Peblo Custom ratings must be 50 characters or less
Registered 05/07/2002
Points 185
8th August, 2005 at 20:29:42 -
I've decided that my custom built computer has become outdated, and that I need a new one. However, I'm not sure now if I should buy a namebrand computer or build another one. And if I do build another one, what graphics card/sound card/motherboard/other stuff should I have? All I can spend on this computer is $1150. Thanks for your suggestions.
"Isn't it always amazing how we characterize a person's intelligence by how closely their thinking matches ours?"
~Belgarath
i'd reccomend ubid.com, you bid on things in their warehouse, not things from other people. I got my Gateway. 3.4GHZ Pentium processor, 1GB ram, 500GB harddrive, DVD R/RW, CD-R/RW, floppy, and a thing that reads ANY media card, like Memory Sticks, or SmartMedia. Has great graphics card and USB 2.0 / firewirwe ports on front and back. bundled with WIN XP PRO.
I got this 6 months ago for $1,200 USD. Now I get emails from them showing a newer and better SONY VIAO with the same, or better specs, for a little lower that what i payed for mine. When they first put it up, people were getting them for $428.
Steve Zissou: Anne-Marie, do all the interns get Glocks?
Anne-Marie: No, they have to share one.
Peblo Custom ratings must be 50 characters or less
Registered 05/07/2002
Points 185
8th August, 2005 at 23:11:01 -
I found some interesting stuff while searching online:
JP do you know if ubid.com also sells individual parts too? I think I've decided now just to build another computer. My friend is also getting a new computer, I'll reffer the site to him. Thanks!
"Isn't it always amazing how we characterize a person's intelligence by how closely their thinking matches ours?"
~Belgarath
Custom Building is alot better idea, you know what your putting in. you can completely customize it to your needs and you learn alot.
I hear www.newegg.com is a great place, ive never used it only because i live in Australia.
Do you want to be getting a machine that will be playing the latest graphic-intensive games? or your not too fussed about the newer graphic intensive games?
Mobo/Gfx:
if your going graphic-intensive, i hear a SLI mobo is the way.
if your not to fussed and you wont need it, get an AGP mobo.
Memory:
Get a starting of 512MB ram, 1GB is my the way to go i reckon.
not sure what speed to get, i use 333MHZ and it runs perfect.
Dont worry about DDR2, you dont need it.
I Reccommend a "1x1GB Geil" stick of ram
HD:
For starters get a HD that is 200GB or greater.
CPU:
2.8GHZ+ Intel Pentium 4 HT, anything around that mark is great.
I havent been looking at new computer gear for ages so this info is a bit outdated, but hopefully it may help.
Peblo: they sell various parts, it all fluxuates depending on what they get, I really have a lot of faith in them, they sent me my comp fast and I called their support center to get my serial #, so they have good support. my advice is to sign up for their email updates, they announce when new shipments arrive and you can get rock bottom prices if you act fast. I reccomend that you have the flexibility to jump on a deal when you see it, because it won't last. I would make sure to get a 3.4 with HT, it is in your price range on UBID. I really fell in love with them when i saw the EXACT same computer on gateway.com for $1,000 more.
newegg.com says they have good prices, but I just havent seen it.
Steve Zissou: Anne-Marie, do all the interns get Glocks?
Anne-Marie: No, they have to share one.
Pete Nattress Cheesy Bits img src/uploads/sccheesegif
Registered 23/09/2002
Points 4811
9th August, 2005 at 06:29:25 -
Self building is an excellent idea; it really does cut down costs. I probably saved more than £500 ($900) self building. I ended up with an AMD 3500+, GeForce 6800 Ultra, Asus A8N SLi mobo, 1 GB RAM, 200GB HD for £900. Similar specced Dells set you back at least £600 more, plus you don't really know what you're getting. Some manufacturers use sub-standard components, espescially the mobo, to cut down on costs. Plus you get exactly what you need - I didn't want a 56K modem, for instance. And I learnt stuff. So yeah. Everyone should self build.
I always custom build: when you buy a brand PC, you're paying for the assembly, and you're also paying for lots of components they often throw in that you don't need, like dial up modems as Pete pointed out. They might throw on an OS too which only adds to the price (everyone has a windows CD lying around somewhere).
For $1000 you could build yourself a seriously good top-end computer. Just remember to make sure everything is designed to work together, for example make sure your processor, motherboard and memory all are the same front-side bus (FSB) speed (eg. 400mhz).
FYI my PC is this, with prices as I bought them approx 6 months ago:
Athlon XP 3200+ (~£90), some ordinary motherboard (~£25), 512MB RAM 400MHz (~£40), Radeon 9800 Pro (~£90), Sound blaster Live 24-bit (~£30), 60GB HDD (~£40), keyboard/mouse/speakers/monitor all recycled from the old PC. Thats about £315 ($600?) for something which plays Half Life 2 full specs with no problem. And that's on prices half a year ago.
I made a big mistake buying from PCworld. Still i got a fairly good deal.
I saved £150 by buying a 19' monitor instead of getting a free lcd screen that are REALLY overpriced there. Well the were new back then.
We had to wait ages before getting any service, we had to collar someone because they are useless at spotting someone wanted to buy a god damn PC, opting instead to help people buy the correct print paper...
For that money, I would recommend a high end mobo, look for reviews before you decide on anything. Like Tigerworks said, make sure the FSB (will be in mhz) on the motherboard and RAM is the same or higher than the processor, otherwise you will have a performance bottleneck.
If your a gamer, with that kind of bugdet you should be aiming for at least a gig of ram, I would say 2, with an SLI motherboard (even if you just buy 1 card now, then you can put in another in the future and increase performance without having to buy a new card). The ati version of SLI is 'crossfire', but I don't think they're avaliable yet.
