a curious question about consoles and PC standardization

[Qilue]

I agree with snoopy with some additions.

Buy popular parts, that is ones with are common among custom built computers. Things like SoundBlaster sound cards, ASUS/Abit/Gigabyte motherboards, ASUS/Abit/Gigabyte video cards etc.

Also, avoid any motherboard with 'onboard' video/sound/LAN/eggtimer as these only add to the price for functions better served with a expansion card (like graphics, sound, LAN, an actual eggtimer) that is less likely to cause a game compatibility.

Also get a decent sized power supply (350-400W), better to have too much than too little.

[Qilue]

Gah, clicked Quote instead of Edit.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by snoopy369
A 2200 1.8ghz AMD chip is roughly comparable (according to them) to a 2.2ghz P4.

Are you talking about K8 (Athlon 64)?

[Urban Ranger]

Re: a curious question about consoles and PC standardization

Originally posted by lord of the mark
OTOH folks say the Console is The Wave of the Future, cause it has, er, standardized parts. Which avoids all the hassles developers have designing for diverse PC's, and assures one of less hassle with games that wont run on your machine, etc.

It's standardised as cars are standardised. Every single car of the same model is exactly the the same, before you start putting in the optional thingies.

A gearbox from a model probably won't work in another model.

Originally posted by lord of the mark
So help me here. Why doesnt this also argue for going for a more standard PC, IE one from an established manufacturer?

PCs are also standardised, but on a lower level.

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Is it that console makers use better parts, etc than big name PC makers?

Who knows? There is certainly a huge amount of hype surrounding Playstation 3 and Xbox 2. For example, if you look at the video subsystem of the Xbox 2, it is asserted that it has a throughput of 256GB/s or something fantastic. Until somebody finds a way of testing it, however, who knows what speed it will be running?

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Is it that PC designers will still be designing for diverse systems, and it wont help that I have a Dell or Emachines PC? Is it that the PC's problems only effect "dumb" users, and that this effects market size, etc, but not my personal experience?

PCs are fundamentally different from consoles. PCs are designed to be open systems, consoles are designed to be closed systems. Closed systems tend to be more, hm, idiot-proof. They can also do funny things (e.g. copy protection) under the hood much more easily.

Originally posted by lord of the mark
(For those who are curious, yes Im back in the new PC market again - just bought a new DVD/VCR player, which took priority)

I recommend a AMD Athlon 64 (socket 939) system. You don't even need DDR2, SLU, or PCI-E. Very nice.

[Adagio]

I wont buy a console until they make one with a keyboard and mouse...

[Asher]

Re: Re: a curious question about consoles and PC standardization

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Who knows? There is certainly a huge amount of hype surrounding Playstation 3 and Xbox 2. For example, if you look at the video subsystem of the Xbox 2, it is asserted that it has a throughput of 256GB/s or something fantastic. Until somebody finds a way of testing it, however, who knows what speed it will be running?

What exactly does this mean?

It's a simple mathematical calculation between bus-width and frequency.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by snoopy369
AMD, don't look at speed - look at the 2800 number. That's its theoretical equivalent speed of a P4.

A 2200 1.8ghz AMD chip is roughly comparable (according to them) to a 2.2ghz P4.

They're not quite accurate, but indeed they are better than their speed rating, as that's mostly irrelevant.

You can play anything at all, at all, on a 2200 chip. At least I haven't found anything I can't play, including Morrowind and several MMORPGs like FFXI with somewhat big graphics reqs for some parts (well, the cutscenes in FFXI )

2200 Athlon: $80
Motherboard: $60
PC2400+ RAM 1GB: $100 (could go $60 on 512MB, but i rec 1GB)
GeForce card: $60-80 (anything from that range is good enough)
HardDrive 80GB: $60-$80
--
Under $400. Then add in a case, power supply, and other things that you can probably cannibalize, and for under $500 you have a very decent computer. (Heck, you can probably go up to an AMD 2800 for under $500 easy.) (Still need a monitor, but you have one that you're staring at right now, right?)

