the E521 that can be upgraded...
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 3800+
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium
No Monitor
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
16x DVD+/-RW Drive
256MB NVIDIA Geforce 7300LE TurboCache
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
or the C521 which will save me space, costs about the same, but apparently has a better video card...
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 3800+
Genuine Windows Vista Home Basic
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs
160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
16x DVD+/-RW Drive
No Monitor
256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
so is the difference between premium and basic that drastic that I should go with a lesser video card? Granted The best card I have ever owned was a 64mb card 
I really only have about 600 to spend, so if someone can come up with a better computer from somewhere else for that price range, I'm all for it.
That's my advise.
quote:
Azizza's account was hax0red to write:
You can also save money by getting the OEM version of Vista. You have to be careful on what parts you will swap out in the future but it is up to you if the risk is worth it.
This is a prebuilt 
so it is already OEM.
quote:
Azizza impressed everyone with:
You can also save money by getting the OEM version of Vista. You have to be careful on what parts you will swap out in the future but it is up to you if the risk is worth it.
Yeah, is why I got OEM with the laptop I bought. I figured even if I don't use it for 6 months, I saved some bucks.
quote:
Azizza was naked while typing this:
You can also save money by getting the OEM version of Vista. You have to be careful on what parts you will swap out in the future but it is up to you if the risk is worth it.
Perhaps I got lost in the terminology, but why would an OEM version or not affect you down the line if you decide to swap out hardware?
quote:
Delphi Aegis had this to say about the Spice Girls:
Perhaps I got lost in the terminology, but why would an OEM version or not affect you down the line if you decide to swap out hardware?
On a prebuilt its really not going to matter because you aren't going to be doing huge upgrades. But OEM XP will shutdown if you swap your motherboards/processors or that sort of thing. Video card, RAM, hard drive and the like won't trigger the kill process.
quote:
Alaan had this to say about Optimus Prime:
On a prebuilt its really not going to matter because you aren't going to be doing huge upgrades. But OEM XP will shutdown if you swap your motherboards/processors or that sort of thing. Video card, RAM, hard drive and the like won't trigger the kill process.
Wait a minute...so if I go ahead and install my new mobo and proc, my XP is going to hate me because I didn't pay out the ass for a full retail version?
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
quote:
Everyone wondered WTF when Damnati wrote:
Wait a minute...so if I go ahead and install my new mobo and proc, my XP is going to hate me because I didn't pay out the ass for a full retail version?
Precisely. The OEM license is for ONE computer. You did not pay for a tranfserable license. Thats why it is so much cheaper.
Edit: I still kind of laugh at "Pay out the ass" for a piece of software that lasts for 5 years though. Alaan fucked around with this message on 04-08-2007 at 09:54 PM.
quote:
This one time, at Alaan camp:
Precisely. The OEM license is for ONE computer. You did not pay for a tranfserable license. Thats why it is so much cheaper.Edit: I still kind of laugh at "Pay out the ass" for a piece of software that lasts for 5 years though.
I'm a broke college student, evey little bit counts. Guess I'll just have to buy another copy. On a different note, that means I just use the same XP when I build a new system with my extra parts, yes?
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
quote:
Damnati had this to say about Duck Tales:
I'm a broke college student, evey little bit counts. Guess I'll just have to buy another copy. On a different note, that means I just use the same XP when I build a new system with my extra parts, yes?
uh why don't you see if your school has MSDNAA so you can get it for free instead of whining about it
quote:
This insanity brought to you by Kegwen:
uh why don't you see if your school has MSDNAA so you can get it for free instead of whining about it
No dice on that.
Edit: on a different note, I've been hearing many bad things about Vista, particularly regarding RAM efficiency. Thing is, it's all word of mouth. Can anyone point me to some good reviews on it? Damnati fucked around with this message on 04-08-2007 at 11:00 PM.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
quote:
Damnati startled the peaceful upland Gorillas, blurting:
No dice on that.Edit: on a different note, I've been hearing many bad things about Vista, particularly regarding RAM efficiency. Thing is, it's all word of mouth. Can anyone point me to some good reviews on it?
