JHZR2
Staff member
Hi,
As of now I have specced out and bought most of the parts for a nice machine to do my PH.D math work, play some games perhaps, etc. It is a AM2, 65nm Athlon, on a good motherboard, with 2GB of low latency RAM.
Call me stupid, but I will be running Vista. I wnt be using this as my primary internet computer (I have my mac for that), can bugfix as I go along, etc. However, I am cutting myself short.
I went "cheap" with a lesser (but how much in reality?!?) video card, when what I really want is a GeForce 8800GTS (I want a GTX, but cant justify that one), which will enable me t use directx 10, and really be doing well for games. I can justify close to $400 (after tax and shipping to my door) for a video card, though... I don't think.
So, what I want to ask, as Ive never really done it before without reinstalling windows, is... Say I want to change hardware on the same windows install (I will be running vista, but pertinent XP knowledge should be fine), how do I tell windows that the one piece of hardware is uninstalled, so that I can throw away the drivers and the computer is not filled with old drivers for old equipment that doesnt exist anymore, or is not looking for said equipment???
I hope this is clear enough.... I want to keep my install of windows as clean and barebones as possible, and want changes of hardware to not be remembered, and be done with windows thinking that the new hardware is the same thing that has always been in there, and there has never been a change at all.
is this possible? Would I be smarter overall to spring on the $350-400 (after everything) Geforce 8800GTX DX10, 640MB DDR3 RAM, 320-bit video card? At least then I only ever do one real equipment install.
Many thanks!
JMH
As of now I have specced out and bought most of the parts for a nice machine to do my PH.D math work, play some games perhaps, etc. It is a AM2, 65nm Athlon, on a good motherboard, with 2GB of low latency RAM.
Call me stupid, but I will be running Vista. I wnt be using this as my primary internet computer (I have my mac for that), can bugfix as I go along, etc. However, I am cutting myself short.
I went "cheap" with a lesser (but how much in reality?!?) video card, when what I really want is a GeForce 8800GTS (I want a GTX, but cant justify that one), which will enable me t use directx 10, and really be doing well for games. I can justify close to $400 (after tax and shipping to my door) for a video card, though... I don't think.
So, what I want to ask, as Ive never really done it before without reinstalling windows, is... Say I want to change hardware on the same windows install (I will be running vista, but pertinent XP knowledge should be fine), how do I tell windows that the one piece of hardware is uninstalled, so that I can throw away the drivers and the computer is not filled with old drivers for old equipment that doesnt exist anymore, or is not looking for said equipment???
I hope this is clear enough.... I want to keep my install of windows as clean and barebones as possible, and want changes of hardware to not be remembered, and be done with windows thinking that the new hardware is the same thing that has always been in there, and there has never been a change at all.
is this possible? Would I be smarter overall to spring on the $350-400 (after everything) Geforce 8800GTX DX10, 640MB DDR3 RAM, 320-bit video card? At least then I only ever do one real equipment install.
Many thanks!
JMH
