Is the Intel line of Extreme/Enthusiast CPUs overkill?

[casterofdreams]

I agree on the Windows 7 64-bit recommendation. I think back then the XP 64-bit was a new thing (the concept for home computing at least) so support wasn't 100% there. Windows 7 64-bit is the way to go.

Edit: removed my CPU and GPU specs from this post and put my rig altogether in a different post below.

[Dakinggamer87]

My gaming PC rig:

CPU: Intel Core i7 -2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost)
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 6970 2GB GDDR5
Memory: G.Skill 16 GB DDR3 RAM
Optical Drive: SAMSUNG Black Blu-ray SATA
Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit
Motherboard: ASUS P8P67 DELUXE (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel- with ability to use either ATI/nVidia cards
Case: Cool Master ATX Full Tower with Antec 750W PSU


I spent between $1000-$1500 when I built it last year. As others have mentioned your money would go better into memory and graphics cards upgrades.

I work in IT industry and am a tech enthusiast so I like to have cutting edge.

[ATARI800XLfan]

My gaming PC rig

Motherboard: ASUS M4A78LT-M
CPU:2.7Ghz AMD Phenom II X6
GPU: Sapphire 6770 vapor-x 1GB DDR5 (or maybe a 6790)
8GB ram DDR3
Power Supply: 620 watt SeaSonic
and the other usual

MONITOR: 20 inch HP, HP S2031

[RyaNtheSlayA]

As long as we're sharing rigs:

Gigabyte 970 mobo

AMD FX-4100 CPU (3.6ghz)

PowerColor 6850 1gb

8gb DDR3 1600 (Patriot)

750w Corsair Enthusiast Series

Windows 7 Pro 64bit

all wrapped in an Apevia X-Dreamer 3 case with two Silverstone FM121 fans and a stock side case fan for teh l337 blue LED light.

Other bits:

ASUS PA238 23" 1080p calibrated IPS LED monitor
Bose Companion 3 Series II sound system
Adesso 135b mechanical keyboard
Logitech G400 mouse

[casterofdreams]

Well I might as well throw down my Rig up here:

-Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz 8M L3 Cache LGA1366 Desktop Processor
-VisionTek ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 2 GB GDDR5 PCI Express Graphics Card
-Corsair Dominator 6 GB 1600MHz 240-pin Triple Channel Core i7 DDR3 CAS 8 Memory Kit

All on top of:
-ASUS P6X58D Premium - LGA 1366 - X58 - DDR3 - USB 3.0 SATA 6 Gb/s - ATX Motherboard

With these things attached to it:
-Samsung Blu-Ray Internal SATA Drive with Lightscribe 2x
-Seagate Barracuda 1TB Internal SATA Desktop Hard Drive (7200 RPM) 2x

All powered by:
-Corsair 850-Watt HX Professional Series 80 Plus Certified Power Supply

Inside a:
-Cooler Master SGC-6000-KXN1-GP Storm Sniper ATX Mid Tower Gaming Case

With these as my interface devices:
-Logitech - G500 Laser Gaming Mouse
-Logitech - G510 Gaming Keyboard

View-able via:
-Acer - 24" Widescreen Flat-Panel LED HD Monitor

[isiolia]

Mostly built in fall 2010, right after I (finally) had my wisdom teeth out

Silverstone Raven RV02 w/ PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk2 750W PSU

i7 950 @3.6Ghz w/ Corsair H50 liquid cooler
6GB Corsair Dominator
ASUS Sabertooth X58 motherboard
Sapphire Radeon HD6870 video card
ASUS Xonar DX sound card

OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SSD system drive
Assorted internal mechanical HDDs (1.5TB, 1TB, and 320GB atm)
LG Blu-Ray burner

HP ZR24W and HP LP2475W 24" IPS 1920x1200 monitors
Audiosource AMP 100 w/ Mission M70 speakers & home built sub (Triska design, if you frequent Parts Express).

WASD Keyboards V1 w/ Cherry MX browns
Steelseries Ikari

Running Windows 7 x64 Professional.

[Anapan]

Re: me installing Vista or 7

I hate Vista. It's horrible.
I don't like Windows 7. It's great.
Windows 7 just has too many quirks that I don't like. Vista has so many it's broken by design IMO. You can fix Vista with great effort (i've almost done it once), but why would you want to?

Except for the (very few) 64 bit programs available and taking full advantage of my new 4 core CPU and RAM there's nothing I want to do that would require me to upgrade past XP. Of course it's got the proper functionality for doing real virtualization, the capability to do proper secure networking, The ability to run the latest DirectX, Powershell Scripting (It's amazing, BTW) and all the latest doo-dads...
For what I want my computer to do, it's just overkill. Despite what I can make it do, It's just too much for my needs. The fact that everyone's adopting it and doesn't even realize what thay can do with it amazes me. Most of all, the fact that it's on even the the older sub-par netbooks and makes them run like molasses, but people still love it because it's *shiny* staggers me.

I like XP. With the right tweaks it can do everything I throw at it after installing my regular system upgrades and programs. I know it inside and out, and can make it run like greased lightning on nearly any computer that's over a Pentium II with 128MB RAM (I have a special build of 98se for that).

Mostly tho;
XP never blanks the screen and says
"Are you sure?"
"Are you really sure?!?"
"NO! NO! You don't get to do that! You don't have the right permissions! You, the Administrator and sole user and owner of the computer are too low a user level! System halted."
Yeah, I know how to turn off UAC, that's not the point, and don't mention Home editions

Since I dual-booted to XP-64 I found all the 64 bit/2003 drivers easily, upgraded my regular programs to the available 64-bit editions when available (and got a few sourceforge specialty builds when they weren't), and got everything running smoothly.
So-far no surprises, no weird stuff happened, everything installed easily and no crashes. I'd heard people complaining about incompatibility, instability, and other random problems, but haven't had any problems yet. I'll start stress testing it shortly.
I can't wait to try out the real build of BSNES - That's the only reason I installed XP64, and it'll probably be the only reason I boot into it.

[gtmtnbiker]

I have both Windows 7 and XP and Windows 7 is the way to go. I have UAC enabled and I don't find it bothersome at all. It's not like I'm always installing stuff. The reason for having UAC is to prevent a trojan *.exe from trying to modify stuff behind the scene. If you blindly click on every popup without understanding why, well, it won't help you.

Here are some of the reasons why I like Windows 7 over XP:

- Vastly improved sleep/hibernate modes. Faster on 7 and more robust. When my desktop comes out of sleep on XP, it can take about 5 minutes before the network is active. On a laptop, Windows 7 comes out of sleep very quickly (compared to XP). Hibernate is pretty good and fast. On XP, it was slow that I never used it.

- Improved driver updates. Windows 7 is very good at finding updates to your drivers and getting them updated.

- UI changes for the way that you navigate Programs where it is sort of a like a sticky.

- Windows Media Center improvements

- Reliability - the only time I have ever gotten a crash from one of my 5 different Windows 7 machines is my old laptop which has hardware issues.

If I were to have my XP and 7 machines side-by-side, I could list a bunch of small improvements.

Microsoft did a good job with 7.

[ATARI800XLfan]

Still running windows Vista and I am not planning on changing, too much money to upgrade.

[casterofdreams]

Still running windows Vista and I am not planning on changing, too much money to upgrade.

Vista has vastly improved since its release. With the system packs and other updates it is very much so a great operating system. Don't upgrade unless you need to.