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[Eugenitor]

Odds are you'll need to upgrade the motherboard right along with it.

[rat_pack40]

If you are on anything lower than an i5, upgrading o an i7 will require a new motherboard, which in turn means that you may need new ram to go with it, depending on what ram controller the i7 and your previous processor have.

[Chattox]

Man, I'll have to take my computer in to a comp shop, sounds a bit out of my depth

[xellas84]

Man, I'll have to take my computer in to a comp shop, sounds a bit out of my depth

To be perfectly honest, it's nowhere near as hard as it sounds.  Almost all computer parts are semi-idiotproof, since they 'key' to the correct slot, and won't fit in the wrong place.  Try cracking your case open and looking carefully at the stuff inside.

Here's the major parts to any PC:

CPU (You don't screw with this usually.  It's the chip that has a fan bolted and glued to it with thermal gel.  Leave it alone till you are SURE of what you are doing).
Motherboard (The giant board everything is attached to)
Power supply (The box that you hook the power cable into.  It runs about 15 billion various sized wires to all the parts of the PC)
RAM (These are thin chips that snap into slots on the motherboard.  You can safely remove them while the PC is off and look at them, then snap them back in place)
GPU (Video Card.  This can vary WIDELY on pc's, from something about 2x the size of a ram board to something that looks like you could club an elk to death with it.  It snaps into the motherboard via a slot, and may or may not have it's own fan and power plugin.)
Hard Drive (This is usually bolted into a rack inside the case.  It holds all your data).
CD/DVD ROM/Burner (The device that reads your CD's.  It is bolted into the case like the hard drive, but it has an external slot it faces.)

Running between these are cables and ribbons that can be easily disconnected and reconnected.  Honestly, so long as you don't go spiking parts around or dumping peanut butter in there, you can fiddle with parts inside a PC all you want and not break anything, as chip boards are surprisingly durable.  Just be sure to turn it off and unplug it first and always touch something metal and grounded before you jam your hand in there, as a single carpet spark can fry whatever it hits, even if it's so small you don't see it.

I'd encourage you to fiddle with your PC and figure out how to disassemble and reassemble it yourself.  I guarantee you, you will save at LEAST 25% by ordering your own parts and snapping them into place vs going to a computer chopshop.  Those places charge ruinous markups plus hourly fees.

[rat_pack40]

By the specs of the rig in my sig, vs my little sister's boyfriends computer, that has largely the same parts, but ordered from compaq, I save right about 90% of the purchase cost, my computer just has no aesthetics, unless you happen to like wires and fans hanging out of a tower you found in your neighbors garbage.

[Bohandas]

So what would a good model of processor be to get? Pretend money isn't an issue, for now

As for GPU, I already have an ATI Radeon HD5600 which seems to get the job done on whatever game I throw at it (mostly RTS games like Napoleon Total War and Civ V) so I assume that'll be fine with DF?

I also only have 2GB of RAM, I assume that could do with being expanded?

Well, if money isn't an issue, I would recommend a Cray CX-1000 or Cray XT and use the processors that come standard with those models of computer 


EDIT: While, granted, you wouldn't be able to make use of even close to its full capacity with a single threaded program like Dwarf Fortress, you probably wouldn't need to either ...

[krenshala]

Dollar for dollar, when it comes to playing DF a recent AMD or Intel (non-Atom) chip is going to beat the pants off of the processors in a Cray.  The Cray, and software run on it, is designed to make use of the myriad of CPUs (multi-threaded).  The individual processors used by the Cray are anywhere from "ho-hum" to "meh" in capabilities when compared to a single modern PC processor core.  The shear number of them are what give the Cray is power to crunch indecent amounts of numbers at a time.   [Yes, I'd love to have a cray ... just to play with n-body gravity simulations. ]

Memory above 2GB, higher memory speed being better; higher CPU clock speed; a motherboard that has a nice wide memory bus -- these are the things that will improve DF more than anything else based on what I've seen.

[Biag]

It may not increase your FPS much unless you're hitting the limits of your memory, but another 2GB of RAM would help you in just everyday usage of your machine. Little reason to not have at least 4GB.

*sigh* I remember five years ago, when 1GB of RAM was the most cutting-edge any reasonable person would have in their gaming rig.

This isn't wistful nostalgia. It's more of a "Thank god it's not five years ago anymore" situation.

[Chattox]

CPU (You don't screw with this usually.  It's the chip that has a fan bolted and glued to it with thermal gel.  Leave it alone till you are SURE of what you are doing).
Motherboard (The giant board everything is attached to)
Power supply (The box that you hook the power cable into.  It runs about 15 billion various sized wires to all the parts of the PC)
RAM (These are thin chips that snap into slots on the motherboard.  You can safely remove them while the PC is off and look at them, then snap them back in place)
GPU (Video Card.  This can vary WIDELY on pc's, from something about 2x the size of a ram board to something that looks like you could club an elk to death with it.  It snaps into the motherboard via a slot, and may or may not have it's own fan and power plugin.)
Hard Drive (This is usually bolted into a rack inside the case.  It holds all your data).
CD/DVD ROM/Burner (The device that reads your CD's.  It is bolted into the case like the hard drive, but it has an external slot it faces.)

I've changed every one of those except the motherboard and processor, what I meant about out of my depth was that all I've done is plugging stuff in, whereas the processor is a bit more stuck in than that

[dephelis]

Changing the CPU isn't that hard if you're comfortable switching out all the other componenets.

There's just an additional step where you have to add thermal grease between the top of the CPU and the bottom of the fan block before you plonk the fan on. Even this probably won't be much of an issue as many fan manufacturers add a square of thermal grease to the bottom of the fan so you can pop it straight on.

Getting a new motherboard is easy too barring the fact that you need to make sure that your other components will work with the motherboard.

[ZhangC1459]

I remember my family's very first computer, some ages-old Macintosh, had literally 256mb of RAM.

And now I'm sitting on a laptop that could run a simulation of that computer running....

then there's that one computer that has goddamn 32 GB of DDR3 or something along that line, and that's a laptop as well

[dephelis]

Heh, I remember the monstrosity that was our Amstrad PCW 8512 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_PCW#PCW_8256_and_8512).

Used to enjoy playing Head over Heels and Starglider on it though.

[Chattox]

Is there a site or somewhere to go to check if a certain motherboard is compatible with specific components? Like a Can You Run It? but for hardware?

Also, heh, the first computer I ever used was a delicious BBC Model A which I still have down the side of my wardrobe, and last time I checked it still worked. I can almost feel the nostalgia radiating from it from the other side of the room

[dephelis]

Have to say that I've never come across one. I think there's just two many component variations to make this practical.

Best bet is to check out the motherboard information on the manufacturer's site. I've always found Tom's Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com/) useful.

BBC A brings back fond memories of my first forays in computing as an 11 year old schoolkid. With their 16KB memory and chunky child sourced damage resistant keyboards, they were all the rage in many UK schools in the mid/late eighties.

Hmm ... the feeling of nostalgia is now giving way to a feeling of great age ....

[Chattox]

BBC A brings back fond memories of my first forays in computing as an 11 year old schoolkid. With their 16KB memory and chunky child sourced damage resistant keyboards, they were all the rage in many UK schools in the mid/late eighties.

They were still in use in my rather behind-the-times primary school when I was in nursery (Around... 1994-5 I think?), and my dad was a head of IT in a high school that was just throwing them out, so he saved a couple (more like 10, they're still in the attic...) and gave one to me at the age of 2. So began a long, colourful relationship with computers for me