Your system build!

[zahrul3 471]

This is the Show us your specs, put it here since it has nothing to do with SC4 so I put it here instead.

The format goes like this:

Processor(use the overclocked/underclocked value if its overclocked/underclocked)

Motherboard/model name

GPU/IGP

Memory(speed optional)

Hard drive(if its an SSD, add an SSD suffix in the end)

Most demanding program that doesn't lag

Operating system(everybody has one)

Ratings(if its Vista or Win 7)

For laptops, add these:

Screen size & resolution

Battery life

Here's an example of mine, which is a Vaio C15 laptop:

Processor: Core 2 Duo T5500 1.6GHz, overclocked to 1.7GHz

GPU/IGP: Nvidia GeForce Go 7400GTM

Memory: 2GB

Hard drive: 160GB 5400RPM

Most demanding: gMax

OS: Win XP Pro

Screen size: 13'3, 1280x800 widescreen

Battey life: 1 hour 30 minutes browsing on default settings, 45 minutes on all high.

I fried it now, so I using my dad's Portege as he has a much better laptop.

[SounderBruce 173]

I'm using a crappy netbook, soooooooo...

Processor: Intel Atom N270 Processor 1.60GHz

Model: Acer Aspire One D250

Memory: 1GB DDR2 SDRAM (533MHz)

Hard drive: 250GB 5400 rpm SATA HDD

Most demanding: SC4

Operating system: Windows 7 Starter Edition

Screen: 10.1-inch diagonal WSVGA+ (1024x600)

Power: 3-cell Lithium-Ion battery (2200mAh, 25Wh)

[erbush 8]

Wow.. I build my computer many years ago and I'm getting ready to build a new one.. but for what I have right now... here goes

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz

Memory: 8 Gigs DDR2 (1066MHz)

Motherboard: Intel D975XBX-2

Hard Drive: 1 - 150Gig SATA and 1 - 300Gig SATA (I know.. they are weak, lol)

OS: Windows 7 64bit Professional

Video Card: ATI Radeon 4850 HD

Most Demanding: RIFT ( On Medium Settings )

Dual Monitors at 1280x1024 each (again.. not super great)

Power: 1000W PSU

Will soon be upgrading to a better rig.. but til then ^

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Linux list hardware command output is extensive, so I attached the file.

My heaviest use application is probably MuseScore, a music annotation, composition, and publishing program that can actually handle a full midi interface.

However, when running, SC4 while rendering a map takes 100% of a CPU, and the other one handles the system.

  Edited March 29, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[gio10469 24]

Processor: 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo

Motherboard/Model Name: Dell XPS M1730 Laptop

GPU: Dual Nvidia 8700 GT

Memory: 2 GB

Hard drive: 160 GB Seagate HDD 7200 RPM

Most demanding program that doesn't lag: 3ds max

Operating system: Windows XP SP 3

Screen size & resolution: 1920 x 1200

Battery life: 2 hours

I'm currently working on a new build that will have the following specs:

Processor: i7 2600K 3.4 Ghz

Motherboard: ASUS Maximus IV Extreme LGA 1155 P67 chipset

GPU: AMD Radeon HD 6950

Memory: G.Skill 8 GB (2x4GB) 1600

Hard drive: 1 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM

Most Demanding Program: 3ds max

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium with possible dual boot of another OS.

[Sniper296 83]

My HP G70-213EM laptop

CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo P7450 (Penryn) @ 2.13GHz

Motherboard - Wistron 3616

GPU - NVIDIA GeForce 9200M GE/GS (G98M) @ 529MHz 256MB DDR2

RAM - Samsung 3072MB DDR2 SDRAM @ 333MHz

HDD - WD Scorpio Blue 320 GB (WD3200BEVT-60ZCT1) @ 3GB/s 5400RPM 8MB Cache

ArmA2:OA runs almost lag free with medium-low settings

OS - Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit

WEI Rating - 3.4

Display - 17" 1440x900 WXGA+ widescreen

Battery - Broken, but it used to last two hours average

[Duke87 1,070]

Processor: Intel Core i5, 2.53 GHz

Motherboard: whatever the computer came with (OEM laptop)

GPU/IGP: something controlled by Intel Graphics and Media

Memory: 8 GB

Hard Drive: 1 TB 5600 RPM

Most Demanding: PNGOutWin, probably

OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Windows experience index: 4.6

Screen: 15" widescreen, 1366 x 768

Battery life: probably good for about 2½ hours, but I don't really know as I always keep it plugged in

  Edited March 29, 2011 by Duke87  

[zahrul3 471]

@Sniper296: How could you know that your Compaq Presario's motherboard was made by Winstron?

