New PC Suggestions

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 8:06 pm

Dwindlehop wrote:
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate DVD - Retail $358.99
Ow. No Argon discount program?

Very good point, I just e-mailed our "List - Helpdesk" about it. I'm not too familiar with purchasing OS software...

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 8:07 pm

Dwindlehop wrote:Maximum Memory Supported 8GB

33, woo!

I stand by what I said earlier. However, the motherboard manufacturer may not give you everything the chipset can handle.

Just to make sure, 33 refers to 2^33 (8 GB), ie. 8 GB addressing?

Post by **Jonathan** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 10:55 pm

VLSmooth wrote:
Dwindlehop wrote:Maximum Memory Supported 8GB

33, woo!

I stand by what I said earlier. However, the motherboard manufacturer may not give you everything the chipset can handle.
Just to make sure, 33 refers to 2^33 (8 GB), ie. 8 GB addressing?

33 equals 8GB, yeah. PAE is Physical Address Extensions and is the relevant term here.

VLSmooth wrote:
Dwindlehop wrote:FSB really limits the performance gains you can get from higher bandwidth memory. If you overclock the FSB, then it can be worthwhile. Lower latency does help, but for video decode memory just isn't your bottleneck. I'd say go for capacity.
The Asus P5K3 Deluxe natively supports DDR3 1333/1066/800, meaning that I wouldn't be overclocking? I'm hoping this also extends to DDR2. If so, buying only DD2-800 isn't taking advantage of the board. However, 800 seems to be the highest "standard". As such, anything beyond 800 causes prices to skyrocket.

"Supports" is not the same as "performance gains". You can plug whatever you damn well please into it. The bandwidth you can actually realize is about 60% of what FSB provides, regardless of how much DRAM can provide. Due to physical DRAM constraints, you can sustain about 80% of the theoretical max of your DRAM. The lower of the two determines what your Sandra or lmbench score will be.

FSB 1333 = 8 bytes * 1.333 GHz = 10.666 GB/s theoretical
.6 *10.666 GB/s = 6.4 GB/s approx achievable
FSB 1600 = 12.8 GB/s theoretical
.6 * 12.8 = 7.68 GB/s achievable
DDR2 800 = 6.4 * .8 = 5.1 GB/s achievable per channel, or 10.2 GB/s total
DDR2 1333 = 10.666 * .8 = 8.5 GB/s achievable per channel, or 17 GB/s total

Two channels of DDR2 800 is enough to keep even FSB 1600 fed. The reason 1066 and 1333 are so expensive is there is no volume because no one buys them.

I am the platform masTAH!

Post by **Jonathan** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 10:59 pm

Windows server 32-bit can recognize more than 32 bits of physical memory. Ultimate Vista should certainly also have that capability. I wouldn't worry about what 32-bit XP can or can't do.

Post by **Jonathan** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 9:53 pm

For more on the realizable perf gains, see this short article.

http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40284

19% increase, DDR3 1600 is your daddy!

Only that's on the synthetic max memory test. On the still-synthetic-but-as-least-slightly-more-realistic Sandra FP test, DDR3 1600 is flat over DDR2 800. Any time the CPU is actually, you know, doing work, then the more expensive memory does not help you.

The Everest test gets the FSB up to 75% utilization, which you can take as the extreme upper bound. Actual applications do the 60% utilization I quoted earlier.

Just realized your platform runs at FSB 1067, so let's redo the numbers at 75% utilization.
FSB 1600: 9.6 GB/s
FSB 1333: 8.0 GB/s
FSB 1067: 6.4 GB/s

DDR2 800 = 5.1 GB/s achievable per channel, or 10.2 GB/s total
DDR2 1333 = 10.666 * .8 = 8.5 GB/s achievable per channel, or 17 GB/s total

FSB 1600 is right on the hairy edge there, so with a particular access pattern (not just some theoretical 80% efficiency pattern) they come out 19% in favor of DDR3 1333. But for the slower FSB speeds, you can't take advantage of the faster memory.

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 10:00 pm

Sounds like DDR2-800 is winning the good fight!

Btw, more 4 gb madness

Coding Horror:
Dude, Where's My 4 Gigabytes of RAM?
Microsoft Knowledge Base:
The system memory that is reported in the System Information dialog box in Windows Vista is less than you expect if 4 GB of RAM is installed

Seems I'd still need to run Vista 64-bit, in addition to modifying the bios. If Vista 64-bit compatibility issues are still a great issue (next thing to research), I might just buy 4 GB and deal with only accessing 3.12 GB.

