Cool_Freaker

Very nice, polished and stylish. Welcome to Xisto

From what I gather, AM2 is not a huge leap over s939, the most noticable difference to me is the support of DDR2, which at this stage offers a fairly negligible performance increase over regular DDR.On a budget, I would still recommend a s939 CPU for now - the lowest Athlon on 939 still in production is the 3200+, so I guess that'd be the go for AMD. Otherwise for more multipurpose, the Pentium D 805 is dual core for a great price.What kdr says for motherboards is important too - for upgrades etc, do not buy a board without PCI-e, otherwise your graphics card will be more expensive and you limit future upgrades for your GFX.

What's your budget and I'm guessing you've got an AGP slot? When you say noise, what do you mean? Malfunction? If worse comes to worse, just open the side of your case and blow a fan into it - for short term it should work okay, especially if it's just a heatwave passing through. Anyway, I believe the best performance/value card these days is the 7600GT...

It really does depend on budget. Intel has very competitively priced Dual Core CPU's, if you're building a budget box, I believe the Pentium D 805 has some good overclocking potential and is very cheap to boot. For a higher end box you'd want the AMD X2 line of some sort (or AM2 if you want to be really up to date). As has been said before, you'll need at least 1gb of RAM for optimal performance from your system - I would not recommend any lower for any system being build at this current time, though anything over 2gb will not be all that useful (yet). 768mb is a weird number and limits your options, as you've got a 256mb stick and a 512mb stick; for Dual Channel RAM you'll need two of the same size (and speed). Hard-drive is small, I agree with DogEater, and have to say value wise (price per gb), the 80gb is the worst value of the lot. By the looks of it, you're going for a cheaper box, and I would recommend something like the 7600GS for a graphics card on a budget. Actual RAM on the card tends to be less important than the clock speed etc, so don't get sucked in, into thinking bigger is better. Read some reviews and check out the benchmarks before you make a purchase. DVD-RW drives are hellishly cheap these days. Grab a BenQ (currently have a very good reputation with their burners), and it will be an almost negligble difference to a combo drive.

I think it's a bit hard to really tell at this stage, seeing that two of the three players, that is Sony and Nintendo, have yet to release their consoles for this upcoming console generation. In my opinion, the PlayStation 3 is going to either totally blow the 360 out of the water or prove to be an absolute total flop. Sony has always been touting their technical specifications, although there are publications out their which point out concern in the console's design.Microsoft seems to be doing well, but nothing I've seen makes me want to run out and buy a 360 yet either. I would really like it if Nintendo could pull through this time around, I was not a big fan of the N64, and even less that of the GameCube, but I have high hopes for the Wii. Lets hope that some ingenious games get developed for the controller, and that good games come out sooner (considering the hardware has many similarities to the GC).

I saw it and wouldn't recommend unless you're an avid fan of Superman. Obviously it's got technical improvements over the old movies, but in today's standards the plot is terrible (Lex Luthor seems to be a generic bad guy), and the script doesn't help it much either. It felt rather dragged out, whilst not really giving enough character insight. In my opinion it lacked the style of the Xmen trilogy and the humility of Spiderman.

Your computer will handle the card fairly well I believe. I wouldn't go much higher than a 6800GS with that CPU though. 200 Watts is rather low though. I believe for warranty purposes and just for reliability you will need a better power supply. Most computers these days are fitted with at least a 400 watt one if they've got a dedicated graphics card (although the actual number really depends on brand).A new motherboard may help, as the old AGP slot is getting on, and most new cards run on PCI-e which is faster and the equivalent cards made for it are cheaper. I'm not familiar with the Intel slots, but you'll have to tell us what kind of CPU you have (slot wise) before anyone can advise you on if a motherboard upgrade is possible.Yes. I personally wouldn't upgrade without a new PSU, and I have no heard of any viable external powersupplies (though I may be corrected)I would not recommend the vanilla 6800. Whilst the Radeon 9200 you have is rather basic, I would say at least upgrade to a 6600GT while you're at it (reasonable performance for games), unless you're into overclocking.

