Your approach is right. Its always preferable to wait until there is a safe point to let the other guy through.

If you don't mind me saying though, you mentioned that you take the racing line when entering a corner when another faster driver is behind you. I'm not justifying him ramming you but about the dive bit. Whenever I'm in a position like that and I can see the other driver in my mirrors, I make sure to take a wide line, leaving the inside open. Although, I know you mentioned that you already started turning but what I'm saying is instead of thinking to yourself to take the proper line, it would be better to just take a wider line to eliminate the possibility of a misunderstanding between you and the other driver and if he doesn't pass you at that corner, by the time you're at the exit he would have carried greater speed than you round the corner and can overtake you easily.

Something that I must say and I know many may view it as being elitist is speed. Its all well and good if the difference between the slower and faster drivers is between 1.5-2.0 seconds a lap but I think anything more than that can make it quite hazardous so I'm not trying to be one of those guys "go practice offline you f noob!" but I would considerate it important to do it if the difference in speed is big. Alternatively, there are beginner/amateur leagues where you can race alongside drivers with similair experience and speed.

One thing that I think many LFS drivers need to sort out are their attitudes. I feel that the general caliber of drivers has dramatically dropped so there seems to be loss of respect and civility. This is one of the main reasons why I rarely race online and just stick to leagues because if you have a tough admin running it, none of this crap would happen and if it did, it would be met with penalisation.

Well, I haven't gotten anything yet which is why I just wanted to confirm with you guys if it all fits together well. I'll be getting 4GB for now and if I feel I need more later, I'll probably get 2GB more.

By the way, would any of you guys know where I could find 4GB Kingston DDR3? It was on Amazon a while ago but not anymore and the only alternative I found is selling for €100 which is a fair bit more than what Amazon were selling it for (£75). I checked Scan (where I'm getting all the other parts) but they only have Corsair, no Kingston. I know Corsair is meant to be fine but I know that Kingston is the daddy.

Right, I can't find Kingston so I'll go with Corsair. Thing is though, I'm unsure what to go for. I've found 2 4GB Corsair kits that according to the Corsair website are compatible with the Phenom II. One is 1333Mhz and the other is 1600Mhz. The motherboard is only compatible with 3 speeds (DDR3 - 1066 / DDR3 - 1333 / DDR3 - 1666(OC)). Since the cost difference between the two is something like £1, I thought I may as well go for the 1600Mhz one but the thing I was thinking about is, could I overclock it safely to 1666 without having to install an extra fan? Or would I just be better sticking with the 1333Mhz kit and don't do any overclocking it. I have no real knowledge of overclocking to be honest but I'm planning on reading on it later after I get the PC. At the moment, with all the money this is costing, I don't think I can spend any more on added cooling but something else also, if I did get the 1600Mhz kit and underclocked it to 1333Mhz, would it perform better than the 1333Mhz kit?

Last edited by Leprekaun, Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:05.

Well, its an ATX case so it should be supported and check out that gloss!

Ok, I've finally decided on the final build. Can anyone just confirm with me if all these parts are compatible with each other? Thank you.

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, S AM3, 3.4GHz, 8MB Cache, 125W, Retail

GPU: 1GB XFX HD 5850 XXX, PCI-E 2.0(x16), 4500MHz GDDR5, GPU 755MHz, 1440 Cores, DP/ 2x DL DVI-I/ HDMI

MB: Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4 DDR3, AMD 790X, DDR3, 1866(OC), SATA 6Gb/s; 3Gb/s, RAID, USB 3.0; 2.0, ATX

RAM: Kingston KVR 1600Mz DDR3 NonECC DIMM K2

PSU: 650W Corsair CMPSU-650TX, single 12V rail

Case: ASUS TA-K51, Gloss Black, Mid Tower Case w/o PSU

Monitor: 22" Viewsonic VX2260WM

Last edited by Leprekaun, Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:40.

Oh right, thanks for confirming it dadge. I did read though that you can only do that with the Gigabyte boards. I think I'll go for the AM3 board anyway if the HDMI switcher works with it because after calculating the cost difference of the builds, the AM3 build turned out cheaper but I don't exactly understand why. The UD4H (AM2+) board costs £120 while the UD4P costs £103. The processor and DDR3 ram is slightly more expensive than the Phenom II 940 and DDR 2 ram but it still doesn't make up for the cost difference of the board so oddly enough, newer equals cheaper

Well, my HDD is SATA 3GB/s so SATA III is useless to me really and I'm not pushed for USB 3.0. It'll probably be a while yet before it becomes universal.

