Jeremy "UncleHoot" Praay wrote:
> I got me some money burning a hole in my pocket, and I'm thinking about 
> upgrading again, especially as the POV beta begins to mature.
> 
> Shortly after I won the IRTC (and subsequently never entered again [why?]) 
> in 2003, I decided I needed a faster computer with which to 
> render/game/whatever.  I bought an AMD Athlon 3200+.  This is still my 
> computer, although I've upgraded the RAM (1.5GB) and HD.  7 years is getting 
> pretty ancient, but it still works pretty well for anything that's not too 
> demanding.
> 
> A month ago, I knew almost nothing about the state of affairs regarding the 
> new crop of processors and such, but now I've familiarized myself quite a 
> bit with what is out there.  Bang for the buck, this would probably be the 
> best system I could build, especially if overclocked:
> 
> Intel Core i7-860 (2.8GHz, very overclockable)
> A case and PSU (600W - 700W)
> 1156, P55 chipset mobo (haven't decided which brand/model)
> Western Digital 1TB hard drive.
> 4GB RAM
> Windows 7 Home
> Nvidia G-Force GTS 250 video card
> (I'll use my current DVD drive)
> 
> I'm also looking to buy the Prolimatech Megahalems (Rev. B) cpu-cooler 
> ($70).  I read a few reviews and benchmarks, and it sounds like that cooler 
> does almost as good as liquid cooling.  And a wireless mouse and keyboard 
> would be cool ($35).
> 
> Yep, it would be a pretty expensive build (about $1,100-$1,200 USD), but I'm 
> also hoping that it would keep me happy for another few years.  I plan to 
> overclock, and it sounds like the 860's normally OC to at least 3.6GHz with 
> decent cooling.  Regardless, this should be a brazillion times faster than 
> my old Athlon system.  And I could run all of the newer games, although I 
> don't play computer games as much as I used to.
> 
> 
> 
That is pretty much the system I just bought, and pretty much the system 
I replaced, in pretty much the same time frame.  (I bought that 3200+ 
also around early '03, just after I lost my job, knowing that I would 
not be able to rationalize buying a system for a long while hence.)

I put in an additional 4Gb Ram, bought separately, for a total of 8Gb

Put in the GeForce 9500 w 512Ram
Asus P55 LE version
Lighter hd because I like to have everything external now.

Got a full- instead of mini- tower.  Trade-offs there are as expected. 
My fam-dambly mocks the size, and it is less convenient for propping my 
feet up, but with all the space, and liquid cooling, the perpetual 
overheating problems I had with my old Athlon 3200+ minitower, seem to 
have vanished. And I love the bank of USB on the front.

Also put in Windows 7 64bit which I purchased separately. The W7 
performance rating scores the computer 5.4/7.9  The low score, 5.4, was 
for "Desktop performance for Windows Aero." The next lowest score, 5.9, 
is for "disk data transfer rate."  6.4 for "business and gaming 
graphics," Processor and Memory get a 7.5 each.

When the multi-threading comes into play, on renders with the new POV 
beta, it rocks.  As advertised, with 8 threads in play, render time is 
about 1/8 of what it is on the single thread version.

I like the look and feel of W7.  I still feel that it is not working to 
full potential on my machine though.  Some operations are lightning 
fast, some take extraordinarily long.  Not sure where the difficulties 
lie.  And of course with the multiple cores, having a AVG scan start up 
is no longer an issue.

-Jim

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