First thanks for the well thought out well written comments regarding SCSI Sixshot. Perhaps you don't remember but you helped me solve my 8x AGP issue a while back (also gave a decent response). Personally I was never a gamer before, even less of an on-line gamer but BF2 has me hooked. I really know my stuff when it comes to overclocking system building. Mostly for DC applications. Before when it came to video performance I really didn't care, if it drew a bos box I was happy. Now is another story.
I'll first answer MTM then I'll comment regarding scsi again.
MTM,
3G is really enough to play BF2 and other games. I'll give you an example my cousin is currently using an overclocked XP1500 socket a board with a x850pro and 756MB of ram. Sure I clocked the stink out of the system to get it to perform and he has slower load times but it works and plays well.
You basically have a P4 3G system which kicks the living daylights out of the above machine, you also have ddr ram. You commented that you only have 512MB I'm worried that your board is not a dual channel. (Could you supply specifications on your board and harddrive, please).
Basically I understand your cash situation and I was at your exact same point a month ago. I was using a 9800pro and just wanted more. But the switch to a pci-e board just didn't make sence alot of money, processor, decent video card, motherboard, added up to alot. The only difference was I already had 2G of ram, personally I actually use more than 1G on a daily bases and often more than 2G on various machines with 4G of memory.
Your biggest problem is the 512MB in todays world that's hardly enough and probably your biggest problem especially if you have a single channel board.
So the first question should be do you want ram or not?
The only disadvantage to buying ram now is that later you may want ddr2. But is ddr2 better? Personally the ddr2 specs are not better IMHO compared to decent ddr, the timings are two relaxed. (Inform yourself do some research on ddr2 vs ddr).
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory … 2-ddr.html
Personally I don't see the benifit of the ddr2 vs ddr and the latency is higher. Sure you can get more bandwidth out of ddr2 but do you really need that much bandwidth? For current processor I say no. For future processors yes but then that's another upgrade cycle and possibly a new board with nforce5 or nforce6 chipset which isn't currently available. Second when that upgrade cycle comes you'll probably want the newer faster ddr2. In either case you'll be buying ram again anyways.
Long and the short of both the reasonable recomendations in this thread, buy 2G of the fastest best ddr you can. Make sure it's 2sticks of 1G each, timings of 2-2-2-5, OCZ, GEIL, Patriot, Corsair (not a personal fan).
So if you go that route a decent upgrade for a video card. There are a remedous number of threads on that.
Personally I just purchased a x850pro 256Mb agp card, I'm running on high graphics detail with a >70 fps sometimes 95 fps. You don't need better than that and the game looks wicked. I never knew fighters produced contrails in game, and if your smoking there is no chance of running, that's how much my graphics improved over the 9800pro. I paid 160 bucks refurbished from e-bay you just can't beat that.
On the x850pro, I could overclock from 500/500 to 570/635 and potentially unlock the additional pipelines to 16. The short of it, the card does more than I need at default 500/500.
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On SCSI, Sixshot, thanks let me comment I actually agree with most of what you said. But I think there are some differences.
I agree your not going to go 15K then certainly don't do scsi, for anything 10K just use the raptor on a SATA.
The setup is a no brainer, and certainly the cheapest way out.
Inaddition if your going to go scsi don't run anything on scsi except for the drives. Sixshot you commented regarding cd's that's a big no no for performance. Actally there is a big difference LVD HVD scsi with the same bandwidth, I'm just talking about 1 drive on a controller that's it.
Also the connections terminators are not that difficult, in this case. It gets complicated when your doing raid-5 DAT, external connectors etc. Keep it simple it's not much difference than setting master and slave for a CD-rom, it may be new, but a 16-year old could do it with a little searching. All you need is the following.
15K drive with 68-pin connector.
u320 68-pin cable with terminator. (These cables are really easy to find on-line, terminator goes at the end)
u160 or u320 SCSI controller. (Such as adaptec 29160)
You could do a 80-pin drive
80-pin to 68-pin converters those are about 5 bucks and what I'm using, it's an extra step but not bad.
For get the 40-pin 60-pin there were a bunch those are old school and some are even worse than ata66.
A note on HD longevity. Recently WD and a few of the other HD companies changed their warranty periods on HD's, some are only a year now. But SCSI is still 5 years or even 7 years, to me that says something about the cost over a life expectanccy of the product. If I only have to buy a HD once in a 5 year period compared to twice, it's also half the data loss etc.
I also have no problem buying 15K scsi drives used. Alot of people are pulling 72G and 36G drives out of servers to gain storage space by installing 146G drives.
Since you talked about raid, if really wanted to get crazy you could buy two 36G 15K drives a raid controller and cable for less than 400 dollars. How much would two raptors be?
Personally I'd stop at a controller card and a 36G drive that could be done for 200 or less.
