System Upgrade

[Technous285]

I am soon going to be doing an upgrade of my system's motherboard, CPU & RAM and swap OSes to Linux with Windows under a VM, before I get TRS2009 or TRS2010.

Current Specs:
ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 (64-bit. 2GB DDR1 or DDR2 max. DDR1/DDR2 crossover design)
3.0 GHz Dual Core P4 (64-bit)
2GB Geil DDR1 (400MHz) RAM
ASUS NVidia 9400GT 1GB PCI-E (Low Profile)
550W ThermaltakeEvo Blue
80GB Western Digital WD800JD-75MSA1 (OS drive)
500GB Seagate Barracuda ST3500418AS (main Data)
ASUS DRW-0402P/D DVD ±R/RW
ASUS DRW-2014L1-T DVD ±R/RW Lightscribe
Windows XP Professional SP2 (32-bit)

Post-Upgrade Specs (tentative):
Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H (64-bit, AMD)
3.40 GHz AMD Phenom II X4 Quad-Core 965 (64-bit)
4GB Kingston DDR3 (1333MHz) RAM
ASUS NVidia 9400GT 1GB PCI-E (Low Profile)
550W ThermaltakeEvo Blue
80GB Western Digital WD800JD-75MSA1 (OS drive)
500GB Seagate Barracuda ST3500418AS (main Data)
ASUS DRW-0402P/D DVD ±R/RW
ASUS DRW-2014L1-T DVD ±R/RW Lightscribe
Linux (possibly SimplyMEPIS 8, 64-bit, Primary), XP Pro SP2 (32-bit, VM), Win7 Pro (32/64-bit, VM. tentative)

Current total cost of the upgrade (sans possible Win7 OS) is about $500 AUD (plus shipping & handling). The parts that are linked, are from ACO (Australia Computer Online), the CPU, mobo & RAM in the upgrade specs are as a Upgrade Kit from ACO here.

Feel free to comment and suggest extra things to look at upgrading further down the line. I'm already looking at changing to a pair of Crossfire-enabled cards such as the Gigabyte HD 5450 down the line (depending on the quality and power of them compared to the cost).

 

[saintjimmy]

Your upgrade specs look good. Only problem I would see is the video card. Upgrading to a 5450 (let alone Crossfired) would be a waste of money, since the 5450 isn't much more powerful than your current 9400 GT. Depending on what resolution you will be playing at, I would recommend going for something more like:
ATI HD 5670 if you will be playing at 1600 x 900 or 1280 x 1024 or lower.
ATI HD 5770 if playing at 1680 x 1050 or higher (including 1080p)

Both are much higher performing and will allow you to run with the image quality turned up (anti-aliasing at 8x/24x and anisotropic filtering at 16x) at their resolutions.

 

[Technous285]

Well, at the moment I'm usually using 1280*1024*32bpp @ 60Hz on D-Sub (D15 VGA) or DVI, though my card can handle HDMI, I currently don't have any HDMI-capable monitors (nor TV's).
My current monitor is a BenQ FP222W (22" Wide) TFT that's D-Sub/DVI.

I was running an AGP ASUS NVidia 7600GS with the 9400GT when I initially built the system, though the 7600GS was taken out for use in a computer with only an AGP graphics slot.
The HD 5450 or similar was a possible future upgrade, that depends on the cost of the item, the power of it (GPU & RAM) and if it's Crossfire/SLI or not (particularly with that mobo).

Edit: I also look at Low Profile cards mainly to keep plenty of space for airflow in the chassis, as full-sized cards get to be a pain in the arse to try and power when they're close to each other.

 

[johnwhelan]

Well, at the moment I'm usually using 1280*1024*32bpp @ 60Hz on D-Sub (D15 VGA) or DVI, though my card can handle HDMI, I currently don't have any HDMI-capable monitors (nor TV's).
My current monitor is a BenQ FP222W (22" Wide) TFT that's D-Sub/DVI.

I was running an AGP ASUS NVidia 7600GS with the 9400GT when I initially built the system, though the 7600GS was taken out for use in a computer with only an AGP graphics slot.
The HD 5450 or similar was a possible future upgrade, that depends on the cost of the item, the power of it (GPU & RAM) and if it's Crossfire/SLI or not (particularly with that mobo).

