Eh. After some research, it looks like I should wait. It is a time of transition in the industry. . .
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34916
WE spoke with many developers including some big names and we learned that they can’t make much sense out of quad or more core CPUs. They confirm that they can put two cores to good use but not much more. The main problem is that the performance is far from scalable.
You have to spend both time and money to resource the programmer to try to make sense out f the dual core CPU. It takes up to a year to optimise the game for more threads and even if you make the perfect job you can count on twenty to thirty percent performance increase, and this is the best case scenario.
Once you start making the multi threaded game you end up making and having the multithreaded bugs as well.
You can keep one core busy with the physics and collision detection, second core will have to wait for the score to move on with the Artificial intelligence while the third core could possible calculate the graphic data. In this best case scenario you have to realise that the core number two and three would always have to wait for the core number one to finish its job and pass the job to the cores two and three. In this concept there is absolutely no place for quad core as games are non parallel applications. A game developer expert said that you can use the core number four to stream and load the data in the game and this is what the guys at Remedy did at IDF quad core demonstration. But this takes time and money and it is not commonly embraced by developers.
Game developers are in the dawn of dual core programming and now all the sudden AMD and Intel wants them to go quad core. For the time being Quad cores are good for rendering and serves but not for games.
So if you want to play games, you can forget about quad cores, you simply don’t need them and can gain just marginal performance out of them. Give the developers some time and this might change, but we are talking quarters not months. µ
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/11/14/opinion_quad_core_upgrade/
One application area that cannot quite handle the extra cores yet is gaming. Valve, developer of the Half-Life series recently explained its multi-core gaming strategy in detail and promised to bring multicore capability to its games in the first half of 2007. If Valve can translate its vision into reality, quad-core machines will be able to do stunning things with game code and enable, for example, physics simulations. Tom Leonard, one of Valve's multi-core gurus, told me that the first generation of dual-cores were somewhat of an disappointment for game developers, which turned very quickly into hope with the Core 2 Duo and sparked excitement with the quad-core.
While game developers are likely to have to invest more time and money into their games to take advantage of multi-core technology, games will become more "present" for the user. Leonard explained that "game worlds will be much more responsive to a player" and we will see a "transition where game characters will be as smart and interesting as they are good looking right now." Valve appears to be a game developer that may be playing an important role in determining how multi-core capable games will look like in the near future, but the company still hesitates to actually recommend a quad-core upgrade to its gamers. "We won't tell them to upgrade, and that is not really the question," Leonard said. "Our users will upgrade anyway."
So, will users with quad-cores have an advantage over users who are running dual-cores? Valve says no. "People tend to make this problem a little more complicated than it really is. We never would introduce a feature which would depend on a piece of hardware and could result in better players just because of that. We want to make our customers happy. Doing something like that would work against that goal, it's that simple," Leonard told me.
With the move from single-core to dual-core processors well underway, and the imminent arrival of Intel's new quad-core processors, the push is on to find applications that will take advantage of all this multiprocessing power. Historically, games have been at the vanguard of demonstrating the power of new systems, and the move to multiple cores is no exception to this rule. While many developers have expressed frustration with the difficulty required to develop multithreaded games, others are more eager to jump on the bandwagon. One such developer is Remedy, who showed off their upcoming title, Alan Wake, at the Intel Developer Forum being held in San Francisco.
The demo was staged on a quad-core "Kentsfield" (Core 2 Extreme QX6700) processor that had been overclocked to 3.73 GHz. The game was described as a "psychological action thriller," and it did not lack for action. One of the major features of the game engine is a dynamic world renderer that has no visible seams or loading boundaries. To show this in action, Remedy employee Markus Mäki began a new game and immediately pulled back the camera a great distance, panning around the world in a manner usually only seen in tourism videos.
The world was not just a beautiful but static painting, either. Dynamic weather effects and volumetric lighting made the world seem much more real. A tornado was unleashed on an unsuspecting small town and objects were thrown around in a swirl of destruction.
How did quad cores make this possible? One core was devoted entirely to preparing scenes for delivery to the Graphics Processing Unit, or GPU. Another core spent all of its time working on physics calculations. A third handled internal game logic, with the fourth available for sound processing and other miscellaneous tasks.
The game looked extremely impressive, delivering a definite "next-gen" experience. Consoles such as the Xbox 360 that contain three CPU cores (and also the PS3, with its asymmetric design featuring a single core augmented by several smaller processing units) will also be able to take advantage of games that use multiple threads in this manner. As developers gain more experience dealing with the headaches of multithreaded programming, and dual and quad-core processors become more and more common, look for gaming to take a significant leap forward in terms of realism and graphics prowess.
