Father Xmas

'Cos I'm a model you know what I mean
And I do my little turn on the catwalk
Yeah on the catwalk on the catwalk yeah
I shake my little tush on the catwalk

I'm too sexy for my cat too sexy for my cat
Poor ***** poor ***** cat
I'm too sexy for my love too sexy for my love
Love's going to leave me

And I'm too sexy for this song

Yes but maybe no.

Yes, you should be able to swap, the BIOS should auto adjust the speed.

Maybe no, because Microsoft's XP license for netbooks limit XP to only 1GB. This system is a nettop and not a netbook but it's still Atom based. So XP may only recognize 1GB out of 2GB so all you did was swap in slower memory. If it recognizes 2GB dandy, more real memory is always better in my book.

It may also be a skinning program like Stardock's WindowBlinds. So you should also post a Hijack This report as well as the CoH Helper report.

First I use something like AnandTech's Bench to quickly compare performance between processors. The gaming benchmarks are at the bottom of the list. Note that most of the other benchmarks uses scale to number of cores so quads usually beat dual and Core i7 with it's virtual 8 cores beat everything.

Second, AMD have been pricing their CPUs to close to Intel in Price/Performance. Yes the top end Phenom II is nowhere close in performance to the top end Intel CPU but it's also nowhere near the price either. The Phenom II 965 is currently within $5 of the Intel Q9400 and the Intel i5-750. It beats out the socket 775 Q9400 in most benchmarks but falls behind the socket 1156 i5-750. All three are around $200 at NewEgg.

Third. There was an article six months or so back at Tech Report that looked at price/performance. Of course it doesn't have the Socket 1156 or Socket AM3 processors and the prices used are likely on the high side but you can get the gist of where the elbow is in the curve.

The OP went out and got a system that has no video card and likely not a PSU powerful enough to add on a "reasonable" video card.

Tom's Hardware bins the HD 4850/5750 with the nVidia GTS 250. So that means a video card in the ~$125 (on NewEgg) and up range for Going Rogue.

And yes, your preferred resolution and frame rate will affect what video card will the acceptable for you.

If anything it sounds like you may have a bit of bad memory. I suggest you Google/Bing/Ask for memory test utilities.

I use Memtest86 and Memtest86+, both of which you can download for free but you do need to know how to burn an ISO image or have a floppy disk on your system.

You could also crack open your box and reseat the memory and if you tweaked the timings and voltages think about starting back at the rated defaults for that type of memory.

We don't know how much of an impact that the Going Rogue changes to the game engine will have on existing configurations or the company's recommendations for "Ultra Mode". This makes it impossible to provide any definitive answers to your question.

Problem is we don't know what the requirements are for Going Rogue's ultra mode or how much of an impact those features will have on an existing setup. So can't really answer the 2nd question.

As to the first, ATI cards have a number of "quirks" with all the bells and whistles turned on. The assumption is that since Going Rogue screenshots was shown at Hero-con running on a very high end ATI CrossfireX setup (or was that a single X2 card, not that is really any difference) that these "quirks" have been fixed.

To learn about what high end features don't play well together on an ATI card I would recommend that you read BillZBubba's ATI guide that's sticky at the top of the board.

As for the system itself, I don't see anything really wrong with it. That said there are a caveat or two.

First while that motherboard claims CrossFireX compatibility, I have to point out that while one video card slot is x16 the other is really a x4 so the boost you will get from a second HD 5770 won't be as much as on a motherboard with more bandwidth to the second card, assuming that is something you may think of doing in the future. You would need to choose a motherboard that uses the AMD 790 chipset if you are considering CrossfireX.

Second is a unnamed 600 watt PSU that is "SLi Ready" (which I'm guessing means it has two 6pin PCIe power connectors). The power supply is the under appreciated part inside a computer and while the current configuration is unlikely to tax this "cheap" 600 watt model, it would be safe to bet that it's overall quality (good components) and performance (tight voltages, low ripple and transients) isn't close to that of a Corsair, Antec, Seasonic or other quality PSU. But like I said, right now it'll work but I wouldn't try overclocking or adding a second video card with it.

Oh yea, it will run. Not sure if it can run at full 1600x900 native resolution at a decent clip but relatively speaking, according to Notebookcheck, the Mobility HD 4570 is reasonably powerful and the CPU is pretty much an Athlon X2 4200 in power.

I did a quick little search over at NewEgg for similar notebooks and I got this list. However if you can live with a 15+" 1366x768 screen then (and God, I hate saying this) for $50 more either HP Pavilion is a better buy. They have a faster CPU, faster video with more dedicated memory and a faster hard drive (7200 RPM Vs 5400 RPM).

And in case I confused you, it's not that I hate HP, I hate saying "for $50 more". That kind of logic always seem to end up costing a lot more than $50 because once you start down that path then another "for $50 more" and another and yet another until you notice your emergency money nowhere to be found and you are desperately need four new tires after that incident with the "Do Not Enter" one way spike strip.

Echo ... Echo

And NCSoft's lawyers my have a few things to say to you if you decide to start a business for other players as well.

You could always look for iron-on transfer ink jet paper and make a T-shirt like our favorite little heroine got last year.

Yea, my DIY lists don't include useful little accessories like a keyboard, mouse, speakers, monitor or even an OS. Partially because similar DIY parts lists from other web sites exclude these parts and partially choice of mouse, keyboard, number and quality of speakers and OS (XP, Vista, this was before Win 7) are matters of personal preference. I could even extend this to choice of case but I figured I better list something to hold the rest of the parts, something plain but with adequate air cooling.

As for what Arcanaville bought, she's right, there isn't much of a premium on Dell systems over part costs, as long as you don't customize much. Dell as well as most other companies with online configuration will nail you for around the full NewEgg cost for swap outs like memory and graphics. So unless you are a serious technophobe, just buy the parts separately at NewEgg and swap them in yourself. You will end up with spares as well as having a better selection to chose from.

It also appears to be "broken" on my system as well, in Windows XP.

Strangely enough it appears to be OK if you go to that page in an ordinary browser, which for some reason spun up my optical drives.

First, here's the review of the box at Tom's Hardware. The PSU is an 80 Plus Bronze which means it's efficient.

From a power standpoint, I don't see a problem with a single GTX280. That leaves the question whether or not it would fit, lengthwise. Now quoting from the review;