NationStates Jolt Archive

Here's the deal:

I need a new computer. I live in a family of 6, 5 of which are very computerized people. We have 2 computers, but that is still not enough. I'm looking for ways to get a new computer. I've thought of buying some, but buying computers with the power we need can be pretty expensive. I've also thought of building one, but that takes time and can be pretty confusing(but I have experienced friends to help, as well as I have moderate skills when it comes to hardware).

So, which should I do?

Buy someone's built computer?

I manage to build high-end systems at about 1600 dollars under the "going rate" from most of the names out there.

If you need high-end - build it, man. Especially if you feel comfortable throwing it together.

Build. Specifically how high end? Suitable gaming type high end or just generally fast high end.

I would think that if you knew enough about computers and what you want, then you'd be better off building your own to be exactly what you want.

Now if it's through your computer friends, even family, that's a different deal all together. If you are not a computer person it's in your best interest to not let a computer person anywhere near you computer. Nothing will make it more unworkable or confusing or just plain messed up faster than someone 'tinkering' with your computer. Freaks.

If you just want something to work with that's not going to do much except get you on here why not just buy something out of the box. If you're after a game machine I don't know because I never, EVER want to have to work that hard to play a video game.

Gaming. Y'know, alotta RAM, fast processor, big HD kind, shweet graphics card type. Here in Panama, you can get hardware surprisingly cheap.

I built a near top-of-the-line computer for ~$500 (Radeon 9800 PRO (256mb), 3ghz Pentium 4, 512mb of ram and a bunch of fans). You could buy one similar to mine for about $2000.
If you have some idea what your doing, building is always better than buying. Just make sure you research your parts throurgoly. I, for instance, didnt realize when I bought a new motherboard that somebody had gone and made a new kind of RAM, and that my old chip wouldnt fit into the new motherboard, cost me a bit extra :P

Oh, and I'm also looking for the cheaper one. My friend knows how to get a computer as powerful as a few thousand dollar alienware for about $600. And I need power.

Shop around, check out local computer stores and write down prices for the various bits.
If your just getting a new comp, your looking at the $500-700 range for a fairly good system. Top-of-the-line everything is going to cost a few thosand, last I checked ATI's newest cards cost about $800, by themselves.

I would also advise that you look into new fans or heat sinks. More power = more heat, and if you dont want your comp to burn out after a year or so, you NEED cooling stuff.
One of my friends uses a 3"x3"x2" copper block as a heat sink for his processor, apparently it works pretty well.

Follow the Polls!! Build :) It's 10-0.

Plus, out of the 5-6 people, what do they use their pc's for? Like recently I bought 2pc's. One for my dad and one for me.

My dad I build was just for his everyday e-mail and business, really cut cost. So it's near barebones, but can function every program properly and fast. My however was a kickass game machine.

Plus, get a network, share a printer, scanner, peripherals etc. Saves alot of costs. Re-use monitors (Hence I always keep my old monitors.. But for the love, buy GOOD quality monitors, cheap shit always goes grainy after 1-2 years).

Build! No brainer. Since you're only getting the components you don't have to pay the cost of Dell's (or whoever) manufacturing fee. And you get things just as you want it. And you get a sense of accomplishment.

Well, my father is buying a new computer soon(which means I get his current machine, which beats up my crap machine). I found a pretty good site, can get the following for about $1400. I could probably save a little money building, but not much, and I dont trust myself or my dad to build one(though he is alright with computers... I am too, but I've always just shyed away from hardware issues).

CASE : X-BLADE Mid-Tower 450W W/ WINDOW & LCD

Temperature Display + FAN CONTROL (GREEN COLOR)

CPU : (939-pin) AMD ATHLON™64 3500+ CPU w/ Hyper Transport Technology

MOTHERBOARD : (939pin Sckt)MSI RS480M2IL ATI Radeon Xpress200 Chipset SATA PCIE w/Video,LAN,USB2.0,IEEE-1394,

MEMORY : 2048 MB (512MBx4) PC3200 400MHz Dual Channel DDR MEMORY (Corsair Value RAM)

HARD DRIVE : 160GB 7200 RPM ATA 100 HARD DRIVE -- Recommended

Hard Drive 2 : NONE

VIDEO CARD : ATI RADEON X800XL 256MB 16X PCI EXPRESS VIDEO CARD

VIDEO CARD 2 : NONE

Optical Drive : (Special Price) LG GWA-4161 16X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLUE COLOR)

Optical Drive 2 : SONY CDRW 52X32X52 EIDE (BLUE COLOR)

MONITOR & LCD : NONE

SOUND : NEW!!! Creative Labs SB AUDIGY 2 VALUE 7.1

Price: $1402.00


For the price and specs, it seems fine to me.