@Erbush: You don't need to have a new rig, you could get a Core 2 Quad/Extreme CPU, they're cheap nowadays. You could add in an SSD drive as a boot drive, SSDs are sure fast!.

[Sniper296 83]

@Sniper296: How could you know that your Compaq Presario's motherboard was made by Winstron?

@Erbush: You don't need to have a new rig, you could get a Core 2 Quad/Extreme CPU, they're cheap nowadays. You could add in an SSD drive as a boot drive, SSDs are sure fast!.

CPU-Z is one of the VERY few that managed to ID my motherboard.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Oh, I think I forgot to say that my computer experience runs from Univac IIs to moderm micros and just about everything since 1962, including some mini's like PDP 8, and NCR 310's (SCC 655). From tubes to transistors to IC's and from large core memory to DIMM and DDR chips. I used to program in binary in the days when you had to toggle the program directly into memory. So chilluns, what would you say my experience rating is?

Most of my programming experience is in operating systems, drivers, and really sophisticated commercial applications.

  Edited March 30, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[Alejandro24 575]

Computer Number I

Processor: Intel Pentium IV, 2.40 GHz, Cache 1024 Kb

Motherboard: Biostar PM800CE-8237

GPU: Integrated to Motherboard. OpenGL in Linux.

Screen Size: 17" VGA 1280x1024 px

RAM: 1.5 GB

Hard drive: Western Digital ATA WDC800BB-88JH 80 GB; HP External HDD 1 TB

Most demanding program: SC4, Wine, AutoCad

Operating system: Linux Mint 10 Gnome Desktop; Windows XP SP2

Ratings: Linux Mint: 10/10; Windows XP: 9/10; General computer: 9/10

Commentaries: This is my warrior, It is 5 years old and works very fine.

Computer Number II

Model: Netbook Dell Inspiron 1012

Processor: Intel Atom N450, 1.66 GHz

Motherboard: Dell JMN8H (I'm not sure)

GPU: Intel Graphics Controller; OpenGL

Screen Size: 10.1" widescreen WSVGA 1024x768 px

RAM: 1 GB (planning to extend to 2 GB)

Hard drive: Western Digital WD1600BEVT-745A23T0, 160 GB

Battery Life: DELL 2T6K203K Li-Ion, 6 cells, duration from 6 to 9 hours.

Most demanding program: SC4

Operating System: Linux Mint 10 KDE Desktop; Windows 7 Ultimate

Ratings: Linux Mint KDE: 9/10; Windows 7 Ultimate: 8.5/10; General Netbook: 9.5/10

Commentaries: This is an excellent netbook, it is small but supports everything.

  Edited March 31, 2011 by Alejandro24  

[zahrul3 471]

@The Nonny Moose: What was it like to operate the basic home computer in the 70s and 80s? Was it slow and laggy? Was it expensive? And what did computers that time do other than word processing and gaming?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

@The Nonny Moose: What was it like to operate the basic home computer in the 70s and 80s? Was it slow and laggy? Was it expensive? And what did computers that time do other than word processing and gaming?

I had a TRS-80 which initially came with 128K RAM, and two 5 1/4 inch floppy disks, and no hard drive. Graphics was 640 x 512. I upped the memory to 512 (the max, then) and added a 60MB hard drive. You will understand when everyone called it a Trash-80. Its one redeeming merit is that it had an 8080 CPU and pretty impressive sound. Internet was dialup through a modem attached to the serial port, and the printer was an impact printer with mylar pass-once ribbons. It ran DOS. Windows didn't exist. There was a Tandy GUI system that ran fairly well after you got the hard disk.

At work, I had a Honeywell mini workstation networked to a Honeywell 6000 mainframe using GCOS 8 with a time-sharing kernel that could handle a couple of thousand users. Yes, I worked for Honeywell, in those days and GE before they were bought out. The central machine became a Honewell-Bull 9000 series that ran the whole company in Canada. It was equivalent to the biggest IBM E series machine. Work stations were text only, and there was a Usenet connection to the big Multics system at Boston.