The process is not easy, but the rewards are clearly great. Once a game is multithreaded, it automatically takes advantage of more cores, so developer should be able to ship a game that will run on single, dual, or quad-core CPUs, but perform better the more cores the user has. Unfortunately, writing multithreaded code is still more difficult than traditional single-threaded programming. Developers have to worry about issues such as race conditions, where two processors are modifying the same bit of memory at the same time without locking it, but overzealous use of locking can lead to deadlock conditions where each processor is waiting for the other one to release a necessary resource. However, developers that can handle these issues will have a major advantage in delivering games that really shine on the next generation of hardware.
]
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060929-7868.html
Intel's quad-cores have been released, and inevitably, there are plenty of propagandist "reviews" that tell you, "You have to have this now."
Uhhh, noooo.
Our objection to quad-core has been that there's no point laying out an arm and a leg for a processor until it either does you some real good, or it stops costing an arm and a leg. Problem is, neither is going to apply to most people any time soon.
Now those who insist you need one now aren't saying, "You need to buy this now because CPU companies need to make a lot of money off somebody these days," but it's pretty hard not to come to any other conclusion after seeing their benchmarks. Excluding a few professional apps which specifically use multithreading (and even most of them aren't terribly well optimized for four yet), there's little improvement from four core (and in all honesty, it's not like everything is tweaked up for two cores yet, either).
But of course they can't say that, so instead they begin by saying what their own numbers force them to say, but then, to make the marketing people happy, they pay the piper and tell you that games will be taking advantage of four cores next year.
You have to read these articles closely to discover that:
only a handful of games plan on using four-cores
they won't show up for about a year
the games won't take full advantage of all those cores
The P965 chipset has certainly evoked a lot of different emotions around our test labs as well as around the various hardware sites and forums. This chipset was hyped as the next 440BX in some circles and promoted ad nauseam before, during, and after Computex last year. At first look this chipset seemed to be an instant replacement for the venerable 975X as it costs less, sports an improved memory controller (at least on paper), and supports all Intel processors from NetBurst (Celeron through Pentium D) to Core 2 Duo, as well as the latest Core 2 Quad offerings.
...
Why hasn't the P965 obliterated the other chipsets in the market sector? Obviously one important factor is pricing as it appears there will not be any $60 P965 boards soon (or perhaps ever). That leaves the budget market to Intel's previous generation chipsets and competitors like VIA or SIS. Unfortunately, with the AMD buyout of ATI we will not see competitive chipsets from ATI in the Core 2 Duo market except for the performance oriented RD600 that is currently being offered from DFI. We also see very good 975X boards such as the DFI Infinity and Intel D975XBX2 in the $160 to $199 range now that offer excellent performance for the price.
The other important factor is performance, as Intel's 975X still offers better clock for clock performance when compared to the P965 in most situations. We expect this to change to some degree as the P965 continues to mature, and additional BIOS tweaks such as 1T command rates should be fully working in the near future. The 975X's front side bus will not overclock as high as the P965, but due to relaxed MCH timings and memory strap changes it is difficult to take advantage of the higher P965 front side bus speeds without premium memory and cooling solutions.
...
The 975X also offers 8x8 CrossFire capability while the P965 has been limited to a 16x4 hybrid solution. We have not discovered much difference in performance at the lower resolutions, but as game engines and future video cards require greater bandwidth then the P965's CrossFire performance will be hampered. The good news is that the upcoming release of the Bearlake chipset family will feature a performance oriented version with true dual x16 capability. We might even see a few upcoming P965 motherboards offer a revised PCIe controller chip that allows 8x8x4 or 16x0x4 operation with CrossFire performance exceeding that of 975X in 8x8 mode.
I think I'm changing my mind. I think I'm going to get something, just with the 975X chipset.
1. Asus P5WDH Deluxe. From what I researched it has the best stability and was the overclocking champion till recently. I actually was looking for the P5BD by Asus as it was cheaper and seemed to do the job, but they were out of stock so I thought what the hell.I looked at this one but it is really pricey and uses the crappy Realtek audio chip.
2. Nforce 680i: This is the overclocking champion by far, and is currently the most recommended mobo for enthusiasts. Also check out its little brother 650i which is far more practical in terms of price, yet provides similar performance. I wanted this initally, but again it wasn't available so I went for the P5W. I've been reading an alarming number of posts on toms and anadtech about problems though, which is interesting because the official reviews are very positive.I'm not interested in the nForce chipsets. The nForce 2 and 3 great, but since then they've been having serious issues, as you said.
