Building Christine

StarPhoenix · Post by **StarPhoenix** » 11 Aug 2011, 13:49

//I usually give my machines names.

I aim to have assembled the parts I need for this PC upgrade/transplant by December, or whenever I have amassed an additional R4500

Given the above budget, my requirements are that my new machine be able to run the most current games as well as those to be released in the near future with aplomb, though not necessarily at the highest possible resolution with
antialiasing and anisotropic filtering cranked up to eyepopping levels. I am also want to play around with the odd bit of image editing in The GIMP and abuse polygons in Blender. I hardly ever do any video editing, but when I do, the project is small-not more than a Gb or two. That summarises what I use my PC for.

So far as specifications are concerned, I am looking at an H67-based motheboard [I don't overclock] with a Core i5 2400 and 4Gb of DDR1333 RAM [unless Bulldozer turns out to a pleasant-and more economical-surprise] My new case will be anything inexpensive that is large enough to house the Radeon HD6870 I shall be transferring from my old machine. I shall also be bringing across my DVD-ROM drive, a 250Gb and 160Gb hard drive and my Xonar DS. A 55oW PSU should be plenty, I'm guessing.

What do you think? Am I going overboard? Is The Witcher 2 going to struggle on that spec? Should I save myself some money and stick with my Core2 Duo for anopther year or until it packs up?

I am likely to go with Windows 7 Home Basic instead of Premium as I shan't miss Aero and don't need to create a home network. Nor do I need Windows Media Centre. [and if I did, there are free alternatives]

THE_STIG · Post by **THE_STIG** » 11 Aug 2011, 19:54

If I was you I would save up a little longer. Home basic is ridiculous, Go of a 64-bit copy of professional. Trust me you will regret your purchase of home basic. Besides that everything else seems to be ok, and no I dont think it will struggle with The Witcher 2. I am also saving for a new mobo, Ram, CPU........aiming to save up R5000 and get a decent H67 mobo(or Z68 if I can find one that I can afford) , Core i5 2500K and at least 4Gb ram.

Post by **Anakha56** » 11 Aug 2011, 20:01

Star you wont need Professional. Rather go Home Premium it will save you some money

. Also it is good to have the option for a network just in case you want to get one up and running later on.

Post by **KALSTER** » 11 Aug 2011, 21:33

Yep, that system will work nicely. +1 on the Home Premium.

The Coolermaster Elite cases are pretty cheap and look decent.

What system do you actually have at present?

Bladerunner · Post by **Bladerunner** » 11 Aug 2011, 21:56

StarPhoenix wrote:I am also want to play around with the odd bit of image editing in The GIMP and abuse polygons in Blender. I hardly ever do any video editing, but when I do, the project is small-not more than a Gb or two. That summarises what I use my PC for.

I am likely to go with Windows 7 Home Basic instead of Premium...

Snip.

Don't waste your money on Windows just yet. Run Ubuntu or Mint for a month or two (GIMP, Blender, and even video editing software is available for free and you can run many of your games in WINE) and rather spend some more cash on components. Worry about Windows later.

StarPhoenix · Post by **StarPhoenix** » 11 Aug 2011, 22:54

I don't see myself owning more than one computer, so no network creation required. [my room is crowded enough as it is]

KALSTER wrote:Yep, that system will work nicely. +1 on the Home Premium.

The Coolermaster Elite cases are pretty cheap and look decent.

What system do you actually have at present?

CPU: Core 2 Duo E8400
Motherboard: MSI P45 Neo
RAM: 4Gb Kingston DDR2-667

These are the components that would be changing

@Bladerunner:

I suppose it would do any harm to test drive Ubuntu with my games for a month-does it do STEAM though?
How well does WINE really work? Are you presently running such a system?

Bladerunner · Post by **Bladerunner** » 11 Aug 2011, 23:49

Wine isn't brilliant. You can google to check if your games are currently supported.

I run Mint on my netbook and Win7 Ultimate on my desktop. Obviously I don't play games on the netbook.

Post by **Anakha56** » 12 Aug 2011, 00:49

Star you can network your Xbox/Wii/PS3 to your PC

.

StarPhoenix · Post by **StarPhoenix** » 12 Aug 2011, 07:53

Anakha56 wrote:Star you can network your Xbox/Wii/PS3 to your PC .

But Annie, why would I want to? They are games machines.

StarBound · Post by **StarBound** » 12 Aug 2011, 08:51

There is 1 setting on the witcher 2 that cripples any system its run on reguardless of graphics cards or 3 way SLI. Just disabling that one setting changes everything in the game but visually I don't see the quality difference, just the speed.

Ubersampling -> Disable at all costs.

Slimshaedy · Post by **Slimshaedy** » 12 Aug 2011, 17:35

+1 Starbound:)
Everything sounds pretty good. H67 with an i5 and a 6870 will run all the games you want. I would upgrade now but that's just my opinion... And I would go with Home Premium:)

StarPhoenix · Post by **StarPhoenix** » 12 Aug 2011, 19:51

Slimshaedy.....if I could, I would.

