Just like Kirk I'm also looking to upgrade my PC as my current P3 is slow and instability has starting to creep in.

I've pretty well got hardware sorted out with what I want .... but thought I might try a Vista install this time around.

With that I've asked a few questions about Vista in Enzo's Quadcore thread, but since there has been a bit of dialog happening I though it might be better to move it to a new thread rather than clutter up Enzo's.




The discussion continues ........


That sounds fairly promising that you've had no major issues with Vista 64, your bsod was overclocking related so that doesn't count

Ill have to upgrade some applications (burning software for a start) but hopefully I can get most applications going.

THAT might be where things get a bit messy. Software for doing "backup DVD's" ( wink wink) like DVD shrink, DVD FAB etc might not have drivers for 64 bit.
Let us know how you go and what ends up working for you.

Alan my reserch suggest that if you buy vista32 bit oem you can get 64bit sent to you for the cost of postage you use the same cd key so get it through MSY if thats where your getting most of your components. thats what I'll be doing. Plus as a bonus you ge the choice of 64 or 32 bit then

The only real issue ive had with vista / vista64 is that my lexmark multifunction at home doesnt have drivers so i just share it though one of the XP machines

i have no major issues with Vista, still hate it on my lappy but i think its just not grunty enough for what i want, this is why im going to TinyXP.
my work PC is fine running vista and i kinda like it.
but it is a memory hog, and i have 4gig of the crap, it sucks down 1gig at idle (at the moment im using 74% of my memory)

This is why 64 bit rocks.

How cool would a setup running two of these in raid be http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Storag...Name=GC-RAMDISK

It sucks that they are only SATA I not SATA II and that they are limited to 4GB total capacity

Actually you could possibly make a very fast carPC with no moving parts using this type of setup

Kirk - Can you confirm how and where if you buy OEM Vista 32 bit you can get 64 bit sent to you upon request?
64 bit is an upgrade to 32 bit so I don't know who would give you a free copy.

https://om.one.microsoft.com/opa/Validation...avaScriptOn=yes My understanding is that it costs $10 plus P+H. Now my research leads me to believe that MSY is about $20 cheaper than most places for vista anyway so even if it costs $20 to get it shipped your probably still of par or in front

or if you want to order online you could probably brown box it here http://www.pricepoint.com.au/shop/product_...oducts_id=15277

Well .... in a fit of impulsiveness I went out and bought Vista 64 bit OEM along with 2 Gb of memory. (I have another 2 Gb on order)

MSY (in Clayton at least) only sell Vista OEM in 32 bit.

Thanks for the link Kirk .... Interesting that the Microsoft website states "alternate media" as being available .... I wonder if it means you can go the opposite way .... from 64 bit back to 32 bit?

news?

yeah c'mon alan I'm living through you as I cant afford a new PC for the time being (stupid friggen houses...)

I'm not much better off than you Kirk at the moment

OK .... a little bit more detail about what I did buy last week.

I'd been keeping a close eye on hardware prices for the last few weeks and when we had that little stockmarket crash I noticed that memory and cpu prices all of a sudden went up from one vendor .... so I panicked and bought as much hardware as I could with what I had saved up ....

Here is what I bought ....

Windows Vista Home Premium (64 Bit)

Motherboard - Gigabyte P35-DS3P

Memory - OCZ PC2-6400 800Mhz (4 Gb)

CPU - Intel Core2 Duo E6750 (2.66 Ghz)

Now I have to save up for the rest of the gear .... Video card, Hard drives, PSU, Case, etc!


I was keen to see how Vista 64 loads/looks and since it will be a while before I'll have my new PC built I though I might take Vista to work and load it up on one of our standard issue Desktops.
The Desktop is a Dell Optiplex 745 with 512 Mb RAM and running a Celeron 430 @ 1.8 Ghz (Yes, they are not highly specced, but they don't need to be to run primarily MS office applications)

Installation was straight forward and I'm surprised how well the 64 bit version loaded up on the Dell, it found drivers for everything except video and audio.
Even with the generic video driver I was still able to run native resolution (1280x1024) on the TFT screen.

A quick visit to the Dell website found 64 bit drivers for the hardware and after installation device manager showed a clean bill of heath. Easy Peasy

I expected Vista to run a bit sluggish on just 512 Mb RAM but it was acceptable even with the Aero interface enabled.
Although it was only the O/S loaded .... I'm guessing if I had apps loaded as well it would have been slower.

Just out of curiosity I ran the "Windows Experience Index" and came up with a score of 2.8. (what was your score Enzo?)