3. MSI 975X Power Up. My little bro's computer died yesterday so my father is buying him a new comp. This is the mobo they are getting. It got a Tom's Hardware award and it is the lowest priced of the best 975X mobos. Anadtech loves it as well. The first version had some issues so they phased it out and released a version 2, which they named MSI 975X Platinum Power Up. It seems to be the cheapest and most stable 975X mobo. Good overclocker too from what I understand. My bro. found it for $140 in Saudi Arabia, so I don't know what it is going for the world over.This is the one I'm looking at right now.
Part | Category | Price | Quantity | Total |
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115004) | CPU | $222.00 | 1 | $222.00 |
MSI 975X Platinum v2 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130051) | Motherboard | $164.99 | 1 | $164.99 |
MSI NX8800GTS (nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127225) | Video card | $339.99 | 1 | $339.99 |
Western Digital WD800JD (80GB SATAII 7200rpm) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822135106) | Hard drive | $43.99 | 1 | $43.99 |
Samsung HD501LJ (500GB SATAII 7200rpm) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822152052) | Hard drive | $139.99 | 1 | $139.99 |
Antec TruePower Trio TP3-550 (550W) (http://www.directron.com/tp3550.html) | Power supply | $91.99 | 1 | $91.99 |
OCZ ATi Crossfire 2 GB OCZ2A8002GK (DDR2 800 2 x 1 GB) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227169) | Memory | $180.99 | 1 | $180.99 |
Thermalright XP-120 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227169) | CPU heatsink | $49.99 | 1 | $49.99 |
Thermalright LGA775 retention bracket for XP-120 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835999351) | Accessories | $4.99 | 1 | $4.99 |
Lian Li PC-A05B (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811112130) | Case | $99.99 | 1 | $99.99 |
Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F 120mm (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835185006) | Case fan | $15.99 | 1 | $15.99 |
Scythe S-FLEX SFF21E 120mm (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835185005) | Case fan | $15.99 | 2 | $29.98 |
LITE ON LH-20A1S (DVD+/-RW DL SATAII) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106057) | Optical drive | $46.99 | 1 | $46.98 |
Total (after rebates) | $1,430.87 |
Part | Category | Price | Quantity | Total |
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115004) | CPU | $222.00 | 1 | $222.00 |
Asus P5B-E (P965 chipset) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131070) | Motherboard | $150.99 | 1 | $150.99 |
EVGA 320-P2-N811-AR (nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130082) | Video card | $279.99 | 1 | $279.99 |
Western Digital WD800JD (80GB SATAII 7200rpm) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822135106) | Hard drive | $43.99 | 1 | $43.99 |
Samsung HD400LJ (400GB SATAII 7200rpm) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130082) | Hard drive | $109.99 | 1 | $109.99 |
Antec TruePower Trio TP3-550 (550W) (http://www.directron.com/tp3550.html) | Power supply | $91.99 | 1 | $91.99 |
OCZ Platinum Revision 2 OCZ2P800R22GK (DDR2 800 2 x 1 GB) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227139) | Memory | $185.99 | 1 | $185.99 |
Thermalright SI-120 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835109123) | CPU heatsink | $47.99 | 1 | $47.99 |
Thermalright LGA775 retention bracket for SI-120 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835999351) | Accessories | $4.99 | 1 | $4.99 |
Lian Li PC-A05B (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811112130) | Case | $99.99 | 1 | $99.99 |
Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F 120mm (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835185006) | Case fan | $15.99 | 1 | $15.99 |
Scythe S-FLEX SFF21E 120mm (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835185005) | Case fan | $15.99 | 2 | $29.98 |
LITE ON LH-20A1S (DVD+/-RW DL SATAII) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106057) | Optical drive | $46.99 | 1 | $46.98 |
Total (after rebates) | $1,329.87 |
One thing I thought was cool is that Directron offers power supply testing prior to shipping. It was $5 and I didn't take it, but I thought it was a nice service nonetheless.