Buying is cheaper than building it.

Correct me if im wrong.

Well, my father is buying a new computer soon(which means I get his current machine, which beats up my crap machine). I found a pretty good site, can get the following for about $1400. I could probably save a little money building, but not much, and I dont trust myself or my dad to build one(though he is alright with computers... I am too, but I've always just shyed away from hardware issues).

CASE : X-BLADE Mid-Tower 450W W/ WINDOW & LCD

Temperature Display + FAN CONTROL (GREEN COLOR)

CPU : (939-pin) AMD ATHLON™64 3500+ CPU w/ Hyper Transport Technology

MOTHERBOARD : (939pin Sckt)MSI RS480M2IL ATI Radeon Xpress200 Chipset SATA PCIE w/Video,LAN,USB2.0,IEEE-1394,

MEMORY : 2048 MB (512MBx4) PC3200 400MHz Dual Channel DDR MEMORY (Corsair Value RAM)

HARD DRIVE : 160GB 7200 RPM ATA 100 HARD DRIVE -- Recommended

Hard Drive 2 : NONE

VIDEO CARD : ATI RADEON X800XL 256MB 16X PCI EXPRESS VIDEO CARD

VIDEO CARD 2 : NONE

Optical Drive : (Special Price) LG GWA-4161 16X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLUE COLOR)

Optical Drive 2 : SONY CDRW 52X32X52 EIDE (BLUE COLOR)

MONITOR & LCD : NONE

SOUND : NEW!!! Creative Labs SB AUDIGY 2 VALUE 7.1

Price: $1402.00


For the price and specs, it seems fine to me.


HEY HEY!!! AMD ALL THE WAY!!!

intel sucks

Depends on what you want. It's easy to over or under buy. At the very least you need to take an honest look at your needs, and if high end gaming is among them, you're not going to be happy by kidding yourself.

At the very low end, it's hard to beat buy, even if you know someone at Microsoft or are going to go with Linux. At the middle and high ends, there's a lot more opportunity to save money. The above Athlon system is a good example. At the bleeding edge (which is crazy unless you're swimming in cash and your primary recreation is LAN parties) just go with Alienware.

If you build:
Do NOT skimp on the case. An extra $50 here will be well appreciated when you make changes. And if you build, you're likely to tinker. Everyone tries to save money on the case. Don't. That case will last longer than your video card.

Along with the case is the Power supply. Don't under buy. Get something that will last, and that will provide more than enough power for the new blu-ray drive and new HD you might want, or even the potential of an SLI graphics setup.

The motherboard is much tricker. You don't want to over buy or under buy here. The upgrade path of the processor isn't terribly important, I've done that once in 15 years. Bus speed, ram capacity, and extra features will win the day. Bleeding edge can be a hassle here while the manufacture sorts out driver issues, while your gear depreciates and you're not getting full use out of it. This is the real trick.

CPU, Athlon 64 is king right now, look for the break between the middle of the pack and the superpremium and compate the difference in performance when judging how much it's really worth it. It might not be a bad idea to wait for the dual core CPUs to become a little more plentiful.

For ram, look for the price break on the size of the moduals to figure out whether to overbuy or not. I try to stick with having as much ram as I can anticipate wanting in the next 12 to 18 months, but without having to fill up more than half of the slots.

For HD:
If you do video, go big look for the price break the coincids with other features.
If you game, look for something fast 7200 rpm minimum preferably 10k, consider two drives in a RAID 0 configuration.
If noise is a problem, Segate is the answer.

For Video and sound, it's pretty wide open. And you can blow a lot of cash or save a lot. This is where you need to be really honest about your needs and wants, and how badly you feel those wants.

And for God's sake put feelers out to your friends and family. You don't know what's available out there. The workplace of a friend of mine was closing out dual xeon systems with 1GB of ram and DVD writers for $250 to the employees. As expected, it doesn't suck.