@spacedskunk: thanks for all the info . I had a look on the Kingston website and the ram should be compatible with the processor. It seems that its based on voltage so the DDR3 ram is within the voltage range for AMD. Its strange to think that 0.05V can make the difference between ram working with an AMD processor to an Intel one.

Last edited by Leprekaun, Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:56.

Hi all! Well, I think I'm nearly ready to proceed with buying the stuff now but I just have a couple questions. I don't really know which way to go, the HDCP supported AM2+ motherboard or go for the more advanced AM3. I already have an HDD and a DVD Writer which is why I haven't listed them in the build. The reason why I'm considering the AM2+ motherboard (including the processor, DDR2 ram) is because I want to get an HDMI switching device that will allow me to switch between displays of my PC to my consoles so unfortunately, the Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (AM3) motherboard doesn't support HDCP which is a requirement for the HDMI switcher to work. Although, I've come across a few forum posts that suggests the AM3 processors would work with the AM2+ motherboard (providing the motherboard software was updated)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (supports a faster processor and DDR3 ram but isn't HDCP compliant) or Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-UD4H (is HDCP compliant but would need to revert to a slower processor and DDR2 ram)

CPU:

AM3: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black, Deneb Core or AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (I'm unsure about which to get. The price difference is small but from what I've heard that with processors, there are cores which perform better than others so I'm guessing the Deneb is better but the thing that I'm confused about is the amount of L2 cache. The Deneb lists only 512KB while the regular one lists 512KBx4, I thought maybe this was a typo on Scan's part but I'm unsure still.) (based on getting the Gigabyte UD4P motherboard)

AM2+: AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition Deneb Core (based on getting the Gigabyte UD4H motherboard)



GPU: XFX 1GB ATI RadeonHD 5850 (There is the XFX black edition as well but I didn't really think it was worth the extra £20 for 40 more Mhz)


Soundcard:Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer (Honestly, I just chose this because it was the cheapest Creative PCI-E soundcard that was in stock since I didn't notice any mention of onboard sound on the motherboards)


RAM:

AM3: Kingston KVR 1600Mz DDR3 NonECC DIMM K2 (based on getting the Gigabyte UD4P motherboard)

AM2+: Kingston KVR 800Mz HyperX DDR2 4GB (based on getting the Gigabyte UD4H motherboard)


PSU: 450W Corsair CMPSU-450VXUK (chose it based on Scan.co.uk's psu recommendation tool)

Case: NOX Saphira Midi-Tower

Monitor: LG 22" LCD W2261VP-PF (Reasoning for getting its 22", it supports HD and is HD Compliant (based on getting the Gigabyte UD4H motherboard)

Mouse: Microsoft Wired Basic Optical Mouse

Keyboard: Logitech Ultra Flat Keyboard

Speakers: Creative Inspire 5.1 T6160 (still looking around for these to be honest)

So all the parts in these builds be compatible with each other and would it be worth going for slightly less performance to get the HDCP compliance capability or is the difference in performance between the processors and ram relatively big?

Oh and finally, would either of these systems gobble up the likes of rFactor, iRacing and the all important LFS easily?

Last edited by Leprekaun, Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:36.

Oh right. Thats ok then. Thanks for that info

ok, cool. The thing is though that the ATI RadeonHD 5850 says it outputs dual-link DVI or HDMI so wouldn't I need a monitor that supports dual-link DVI to use it?

Yeah, Damn right! He has seen the light!

Thank you for the links Seb . Yeah, I was looking for that but something that bothered me a little is that I couldn't use the official HDMI cables with that switcher (official cables should output higher quality, right?)

Well, I did consider outputting the gfx card to just DVI but the thing that is confusing me is that the gfx card says it outputs either HDMI or Dual link DVI which I don't really get so I don't want to plug in the cable into one of the DVI slots and then connect it to the monitor and the picture turns out all funny.

I'm not looking out for the speakers that come with the monitor as I'll probably get a set of 4 speakers or something.

Last edited by Leprekaun, Thu, 7 Jan 2010 16:55.