For a processor, again of your a gamer go for an AMD 64 over XP, sempron and p4. amd64s are about 10% faster at running 32bit apps and obviously can benefit hugely from running 64bit apps.
For graphics, if you are going SLI you will need a geforce card. the 6 series cards should be coming down in price a bit by now because of the release of the 7800GTX (very pricey, but if you want huge performance go for that). Also, if you're getting double cards make sure you have a beefy PSU (power supply), I think 500W is the minimum for dual geforces.
A sound card is a good idea, many people use onboard sound but buying a seperate card means that your cpu won't have to deal with processing the sound so you can increase performance. A soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS is a solid card which isn't too expensive.
Also, I would advise you to buy some case fans, just to keep everything cool. they shouldn't cost too much.
Don't bother with SLI, the performance increase isn't great and isn't needed, and pricewise it isn't worth it either since when the performance is needed for games a new card will be out which'll probably outperform 2 of the previous best cards in SLI, have newer technology and cost less.
Oh, don't forget to buy a decent power supply as well. The one which came with my case fried itself after a few months, but fortunately didnt blow any other components. My new one works without problems and also is quieter
- Tigerworks
Peblo Custom ratings must be 50 characters or less
And I don't know what to get as far as ram goes. Are these good choices? It seems like everything got good reveiws and stuff, but what do you all think?
"Isn't it always amazing how we characterize a person's intelligence by how closely their thinking matches ours?"
~Belgarath
Deleted User
10th August, 2005 at 02:08:47 -
i say their ok choises but like you said you have a budget iff you rethink any of your item you could try craigslist.org donno if there will be any thing good but i think its better than ebay
I don't think going with a Pentium D is a good idea, the Athlon 64 X2s are significantly better. In fact I wouldn't go with Intel for any desktop right now. If you want to upgrade in the future then going with an AGP card may not be the best idea either. For power supplies you should only go with recognised brands like Antec and Enermax.
If i was building a PC with that budget id probably get the following...
NForce 4 Socket 939 mobo with PCI-E - dont buy AGP now, you'll regret it in a year or two when none of the high-end cards come out on AGP.
Athlon 64 3200 Venice - supports SSE3, runs cool, usually overclocks nicely from 2GHz to around 2.5GHz on air. Wait for the Dual Core Athlon 64 X2's to come down in price, and your exisiting Socket 939 motherboard will be compatible with them after a simple BIOS flash.
1GB PC 3200 DDR RAM - get a decent brand like Crucial, Kingston, Corsair and you should be fine, and if you get 2 x 512MB sticks you can run them in Dual Channel mode which doubles the memory bandwidth.
As for the Graphics card, at the moment here in the UK you can pick up an X800 PRO for around £160 ($287) or the more powerful 6800GT for around £175 ($314), both of which are very good cards for the price-performance. If you cant quite afford one of those go for a 6600 GT which is around £105 ($188 ) and is still quite a respectable performer.
For the Hard Drive, I'd get a 160GB Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 SATA, plenty of storage, usually reliable, although you can get it in bigger capacities if you need more than 160GB. Dont bother with a Western Digital Raptor, they cost way too much, they are noisy, you get bugger all space (36GB or 74GB), the only advantage youll get is faster load times and boot up, although for the price, IMO its not worth it.
And, as others have said, dont underestimate the importance of the Power Supply you use, get a good brand name like Antec, Enermax, Hiper (Coolermaster) or Tagan. Dodgy £10 ones which claim to be 500 Watt are probably about as good as a 250 Watt Antec.
Anyway, enough rambling, I hope you find my opinion helpful.
Where in the UK can you get a X800Pro or 6800GT that cheap!? Anyway a X800XL should be cheaper than both of them and perform about as well as the 6800GT at stock (but it doesn't overclock very well).
If you're planning on overclocking your CPU, try and get RAM that's rated the correct speed so you don't have to run the RAM and CPU speeds out of sync. For example if you wanted to run a socket 939 Athlon 64 3200+ at 2.5Ghz you should get pc4000 RAM. I wouldn't concern yourself about running RAM in dual channel, the performance increase in very minor.
If you want a fast hard drive then I've heard the Maxtor hard drives with 16mb caches perform comparably to the Raptors but without the noise or low space (in fact they only come in large sizes).
Skip Intel, get an AMD-64 (suggest socket 939)
cheaper, better
Just get an SLI board, you'll look hip and they're hardly more expensive. Though it hardly matters but the a8n deluxe is a great board, with features that are definetly worth the extra bucks.
Don't get an audigy 2 ZS, unless you make music or REALLY love music, then it's WAY more then you need. The onboard audio of an a8n is perfectly fine for everyday music listening.
If you want to go into SLI then realize that 2 6600's DO NOT out perform a single 6800, they are usually right around the same bench score and usually the single 6800 outperforms it. Just so you know.
After you install everything, make a ghost of it....or you'll be mad later.
thinking is like pong, it's easy, but you miss sometimes.
Pete Nattress Cheesy Bits img src/uploads/sccheesegif
Registered 23/09/2002
Points 4811
13th August, 2005 at 19:42:29 -
Yeah, unless you have a complete surround system the A8N's onboard is fine. It has 8 channel support (whatever that is, I'm not friendly with sound stuff), and you can do some sort of surround sound with it. You might also want to consider the 7800GT at this point in time if you have the cash, it appears to be a good deal.
Building a computer is the best way you can go. Use Newegg to get really good computer parts/software for cheapie prices. It's really good. Both of my PCs are built from their stuff, and they both run great.
Fine Garbage since 2003.
CURRENT PROJECT:
-Paying off a massive amount of debt in college loans.
-Working in television.
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Edited by the Author.
i think its better than ebay
Apocalyptic Coders - 