Yeah, but you see, I don't want to pay for features I don't use.

Post by **Anakha56** » 12 Aug 2011, 20:13

Well you could always get your basic and add the features in:

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/f ... er-edition

Get Missing Aero Glass and Other Personalization Features in Windows 7 Home Basic and Starter Edition

Windows 7: The Starter and Home Basic editions of Windows 7 are crippled when it comes to customization. If you want Aero Glass, Aero Peek, or just wallpaper switching from the desktop context menu, here's a handy patch.

The small EXE file, created by a "Mr. Dusha" and posted by Microsoft MVP Vishal Gupta (known as VG here on Lifehacker), patches system files to enable all the personalization features of Windows Ultimate.

(Note: lacking a Home Basic or Starter machine, we haven't personally tested this out, but from the comments the patch works simply and as promised. To uninstall, Vishal writes you can re-run the patch or type in sfc /scannow at the command prompt.)

Have fun making your decision

.

StarPhoenix · Post by **StarPhoenix** » 12 Aug 2011, 21:02

How long before Microsoft pounces on this?

Post by **Anakha56** » 12 Aug 2011, 21:07

Who knows. All depends if they think it worthy enough to be pounced on. Knowing MS they will probably leave it until the next service pack...

THE_STIG · Post by **THE_STIG** » 12 Aug 2011, 22:31

I will not comment on slightly illegal patches.........

StarPhoenix · Post by **StarPhoenix** » 12 Aug 2011, 22:51

Slightly illegal? Sure something is either illegal or it isn't. Interesting to see that it is associated with a Microsoft MVP....

Post by **Anakha56** » 12 Aug 2011, 23:12

Created a thread for this discussion. I am very interested to see what the forums response is and I dont want your thread to be cluttered with arb junk

.

Everyone wanting to talk about it go here: http://forums.pcformat.co.za/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=40130

doo_much · Post by **doo_much** » 13 Aug 2011, 11:39

"Building Christine"

Christine?

So it's going to be red then, is it?

Bladerunner · Post by **Bladerunner** » 13 Aug 2011, 11:59

doo_much wrote:"Building Christine"

Christine?
So it's going to be red then, is it?

You can name it after anything you like. Some people name it after cities or women.

I name mine after previous usernames/handles.

doo_much · Post by **doo_much** » 13 Aug 2011, 12:08

You obviously either haven't seen the movie or read the novel, and the finer nuance of what I was implying passed by you like the copyright laws of the day.

Eish.

Back on topic.

SP are you going to personalise that 'inexpensive' case of yours, or are you going to forego eye-candy and stick with functionality?

Bladerunner · Post by **Bladerunner** » 13 Aug 2011, 12:17

doo_much wrote:You obviously either haven't seen the movie or read the novel, and the finer nuance of what I was implying passed by you like the copyright laws of the day.

Eish.

No, to be honest the first thought which sprang to mind was helping out the old man (who probably has an old beige box in a dark room and uses it for little more than Excel files and email) to understand that people don't just call their computers "PC1" and "PC2" anymore.

Post by **Ron2K** » 13 Aug 2011, 12:39

I'm pretty sure that there's an old "naming your PCs" thread on this forum somewhere - feel free to continue that little discussion in there (assuming the thread exists).

/EDIT: Knew that I wasn't mistaken - here it is!

StarPhoenix · Post by **StarPhoenix** » 14 Aug 2011, 20:29

doo_much wrote:You obviously either haven't seen the movie or read the novel, and the finer nuance of what I was implying passed by you like the copyright laws of the day.

Eish.

Back on topic.

SP are you going to personalise that 'inexpensive' case of yours, or are you going to forego eye-candy and stick with functionality?

Good to see that someone noticed what I was referring to by calling my next machine "Christine".

If I happen to find an inexpensive red case, it will be. I would personalise it, but my metalwork/crafting skills leave much to be desired . *Like Julius, I failed woordowrk/metalwork - but in standard 6* Chances are that I will break something if I try to personalise it, so I shall be sticking with functionality. That is not to say that I don't appreciate an attractive, well designed case that is easy to work with, it's just that I don't want to go overboard in terms of the amount of money I spend-and R4500 is quite a sum for me-almost double my monthly income....but I would like to be able to enjoy the money I earn. But why am I trying to justify my spending habits?

I could go crazy and withdraw several thousand from the money I have invested, but that would probably be stupid....and short sighted....though I don't really know what I am going to do with that money. Perhaps I'll need it to survive a little longer if I rach retirement age...

StarPhoenix · Post by **StarPhoenix** » 14 Sep 2011, 22:05

This is a more expensive option than the Coolermaster Elite 311 chassis I am looking at getting, but it looks oh so classy.

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