A Bit Humbling, Actually...
 

Having a working wife in a job she loves with reasonably good compensation has helped to take me from delivering pizzas to make ends meet a bit less than a year ago to having gotten a new computer yesterday...

Model: HP m7167c-b
Intel® Pentium® D Processor 820 with 2 Processing Cores
2.8GHz
1GB PC2-3200 DDR2 SDRAM
300GB 7200RPM Serial ATA hard drive
DVD-ROM drive 16x max. speed
19" LCD flat panel monitor w/integrated speakers
TV Tuner (NTSC) with Personal video recorder and FM tuner (antenna included)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005

Processor and Memory: Intel® Pentium® D Processor 820 with 2 processing cores Processor Speed 2.8GHz L2 Cache: x 1MB 800MHZ Front-Side Bus
1GB PC2-3200 DDR2 SDRAM memory (2x512MB for ultimate performance --expandable to 4GB)
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with up to 224MB shared video memory

Hard Drive: 300GB 7200RPM Serial ATA hard drive
DVD-ROM drive 16x max. speed
LightScribe Double Layer 16X DVD±R/RW drive with CD writer capabilities: 16x DVD+R, 8x DVD-R, 4x DVD±RW, 2.4x DVD+R DL, 16x DVD-ROM, 40x CDR, 24x CDRW, 40x CD-ROM

Audio, Video, and Graphics: Intel® High Definition Audio with up to 7.1 surround sound capabilities
TV Tuner (NTSC) with personal video recorder and FM tuner (antenna included)
HP Media Center remote control with IR (infrared) receiver

Data, Fax, and Modem: Integrated 10/100Base-T network interface
56K fax modem

Ports: Front panel 9-in-1 memory card reader – supports Smart Media, xD, MultiMedia Card, Secure Digital (SD), Compact Flash I, Compact Flash II, Micro Drive, Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro
HP Personal Media Drive Bay (available)
6 USB 2.0 ports (2 front, 4 back)
2 FireWire (IEEE 1394) ports (1 front, 1 back)
1 parallel, 2 PS/2 ports (back)
Microphone/headphone/line-in (front)
Composite Video, S-Video, and Audio Inputs (front)
Keyboard, Mouse and Monitor:
HP wireless optical mouse and wireless keyboard with extended range (up to 16')
HP vs19 19" LCD flat panel monitor with integrated speakers
Remote Control
IR receiver
TV tuner w/video recorder, FM tuner w/antenna

Now...what are the killer apps for such a machine? And what are the must-have games this year? I've been running on a dogass five year old PIII for so long that I haven't paid much attention to new stuff because I couldn't run most of it.

Halflife 2 is good. It's best and easiest to buy it online, since you have to register for Steam anyway, and online you have the option to get extra stuff, should you want to.

DOOM 3 is pretty, but sorta repetitive.

I'd recommend Tetris. Frogger is nice too. Perhaps Q*Bert, but only if you've had a recent physical and your life insurance is paid up.


But seriously, I don't know anything about games. But knowing your other interests you might check these out. They're not perfect due to bleed-through of high-contrast images, but it's still cool. (You'll need to check graphics compatibility. Nvidia has the best support for these things, but I'm fairy sure it's possible to use them with others.)

For a quick check on what's good, I like this site.

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

Google Earth, if you like geography, maps, etc.

The Intel graphics adapter will probably keep you from playing the high-end games graphic wise.

It's crap.

Sorry

A few examples:

Everquest II
* nVidia
o GeForce3 Series
o GeForce4 Series*
o Quadro4 700/750/900
o Quadro FX Series
o GeForce FX Series
o GeForce PCX Series
o GeForce 6xxx Series
o GeForce 7xxx Series
+ Win2k/XP Driver location and version - 77.72
+ Win98/ME Driver location and version – 77.72
* ATi
o Radeon 8500 Series
o Radeon 9xxx Series
o Radeon x300/x600/x700/x800
+ Win2k/XP Driver location and version –6.14.10.6553
+ Win98/ME Driver location and version –4.14.01.9150
* S3
o DeltaChrome S4/S8/F1 – Win2k/XP Driver location and version - 6.14.10.1996
* XGI
o Volari Series
+ Win2k/XP Driver version 1.09.52 WHQL
+ Win98/ME Driver version 1.09.52 WHQL

Star Wars Galaxies
ATI Radeon 7200/7500
ATI Radeon 8500 Series*
ATI Radeon 9xxx/x300/x600/x700/x800*
Matrox Parhelia**
GeForce 2/3/4/FX/6/7xxx Series*