I thought Mario Kart DS was brilliant. My sister got it for her DS (I need one too ) and I've been seriously leeching it off her. The great thing about it is the pick up and play nature, it's relatively easy to start, but it still remains challenging for a long time unless you resort to excessive powersliding, i.e. snaking. The range of courses is great too, with half new, half old from all the old Mario Kart games. For me, I've played a lot of the N64 version, and it's really good to see some of the old tracks back. Oh and the multiplayer features are just awesome, sure its a bit bareboned, but it works like a charm in my opinion. How so? In terms of sales the DS is far outperforming it, and so far gamewise the PSP has only had a handful of decent titles, whilst the whole UMD movie thing has proved almost a total flop. I would much rather go with Sony for my home console needs, and Nintendo for portable

The Wii certainly looks promising, and amid all the speculation of the upcoming failure of the PlayStation 3, I'd say it has an even better chance of helping Nintendo gain console market supremacy. I believe the "ii" in Wii also stands for something in Japanese, at least I read, anyway. Someone will have to look it up for me

The thing is consoles are becoming more and more advanced, and the line is starting to blur between the two. The Xbox was hacked easily enough to play ROMs and run Linux. I reckon it's only a matter of time before the 360 is hacked also, who knows, but in a console generation or two we could be seeing multi-purpose consoles (i.e. machines primarily for gaming and produced in mass quantities, but with the ability to do the mundane computer tasks).Anyway, at the stage it's at now, I reckon it'd have to depend on what games you like to play as to which is better. These days I spend more time on my PC, more for the social aspect - console online gaming is full of brats, and I'm not all too keen on the whole subscription thing with Xbox, whilst the Playstation online system is apparantly utter crap. I use my PS2 occassionally for a quick bash now and then, but I'd have to say that's about it, simply because of the lack of versatility and I have to say to myself "I want to play *this* game", whereas the PC is more like "meh, I'm bored lets see what I can do."

Has Ghost been cancelled permanently? I heard it was "postponed" or on hold, and they are considering porting it to the next generation of systems (well, maybe current if you consider the Xbox 360). I think they had a lot of development issues, with staffing or teams (or even publishers?) swapping around so it's kinda hit a halt. Not that it really matters, in my opinion - it's highly likely a FPS StarCraft spinoff would be, well, meh. The last thing I read is they were possibly working on a Diablo 3, rather than a StarCraft 2... something to do with their recruitment/hiring staff notices with the Diablo 2 being mentioned as needing a programmer or artist (can't remember details). Then again I could be totally mixed up, but that's the perception I've got.

Theoretically it's crippled, and according to the article the development kit is a pain to use also. It doesn't neccessarily mean that there will not be any good games, or that the PS3 will fail miserably. Obviously it does not bode well, but I don't believe we should write off a success just yet.

Leadtek is a very good brand, quite often they have good cooling systems on their GPU's and have a nice software bundle with most of their cards. If it's the cheapest, I would definitely advise you to get it.

I believe it is just coincidence. I've seen a lot of Dells with ATi's in them, so really it just depends on which model you've been browsing, and in which pricerange. Usually there aren't many lower end nVidia cards for laptops, so you see more ATi's in that range. And yes, it could be true the 128mb ATi is better than the 256mb nVidia. Just having more memory does not mean anything (a good example is the 128mb 6600GT vs the 256mb 6600 - the GT is a better performer due to better speeds etc, even though it has less memory). You'd have to tell us the actual card models, or give us the specs though before anyone could give you a definite answer on which one is better. There's nothing wrong with ATi really, though for the best value for money at the moment, especially in desktops, nVidia seems to be the way to go.