I made a P4 3.2ghz 800FSB system for $600 about a year or a year and a half ago ... similar setup otherwise. It's really not that expensive, if you stay away from top-of-the-line crud that's just not worth it ...

1. We have one PC at home. Thats it. The plan is to get a second one and keep the first. So no cannibalizing of anything.
2. Im not ready to build a PC. So add on a $69 build fee from the local PC shop - though that comes with a 2 year warranty as well.
3. based on the above, and looking at the shops parts list, I couldnt come up with anything under $600, and that was with no video card. so the shops "special" (also with no discrete vid card) at $550 looked appealing. Its more than the cheapest manufactured PC's, but comes with the warranty, is more upgradeable than the cheapest manufactured models, and I THINK has better parts.
4. My impression was that the cheaper motherboards all came with integrated graphics. My plan had been to buy with integrated first, and upgrade by adding a video card later on. If i could save on the motherboard by foregoing integrated graphics, that would make getting a discrete video card now more attractive. I guess I need to talk to the shop about that.
5. I knew about the AMD rating thing, but thanks. Is 2.2 Ghz (or AMD equivalent) enough, you think? The manufactured machines all come with at least 2.4, and very few with less than 2.6. I dont remember what the cheapest ones the shop had were. Im somehow more intimadated at the prospect of later upgrading the CPU than of say, adding a video card or more RAM. Does that make sense?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Adagio
I wont buy a console until they make one with a keyboard and mouse...

Im not actually thinking of getting a console now - we need another PC for non-gaming needs, and all the games im most interested in are PC only. It was more a conceptual question.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by lord of the mark



1. We have one PC at home. Thats it. The plan is to get a second one and keep the first. So no cannibalizing of anything.
2. Im not ready to build a PC. So add on a $69 build fee from the local PC shop - though that comes with a 2 year warranty as well.
3. based on the above, and looking at the shops parts list, I couldnt come up with anything under $600, and that was with no video card. so the shops "special" (also with no discrete vid card) at $550 looked appealing. Its more than the cheapest manufactured PC's, but comes with the warranty, is more upgradeable than the cheapest manufactured models, and I THINK has better parts.
4. My impression was that the cheaper motherboards all came with integrated graphics. My plan had been to buy with integrated first, and upgrade by adding a video card later on. If i could save on the motherboard by foregoing integrated graphics, that would make getting a discrete video card now more attractive. I guess I need to talk to the shop about that.
5. I knew about the AMD rating thing, but thanks. Is 2.2 Ghz (or AMD equivalent) enough, you think? The manufactured machines all come with at least 2.4, and very few with less than 2.6. I dont remember what the cheapest ones the shop had were. Im somehow more intimadated at the prospect of later upgrading the CPU than of say, adding a video card or more RAM. Does that make sense?

Yes and no. Why not post all together (a) your estimated budget, (b) the cost of one of those awful budget machines with onboard sound and graphics that you like so much, and (c) the total cost to you of building a machine like I've recommended before, and Snoopy does above.

Then we can see.

[lord of the mark]

1. budget - Im sure you could put together something I could afford. If we HAD to spend $700 to get a PC (including monitor), I suppose we could. What more relevant is what my budget is for added features, like say being able to play future games, or greater reliability. A hedonic pricing kind of thing.
2. Budget PC price - varies as diff manufacturers have different specials, on different configurations, etc. Dell, which is usually well above Emachine and Compaq, has a sale on now, forex.


Actually what might be useful would be for me to go over the parts list from the PC shop and see what you think. I'll have to grab it and see.

[alva]

2. Im not ready to build a PC. So add on a $69 build fee from the local PC shop - though that comes with a 2 year warranty as well.

Sounds pretty expensive, no nephew in the family that can do it for you for half the price?

4. My impression was that the cheaper motherboards all came with integrated graphics. My plan had been to buy with integrated first, and upgrade by adding a video card later on. If i could save on the motherboard by foregoing integrated graphics, that would make getting a discrete video card now more attractive. I guess I need to talk to the shop about that.

