The point of going AMD is for the motherboard.  I would splurge a bit more on a 990FX chipset mobo.  It may be 2~4 times more then the cost of your current mobo, but you will have more options with it.

There are very few applications for 16 GB of ram currently.

Makes investing in the Yuan even more worthwhile.  Once its delinked from the dollar its value will soar.  Also it explodes reducing the supply of Yuan.

The first 2 are good, the third is shit.  I would get the G73 just because its $400 cheaper.  It will have about the same performance as the G74.

Looks like the new AMD CEO has some brains.  He knows he is losing the desktop market and just left instead of continuing to hemmorage money in it like the last CEO.  However, the question is if AMD can get back into the desktop space.  Concentrating on more profitable sectors is all well and good, but the precursor to a good laptop cpu is a good desktop cpu.  If they don't look towards getting back into desktops it may leak into their other markets where they have a competitive product.

The guy that comes up with CPU names is definetly better then Intels.  Too bad their CPUs are not.  On the intel graphics, I would not put alot of hope in it.  The real power of the modern GPU is not about rendering, its calculating simple code quickly which happens to be used for rendering.  The problem with Intels implementation in those slides is its just rendering its not really targeting all the aspects needed for a fast dynamic rendering environment necessary for games.  Nvidia and AMD post much more superior demos on their rendering power during press releases, like 2 years ago nVidia released its realistically rendered human head in real time.

I really like the Saitek Keyboards.  The actual keypress is perfect for me.  I have used all 3 Saitek Eclipse keyboards.  In my opinion the first one is the best which is a mirror of the Cyborg v5.  So I think that would be a good pick.  The design is compact and does not come with anything unnecessary.  Overall the design is simple and effective.  The coloring is also good for a backlit board.  The problem with losing keys after some time is probably true.  On the Saitek Eclipse II, I lost being able to use ctrl after 2 years.  But in my line of work I press ctrl ALOT.

There are only a few soudcard makers now.  ASUS, Creative, and Vantec.  The audio chips are made by C-Media, Creative, and VIA.  ASUS bought C-Media in 2006, so other suppliers who used CMedia chips have not been getting updates and they don't work well with Windows 7 64.bit.  This severaly narrowed down the field of Sound Card makers.

I use somewhate expensive Behringer Speakers.  I stopped using Logitech mainly because of bad experiences with their speakers and software.

In my area, I noticed people are being called overweight despite being perfectly healthy.  The way its measured is either by weight alone of by a combination of weight and height.  However, Muscle accounts for 4 times the weight as an equal volume of fat.  This can give an unrealistic number for areas that stress healthy living.  After all people who live healthy also gain muscle more then the average person.  Its quite common to be 6 foot, 200 lbs and have less then 10% body fat.  Yet this would be consituted as overweight or obese.

Metrics using more accurate methods for determining fat problems are just starting out so we don't have a clear picture on if the problem is too much fat or too much work.

Might be my first nVidia in a while if its true.  An effecient card with some smart cores is just what my system needs.  The 7970 seems a little bloated to me.

BTW most Belkin is shit grade stuff.  Only good Belkin product I have ever seen is the N52. 

Originally posted by Ridelynn

 

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Originally posted by Cleffy
First is that the only games that are CPU limited will benefit from the extra cores.  You need to be running at 2 GHz or less to be CPU limited by single/dual thread games. 

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I disagree with both of these statements. In fact, I pretty well challenge your entire post.

By and large, games which are CPU limited will not benefit from extra cores. Today, games which are CPU-limited are largely single-threaded, and at best are dual threaded. EQ2, Vanguard, Champions Online, RTS games, etc.

These same titles will be CPU limited at 2G, or 4Ghz, or likely 10Ghz. It's just due to the nature of their programming. The older titles are just poorly optimized, and inefficiently leverage the technologies available in CPUs. RTS by their nature get CPU bound as hundreds upon thousands of units are introduced into the game over time, and AI and graphics engines calls accumulate over the course of the game.

I can only think of 1 game that will go past 2 cores well, and that's Supreme Commander

This article is a bit older, but sums it up well with several popular games

http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/11

So to all of that, while I think AMD makes a fine processor, right now individual core speed trumps more cores. The magic core count today is still 3, anything past that is largely useless. It has been going up though, at a rate of about 1 core every 3 years, and there is little reason to buy anything less than a quad core CPU unless your extremely budget constrained. So 6 and 8 core CPUs likely won't be leveraged in gaming for many, many years yet, as we still aren't leveraging quad core CPUs.