Even for a gaming machine, I wouldn't waste money on a PCIe mainboard. Get a midpriced 6600 nVidia AGP card. As far as I know it gives you the most performance for the price right now.
If you get a mainboard with decent on-board sound, there's no need to buy a soundcard. Not unless you plan on hooking it up to a surround sound sustem or something.
Raid is overrated. Personally I'd rather have a cheaper & larger disk.
The point of building the thing is to be able to pick what you need.

I'd go for an AMD 64 3000 and upwards
Compatible MB with decent onboard sound. The cheaper the better. No reason to look for PCIe
512 MB ram
160+ Gig HDD
nVidia 6600 AGP or better video card.
1 DVD burner
Optical mouse
Cheap keyboard

The only thing I'd really want to pay a lot of money for would be a good screen. If it's for gaming only, a 17" will do fine. If you plan on using it for picture editing or something similar, you should get the biggest screen you possibly can. PReferrably 2 of them.

I thought nowadays that there was no point in building a computer, unless you like doing it yourself, on account of the skilled fingers of techs in low wage countries. My local supermarket is currently selling a 2.8 gig computer for (grabs calculator) about $750 U.S.

Hurray for globalism.

Build! I can't stress that enough. If you have technically minded people at home, you're set!

With the help of my brother, I just built myself a pretty top-end machine:

AMD-64 3000 (venice core), Nvidia G6600GT PCIe graphics card, 512mb RAM (to be upgraded when I have the spare cash), S/ATA hard drive, etc. for only $850 AUD (about $600 US)...salvaging the DVD drive, monitor, speakers, and other peripherals from the other computer of course. Worked out as a bargain. It runs Half Life 2 and Doom 3 flawlessly...

I saved at least a couple of hundred dollars. Just don't forget the little things that stores include in the price like anti-static gear and thermal paste for the CPU.

Even for a gaming machine, I wouldn't waste money on a PCIe mainboard. Get a midpriced 6600 nVidia AGP card. As far as I know it gives you the most performance for the price right now.

Oh yeah? (http://stores.tomshardware.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=5661189//)

Build, its not that hard and you get better components cheaper.

Build, that way you get what you need.

Go for PCIe, because AGP is dying out. You need it to be future proof.

If you want extreme gaming, go for ATIs' CrossFire technology, as it sounds better than Nvidias' SLI.

Despite what someone said, I say go for a cheap case for now if you are under a tight budget. Remember, you can always upgrade.

Despite what someone said, I say go for a cheap case for now if you are under a tight budget. Remember, you can always upgrade.
Save that kind of talk for the ram and video card. After all, new more demanding games will come out. Compare getting a new $100 graphics card every year for five years to a single $500 dollar card that you want to last five years. For instance.

Buy, then alter to your specs.

I would buy.....but I'm just lazy

Here's the deal:

I need a new computer. I live in a family of 6, 5 of which are very computerized people. We have 2 computers, but that is still not enough. I'm looking for ways to get a new computer. I've thought of buying some, but buying computers with the power we need can be pretty expensive. I've also thought of building one, but that takes time and can be pretty confusing(but I have experienced friends to help, as well as I have moderate skills when it comes to hardware).

So, which should I do?

Custom build - get the experts to build it for you. I got mine today!

AMD Athlon64 3200+ (Socket 939)
ASUS A8V-E motherboard
Powercolour X700 256MB PCI Express video card
1Gb RAM (PC3200)
160 GB SATA HDD
Sunbeam Samurai PC Case

and yes, it is intended as gaming PC.

Here's the deal:

I need a new computer. I live in a family of 6, 5 of which are very computerized people. We have 2 computers, but that is still not enough. I'm looking for ways to get a new computer. I've thought of buying some, but buying computers with the power we need can be pretty expensive. I've also thought of building one, but that takes time and can be pretty confusing(but I have experienced friends to help, as well as I have moderate skills when it comes to hardware).

So, which should I do?

If you build, you get a more powerful computer at a lower cost, but you have to buy any software yourself separately (including the operating system), you have to build it yourself (obviously), and you don't have any after-safes support either. So if something breaks, your on your own. But if you can fix it on your own, this is definitely the way to go.

