Before answering it would be nice to know what it will be used for mainly.

I am not really trying to put you off either Vista or the 8800 cards I just think that it is worth being wary of them as they are at the beginning of their release cycle which usually means there support isn't good 6 months from now this will not be the case. The question is do you want to take the risk now or wait for the bugs to be fixed.

On the whole I agree with Mmarsh with the exception that I am not convinced 2Gig is enough especially if you intend to game.

well I intend to mostly use it for games, with alot help on other stuff for uni for example. And I can wait for the bugs to be fixed, and still get the pc. But will I be able to easily change it to the other version?
About the 2GB of ram. Mine right now is 1gb of ram, isnt 2 good enough? or is it possible to increase it.

Thank ya

Originally Posted by MightyMacbeth

well I intend to mostly use it for games, with alot help on other stuff for uni for example. And I can wait for the bugs to be fixed, and still get the pc. But will I be able to easily change it to the other version?
About the 2GB of ram. Mine right now is 1gb of ram, isnt 2 good enough? or is it possible to increase it.

Thank ya

The beauty of the PC is its modular design so as long as you are buying current gear you will be able to update almost any parts about the only thing you will need to do is ensure the motherboard is capable of taking the parts you want ahead of time.

As far as 2GB of ram goes I would consider it to be the entry level amount, all of my PC's now run 4GB but I have heard some software has issues with more than 4GB but I don't know how true that is.

Originally Posted by MontyB

The beauty of the PC is its modular design so as long as you are buying current gear you will be able to update almost any parts about the only thing you will need to do is ensure the motherboard is capable of taking the parts you want ahead of time.

ahh thats the thing. How will I be able to know that my motherboard will be able to withstand the new things if I ever decide to get them for my pc?

As far as 2GB of ram goes I would consider it to be the entry level amount, all of my PC's now run 4GB but I have heard some software has issues with more than 4GB but I don't know how true that is.

Oh I see, so I am fine and doing good if I get something between 2GB of ram and 4GB of Ram then?

Originally Posted by MightyMacbeth

ahh thats the thing. How will I be able to know that my motherboard will be able to withstand the new things if I ever decide to get them for my pc?

I don't think you are going to have a problem as long as you buy "new" just make sure that the video card you want to buy has the same connection as the one you have ie PCI-e and you wont have issues.

Oh I see, so I am fine and doing good if I get something between 2GB of ram and 4GB of Ram then?

Yep.

Originally Posted by MontyB

I don't think you are going to have a problem as long as you buy "new" just make sure that the video card you want to buy has the same connection as the one you have ie PCI-e and you wont have issues

Okay, say I get the geforce 7900GS, and in 4 months, I decide to get the geforce 8800, substitution will be easy? just get the same connection?

Yep.

Excellent
Okay, if you had the chance to get a pc with the specs I gave, and also had the ability to change a few things, what will you change?

* Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6400
* (2.13 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB, 2MB L2 Cache)
*20'' LCD
*2048 MB RAM
*500 GB HDD
*16x DVD+/-RW
*1.44 MB FDD
*Internal 13 in 1 Card reader
*Dual 256MB Nividia Geforce 7900GS Graphics card

Originally Posted by MightyMacbeth

Okay, say I get the geforce 7900GS, and in 4 months, I decide to get the geforce 8800, substitution will be easy? just get the same connection?

Yep it should just be a matter of removing the old card putting the new one in and installing the drivers.

Okay, if you had the chance to get a pc with the specs I gave, and also had the ability to change a few things, what will you change?

I would pretty much follow Mmarsh's post, myself I would definitely go with 2 smaller raid configured hard drives but thats about it. The system you are looking at seems perfectly fine for what you want to do (with the few tweaks mentioned by others).

If you have any concerns I would get them to give you a list of components they plan to sell you and do a web search for information on them there is a lot of information out there and if there are any issues with items people will have found them and posted about it.

Originally Posted by MontyB

Yep it should just be a matter of removing the old card putting the new one in and installing the drivers.



I would pretty much follow Mmarsh's post, myself I would definitely go with 2 smaller raid configured hard drives but thats about it. The system you are looking at seems perfectly fine for what you want to do (with the few tweaks mentioned by others).

If you have any concerns I would get them to give you a list of components they plan to sell you and do a web search for information on them there is a lot of information out there and if there are any issues with items people will have found them and posted about it.

Magnificent
Well, I shall contemplate on the matter, and many salutations to you noble ally

Originally Posted by MontyB

Personally I dont agree with the choice of the 8800 cards for several reasons:
1) I have yet to know anyone with one that hasn't had issues with them.
2) From what I understand good reliable drivers are currently not available and until last week there wasn't even a generic set of 8800 drivers with Vista.
3) There are few applications if any that support the 8800's or Vista currently and if he is using any non-generic software it could well be a long wait until it is updated.

1. The only issue I know of are related to VISTA SLi because Nvidia was too slow in releasing drivers for VISTA. Nvidia just released a new driver last week driver 100.54 that finally addressed this. And the drivers will only improve afterwhich.

On the otherhand the final drivers for geforce 7800/7900 SLi for VISTA are NOT out yet. There are betas that you can download, but Nvidia had made it clear the 8800 series will get priority. In otherwords no SLi on a Series 7 card if you are running VISTA (unless you use BETA drivers).

2. As I said, driver 100.54 SLi VISTA is for the 8800 series ONLY. The Geforce 7800/7900 drivers SLi drivers for VISTA are beta only. Nvidia is focusing its resources on series 8. We techies have a saying "friends dont let friends buy old tech".

3. There are no applications that support DirectX 10 yet. But they all support the 8800. The 8800 series is backwards compatible to DirectX 9, the series 7 cards are NOT compatible with DirectX 10. Lastly the first DirectX10 games will be released THIS MONTH (Supreme Commander) and there are a lot more to follow.

Mighty Macbeth

Yes you can simple replace the series 7 with a series 8. But you would be wasting almost 400€. For a brand new computer, its not worth it.

Also series 8 supports LINKBOOST (a SLi turbo mode that will give you another 20% boost) the series 7 do not. All you need is a compatible motherboard (I believe all i680 support it).

The 7900GS is a good card, but its not the wisest investment. I doubt they will even be sold in 3 months. Its obsolete.

MontyB isn't wrong to suggest more RAM. Computers always love more RAM. But I am comparing bang for buck. I am not convinced adding an extra 2 Gigs (total 4GIG) is worth another 250€. The only benefit you might see in games is slightly decreased load times.

If your on a budget, going to 4GIG IMHO isn't worth it, YET. Another reason to wait is that memory (espicially DDR2) is rather expensive now. RAM prices fluctuate alot, I would wait until prices drop again.

Thanks mmarsh
Okay, I'll see what can be done about the video card matter.
About the 4GB or ram, is it possible to not get 4gb but at least 3gb then?