The Computer Thread

About RAM - I'm planning on getting 2 4GB sticks for a total of 8GB. Is that enough, or should I aim for 12 or 16GB total?

Oh, I read that as 2 sticks totalling 4 gigs, 8 gigs is enough.

@ Ninety : Yup, even got her VA, leading to IMHO the best sounding personal assistant... although as an android owner, it is not hard to sound better then googles.

^^ More is always better, but 8 is a pretty good starting point. Four just barely cuts it for anything more than an overglorified word processor or a retro games system.

Regarding Cortana: Yeah, Product Placement of a sort, but it marginally makes a little more sense, when the opposition is some name that as far as most who aren't Apple fanboys know is some random name pulled out of a hat, or Google's treating people like idiots and reminding them "yes, this is our service" with the name.

edited 28th Sep '14 9:05:44 PM by Nohbody

I remember when back when I felt like I had a super computer after installing an additional 128mb or ram into my PC for a whole 256mb.

Are there maybe a few substitutions that could bring it up to more than barely adequate without adding much more than $100? Sorry for all the questions, this is my first time doing this.

Hmm, if you could choose the voice for your computer personal assistant app/service/whatever, who would you choose?

I think I'd go for Jennifer Hale. Or BRIAN BLESSED!!!!!. Depends on my mood that day.

Also, is there a deadline to get Win8 if you want the Win9 upgrade? My desktop PC seems due for a replacement (I'm getting mysterious "out of memory" messages that I can't pin down the cause of, and it is ultimately running off of a 7 year old motherboard loaded up to the gills with 8GB of RAM), and any such deadline would dictate whether I wait or not to go through with replacing it.

edited 28th Sep '14 10:32:43 PM by AFP

Alan Rickman

Ooh, nice choice.

Madobe Nanami already provides the voice for most typical Windows sounds for me.

You too?

For my computer voice, were I to bother with sounds? Douglas Rain

At times, "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." seems all too appropriate...

(At one point, though, I did have "Shall we play a game?" as my system startup sound.)

edited 29th Sep '14 12:04:57 AM by Nohbody

I would go with Matt Smith, because his is possibly the most comforting voice in the universe.

Hmm, I feel like saying Peter Jessop as Sovereign, but that might get old.

Maybe Michael Caine or Peter Dinklage.

edited 29th Sep '14 6:07:57 AM by QuestionMarc

Bit of a hardware rec question.

Currently I have an nVidia 610GT (1GB) in my system. Going by the 3DMark benchmarking I did just a bit ago, it's probably the biggest bottleneck for performance, as all but the Ice Attack dumped into single digit FPS values for the most part.

Limiting it to nVidia cards (yeah, yeah... "ignorant fanboi" ), and keeping in mind my budget tops out at US$100, how high can I go?

Current system other hardware: AMD FX-6300, 8GB (2x4GB), Windows 7 64-bit, on-board sound, and 700W PSU.

This guide from Tom's Hardware ranks all of the video card models out there in performance tiers. Oddly, I don't see the GT 610 on there. Here's another one that does list it, way down in Tier L.

You may enjoy knowing that you rank quite a bit over my current card, a Radeon HD 5450.

Basically, pick anything on that list that's in a higher tier and look up pricing on Amazon or Newegg. If it's $100 or under, you're good to go. For the sake of compatibility, I recommend picking another nVidia card.

Edit: I did some checking and you move up quite a few tiers with a GT 740. Here's a link to a Newegg search that's within your parameters. Make sure to check the reviews — if more than a few people had crashing or other problems with the card, you may want to rethink your purchase, or make sure to keep all the product packaging in case you need to RMA it.

edited 29th Sep '14 7:30:37 AM by Fighteer

I saw the Tom's Hardware list, and noted the 610 absence, which is why I asked here.

Thanks.

Smarter video games, thanks to crowdsourcing

Horay, now the computer too can learn the proper spam tactics that kill strategy games. :/

There is a reason I actually like fighting co-op against 6 or so bots more then an actual person, the computer some how manages to use more varied strategies.

Where as a human is "Lo L I spam tanks"

Follow-up: Right now I'm deciding between these cards, refurbished GTX 650s.

And while I'm here, another video card question: Is there any significant difference between performance of PCIe 2.0 and 3.0?

More of a curiosity question, really, as my motherboard only does 2.0, and I'm not going to pay for a new mobo (and CPU to go on it, since neither was particularly "hot shit" when I bought them last year).

edited 29th Sep '14 8:48:23 PM by Nohbody

The answer to your question is yes: there is a difference. The PCI Express bus version tells you the maximum throughput of the "pipe" in your system — how fast the motherboard can transfer data to/from the card. Putting a 3.0 card in a 2.0 or 2.1 bus will still give you the benefit of the faster GPU, etc., but won't let you run the card at 100% of its capabilities. The precise degree to which it slows the card is not something I can say with certainty.

In other words, it will be faster, but not as much faster.

edited 29th Sep '14 8:46:13 PM by Fighteer

So the new version of Windows has been unveiled... and it's called Windows 10.

Slightly odd choice, really.

Yeah, I heard that mentioned on Reddit as well. Is there some good reason for it? Or is Microsoft just trying to pull the silliest marketing gimmick of all time?

Supposedly, Windows 10 is supposed to be a big upgrade compared to 8.

I can only guess there was a Windows 9 that didn't work out.

Windows 8.1?

Honestly, this is how I feel about windows naming policy right now.