Computer Thread

[ZECH]

Looking to buy or build a new computer. Looking for some advice on what some of the computer people want in a motherboard, CPU, etc. At what point does price outpace performance. Looking on newegg at part prices, you can buy a medium performance Dell cheaper than you can build one. An Inspiron 620 with 6g memory with a 3.0g processor on an 1155 board is only $599. Just a board for that flatform and cpu will cost $400. So give me some thoughts and ideas.

[Dark Geared God]

Why don't you turn thta computer sideways and shove it up your candyass..

Oh and 599 thats not a bad deal i think G satan would be best to talk to

[DOMS]

RAM is dirt cheap. Make sure you've got a 64bit OS and get at least 8GB of RAM.

If you're price conscious, get the AMD Phenom II. It kicks ass and it sweet to OC.

Get an aftermarket CPU heatsink / fan. Find on that's no more than 20db. You don't want your PC to sound like a jet aircraft.

I like MSI motherboards. Get an AMD2 socket. It'll be compatible with the forthcoming Bulldozer CPU. It's AMD next gen CPU that'll kick ass. Make sure it has USB 3 connectors. With at least 6 USB connectors.

I like Nvidia over ATI. Expect to spend aroun $300 for a good Nvidia GTX video card. This'll be the most expensive part of your PC.

Get a PC case that has 250mm fans. Larger fans equal quieter fans.

I'd get two hard drives. Large mechanical drive and one smaller solid state drive (at least 40GB). The larger drive is for storage the smaller one is for the operating system.

The DVD drive can be any SATA DVD writer.

Make sure the power supply is at least 700 watts.

That should get you going. If you watch what you buy, you should be able to do it for $700 - $900. If you have any more questions, just ask.

[Dark Geared God]

[ZECH]

The inspiron 620mt is 64 bit(win 7). With 8 gig memory, I5 3.0g processor,6g l3 cache.
Has a 1mb amd video card. At 609, you can't build one for that. You could get faster and such, but probably not much better performance vs price.

[Dark Geared God]

Answer me damn it

[Dark Geared God]

The inspiron 620mt is 64 bit(win 7). With 8 gig memory, I5 3.0g processor,6g l3 cache.
Has a 1mb amd video card. At 609, you can't build one for that. You could get faster and such, but probably not much better performance vs price.

[DOMS]

The inspiron 620mt is 64 bit(win 7). With 8 gig memory, I5 3.0g processor,6g l3 cache.
Has a 1mb amd video card. At 609, you can't build one for that. You could get faster and such, but probably not much better performance vs price.

What are you going to be using it for?

[ZECH]

What are you going to be using it for?

I don't game, so basic on line surfing (IM, facebook kind of stuff), burning music cd's, picture storage.

[DOMS]

I don't game, so basic on line surfing (IM, facebook kind of stuff), burning music cd's, picture storage.

Then yeah, go for the line model. A nice feature is that you can restore to factory settings if your OS gets hosed.

Make sure to ask for the physical media for your OS. Otherwise, you'll just have a copy on you HD that won't do you any good if the HD dies.

[ZECH]

15 bucks for that disk.

[KelJu]

To be honest, I tell anyone who doesn't game to never spend over $600 on a PC. If you aren't over clocking or pushing video to the limit, a baseline PC is great. Avoid certain manufacturers and resellers if possible: HP, Gateway, Bestbuy. Their PCs are eat up with bloatware to the point that bestbuy actually sells a bloatware removal service. That's right, they actually want you to pay extra to make your PC not run like dogshit right out of the box.

Avoid buying in brick and mortar stores, because there is a huge markup to keep the staff paid and the doors open. I have had average luck with Dell's customer service which actually translates to good service when considering that most other vendor's service sucks donkey dick.

The best thing you can do is buy from Newegg. Here is a pretty sweet deal for about $600. That is considering you are keeping your monitor.

Newegg.com - Acer Aspire AM3970-U5022 (PT.SG5P2.004) Desktop PC Intel Core i3 2100(3.10GHz) 6GB DDR3 1TB HDD Capacity Intel HD Graphics 2000 Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Best money you can best on aftermarket is what DOMS said. Buy you an SSD to put your OS on, and use the 1Tb drive to store data like movies, pictures, and music. I's suggest you buy a computer that comes with an intel board because ADM boards usually have hardrive controllers that suck balls. Intel controllers are much better.

Here are the SSDs that I use.

Newegg.com - Intel 320 Series SSDSA2CT040G3K5 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

[TheGreatSatan]

Newegg.com - Acer Aspire AM3970-U5022 (PT.SG5P2.004) Desktop PC Intel Core i3 2100(3.10GHz) 6GB DDR3 1TB HDD Capacity Intel HD Graphics 2000 Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Good post. That PC is a waste.

The i3 is $100, 6GB is less than $40, a 1TB HD is $60, onboard video blows and a 300 watt PSU is just downright shitty.

You're paying $500 for $300 in parts tops

RAM is dirt cheap. Make sure you've got a 64bit OS and get at least 8GB of RAM.

Agreed

If you're price conscious, get the AMD Phenom II. It kicks ass and it sweet to OC.