Vista does use a bit of memory .... even when doing nothing .... this is just with Task Manager open.

Oh well .... back to saving the pennies for the next bits of hardware .... LOL

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nice gear alan...be good when you get it togehter lol...i hated having bits and pieces, and having to wait to put them in

you make me wanna buy more RAM lol.....but i dont really need it...ah well

and me......i score 4.5 (see below)....but yeh....spose its the video card holding things back if anything lol

the 50-ish% RAM usage is.....yeh......the whole deal with vista i think

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Thanks Enzo

Yeah it does suck to have these bits just sitting around and not being able to use them.

I figured it can't hurt to have more RAM, especially when you have lots of things open at once.
I lashed out and bought some half decent memory as the PC will be overclocked a little

Your Task Manager looks cool with 4 cores
With a 4.5 score is Vista nice and fluid and snappy to start up apps or switch between windows?
I see you're also using over half your memory, perhaps that's just the way Vista handles its memory ... ie: always in use ready for applications.

I noticed on the Dell PC that opening up a number of applications all at once didn't dramatically increase the amount of memory used.
Perhaps when I get my PC going Vista may take up half of my 4 Gb too when idling .... lol


Enzo - You also have a Gigabyte P35-DS3P M/B don't you?
I was having a look at your M/B installation and noticed you don't have a heatpipe connecting the north and south bridge chips.
What's the revision number of your P35-DS3P?

rev 1.1

hmm....now im not sure whether i should be annoyed about that or not....i do remember looking into the revisions and moving towards one more than the others, and i do remember emailing umart/msy about it......i'll have a look later i spose lol

yeh, apps arnt too bad.....i think its hard drives which are slowing me down (hope i dont sound too stupid because im way wrong).....but yeh, sometimes it just seems like it could be them.............(the second 500gig is a complete backup, of both the other two.....but i'll be changing the way that runs soon i think, want a straight backup, not the zipped one vista does for ya....

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but yeh, other than that, everything runs pretty good i guess sure

well here is my score on my laptop

do i win something??

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oh, when i get to work tomorrow ill put my work pc's one up

that one is a little quicker

Can I be really naive and ask something about dual core processors...

Say for example I have a dual core processor and I have 2 DVD-RW drives does this mean I can rip two dvds simultaniously without too much drama or am I expecting too much

ignore me apparently I can do it

Mine is Rev 2.1

Don't get too annoyed enzo .... that's just a fact of life with computer technology .... today you have the latest & greatest .... next week it's obsolete



That's a good result from a Laptop Rob .... what video card does it run?

Quad core with 4 Gb of RAM .... not a bad work PC either ....

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.....determined by lowest subscore...ahhhh welll

pwnd!

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oh and Alan, it's only a dual core.
the quad's are not stable enough for my liking
and the 3ghz 1333Fsb is pretty damn fast... still max out the cores though doing some dvd editing Click to view attachment

oh also alan, the lappy graphics card is a Geforce Go7600 or something, cant remember haha.

lappy could do with a format though

Opps .... for some reason I thought it was a Quad Core.



Something isn't right with your CPU-Z results Rob.

You have an E6850 CPU which should run at 3.0 Ghz .... but CPU-Z reports it as only running at 1995 Ghz with a multiplier of 6.
Your CPU should have a multiplier of 9 .... looks like you are only running at 2/3's capacity!
What have you done????



And here is the CPU-Z of my current PC for you to have a giggle at
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thats cause it was sitting there idling

how about this?
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that look a bit better hehehe

^^^^^^^^
That's better

Just a little update ....

Bought my new video card today .... yay .... one step closer to completing the parts jizsaw

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Other parts previously bought ....

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Next on the shopping list .... PSU & hard drives

woot wooooo.....motherboard looks familiar

im thinkin about gettin an 8800GT too

if at any stage i can pick one up for under $200 i'll probably do it. at the moment, my 360 serves me games quite alright

do a corsair psu!!! i couldnt believe how solid mine was when i got it, struth. and the modular cables are very nice too

I'm not surprised the motherboard looks familiar

Thats the thing with PC hardware, it changes so fast. Pretty soon (if not already) there will be a better BFYB card than the 8800GT.

Whatever PSU I eventually get, it will be a modular type .... I want to keep cabling as tidy as I can.

news alan?

fudd ur stupid vista rating has got me annoyed at my damned vista rating lol....she's sitting at 3.4ghz now, other than the graphics i've got 5.9, 5.9 and 5.8. ......see how this semester goes.....considering picking up 4gig of 1066mhz Crucial Tracers and an 8800GT

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No news enzo .... I'm still trying to save up for more components

Which is not being helped by the fact that I'm looking at some expensive cases
I think I've narrowed it down to 2 Lian Li models .... either the PC-A70B or PC-A77B.