Part | Category | Price | Quantity | Total |
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115004) | CPU | $222.00 | 1 | $222.00 |
Asus P5B-E (P965 chipset) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131070) | Motherboard | $150.99 | 1 | $150.99 |
EVGA 320-P2-N811-AR (nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130082) | Video card | $299.99 | 1 | $299.99 |
Seagate ST380811AS (80GB SATAII 7200rpm) (http://www.directron.com/st380811as.html) | Hard drive | $43.99 | 1 | $43.99 |
Samsung HD501LJ (500GB SATAII 7200rpm) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822152052) | Hard drive | $139.99 | 1 | $139.99 |
Antec TruePower Trio TP3-550 (550W) (http://www.directron.com/tp3550.html) | Power supply | $91.99 | 1 | $91.99 |
OCZ ATi Crossfire Certified OCZ2A8002GK (DDR2 800 2 x 1 GB) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227169) | Memory | $209.99 | 1 | $209.99 |
Thermalright SI-128 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835109129) | CPU heatsink | $56.99 | 1 | $56.99 |
Lian Li PC-A05B (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811112130) | Case | $89.99 | 1 | $89.99 |
Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F 120mm (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835185006) | Case fan | $15.99 | 1 | $15.99 |
Scythe S-FLEX SFF21E 120mm (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835185005) | Case fan | $15.99 | 2 | $29.98 |
LITE ON LH-20A1S (DVD+/-RW DL SATAII) (http://www.antonline.com/p_LH-20A1S-12-F_281679.htm) | Optical drive | $42.20 | 1 | $42.20 |
Anti-vibration power supply gasket (http://www.directron.com/tnsypw.html) | Accessories | $2.99 | 1 | $2.99 |
5' of 0.5" black wire loom (http://www.directron.com/loomblack.html) | Accessories | $7.00 | 1 | $7.00 |
Black 4" cable ties (http://www.directron.com/colortie100bk.html) | Accessories | $4.99 | 1 | $4.99 |
Subtotal | $1,409.07 | |||
Shipping | $60.00 | |||
Total | $1,469.07 | |||
Rebates | $45 | |||
Total (after rebates) | $1,424.07 |
I don't quite get this timing deal. I've seen things like 4-4-4-12 and 4-4-4-15 and whatnot like that. It just doesn't make any sense to me, though. How does that affect the performance of the memory?I'm pretty much the same way. All I know is you want the first three numbers low and the last number high.
Done. I just couldn't turn it down after reading all the reviews.
Free with any Fans, Heatsinks (Case, CPU, Chipset) Purchase.Source: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16800999137
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Thank you for contacting Newegg. My name is Nell. How may I assist you today?
scottws: I placed order #(removed) on 2/23/07
scottws: Two of the items I ordered were eligible for rebates.
scottws: (the rebates on both products said valid from 2/1 to 2/28)
scottws: Well, when I went on your site today to print out the rebate forms, the dates have been changed on the forms for purchases made between 3/1 and 3/31
scottws: I would like links to both forms, please.
scottws: The product IDs are:
Nell: One moment please. I will check it for you.
scottws: N82E16820227169
scottws: and
scottws: N82E16814130082
scottws: I have a second issue I'd like to discuss after this one is taken care of.
Nell: Ok.
Nell: One minute please. Our server is slow.
Nell: Please click the link below to have the rebate form.
Nell: http://(link removed)
Nell: http://(link removed)
Nell: They are for the items you are referring to.
scottws: Thank you for the first, but I'm getting HTTP 404 on the 2nd.
scottws: ok working now
scottws: Thank you.
Nell: Is there anything else I can assist you with?
scottws: Yes. On the same order, I ordered a glossy Newegg logo. The item was priced at $4.99, but says the following in the product description:
scottws: "Free with any Fans, Heatsinks (Case, CPU, Chipset) Purchase. How Does it work: Buy any qualified item and add this Sticker to cart. Credit Given at Order Confirmation."
scottws: If you will notice on my order, I also purchased 3 fans and a heatsink (not to mention a CPU, case, motherboard, videocard, RAM, etc)
scottws: I do not believe I was credited the $4.99 at order confirmation.
Nell: We apologize. Our server is down at this time.
Nell: May I have your available email address so that I can email you the info?
Nell: Thank you for your understanding.
scottws: (link removed)
Nell: Thank you so much. I will email you the result once our system is available.
scottws: Ok.
scottws: Thank you Nell, you have been helpful.
Nell: It is my pleasure serving you.
Nell: Is there anything else I can assist you with?
scottws: No, thank you.
Ok, this is pissing me off. What is the secret to attaching a heatsink to the LGA775 socket? The clips keep popping out of the motherboard.
Nevermind, I got it. Holy shit I was sure I was going to break the motherboard's PCB.
As far as vid cards are concerned, will a 7600 GT play everything from the last few years well? I mean, I know there are better cards out there, but price is going to be an issue and I can upgrade to a DX10 card in a year or so if I need. For the time being I'd just like something to play games like F.E.A.R., Quake 4, Spore, and BioShock on.
Oh, BTW, I'm on the new system. This monitor is freaking awesome. Pictures to follow.
Ok, BIOS update didn't fix the uCode error. I'm not sure what that's all about.