Computer help...

[KingMarineM16a4]

I know somewhat about computers, I know what it takes to build a complete computer and such..

I'm looking for pretty good performance above average but I don't need top notch...

Looking to be in the 1,200 to 1,500 dollar range.

So if anyone wants to help please do...

I'm looking for 80gb or 60gb of Harddrive.
1gb of ram (24 pin please)
Intel duel core prosessor with mother board(seperate is fine just make sure they are compatable)
about 2.4 GHZ or so
and a GOOD!!! Graphics card, with good sound card.
Help please!!!

[Skyline]

If you're going to spend that much money, then you need to up your HD and memory. Might as well go 2GB on the memory, and get a 200G or so HD.

Are you absolutely set on Intel? You can get a comparable AMD dual core processor/mobo combo for a little less, which will allow you to spend more on the graphic card.

[KingMarineM16a4]

Originally Posted by Skyline

If you're going to spend that much money, then you need to up your HD and memory. Might as well go 2GB on the memory, and get a 200G or so HD.

Are you absolutely set on Intel? You can get a comparable AMD dual core processor/mobo combo for a little less, which will allow you to spend more on the graphic card.

I'll never use no where near 200G of space, i'll get up to like 35-40 or so and I wouldn't want to have a lot of useless space. Same with the 1G of ram. Yes, intel sorry. And I made a little concoction myself and the Video card I have is this one...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814136001
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16814195029R

[BlackSi10]

Originally Posted by KingMarineM16a4

I know somewhat about computers, I know what it takes to build a complete computer and such..

I'm looking for pretty good performance above average but I don't need top notch...

Looking to be in the 1,200 to 1,500 dollar range.

So if anyone wants to help please do...

I'm looking for 80gb or 60gb of Harddrive.
1gb of ram (24 pin please)
Intel duel core prosessor with mother board(seperate is fine just make sure they are compatable)
about 2.4 GHZ or so
and a GOOD!!! Graphics card, with good sound card.
Help please!!!

for the price your wanting to pay, you need to visit:

www.ibuypower.com

they have the best prices for the products they have. I got me a computer from them this christmas and love it a lot. I upgraded some of the things and it only turned out to be $1300. Thats with a AMD Athlong 4600+ dual core processor, 2gb of ram, nvidia geforce 6800 GT video card.

[Skyline]

Originally Posted by KingMarineM16a4

I'll never use no where near 200G of space, i'll get up to like 35-40 or so and I wouldn't want to have a lot of useless space. Same with the 1G of ram. Yes, intel sorry. And I made a little concoction myself and the Video card I have is this one...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814136001
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16814195029R

Well, when you said GOOD graphic card, I assumed you were a heavy gamer. That's why I recommended more memory. After seeing the cards you picked, though, maybe that's not the case.

[KingMarineM16a4]

Eh, C&C Generals, Rollercoaster tycoon 3 and Rainbow six vegas...(Diablo when 1.12 patch comes...)

[ethlar]

heres the components im looking at getting for my next computer to run flight simulator X

Attachment 3859

[Skyline]

Originally Posted by ethlar

heres the components im looking at getting for my next computer to run flight simulator X

Attachment 3859

Cool.

But one thing gets me there...a floppy drive? Seriously? A floppy drive?

Haha, sorry...I just haven't had any practical use for one in years.

[ethlar]

Hey, you never know when a floppy could be useful, plus i have lots of stuff on floppies all over the place

[Skyline]

Originally Posted by ethlar

Hey, you never know when a floppy could be useful, plus i have lots of stuff on floppies all over the place

Sure...

And you might as well keep one of these in your garage, just in case the Civic breaks down:





On a serious note, though, with usb drives and cd burning, I just can't see the need. Most pre-made PCs (Dell, etc.) have even stopped including them. When the average user stops using them, you know they're obsolete.

[ethlar]

^ I bet that thing is a beast on the track

A lot of boards still take bios flashes off a floppy, and i have several windows diagnostic disks that are floppies. so i see a need for it because booting off a usb drive is a pain and i feel its pointless to make cds for all my diagnostics disks.

[skiddy]

Originally Posted by ethlar

A lot of boards still take bios flashes off a floppy

Yep, that's the most important reason IMO... depends on the board though. Lots of RAID cards require floppy's as well, although it's not very practical.

[CaliGuy]

Originally Posted by ethlar

^ I bet that thing is a beast on the track

A lot of boards still take bios flashes off a floppy, and i have several windows diagnostic disks that are floppies. so i see a need for it because booting off a usb drive is a pain and i feel its pointless to make cds for all my diagnostics disks.

Word, plus, whats the cost of a dloppy drive $10? F*ck it, better to have one than not, especially if the CD drive goes and you need a boot disk...ok, thats remote, but still....

[jonebone]

KingMarine:

You really should go with 2 gigs of memory because 1 gig will be outdated quite quickly. As for hardrives, I didn't even know they made them as small as 40 gigs anymore. You can get 100 gigs for cheap. I actually just got an external 250GB Western Digital HD for like $150.

Also, Windows Vista comes out January 31st. I personally have put off getting a new computer since June, solely to wait for Vista. Might be worth considering.

One last note... you play Generals? When I was in college and that game first came out.... man I played it at least 60+ hours a week. You any good or just play it for fun? I was near the top of the ladders for a good 8 months-1 year until I stopped playing it. If you are the C&C fan that you claim to be, I'm more than sure you are aware that C&C3: Tiberium Wars comes out March 27th of this year. If you have any interest at all in playing that, definitely get 2GB of RAM and 100GB HD.

