Help me buying a new computer!

[Rasbelin]

Asher, I'm not talking about 3D picture quality actually. Just nitpicking.

[Asher]

I've got an ELSA Gladiac 920 GeForce 3, and the image quality is outstanding.
I've got a Leadtek WinFast GF4 Ti4600 in the other computer, and the image quality is also outstanding.

Once you go to the brands like VisionTek the 2D image quality is a bit lower, but it's still hard to tell...

Asher, I'm not talking about 3D picture quality actually. Just nitpicking.

I know you weren't, that's why I talked about 2D first. But 3D image quality is also very important, especially with 3D boards.

The other problems with the Radeon 9700 these days is its lack of some of the image quality features that NV30 will have.

Z-buffer: Radeon 9700: 24-bit, NV30: 32-bit
Color precision: Radeon 9700: 96-bit, NV30: 128-bit
W-buffer: Radeon 9700: No support, NV10/15/20/25/30: Supported
etc

[Kaak]

a little off topic...what do you think the cheapest way to go about getting a lap top is? I'm just looking for something around 1GHz and i dun wanna spend a ton o mula...can you get them at local stores?

[Rasbelin]

Kaak,

aren't you going to call yourself and order a Dell?

[Kaak]

bah, i don't get a discount yet, and I really don't want to spend 1000$ bucks...

[Pekka]

Rasbelin, You went through work and time for that post, thank you.

I'm drooling over that new Matrox.. but it's a bit expensive, though I'm willing to concentrate on that. I think my needs are met with Radeon 9000 Pro for a while, I'll see what I can do with it and when the Matrox is a bit cheaper and people have more experience with it and it's qualities, I might invest to it then. But as for now I'll be happy with Radeon 9000 Pro.

I made a funny assumption that we don't have a good collection of cases here.. what was I thinking, we're not Mongolia. I was looking at AOpen H600A from Verkkokauppa earlier today. It suits me good. There were some nice cases at bulldog too, but this one is one of the three I'm finally choosing from.

Then the soundcard. I was first thinking of putting up something bigger with it, but now I'm having second thoughts. And as for now it's easy, because my amplifier kind of exploded some time ago . I'm getting a new one, but it might take some time.. so New PC Audio System would be the one.
But I'm getting a new set of speakers and amplifier (maybe next january, a bit long time), it would be cool to be able to use them.

[Rasbelin]

Originally posted by Asher
I've got an ELSA Gladiac 920 GeForce 3, and the image quality is outstanding.
I've got a Leadtek WinFast GF4 Ti4600 in the other computer, and the image quality is also outstanding.

And I have a Radeon 8500 and a Radeon 7500; both with excellent picture quality compared to nVidia's cards.

BTW, the one thing that makes the real difference is what you have plugged to the graphics accelerator.

Tolstoi

Gigabyte Maya AP64D-H 64 Mb (Radeon 8500)
Nokia 930C 19"

Trotskij

Hercules 3D Prophet All-In-Wonder 7500 64 Mb (Radeon 7500)
Samsung SyncMaster 757NF 17"

Gorkij

Currently dead, but will be back in February 2003 with a new display and hardware.

Uljanov

ATI Rage XL 8 Mb
KFC CA6035L 15"

[Asher]

NEC MultiSync FE950+ 19" on the GF3, Dell P991 19" on the GF4 -- both flatscreen Trinitron tubes.

[Rasbelin]

Originally posted by Kaak
bah, i don't get a discount yet, and I really don't want to spend 1000$ bucks...

First you try to get ohers ordering from you, but when it comes yo your own new laptop, you prefer to buy it elsewhere. I guess this just shows us how poor quality Dell is.

[Kaak]

guess this just shows us how poor quality Dell is.

quite the opposite. you have to pay for quality. And everything dell has is faster than what i need; too new. I want something older...Dell's slowest processor is a 1.2 celeron. i'd rather have a p3 800 or an athlon below 1 ghz...

[Rasbelin]

Here's your sound card line up with pictures, Pekka.



7637 - Philips Acoustic Edge 5.1

This is the card I mentioned in my original list, but as you can see, it only has DIN plugs for digital sound, so it can't be used with a home theatre amplifier. I would also have recommended it because of the price tag and the review in MikroBitti. BTW, I applogise the bad quality of the product picture, but it's a screenshot from a PDF document.



