New Computer

[hsadan]

im thinking of building myself a new PC, but it's been a long time since I last looked around for parts..

so, I'd like some information. Do tell me what are the current cutting edge models, what you would recommend, what would be a good buy etc

some basic things i need information on (other information also appreciated):
- graphics card
- processor
- motherboard
- sound card
- monitor
- memory

do tell me if i've missed anything important, too. thanks :)

edit: oh yea, do give a rough estimate of the price of each mentioned item

[B3NKobe]

Im in the same boat as 'hsadan', im also planning on building my own new pc just before christmas, so some help on parts would be good.

[hl]

http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/index.htm

thats a good tutorial that covers it all so you dont screw up your new pc


oh and i reccommend newegg.com for parts

[Maxtr0sity]

What's the price range on both the gigs?

[hsadan]

What's the price range on both the gigs?
umm no price range. probably a maximum of about USD1 000.

hLaLL, i know how to build one, thank you. i built my current one, it works fine. :) neither am i looking for somewhere to buy parts. i'm asking for what the current "hot" buys are and what are the current top end parts (eg for graphics card perhaps a radeon x800)

[Coppertop]

I'm going to order my computer soon. It looks like this:

AMD Athalon 64 3500+
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
OCZ EL Platinum (Revision 2)
Saphire x800 PRO (VIVO)
Wester Digital Caviar SE 120gb S-ATA (Raid-0)

And you don't really need to know about the rest. Overall, it totals to ~$2000 CDN Before tax.

[Butters]

Not too shabby :P

[Maxtr0sity]

I'm going to order my computer soon. It looks like this:

AMD Athalon 64 3500+
Asus AV8 Deluxe (Revision 2)
OCZ EL Platinum (Revision 2)
Saphire x800 PRO (VIVO)
Wester Digital Caviar SE 120gb S-ATA (Raid-0)

And you don't really need to know about the rest. Overall, it totals to ~$2100 CDN Before tax.
Sounds amazing. I'm not sure if you can get a 64bit and x800 and everything else half decent for under 1k.

[Coppertop]

the AMD 64 and x800 together cost about $900 CDN :P

[Maxtr0sity]

Thought so, where you getin that money?

[hsadan]

any suggestions for a budget video card, like one good enough but not too expensive?

[JohnLBW]

I just built a pc for a neighbour and used one of amds new semperons..

they are ok...

just thought I should say incase anyone wondered

John

[Coppertop]

Well, if you don't want to go for the 64, a good starting place is: (all of these items, except CPU, can be found on tigerdirect.ca, but I'm sure you can find them cheaper in some other places if you shop around)

AMD XP-M 2500+ (overclockable easily to 3200+. Excellent way to save money)
Asus A7N8X-E
Sapphire Radeon 9800se
Western Digital 80gb SATA (raid 0)
Corsair XMS Extreme Memory 512MB PC3200 DDR (x2. excellent ram. Also check just about anything by OCZ)

Together, that's about $700 CDN (~$550 US). Add in drives, the case (psu), and cooling and that should be around $1000, and it's over all a pretty good system for that price.

[GW02]

I put together an Athlon 64 3200+ system on an Epox nForce3-250 mobo with a gig of ram, an MSI 9800 Pro, and two 160 GB SATA drives for just over $1100.

All parts offa Newegg.com

[Coppertop]

ePox are pretty good. I'm using them in this setup right now. It's about 3½ years old, and it's wonderfully stable now that I've uninstalled the nVidia driver ;)

[GW02]

Haha...

/me hastens to remove nVidia driver. ;)

[Coppertop]

yeah, but you can't run any 3d apps when you do ;P Besides, it only doesn't work because nVidia are a pompous lot who don't care for their customers with lesser cards (MX 440!)

And that's why I'm buying an ATI x800 PRO!

[GW02]

Lucky bum.......................
My friend just got a 6800GT too. GRRR.

I was kidding about removing the nVidia drivers, though... i don't have any problems with them. :P

[Coppertop]

Lucky Bum......

:P

[GW02]

.....Sayeth the one who is getting the X800.
Grrrrrrrrrrr....... :P

[minimalistik]

- graphics card
- processor
- motherboard
- sound card
- monitor
- memory

1) ATI Radeon x800xt (256mb)
2) Intel P4 3.6 or a AMD (not going into that debate again so pick one)
3) ASUS P4P800s or P5AD2 Premium
4) Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro
5) Sony 19" LCD
6) 2GB DDR2
7) Hitachi Deskstar 7K400 400GB@7200rpm

or you could have:

1. memory (ram) - 4GB DDR2 Ram

2. hard disk capacity - Hitachi Desktar 7K400 (400GB - 7200rpm - Serial ATA 1.5gb/s)
http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/hgst/?epi_menuItemID=0cb2780b8274b00ae4c0c516bac4f0a0&epi_menuID=8d237906f078b6fd25ad4e8060e4f0a0&epi_baseMenuID=22f0deefa8f3967dafa0466460e4f0a0

3. processor - Intel P5

4. cache speed - unknown yet.

