New build - advice needed

New System -

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3
BIOSTAR A870 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard
G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3
10600)
EVGA 01G-P3-1373-AR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Superclocked EE 1GB
256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16

Current System -

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core
ABIT NF-M2SV AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
EVGA 256-P2-N761-AR GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First off, roughly how much faster would you guess the new system
would be percentage-wise over my current one for video games? For
instance, in Second Life it takes for ever to change clothes. Would
there be a significant improvement, like 50% or 100% faster? Is it
even worth upgrading at this time?

Secondly any recommendations for better bang for the buck or better
quality parts, etc?

Lastly, do I have the right RAM for this motherboard/CPU (think it's
right but just to make sure)?

Any feedback much appreciated.

Forgot to mention that it will be running on WinXP.

On Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:47:46 -0400, zardoz wrote:

New System -

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3
BIOSTAR A870 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard
G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3
10600)
EVGA 01G-P3-1373-AR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Superclocked EE 1GB
256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16

Current System -

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core
ABIT NF-M2SV AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
EVGA 256-P2-N761-AR GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First off, roughly how much faster would you guess the new system
would be percentage-wise over my current one for video games? For
instance, in Second Life it takes for ever to change clothes. Would
there be a significant improvement, like 50% or 100% faster? Is it
even worth upgrading at this time?

Secondly any recommendations for better bang for the buck or better
quality parts, etc?

Lastly, do I have the right RAM for this motherboard/CPU (think it's
right but just to make sure)?

Any feedback much appreciated.

Adding in the prices (all from NewEgg) -

On Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:49:03 -0400, zardoz wrote:


Forgot to mention that it will be running on WinXP.

On Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:47:46 -0400, zardoz wrote:

New System -

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3
($60)
BIOSTAR A870 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard
($200)
G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3
10600)
($44)
EVGA 01G-P3-1373-AR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Superclocked EE 1GB
256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16
($130)

Current System -

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core
ABIT NF-M2SV AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
EVGA 256-P2-N761-AR GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First off, roughly how much faster would you guess the new system
would be percentage-wise over my current one for video games? For
instance, in Second Life it takes for ever to change clothes. Would
there be a significant improvement, like 50% or 100% faster? Is it
even worth upgrading at this time?

Secondly any recommendations for better bang for the buck or better
quality parts, etc?

Lastly, do I have the right RAM for this motherboard/CPU (think it's
right but just to make sure)?

Any feedback much appreciated.

zardoz wrote:
Adding in the prices (all from NewEgg) -

On Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:49:03 -0400, zardoz wrote:

Forgot to mention that it will be running on WinXP.

On Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:47:46 -0400, zardoz wrote:

New System -

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3
($60)
BIOSTAR A870 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard
($200)
G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3
10600)
($44)
EVGA 01G-P3-1373-AR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Superclocked EE 1GB
256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16
($130)
Current System -

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core
ABIT NF-M2SV AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
EVGA 256-P2-N761-AR GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First off, roughly how much faster would you guess the new system
would be percentage-wise over my current one for video games? For
instance, in Second Life it takes for ever to change clothes. Would
there be a significant improvement, like 50% or 100% faster? Is it
even worth upgrading at this time?

Secondly any recommendations for better bang for the buck or better
quality parts, etc?

Lastly, do I have the right RAM for this motherboard/CPU (think it's
right but just to make sure)?

Any feedback much appreciated.

Bulldozer (Zambezi) is coming. When it says Cores/Modules = 8/4,
it's basically a four core processor, where portions of the processor
are duplicated. That makes it like Hyperthreading (an older Intel
feature), where Windows would show 8 performance graphs, but in fact
there are the equivalent of four cores handling it. How it differs,
is Hyperthreading uses fewer hardware resources when doing the same
thing. The new AMD feature, puts more "real" hardware behind it.
But it still doesn't make the chip work like an 8 core chip. It's
just a 4 core chip that works better than Hyperthreading by a bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldozer_(processor)

I don't know if benchmarks are available for that thing yet or not.

It will use an AM3+ motherboard. So if you were to buy a motherboard
at this late date, at the very least you'd want the socket to be
"AM3+" labeled on the box, so you have the opportunity to buy
a newer processor in 2012.

The main saving of such a hardware selection, would be the
opportunity to save a bit of power, while at the same time
having a pretty powerful processor. Since you're in the market
for a 965, then this might be the processor you're looking for.