At home, I eventually acquired an ever larger PC-clone. You didn't buy IBM gear if you were competing with them. Most of mine came from HP. Honeybunch had a brief flirtation with Zenith, but it didn't last.

This machine replaced my last old HP machine. Its graphics system was failing, and I had to do something. If you looked at my lshw output, you know what this is all about. I have mostly had AMD processors recently, and I rather like them. My late wife, also a programmer/analyst type, liked Intel. Her last machine was a Pentium V.

[gio10469 24]

@Nonny Moose: It's amazing how far the technology has come, right? I'm young but I still can't get over the face that what once fit in a clunky hard drive and stacks of CD's in the 90s can now fit in a piece of plastic and metal the size of a fingernail. I remember playing online games and getting kicked off every time a phone call came in. Maximum memory used to be 512MB and now you can't even stick anything lower than 1GB sticks in modern boards due to compatibility issues.

[Tropic Storm 15]

@ Gio

Add me in too. Dial-up was such a pain in the 90s! It took a minute to hook up to the old ATT modem and once your on the net, you phone line's completely disabled. All that just for online blackjack! Even just transferring stuff with floppy cards. 1.4 MB's of space can't even hold a 3 minute song.

First windows comp was a pos etower with about 400 Mhz celeron cpu, 8 gb hd, and 64 MB! Now today we're talking about multi-core processors, GTX graphics cards, 1gb broadband, and now cloud computer networking. Even my computer runs two operating systems with a 3Ghz dual core processor, and a 1gb nvidia card for less than $500. Talk about Moore's law!

[timmie 988]

My main computer, not the newest and not the bestest, but I don't do very demanding things on my pc.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200, 2.33GHz

motherboard: MSI MS-7502

GPU: nVidia GeForce 9600 GT

RAM: 4GB

Hard drive: 1TB, only 5400 rpm

There are no demanding programs on this pc

Screen: 19" widescreen (16:10), 1440*900

Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit (yes, I'm one of those loonies who still use it)

I also have a netbook (I won it in a debating contest, woo-hoo! ) but I only use it at university.

CPU: Intel Atom 1,60 GHz

GPU: integrated stuff from Intel, du-uh

RAM: 1GB DDR2

Hard drive: 160GB

Playing movies with Windows Media Player is demanding, playing movies with VLC is not

Screen: a tiny tiny 8,9" 1280x600

I mistreated my battery, so it gives me power for only one hour.

OS: Windows XP.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Most of us have more power on our laptops or desktops than most computers had in 1980 when the PC was announced by IBM.

One of the first big mainframes I used, a GE425, had 32K words (24-bits each) of large core memory (1965). The 1200 lpm printer had mercury (metallic Hg) delay lines for buffers, and thyratron tubes controlling the hammer modules. We had no disks, just 2400 ft. magnetic tapes, cards, and paper tape. I was attached as a support analyst to the unit that sold these. It was called Information Systems and Defense Products, and we sold computers, jet engines, sonar, radar and consulting services.

At Expo '67 (1966) running the whole fair we had a GE625 that had 256 K of 36-bit words, two fast-rand drums (that crashed and were junk), two line printers (described above), several tape drives and two large platter disk drives that held 96 MB each and took up the space of two big refrigerators, each. The average access time for a disk was 500 milliseconds (that's right, half a second), so each drive had four independent hydraulic heads that could be optimized for seeks to cut the average access time down to 192 milliseconds. It had one big slab of a communication processor with 32-teletype lines.

On both of these machines, data was in characters (6-bit), and arithmetic was all binary through accumulator registers with a maximum width of two words.

By 1990 when I got laid off from the GE successor company (CII Honeywell-Bull) when they stopped marketing mainframes, the GE600 line had grown into the HB-9000 line. Same architecture, but the instruction set had been jazzed up to include decimal arithmetic (64 digit floating point), vector processing commands that included inversions, multiplications, etc. of matrices, and the decor had been upgraded so that a word could be binary, character or byte (9-bit) ASCII. Memory could be up to 1024 K words (4096 Megabytes) and each machine, in addition to the operating system general kernel could run up to four copies of the time-sharing kernel, the transaction processing kernel (two or three flavors) and had gone from static to virtual memory with no real limit on program size. The 36-bit instruction with the 18-bit order code had expanded using some of the spare bits so that a command word could have up to three addresses (four word instructions) and the memory fetch had been changed from two words to eight words at a time, and nine predictive pipelines had been added. You could have up to four processors, four I/O processors, as many communications processors as you like, and four memory controllers. The architecture was asynchronous controlled by the memories.