If you buy, you get a less powerful computer at a higher cost, but it's prebuilt thus saving you the trouble, you generally get a bundle of software with it (including operating system), and if you have any problems it's under warranty and they'll give you customer support. This way is better if you haven't a clue what you're doing, and you can't rely on your friends.

If you are capable of building a computer, or in your case if you have friends who don't mind doing it for you nor helping you if it breaks later down the road, then building is definitely the way to go. Not only is it cheaper, and often more powerful, but it is also more flexible as you don't have a bunch of crappy manufacturer's software that you can't get rid of.

Custom build - get the experts to build it for you. I got mine today!

AMD Athlon64 3200+ (Socket 939)
ASUS A8V-E motherboard
Powercolour X700 256MB PCI Express video card
1Gb RAM (PC3200)
160 GB SATA HDD
Sunbeam Samurai PC Case
Got mine two weeks ago roughly

2 AMD Opteron 246 (2.0 GHZ)
1 ASUS ASUS K8N-DL Dual 940 socket motherboard
1Saphire x700 pro 256MB PCI Express Video card
2 GB ram (2 1 gig sticks) corsair registered ECC
3 Hitachi Deskstar 160 GB SATAII HDD (thats right SATA2)
Full tower Case (I will have to look up brand when I get home .. steal full tower with 2 120 mil and 1 80 mill fan)

Processor cooling is Thermaltake volcano 12 silent boosts

480 watt powersupply
Plextor DVD burner

All said and done 1500 USD

Got mine two weeks ago roughly

2 AMD Opteron 246 (2.0 GHZ)
1 ASUS ASUS K8N-DL Dual 940 socket motherboard
1Saphire x700 pro 256MB PCI Express Video card
2 GB ram (2 1 gig sticks) corsair registered ECC
3 Hitachi Deskstar 160 GB SATAII HDD (thats right SATA2)
Full tower Case (I will have to look up brand when I get home .. steal full tower with 2 120 mil and 1 80 mill fan)

Processor cooling is Thermaltake volcano 12 silent boosts

480 watt powersupply
Plextor DVD burner

All said and done 1500 USD

That's a killer machine! Dual Athlon64-FXs would be nice.

That's a killer machine!
Thanks yours is kicking some ass too

I sprung for the duals and a whole lot of ram (btw my mobo holds 24 gb of ram lol)

and the board has the new SATA2 which I love (got 3 drives because i have a built in raid 5 controller on the board)

I used to think of ASUS as being a solid performer but not feature rich but damn their boards latly are loaded and reliable as hell

That's a killer machine! Dual Athlon64-FXs would be nice.
Can you dual fx's ? traditionaly they go to opterons in dual envyroments

the opterons are damn good performers (but they cost 306 USD per processor) 600 dollars of the cost of my machine was the processors lol

(BTW did you see their new dual cores)

YOU too can have a dual processor machine now :) (and I can have a quad) lol

The Lightning Star

Buy

Usually for those who don't know much about computers and probably aren't interested. These machines are overpriced and do not carry premium PC parts - they tend to use the cheaper stuff. Good for those who don't want to or can't fix their own computer. Most of these usually come with crappy video cards.

Build (DYI)

Not for the lazy. Rewarding if you buy the right parts and build your dream machine. You fix your own problems which means you must know everything about your system.

Custom Build

Give someone an idea what you want and they build it. This is not an easy option either as you must know something about computers and what you want to build. The custom builders can provide some advice if you have no idea.

My suggestions
* AMD Athlon 64 or Intel Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading - these will support Windows XP 64-bit. I'd go for the AMD.
* At least 512Mb of RAM (that's DDR2 RAM). Make sure it's PC3200 (400Mhz) or faster. 256Mb is not enough.
* Get a decent nVidia GeForce or ATI Radeon video card. Avoid "Shared memory" cards. At least 128Mb.
* SATA hard drive - cheap and can get up to 400Gb
* Full tower case - not those mini towers. More expansion when you need it and more area for the hot air to go
* 400 or 450 Watt power supply
* Get a DVD burner
* Get a LCD screen - 17" as 15" is small. I want 19" ...
* PCI Express vs 8x AGP - for me PCI Express. One day no one will make 8x AGP cards.