Eve Online
The following graphic cards are not supported by EVE:
ATI Radeon VE
ATI Radeon U1
ATI Radeon 7000
Diamond Viper II Z200
Hercules 3D Prophet 4500
Intel Extreme Graphics
Onboard Intel chips, such as the Intel740, the Express 3D Graphics Card, and the 82830M/82815/82810/82845G/82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics Controllers
Voodoo 3 3000
Voodoo 5 5500
Voodoo4 4500
Riva TNT/TNT2
Matrox Millenium - G400 & G450
S3 Graphics ProSavageDDR
SiS® 650/740 Graphics Controller

I have a geforce ti4200 that someone could buy from me cheap if they wanted to play those kinds of things.

Grand Theft Auto: Pizza Delivery Holdup edition

1) How much?
2) How do I run dual adaptors so that I can use all of the groovy multimedia stuff this machine does?

Most (all?) motherboards only have one AGP slot, so you can only have one AGP card at a time. The other video card has to be pci. And there's some other setup issues. Google will tell you more.

In the immortal words of xoB:I agree with TS that the embedded video is the weak link in the system.

I run a geforce 4 ti4400 128mb. I did have a kick ass Radeon but it died a month out of warranty about a month ago.

The gf4 ti4400 gets crushed by most newish games like Doom 3, HL 2, Panzers. I mean...it will play them but it will only limp. It also won't run Battlefield 2, period.

Not to turn this into a bigger adapter contest but...

http://exit3.i-55.com/~suit/P450-6800-d.JPG

GPU/VPU
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT

RAMDAC
Dual 400 MHz

Fill Rate per Second
5.6 Billion pixels

Vertices per Second
525 Million

Maximum Resolution
2048 x 1536 @ 85Hz

Video Memory
256MB

Memory Type
DDR3

Core Clock
350 MHz

Memory Data Rate
1000 MHz

Memory Bandwidth
32GB/sec.

Interface Type
PCI Express

Connector(s)
Dual DVI
TV/S-Video

$20 gets that ti4200 which is not powerful enough to run the most recent games. I guess if you have to dough the best way would be to go to newegg.com, and do a search under video cards and just put in a minimum $100.

Enter the college student:
Doom III: looks very nice, way fun to play with surround sound in the dark and a nice big moniter (like my 19" flat screen)
Half Life 2: must have, plus CS Source
Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers: looks like a great sequel to the first
Quake 4: looks very promising
Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War: Winter Assault: for you RTS folks out there like myself (i'm still hooked on C&C: Tiberian sun and Total Annihilation)

gamespy.com is best choice for your gaming needs
or ign.com

I think I have to change my panties.

I'm guessing that card costs about half of what I paid for my entire system.

It's not that bad, I only paid $300 for it.

The trick is to buy a second one down the road for some SLI goodness.

It's funny you brought this up. I'm planning my next machine and I'm getting 2 of the BFG GeForce 7800 GTX PCI Express (256MB) cards, already overclocked to use in SLi mode on the Abit Fatal1ty AN8-SLI motherboard. I'm going to use a AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 (San Diego Core) or an FX-57 if the price drops. Then I'm going to use 4 GB of Dual Channel PC400 RAM, For storage, I'm going with a pair of Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Buffer Drives.

I'm still deciding on which case and other parts I'm going to use. I'm thinking about the CM Stacker 830. As far as the DVD/CD burners go, I'll most likely use Lite-On because in my experience, they almost never go bad, they've got the buffer underrun protection on them, and they are very quick.

This system won't be cheap, but I won't need to upgrade for awhile. The video cards alone are going to cost me $1000. When it's all said and done, it's going to cost me over $3k, especially when you add in the 24" widescreen flat panel monitor and a legal copy of WinXP64.

This thing is going to rock, and it will last because everything is expandable, and even the case can switch to the BTX motherboard.

Notepad is positively going to SMOKE on that system!

OMG!!! I hadn't even thought of that. Here I was thinking about Doom3, World of WarCraft, Video Editing, being an MP3 server, etc. but didn't even consider notepad!!! Man, I bet I can play solitaire faster than anyone else on earth!

You were only going to watch porn and you know it.

How's the wife?

I think you'll find the reviews lean more towards the FX-57 because the 55 seems a bit anemic in comparison to the 57 or many of the dual-core processors,t he dual-core processors seem to be a good choice as well unless you are focusing on gaming. Multimedia applications seem to favor the dual-core.

