New PC Advice - Not sure where to start.

[FR4NOx]

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  The Piledriver core has been proven to be at least 15% faster than Bulldozer, as Piledriver is currently available in the new APUs, so proper comparisons can already be made.

Really? I'll have to check those out then.

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  AMD Bulldozer/Piledriver pros:
AMD currently excels at multitasking. It usually wins multithreaded multimedia benchmarks (including compression, video encoding etc) even against more expensive Intels. It's also has better IO throughput. It's not usually so good in the gaming type benchmarks, which is what most people shout about.
Bang/buck Bulldozer currently wins on the whole.
AMD motherboard chipsets usually have much better specifications than Intels and are often cheaper at a similar spec.
Also being able to throw 8 cores at your VMs can only be a good thing

Yes, I have heard that they are "multitasking beasts", and I do agree with being able to use more cores for my VMs.

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  The hyperthreaded Intels typically do better on the single-threaded/unoptimised stuff. Games often fall into that category, but as ever it depends on the game.

Yes, I've read that Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge pack a lot of single-threaded power.

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  If you get an Intel, get an Ivybridge. They're more power efficient and very slightly faster than Sandybridge and are typically around the same price.

Yes, but I've heard that Ivy runs a lot hotter. I'm not sure if it's true, but I wouldn't be surprised considering it's a die shrink. Intel's next line of processors should be significantly better than Sandy and Ivy because of Intel's tick-tock upgrade routine.

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  If you go AMD it is probably worth waiting for Piledriver (possibly depending on price when it's released).

If it's priced appropriately when it's released then I'll probably be a buyer.

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  Radeon v nVidia
Last time I checked, nVidias typically use more power and therefore generate more heat.
nVidia have had design issues with some chips which have resulted in very high failure rates. The problems I've heard about Radeons tend to be more random and often down to poor cooler or component choice by the OEMs. However there are a number of OEMs for Radeons, some being better than others notably Asus, Gigabyte and XFX.

Yes, I heard about the 8400M GS (or whatever it was) in the Dell M1330 having an extremely high failure rate, luckily my mom bought the Intel version of that laptop, which died anyway. So far I like XFX mostly because I've had a good experience and my GT 240 has a double lifetime warranty from them, which I assume would be with their new Radeon lineup.

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  In your case, it may depend on what is supported by your video editing software. I've heard Vegas 11 Pro doesn't yet support GPGPU acceleration with the latest nVidias, but that may well change. I dunno about the others.

Currently I'm using WLMM (eww) until I can acquire better software. What's GPGPU?

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  RAM - you're probably alright with 8GB for now. If it becomes a problem, you can always get an extra 4 or 8 in the future - just make sure you get a motherboard with 4 slots.

Well, I already run out of memory with 6GB, I'm not sure if 8GB would be sufficient.

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  I'm interested to know how it can take so long to move files on a harddrive, unless it's moving to another drive/partition. Moving on the same drive doesn't involve reading/writing the files themselves, only metadata.
Either way, a large (1TB+) 7200 RPM drive will be much faster (120+MB/s sequential) than your laptop drive. A 120GB+ SSD for system will still be worth it if you can afford it.

I used to use Bandicam to record LFS, but the file size was no different than with FRAPS. So when my C: drive partition gets full, I wait 20 years for a couple hundred GB of video to mosey its way to my other partition. I now use Game Booster to record, and I get way smaller video files (from 30GB per video to 500MB, both about 30min long), so I wouldn't be file shuffling as often.

This is a Newegg wishlist I made a few days ago...still incomplete. (Click to View)

I did put 16GB of ram into there but I think I would rather go with 12GB (3x4GB) and I was going with the 8120 instead for $25 less, and I still need to add a hard drive and graphics card. For a graphics card, any specific recommendations?