Ok if you want a straight no bullshit answer I would totally recommend buying your computer. Alot of the techno elite here will look down on people who bought a computer instead of building one. This is just to let themselves think that they have a bigger e-penix than you. With all the respectable manufacturers you have all the options that you would if you built one. The plus side is that people who do this for a living made it, its warranted, and you have tech support. But be sure you're not getting some cheap thrid party products. Be sure to have a ASUS mobo, good RAM (kingston, mushkin, etc.), good HD (i prefer Seagate, maxtor overheats, deskstars are shoddy, and western digitals crap out easily), and a good vid card. Alot of people will tell you to go with Nvidia but this is complete horseshit. If you want to be able to use it for things other than gaming go with the ATI card. And that should be that.....

The Lightning Star

Buy

Usually for those who don't know much about computers and probably aren't interested. These machines are overpriced and do not carry premium PC parts - they tend to use the cheaper stuff. Good for those who don't want to or can't fix their own computer. Most of these usually come with crappy video cards.

Build (DYI)

Not for the lazy. Rewarding if you buy the right parts and build your dream machine. You fix your own problems which means you must know everything about your system.

Custom Build

Give someone an idea what you want and they build it. This is not an easy option either as you must know something about computers and what you want to build. The custom builders can provide some advice if you have no idea.

My suggestions
* AMD Athlon 64 or Intel Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading - these will support Windows XP 64-bit. I'd go for the AMD.
* At least 512Mb of RAM (that's DDR2 RAM). Make sure it's PC3200 (400Mhz) or faster. 256Mb is not enough.
* Get a decent nVidia GeForce or ATI Radeon video card. Avoid "Shared memory" cards
* SATA hard drive - cheap and can get up to 400Gb
* Full tower case - not those mini towers. More expansion when you need it and more area for the hot air to go
* 400 or 450 Watt power supply

While I agree overall some modification
Go AMD or P4 ... dont bother sinking the money into HT ... breaking the ALU up is not worth the price (the maximum boost if you are using programs that take advantage of HT is 33% ... BUT the average is 6% usage)

Aso note DDR2 is 533 MHZ normaly ... going amd you will get just DDR board 3200 is a good recomendation and great size recomendation

Right now in the mid price I lean ATI ... for pci express I love the x700 and 800 series (go pro)
In the AGP series go 9600 XT

SATA and SATAII *if your board supports II
Are awsome ... i will never go back to SCSI or IDE

CASE full or mid tower both in my experience is good ... look at purchacing more fans off the bat just incase

Powersupply ... I would actualy recomend for a single processor anything over 350 ... make sure to get active PFC

Ok if you want a straight no bullshit answer I would totally recommend buying your computer. Alot of the techno elite here will look down on people who bought a computer instead of building one. This is just to let themselves think that they have a bigger e-penix than you. With all the respectable manufacturers you have all the options that you would if you built one. The plus side is that people who do this for a living made it, its warranted, and you have tech support. But be sure you're not getting some cheap thrid party products. Be sure to have a ASUS mobo, good RAM (kingston, mushkin, etc.), good HD (i prefer Seagate, maxtor overheats, deskstars are shoddy, and western digitals crap out easily), and a good vid card. Alot of people will tell you to go with Nvidia but this is complete horseshit. If you want to be able to use it for things other than gaming go with the ATI card. And that should be that.....
On the low end I absolutly recomend baught ... but the higher you go the bigger the price difference ... my same machine (roughly) from hp is 3900 ... I built it for 1500

The savings can be ... significant

As for your recomendations
ASUS is great
Also recomend ABIT ... I would shy away from GIGABYTE ... lots of features but I have issues with reliability (3 of them that I put in have had northbridge fans burn)

HDD's
brands recomended in decending order
Seagate
Hitachi
Fujitsu
WD
Maxtor

WD's run hot and maxtors I have a high failure rate

over 100 installed Seagates by me ... no failures

I happen to like ATI so same recomendation (though i dont get your reasoning for "other then gaming" if the card can handle gaming the "other stuff" will automaticaly be fine (well most average use anyways))

On the low end I absolutly recomend baught ... but the higher you go the bigger the price difference ... my same machine (roughly) from hp is 3900 ... I built it for 1500