This is an example of promotional material for Bulldozer ready motherboards.

http://promos.asus.com/US/Newsletter...ead_story.html

Tentative launch date for Zambezi - September 19th. It looks like the
FX-8150 3.6GHz may be the best available at first. So sometime before
the end of the month, there will be first test results from
enthusiast sites, to see if it is all worthwhile.

http://fudzilla.com/processors/item/...-but-confirmed

Paul

On Thu, 15 Sep 2011 21:12:15 -0400, Paul wrote:

zardoz wrote:
Adding in the prices (all from NewEgg) -

On Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:49:03 -0400, zardoz wrote:

Forgot to mention that it will be running on WinXP.

On Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:47:46 -0400, zardoz wrote:

New System -

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3
($60)
BIOSTAR A870 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard
($200)
G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3
10600)
($44)
EVGA 01G-P3-1373-AR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Superclocked EE 1GB
256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16
($130)
Current System -

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core
ABIT NF-M2SV AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
EVGA 256-P2-N761-AR GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First off, roughly how much faster would you guess the new system
would be percentage-wise over my current one for video games? For
instance, in Second Life it takes for ever to change clothes. Would
there be a significant improvement, like 50% or 100% faster? Is it
even worth upgrading at this time?

Secondly any recommendations for better bang for the buck or better
quality parts, etc?

Lastly, do I have the right RAM for this motherboard/CPU (think it's
right but just to make sure)?

Any feedback much appreciated.

Bulldozer (Zambezi) is coming. When it says Cores/Modules = 8/4,
it's basically a four core processor, where portions of the processor
are duplicated. That makes it like Hyperthreading (an older Intel
feature), where Windows would show 8 performance graphs, but in fact
there are the equivalent of four cores handling it. How it differs,
is Hyperthreading uses fewer hardware resources when doing the same
thing. The new AMD feature, puts more "real" hardware behind it.
But it still doesn't make the chip work like an 8 core chip. It's
just a 4 core chip that works better than Hyperthreading by a bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldozer_(processor)

I don't know if benchmarks are available for that thing yet or not.

It will use an AM3+ motherboard. So if you were to buy a motherboard
at this late date, at the very least you'd want the socket to be
"AM3+" labeled on the box, so you have the opportunity to buy
a newer processor in 2012.

The main saving of such a hardware selection, would be the
opportunity to save a bit of power, while at the same time
having a pretty powerful processor. Since you're in the market
for a 965, then this might be the processor you're looking for.

This is an example of promotional material for Bulldozer ready motherboards.

http://promos.asus.com/US/Newsletter...ead_story.html

Tentative launch date for Zambezi - September 19th. It looks like the
FX-8150 3.6GHz may be the best available at first. So sometime before
the end of the month, there will be first test results from
enthusiast sites, to see if it is all worthwhile.

http://fudzilla.com/processors/item/...-but-confirmed

Paul


Thanks Paul. So I take it you don't think I would get much of a
performance boost with the new system above, compared to my current
one?

zardoz wrote:
On Thu, 15 Sep 2011 21:12:15 -0400, Paul wrote:

zardoz wrote:
Adding in the prices (all from NewEgg) -

On Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:49:03 -0400, zardoz wrote:

Forgot to mention that it will be running on WinXP.

On Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:47:46 -0400, zardoz wrote:

New System -

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3
($60)
BIOSTAR A870 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard
($200)
G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3
10600)
($44)
EVGA 01G-P3-1373-AR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Superclocked EE 1GB
256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16
($130)
Current System -

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core
ABIT NF-M2SV AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
EVGA 256-P2-N761-AR GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First off, roughly how much faster would you guess the new system
would be percentage-wise over my current one for video games? For
instance, in Second Life it takes for ever to change clothes. Would
there be a significant improvement, like 50% or 100% faster? Is it
even worth upgrading at this time?

Secondly any recommendations for better bang for the buck or better
quality parts, etc?

Lastly, do I have the right RAM for this motherboard/CPU (think it's
right but just to make sure)?

Any feedback much appreciated.
Bulldozer (Zambezi) is coming. When it says Cores/Modules = 8/4,
it's basically a four core processor, where portions of the processor
are duplicated. That makes it like Hyperthreading (an older Intel
feature), where Windows would show 8 performance graphs, but in fact
there are the equivalent of four cores handling it. How it differs,
is Hyperthreading uses fewer hardware resources when doing the same
thing. The new AMD feature, puts more "real" hardware behind it.
But it still doesn't make the chip work like an 8 core chip. It's
just a 4 core chip that works better than Hyperthreading by a bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldozer_(processor)

I don't know if benchmarks are available for that thing yet or not.

