New Rig (Premade)

[Greive]

PROCESSOR: Intel® Core™2 Q6600 Quad-Core (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB)
OPERATING SYSTEM: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
MEMORY: 2GB Corsair Dominator DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz OC'd to 1066MHz-2 DIMMs
HARD DRIVE: 320GB - Seagate 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
SOUND CARD: Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeMusic (D) Sound Card
GRAPHICS CARD: Dual 256MB nVidia GeForce 8600 GTS
OPTICAL DRIVE: Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability

Any essential upgrades I should make, what are your suggestions/insights?
How will this run?

[Gorgel]

Originally Posted by Greive

PROCESSOR: Intel® Core™2 Q6600 Quad-Core (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB)
OPERATING SYSTEM: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
MEMORY: 2GB Corsair Dominator DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz OC'd to 1066MHz-2 DIMMs
HARD DRIVE: 320GB - Seagate 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
SOUND CARD: Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeMusic (D) Sound Card
GRAPHICS CARD: Dual 256MB nVidia GeForce 8600 GTS
OPTICAL DRIVE: Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability

Any essential upgrades I should make, what are your suggestions/insights?
How will this run?

First, I'd definitely drop that ram and go with either Corsair XMS2 2x 1GB for 74.99 w/ $40 mail-in rebate & free shipping If you're looking for higher performance ram, or G.Skill 2x 1GB $46.99 w/ free shipping -- solid ram, pretty standard timings and cheap(not as cheap as the corsair ram after rebate, but some don't like to wait for the rebate to come in).

Next, I'd drop the sound card completely. Your motherboard will come with some kind of integrated HD audio most likely; not to say that the X-Fi isn't good, but you could spend that extra cash on a better video card that would increase your gaming performance a whole lot more than the sound card would.

Get Vista x64 version. It's much faster(I use vista x64 ultimate).

Last, drop the 8600gts and buy a 8800gt 512mb card with the money saved from the ram and the sound card.

XFX 8800gt 512mb $229.99 /w 6.33 shipping , or EVGA 8800gt 512mb Suberclocked edition $259.99 w/ $10 mail-in rebate & free shipping for a tad bit better performance.

Hope this helps!

Edit: Quick info about ram: The price on ram jumps by a significant amount when you move from ddr2 800 to anything higher. Moving from ddr2 800 ram to say ddr2 1000 or 1066 will yield a slight performance increase, but not enough of one to justify spending an extra 50-60 bucks(IMO).

[Greive]

Originally Posted by Gorgel

First, I'd definitely drop that ram and go with either Corsair XMS2 2x 1GB for 74.99 w/ $40 mail-in rebate & free shipping If you're looking for higher performance ram, or G.Skill 2x 1GB $46.99 w/ free shipping -- solid ram, pretty standard timings and cheap(not as cheap as the corsair ram after rebate, but some don't like to wait for the rebate to come in).

Next, I'd drop the sound card completely. Your motherboard will come with some kind of integrated HD audio most likely; not to say that the X-Fi isn't good, but you could spend that extra cash on a better video card that would increase your gaming performance a whole lot more than the sound card would.

Get Vista x64 version. It's much faster(I use vista x64 ultimate).

Last, drop the 8600gts and buy a 8800gt 512mb card with the money saved from the ram and the sound card.

XFX 8800gt 512mb $229.99 /w 6.33 shipping , or EVGA 8800gt 512mb Suberclocked edition $259.99 w/ $10 mail-in rebate & free shipping for a tad bit better performance.

Hope this helps!

Edit: Quick info about ram: The price on ram jumps by a significant amount when you move from ddr2 800 to anything higher. Moving from ddr2 800 ram to say ddr2 1000 or 1066 will yield a slight performance increase, but not enough of one to justify spending an extra 50-60 bucks(IMO).

Thanks man, appreciate the help. What exactly is the difference between two 256mb 8600GTS' and a 512mb 8800GT, besides the fact that you have another slot for another video card, which would run better?

[Gorgel]

Originally Posted by Greive

Thanks man, appreciate the help. What exactly is the difference between two 256mb 8600GTS' and a 512mb 8800GT, besides the fact that you have another slot for another video card, which would run better?

Ah, I missed the the "dual" word above. Two 8600gts cards wont run as well as a single 8800gt. What you want to look at is SP's(Steam Processors) on the card. 8600GTS has 32, and the 8800GT has 112. When pairing two cards together in SLI, you're not going to ever see "DOUBLE" performance because that's just not how it works. SLI does not scale too well... yet anyway.

Even if you could get double performance in SLI, it still wouldn't be enough to beat the 8800gt.

When looking at the core clock speed, and the memory clock speed, you might actually come across several 8600gts cards that appear to be faster than the 8800gt, and I'll tell you why they still are not.

8800gt has a 65nm(nanometer) chip, a transistor count of 754m, 16 ROPs(Raster Operations), a texture address / filtering of 56/56, 265-bit memory interface and 112 steam processors.