Also, WinXP64 is said to have some driver availability issues. The only current advantage to it is the ability to address 64 bit applications down the road and access to over 4 GB of RAM, until games are 64 bit it's best to stick with 'vanilla' XP.

I finally got the cable hooked up to the new machine yesterday. High gee-whiz factor, here. I can use the 'puter as a DVR, and watch tv in an inset on my computer if I wish.

I haven't delved into the docs yet, but I'm wondering if I will be able to burn off what I record onto DVD. Does anyone know if this is possible, or is MS's commitment to preserving copyright going to prevent this?

Are you asking "How do you save Windows Media Player streaming content?"?

I'm mainly interested in WinXP64 because it's designed to take advantage of the AMD 64 bit processor instruction set. This alone will provide a significant performance increase, especially when it comes to high end graphics software. I also anticipate many new programs to be developed with the 64 bit/multi-core processors in mind.

I was considering going with the FX-57 or going multi-core too (the motherboard can do both), but right now it's $200 more for 200 Mhz. I'm not convinced it's worth it.

Nah...I've got stuff to do that. What I'm wondering is how I can burn to DVD things which I've recorded onto my hard drive with Windows Media Center from the cable tv attachment.

Go to Tom's Hardware and read the article about the current releases of x64.

You might be surprised.

Interesting article. The performance is pretty much identical when it comes to 32 bit aps. I hadn't really considered the fact that the new OS will have to TWUNK with a new version of WOW. Because a translation is necessary, I can actually envision cases where Win2k64 would be slower. It's like trying to run Windows software on a Mac or Linux box. You'll take a performance hit because before something can be run, it will have to go through a translation process.

I think I was right about a performance increase, but you were right in that it wouldn't matter with 32-bit apps. It won't be worth the expense until we have more 64-bit apps. But if I install it now, when those apps come out, I'll already be ready.

The price is the same for either version of XP so right now it's a toss up. Do I want to get pretty much the exact same performance but have less choice in drivers? Or do I want to forgo the drivers in favor of being ready to take advantage of the forthcoming 64-bit apps?

Tom's Hardware seems to share the same opinion as the other articles I've read at Ars Technica, HardOCP, and AnandTech.

I'm just going to continue with x86 until more apps (and games) have been ported to x64.

Games:

MMORPG:

Horizons -- visually stunning, awesome ambient music. excellent (ie the best I've encountered in a game)crafting system and nice server - specific storyline aspects (plague, releasing new races etc) combat rather boring, as it only has 5 diff types of mobs. No zoning (other than teleports, which are not necessary, but timesaving.

Dark Age of Camelot -- an oldie but a goodie. With the latest expansion, the graphics have been OMG upgraded, an all new end game Champion level system, player controlled mounts, more housing, new races/classes and more robust economy. This game (out of all I've played) has the best high end content (if you include the ToA and DR expansions).

EQ - don't waste your time

EQII - gets real old, real quick. Not alot of high end content, and the debt system positively sucks. One good feature is the NPCs talk. That's pretty cool. But that's about it.

City of Heroes - Not fantasy. 5 different mobs to kill, but with the new City of Villans expansion, it MAY be a whole new ballgame. I doubt it tho. Nice if you like that genre. The fly power is cool, tho. And they do special events for the holidays, like last year they had a "trick or treat weekend" where you would knock on random doors in the City, and you would get an enhancement (like a buff) or a few special mobs (witches, zombies, ghosts) would pop out. Then there were regular pops of "pumpkinhead", a BIG high level mob that it would take 5 or 6 people to bring down. THAT was the funnest part of the game.

WoW - my hands down favorite. Robust questing system, easy to figure out, not so much easy to master, talent system, and Normal AND RP AND PvP servers, depending on your taste. Graphics are more "cartoony" than the others, but you overcome that pretty quickly. They have made it less laggy in the capital cities (a munch needed imporvement) and the best part: user created Add-Ons that are not only legal to use, but encouraged! It's a whole lot of "makes life easier". The new battlegrounds (Arathi) still have major problems (IE, can't get in them after 8 hours of being in queue), but the new patch is said to have corrected that. They are coming out with expansions and new content 1 or 2nd Quarter next year.

I was involuntarily sent from WoW to DAoC by my Husband and his best friend (Hawkwind, I've mentioned him before) last week, so I'll be on that (again) until they get bored and go back to WoW. The good news is that I have a bunch of money on a 47 (out of 50) toon there, and DAoC has a "free level" system, so I'm gonna take advantage of that! Champion levels here I come!

Now if only I didn't have to work......