(PC) Personal Computer.

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Originally Posted by Laraul

The cost of Windows alone is more than the PS2 hardware...

Also, PCs are troublesome (mostly do to Windows)... the only reason to buy a PC is for other stuff (not so much gaming at the moment). THe PS2 runs the game fine. Migrating to a PC is a lot of work. And you loose the impressive weather effects that looks so much better on the PS2...

I have a MacPro (late 2010 model, dual six core Xeons, for 12 cores/24 threads). And a 27 ISP display. But I use my PS3 for gaming...

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You paid for windows?

Desktop
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Intel i7 930 2.8GHz with Corsair H50 cooling pump
6GB ram
Gigabyte - ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Extreme Gamer / Altec Lansing 5.1 speakers
96GB OCZ SSD / 1TB western digital HDD
Samsung 24" 1920x1080 monitor

Laptop
Gateway P-6831FX
Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit (I know, Vista sucks, I am upgrading this soon)
intel Core2 Duo T5450 1.67GHz 512MB GDDR3
3GB ram
NVidia GeForce 8800M GTS
17" 1440x900 display

Currently:

Intel Core i7 2.4GHz
4GB Ram
Radeon HD 5870 1GB
Windows 7 Home Premo 64-BIT
1TB HDD
Sony Bravia 40" LCD (when I can. LOL) else Acer 19" LCD

And I saw the link someone done for the PS2 screenshots, yeah they look good, but the thing is.. FFXI is a PS2 game initially, that has been ported to the PC and the 360, just the PC / 360 versions have been optimsed to use what is available (like bigger screen res, further draw distance ect...) the overall graphics.. however, won't be that different. they may appear smoother due to the resolution, if you put your PC version to the same res as the PS2, there you have it!

I'm building a new PC. I know it's not as much of a powerhouse as some posted here, but let me know what you think. Any tips are welcome.

Cooler Master Haf X Case (Huge and lots of cooling space, 3 fans!)
ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme AM3 5x PCIe2.0 x16 (Pretty nice mobo w/ lots of room for future expansion)
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition (6 Cores, 3.7GHz; 1.5MB L1 Cache + 3 MB L2 Cache + 6 MB L3 Cache)
16Gb Dual channel DDR3 at 1600 MHz (mobo only supports up to 16Gb but can handle up to 2133 MHz DDR3)
ATI 5830 1Gb 256 bit DDR5 Crossfire Enabled Video Card (will get a second one or maybe two bigger ones later)
250 GB 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache HDD x4 in RAID 0 array - 1TB total (RAID 0 across 4 HDDs for faster overall read/write speed; only used for playing games / stuff that requires speed to increase performance)
2 TB 5400 RPM 64 MB Cache HDD (for storing my hoards of videos, backed-up games, etc.)
Coolmax 950w SLI and Crossfire ready modular PSU (lots of connectors and decent power output)

Not bothering with liquid cooled because unless you are overclocking, air cooling is fine. Plus, if you can't cool the ambient temperature in your reservoir below the ambient temperature of the case it's really no better than air cooled since you can't suck heat away from the components any faster. Water heats up and cools down much slower than air, so immediate efficiency would actually be less than with air cooled, though I'm thinking about building a thermoelectric cooling system eventually... when I can figure out how to sap that much heat out of the case lol.

I welcome all input on the subject, but fair warning - I will debate with you about it. Additional note - I said "debate"; I'm not gonna argue with some jackass who wants to sound smart on a forum.

I've done a great deal of research into these cooling systems. There is no doubt that a liquid cooled system CAN be more efficient than an air cooled system, but my old college physics professor (who is the super-est supergeek I've ever met) agrees that if your ambient temperature in your reservoir is not lower than the surrounding air temperature then you are actually losing heat sinking efficiency at the point of contact. On that note, I'm sure there are other liquid coolants that would have a better heat sinking and dissipating efficiency than water, but I don't think it would be enough to justify the cost of a liquid cooled system vs. the free fans & heat sinks that come with the components unless you were anticipating higher than factory heat levels (i.e. overclocking).

I might look into OC'ing the processor and video cards at a later time, at which point I'll probably move to a liquid cooled system and drill holes in my freezer to store the reservoir in it! :D
I'd love to read some educated discussion about it from the FFXI community, in addition to the hundreds of hours I've been spending reading overclocking forums and stuff lol.

air cooling is fine - but it pays to at least have a good heat sink, those stock ones that come with the cpu just isnt cutting it

Laptop
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Model: Alienware M17x10
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
HDD (RAID): 500 GB
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 2.67 GHz
Memory: 6 GB
Video: Dual ATI Mobility RAdeon HD 4870 (Core Clock 550 MHz / Memory clock 888 MHz / Memory Bandwidth 56.8 GBytes / Memory Size 1024 MB)

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Originally Posted by Nattack

air cooling is fine - but it pays to at least have a good heat sink, those stock ones that come with the cpu just isnt cutting it

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I'm going to build one of those fish tank computers filled with mineral oil next. That or make one out of a server.
"Well I got 8g of RAM and a 4T HDD. What do you have?"
"1T of RAM and a 100T HDD."
"-_-"

Depends :p. People did getthe first i7 920s up to 3.5 GHz on stock cooling after all :p.

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I'm going to build one of those fish tank computers filled with mineral oil next. That or make one out of a server.

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Be careful with this. Without some pretty extensive circulation and perhaps even active cooling of the tank you will suffer a loss of efficiency as you start creating significant hot spots. Also, pumps that can handle dense liquids such as oils without failing after a year or two can get very expensive. Not arguing that it can be a more effective system, just saying it's not as cut and dry as it would seem.

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air cooling is fine - but it pays to at least have a good heat sink, those stock ones that come with the cpu just isnt cutting it

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I thought about that also and it's a good point. As long as my ambient temperature doesn't get too high, though, I shouldn't really have to worry about it unless I start OC'ing. At that point I'll probably be looking at alternatives to air cooling anyway.

i have a really nice one, but it doesnt fit in my case ; ;