Vista public BETA released

[WMD]

I have yet to have anything from Newegg fail on me.  This includes the ~$800 computer I put together two years ago.  You seem to be misguided.

[Lead Head]

Saphire ... never heard of it. Anyway, you forgot Vi$ta ($450) bringing it to $1053. Besides, I was going for reliability not cheapness ... got my prices from froogle, not the cheapest, but something more reliable. As in the hardware won't break soon after you buy it as has happened to me several times when buying cheap ... now I only buy things that are not as cheap, but more reliable.

Erm...Saphire is signle handedly ATI's biggest and most reliable manufacturer, look around. Antec power supplies are amongst the highest rated, OCZ is known around the globe as pretty much the ultimate ram manufacturer, Wester Digital is reliable Athlon 64 3500s are awsome CPUs, MSI makes kickass mobos and BenQ is nearly the largest maker of DVD drives. Even google everything...

[toadlife]

I don't have 512 MB RAM. Xgl runs fine and dandy with 256.

XGL and Aero have nothing to do with RAM. They have to do with the video card installed.

You could always splurge and spend the $20 bucks it would take to uprgade your system from 256 to 512 RAM.

[toadlife]

Anyway, you forgot Vi$ta ($450) bringing it to $1053.

That's insane. Vista will not cost $450.00.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Erm...Saphire is signle handedly ATI's biggest and most reliable manufacturer

ATI and reliable should not be in the same sentence.

My definition of reliability is that a component last without major problems for at least 10 years under normal use.

2 major companies that fail this are Creative and ATI ... and many cheap ones as well, I remember there was a cheap HDD that broke in 2 weeks, and other components you might find say in a Compaq. You get what you pay for ... cheap is cheap.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

That's insane. Vista will not cost $450.00.

It will cost at least $300 ... XP Pro was $299 when it was released ... shouldn't expect Vi$ta to cost less. Rumors are it will be around $450 ... who knows if they are true.

[toadlife]

It will cost at least $300 ... XP Pro was $299 when it was released ... shouldn't expect Vi$ta to cost less. Rumors are it will be around $450 ... who knows if they are true.

So you pulled that price out of your ass. That's what I thought.

Anyhow, almost nobody pays retail price for Windows. They buy OEM copies with their new machines, or the parts they buy for their new machines.

[Lead Head]

ATI and reliable should not be in the same sentence.

My definition of reliability is that a component last without major problems for at least 10 years under normal use.

2 major companies that fail this are Creative and ATI ... and many cheap ones as well, I remember there was a cheap HDD that broke in 2 weeks, and other components you might find say in a Compaq. You get what you pay for ... cheap is cheap.

What are you talking about!? Some guy had his radeon x1900 XTX super cooled under a phase change cooler, but he forgot to switch the cooler on, the core of the video card got hot enough to melt the the plastic bracket holding the evaporator on, the card STILL worked after being expose to 90*C+ temperatures...If thats not reliable, I don't know what is. ATi's lastest GPUs are extremely reliable. They shouldn't be any less reliable then nVidia considering ATi's and nVidia's chips are both made in the same place!

Cheap does not always mean cheap. Alot of companies clear out their excess stock and incase you havent been paying atention to the lastest GPU/CPU news, ATI is locked in a price war with nVidia and AMD is locked in a price war with Intel. What does this mean? The customer wins.

[cymon]

Saphire x1800GTO 256MB $189
Athlon 64 3500 $114
OCZ Gold Series 1GB DDR2 Kit $95
MSI K9N Neo-F AM2 Mobo $80
Antec TruePower 2.0 550Watt PSU $90
BenQ DVD Burner $35

Tex, I have no idea where you get your prices from....The rig above is more then enough to run vista, ontop of that it can play pretty much any game known to man at max quality. All for $603.

Wow, someone's been out of the hardware loop.  Two GB of RAM is soon becoming the new gaming standard.  Also, no dual-core processor?  Don't bother with multitasking then.  I'd take an X1900XTX if I'm going ATi, which I'd never do because their linux drivers are shit.  You also don't even list a case.

[Lead Head]

Wow, someone's been out of the hardware loop.  Two GB of RAM is soon becoming the new gaming standard.  Also, no dual-core processor?  Don't bother with multitasking then.  I'd take an X1900XTX if I'm going ATi, which I'd never do because their linux drivers are shit.  You also don't even list a case.

Wtf? I was trying to make a CHEAP and good vista ready rig. not to mention the amount of apps that use dual core CPUs are very little. 2GB of ram is not becoming the standard(yet). It will soon, but 1GB of ram is the norm. The x1900XTX is overpriced and will be CPU limited until Conroe hits the streets, even then it will still be slightly CPU limited. Why spend $500 on an x1900XTX when the x1800GTO can still play any game maxed? you would assume the person upgrading would already have a case. Like I said, the goal of the above assembled rig is to make a good vista ready gaming rig. not "teh uber high end".

[WMD]

and other components you might find say in a Compaq.

Be careful there.  My brother's computer is a 7-year old Compaq Deskpro (500MHz P3, 384MB RAM, 10+80GB hard drives).  Nothing in there has ever broken.

[worker201]

Oh yes, the wonderful security features

I thought this reply from the link was especially noteworthy:

When autorun is turn off for all removable media, and can only be turned on with an administrator password, and there is no override for "special DRM encoded media", then I will believe that MS is concerned about security. Until then, they are doing the minimum neccesary to meet a current PR, while making sure that control of MS Windows stays out of the hand of the end user, and in the hands of MS and it's partner advertisers.

When you wrap shit in pretty paper, it's still shit.

[cymon]

Wtf? I was trying to make a CHEAP and good vista ready rig. not to mention the amount of apps that use dual core CPUs are very little. 2GB of ram is not becoming the standard(yet). It will soon, but 1GB of ram is the norm. The x1900XTX is overpriced and will be CPU limited until Conroe hits the streets, even then it will still be slightly CPU limited. Why spend $500 on an x1900XTX when the x1800GTO can still play any game maxed? you would assume the person upgrading would already have a case. Like I said, the goal of the above assembled rig is to make a good vista ready gaming rig. not "teh uber high end".

I have yet to see why you have put an ATi card in there.  ATi is crap.  Why someone will spend 500 dollars on a video card is the same reason Tiger Woods doesn't buy golf clubs at Wal Mart, because the 500 dollar card outperforms the 200 dollar card.  The number of applications using dual cores will rise, there are already dual core patches for games.

[Lead Head]

I have yet to see why you have put an ATi card in there.  ATi is crap.  Why someone will spend 500 dollars on a video card is the same reason Tiger Woods doesn't buy golf clubs at Wal Mart, because the 500 dollar card outperforms the 200 dollar card.  The number of applications using dual cores will rise, there are already dual core patches for games.

Well lets see, the x1800GTO and 7600GT are both on the same pricepoint, the x1800GTO outpeforms the 7600GT in almost everything.

[toadlife]

Well lets see, the x1800GTO and 7600GT are both on the same pricepoint, the x1800GTO outpeforms the 7600GT in almost everything.

Well there is more to a Video card than raw performance. Many people avoid ATI because to this day, they still write very shitty drivers. Even if ATI drivers didn't suck, they would still be a no-go for me because they don't support FreeBSD at all.