There's nothing wrong with Vista's RAM usage. As Maradon! explained recently, superfetch can make it seem like it's eating RAM to no purpose, but it releases it as as when needed. And it's not to no purpose, since Vista will make an effort to use as much of your RAM as it can to speed things up by caching. Anyone who thinks having a huge chunk of unused RAM sitting around equates to efficient memory usage isn't thinking straight; it's quite the opposite.
Bottom line: just like anything, it's going to be painful if you try to run with the absolute, rock-bottom amount of RAM, but there's no problem otherwise. Google "superfetch vista" and skip the whining ignoramuses in favor of the reputable sites and you'll see what's up.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
Bloodsage attempted to be funny by writing:
There's nothing wrong with Vista's RAM usage. As Maradon! explained recently, superfetch can make it seem like it's eating RAM to no purpose, but it releases it as as when needed. And it's not to no purpose, since Vista will make an effort to use as much of your RAM as it can to speed things up by caching. Anyone who thinks having a huge chunk of unused RAM sitting around equates to efficient memory usage isn't thinking straight; it's quite the opposite.Bottom line: just like anything, it's going to be painful if you try to run with the absolute, rock-bottom amount of RAM, but there's no problem otherwise. Google "superfetch vista" and skip the whining ignoramuses in favor of the reputable sites and you'll see what's up.
Hmm, I haven't heard anything specific as to why it's not efficient, only that it doesn't want to run on anything less than two gigs and that you need more than two gigs if you want to game.
Edit: the other concern I have is with working drivers. I gather that it's not so easy to get functioning Vista drivers for stuff from Nvidia and other (I think Creative was another problem company). As my video and sound cards are by Nvidia and Creative respectively, this could be a problem. Damnati fucked around with this message on 04-09-2007 at 02:30 AM.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
As for needing more than 2GB of RAM to game, my bet is that's just more hysteria from people who haven't the faintest idea what's going on and panic because they're chasing the RAM/processor use indicator. With 2GB, for example, I can run Supreme Commander on two monitors with everything turned up.
No, you won't be able to run Vista smokingly with 512MB. Yes, 2GB seems to be a sweet spot.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
Bloodsage said this about your mom:
Drivers are a legitimate reason to wait, but other than the occasional annoyance they currently work fine.As for needing more than 2GB of RAM to game, my bet is that's just more hysteria from people who haven't the faintest idea what's going on and panic because they're chasing the RAM/processor use indicator. With 2GB, for example, I can run Supreme Commander on two monitors with everything turned up.
No, you won't be able to run Vista smokingly with 512MB. Yes, 2GB seems to be a sweet spot.
What kind of video card have you got? I'm curious about how support for Nvidia cards is right now. I imagine my current setup (paired 7900 GTXs in SLI) will last me quite some time provided there's driver support.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
quote:
Over the mountain, in between the ups and downs, I ran into Damnati who doth quote:
So I've ordered a copy of Vista Home Premium as it goes for about 30 bucks less than an OEM of XP Pro on Newegg. If anyone here has a Core 2 Duo based system with Vista on it, would you mind telling me what sort of performance I should expect? I am particularly interested in how WoW performs on such systems.
That depends heavily on your video card drivers. nVidia drivers on Vista are notoriously bad... ATI users (myself included) have had much better experiences.
Running a core 2 duo 6300 with 1gb of RAM under vista ultimate, average frame rates are probably around 5 fps slower than XP. There's a bit of chop in places where it wouldn't be on XP and I've had at least one crash to desktop that I'd directly attribute to Vista.
As an upshot, though, once Vista learns that you play a lot of WoW, it'll keep textures for common things in superfetch memory - in other words, that lag you usually experience when getting off a windrider where you can see no models is virtually non existant.
Once drivers start picking up the slack, Vista should be decently outperforming XP on systems with 1-2gb of RAM.
quote:
Maradon! had this to say about Robocop:
That depends heavily on your video card drivers. nVidia drivers on Vista are notoriously bad... ATI users (myself included) have had much better experiences.Running a core 2 duo 6300 with 1gb of RAM under vista ultimate, average frame rates are probably around 5 fps slower than XP. There's a bit of chop in places where it wouldn't be on XP and I've had at least one crash to desktop that I'd directly attribute to Vista.
