September 7, 200817 yr Short Story: I was going to build a computer, then had other things to do (lifeguarding) so didn't. Parents Bought decent-nice computer, but all they do is word process so I figured that I would be able to use it. They decided they needed to network with it and have something for photos, and so took it much to my disappointment. I told my mom I needed something for gaming; this laptop isn't expandable. I can only play some t games and no m games (at 15) so she got mad when I said I needed a graphics card assuming you only need one for Halo 3 etc.. (Don't get me wrong, I'd like to play it :P) So it appears that instead of just buying a new monitor graphics card and RAM, I'm buying the whole thing. Before I had two builds suggested to me; they were CPU: Q6600 Inteel Quad Core Power Supply: Corsair 650w Graphics Card: NVIDIA EVGA GeForce 8800GT RAM: 2x2GB (4GB total) GSkill PC6400 DDR2 Mobo: GIGABYTE P35 DS3L HDD: Seagate 500GB Case: Thermaltake Armor OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit Optical Drive: Samsung something or other. DVD/RW drive. or... CPU: Q6600 GPU: 8800GT MoBo: Asus P5K deluxe PSU: SilverStone 550W Case: Antec 900 RAM: 2-4GB Corsair XMS2 However... These builds are good but I'd like to see what I could get if I went a little more upmarket, say under 1500 dollars US. Under 1000 US Under 2000 US? I'd like a good monitor to go with that, but I think I've found a good acer for the job. Also if I was to built this what OS should I use. It would be good that if once I decide to build this or not somebody help me assemble it (I've never done anything like this, I've replaced RAM and installed wireless network cards, but nothing like this. Also, would it be better to just buy a stock computer and add what I need? ~Deathmath Thoroughly retired, may still write now and again
September 8, 200817 yr Here's a build for under $1500 $169 E8400 @3ghz $240 GTX260 896MB GDDR3 (free Crysis game included!) $110 nForce 750i SLI Intel motherboard $64 Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800 $110 Thermaltank 750w PSU $99.99 Samsung 750GB HD $140 X-FI Fatal1ty Sound card (optional) $89.99 ANTEC Sonata III case $277 Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit $17 Sony DVD/CD Rom Drive $1317 TOTAL and if you want a good monitor (while staying in budget) I suggest: $209 ACER 22" 5ms response time widescreen monitor $1526 TOTAL
September 8, 200817 yr Here's a build for under $1500 $169 E8400 @3ghz $240 GTX260 896MB GDDR3 (free Crysis game included!) $110 nForce 750i SLI Intel motherboard $64 Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800 $110 Thermaltank 750w PSU $99.99 Samsung 750GB HD $140 X-FI Fatal1ty Sound card (optional) $89.99 ANTEC Sonata III case $277 Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit $17 Sony DVD/CD Rom Drive $1317 TOTAL I would keep away from sound blaster cards. There drivers suck. Horrible linux support too. I personally have a Extreme Gamer Sound Blaster and would never buy another creative for the lack of support and care of there customers. I once heard that the way creative designs there cards it makes it hard to make drivers for. Whether that is true or not is beyond me but would not surprise me.
September 8, 200817 yr Author How about a cheaper audio card. :lol: What about under 1000 dollars? Also, what about getting a quad core as opposed to that dual core, although I am not saying I know better. :wall: Thoroughly retired, may still write now and again
September 8, 200817 yr Here's a build for under $1500 $169 E8400 @3ghz $240 GTX260 896MB GDDR3 (free Crysis game included!) $110 nForce 750i SLI Intel motherboard $64 Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800 $110 Thermaltank 750w PSU $99.99 Samsung 750GB HD $140 X-FI Fatal1ty Sound card (optional) $89.99 ANTEC Sonata III case $277 Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit $17 Sony DVD/CD Rom Drive $1317 TOTAL I would keep away from sound blaster cards. There drivers suck. Horrible linux support too. I personally have a Extreme Gamer Sound Blaster and would never buy another creative for the lack of support and care of there customers. I once heard that the way creative designs there cards it makes it hard to make drivers for. Whether that is true or not is beyond me but would not surprise me. Nah, Creative doesn't design their cards that drivers are hard to make, they just suck at making them :thumbdown: . If the OP wants a good gaming sound card, get something from ASUS with a pci-e x1 interface. If not, use the onbaord.