Now lets look at a single 8600gts

The 8600gts has a 80nm chip, transistor count of 289m, 8 ROPs, a texture address / flitering of 16/16, 128-bit memory interface, and 32 steam processors.

Now you don't have to understand what all of this means, but you can compare the numbers.

[Greive]

Originally Posted by Gorgel

Ah, I missed the the "dual" word above. Two 8600gts cards wont run as well as a single 8800gt. What you want to look at is SP's(Steam Processors) on the card. 8600GTS has 32, and the 8800GT has 112. When pairing two cards together in SLI, you're not going to ever see "DOUBLE" performance because that's just not how it works. SLI does not scale too well... yet anyway.

Even if you could get double performance in SLI, it still wouldn't be enough to beat the 8800gt.

When looking at the core clock speed, and the memory clock speed, you might actually come across several 8600gts cards that appear to be faster than the 8800gt, and I'll tell you why they still are not.

8800gt has a 65nm(nanometer) chip, a transistor count of 754m, 16 ROPs(Raster Operations), a texture address / filtering of 56/56, 265-bit memory interface and 112 steam processors.

Now lets look at a single 8600gts

The 8600gts has a 80nm chip, transistor count of 289m, 8 ROPs, a texture address / flitering of 16/16, 128-bit memory interface, and 32 steam processors.

Now you don't have to understand what all of this means, but you can compare the numbers.

Ah, well, that makes sense. Get this man in the guild! And give him a cookie.

[Gorgel]

Originally Posted by Greive

Ah, well, that makes sense. Get this man in the guild! And give him a cookie.

Glad to have helped

[Hunglo]

Originally Posted by Gorgel

Get Vista x64 version. It's much faster(I use vista x64 ultimate).

Yes, but keep in mind that some applications, even those that will run in 32 bit Vista will not work in x64. Photoshop CS3 for one.

[Gorgel]

Originally Posted by Hunglo

Yes, but keep in mind that some applications, even those that will run in 32 bit Vista will not work in x64. Photoshop CS3 for one.

Edit: I re-read this and I hope what I said doesn't make me sound like a jerk, cause that wasn't intended hah. I Just want to make sure that the people requesting feedback here on PC parts/software etc are getting all of the facts, especially when a considerable amount of money is involved.

This is completely false.



I run several adobe products on a daily basis, two of which being adobe photoshop cs3 and adobe flash cs3, on vista x64 ultimate(as you can see in the screenshot).

I have not once had a compatibility issue with vista x64, and as a matter of fact you should never have any compatibility issues with 32bit applications in x64 vista, because all of the necessary 32bit libraries are included in the OS.

Once in a rare while you hear of people encountering compatibility issues, but a lot of this is hear say, and 85% of the time it turns out to be unrelated to vista.

[Hunglo]

Originally Posted by Gorgel

Edit: I re-read this and I hope what I said doesn't make me sound like a jerk, cause that wasn't intended hah. I Just want to make sure that the people requesting feedback here on PC parts/software etc are getting all of the facts, especially when a considerable amount of money is involved.

This is completely false.



I run several adobe products on a daily basis, two of which being adobe photoshop cs3 and adobe flash cs3, on vista x64 ultimate(as you can see in the screenshot).

I have not once had a compatibility issue with vista x64, and as a matter of fact you should never have any compatibility issues with 32bit applications in x64 vista, because all of the necessary 32bit libraries are included in the OS.

Once in a rare while you hear of people encountering compatibility issues, but a lot of this is hear say, and 85% of the time it turns out to be unrelated to vista.

I don't take it as you being a jerk but I have yet to get PS CS3 to run since switching to X64, myself and a number of people in Adobe's forums have complained that X64 is not supported. If you've got it to run there are many of us who would like to know how.
I use Dreamweaver and Fireworks (both CS3) with know issues but PS won't even load. I'm at work now but will put up a SS when I get home tonight.

[Hunglo]

ok, this is what I get when trying to start Photoshop CS3 in Vista Home Premium X64...

And this is how it appears in my event log...
Log Name: Application
Source: Application Error
Date: 2/11/2008 8:53:57 PM
Event ID: 1000
Task Category: (100)
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: Tom-PC
Description:
Faulting application Photoshop.exe, version 10.0.1.0, time stamp 0x470fd6cb, faulting module lxcrtwds.ds, version 0.0.0.0, time stamp 0x440c75ea, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x00007318, process id 0xd30, application start time 0x01c86d1a1cacf3ad.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Application Error" />
<EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>100</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2008-02-12T01:53:57.000Z" />
<EventRecordID>5240</EventRecordID>
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>Tom-PC</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>Photoshop.exe</Data>
<Data>10.0.1.0</Data>
<Data>470fd6cb</Data>
<Data>lxcrtwds.ds</Data>
<Data>0.0.0.0</Data>
<Data>440c75ea</Data>
<Data>c0000005</Data>
<Data>00007318</Data>
<Data>d30</Data>
<Data>01c86d1a1cacf3ad</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

If you, Gorgel, or anyone else knows a work around I would be eternally grateful.