For MTM I'd say just start with the memory and video card, that could be done for <400 bucks. The computer would then give him another year at least.
Let forget about all the vista 64-bit for now. There will always be something better. You could always wait for the quad cores as well...
I'll first answer MTM then I'll comment regarding scsi again.
MTM,
3G is really enough to play BF2 and other games. I'll give you an example my cousin is currently using an overclocked XP1500 socket a board with a x850pro and 756MB of ram. Sure I clocked the stink out of the system to get it to perform and he has slower load times but it works and plays well.
You basically have a P4 3G system which kicks the living daylights out of the above machine, you also have ddr ram. You commented that you only have 512MB I'm worried that your board is not a dual channel. (Could you supply specifications on your board and harddrive, please).
Basically I understand your cash situation and I was at your exact same point a month ago. I was using a 9800pro and just wanted more. But the switch to a pci-e board just didn't make sence alot of money, processor, decent video card, motherboard, added up to alot. The only difference was I already had 2G of ram, personally I actually use more than 1G on a daily bases and often more than 2G on various machines with 4G of memory.
Your biggest problem is the 512MB in todays world that's hardly enough and probably your biggest problem especially if you have a single channel board.
So the first question should be do you want ram or not?
The only disadvantage to buying ram now is that later you may want ddr2. But is ddr2 better? Personally the ddr2 specs are not better IMHO compared to decent ddr, the timings are two relaxed. (Inform yourself do some research on ddr2 vs ddr).
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory … 2-ddr.html
Personally I don't see the benifit of the ddr2 vs ddr and the latency is higher. Sure you can get more bandwidth out of ddr2 but do you really need that much bandwidth? For current processor I say no. For future processors yes but then that's another upgrade cycle and possibly a new board with nforce5 or nforce6 chipset which isn't currently available. Second when that upgrade cycle comes you'll probably want the newer faster ddr2. In either case you'll be buying ram again anyways.
Long and the short of both the reasonable recomendations in this thread, buy 2G of the fastest best ddr you can. Make sure it's 2sticks of 1G each, timings of 2-2-2-5, OCZ, GEIL, Patriot, Corsair (not a personal fan).
So if you go that route a decent upgrade for a video card. There are a remedous number of threads on that.
Personally I just purchased a x850pro 256Mb agp card, I'm running on high graphics detail with a >70 fps sometimes 95 fps. You don't need better than that and the game looks wicked. I never knew fighters produced contrails in game, and if your smoking there is no chance of running, that's how much my graphics improved over the 9800pro. I paid 160 bucks refurbished from e-bay you just can't beat that.
On the x850pro, I could overclock from 500/500 to 570/635 and potentially unlock the additional pipelines to 16. The short of it, the card does more than I need at default 500/500.
-------------------------------------
On SCSI, Sixshot, thanks let me comment I actually agree with most of what you said. But I think there are some differences.
I agree your not going to go 15K then certainly don't do scsi, for anything 10K just use the raptor on a SATA.
The setup is a no brainer, and certainly the cheapest way out.
Inaddition if your going to go scsi don't run anything on scsi except for the drives. Sixshot you commented regarding cd's that's a big no no for performance. Actally there is a big difference LVD HVD scsi with the same bandwidth, I'm just talking about 1 drive on a controller that's it.
Also the connections terminators are not that difficult, in this case. It gets complicated when your doing raid-5 DAT, external connectors etc. Keep it simple it's not much difference than setting master and slave for a CD-rom, it may be new, but a 16-year old could do it with a little searching. All you need is the following.
15K drive with 68-pin connector.
u320 68-pin cable with terminator. (These cables are really easy to find on-line, terminator goes at the end)
u160 or u320 SCSI controller. (Such as adaptec 29160)
You could do a 80-pin drive
80-pin to 68-pin converters those are about 5 bucks and what I'm using, it's an extra step but not bad.
For get the 40-pin 60-pin there were a bunch those are old school and some are even worse than ata66.
A note on HD longevity. Recently WD and a few of the other HD companies changed their warranty periods on HD's, some are only a year now. But SCSI is still 5 years or even 7 years, to me that says something about the cost over a life expectanccy of the product. If I only have to buy a HD once in a 5 year period compared to twice, it's also half the data loss etc.
I also have no problem buying 15K scsi drives used. Alot of people are pulling 72G and 36G drives out of servers to gain storage space by installing 146G drives.
Since you talked about raid, if really wanted to get crazy you could buy two 36G 15K drives a raid controller and cable for less than 400 dollars. How much would two raptors be?
Personally I'd stop at a controller card and a 36G drive that could be done for 200 or less.
For MTM I'd say just start with the memory and video card, that could be done for <400 bucks. The computer would then give him another year at least.
Let forget about all the vista 64-bit for now. There will always be something better. You could always wait for the quad cores as well...