September 8, 200817 yr I would keep away from sound blaster cards. There drivers suck. Horrible linux support too. I personally have a Extreme Gamer Sound Blaster and would never buy another creative for the lack of support and care of there customers. I once heard that the way creative designs there cards it makes it hard to make drivers for. Whether that is true or not is beyond me but would not surprise me. I have an X-Fi XtremeGamer and really haven't had any problems with it so far. There are some custom drivers out there if you really don't like creatives own. How about a cheaper audio card. You don't need to buy one if you don't want, onboard sound should be fine for most stuff. What about under 1000 dollars? If you wanted to drop the price I'd take out the sound card and maybe go for an HD4850 instead of the GTX260. That would drop it by about $240 or so. You could probably be fine with home premium too, which would put it to around $1000 total. Also, what about getting a quad core as opposed to that dual core, although I am not saying I know better. At the same price range dual cores clock higher than quad cores, usually. They're better for gaming purely because there really aren't any (or many, at least) games that support quad core yet. Nah, Creative doesn't design their cards that drivers are hard to make, they just suck at making them :thumbdown: . If the OP wants a good gaming sound card, get something from ASUS with a pci-e x1 interface. If not, use the onbaord. Heh, I must be fairly lucky not to have any major problems with creative. Either way it probably would be cheaper for the OP just to use onboard.
September 8, 200817 yr Author What does 'OP' mean? Also what if I wasn't gaming, would the high end dual core still be preferred? Also somebody on irc recommended a 'bare bones' system and then to add components, would that be a good option? Thoroughly retired, may still write now and again
September 8, 200817 yr The problem with most barebone systems I find is that they are made up of relatively low end parts. It'd probably be better value for your money too if you assembled from scratch, and building a pc isn't all that difficult. Really, if you can connect lego you can build a pc.
September 8, 200817 yr Author Yay, but what does OP mean? Thoroughly retired, may still write now and again
September 8, 200817 yr Original Post/Poster ;) "In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
September 9, 200817 yr That first build is all but identical to my computer, and I guarantee it will play any game out there. Crysis is the only one it's lagged on so far, but on moderate resolution/AA and high/very high settings it still plays smoothly. You don't need to go higher than that unless you're an extreme gamer/performance enthusiast. I once shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.Pics or it didn't happen. I hate my generation.
September 9, 200817 yr Author First build in first post? Thoroughly retired, may still write now and again
September 9, 200817 yr About the CPU, it really depends what you plan on doing. If you game a lot, get a dual-core and overclock. If you do heavy multi-tasking and/or video editing, choose a quad-core. No point in a quad-core if all you do is play games which don't take advantage of all 4 cores. ;) And anyway, 45nm e8400> 65nm q6600 in power efficiency (unless you OC your dual core, in which case all power savings are gone :lol: ) About the OS, go with Vista, unless you plan on playing 16-bit games. Vista is getting better, and was just like XP was in the beginning. It's getting better, don't worry. :) And seriously, go for an ATI 4850 over an 8800gt. Or, wanna spend $100 more? Buy a 4870! :D Thanks Jason321 for the sig!^ Proud to have served the Tip.it Crew Drops: 2x D Chain, 1x D Legs, 2x D Left Half, 1x D spear, 2x D med (monsters), 5x D Med (Barrows), 4x D Axe, 2x Zerker, Abyssal whip x1, 7x D BootsBarrows items: 55 (not counting the meds)
September 9, 200817 yr Author I have got a lot of advice irl and on forums telling me to try and get the geforce as opposed to ATi. Thoroughly retired, may still write now and again
September 9, 200817 yr I have got a lot of advice irl and on forums telling me to try and get the geforce as opposed to ATi. It really depends on what you consider most important in a graphics card. This generation ATI's offering (4850, 4870/X2) beat Nvidia's (260, 280 gtx) in terms of price/performance. But, the ATI's run hotter and consume more electricity when idle. Personally I'd go for a 4850 or 4870.