Yep. While they're complaining about lost sales, they're using a hell of a lot of funds on expensive lawsuits. Not to mention, not every illegal download equates a lost sale as they seem to believe.

That's really interesting, plants could be smarter than we think Not to mention if it became a commonplace device to check if plants were under too much stress, a garden would be more efficient and easier to maintain (i.e. no need for excessive watering). I guess the main use for it though is for commercial seedling transportation (which probably doesn't explore some of the more creative possibilities )

Why you would want to download buggy Microsoft software is beyond me, especially considering how their final releases tend to still be buggy :rolleyes:I did read a news article though that the downloads of the beta have proved to be extremely popular, and they were giving out product keys at two or three times the rate that downloads could occur. There were even claims of it even "bringing down the internet" if they met the demand for downloads of the beta. If I can find the link, I'll post it up.

I would say the old king of MMORPG's was Everquest before World of Warcraft took over. I still say its a bit overhyped though, and considering the price you pay for a lot of these premium MMO's... you really have to spend a lot of time on them, which can be viewed as a good or bad thing I suppose. That's probably half of Guild War's appeal. The no-subscription thing, which in my book is just freaking fantastic.Conquer online is great because it's free, well at least compared to the Runescape alternative.

Damn, you got so many words to rhyme Johnny I really think it could be a rap of sorts, you just need a chorus. Oh and the timing is fine, depending on how you say it and when you pause - IMO anyway.

Is it the speed of your wireless is slow, or you need longer range on your wireless? Wireless connections are not recommended for online gaming anyway, as they are slower than using an ethernet cable, not to mention the dropouts you sometimes get.Some brands have got some more expensive "ranged" cards and routers/AP's that use the same bandwidth but can go further. Perhaps you should look into some of those.

Um. Ok. For starters, the 7800GTX is no-longer the most current GFX card out, and a 7900GT outperforms it slightly at a much lower cost. Even if you wanted to be pedantic, there is a 512mb 7800GTX for even better performance. At this current point in time though, I think the 7900GTX is the best nVidia card out, but the top end/best ATi card(s) out performs it, though cost-wise it's quite a bit more expensive.The Athlon X-2 3800+ is the best value for money in terms of OCing and is the cheapest Athlon dual core to get. For extreme cutting edge, you'd be looking at some of the FX series chips - I'm not too familiar with them as they're way out of my price range. Even the X-2 4400+ will give better performance, not just because of the speed increase but because of the larger cache.Why an Aspire PSU? I know Antec has some very good PSUs that are reliable, and some other brands have a good high-performance reputation that I can't recall right now >.<

As has been mentioned before, actually significantly modifying the hardware in a console would probably screw around with it too much. Sure with the Xbox people modded it by adding bigger hardrives, and I believe flashing the OS and replacing it with Linux. However, actually changing an integral component such as as the CPU or even the GPU would firstly require a lot of skill, as these componenets are custom designed for the machine, I'm guessing its not just a matter of pulling one chip out and replacing it with another like in a PC. Also, as the system is design to run on that specific hardware, I'm not sure how stable you'd be able to get it, if you could get it running at all.All in all, I'd say highly improbable, but if someone can do it, props to them, though I really do see little point in the end.

Sorry to make such a short post, but I agree completely with what TF is saying Initialignition FTW.

In terms of pure raw pixels on screen and whatever technicalities, I think you can say with certainty the PS3 WILL be better. What a lot of people fail to observe though is Nintendos focus on graphics in a different way, in terms of character and environment design etc. Just because the Wii won't have the most powerful CPU/GPU behind it does not mean the graphics will look particuarly ugly in anyway (and will probably only be too prevalent in games which are ported from other consoles). Anyhow, the Japanese market tends to gear towards Nintendo and Sony. Probably a take on the US market would show differently with a heavier showing by Xbox. I can't say personally I'm keen on the 360 either though.

Comcast users tend to not secure their wireless devices. Is your secure? If not, people like me would probably leech off you.