PC's took me by suprise!

[neoglow]

Up until yesterday I thought I knew a reasonable amout about PC's when I picked up a copy of CustomPC magazine, now been read from front to back I was amazed at how much I have missed and how much I didnt understand, it seems as though alot of hardware specifications as we know it are being radically changed, for example...
I knew that AGP graphics cards made PCI graphics cards obsolete and up-to-date CPU's have Hyper-Threading and so on, but then I read about all these new things....

Whats PCI-E?
Whats DDR2?
I read all about Thermo Electric Cooling (besides water and air cooling) I'd never heard of it!
New Socket 939 CPU's?
I thought PC3200, 400mhz DDR RAM was the best you could get, I was wrong!

Now I've never been a person that spends every last penny on a beastly PC but I sure would like to keep up with it all, can any reccommend a good site that gives you the lowdown on new PC bits in plain english? That brings me to my last question, wheres the best place to get info on PC overclocking and understanding various technical things like memory timings and Front Side Bus stuff etc...cos Im a little confused with all that.

M.

[$c8t@]

the guys over @ www.overclockers.co.uk (forum) are very informative & helpful... plus there website has a wide array of hardware components for both "standard" pc's and those that want "a little extra"

$c8t@

ps theres a few people on here who are upto date with todays hardware, no harm in asking on here too

[Tom Salter]

Whats PCI-E?

PCI-Express. Supposed to be "The Next Best Thing" in graphics card interconnectivity. 2x the speed of AGP8x apparently.

Whats DDR2?

The next specification of RAM. We're even up to DDR-3 on graphics card memory.

I read all about Thermo Electric Cooling (besides water and air cooling) I'd never heard of it!

Dunno :P

New Socket 939 CPU's?

The new AMD Athlon64 socket.

I thought PC3200, 400mhz DDR RAM was the best you could get, I was wrong!

Nope sirreeee, there's always better. Of all the DDR1 solutions though, DDR400 is the fastest 'official' speed you can find, but vendors often sell faster memory for the sole purpose of overclocking. Hence you can find PC3500, PC4000 around if you look hard enough.

[csuzw]

PCI-Express can be many speeds - PCI-Express x1 is replacing normal PCI slots. x16 is replacing AGP and it isn't twice as fast as AGP although it is faster.
You can also have x4 and x8.
Some motherboards will also have 2 x16 slots so that graphics cards like the new NVidia 6800GT/Ultra can be linked for even more graphical goodness.

You can almost certainly go higher with PCI-Express but space becomes an issue then as x16 is about the length of a normal PCI slot. x1 slots are tiny (1/4 size)

[Super Stu]

Just out of interest, save me looking it up, will PCI-E be physically backwards compatible like 8, 16 and 32bit ISA slots were?

[csuzw]

no definitely not - completely different slots

[neoglow]

Thanks guys, other than a forum place (eg overclockers.co.uk) is there a website more 'review' based about the current crop of PC goodness. You could say skoot off and look yourself but is there a great website that any of you use for information?

Also, I've done a few things to my PC case (neon, window, applique and some extra cooling) the last thing is a way to hide all those PSU wires, looking in the window is like looking into a rainbow, weve got yellows and reds and blacks and greys.....I've heard of Techflex sleeving that expands to more than its normal size to stretch over connectors and cover your wires in the colour you want so it all looks a bit nicer and tidier. Anyone here used it, any alternatives, where to buy?

M.

[csuzw]

Try Anantech, hardOCP, Toms Hardware site (google them I can't remember the exact links)

For cable tidy stuff again check out overclockers.co.uk - they have a shop which should have everything you could possibly want in the modding department.

[charlaph]

I've been reading custom PC for a few months now and find the reviews pretty informative - helps to spot trends before they filter down to the mainstream and see what not to buy and what looks like it'll be useful.

Thermo Electric Cooling refers to Peltier devices which are talked about all over the websites mentioned above.

[weresheep]

For all your PC information needs ... ArsTechnica

-weresheep

[Super Stu]

Yeah, peltier coolers are used on CCD cameras and the like to cool them down, thus improving the signal to noise considerably. Hadn't realised it was reaching mainstream PC application though, interesting.

[Freddo]

its not really mainstream as much as insane-steam :P there are lots of issues with condensation and all sorts to take into account and its only really the very hardcore who go for it