Never believe numbers

Ok, i have always seen people claiming a processor was better than other one because its frequency was higher or because it had a greater cache. It tends to happen with video cards even more, we tend to think a video card having 512MB should be better than one having 320MB, and that is more likely to be false. Whenever you want to compare things (processors, memory, hard drives, video cards, whatever) don't do it the classic way, you have to see what's the actual performance. Comparing processors point to point is something really unuseful, it may lead to confusion. For example, you have a Dual Core and a Core 2 Duo. The dual Core has a frequency of 3.4Ghz and 4MB cache. The Core 2 Duo has a frequency of 2.0Ghz and a cache of 2MB. Then, which is better?? You would say the Dual Core, but if so, you are wrong. It's the Core 2 Duo. And you say "Why??". The frequency just tells you at which speed the processor works, it's like saying german people say more things in less time because they pronounce more letters per second, but then you can say "Well, that's true, but words are much longer". The same thing happens with computers. A processor might work at very high speeds but it might take more clocks to process something. That's why AMD processors have the same performance at lower frequencies, because they are designed differently and can do tasks with lower frequencies. Instead, Intel supports the idea of high clocking multipliers, requiring processors to work at much higher frequencies in order to achieve the same performance. Something like that happens with video cards. So be aware.

16MB HDD Buffer: Higher Performance??

Well, you might not believe it, but there is no difference in performance between a HDD having 8MB buffer and one having 16MB. It has been tested and there is a difference, but the difference is less than 1% so paying more for something that doesn't really make any changes doesn't look very good. These are things you should take into account if you're thinking of building your own gaming computer. And don't make the same mistake as I, you won't get a nicer performance with a SATA II HDD than with an IDE. You will not detect it, there is, but it is very small. What happens??? The Sata connectors allow for heavier data traffic to go through the wires than IDE, but hard drives are not as fast as to need such powerful wires. The performance is seen when connecting multiple HDD, in that case you will see an incredible data transfer rate between both hdd. You will take advantage of the SATA II connectors.

Battle for performance

You probably have seen the battle for performance both Intel and AMD fought. Right now, Intel has the best processors. None of AMD's Athlon could now beat an Intel's Core 2 Extreme. It has been announced AMD would be releasing the new "Phenom" processors, which, if released, would probably beat any Core 2 Extreme on the market nowadays. With a frequency of 3,0Ghz and four cores working on a single socket, the AMD phenom is a monster when it comes to heavy multithreaded applications and gaming. But it has not been released yet, so if you are looking for performance Intel is the best option now. However, it is not so easy to decide. Having a Quad Core Processor doesn't mean you will get a nicer performance than a Dual Core. It has been tested. A Core 2 Duo working at full overclocking against a Quad Core working at full overclocking (Both were Intel based computers) and the results showed they were more or less the same. So you should think about it before rushing to the hardware shop or you will regret it. Of course, if you're thinking of gaming with your new computer for long, go get a Quad Core, games will need performance in multithreaded applications soon.

What's going on with video cards???

Right now, nVidia is leading the market. Since ATI was bought by AMD it is not doing very well... nVidia's Geforce 8800 ultra leads the charts while ATI's Radeon HD 2900 XT is far from being first. But more performance means higher price, and that's what happens with those video cards, nVidia's best card is about 1,7 times more expensive than ATI's and the performance is about 15% more. However, it has been tested and ATI gets a nicer performance when working with multi gpu, so when choosing between SLI or Crossfire, i'd go for Crossfire, the problem is when a motherboard has been designed for SLI only.

Gaming Computers

Siempre las gaming computers valieron mucha plata, pero hoy, te podes armar tu propia gaming computer sin gastar "tanta" plata. Esta es una configuracion que recomiendo:

M2N4-SLI Athlon 64 X2 PCX DDR-2 S-AM2 $112
Amd Athlon 64 X2 6000+ $215
2x1GB DDR2 800Mhz $110
8800GTS OC 320MB $415
160GB SATA II SAMSUNG $63

Con impuestos son $1,100. Pero con esta computadora, vas a poder hacer sli. Sólo con esa tarjeta de video te va a correr cualquier juego en cualquier configuracion de gráficos. Está dentro de las cinco mejores del mundo, y cuando tengas plata para una nueva tarjeta de video, vas a poder hacer sli. Además con las dos memorias de 1GB podes hacer dual channel, y con 800Mhz vuela. Despues te conseguis otras dos memorias y te haces otro dual channel. Del micro no hay discusión, es un sale. Vas a poder jugar a cualquier juego con cualquier configuración, ademas el procesador es un animal para el multithreading, así que vas a tener pelotudo rendimiento. Los 160Gb te van a dar y sobrar seguro. Esta maquina es todo lo que precisas y vas a jugar al cod2 con 999fps y el Cod4 es boleta con esa maquina, inclusive usando Vista

Tranza.Com

Es una buena pagina para averiguar precios por internet de computadoras con precios buenos en Uruguay. Click