Post by **Jonathan** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 10:13 pm

Dude, that blows.

These two commenters have it right:

Make it clear that you need to have a suitable chipset. Moreover, if you do have a suitable chipset you probably don't actually need to go 64-bit. /PAE may actually be a better option in reality, given today's less than total support for 64-bit. PAE may be a hack, but who cares? The OS deals with it; it's no uglier than the fact that my machine has >4GB of virtual memory (my physical memory + page file is >4GB, on my 32-bit system). 64-bit isn't about breaking through the 4GB barrier of physical addressing - it's only really useful if you've hit *virtual* address space limits, which is really a completely different class of problem than the one you open this blog entry with.

(Although if you need more than 64GB of memory, I believe 64-bit is necessary. PAE only goes up to 64GB of physical address space.)

Here's a nickel, kid. Go buy yourself a real computer.

nitrogen:~# cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 4051648 kB

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 10:28 pm

Dwindlehop wrote:Dude, that blows.

Is "that" referring to the 32-bit 3.12 gb* limitation?

I also read all the comments, but lacking the details of how to actually set up PAE, I tend to believe Microsoft's knowledge base article, especially since it stated "An x64 (64-bit) version of Windows Vista must be used."

Also, due to FFXI and other games, linux-only is out.

* inconsistent capitalization ftw!

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 10:37 pm

Well that's odd, I ran Windows Vista: Upgrade Advisor and my GeForce 7800GT was flagged as insufficient, even though it's listed by nvidia.

I then ran nvidia's vista test and was told

FAIL
Video RAM: Required - 64 MB, You have <blank>
Video Card 3D Acceleration: Required - Yes, You have - No
Video HW Transform & Lighting: Required - Yes, You have - No
Vertex Shader Ver.: Required - 2.0, You have - 0.0
Pixel Shader Ver.: Required - 2.0, You have - 0.0

Then I remembered I was running everything through remote desktop...

I really hope that's the issue since otherwise the unused 7800GT my brother has will continue to go to waste, and I'll have to buy a new card.

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 10:49 pm

Self-note to save time in the future

How to Play FINAL FANTASY XI on Microsoft® Windows Vista™ (3/22/2007)

Post by **Jonathan** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 10:53 pm

VLSmooth wrote:
Dwindlehop wrote:Dude, that blows.
Is "that" referring to the 32-bit 3.12 gb* limitation?

Yeah. Vista should do a better job, please.

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 2:54 am

So is Vista business worth it over home? Can't say i really knew the difference between XP pro and home hehe

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 4:05 am

Dave wrote:So is Vista business worth it over home? Can't say i really knew the difference between XP pro and home hehe

Here's Microsoft's comparison chart

Remote Desktop only comes with Business and Ultimate
Premium and Ultimate have the multimedia "stuff"
I'd probably do fine with business, but I wonder about the multimedia stuff >_>

Post by **Jonathan** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 6:29 am

Only interesting Home Premium feature to me was Windows Media Center. I have thought about fiddling with XBMC once it gets ported to Linux, but I haven't any machines near my TV except laptops. Front Row is only decent, but the free remote makes it kick-ass.

George · Post by **George** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 2:06 am

VLSmooth wrote:[*]Video Card 3D Acceleration: Required - Yes, You have - No

Yes, the 7800 GT is the only video chipset released this millennium that doesn't have 3d acceleration. You didn't know that when you bought it?

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 2:16 am

Confirmed later, the upgrade advisor didn't anticipate Remote Desktop or vice versa!

Only one warning remained. I need 15 gb of free disk space...

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 4:25 am

All parts finally ordered. Total was <$1200 (newegg + heatsinkfactory), but it didn't include Vista Ultimate.

VLSmooth wrote:
Dwindlehop wrote:
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate DVD - Retail $358.99
Ow. No Argon discount program?
Very good point, I just e-mailed our "List - Helpdesk" about it. I'm not too familiar with purchasing OS software...

I found old 2005 employee pricing for ~$270, but it takes ~3 weeks to get. Hopefully I can get it for even cheaper. The 3 weeks is a problem since I'm giving my current computer to my brother when I fly down for a friend's wedding.

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:00 pm

Think CMu offers $10 versions of Vista? I still use XP Pro from CMu hehe.

quantus · Post by **quantus** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:27 pm

Split topic to here... just in case

Post by **Jonathan** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 10:21 pm

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3044

Under a variety of games, the difference between Vista and XP is that Vista hits the 2GB memory limit and crashes, whereas XP does not.

NVidia is quoted as saying Microsoft is aware of the matter and is working on it.