Looking at upgradeing from asus eah4870 512mb

[RRSignal]

Trainz and about 15 other sims/games.


When you have real experience (not speculation) with hardware then maybe you can consider yourself a good source, lol.

Everybody here plays Trainz and 15 other sim games? I forgot you speak for everybody.

If you knew what you were doing aside from buying the most expensive machine available and parroting other people's statements, you'd realize that other people have different needs and adjust your advice accordingly.

 

[macneil]

This is what im looking at buying

ZIP Mid Range Tower
Case: ATX 1807B with 500W PSU
HDD: WD SATA 1TB
Optical Drive: DVD Dual Layer
Memory: DDR3 1333Mhz 2GB
M/B: MSI H55M E21 Intel Chipset i m/b
Graphics: ATI RADEON HD5770 1GB
Gaming Card
Sound: 5.1 on board
Network: 10/100/LAN
No Operating System Included
From
$595
Price with CPU Intel Core i series:
i3 540 - $595
i7 870 - $805
i5 650 - $670
i5 760 - $700

im proberbly going with the i5-650 upgradeing to 4gb ram and undecided weather to get windows 7 32 bit or 64 bit. with not much work on at the moment about $800 au dollars is the most I can spend would this computer handle trainz good.

 

[RRSignal]

This is what im looking at buying

ZIP Mid Range Tower
Case: ATX 1807B with 500W PSU
HDD: WD SATA 1TB
Optical Drive: DVD Dual Layer
Memory: DDR3 1333Mhz 2GB
M/B: MSI H55M E21 Intel Chipset i m/b
Graphics: ATI RADEON HD5770 1GB
Gaming Card
Sound: 5.1 on board
Network: 10/100/LAN
No Operating System Included
From
$595
Price with CPU Intel Core i series:
i3 540 - $595
i7 870 - $805
i5 650 - $670
i5 760 - $700

im proberbly going with the i5-650 upgradeing to 4gb ram and undecided weather to get windows 7 32 bit or 64 bit. with not much work on at the moment about $800 au dollars is the most I can spend would this computer handle trainz good.

What is the price of the case/PSU combo? See if you can find one with a 700W or better supply. And get 64-bit Windows since 32-bit is limited in the amount of memory it can use. For $30 more I'd get the 760 as it has four cores.

Oh, BTW, be sure to get a decent brand of memory though. OCZ, Crucial, Corsair and Kingston are what I use, though there are other quality brands as well.

 

[djt]

undecided weather to get windows 7 32 bit or 64 bit.

Why not take some of the savvy advice given in this forum and go with Windows XP or maybe Windows98, lol?

 

[RRSignal]

Or take some savvy advice and buy an i7 980x and a $3000 machine to run a train simulator based on an ancient game engine.

 

[djt]

Or take some savvy advice and buy an i7 980x and a $3000 machine to run a train simulator based on an ancient game engine.

Why would you do that, the cheaper the better right?:hehe:


A Celeron should give you plenty of performance.

 

[RRSignal]

Why would you do that, the cheaper the better right?:hehe:


A Celeron should give you plenty of performance.

Ah, but a person who actually knows what they're doing can balance cost versus need. Unfortunately, you've soundly disqualified yourself there.

 

[djt]

Ah, but a person who actually knows what they're doing can balance cost versus need. Unfortunately, you've soundly disqualified yourself there.

A person “who actually knows what they're doing” has to have actual experience with the subject to begin with.

 

[RRSignal]

A person “who actually knows what they're doing” has to have actual experience with the subject to begin with.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum, thank you.

 

[djt]

Quod Erat Demonstrandum, thank you.

You’re very welcome.

 

[shadowarrior]

This is what im looking at buying

ZIP Mid Range Tower
Case: ATX 1807B with 500W PSU
HDD: WD SATA 1TB
Optical Drive: DVD Dual Layer
Memory: DDR3 1333Mhz 2GB
M/B: MSI H55M E21 Intel Chipset i m/b
Graphics: ATI RADEON HD5770 1GB
Gaming Card
Sound: 5.1 on board
Network: 10/100/LAN
No Operating System Included
From
$595
Price with CPU Intel Core i series:
i3 540 - $595
i7 870 - $805
i5 650 - $670
i5 760 - $700

im proberbly going with the i5-650 upgradeing to 4gb ram and undecided weather to get windows 7 32 bit or 64 bit. with not much work on at the moment about $800 au dollars is the most I can spend would this computer handle trainz good.

You can try this build: Prices quoted in AUD including GST.

CPU: AM3 X4 965 $165
Memory: G Skill NT DDR3 1333 4gig $59
Motherboard: Asus M4A 88TM $89
Graphics Card: Powercooler ATI 5770 1Gb $128
PSU: Seasonic S12-II 80+ 520W $95
Chasis: Antec 902 $118
HDD: WD Blue Sata 3 1TB $79
Optical Drive: Sony Sata RW $25
Sound: Onboard $0
Network: Onboard $0
OS: MS Win7 64bit Ultimate $194 (OEM)

Total AUD $952 (Inc GST)


You can cut down on the following: (the cost of the alternate parts)
Motherboard: Asus M4N68T-M V2 ($55)
HDD: WD Green Sata 1tb ($62)
PSU and Chasis Combined: Antec Sonata ($149)
Memory: PQI 4G DDR3 1333 ($47)

Bringing the total to AUD 829 (inc GST).

 

[kamran]

IF WANT TO UPGRADE THEN BUY A DIRECT X 11 compitable card like
if u need mid range then evga gts450 or if u want higer one then gtx460
ATI HD 6850 ATI HD 6870 or some thing like these cards but if u need more higher then those options also available like gtx 570 gtx580 ATI HD 6950
ATI HD 6970
i mentioned latest cards but also previous models high and mid range gpuz are easily available like ati 5xxx series and nvidia 2xxx series

 

[tolansherwood]

Trainz works fine on my system with Vista, but prefetch should be turned off for any machine where intensive graphics will be used. Prefetch is supposed to free up RAM as it is needed, but as with all processes, that takes time. All prefetch does is load your most commonly used programs into RAM as you start out. This saves you a valuable 3 or 4 seconds when you want to start Word or something, but costs you performance for programs that want to use all the RAM that has been stuffed full of yet unused programs so they will start faster. If your machine's main use is to multitask in an office environment, prefetch may save you 10 or 12 seconds a day, but for gaming or CAD or Paintshop, it creates lag. I gained 100ms in response time in an online game I play due to simply disabling prefetch. Shut it down in processes, then disable it in MSConfig, and restart the machine to clear the RAM. It is not a total cure-all for latency issues, but it certainly helps.

 

[djt]

Trainz works fine on my system with Vista, but prefetch should be turned off for any machine where intensive graphics will be used.

http://www.windows7hacker.com/index.php/2009/12/why-you-should-not-disable-superfetch-in-windows-7/



http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2007.03.vistakernel.aspx



http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/09/why-does-vista-use-all-my-memory.html