Pimp my rig thread

[tZork]

my work/play station
a64 2800
512x2 kingston 400mhz cas 2
msi 7030 mobo
pny gf600gt /128
2x120gm segate ncq sata cudas in stripe raid (240 gb array)
60 gb segate udma 133 ide
somekinda nec dvdrw
zalman coolers @ cpu and gpu

installing gentoo as i write this
soon to come: xp pro, xp pro 64 (temp xp @ 60 gb drive)

servers
a few... linux on all o them. one slack pdc, ipcop for fw/proxy slack on dev server

other clients. Another a64 like the one above, but single disk with just xp, ibook g4 something, compacq presario p4 1.8 ghz varios older clients.

100 base tx sheelded network, single collision domain.

and so on

[Vermeulen]

1ghz,
radeon 9600,
512ram
20gigs,80gigs,

[Willis]

7800GS AGP and that's £200+ here. It also suffers from all of the high end card problems like being big, loud, hot and drawing a lot of current. No doubt if theres a Geforce 9200 AGP it'll be way quicker. I can wait.

I wouldn't expect to see AGP after the GF7 series.

Anyway, my Deathmask:
AMD Opteron 175 (Dual-Core) @ 2.625ghz w/ Zalman 9500 Cooler
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe w/ onboard Realtek AL850 Sound
2GB (2x1GB) PC4000 G.Skill 3-4-4-8/1T Ram
2x XFX 7900GT Extreme (520Mhz/1500Mhz)
Dual Dell 2405FPW 24" Widescreen LCDs (only 1 used for gaming generally)
2x74GB WD Raptors in Raid0 (Main OS & Games)
400GB WD Caviar Storage
80GB WD Caviar Linux/Vista test drive
Lite-On CD-RW/DVD-Rom combo drive
NEC ND3550A DVD+/-RW
Antec SLK3000 Case with 120mm intake & outtake fans
Rosewill 500W ATX 2.01 Power supply (120mm silent fan)
Microsoft Internet Keyboard Pro
Razer Diamondback mouse
Logitech Z-640 5.1 Speakers
Intel Pro 1000/MT Desktop NIC
Windows XP Pro x64 (and Ubuntu 5.10 rarely used)

*edit* And this system is nearly-silent, the video card is by far the loudest component while gaming... waiting to see how the 7900GTs do */edit*
*another edit* 7900GTs are in and they are annoyingly loud in idle, will have to find an after-market cooling solution for them */another edit*

[Ed]

I think Willis wins for the moment.

I wouldn't expect to see AGP after the GF7 series.

I doubt they can kill it off that easily. Although the OEM and new market will dissappear, they will still be able to sell many cards to the upgrade market.

AGP was introduced in late 97. 18 months later the TNT2 was available on PCI, I'm sure forums at the time would have been full of noobs saying "PCI is dead, I'm upgarding my whole system right now and throwing away everything else just to get AGP" as they are now for PCI-E. The TNT2 was the last high end card available on PCI, much as the 7800GS is likely to be the last highend-ish AGP card. It is also roughly 18 months after the introduction of PCI-E.

nVIDIA then made loads of PCI Geforce 2 MX's (2000 onwards), some Geforce 4 MX's (2002 onwards) and even Geforce FX 5200/5500 PCI's from 2003. OK, none of those cards were ever high end but a Geforce FX5500 128Mb on PCI is way faster than any of the cards introduced on AGP in 1997.

Bandwidth limitations do seem overrated. Try switching an AGP8x machine down to PCI speed and run some benchmarks. Nothing like the 16x difference in performance at all. Still managing over 50% would be expected and that's with an interface that was replaced in 1997.

I've seen a Chinese site recently suggesting that a 7600 AGP will come in July. I would expect this to be only for the GS model as the GT would come to close to the 7800GS.

[Willis]

The GF7 line was going to be PCI-E exclusive, but it was a bit too soon to have just 1 transitional line (GF6). The problem with AGP vs PCI-E as opposed to AGP vs PCI is that PCI-E is a universal format, so it will be better supported in systems that do not strictly have a focus on video, where AGP was a one-use-only dead-end. Even PCI-E is flawed in its design (IE, the trouble they are having getting multiple full-bandwidth lanes), but it is far better than AGP.

No, AGP isn't dead, and bandwidth is only a part of the problem, power is the bigger issue. There will still be some low-end AGP cards, but the 7800GS is really pushing the limits in just about every way, and the Next Generation (GF8?) likely won't have a PCI or AGP solution at all.