Edit: I also look at Low Profile cards mainly to keep plenty of space for airflow in the chassis, as full-sized cards get to be a pain in the arse to try and power when they're close to each other.

One of the low power 40 nm ATI cards doesn't give out as much heat as the nVidia 55 nm of the same processing power. I rather like the 5850 at the moment for power consumption versus performance.

I wouldn't be too concerned about heat from full sized cards versus low profile ones.

I would be very concerned about performance under any emulator or VM, dual boot maybe but not virtual machines. Your hardware uses the latest this that and the other and the drivers work to that hardware device. Under a Virtual Machine the VM tells the operating system its an earlier different bit of hardware so you lose the optimised drivers and performance and that's just the start if it. Each core is presented as a separate cpu, thin has licensing imprecations, Win 7 home is only licensed for one cpu, so it will only run on one core.

Cheerio John

 

[Two99Point80]

The AMD Game Forums show a number of complaints with ATI HD 5xxx cards: see http://forums.amd.com/game/categories.cfm?catid=260

My own attempt to use a Radeon HD 5670 card failed because my system would not even boot with it installed. Using NVidia instead.

 

[johnwhelan]

The AMD Game Forums show a number of complaints with ATI HD 5xxx cards: see http://forums.amd.com/game/categories.cfm?catid=260

My own attempt to use a Radeon HD 5670 card failed because my system would not even boot with it installed. Using NVidia instead.

But on the other hand a number of people here run Trainz on ATI cards without a problem, and I didn't see any particular reference to problems with Trainz here.

Cheerio John

 

[Technous285]

If/When I get Windows 7, it will ~NOT~ be Home, it will be Professional.
The question is 32-bit or 64-bit, as 32-bit will let me use any non-MS Signed drivers but limits me to 3.25GB of System RAM, whilst the 64-bit version lets me use 4+GB of System RAM but will complain and not want to work with drivers that haven't been signed by MS.

The primary reason I'm looking a VMing the Windows side is so I can have better control of the resources Windows has, and Linux is a much more stable (and safe) base to VM from, rather than running Windows natively.
That and there's more recent drivers out there for ATI cards under Linux than there are for NVidia cards under Linux. ATI puts out drivers for Linux, whilst NVidia doesn't and folks have to muck around with NVidia drivers to get them working under Linux.

As for cores under the VM, most VM programs I know of let you tell the Guest OS how many cores it is going to have (say 2 out of the hardware's 4 cores) along with the amount of System RAM that will be set aside for it. The problem would be the GPU and Video RAM being shunted through to the Guest OS.

 

[djt]

whilst the 64-bit version lets me use 4+GB of System RAM but will complain and not want to work with drivers that haven't been signed by MS.

I've been using 64-bit versions of Windows (XP/SP2 64, Vista 64 and Windows 7 64) exclusively for the last three years and have never had any issues with Windows “complaining and not wanting to work with drivers that haven't been signed by MS”.


I also use/test “beta” drivers from Nvidia and ATI all the time on 64-bit Windows without any problems.

ATI puts out drivers for Linux, whilst NVidia doesn't and folks have to muck around with NVidia drivers to get them working under Linux.

Actually it's the other way around, with Nvidia historically having better OpenGL support, Nvidia has had better drivers for Linux than ATI.


I've spent more time “mucking around” trying to get ATI drivers to work with Linux then I have with Nvidia.

My own attempt to use a Radeon HD 5670 card failed because my system would not even boot with it installed. Using NVidia instead.

Sounds more like a botched install then anything. You can't blame the hardware for user error.

 

[Technous285]

I was using Win7 RC1 64-bit on a refurbished GX520 I bought early last year, and I had a ATI Radeon 9250 PCI card in the system and I could not get ANY drivers (for XP or Vista) for that particular card to work.
Under Win7 RC1 32-bit on that same machine, I was able to get Vista drivers for that card to get it running, though it would only run a single monitor whilst the same card under XP SP3 32-bit on that machine would run dual monitors off the card.

In anycase, the main reason I'm looking at ATI cards is for Crossfire with that particular motherboard. And it's no use suggesting I got for the $200+ AUD models if I'm planing on dual-carding and Crossfire with two of the same card, as it's enough of a pain in the arse just getting ~ONE~ of those $200+ AUD cards let alone 2!

