Help clueless ol' me

PC Muppet · 28 Feb 2008 at 23:42

Greetings Overclockers

Im pretty dense with the specifics of what makes a good PC, so I have some general questions that I hope someone could help me with.

Im looking to replace my PC, my original thought was to spend quite a bit of money now-and get myself a badass machine that will last a good while. I mainly want a PC for gaming and a bit of light photoshop in the main.

I dont really run particularly demanding games (Command & Conquer 3 is probably the most demanding game I own) so in a sense it has not got to be all powerful, but then as mentioned, I want something that will last me a while.

A couple of specific questions-

1) What is all this talk of overclocking?

2) Should processor speeds concern me? If so what should I be aiming for?

3) Is a badass graphics card my main priority?

4) Why for example is the Intel Core 2 Quad pro cheaper than the Core 2 Duo? Isnt quad better than Duo?

5) Whats a good size hard drive, the standard seems to be 500GB- is that enough for average PC use?

6) For the sake of £18 you can upgrade to 4 GB of memory which seems a good deal but then you must have a 64bit O.S to take advantage of said memory- which presumably means Vista. I heard Vista sucks up a lot of memory for pretty superficial 'improvements' over XP. So what is better- 2GB and XP or 4GB and Vista?

And finally 7) Ive seen overclocked systems and specific systems under the gaming section, the gaming machines being cheaper...should I be going for gaming or overclocking?

Thanks for any help in advance and please forgive my incompetence! And apologies if Ive stuck this in the wrong forum!

ExRayTed · 28 Feb 2008 at 23:56

Welcome

1) Running a component,typically cpu,ram or graphics card,faster than it is intended to run.The plus side is a faster component for less money,but the downside is heat (which needs removing via more efficient heatsink/fan arrangements) and possibly lowering the lifespan of said equipment.

2) Not really.Clock speeds aren't the indicator of performance they once were.That said,Intel's core 2 duo / quad core range are very good processors,having the ability to overclock by a fair margin and the faster ones will run anything you'd care to throw at it.

3) No.A baddass graphics card will only be 'badass' if the rest of the pc is up to the job.You want a good balance.A 8800 GT 512 is a very capapable performer for a reasonable price (it'll play C&C 3 with ease).

4) They aren't.You have to compare clock speeds to get a fair comparsion.For e.g. a quad core running at 2.4Ghz is £150 but a core 2 duo running at 2.66Ghz is £136.The higher priced core 2 duos simply run a faster clock speed.The most expensive cpus on OCUK are quad core.

5) 500Gb is plenty for normal pc use.Don't forget a separate hard drive if you need to store digital photos,homework or anything else difficult to replace.

6) I use XP and 2Gb,but you'll find plenty who now use Vista.Vista has become a viable OS for general use and gaming nowadays.I say go for it.

7) Buy the most expensive you can afford is the simple answer here.But if it were my money,I'd go with a gamer base system and customise to add better graphics card and perhaps more RAM / Cpu.

Good luck

PC Muppet · 29 Feb 2008 at 13:19

Thank you for the info, was very helpful.

It sounds like this overclocking business perhaps isnt the best way to go if I want to get a system that has a bit of longevity to it...

semi-pro waster · 29 Feb 2008 at 13:30

Overclocking doesn't shorten the lifespan of components that much and in the vast majority of cases people will replace the computer long before the effects of overclocking will be apparant. i.e. unless you want to keep your computer for 5-7+ years I really wouldn't worry about it too much.

PC Muppet · 1 Mar 2008 at 14:00

A couple of further questions-

1)Could someone give an idiots explanation as to what all this Raid stuff is all about and do I want it?!

2) The Gamer Vantage Plus package comes with the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB graphics card as standard...is this an acceptable card or below par?

semi-pro waster · 1 Mar 2008 at 14:14

1) Raid is a method of linking multiple hard drives together. At consumer level the most common options are Raid0 and Raid1 (although you might also find Raid0+1 which somewhat obviously combines them and Raid5 which is better dealt with by a separate card rather than onboard normally).

Raid0 involves striping the data across two (or more) hard drives and is the quickest of the options, however it offers no redundancy so if one drive fails you lose all data, it is occasionally known as Aid0 because it skips the redundancy part but you do get all the space on the drives e.g. 2x500gb drives gives you 1tb.

Raid1 involves mirroring the data, again across two drives, here you get the space of one drive so 2x500gb drives gives you 500gb of space. It isn't a proper backup in the real sense of the term and should basically be considered as an availability solution but it is a better option than Raid0 if your data is important to you since you can swap out the failed hard drive and rebuild the array without losing data. It doesn't offer any speed benefits, the idea that you could double the read speed has been mooted from time to time but it is highly unlikely on any consumer level solution.

2) Pretty decent graphics card, there are three above it but they all cost a fair bit more - 512mb 8800GTS, 768mb 8800GTX and 1024mb 3870X2.

PC Muppet · 1 Mar 2008 at 20:25

Just thought of another couple- this should be the last-promise!!. And thanks to those who have taken the time to answer my questions so far.

1) I think Im looking at getting a Gamer Vantage Plus package with a few modifications...how many USB ports do you get on such a tower?

and 2) can stuff Ive got already- like my Dell mouse and speakers be plugged into such a tower or have I got to get new stuff?

Thanks again in advance.

addylad · 1 Mar 2008 at 20:38

1) You should get enough USB ports, a few on the front, a few on the back. If you don't, you can buy a USB hub for a few pounds, which gives you more.

2) Speakers should be fine. Mouse/keyboard should be OK if they're not too old as most of them are Plug&Play. However you should be looking at new ones if you're looking at a system like this.