As an upshot, though, once Vista learns that you play a lot of WoW, it'll keep textures for common things in superfetch memory - in other words, that lag you usually experience when getting off a windrider where you can see no models is virtually non existant.
Once drivers start picking up the slack, Vista should be decently outperforming XP on systems with 1-2gb of RAM.
Very mixed feelings on that. I'm running the same pair of 7900 GTXs y'all gave me hell for buying a while back and I haven't checked yet what drivers are like for them in Vista.
On a different note, I've heard Vista has a lot of problems with media in general and video in particular. One of the specific problems highlighted was sever lag if you right-click during a flash video. What sort of experiences have folks here had with that?
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4400+
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
16x DVD+/-RW Drive
NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE Integrated Graphics GPU
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
I'm probably going to buy this video card that mara linked in a previous thread.
My question is that Dell wants to charge 130 for 1gb more of ram (2x512mb). I was looking at NewEgg and was trying to decide if there was a better deal out there. Should I go with the 130 for another of the same ram above or get another couple sticks of my own?
Edit: found Norim Stumpfighter fucked around with this message on 04-10-2007 at 01:51 PM.
thison fry's website, looks good for 75
quote:
Damnatiing:
Very mixed feelings on that. I'm running the same pair of 7900 GTXs y'all gave me hell for buying a while back and I haven't checked yet what drivers are like for them in Vista.
As far as I know, nVidia Vista drivers currently have NO SLI support.
You will only be able to use one of your cards until they update. Maradon! fucked around with this message on 04-10-2007 at 02:54 PM.
quote:
Maradon! thought this was the Ricky Martin Fan Club Forum and wrote:
As far as I know, nVidia Vista drivers currently have NO SLI support.You will only be able to use one of your cards until they update.
So I've noted upon install. I'm currently working on gathering drivers and getting my crap installed so I can function fairly normally.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
quote:
Alaan got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
This may be a silly question, but if you are a "I'm a broke college student," why the fucking fuck are you running SLI?
Because I was borrowing money anyway to replace my laptop and, since I was going to paying it off for ages, I figured "Why the hell not?".
Edit: Thus far, very very mixed feelings on Vista. Lots of crashing and it doesn't like some of my favorite programs, such as Trillian. Damnati fucked around with this message on 04-11-2007 at 01:43 PM.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
I've been using Vista for over a month, problem free.
quote:
Greenlit thought about the meaning of life:
Your shit's fucked up.I've been using Vista for over a month, problem free.
Same here. I've not crashed yet.
Please note, though, that most of my IMing/browsing/email is done on my Powerbook. I use Vista for games and watching HD video since my Powerbook can't decode it. Still, though, on the occasions that I do use it for IM and browsing it's not been an issue.
Edit: which version of Vista are you guys running? Damnati fucked around with this message on 04-11-2007 at 03:06 PM.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
edit: it was free from my school Kegwen fucked around with this message on 04-11-2007 at 03:07 PM.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
quote:
There was much rejoicing when Greenlit said this:
What Russian truck flipped over on the highway and dropped your Vista DVD?
That's a really good question. Things seem to be a bit more stable for the moment but I'm not counting on them staying that way.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
quote:
Damnati startled the peaceful upland Gorillas, blurting:
New interesting issue: WoW patches fail because they can't create a shortcut in the start menu. Has anyone run into or heard of this issue?
Try running as an admin--that clears up a lot of install problems.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
Damnatiing:
New interesting issue: WoW patches fail because they can't create a shortcut in the start menu. Has anyone run into or heard of this issue?
Yes. Right click the WoW short cut and select run as administrator.
Then go turn off UAC.
quote:
Damnati likes to scream this out during sex:
New interesting issue: WoW patches fail because they can't create a shortcut in the start menu. Has anyone run into or heard of this issue?
Go to your wow directory, right click on the patch exe and run it as administrator.
Edit: Beaten. oh well. Blindy. fucked around with this message on 04-13-2007 at 12:55 AM.
