Computer tech

(not seeing a thread about this, so feel free to use this thread for all your computer tech discussions and not just for answering my questions)

As this is the only forum I regularly visit and I have little-to-no idea what the current technology is like, I have a question for the collective:

What should I do to change my basic, couple-year old desktop into a machine that can reasonably play most games? More specifically, what graphics card should I be at if I want a good balance of quality and price? I don't care about running games at their max setting so much as being able to play them at reasonable speeds.

My current computer is a plain, out-of-the-box Gateway with Windows 7, four AMD Phenom II 805 processors, ATI Radeon HD 3200, and 8GB RAM. (Don't think I left anything importaint out of there...)

I'm upgrading it now because I have some money (exact amount to be determined—I have other, more important things I should be saving up for) and want to play Guild Wars 2 when it comes out (if I have the time). Going by this article, a Radeon HD 6770 should be plenty for my needs, but I want a second opinion.

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A secondary question:

What do you really get by buying the Radeon HD 6990 or Ge Force GTX 590 mentioned in the article? $700 seems a bit expensive for incremental improvements over the previous graphics cards.

Yu hav nat sein bod speeling unntil know. (cacke four undersandig tis)the cake is a lie!

It is mostly a piece of mind thing getting a card like the 6990. You will be able to run any game out on highest setting for at least 2 or 3 yrs. no worries. I have that card and thats how i look at it. But I am a hardcore gamer and DO like my games on highest settings.

Devypu's~ Big Pony :3

I would like to have the time to be a "hardcore gamer" but the trade-off of getting some money coming in is that I don't have the time. Also, while graphics are important to me, I still buy and play PS 2 games. Story and game-play are MUCH more important.

Anyway... I start looking up online prices for the 6770 and find out that there are a number of versions of that one card. Now, I have a basic understanding of what the components of a computer are, but I have NO idea what the differences between those cards are or if the differences even matter. It looks like the Gigabyte Technology one is the best deal.

Yu hav nat sein bod speeling unntil know. (cacke four undersandig tis)the cake is a lie!

So, I'm discovering the joys of retro computing. Well, sort of. I have a Dell Inspiron 4100, which is over a decade old. Still works, although I need another 512MB stick of SODIMM RAM for it, one of the existing sticks leads to repeated BSOD crashes (probably ESD damaged) so I have a weak-sauce 64MB stick in it's place. I price-checked a 512 stick (it won't recognize 1GB sticks) and they run over forty bucks a pop...

As a result, I get into having to use Virtual RAM a lot. One G Hz Pentium III processor, 32MB of dedicated video RAM, those goofy swappable disk drives (meaning, I have a machine old enough to read 3.25-inch disks once again) and a whopping 20GB's of IDE hard drive.

The CMOS battery is dead, and the main battery barely holds a charge even when the machine is powered off, so it has to be running off of 115VAC to stay alive.

Runs a stripped-down version of XP (might tinker with Linux in the near future).

Physically, the right-side hinge is siezed up and snapped itself off, so it's delicate - too much movement and the siezed hinge pops out of the case and the screen flops around on the one working hinge. I figure it's only a matter of time before that breaks, and it's hanging by the cables. I might be able to epoxy the right hinge into place; previous owner (who GAVE me the thing) used rubber cement, which didn't work for anything.

So, why do I have this thing? It works, it was free, and I'm a packrat for tech stuff.

edited 15th Mar '12 12:38:53 PM by pvtnum11

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

Somewhere back at my parents', I still have an old 286 which I assembled from spare parts. Runs an old version of MS-DOS — I suppose I might be able to install Minix on it, if I ever wanted to, but mostly I'm keeping it around because sooner or later it will become an antique object (one of the museums of my hometown was overjoyed when my grandma donated them a punch card computer, the first one that her small accounting business ever got)

edited 15th Mar '12 2:46:16 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

So the thread is becomming an "interesting stories about old computers and the parts they have" thread.

I'm cool with that

I can belive that. Acutally, I'm more surprised that her accounting firm even bothered with getting a punch-card computer in the first place. I have a BSA (Bachelor of Science in Accounting) and one of my primary teachers talked about updating the books for a company by hand. Yes, the ENTIRE set of books. The depreciation, the balances for all the accounts, the consolidations, the... And then doing it all again for the tax return books. And he is no where near "grandparent" age.

<end memory/tangent>

PS: Anyone have advice on what the differences are between the 6770 cards?

Yu hav nat sein bod speeling unntil know. (cacke four undersandig tis)the cake is a lie!

I'd like one of the later-model nVidia ones for my planned desktop build, but not bleeding edge - got a budget of a thousand bucks to build it.

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.