The COBOL verb ADD A TO B GIVING C ROUNDED ON SIZE ERROR <raise a fault>. is a single machine command.

Nice, not cheap, and no micro has ever caught up the the idea that memory oriented architecture is good and fast. It costs too much for a consumer product.

However, this machine I am on now has about three orders of magnitude of the power of that old GE625. It only took 40 years.

  Edited March 31, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[gio10469 24]

I wonder how far we can go before Moore's law finally reaches its limit.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I wonder how far we can go before Moore's law finally reaches its limit.

At least as far as bankruptcy.

[PBGV103 729]

My computer: MacBook Pro 5,3 - 18 months old and already soooo outdated

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 2.8GHz - oc to 3.3GHz

Motherboard: Mac-F22587C8

Chipset: Nvidia nForce 730i

GPU: Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT - oc 30% on all clocks

Memory: 8GB 1066MHz - oc to 1260MHz

Hard Drive: 500GB 5400 rpm

Displays: 15.4" 1440*900 native & 24" 1920*1080 external

OS: Mac OSX 10.6.7 & Windows 7 Ulitmate 64bit through Bootcamp

The computer I'm building:

CPU: dual Intel 5600 series xeons - not yet purchased

Motherboard: Asus z8na-d6c w/ MIO sound card

GPU: not yet purchased

Memory: at least 12GB - not yet purchased

PSU: 750W Antec

Case: Antec 1200

Primary Hard Drive: SSD - not yet purchased

So far I just have the case, power supply, and motherboard. If you have any suggestions on hardware let me know, but before you try to tell me it's overkill you should know that I'll be using it for 3ds max, for BATs and school related projects. I might use it for simcity, but I'd need at least x5670 series xeons if i want anything as fast as my laptop for single threaded software like the game, and the x5670s are around $1470 each. At that point I might as well go for x5690s at $1700 each. The board can run a single cpu, so I can also use just one until prices drop and then get the second. I was thinking about getting a amd gpu for eyefinity if it will allow me to span the game across multiple monitors, since eyefinity treats multiple monitors as a single display. Any thoughts?

  Edited April 2, 2011 by PBGV103  

[Kevin 101]

I just ordered a new laptop... it should be delivered this week. I'm not a big hardware guy, but it is a significant upgrade for me from my current dinosaur laptop...

HP Pavilion dv6t Quad Edition customizable Notebook PC

• • Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• • 2nd generation Intel® Quad Core i7-2630QM (2.0 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) w/Turbo Boost up to 2.9 GHz
• • 1GB Radeon HD 6770M GDDR5 Graphics [HDMI, VGA]
• • 6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• • 750GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
• • 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery (standard) - Up to 5.5 hours of battery life +++
• • 15.6" diagonal High Definition HP BrightView LED Display (1366x768)
• • SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support
• • HP TrueVision HD Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone and HP SimplePass Fingerprint Reader
• • Intel 802.11b/g/n WLAN

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Sounds like a nice box of tricks. Be sure to make sure there is ambient air around it, because it will probably be pretty hot. What does HP say about ambient air space?

With all the CPU power, what are you planning to do with it? Sounds like a nice multi-media system for editing movies.

[Kevin 101]

I'm sure the manual will say something about air space... I'll have to read it when the computer comes. As for what I plan to do with it... I chose the specs that met or exceeded the recommended requirements for Civ5. I'm not a big PC gamer, nor do I do anything else that really demands a lot from a computer.

I did want some level of future-proofing though, as this was my last opportunity to have a computer purchased for me... it was a graduation present from my parents. I'd like to put off having to buy one myself for as long as possible

[zahrul3 471]

@Kevin: Computers rarely get outdated unless its a really, really budget computer like the Aspire 3680 or that desktop using a really cheap motherboard with a low end CPU at the end of its production life(eg. Celeron D in 2008 on a motherboard that doesn't support Core 2). Netbooks don't get outdated like most budget computers, since their only function is surfing (LOL!).

Batteries degrade, when the battery life reaches below 1 hour(and the laptop isn't a gaming/desktop replacement), you should buy a new battery. When you can't find a brand new one, its almost certain that its outdated.