September 9, 200817 yr I have got a lot of advice irl and on forums telling me to try and get the geforce as opposed to ATi. It really depends on what you consider most important in a graphics card. This generation ATI's offering (4850, 4870/X2) beat Nvidia's (260, 280 gtx) in terms of price/performance. But, the ATI's run hotter and consume more electricity when idle. Personally I'd go for a 4850 or 4870. I'd go with an ATI, especially considering this kick-[wagon] serie. They run hot, because the fan is only at 35% or something, they card can handle the heat and you don't hear the fan. And you can always up the fan more if you want to. 4850 is less power hungry than 9800GTX(+ too), and 4870 - GTX 260 only differs about 10c. J'adore aussi le sexe et les snuff moviesJe trouve que ce sont des purs moments de vieJe ne me reconnais plus dans les gensJe suis juste un cas désespérantEt comme personne ne viendra me réclamerJe terminerai comme un objet retrouvé
September 9, 200817 yr I'd go with an ATI, especially considering this kick-[wagon] serie. They run hot, because the fan is only at 35% or something, they card can handle the heat and you don't hear the fan. And you can always up the fan more if you want to. 4850 is less power hungry than 9800GTX(+ too), and 4870 - GTX 260 only differs about 10c. I believe the speed setting differs from brands. When I got my 4850 fan speed was at 27% and I've known other people to have as low 20%. 4850/70 are built to handle high temps (tjc of 120 degrees I believe) but you also got to consider other pc parts, that aren't meant to handle such high temps. You can up the fan speed, and I did to lower temps to around 50 degrees (setting fan speed at 50%) but then noise level does come into consideration. Looking at that graph, 4850s @ around 6-70W? That seems a little too low to me. Anyways, power consumption is really only a minor consideration in the grand scheme of things, but a consideration nonetheless.
September 9, 200817 yr I'd go with an ATI, especially considering this kick-[wagon] serie. They run hot, because the fan is only at 35% or something, they card can handle the heat and you don't hear the fan. And you can always up the fan more if you want to. 4850 is less power hungry than 9800GTX(+ too), and 4870 - GTX 260 only differs about 10c. I believe the speed setting differs from brands. When I got my 4850 fan speed was at 27% and I've known other people to have as low 20%. 4850/70 are built to handle high temps (tjc of 120 degrees I believe) but you also got to consider other pc parts, that aren't meant to handle such high temps. You can up the fan speed, and I did to lower temps to around 50 degrees (setting fan speed at 50%) but then noise level does come into consideration. Looking at that graph, 4850s @ around 6-70W? That seems a little too low to me. Anyways, power consumption is really only a minor consideration in the grand scheme of things, but a consideration nonetheless. Yep, differs between brands. Yes i know that, but if they aren't going 80+ you don't really need to worry too much (altho i personally would prefer higher fan noise and cooler temps). The fan-noise is something that never really bothered me. My C2D E4500 @ 2.5ghz with stock fan is at 2200rpm, little bit noise, yes, but not much. Don't you guys listen to music? lol. Sorry the graph is in swedish, it says:"Whole system with stock-frequencies (without screen)". Damn, i just bit myself in the mouth while eating a tomato -.-. J'adore aussi le sexe et les snuff moviesJe trouve que ce sont des purs moments de vieJe ne me reconnais plus dans les gensJe suis juste un cas désespérantEt comme personne ne viendra me réclamerJe terminerai comme un objet retrouvé
September 9, 200817 yr The reason why I suggested NVIDIA is because I find there drivers a lot better, usually.
September 9, 200817 yr Author I believe you on that one, I've heard that lots. Thoroughly retired, may still write now and again
September 9, 200817 yr Seriously though the HD4850 / HD4870 are great cards. I'd just rather go GTX260 though than the HD4870. If you're on a tighter budget get the HD4850 though.
September 9, 200817 yr Author Which build would be best for light gaming. Which for CoD4 Which for just word processing and media? Thoroughly retired, may still write now and again
September 10, 200817 yr I can suggest a $300 box that will let you play COD4 in 1080p instead of spending $1500 :: Guess the Movie Contest Champion: pfilc23 ::
September 10, 200817 yr Author What do you mean by this. Thoroughly retired, may still write now and again
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