Opinion on a New System?



I have info on a system, can someone give advice? Is this good for gaming and fast enough? Will it give me the ability to manipulate photo's? AMD D62-300 with upgrades of voodoo banshee 16m, 64 bit sound, maybe get as much as 128 ram. internal modem, (56), internal zip, 6gb hard drive, 17" monitor. Would it make a lot of difference to get a 350 or 400? thanks for the help.

captain-kirk (153) on 03/03/99 at 08:32:10 PST

My system, which manipulates photos just fine, is a 200mhz/64meg/2meg video system, so for that, you're golden, and would not need anything more than the 300mhz CPU.

gaming: I'd go for the 350 or 400mhz, with gaming, every little bit helps.

I worry about your 6Gig HD. I'd go a bit larger if you want something "consistent" with your other hardware choices. I think 8 or 9 gig is the "sweet spot" right now.

by the way, with the K6-3/PIII coming out now, prices on the older generation of CPU will be dropping shortly. You may find that you can get the 400 will be a lot closer to the current 300 price, in which case I'd definitely go for it.

You didn't mention CD/DVD....

tdunn (10) on 03/03/99 at 08:37:37 PST

lostinlima: as a non-gamer, I wouldn't know what games currently use, but I'd recommend you not skimp on the monitor. 17" is a decent size, but make sure it has good controls for color warmth, gun convergence, and geometry adjustment (pincushion, trapezoid, etc.) This is doubly important if you are going to do photo retouching.

In general, the box you spec'd out looks pretty good. You have a lot of video memory (preferably AGP for direct access to system memory) on the video card. You may want to consider a DVD/hardware mpeg player in place of the CD, and maybe a network card if you're in an area with broadband internet access (xDSL and/or cable modem) if you're into network shooters.

On the photo retouch side, you might want to have some sort of FlashRam or PCCard reader for the digital cameras that support removable media. Very few printers are good enough for photos in the sub-$500 range, but I've heard good thing about the Epson series. You may want to splurge for a second printer port ($25 or so DIY, probably twice that at a computer shop) so you can hook up a scanner and not worry about parallel pass-through headaches (some printers are too intelligent for their own good!)

Scanners come in a few price ranges. The ~$150's are good for getting images onto the computer, but aren't high quality. The ~$300's will give you adapters for slides, and generally higher optical resolution. That's the key spec, forget interpolated. I used to be a SCSI die-hard, but can't justify the extra expense for a scanner.

However, if you're going to hang a lot of storage devices off your system, go SCSI. It's worth it if you'll be shipping Jaz disks to a printer or want more than one HD for projects.

captain-kirk (153) on 03/03/99 at 08:45:56 PST

By the way, a little known (?) secret: many smaller PC makers will discount current systems with soon-to-be-obsolete CPUs ahead of the actual price reduction announcement if you ask them to.
I've done this before, esp. if you tell them that if they don't, you'll just call them back in a month or two. Unlike memory, HDs, etc., whose price *generally* goes down, but more slowly over time, and without "cliffs", CPU price decreases are known and publicized. If you call near the end of a month, these places are much more interested in dealing to make their month-end quota.
It helps to have, in hand, the proposed price decreases so you can negotiate intelligently. You may not get the whole decrease off, but you could well get, say, $75 out of $100, and it may be worth it to you to get the system now with "most" of the decrease, instead of waiting.

some of these companies will lower their prices in anticipation of the decrease, so be careful, if they've already done this, obviously they won't lower them again for you...

BTW, I keep hearing that the new pentium III chips can be traced over the phone lines, and allow access into your comp, allowing someone to actually be able to shut you down. Am I hearing wrong?

captain-kirk (153) on 03/03/99 at 09:05:57 PST

lost: yes, DVD is the new form of CD.. not only does it play movies (a minor value, IMO), but, more importantly to gamers, multi-CD games can now be compressed onto one "CD". VERY useful to gamers, somewhat useful otherwise (encyclopedias).

PIII has chip-ID function. allows people to track individual CPUs (I.e., computers). how nefarious this will be, if at all, remains to be seen.

As far as monitor quality, I recommend two things: read at least one article in a mag like PC Magazine and get a feel for the relative quality of monitor brands. 2) go to a real store and see one of the brands you are leaning towards, make sure it "fits" your eyes.

wpsb (0) on 03/03/99 at 09:13:11 PST

Lost....You may like to know that AMD has overtaken Intel as #1 choice based on January sales data. For the first time in history Intel is no longer top dog. The K6/3 is out and K7 is due later in the year. I think the K7 is in a class of its own. The good news for consumers is the price of CPUs will plummet in the next few months, hopefully. Intel is likely to announce price cuts in APR quarter, so it is best to hold on for just a couple of weeks.

tdunn (10) on 03/03/99 at 09:21:50 PST

lostinlima: I'll amend the good Captain's recommendation with two others: 1) stare at the monitor good and long - you'll be doing that with photos and games, so make sure there aren't things that annoy you about it, and 2) this may be personal preference, but I hate fluorescent lights and how they make the monitor seem shaky.

Anyhow, the terms I was throwing around are controls on better monitors:

"Gun Convergence" makes sure that the Red Green and Blue electron guns are pointed at the same spot, so a white pixel doesn't have a colored shadow from where a misaligned gun is pointing.

"Color Warmth" adjusts the intensity of the color (usually referenced against white). "Warm" whites are a little red or brown-ish, while "cold" whites are a little blue or green-ish.

"Pincushion" allows you to correct the image when the left and right sides of the monitor seem to be curved inwards (like an hourglass) or outwards (like the namesake.) This is common on larger screens, though some 17" have them.

"Trapezoid" adjust corrects the image if the top is wider than the bottom, or vice versa.

tdunn (10) on 03/03/99 at 11:33:34 PST

lostinlima: Sorry about the alphabet soup - I think Jargon is my primary language and English is a distant second.

SCSI Small Computer System Interface. A way to connect hard disks (and similar devices such as Zip and Jaz), scanners, printers and other devices to computers. Ubiquitous on Macs.
Common on Unix workstations. A higher-end option for PCs. Strengths: ability to connect up to 7 (or 15 in more recent and co$tly specs) devices.
xDSL
Some form of Digital Subscriber Line. The next generation of home access. It provides at least 128K of bandwidth, up to 1.5 megabits or more, compared to the 50 or so that is the max of the current modem. Limitations: requires phone company to upgrade their equipment, so coverage is spotty. user must live within 3 miles of the phone switch. Cable Modem
Another way to get high-speed internet access to the home, using the cable TV infrastructure. Give you up to 10 megabit per second bandwidth. Requires cable company to upgrade their equipment, so coverage is also spotty.
Broadband Slang for high-speed internet access.
DVD Digital Versatile Disc, or Digital Video Disc. Stores up to 7 times as many bits on a CD-like disc. Computers with DVD drives can play movies on DVD (technically, they're just audio and video encoded in MPEG2, I think.) Some games are talking about being released on DVD, and maybe other reference works (phone books, encyclopedias, etc.)

Anything I missed?

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