DO NOT buy integrated graphics!! It's a waste of money..and if you're unlucky you might have some conflicts when you do add a real card

5. I knew about the AMD rating thing, but thanks. Is 2.2 Ghz (or AMD equivalent) enough, you think? The manufactured machines all come with at least 2.4, and very few with less than 2.6. I dont remember what the cheapest ones the shop had were. Im somehow more intimadated at the prospect of later upgrading the CPU than of say, adding a video card or more RAM. Does that make sense?

To be honest, buying to upgrade later is, well, a myth. Buy what you need now and see what happens.
At the moment there are 2 kinds of ram (DDR1 and DDR2) and soon we'll see the introduction of DDR3, none of which are inter-changable.

[/q]
Can't you get anything second hand? I just bought myself a 3 month old ATI 9800PRO for about 2/3 of new price.

[Asher]

DDR2 is replacing DDR(1).

I think you're confusing DDR3 with GDDR3 -- GDDR3 is graphics RAM, not system RAM (Well, the Xbox 360 uses it for system RAM )

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Qilue
I agree with snoopy with some additions.

Buy popular parts, that is ones with are common among custom built computers. Things like SoundBlaster sound cards, ASUS/Abit/Gigabyte motherboards, ASUS/Abit/Gigabyte video cards etc.

Also, avoid any motherboard with 'onboard' video/sound/LAN/eggtimer as these only add to the price for functions better served with a expansion card (like graphics, sound, LAN, an actual eggtimer) that is less likely to cause a game compatibility.

Also get a decent sized power supply (350-400W), better to have too much than too little.

Completely agree. Onboard video etc. is crud. Tho i'd say that if you find a better cheaper board with it than without, go with it - some of the big brands like to include it, and some specials are good deals.

Altho I can't offer a warranty, i'd be more than happy to put a computer together for you undoubtedly for less than the local shop tho transportation costs may be a pain, unless you live in Chicago.

I suggest looking at www.newegg.com - they're a pretty reputable place for parts, and tho they're slightly expensive they're not horribly so - the prices there are usually about 10% higher than the "lowest possible price from some guy in a shack of undetermined location", but they're good about shipping quickly and good about service (in my experience).

There's nothing wrong with a manufacturer PC tho - I think that, if you're talking about the sort of upgrade you are, you'll notice enough increase that you don't need to worry about the fine-tune details. Certainly if you can find something in a decent price, go for it - you'll get adequate performance for most purposes. Of course, any chance you get for gaming tuning - go for it; no integrated graphics if you can avoid it, but rather a dedicated card, and same for sound; and choose more RAM (up to 1gb at least anyway) over faster processor speed. RAM makes more difference than processor speed at the point we are at - heck, FSB (Front Side Bus) and other 'invisible' pipeline speeds and flowthroughs that are 'invisible' to you because they won't tell you the speeds unless you really dig deeply, matter more than processor speed. A 3.2ghz processor is largely a waste compared to 2.8ghz if the speed info goes from memory to processor is 333mhz

[techie rant]
I disagree with UR's suggestion for Athlon-64 though - that's reaching further than you need to, and adding at least a hundred dollars to the price for not much more functionality (right now). In a few years, yes it will help - but at the moment 64 bit chips cause as many problems as they solve, and there's not really a good version of windows to take advantage of the chips yet. It's going to be a good idea, but i don't think it's necessary. (Sort of like the SATA hard drives - also not a big advantage now, if any, but in a few years ) Although I'll probably build a 64bit system when i build my next (hopefully before oblivion comes out!!) ... that's because i'm obsessed with performance You can easily get adequate performance for even top games, as i said before, with a pretty mid-range system or even low end (for the current market).
[/techie rant]

[snoopy369]

Oh - and to show my stupdity, what's an eggtimer in the sense it was used above? I've never heard that word used in a computer sense before ...

[alva]

Originally posted by Asher
DDR2 is replacing DDR(1).

I think you're confusing DDR3 with GDDR3 -- GDDR3 is graphics RAM, not system RAM (Well, the Xbox 360 uses it for system RAM )

Yes, and it will come to the PC as well.