The savings can be ... significant

As for your recomendations
ASUS is great
Also recomend ABIT ... I would shy away from GIGABYTE ... lots of features but I have issues with reliability (3 of them that I put in have had northbridge fans burn)

HDD's
brands recomended in decending order
Seagate
Hitachi
Fujitsu
WD
Maxtor

WD's run hot and maxtors I have a high failure rate

over 100 installed Seagates by me ... no failures

I happen to like ATI so same recomendation (though i dont get your reasoning for "other then gaming" if the card can handle gaming the "other stuff" will automaticaly be fine (well most average use anyways))

For the vid card statement, what I mean is do you want to be able to do 3D work without shelling out the money for a pro card but get good performance? And what are your thoughts on PCIe right now, along with SLI?

For the vid card statement, what I mean is do you want to be able to do 3D work without shelling out the money for a pro card but get good performance? And what are your thoughts on PCIe right now, along with SLI?
I LOVE the PCI-E with its separate bus ... absolutely will be the standard

SLI ... I am wary of it ... the advantages are, Negligible
The only real advantage is when you are running multiple video cards...
Personally a waist of money for me

And for the good for 3D card i absolutly recomend for PCI-E the x700 pro 256 mb model ... yummy

Oh yes, if you're looking at laptops no choice - it's buy.
Most laptops have options but in the end most is onboard and can't be changed apart from the usual changeable bits like memory and hard drives.

I've got a Compaq Evo N1000c (obselete model) which looks a bit like those Presarios. Expensive at the time, but four years old. The only thing broken is the battery.

One other thing - Windows XP Home vs Windows XP Professional.
For just home stuff, XP Home is fine. Pro is for those PCs which connect to networks and I find Pro better (biased as an IT person).

I LOVE the PCI-E with its seperate bus ... absolutly will be the standard

SLI ... I am wary of it ... the advantages are, Negleagable
The only real advantage is when you are running multipul video cards...
Personaly a waist of money for me

And for the good for 3D card i absolutly recomend for PCI-E the x700 pro 256 mb model ... yummy

Right now I have a PCIe system with *cringe* Pentium 4 EE. My vid card is a ATI x800 xt platinum edition.

Oh yes, if you're looking at laptops no choice - it's buy.
Most laptops have options but in the end most is onboard and can't be changed apart from the usual changeable bits like memory and hard drives.

I've got a Compaq Evo N1000c (obselete model) which looks a bit like those Presarios. Expensive at the time, but four years old. The only thing broken is the battery.

One other thing - Windows XP Home vs Windows XP Professional.
For just home stuff, XP Home is fine. Pro is for those PCs which connect to networks and I find Pro better (biased as an IT person).
Yeah pro does not really reach its potential until you are on a domain or in a professional setting

Right now I have a PCIe system with *cringe* Pentium 4 EE. My vid card is a ATI x800 xt platinum edition.
EEK shelled out for that one didn’t you lol oh well got a good card you did

Right now went x700 pro … great for the price … I sunk all my money into going dual processor (if you want to see the rest of the stats I posted them earlier lol)

Yeah pro does not really reach its potential until you are on a domain or in a professional setting

But you can upgrade Pro to Windows Xp Pro 64.

YOU too can have a dual processor machine now :) (and I can have a quad) lol
The beauty of this is that dual core chips are going to be counted as single cores for OS purposed. So you won't need Windows Server for that dual dual core setup. Still, it does make choosing a flavor of linux a little more complicated, at least for now.
Yeah pro does not really reach its potential until you are on a domain or in a professional setting
But this I'm going to go ahead and disagree with. Some of the professional controlls are missing in home (sans hack that is) and while critical in a domain setting, they're not necessarily useless at home either. Home also does things I'm not a fan of.... In general I prefer 2000 anyway, and plan to use it far beyond it's intended end of life. This is one of those places where you really want to know someone, it's a real opportunity to save a decent chunk of change by avoiding buying the OS at retail. Another thing to consider is I'm not sure if XP home will support two cpus (not cores), pro does up to two, but I'd have to look in the case of home.

hmm....47-3. i think we know what the general view is. :p

It all depends on how much you know about computers. I built my own.

bump

But you can upgrade Pro to Windows Xp Pro 64.

According to Micro$oft, yes you can but you can't install over the top. X64 install is a reinstall.