What do you think of this PC configuration?

Team Member Joined: 09 Jan 2002 Posts: 147 Location: UK

Yes I have realised that mine is a little old now (see http://www.4webhelp.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=633 for the full details) so I went to my local computer centre to get details of a new computer. The following is what he suggested, what do you think?

Gigabyte GA 7DXR Mainboard
AMD XP 2GB Processor with high level cooling fan
ATX casement with 300W power supply
60Gb Hard drive
256Mb DDRam (PC2100)
32Mb geforce2 AGP graphics card
Creative Labs PCI 128 sound card
Floppy
Philips CD/CD-RW drive (from existing computer)

He also suggested that we go for Windows XP to try and alleviate the blue screen of death problem Smile

What do you think?

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

The vital question is "What do you want to DO with your PC?"

Team Member Joined: 09 Jan 2002 Posts: 147 Location: UK

Daniel wrote:

The vital question is "What do you want to DO with your PC?"

Run WinXP and Linux
Graphics intensive work (Photoshop/Flash/Illustrator etc)
Programming
Word processing
Run the odd game like Sim City 3000
Use the internet Smile

That's about all I can think of now...

WebHelper Joined: 08 Jan 2002 Posts: 69 Location: Ireland

Peter wrote:

Run WinXP and Linux

XP needs anything over 400Mhz, 750 to be comfortable. Linux is fine on anything above 300 with lots of memory, especially for KDE (which sucks up memory terribly. I've 96Mb of RAM, and just running KDE2 leaves only 20Mb for apps).

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Graphics intensive work (Photoshop/Flash/Illustrator etc)

Need good bit of memory for this. The more the better.

Quote:

Programming

Don't need that much CPU, 1Ghz will do fine, so you can compile as you work.

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Word processing

Word 2002 will run fine on a 300Mhz.

Quote:

Run the odd game like Sim City 3000

1Ghz, plenty of memory & decent graphics card'll do fine.

Quote:

Use the internet Smile

Modem, that's all.

Quite honestly, you could save yourself some money, and go for a slower processor. Keep the 256 of RAM, you will need it in XP, especially for the graphics. Does anyone use DVD these days? It's handy for videos.

P.S. XP can suffer from BSOD too, dodgy graphics card drivers are usually the culprit. I've heard of ZoneAlarm causing it too.

Garth Farley

Team Member Joined: 09 Jan 2002 Posts: 147 Location: UK

Hi Garth,

Thanks for your feedback!

Garth Farley wrote:

Quote:

Graphics intensive work (Photoshop/Flash/Illustrator etc)

Need good bit of memory for this. The more the better.

From this and other comments you've made, I think I'll go for 378 or 512Mb RAM and cut the processor speed a little.

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Run the odd game like Sim City 3000

1Ghz, plenty of memory & decent graphics card'll do fine.

Do you classify the GEForce 2 as a decent card? I know absolutely nothing about computer hardware...

Quote:

Quite honestly, you could save yourself some money, and go for a slower processor. Keep the 256 of RAM, you will need it in XP, especially for the graphics. Does anyone use DVD these days? It's handy for videos.

I think a DVD DRIVE MAY BE IN ORDER AS WELL _ ESPECIALLY AS LINUX IS BEGINNING TO COME ON ! DVD as opposed to 6-8 CD's (sorry about caps - Win98 problem that I've not managed to fix in 2 years - flips to typing as if the shift keyis being held down Sad

Quote:

P.S. XP can suffer from BSOD too,

Damn

I've actually cured some of the problems we were having with Win 98 in this department - the computer didn't like only having 800Mb of free HD space, and is running muc more sweetly with 1.7Gb of free space now. And I'm avoiding the tempatation to download beta software which helps Smile

Cheers!
Peter.

WebHelper Joined: 08 Jan 2002 Posts: 69 Location: Ireland

GeForce 2 will do perfectly for games for the next two years. This also should have as much memory as possible, if/once you're into 3D games. 32Mb is the min.

DVD is cool, especially (as I've heard) watching a video on a 21" CRT screen. You probably won't be able to afford that, but still it's a great thing to have. I hope the version of your GeForce will have a video out port, so you can plug it into yer telly.

Win XP is 2000 times more stable than those terrible excuses of OS upgrades by M$, the whole 9x family sucked.

Garth Farley

P.S. Your Caps lock goes on by itself? I often hit it by accident, but I've never heard it going on by itself. Accessibility options in the Comtrol Panel has an option that beeps whenever the Caps lock comes on, that I find handy. Would this work?

Posted: Sun May 12, 2002 5:54 pm (21 years, 11 months ago)

I do similar work as yours.
When I bought my PC 18 months back, at that point of time I went for 512megs of RAM and 17" L.G. Flatron monitor. I am happy that I bought these. My hdd was initially 20gigs. 6 months back i upgraded it to 80gigs. next month i am planning a 64mb geforce2, or 32mb geforce3 Smile

Posted: Tue May 14, 2002 6:50 pm (21 years, 11 months ago)

Only take a DVD player if you are sure you'll need to run DATA-DVD's right now, they're still quite expensive compared to the faster CD-ROM drives and watching movies on your pc sucks. Just buy a Dolby Digital 5.1 Home Cinema if you want to see movies (or just keep playing VHS tapes)...

Posted: Tue May 14, 2002 6:52 pm (21 years, 11 months ago)

jayant wrote:

next month i am planning a 64mb geforce2, or 32mb geforce3 Smile

Go for the GeForce 3, it's faster then the geforce 2 (even if it's 64 mb)