It will use an AM3+ motherboard. So if you were to buy a motherboard
at this late date, at the very least you'd want the socket to be
"AM3+" labeled on the box, so you have the opportunity to buy
a newer processor in 2012.

The main saving of such a hardware selection, would be the
opportunity to save a bit of power, while at the same time
having a pretty powerful processor. Since you're in the market
for a 965, then this might be the processor you're looking for.

This is an example of promotional material for Bulldozer ready motherboards.

http://promos.asus.com/US/Newsletter...ead_story.html

Tentative launch date for Zambezi - September 19th. It looks like the
FX-8150 3.6GHz may be the best available at first. So sometime before
the end of the month, there will be first test results from
enthusiast sites, to see if it is all worthwhile.

http://fudzilla.com/processors/item/...-but-confirmed

Paul


Thanks Paul. So I take it you don't think I would get much of a
performance boost with the new system above, compared to my current
one?

From a pure benchmark perspective, there is no question the 965 will be
faster. You'd have double the speed in a multi-threaded benchmark. You
can test that, by perhaps running something like Cinebench now, then
build up the new system and run Cinebench again.

The real question would be, what part of Second Life, sucks the
life out of your computer.

Try this. Open Task Manager, watch the processor traces in the graph pane.
Do your Second Life thing which is slow. Alt-tab back to the desktop
(if you can do that without affecting your operating state in the game),
and view the graph before it scrolls off.

In the graph, are both CPU graphs running 100% during the presumed
clothing transition ? Games don't usually use both cores equally,
so it's normal to be using, say 150% of the 200% CPU available on
two cores.

Games can be CPU limited or GPU limited. Games can be optimized for
ATI or Nvidia graphics - sometimes a game performs more poorly on
one platform than the other. The resources inside a graphics card,
consist of several types, and ATI and Nvidia use those resources
in a different proportion. This affects some games more than others,
depending on what hardware they really need.

Does the disk drive light flash during game play ? I'm not familiar
(haven't read any reports) on what resources such a game uses. For
example, in Microsoft Flight Sim, there is a need for the game to
read terrain map data ahead, so the simulator can paint the terrain.
The data rate may not be that high, but it's an example of a hardware
resource that other games don't use as much. You can use the Performance
snapin in Windows, add a graph in there for PhysicalDisk, and have it
record the megabytes/sec of disk data being fetched. Noticing whether
your disk light flashes a lot, would tell you whether it's even worthwhile
worrying about it. (The game I play, doesn't flash the disk LED at all,
and the whole level loads at startup.)

Back in Task Manager, when you're alt-tabbed out, you can also examine
system memory consumption, and see whether you're using a lot or not.
The game I play, I've played it with 1GB system memory, 2GB, and 4GB,
and there was only a tiny difference between 1GB and the others. 2GB
or above seemed to be enough. I can alt-tab out of the game, and
do other things, and have plenty of memory left for it.

Depending on the OS used, and whether the OS install is 32 bit or 64 bit,
it's also possible that a high end graphics card, with a lot of memory
on it, restricts how much memory is available for the CPU in games. This
has to do with how addressing works in the 32 bit OS. I don't expect
this is a problem, but it's something you can read up on. Some
resource intensive games in Vista/Windows 7 had an issue with
the address map when those that OS family first came out.

To save on the amount of analysis work, if you can find a website
that has done a hardware analysis for Second Life, you may be able
to determine what hardware will best help you. I can't imagine a
GTX 460 being underpowered for a thing like that. I'd try as
best I could, to see if the game really is CPU limited, at the
point in time it is slow.

Badly written code can do this too. If other Second Life users
have seen something similar, that could be the problem. Some games
have been reported in the past to be poorly coded, sucking up more
resources than are really necessary. (You'd be surprised how many
software developers have never used a profiler to analyse their code.)