I've decided to get a Corsair PSU as you suggested .... just deciding between the HX520 or HX620.
These 2 models are actually rebadged SeaSonic's so they are a very good PSU.

It's a pain in the ar$e not being able to put anything together yet .... damnit .... at this rate it will be obsolete before I get it up and going ....

The only way you are going to beat Fudd's Vista rating is to upgrade your Video card
Are you finding that 2 Gb memory is not enough .... or are you also upgrading to try for higher overclocks?

upgrading memory for the overclock
and yeh, hopefully an 8800gt in the near-ish future (might make COD4, UT3, Crysis and Gears of War a bit more pretty)

those LianLi cases are gorgeous. Apparently built like a brick craphouse too, for some reason i have a story about some guy accidentally dropping it down a flight of stairs stuck in my mind (ie, with the case coming out with barely a scratch(nothing was in it)) Full size cases? Nice pick. I get overwhelmed by the size of my friends Kandalf case every time i see it. (ps: i like the A70 better, sideways hard drives yeehaa)

i know what its like not being able to put things together, guess i was lucky though,i got my case first and was able to paint that etc

the HX520 would probably suffice i would say. As you've researched, and as i did too, they're very decent psus. For

goodluck with the saving hey.

/me grumbles about not having a PC at home at the moment...

Stupid houses cost so much....

I thought as much .... though you'll still need a couple of 8800GT's in SLI for Crysis to run smoothly with all the bling turned on


My current case is a full tower Inwin so going to the LianLi is not a huge jump, its actually 10 mm shorter than the Inwin but 130 mm deeper, it stands at the side of my desk so space is not a problem.

The Kandalf is a huge case too

I'm leaning towards the A70 as well .... I prefer the sideways drive installation and also it should be quieter than the A77 since the A77's total frontage is open to the interior via the drive bay perforations, which is great for ventilation/airflow but not as good for quiet.
Though with 6 x 120mm fans fitted as standard the A70 won't lack any airflow either

The 520 watt Corsair PSU should be big enough (including SLI) .... but for the sake of an extra $20 I might go for the bigger version anyway

Hopefully by next month I might have enough for the case & PSU



Yeah .... sux to have a mortgage .... spoils all your fun

Here's a pic of my Inwin full tower PC case.

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I can recommend the OCZ GameXtreme PSU - it's black and silent, with a shiny blue glowy fan. SLI certified too, 1kW of power goodness.
or you could get the 850W, or the 600W (600 has no glowy fan, just a normal one). The 600 is $155 at Scorptec at the moment.

The OCZ is also a very good PSU Simon .... and I like the blue LED fan .... only thing is it's not a modular type which is what I want.

I'll be fitting some blue LED fans to the new case so it doesn't really matter if the PSU doesn't have one

With a score like that little wonder you've got a smile enzo

I still haven't got my case, psu or disk drives .... will I ever get this PC built ....
Every time I get a bit of coin together some other thing crops up and funds get diverted .... this weekend the damn hot water service blew up .... grrr

Finally some progress has been made, well a step in the right direction at least

Picked up my new case tonight .... woo-hoo!

Bloody hell .... this thing is huge!! But it's light as a feather being aluminum

So now I can start putting a few things together, still don't have a power supply or hard drives but at least it's a start.

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wicked

you'll have to take plenty of happy snaps of that thing for me alan!!!!

i really want to pick up a PC-A71

if u really wanna get up an goin all you'd need is ur power supply and a small hard drive ...should get both for under $200

I can do lots of snaps for you Jacob

So you want the PC-A71 .... just like mine except with a door

Unfortunately the budget didn't stretch enough for the power supply as well, will need to wait another couple of weeks for that.
I already have a 160 Gb hard drive which I will use as my windows drive, so I need to buy a 500 Gb drive to use as my data drive.

The only down side is I have bought the wrong flavor of windows when I bought Vista Home Premium 64
What I didn't think about in any detail at the time was that I will want to host a couple of virtual PC's and wrongly assumed Microsoft's
Virtual PC would run on any windows platform.