PhysX (and other physics packages) can spread across many cores. It typically doesn't. In fact, the only multi-core implementation of PhysX I could find was in Vantage benchmarking Suite. Most every video game that uses PhysX does so with a single thread. Developers have to specifically use PhysX (and other gaming engines) with multiple threads, they don't do it natively on their own (at least as of yet).

To continue clearing up the air, Bulldozer is x86, it's also x64, and it's also SSE. In fact, it's listed as SSE4.1, SSE4.2 and SSE4a (which contain additional AMD-only instructions).

I'd be interested to see the list of games which require many more cores, and as a result run better on an FX8150 than a i5 2500, as I've been waiting for them for a very long time.

 If a old single threaded game is limiting a modern 2ghz processor, then the game is a failure pure and simple.  That scenario is quite outlandish.  The thing you have to remember is older title.  Most developers are not stupid enough to make a game that the majority of the market cannot play.  This means if they are using only 1 or 2 threads, the optimize it to work on 2ghz processors.  Most games have not been CPU limited since Pentium IV.  The bottleneck is typically the GPU.

Games that require an actual CPU are Strategy, and MMORPG.  MMORPG less so in recent years.  Strategy games use multiple cores.  Total war scales unevenly to 4 cores.  These games scale to 6 cores:

• Arcania - Gothic 4
• Civ 5
• Dead Rising 2
• Dragon Age
• F1 2010
• Lost Planet 2
• Ruse
• Medal of Honor

In my system a fan controller is necessary.  I use 2 high cfm fans on the bottom pulling air in.  I have a fan at the top and back pushing air out, and 1 in the front pulling air in.  I think I should turn the one in the front around.  The reason it needs a fan controller is because the fans on the bottom of my case can exceed 50 dB at full speed.  One of them also died on me and I don't feel like pulling it out so I reduced the RPM to 0.

I use and NZXT with display fan controller.  Its looks nice but is poorly built.  It beeps for no reason, the temperature sensors have a difficult time holding onto my case, it limits the RPM I can pull off my fans, and the display sometimes loses power.  I wish I got a plain one with analog dials.

I would go with the Bulldozer for 2 reasons.  First is that the only games that are CPU limited will benefit from the extra cores.  You need to be running at 2 GHz or less to be CPU limited by single/dual thread games.  Second is software based physics.  PhysX for instance can scale to 12 cores and uses a high amount of floating point operations.  This is what Bulldozer excels at.  Executing a large amount of floating point operations.  Only real problem is its x86 instead of SSE.

When you are looking at strictly games, I don't really see a place for the Intel 2500K.  Games either barely touch the processor, or need many cores.  Right now I think AMD has it in low end laptops, gaming, 3D rendering, and some servers.  Intel has it in everything else.

On my Windows Phone 7, I use these apps alot.

1. Mileage Log- It tracks my MPG usage.

2. Bridge Connector- Its a game where you make bridges that can hold a train.

3. Dragons Blade DX- It plays like classic RPGs on the SNES.

Yup anyone can attend because anyone can be a Game Developer.  However, the cheapest pass is $195 and its held in San Francisco in an area full of bums.  Also its not E3, its geared towards game developers.  On the Exhibition floor they are not showing games.  They are showing game engines, PC hardware, and production tools.

SOPA is not actually needed to shut down sites like the Pirate Bay or Mega Upload.  Its possible to shut them down through the court system if they are clearly spreading illegal copies of IP.  SOPA doesn't actually add much to the table to protect IPs.  What it does is allow access for the federal government to censor the internet.  It also allows larger companies to use its power as a means to control messages about their companies.  For instance a car review site might be shut down for giving a bad review on a Chrysler.  It can also be used for anti-competition practices.

Avoid Monster and Philips HDMI cables like the plague.  Their contact area is insufficient and they end up losing contact with the input result in a flashing screen.  Other then that HDMI is a standard for cables.  All HDMI cables must meet those standards.  HDMI 2.0 might be different.

You can run Mac OSX on a PC.  In the days when you can download OSX off bit-torrent, all you had to do is use a program similar to Bootcamp.

Without a Balmer sweaty armpit keynote who cares?  lol j/k.

3GB is unusable right now with the obedience to 32-bit gaming.  So the memory is not as mucha  factor as the calculation.  However, the 7970 also calculates faster.