And btw, there are at least two other Nex players who have an equal or better system than mine, I'd be curious to see their full specs as well

[Ed]

The GF7 line was going to be PCI-E exclusive

I do wonder about this. When the 7800GTX was launched there was an official FAQ in which they said that they had no specific plans for an AGP card but that if there was a market they would make one. The HSI chip allowed them to do this and everyone knew that's what they'd do. Interestingly, nVIDIA has not launched a card with the same specs on both PCI-E and AGP other than the standard 6600. I am convinced that this is because they do not want the general public to be able to see that the AGP interface is not actually limiting performance in most cases.

The problem with AGP vs PCI-E as opposed to AGP vs PCI is that PCI-E is a universal format, so it will be better supported in systems that do not strictly have a focus on video, where AGP was a one-use-only dead-end.

Yes, AGP is a dead end format but that doesn't mean that there isn't a market for AGP cards for upgrade. There are many posts from some very confused people who seem to think that nVIDIA doesn't want to sell AGP cards as it wants people to buy an nFORCE4. If that was the case, why would they have been selling so many PCI cards? A lot of those will have gone to people with motherboards with onboard graphics, hence to AGP slot.

There will still be some low-end AGP cards, but the 7800GS is really pushing the limits in just about every way, and the Next Generation (GF8?) likely won't have a PCI or AGP solution at all.

The 7800GS probably pushes the power limit less than the 6800Ultra did. After all, that had 2 Molex connectors compared to the 7800GS's one. It's not really a proper high-end card but it's still the fastest AGP card. Even if there are only budget models available in future, they still will be faster than the cards that people will be replacing. It has already been said that the 7600GS will be 10-15% faster than the 6600GT, plus it's passively cooled. If an AGP versions is made, which seems fairly likely, then it would be a fantastic final upgrade for a lot of AGP systems. Not everyone has an up to date card or is looking for enormous speed, just the new features. A 7600GS would perform a lot better in modern games than a Geforce 4 Ti 4800 for instance.

[Urmel]

250W SilenX PSU

I can't believe Your system works with that! Thats a joke isn't it???? 250W

No joke. It's a Shuttle. Originally it had the 200W supply. It works perfectly fine. If you actually measure the power usage of a computer you get a lot less than the PSU's output. I would expect mine to be about 160W actually used. It is not all about power, tolerance is important. Mine gives me within +/- 0.04 V on all lines. You can't get that on most 500W supplies. The tolerance tends to get worse at the highend which is why most cheap power supplies can't actually put out their rated power reliably. Next time you're looking for a power supply don't go for the one with the big numbers, look for one with clean output instead,

Well, I always thought my ENERMAX PSU 350W was a really good one. Now I'm still into hard times with the problem posted in the support/bugs "game runs perfectly - without other players", There's not so much left to try. I suggest my PSU is the problem source...

What about the voltage in the UK? Is it still 110V ??

[Urmel]

Windows XP Pro
Case: DTK, something old+ugly from the 9tees
350W Enermax EG-365AX-VE-FMA PSU
Athlon 2600+ w Thermal take radial cooler
ASUS A7V8X-X
2x Kingston 512Mb PC3200
ASUS Geforce N6600 AGP 128MB
Soundblaster Live player 5.1
2x Maxtor 40GB 7.2K 8Mb HDD
LG DVD-RW ML
edit: Samsung Symcmaster 940B
Cherry G81 PS/2 keyboard
Logitech cordless klick! optical mouse (or sometimes an old cordless wheel mouse)
Wavemaster MX Subwoofer system (old but gold!)

[Ed]

What about the voltage in the UK? Is it still 110V ??

It's 230V 50Hz. It used to be 240V but that was changed in 1995 to bring us inline with the rest of Europe.

I suggest my PSU is the problem source...

If it was the PCU then you would see a drop-off in the voltage that causes the instability. If using Windows, download Speedfan (http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php) and set it logging your voltages. Start a game up, let it go down then restart and examine the log file that gets created. If the voltages go low, it's the PSU. I've heard of 12V lines going as low as 10.5V.

Speedfan will also log temperatures (and fan speeds) so you could tell if it's an overheating problem too in the same way.

For Linux there are a multitude of logging programs, you'll need lmsensors on a 2.6 kernel.

[Urmel]

Hey Ed that sounds really nice

I'll be able to check my PC tomorrow evening, mean while I'll check the tool w my girlfriend's PC.

Great help, I love You!