To give you an example from work, I had a tool written by people in
my own department. Their first generation tool seemed a little bit
slow. It was dealing with one character at a time, on the program
input. They recoded the application (now having a good handle on
getting the rest of it to work), and the program ran 100 times
faster. Now, imagine I was a frustrated user, and tried to buy
a 100x faster processor. It wouldn't have happened. Yet, with
some simple changes to the program, and input data buffering,
the program sped right up. Improving software can give much more
impressive gains, than you can get from buying faster hardware.
That is, if the software is poorly written in the first place.
In the first generation of that software, their objective
was to make a functional demo, so as users, we were tickled
pink to have anything to work with. But the new version,
meant you didn't have time to take a coffee break, while
the thing was running. It was done before you could provide
more input.

Paul

On Fri, 16 Sep 2011 20:47:04 -0400, Paul wrote:

zardoz wrote:
On Thu, 15 Sep 2011 21:12:15 -0400, Paul wrote:

zardoz wrote:
Adding in the prices (all from NewEgg) -

On Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:49:03 -0400, zardoz wrote:

Forgot to mention that it will be running on WinXP.

On Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:47:46 -0400, zardoz wrote:

New System -

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3
($60)
BIOSTAR A870 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard
($200)
G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3
10600)
($44)
EVGA 01G-P3-1373-AR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Superclocked EE 1GB
256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16
($130)
Current System -

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core
ABIT NF-M2SV AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
EVGA 256-P2-N761-AR GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First off, roughly how much faster would you guess the new system
would be percentage-wise over my current one for video games? For
instance, in Second Life it takes for ever to change clothes. Would
there be a significant improvement, like 50% or 100% faster? Is it
even worth upgrading at this time?

Secondly any recommendations for better bang for the buck or better
quality parts, etc?

Lastly, do I have the right RAM for this motherboard/CPU (think it's
right but just to make sure)?

Any feedback much appreciated.
Bulldozer (Zambezi) is coming. When it says Cores/Modules = 8/4,
it's basically a four core processor, where portions of the processor
are duplicated. That makes it like Hyperthreading (an older Intel
feature), where Windows would show 8 performance graphs, but in fact
there are the equivalent of four cores handling it. How it differs,
is Hyperthreading uses fewer hardware resources when doing the same
thing. The new AMD feature, puts more "real" hardware behind it.
But it still doesn't make the chip work like an 8 core chip. It's
just a 4 core chip that works better than Hyperthreading by a bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldozer_(processor)

I don't know if benchmarks are available for that thing yet or not.

It will use an AM3+ motherboard. So if you were to buy a motherboard
at this late date, at the very least you'd want the socket to be
"AM3+" labeled on the box, so you have the opportunity to buy
a newer processor in 2012.

The main saving of such a hardware selection, would be the
opportunity to save a bit of power, while at the same time
having a pretty powerful processor. Since you're in the market
for a 965, then this might be the processor you're looking for.

This is an example of promotional material for Bulldozer ready motherboards.

http://promos.asus.com/US/Newsletter...ead_story.html

Tentative launch date for Zambezi - September 19th. It looks like the
FX-8150 3.6GHz may be the best available at first. So sometime before
the end of the month, there will be first test results from
enthusiast sites, to see if it is all worthwhile.

http://fudzilla.com/processors/item/...-but-confirmed

Paul


Thanks Paul. So I take it you don't think I would get much of a
performance boost with the new system above, compared to my current
one?

From a pure benchmark perspective, there is no question the 965 will be
faster. You'd have double the speed in a multi-threaded benchmark. You
can test that, by perhaps running something like Cinebench now, then
build up the new system and run Cinebench again.

The real question would be, what part of Second Life, sucks the
life out of your computer.

Try this. Open Task Manager, watch the processor traces in the graph pane.
Do your Second Life thing which is slow. Alt-tab back to the desktop
(if you can do that without affecting your operating state in the game),
and view the graph before it scrolls off.

In the graph, are both CPU graphs running 100% during the presumed
clothing transition ? Games don't usually use both cores equally,
so it's normal to be using, say 150% of the 200% CPU available on
two cores.

Games can be CPU limited or GPU limited. Games can be optimized for
ATI or Nvidia graphics - sometimes a game performs more poorly on
one platform than the other. The resources inside a graphics card,
consist of several types, and ATI and Nvidia use those resources
in a different proportion. This affects some games more than others,
depending on what hardware they really need.