Hi all! I'm building a PC at the moment and I know what I want to get in terms of the internals. I'm getting an ATI Radeon HD 5850 (HDMI output) so would this cause a problem for the console switching part? I'm not really sure what monitor to get and how would I be able to make it so that I can easily switch it between PC and consoles (want to connect my PS3 and X360 to the monitor) so can anyone advise me on any monitors to go with that have HD support and on how I can set it up so that I can switch between consoles and PC? Cheers.

I had a look on Komplett. They don't have it anymore

My only chances now are two ebay auctions and they're getting pretty pricey

Hi all! I've been looking everywhere for it. I found it on Amazon a week ago and they were selling it for £250 so I was a little apprehensive to buying it. Amazon don't have any more stock and everywhere else I look, its out of stock so would anyone know where I can find it now new? Cheers.

I've been looking around for a motherboard now but I'm not sure which one to go for. I know what memory I want to get, processor and graphics card but I don't know which motherboard will work with all three so can anyone recommend one? It would have to be a good brand as I'm looking to keep my PC future-proof for a while so want it to be good quality. So these are the parts I've chosen:

Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition

Graphics Card: nVidia GTS 250 Core Edition, GTX 285 or 295 (if anyone could offer some light on which best to choose)

Memory: Kingston KVR 800Mz HyperX DDR2 4GB (2 x 2GB)

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA (WD5000AAKS)

yeah, the new "NSX" can't be FR. It must be MR. I will send a very hateful email to Honda if they even have a slither of a thought of making it FR!

yeah, I suppose I should wait

Thanks for the suggestions lads. Scan.co.uk seem to have the widest variety of stuff so I'll probably go with them.

What motherboard should I go for if I'm going for this processor and this graphics card? I know that I should look into AM2+ Socket motherboards but there are a few different ones there so which one should I go for?

I don't really fancy waiting tbh. With the GT Academy round again, I need a wheel before Jan. 24th. The Driving Force GT is starting to become a very tempting prospect now

The race version's shape reminds me a bit of the Nissan 300ZX except for the nose dip ofcourse from the windscreen to the front bumper and the standard car looks like a mix between the BMW GINA in the creases in the bodywork, the Audi R8 from the front and similair but wider bodyshape of the Mazda RX-8. So all in all, its a nice car but for me, its definitely not a worthy replacement to the NSX.

On the topic of SuperGT, will Keiichi Tsuchiya make a comeback?

I think I found a place anyway. Still €170 but considering its in Ireland, p&p costs from UK would probably cancel out with the cost of it here.

Would anyone know where to get the G25 now? The fool that I was, I should've bought it from OcUK when it was selling for £120 but I became hesitant when it was bumped up to £190. I found another place which was selling it for £160 but they seem to have poor reviews so I wouldn't want to chance it.

Yeah, I have the official MS wheel. Its pretty good and I can tell that the hardware inside is an evolution of the MS Sidewinder FFB wheel (one of the best wheels). The only issue I had with it was the pedal and steering range which feels a little short but if you just drive smoothly, you can overcome this issue.

Sorry to bump and old thread but thought its better to bump an old thread than to make a new one that is asking the exact same question.

Like the OP, where is cheapest to get a new G25? I had a look around. The cheapest I found was £150 so I wanted to ask, would there be anyone else who would sell it cheaper? They'd need to ship to Ireland as well. Cheers.

Last edited by Leprekaun, Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:38.

Cheers for all the links guys but I have my reasons for choosing AMD and nVidia. I've previously had both ATi gfx cards and Intel processors but found that with ATi, I've had the classic issue of driver instability and in terms of processors, I just prefer AMD over Intel as I personally think it performs better. I won't be getting any parts from my old pc as its far away from where I live.

I'm glad the prices aren't too bad as I was really worried of seeing big prices like £1k.

I really appreciate the advice you guys are offering but I don't know much about hardware so please, give me complete rig suggestions as I wouldn't really be able to discuss the technical side of hardware all that well. I think in terms of processor, I think I'll go for the AMD Phenom II Q4 but in graphics cards, I've noticed that there are a bunch of different manufacturers (ASUS, XFX, etc.) for the nVidia cards so can anyone suggest the best manufacturer to go for? Also, in terms of soundcards, what would be the best one to go for? As I've used Creative before and was quite happy with it, what would be a good Creative soundcard? I'm not looking for high end stuff, just some good quality sound.

Last edited by Leprekaun, Fri, 6 Nov 2009 15:18.