I Need Computer Help :PFollow

Ok, if you want a good machine, i can give you some tips.

First if its to play EQ youll not alot of juice and you seem to be aiming that way. Now you dont need a big harddrive, put the money elsewhere, the harddrive size dosent change much on gaming ( tho if you need the space for data go for it. I myslef have a 70gb raptor and i am not even close to filling it.)

So for the harddrive, youll get a gain if you go with greater speed. 5500rpm is slow, 7200rpm is ok and 10000rpm is better. The standard is 7200rpm, they are much cheaper than the 10000rpm and do a fine job.

Processors: You said 3.8ghz, dont go pentium, you should go AMD64 if you want to be gaming mostly. If you run alot of simultaneous programs, go for a AMD64 4000+, 4200+, 4400+ X2 ( dual core ) depending on your budget. If you are going for gaming mostly go for AMD FX-55 or FX-57 they are the top gaming processors atm.

Video card: Well the GeF7800GTX 512mb is the top card atm but it also packs a puch of 850$ canadian atm. Its a very good card tho and it takes less energy, makes less noise and create less heat than the 6800 serie. the ATIX1800 512mb is 100$ cheaper but its alot behind in benchmarks right now.

RAM: You dont need 4gb its over kill, go with 2gb at most, good quality.

Motherboard: If you go AMD64, pick the AN8-SLI-PREMIUM, you dont really need the SLI ( lets you play with 2 video card , very small gain) But there is a fanless design to the motherboard which reduce the noise to a minimum.

Now keep in mind with a machine like that youll need a good powersupply ( i suggest a nice 550w at the least to be confortable, enrmax are always good quality.)
And youll also need a good case with a nice air flow I suggest you check the Armor line of case on thermaltake.com, dont necessarly go for that tower, its expensive but it will give you a good idea of what to seek in a case for airflow.

Well that machine would cost about ( in 2 month ):
Processor 350-800
Vid Card 700-750
Ram 250-300
Mother board 175-200 =1475-2050

Depending on what you chose and your budget. To that add
Case 100-200
Power supply 100-200
sound card 100-200
speakers 100-200
monitor 200-400

600-1200 again depending on budget.

So total of 2075-3250 Canadian, for top of the line machine ( in 2 month prices will probably be even lower than these for those pieces, just dont want to build false hope.

If you had a budget and a list of thepieces you already had i could build you a machine very good for gaming and post it here.

But really the best thing is to just go around and read on pieces alot and check benchmarks and review, then you can mount your own machine depending on your needs and learn a bit in the process.

First and immediately, 512 MB RAM is too little to play EQ2 without lagging. You'll see serious lag just moving around. You can start by lowering the texture resolutions from "High" to "Medium" or even "Low". Each next lower setting reduces the amount of space each object takes up in RAM by a factor of FOUR, so even some de-tuning rapidly reduces memory footprint. For Laptops you need to know what kind of memory you can take, but I'd expect a DDR based SODIMM. For laptops, theres typically only 2 memory slots available, and depending on the SKU they could have saved money (and cleared their wharehouse of lower density/slower moving inventory) and put 2*256 MB SODIMMs, in which case you actually have 0 free slots for RAM expansion. You'll end up pulling one out if thats the case. On a $200 budget you can comfortably afford a 512 MB SODIMM, with about $70 (less taxes and mail fees) left over.
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Absolutely, system RAM is an issue on a laptop. Someone correctly guessed your processor will throttle back frequency when it overheats; it certainly will, although 10 minutes isnt enough for that to happen. Energy consumed rapidly increases with increasing clock frequncy; to get a good non-EE explanation as to why that is, step outside and find a garden hose, and wiggle the last 2 yards or so of it gently. Now try to make the tip go twice as fast -- there's inertia of the hose but theres also the velocity squared consideration. You will get hot much sooner as muscular energy dissipates; you'll be using MORE than 2x the energy. I'd expect your system to feel that around 45 to 90 minutes into the game, but 10 minutes is definitely RAM effects.
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I'm a retired PCI bus engineer but I've noodled with PCs since at least '84. The advice is free anyway.
Good Luck
- GS