You should look at these pics(all from Oddee.com)

Might be inappropriate, but then computers had very limited uses!

They say that 11+ lbs is light....

They thought that, in th future, everybody uses floppy disks. I think the last time I saw a floppy was when I was 5, being teached by my dad how to use a 486DX computer he found on the junk sale. Now I'm 14

[gtaki 5]

Current machine:

board : GA-MA69GM-S2H

cpu : Althon64 X2 4600+ 2.4G

vga : radeon X1950

ram : DDR800 1GB x4

OS : win7 x86

I render buildings in turtle speed using this machine. Now I am going to build a new:

board: Gigabyte LGA1155 P67(B3) one. Seems it is somthing like GA-XXXXX-UD3 I forgot

cpu : i5-2400

ram : DDR1333 2GB x2

OS : win7 x86 (just want a smooth upgrade)

But I have not decided the graphic card yet. I want a radeon 5800 but it seems no stock here. Any ideas on which graphic card should I choose?

[zahrul3 471]

@Gtaki: GPUs you might want to use:

ASUS: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=50001315%2040000048&IsNodeId=1&Description=Radeon&name=Desktop%20Graphics%20%2f%20Video%20Cards&Order=BESTMATCH

XFX : http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=50001669%2040000048&IsNodeId=1&Description=Radeon&name=XFX

Gigabyte: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=50001314%2040000048&IsNodeId=1&Description=Radeon&name=GIGABYTE

You should use an AMD AM3 CPU, your motherboard supports them, though it will still use DDR2 and have underclocked values to fit the chipset.

Link: http://us.test.giga-byte.com/Support/Motherboard/CPUSupport_List.aspx?CPUType=Socket%20AM2&ChipsetType=AMD%20690G

You only spend 90 dollars + whatever GPU you buy.

Link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103846&cm_re=AMD_Phenom-_-19-103-846-_-Product

This should help for AMD owners as AM3 CPUs are usable in AM2/AM2+ motherboards, but not the other way around. AM3 dual/triple cores can be unlocked with certain motherboards.

[Ndragonawa 37]

I wonder how far we can go before Moore's law finally reaches its limit.

From what I've heard around 2015, but they've been stalling it by focusing on power efficiency and integrated graphics, so we should be okay!..?

Enough DD speculation. Here are my specs. Gonna upgrade my HDDs this summer, hopefully get around to a new video card as well.

Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67 GHz

Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R

NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+

6GB DDR3

WD Caviar Green 640GB 7200 RPM

Grand Theft Auto IV (Medium-high settings)

Windows 7 Home Premium x64

Total WEI: 5.9 (Damn HDDs!!!)

Oh and if case your wondering about my plans I'm getting 3 of these HDDs (gonna RAID 0 'em) and this graphics card.

EDIT: Links fixed! Sorry about that!

  Edited April 18, 2011 by Ndragonawa  

[gio10469 24]

Oh and if case your wondering about my plans I'm getting 3 of these HDDs (gonna RAID 0 'em) and this graphics card.

Sorry what HDDs are you getting? the hyperlink leads to the graphic card, and the graphics card link is broken. And I know what you mean about the hard drives! Windows rated me around 6.8 because of the hard drive alone.

  Edited April 18, 2011 by gio10469  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Just replaced my dead Seagate drive with a new USB 2.0 Samsung HD103SI marketed by Verbatim, capacity 1TB. Formatting now.

Live an learn. GNU Partition Editor cannot handle this disk, but the new GNU Disk Utility was quite happy.

I am making two 500GB primary partitions and will use them for alternate systems and backup files along with my other off line drive which has less than half this capacity (300GB). Since I can have it all on-line at the same time, it does give me 1.8TB.

The Seagate drive was a faithful puppy, but it died of old age. I bought it when Seagate was the top guy in the rotating storage game, so it really was about 10 or 15 years old.

Formatting of both partitions as EXT4 finished about the time I started typing the third paragraph, and considering it wrote all sectors (used two processes), it wasn't bad.

[Mister Maggot 0]

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=17041426

I should be getting that once I turn 16 and get a job in October.

@Nonny; How are you using a 2.0? My 3.0 external hdd crawls loading anything on the CS5 suite..

  Edited April 18, 2011 by Mister Maggot