That can easily be found < 1500.

[GameTraveler]

Originally Posted by Skyline

Sure...

And you might as well keep one of these in your garage, just in case the Civic breaks down:

On a serious note, though, with usb drives and cd burning, I just can't see the need. Most pre-made PCs (Dell, etc.) have even stopped including them. When the average user stops using them, you know they're obsolete.

Unless it changes with Vista, Windows will require drivers on floppies for storage controllers when first installed. Not everyone likes to have a pre-built/just add water/batteries not included computer.

And BlackSi10, you're fortunate, but looking at what Reseller Ratings has to say about iBuyPower.com, it looks like they don't get many return customers lately.

KingMarineM16a4: Looking for only a 60-80GB hard drive could be a quest in and of itself. Out of about 170+ hard drives available on NewEgg (as an example), only 13 are 80GB or less. You might want to up the hard drive amount slightly, only to get a better bang-for-your-buck.

The type of RAM you'll end up buying will be decided by the CPU+motherboard you end up with; which may most likely be the DDR2 variant. And since you'll want to make sure you're kinda future-proofed (at least for the next couple of years), you'll probably end up with something along the lines of ethlar's setup (it may not necessarily be an nVidia based motherboard).

For the games you listed, the graphics cards you pointed out, will work fine. R6: Vegas is based on the Unreal engine, so there's enough graphic horsepower in the 7900GS or x1950Pro. Although between the two, I'd lean towards the x1950Pro. Don't get me wrong, but either card works great.

Ethlar's choice of a PSU wouldn't be mine, but I'm reading Jonny Guru for his thoughts and review.

And if you get a need to push the box a bit more, the Conroe's have been decent overclockable processors.

In fact, if you somewhat duplicate what Ethlar has, but swap in your video card and a comparable PSU, the price point will be somewhere around $1300.

As a side note, I'm spec-ing to build another machine after tax returns come in. But, I'll be going from this box:

AMD Opteron 170 dual core 0550 UPMW CCB1E mild OC to 2.6 Ghz
Thermalright SI-120 & Panaflo 115CFM 120mm fan
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe
OCZ 550W PSU
2 GB OCZ EL Gold XTC PC4000 3-4-3-8
eVGA e-GeForce 7950 GX2
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
SysKonnect 9E21D PCIe x1
Areca 1230 SATA PCIe x8 RAID controller 256 MB cache + BBU
4 x 74 GB Western Digital Raptors in RAID0
1 x 200 GB Seagate sATA JBOD
BenQ DW1640 DVD-RW/CD-RW
SuperFlower Aluminum ATX case
Samsung 931C 19" LCD
WinXP SP2


To something nearly different, for CPU+motherboard+RAM. Possibly a new sound card--I had the AudioTrak Prodigy 7.1 before, but the driver support for the chipset from Via has sucked lately. So had to swap out an old sound card I had from before just to get hear my games.

I may take a closer look at the Razer Barracuda Sound card as I'm not too much a fan of the crap that Creative puts out for their SoundBlaster/Audigy line.

My $.02

[jonebone]

As for the floppy drive...

I'm a University of Maryland, College Park, graduate with a bachelor's in computer science and mathematics... and I can tell you with 100% confidence that a floppy drive is COMPLETELY impractical. Period. Well, not impractical in a sense that its overpriced ($10), but impractical as in if you EVER needed to use it, all of your other drives would have to fail, in which case your computer would probably be so F*cked that a floppy wouldn't save you.

[Doolie77]

With home videos becoming more digital and accessable and the the death of music media in the near future, I'd get a big HD, prices are really low for large space. Be ready for the future. And new games coming out extra might be good to have.
If you are leaning towards the TERAbytes, now that's excessive.

[ethlar]

Originally Posted by GameTraveler

Ethlar's choice of a PSU wouldn't be mine, but I'm reading Jonny Guru for his thoughts and review.

after seeing that, my planned PSU is changing now, thanks

[Skyline]

Originally Posted by GameTraveler

Unless it changes with Vista, Windows will require drivers on floppies for storage controllers when first installed. Not everyone likes to have a pre-built/just add water/batteries not included computer.

What in the world are you talking about? Windows requires floppies? I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with you there.

And in case you got the wrong impression...I don't go for pre-built machines either. I've been building my own for around 10 years now.

Anyway, the only pro-floppy arguments I'll go along with are:

a) Bios flashing. It can be done by other methods...Epox, for example, lets you flash it using their software from within Windows, but it's a tad more risky. USB drive flashing works as well, but it's not quite as simple as a floppy would be.
b) It IS cheap, after all.

Still, I've got to agree with jonebone on the floppy issue. I haven't picked one up for at least 3-4 years now. Probably longer.

Although, I will disagree with him about Vista. I won't touch it until it has 1 service pack at the very least. XP is a good operating system. It's not like we're switching from Windows 98 or something. Until Vista is rock solid, supports all the programs and games that I use, and is proven to outperform XP, I'm not budging.

[KingMarineM16a4]

Thank youfor the helpful replys...and please shut up about the floppies. Yes, Jone Bone I am a big fan of C&C ever since red alert 1 came out lol... I'm alright no where near the best but very far from the worst. Yes, I can't wait till TW comes out, woot!