Does the disk drive light flash during game play ? I'm not familiar
(haven't read any reports) on what resources such a game uses. For
example, in Microsoft Flight Sim, there is a need for the game to
read terrain map data ahead, so the simulator can paint the terrain.
The data rate may not be that high, but it's an example of a hardware
resource that other games don't use as much. You can use the Performance
snapin in Windows, add a graph in there for PhysicalDisk, and have it
record the megabytes/sec of disk data being fetched. Noticing whether
your disk light flashes a lot, would tell you whether it's even worthwhile
worrying about it. (The game I play, doesn't flash the disk LED at all,
and the whole level loads at startup.)

Back in Task Manager, when you're alt-tabbed out, you can also examine
system memory consumption, and see whether you're using a lot or not.
The game I play, I've played it with 1GB system memory, 2GB, and 4GB,
and there was only a tiny difference between 1GB and the others. 2GB
or above seemed to be enough. I can alt-tab out of the game, and
do other things, and have plenty of memory left for it.

Depending on the OS used, and whether the OS install is 32 bit or 64 bit,
it's also possible that a high end graphics card, with a lot of memory
on it, restricts how much memory is available for the CPU in games. This
has to do with how addressing works in the 32 bit OS. I don't expect
this is a problem, but it's something you can read up on. Some
resource intensive games in Vista/Windows 7 had an issue with
the address map when those that OS family first came out.

To save on the amount of analysis work, if you can find a website
that has done a hardware analysis for Second Life, you may be able
to determine what hardware will best help you. I can't imagine a
GTX 460 being underpowered for a thing like that. I'd try as
best I could, to see if the game really is CPU limited, at the
point in time it is slow.

Badly written code can do this too. If other Second Life users
have seen something similar, that could be the problem. Some games
have been reported in the past to be poorly coded, sucking up more
resources than are really necessary. (You'd be surprised how many
software developers have never used a profiler to analyse their code.)

To give you an example from work, I had a tool written by people in
my own department. Their first generation tool seemed a little bit
slow. It was dealing with one character at a time, on the program
input. They recoded the application (now having a good handle on
getting the rest of it to work), and the program ran 100 times
faster. Now, imagine I was a frustrated user, and tried to buy
a 100x faster processor. It wouldn't have happened. Yet, with
some simple changes to the program, and input data buffering,
the program sped right up. Improving software can give much more
impressive gains, than you can get from buying faster hardware.
That is, if the software is poorly written in the first place.
In the first generation of that software, their objective
was to make a functional demo, so as users, we were tickled
pink to have anything to work with. But the new version,
meant you didn't have time to take a coffee break, while
the thing was running. It was done before you could provide
more input.

Paul


I will try to indentify the limiting factor. Much appreciated!

Secondly any recommendations for better bang for the buck or better
quality parts, etc?

These configs are based on user polling:

http://www.tomshardware.com/system-c...dation-55.html

--g

On Sat, 17 Sep 2011 08:26:36 -0400, "geoff" wrote:

Secondly any recommendations for better bang for the buck or better
quality parts, etc?

These configs are based on user polling:

http://www.tomshardware.com/system-c...dation-55.html

--g


very helpful - thanks

geoff wrote:
Secondly any recommendations for better bang for the buck or better
quality parts, etc?

These configs are based on user polling:

http://www.tomshardware.com/system-c...dation-55.html

--g



One thing I notice here, is a relatively high ping time, and
some bandwidth required to run Second Life.

http://alphavilleherald.com/2007/07/...ed-showdo.html

So the problem could be related to network performance, as much
as graphics.

It's also possible that they have badly written code.

Hmmmm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_life

"The viewer renders 3D graphics using OpenGL technology."

Well, that doesn't help matters. OpenGL is not a level
playing field, and the graphics drivers of ATI/NVidia may be
crippled on regular desktop cards. It would be interesting
to see how FireGL or Quadro cards deal with Second Life.

"The following cards have not been tested with Second Life,
and compatibility is not certain:

* NVIDIA cards that report as Quadro
* ATI cards that report as RADEON IGP or RADEON XPRESS
* ATI cards that report as FireGL
* ATI cards that report as FireMV
"

Weird. You'd think for a product that uses OpenGL, they'd
do a cursory test.

Another data point.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=347515

"amd_catalyst_11.4_preview_win7_march23 is the last driver
that had decent OpenGL.. i keep rolling back to these cuz
Second Life is crippled with any driver after these."

It's a virtual world, with a virtually limitless tech support load :-(
So many things to break, so little time to fix them.

Paul