2010-09-15, 07:07 AM
There is a good reason I recommended the 9800 GT... look carefully at the card... it's called space. The GTS 4xx and the Radeon 5xxx series all take up 2 slots whereas the 9800 GT takes up 1 slot. 20~30 bucks more to take up valuable air flow space or the possibility of a replacement network adapter or maybe even a replacement SATA adapter? No thank you.
Big deal if the Ph1s don't reach 3.0Hz or more... quad-core CPUs will run programs more effectively than the dual-cores will. Most programs are now optimized to use multiple CPU cores for multitasking purposes. More cores means more tasks that can be performed at once. It's not just about speed and raw power for one program, it about how many tasks and operations a PC can perform at once. And as a licensed PC tech I don't rely on benchmarks. Benchmarks are biased at a single PC specification that's unrealistic in normal everyday models and usage factors.
He has Windows 7 Ultimate anyways. A quad-core CPU will be better for this OS as it will allow for better multi-tasked operations for the system services. 7 and even Vista utilize a lot of resources. More CPU cores will allow the processes, services, and task to have more resources to pull from. Yes the Dual-Core Ph2 is faster, but it has less resources to offer for the system to draw from, and resources are now more valuable than raw speed and power.
Just because Anandtech or Guru3D says something is good, doesn't mean it's good for everyone for a wide spectrum of situations.
Read this:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2906
This is why the 9800 GT still costs as much as it does. It still beats the GT 240 series which is a more modern GPU/VPU. Yes it's 1 DirectX specification lower (DirectX 10 compared to DirectX 10.1) but really what uses this stuff other than a Benchmark or some over-hyped crappy game that comes after a whole year after a card is released that it's designed for. Nothing really even uses DirectX 10, 10.1, or 11 really. Everything is still built for DirectX 9.0c with maybe some extensions for DirectX 10, 10.1, and 11 specification eye candy. Why else does Microsoft distribute the DirectX "X" libraries for their developers to include with their games? Even the latest DirectX SDK from Microsoft is only DirectX 9.0c specification but it has extension and managed libraries added for developers to add DirectX 10, 10.1, and 11 features, most of which are still unused if not underused.
Big deal if the Ph1s don't reach 3.0Hz or more... quad-core CPUs will run programs more effectively than the dual-cores will. Most programs are now optimized to use multiple CPU cores for multitasking purposes. More cores means more tasks that can be performed at once. It's not just about speed and raw power for one program, it about how many tasks and operations a PC can perform at once. And as a licensed PC tech I don't rely on benchmarks. Benchmarks are biased at a single PC specification that's unrealistic in normal everyday models and usage factors.
He has Windows 7 Ultimate anyways. A quad-core CPU will be better for this OS as it will allow for better multi-tasked operations for the system services. 7 and even Vista utilize a lot of resources. More CPU cores will allow the processes, services, and task to have more resources to pull from. Yes the Dual-Core Ph2 is faster, but it has less resources to offer for the system to draw from, and resources are now more valuable than raw speed and power.
Just because Anandtech or Guru3D says something is good, doesn't mean it's good for everyone for a wide spectrum of situations.
Read this:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2906
This is why the 9800 GT still costs as much as it does. It still beats the GT 240 series which is a more modern GPU/VPU. Yes it's 1 DirectX specification lower (DirectX 10 compared to DirectX 10.1) but really what uses this stuff other than a Benchmark or some over-hyped crappy game that comes after a whole year after a card is released that it's designed for. Nothing really even uses DirectX 10, 10.1, or 11 really. Everything is still built for DirectX 9.0c with maybe some extensions for DirectX 10, 10.1, and 11 specification eye candy. Why else does Microsoft distribute the DirectX "X" libraries for their developers to include with their games? Even the latest DirectX SDK from Microsoft is only DirectX 9.0c specification but it has extension and managed libraries added for developers to add DirectX 10, 10.1, and 11 features, most of which are still unused if not underused.