 

[djt]

I was using Win7 RC1 64-bit on a refurbished GX520 I bought early last year, and I had a ATI Radeon 9250 PCI card in the system and I could not get ANY drivers (for XP or Vista) for that particular card to work.
Under Win7 RC1 32-bit on that same machine, I was able to get Vista drivers for that card to get it running, though it would only run a single monitor whilst the same card under XP SP3 32-bit on that machine would run dual monitors off the card.

The question is what benefit would there be with specs like that to run Vista or Windows 7 on it over XP/SP3? I don't see any.

In anycase, the main reason I'm looking at ATI cards is for Crossfire with that particular motherboard. And it's no use suggesting I got for the $200+ AUD models if I'm planing on dual-carding and Crossfire with two of the same card, as it's enough of a pain in the arse just getting ~ONE~ of those $200+ AUD cards let alone 2!

With the new AMD 890GX and 890FX chipset right around the corner I'd skip on the GA-MA785GT-UD3H.




http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/amd-890gx.html




What games do you run that would benefit from multi-GPU's? You'd probably better off using one single higher end GPU instead of Cross Fire.

 

[Technous285]

I can't 'skip' on the GA-MA785GT-UD3H as it's part of that $500 AUD AMD Upgrade Kit I linked to in my original post. It's the only one of the 2 AMD kits & 3 Intel kits here that has a CPU of 3.0+ GHz and isn't nearly $1,000 AUD (unlike the Core i7 upgrade that comes with 7 Pro 64-bit).

As for Vista/7 over XP/SP3, I'm currently running XP SP2 on the 3.0GHz P4 rig (the one with 2GB DDR1 I'm upgrading) and have XP SP3 (pre-installed) on a factory refurbished Dell Optiplex GX520 with a Radeon 9250 (256MB, PCI) that I use as a backup machine when my gaming rig is offline (mainly due to repairs and upgrades), and XP SP3 is a pain in the arse to use, even with 4GB of DDR2 (replaced the 2x 512MB chips that came with the system with 2x 2GB chips shortly after getting the system).

Also, as I stated before, I'm looking at ~LINUX~ being the ~PRIMARY~ OS and shunting Cores and RAM through a VM (such as Sun VirtualBox) into Windows as a Virtual Machine OS. All I ~NEED~ Windows for is gaming, everything else I do (graphics, net surfing, story writing) I can do under Linux as easy (if not easier) than I can under Windows.
And it's a real pain in the arse to have to save and shut down everything, then reboot the whole machine to load Windows ~JUST~ for a few hours in WoW or Diablo II under Windows, then have to reload EVERYTHING once Linux is loaded back up.

Games that would benefit from multiple GPU's (and 2 cards worth of V-RAM)? I'm ~BARELY~ getting Star Trek Online and StarCraft 2 (Beta) to run with a 9400GT with 1GB of V-RAM under XP SP2 at the moment. All my other games would benefit from the boost if GPU and V-RAM power, but it's those two that would benefit the most.
Heck, under the Minimum Specs they post for Trek Online, I shouldn't even be able to get it installed or load the STO Loader program with a 3.0GHz Dual-Core P4 with 32-bit XP SP2 and 2GB of System RAM!

 

[djt]

XP SP3 is a pain in the arse to use, even with 4GB of DDR2 (replaced the 2x 512MB chips that came with the system with 2x 2GB chips shortly after getting the system).

Unless it's a botched OS install, XP/SP3 shouldn't be “ a pain in the arse to use”?

I'm ~BARELY~ getting Star Trek Online and StarCraft 2 (Beta) to run with a 9400GT with 1GB of V-RAM under XP SP2 at the moment. All my other games would benefit from the boost if GPU and V-RAM power, but it's those two that would benefit the most.

I took a look in the forums and web sites for those two games and didn't see anything that would leave me to believe that either one of them would be that demanding on any mid to high end video card. The 9400GT that you have now isn't going to set the world on fire and is pretty weak when it comes to running today's games.


The other thing to consider is that at least one of the games looks like it might have been developed with Nvidia in mind so how an ATI GPU is going to perform is left to be seen with these two titles.


What other games do you usually run?