Get an aftermarket CPU heatsink / fan. Find on that's no more than 20db. You don't want your PC to sound like a jet aircraft.

Agreed

I like MSI motherboards. Get an AMD2 socket. It'll be compatible with the forthcoming Bulldozer CPU. It's AMD next gen CPU that'll kick ass. Make sure it has USB 3 connectors. With at least 6 USB connectors.

Um, no. Bulldozer is AM3+. The socket color will be black. Pretty much any Bulldozer board will have USB 3.0

I like Nvidia over ATI. Expect to spend around $300 for a good Nvidia GTX video card. This'll be the most expensive part of your PC.

That's a ripoff. For a high end nVidia card you can start at a GTX560 Ti for about $200, or a GTX 460 for about $170. Battlefield 3 will run best on at least a GTX 560.

Get a PC case that has 250mm fans. Larger fans equal quieter fans.

I can't think of any that big. Even the Cooler Master HAF X and the Xigmatek Elysium have 200mm.

I'd get two hard drives. Large mechanical drive and one smaller solid state drive (at least 40GB). The larger drive is for storage the smaller one is for the operating system.

True, go for a Crucial 64GB M4 drive or an OCZ Vertex 3.

Make sure the power supply is at least 700 watts.

That's not really the big thing to worry about. This is where a lot of people go wrong. Everyone shoots for a lot of watts, but with NVidia cards you really need plenty of Amps on the +12V rail. A really solid Power Supply is the Antec High Current Gamer 620 watt. It has a whopping 48 Amps and the GTX 560 needs at least 30.

That should get you going. If you watch what you buy, you should be able to do it for $700 - $900. If you have any more questions, just ask.

Personally, I would just buy the Dell, upgrade the PSU and the video card and that's it.

BTW, check out the Bulldozer PC I'm building!

[KelJu]

Why are people saying to put massive PSU's and after market video cards in a web surfing machine?

If the guy doesn't play games, why does he need more than a 300watt PSU? He isn't going to be overclocking or buying after market video cards to surf the web. Yes, you can get the parts cheaper, but you also don't get a warranty on the whole machine, and 99% of people do not want to break their PC down to send back motherboards and shit when they fail in the first 6 months. You also have to pay close to $100 just to get windows 7, if you build it. There are a lot of hidden cost that goes with buying those cheap $300 parts separate. You have to get a case, OS, thermal paste, sometimes a heat-sink if it doesn't come with the chip.

Seriously, if you are just surfing the net, a $150 refurbished HP workstation will do you for the next 3 years. You can get core duo with 2 gigs of ram and XP for that, and it is going to run more solid than windows 7 on a brand new $600 pc.

[LAM]

Why are people saying to put massive PSU's and after market video cards in a web surfing machine?

If the guy doesn't play games, why does he need more than a 300watt PSU? He isn't going to be overclocking or buying after market video cards to surf the web. Yes, you can get the parts cheaper, but you also don't get a warranty on the whole machine, and 99% of people do not want to break their PC down to send back motherboards and shit when they fail in the first 6 months. You also have to pay close to $100 just to get windows 7, if you build it. There are a lot of hidden cost that goes with buying those cheap $300 parts separate. You have to get a case, OS, thermal paste, sometimes a heat-sink if it doesn't come with the chip.

Seriously, if you are just surfing the net, a $150 refurbished HP workstation will do you for the next 3 years. You can get core duo with 2 gigs of ram and XP for that, and it is going to run more solid than windows 7 on a brand new $600 pc.

the beginning of the year I built a new PC. before that from 2000-2010 I was using a PIII 866 on a Asus Black Pearl MB running NT 5.0 beta (Windows 2000) w/ 500MB RAM.

most have computers far more powerful than they will every need...

[Dark Geared God]

[sofargone561]

i bought a toshiba laptop its hude its nice its fast plenty of memory the picture is great cd/dvd player/burner the whole 9... 2 girls one cup loads super fast

[Ted Shred]

@ TheGreatSatan: killer PC man!! Water-cooled? Re: your avatar - never figured I'd see a Vault Tec bobblehead on this site, nice! FO3 and FONV (both heavily modded) are my 2 fave games of all time. Good post too, 'specially about the PSU.

If the OPs considering used gear at all, there's some good deals on the 3d Guru forums and Xtreme Systems forums too. Can probably pick up a sweet year-old PC for a couple hundred built by some techno-wizard who's got bored with it.

[Dark Geared God]

Why are people saying to put massive PSU's and after market video cards in a web surfing machine?

If the guy doesn't play games, why does he need more than a 300watt PSU? He isn't going to be overclocking or buying after market video cards to surf the web. Yes, you can get the parts cheaper, but you also don't get a warranty on the whole machine, and 99% of people do not want to break their PC down to send back motherboards and shit when they fail in the first 6 months. You also have to pay close to $100 just to get windows 7, if you build it. There are a lot of hidden cost that goes with buying those cheap $300 parts separate. You have to get a case, OS, thermal paste, sometimes a heat-sink if it doesn't come with the chip.

Seriously, if you are just surfing the net, a $150 refurbished HP workstation will do you for the next 3 years. You can get core duo with 2 gigs of ram and XP for that, and it is going to run more solid than windows 7 on a brand new $600 pc.