Buying a computer part 6-The Purchace

[Beware the talking cat]

After many months and much indecision, I finally went online and bought my computer last night.
The final specs are:

Core 2 Quad 2.66 Ghz Processor
3 GB 800Mhz Ram(I decided against 4GB in the end, since the computer won't recognize more than 3GB anyway)
512 GeForce 8500GT(I decided to go with the mediocre video card now and possibly update it later, if I really need to. As long as I can play games on the middling settings I'm fine.)
2x 750GB HDDs
2x DVD-RW drives
Vista Home Premium

In total it was $1120--a better deal than I could have gotten if I built it myself. Strangely enough, I bought it from HP. They had the best prices, strangely enough(although I did get the second HDD separately from newegg).

The one thing I rather regret is the need to get the 2.66 Ghz processor, but I'm too paranoid to overclock the 2.4 one and void the warranty. I could have chipped 100-150 dollars that way, but wasn't worth it to me.

I should get it in about a week, at which point I can start migrating my anime collection from DVD.

[Rectifier]

You got it from HP, ouch...pray that it doesn't have some random problem with it later.

[Umiman]

That com could run a 5x5 grid Dwarf Fortress world with population of 100 before any lag! And even WITH temperature and weather turned on!

[fiendmaw]

200 fps in Shattrah oh yea!

[Beware the talking cat]

Sadness...

They tried to deliver it today, but nobody was home. They'll try again tomorrow, but I wish I'd been here to receive it.

[AlinSabel]

HP makes pretty decent computers... there are some brands I certainly wouldn't ever trust (I'm looking at you, Acer), but I certainly haven't heard of any major blow-ups involving HP computers.

[ben1234]

Any computer not built by your own two hands will have some kind of problem.

The ones you build are perfectly fine until you start overclocking. >_<

[AlinSabel]

Any computer not built by your own two hands will have some kind of problem.

Only if you are insanely curious and start doing things you probably shouldn't. All problems on any of my computers (all store bought because my parents don't think I have the time to put one together by myself) have been caused by myself.

[Rectifier]

Believe me, storebought are engineered to not fail in their setups for a few years; homemade are designed for performance or price, not longevity or stability; guess what happens when you don't know how to fix it?

[Beware the talking cat]

And my new computer is up, running, and connected to the internet.
Thank you all for your help.

[Noproblem]

200 fps in Shattrah oh yea!

more like 200+ fps in Ironforge oh yea!

[Rectifier]

Actually, your fps is more limited by internet traffic than by graphics or general processing in that game.

Soo, probably less than 100 fps at all times; unless you have this:

http://www.killernic.com/games/WOW.aspx
http://www.killernic.com/killernic/PDFs ... Review.pdf

Gives you 40 ping less and 25 frames extra on WoW.

[ben1234]

Just so you know, that card is a huge ripoff.

Only idiots would dare pay $250 for a slight increase in frames and ping.

World of Warcraft

Average ping with the KillerNIC (in game mode) was 108ms.
Average ping with the KillerNIC (in app mode) was 113ms.
Average ping with my Intel Pro/1000MT was 105ms.
Average ping with onboard Marvel PCIe connected NIC was 127ms.
With WoW, I don’t actually have the game, so I installed it and had a friend who plays WoW lots, but I did supervise. The statistical difference in this one was enough to say that WoW didn’t run better on either card.

From here (Scroll down to about the 14th post)

Hell, here's another one:
http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/Big ... rd/?page=4

[onizuka-gto]

Actually, your fps is more limited by internet traffic than by graphics or general processing in that game.

Soo, probably less than 100 fps at all times; unless you have this:

http://www.killernic.com/games/WOW.aspx
http://www.killernic.com/killernic/PDFs ... Review.pdf

Gives you 40 ping less and 25 frames extra on WoW.

Only good thing i found this useful for is if you like to download torrents and play online FPS games, this is one thing that excel in it.

As long as you have a stable 1-2Mbit line (Minimum), you can get the same ping average while downloading torrents, as if your using your line without active torrents.

It's worth it for that.

[Rectifier]

Just so you know, that card is a huge ripoff.

Only idiots would dare pay $250 for a slight increase in frames and ping.

World of Warcraft

Average ping with the KillerNIC (in game mode) was 108ms.
Average ping with the KillerNIC (in app mode) was 113ms.
Average ping with my Intel Pro/1000MT was 105ms.
Average ping with onboard Marvel PCIe connected NIC was 127ms.
With WoW, I don’t actually have the game, so I installed it and had a friend who plays WoW lots, but I did supervise. The statistical difference in this one was enough to say that WoW didn’t run better on either card.

From here (Scroll down to about the 14th post)

Hell, here's another one:
http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/Big ... rd/?page=4

I prefer to trust PC Gamer rather than a random forum and a website that has established no credibility with me.

Those tests are without telling if other internet sharing processes are occurring at the same time, and also, if these are performance tweakers like I think they are, the results would definately differ from the normal person's computer.

For instance, if they know to kill all the useless (bandwidth and cpu sucking) processes, then that would markedly change the results simply because most users do not know, or don't want to tamper with msconfig or other process killing programs.

PC Gamer, however, has shown average results on average non-tweaked systems; I would refer to these results if you are an average user.

The performance improvements seem depend on the game used, such as the example from the aforementioned forum:

FEAR

Average ping with the KillerNIC (in game mode) was 58ms.
Average ping with the KillerNIC (in app mode) was 67ms.
Average ping with my Intel Pro/1000MT was 65ms.
Average ping with onboard Marvel PCIe connected NIC was 78ms.
What can I say? FEAR seems to like the KillerNIC. It was 12% faster than the Intel NIC, and this showed to be statistically significant.

This message was modified by the poster at 03 18, 2007 09:42 PM

Also I noticed this in his WoW post:

With WoW, I don’t actually have the game, so I installed it and had a friend who plays WoW lots, but I did supervise. The statistical difference in this one was enough to say that WoW didn’t run better on either card.

Which again tells me you can't judge the card by this test, because his UI is blank. Since most of the users use extra UI in the game that decreases frame rates and creates lag, it would be interesting to see if a test done with a lvl 70 user's UI would bring different results.

You are right about one thing though, if you are an advanced user (aka edits the registry and msconfig and has the latest hardware/software), then you probably wouldn't need the NIC card in the first place.*


*Because you've already wasted over 3 grand on your system anyways!