1393 - Hercules Digifire 7.1

This a new product now yet available, but will be arrive on week 41. Those 2 ports to the right are FireWire ports and there's also one internal one one the card, so if you have a need for FireWire connectivity, this could be a good alternative. Unfortunately I haven't read any reviews about it yet.

[IMG]ftp://ftp.terratec.de/Audio/DMXXfire/Images/DMXXFire1024_Board_S.jpg[/IMG]

6802 - Terratec DMX-Xfire 1024

I haven't seen this card, but I considered it as an option when I was choosing the sound card for the current setup of Tolstoi. Good TerraTec quality. Links to reviews are included.

VNUnet
apcmag.com

Sidenote: the apcmag.com review is quite lame as there's no real test information shown, so I don't see it as that reliable.

[IMG]ftp://ftp.terratec.de/Audio/SiXPack5.1+/Images/SiXPack5.1+_Board_S.jpg[/IMG]

4411 - Terratec SoundSystem SiXPack 5.1+

This is the sound card I actually chose for Tolstoi. Why? Good connectivity and features. And the price isn't too bad either, 94 € on Verkkokauppa.com. So this a card I can at least recommend as I have used it for music, MP3, gaming and DVD's.

And reviews...

3D Spotlight
3D Audio Immersion

What about the speakers? In the case you intend to buy a set of good speakers now, I recommend is the same product as in the old list.



5524 - Creative Inspire 5.1 Digital 5700

It's currently the cheapest true 5.1 audio solution, as the others don't give any real Dolby Digital or DTS experience. This ironically the audio system that I use, but at least I know what I'm talking about.

Reviews...

ActionTrip.com
the inquirer
Digit-Life.com

[Eroberer]

Ras, I read the reviews, and I've read many reviews for some time now. 2D image quality has been exceptionally high on everything since the mid-nineties. I have an old Rendition Verite 2D/3D chip (one of the first) that is probably not noticably different playing Spades than the great GF4Ti chips. The simple fact is that if Pekka here wants the best chip for the money, he should go with the GF4 Ti 4600 in a couple months. Top-scale 2D "performance" is simply no longer an issue.

NVidia has bar-none the best 3D performance. Asher is being very modest about the NV30's potential to blow everything else out of the water. The Matrox Parhelia should never have entered into Pekka's decisions unless he's getting it now, to be quite honest. The 8500 is a great buy right now, but the GF4's are about to be bargain-basement priced (if they aren't already). With this strange addiction to brands that you two seem to have, I'm just glad no one has suggested a Mac.

[Asher]

The Radeon 9700 is king for 3D performance right now, but it'll be short lived. I just don't see a point to buying it.

NV30 will launch alongside DirectX 9 in Nov/Dec, and will, nearly without a doubt, be much faster than the Radeon 9700 as well as having more features.

The 9700 was ATI jumping in the DX9 bandwagon early so they could claim the speed crown from Nvidia for a couple months. NV30 is superior in just about every way possible to the 9700, and the 9700 isn't that much better than a GF4 Ti4600, so it's just not a very wise move in my books.

And I certainly agree about the Parhelia being a waste of money. Its performance is sub-par, its drivers are sub-par, it's overpriced, and it's got a lot of novelty features and isn't even DX9 compliant.

[Eroberer]

Yea, I saw a quote of a dry ice-cooled 9700 in a liquid nitrogen cooled rig making 21K 3DMarks. =P

NVidia has carried the 3D crown from the Riva chips through the genuine GPU's right up till these three months, as far as I can remember. ATi has had to rely on cheaper prices for sales. Don't let anything regarding 2D performance enter into your choice or you'll just be making a feel-good purchase.

[Rasbelin]

Originally posted by Eroberer
Ras, I read the reviews, and I've read many reviews for some time now. 2D image quality has been exceptionally high on everything since the mid-nineties.

Since mid 90's nVidia hasn't always provided good quality in 2D image quality. Let me just recall the poor picture quality of the GeForce 2 family. And the 2D picture quality wasn't much improved prior to the Detornator reference drivers late last year.

Top-scale 2D "performance" is simply no longer an issue.

I didn't say so. I was talking about picture quality.

NVidia has bar-none the best 3D performance.

Currently the Radeon 9700 offers the best performance available. There's no doubt about that.

With this strange addiction to brands that you two seem to have, I'm just glad no one has suggested a Mac.

Brand addiction? Wow! Nice idea, but I'm not that brand addicted. I have been suggesting the Radeon family because of it's good pricing, picture quality and 3D performance.