5. sound card - Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro (THX Certified)
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=311&product=10853

7. graphics card - ATI Raedon x800xt (256mb)
http://www.ati.com/products/radeonx800/index.html

8. dimensions of the monitor - GrandCanyon Display @ 92" ($18,000)
http://www.go-l.com/monitors/cinerama/features/index.htm

9. Motherboard - unknown supports for P5 yet.

10. Speakers: Creative GigaWorks s750 (7.1 surround)
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=4&subcategory=113&product=9306

11. Keyboard - Logitech® Cordless Desktop® LX 700
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/AU/EN,CRID=1,CONTENTID=9438

12. Sony INT 52/32/52X CD-RW KIT
CRX230AD
http://www.sonystyle.com.au/catalog/product.jsp?categoryId=22532

13. Sony INT DUAL-LAYER DVD BURNER DRU710A
http://www.sonystyle.com.au/catalog/product.jsp?id=DRU710A&categoryId=22534&textview=false

the monitor alone costs $18,000 so....

[ya3]

yeah, but you can't run any 3d apps when you do ;P Besides, it only doesn't work because nVidia are a pompous lot who don't care for their customers with lesser cards (MX 440!)

And that's why I'm buying an ATI x800 PRO!

hahah! I've got an MX440... SE :P
Good thing I have zero care for gaming...
saves me spending crazy amounts of money on video cards which do nothing but speed up game performance :hugegrin:

I say, get a Quadro or FireGL, and quad Opteron CPUs. :beer:

[Rex]

G5 works fine too :D

[Butters]

Heres what you do, go to apple.com/store and buy this (http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/ukstore.woa/90901/wo/7d6d9OiRSGaZ2rUsd8H1qzOVxda/2.0.11.1.0.6.3).

That's one mutha of a computer if you have a spare £12,000 lying around.

Dual 30" Apple Cinema Displays! *Droools like a nerd*

[Coppertop]

Are you honestly suggesting the possibility of a mac gamer? My god, it's unheard of.

Besides, $2300 for a computer that can do everything I want quite nicely is a hell of a lot better than nearly $30,000 for a computer that won't run half of the programs I like.

and if you're really desperate, you can drop $10,000 (cdn) on 2 LCD TV's and hook them up to your VIVO videocard with signal divider.

That's more efficient if you ask me. ;)

[Butters]

Are you honestly suggesting the possibility of a mac gamer? My god, it's unheard of.
There are loads of sweet games on a Mac, not as many as on PC, but it's not like there are no games.

[kirupa]

ATI is supposedly going to be releasing 3 new PCI-X cards over the next few weeks, so your X800 may end up costing you a lot less in a month or so :)

[λ]

yeah, but you can't run any 3d apps when you do ;P Besides, it only doesn't work because nVidia are a pompous lot who don't care for their customers with lesser cards (MX 440!)

And that's why I'm buying an ATI x800 PRO! At least they actually give a d/\mn about people running other OSes :P

[Coppertop]

now why would they do that for any of their customers? That would be bother for them! :trout:

Kirupa: Ah great, just when I thought I had everything figured out, along comes something new to consider :P But thanks for the heads up =) I've unfortunately been delayed by the parents because of things like "Christmas is coming up" and "You're don't need a new computer" and "it's to expensive" and "it'll just be a distraction from your school work!"

Grah!!! :m:

butters: You must be kidding me right (-:

[GW02]

There are plenty of great games for Mac. Most games make it to Mac after a year or so, but most people never hear about it.

My friend didn't believe me when I told him, either, and he asked if it had Homeworld. Sorry, but it does. He believes me now. (-:

Aspyr and Macsoft are examples of companies that port games to Mac, and improve them while they're at it.

[love police]

Im in the same boat as 'hsadan', im also planning on building my own new pc just before christmas, so some help on parts would be good.
best place in melbourne: http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/default.php

[ya3]

best place in melbourne: http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/default.php

BAH! HT r0x0rz!
http://www.ht.com.au

[love police]

BAH! HT r0x0rz!
http://www.ht.com.au

OK. i just compared prices... and centrecom is wayyyy better

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB UATA100 8MB 8.5ms 7200RPM @ HT: $209

at Centre Com: $165

i believe you are getting ripped off if you are shopping at this place.

[Butters]

butters: You must be kidding me right (-:
Nope, there are some really descent ones, and as they run on Macs, they often run really well, sometimes better than PCs, and the graphics are just as good, if not better.

Mac gaming isnt as unheard of as it used to be.

[ya3]

OK. i just compared prices... and centrecom is wayyyy better

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB UATA100 8MB 8.5ms 7200RPM @ HT: $209

at Centre Com: $165

i believe you are getting ripped off if you are shopping at this place.


:lol: seems you're right...
I bought StudioMX2004 Pro and CorelDRAW 12 from HT recently...
and the prices at centrecom are about $60-$100 cheaper.
(i got SMX2004 for $1450 at HT... it's $1350 at centrecom)

hmmm...

meh. i don't live in melbourne, anyways :P. ht are the cheapest in perth.

[love police]

hmmmm perth... :|




:P

[GW02]

>>Newegg=The best. (http://www.newegg.com/)

'nuff said.