The problem I have now is that Virtual PC will not run on any of the Vista "home" flavors, so it looks like I might have to fork out for a copy of Vista Ultimate 64. (Yes there are cheaper Vista versions but I want Ultimate's functionality)
The other option would be to get VM Ware instead of Virtual PC, but with the cost of VM Ware at over $200 I would rather stretch the
budget and get Vista Ultimate.
The plus side would be that I would then have 2 Vista licenses so I could then upgrade Shari's XP PC to Vista.

Bottom line though .... it's going to take longer before my new PC is finally up and running

hmmm....was this on the Lian-Li site a couple of weeks ago?....the PC-A7110 ......comes with sata hot swap system in built!!!...sheesh....i imagine some crazy $$$$ (not due till end of june)......but has exactly the hard drive storage i want....10 internal...plus another somewhere in the case. (it says external/5.25" bay)....two raid 5 arrays and an OS drive

goodluck with the windows dramas then mate....you will be happy when its all sorted dont worry

case nice and quality or what?

Sierra, you're not the only frustrated one - I went out and bought a XBOX 360 + GTA IV so I can play it!! (WAS going to get a PS3 but decided against it.) TV was always occupied cos of my bro, so I decided to go to harveys and buy a 32" sony bravia on GO mastercard for my room... 2K all over again...

The sad bit is I had built a not-so-cheap PC just coupla months ago! (over 2k in RRP) Grrrr....

I can see it now... We all have 30GB ram, 4TB hard drives and a 60GHz processor, and Alan's still saving up for a PSU... lol

Nice Case Al - I never could justify a Lian Li, but always liked them.

Rover - Did you know that Sony at one stage were giving away a free PS3 with every Bravia 1080p LCD TV sold?



Simon - At this rate my new PC will be obsolete before I ever get it going

I've had my current case for nearly 10 years so I think it's time to treat myself to a new one .... the Lian Li will be lasting me a while so I don't mind spending a bit extra.

those bravias arnt as expensive as i thought they were

stupid uni with them laying around the place in walls and not even turned on!

i hope i score one next year with a ps3 deal lol...geez

I got my Bravia for $1150 on GO,could've had it abit cheaper if paid straight up, also with extended warranty (5 years compared to the 1 year). It was a managers special though, they had it for $1499 a day before I purchased mine, with only 1 year warranty.

Alan~ I recall seeing it in catalogs here and there but never actually seen it in a store, probably why I never remembered while on the hunt.

Made a start on putting my new PC together on the weekend just gone by.
I've installed all the parts I've got so far and hopefully by this weekend I can pick up a hard drive, power supply and Vista Ultimate 64 so I can fire it up!

Heres's some pics for you Jacob

4 Gb of RAM.
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CPU, Stock Cooler & RAM installed.
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This Lian Li case wasn't cheap but it's very well made, everything fits as it's supposed to and no sharp edges in sight.
It's bloody huge to, it can house 10 disk drives, 7 up front and another 3 in a cradle at the top rear of the case.
It has 6 x 120mm tach sensing fans that can either be connected direct to the motherboard or via molex connector to the PSU.
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Motherboard tray removed. The 3 drive cradle & fan assy can be seen at the top right hand side while the PSU mounting bracket in located at the bottom of the case.
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I've removed the 3 drive cradle as I won't be using it and relocated the PSU bracket to the top of the case.
The case comes with 2 PSU brackets so you can have twin power supplies if you need to.
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Motherboard attached to the trayClick to view attachment


Motherboard, Video Card & DVD burner installed .... which is all the parts I have right now
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looks good to me

be nice to have room to stretch out (as opposed to my wicked small/average Nine Hundred lol)

i hadnt realised No Country for Old Men went for so long..sheesh..im goin to bed.

thanks for the pics mate, you even have the clean background for them

OK .... on Friday I picked up my new power supply and a copy of Vista Ultimate 64 .... together with a spare hard drive I had lying around means I've got all the bits to finally fire this thing up

I still have to buy hard drives (one for O/S and one for data) before I do a proper Vista install and can migrate data from my old PC to the new one.
But in the mean time this spare hard drive will let me install Vista and have a bit of a play around for a couple of weeks


Power Supply & O/S
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Using a modular Power Supply means less cabling to deal with .... which will be tidyied up once new drives go in.
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Using the old PC from the new PC via Remote Desktop. (couldn't do that with home premium!)
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Not a bad score to start off with
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I'm loving this new PC .... it's so quiet compared to my old PC and that's with having both sides of the box still open.
Vista looks very pretty with all the fancy stuff turned on and it's so snappy too .... gotta love new hardware

woot woo

lol.....almost makes me wish i had a case for Vista, its pretty even.

crazy how much space is inside that case

good to hear you like the difference