things up for me (and im sure others) then it would be greatly appreciated, share the wealth of knowledge here

havent quite got round to AMD yet, apart from the fact they seem to be slightly cheaper, and the numbers dont match processor speeds annoyingly

many thanks
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So in other words, he stopped you for being flagrantly in posession of a motorcycle in direct contravention of the Hippies, Darkies and People Whose Face I Don't Like The Look of (Police Powers) Act. 1976

[senna_f4]

Agree with Siggi

What will you use your pc for?

To avoid all the problems of incompatabilites I suggest looking at bundles from a reputable place such as this;
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Bundles.html

Buy it there or go elsewhere and get the components, at least you know they will all work together, all sockets and stuff.
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"You don't know the power of the dark side."

[DucatiEVO]

Extreme Edition is a normal P4 with a massive 2Mb on-die cache (full speed).

You get a performance boost but it's no way worth the huge bump in price...

Better to go AMD Dual-Core!
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aKa: Ducky

[fuzz]

For a rundown on specs of each processor, try here:

https://processorfinder.intel.com/scripts/default.asp

Pentium Ds have up to a whopping 4MB L2 cache (so expect high price) but only go to 3.4GHz so far. The top-of-the-range P4 Extreme Edition run on a 1066MHz bus, so you need a motherboard that supports it. The Pentium Extreme Edition is a cross between P4 Extreme and Pentium D.
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https://www.bikepics.com/members/fuzzbcf/
Bikes: '99 NSR125R, '00 SV650S, K1 GSX-R600, '97 CB500, K3 SV1000S, '16 VFR800

[daz|n00by]

[fuzz]

[WildGoose]

wow, hell of a lot to take in, but thanks for all the replies

its mainly looking to be a gaming pc, so am i better looking towards the AMD side of things?
____________________
So in other words, he stopped you for being flagrantly in posession of a motorcycle in direct contravention of the Hippies, Darkies and People Whose Face I Don't Like The Look of (Police Powers) Act. 1976

[daz|n00by]

I would say a lot of its down to cost and choice but as a general rule i would say AMD for gamers and fast response and Pentium for reliability and stability.

Since i changed over to using p4's i have never ever had a pc crash and very rarely format now either.
But i do notice that little kind of speed edge missing that the AMD used to give and have to have a go on the missus and sons every now and then just to remind me of what i,m missing.
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"Its Better To Burn Out Than Fade Away!!!!!!" "Lifes a bitch and then you Die"
"I`m a tool, one with just enough intelligence to know it, just enough spirit to resent it...but not enough backbone to do anything about it. " Siggi 2006 pure class.

[sickpup]

[daz|n00by]

[veeeffarr]

[Psychofly]

Anyone tried the XP 64-bit running NVIDIA gfx card and playing games like Counterstrike Source and Battlefield 2 ?

[sickpup]

[veeeffarr]

Physics cards are where it's at

[veeeffarr]

Fuck me...

[Tarmacsurfer]

Can't say anything about Intel reliability, but AMD is far from bad. My current fileserver is an old XP2000+, current uptime ~8 months. Only reason it's been offline in the last 2 years was a power outage.

My main desktop is a very OCd Venice 3000, uptime ~5 or 6 weeks now. Simply doesn't need rebooting. Both machines running XP pro (the XP2000+ was running Win2kAS for a while, that was also impressively solid, changed to XP for easier access to virus protection). A business friend used to prate on about the merits of Intel, but afraid I just don't see it these days.
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I'm immortal. Well, so far.

[WildGoose]

right, bit rash perhaps, but i've bought the board and cpu

Athlon 64 3700 San Diego

and A8N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard

opinions?

and any suggestions for other components like, PSU, Hard drives and cases?
____________________
So in other words, he stopped you for being flagrantly in posession of a motorcycle in direct contravention of the Hippies, Darkies and People Whose Face I Don't Like The Look of (Police Powers) Act. 1976

[fuzz]

Nothing less than a 400W power supply, depending on amount of hard and optical drives you have and type of graphics card.

For hard drives, Maxtor have always done me well - I still have a working 400MB drive form my first 486. Seagate are also good, but stay away from Fujitsu.

The you need to decide whether you want IDE or SATA. SATA is faster but more expensive. I'd stick with IDE unles you are building a RAID array, although with the motherboard you have chosen, a SATA drive will most likely perform slightly better. A 200GB drive will cost about £50 and should last you well.

https://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=89515

For SATA: https://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=18103329554&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=102293

Not much in price difference though.
____________________
https://www.bikepics.com/members/fuzzbcf/
Bikes: '99 NSR125R, '00 SV650S, K1 GSX-R600, '97 CB500, K3 SV1000S, '16 VFR800

[WildGoose]

what are IDE and SATA in idiot language?

and a RAID array?

cheers
____________________
So in other words, he stopped you for being flagrantly in posession of a motorcycle in direct contravention of the Hippies, Darkies and People Whose Face I Don't Like The Look of (Police Powers) Act. 1976

[veeeffarr]

[WildGoose]

right, been reading up

read something about complications about installing an OS on SATA hard drives bigger than 120gb, you need extra drivers or software or something

anyone shed any light on this?
____________________
So in other words, he stopped you for being flagrantly in posession of a motorcycle in direct contravention of the Hippies, Darkies and People Whose Face I Don't Like The Look of (Police Powers) Act. 1976

[veeeffarr]

[Tarmacsurfer]

Currently using 2 Hitachi 7K80 drives in raid0. Whilst they're listed on Ebuyer as SATA1 all of the information (THIS for example) I've found refers to them being SATA2, suffice to say for £65 odd for 160 gig of fast HD seems pretty good to me. Sadly I cant find the Toms Hardware review that initially decided me, but a pair of SATA2 drives in this config is supposedly pretty damn quick (in fact HERE is another site, see the figures for yourself).

Different RAID configs do different things, RAID 0 means 2 80 gig drives become 1 160 gig drive, but as the data is striped across both it works rather fast (and if one drive dies, you've lost it all). RAID 1 is a "safety" configuration, 2 80 gig drives make 1 80 gig drive, everything on one drive is on the other, hence if one fails all your files are still there. There are many more, but none that are too common in the home PC. Just google it for a complete breakdown.
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I'm immortal. Well, so far.

[cagiva gezzer]