Thread: If you could get any PC you wanted...

Oh and I hate Vista, but I suppose there's no other choice really? I'd be better off with Vista Basic than with an OSX Leopard Mac with Bootcamp, I think. Too much hassle.

Ah, we're talking current hardware?

Do you want a package system (already pre-built) or did you mean the individual components that youd put together yourself when they arrived?

Yes, all the hardware that's currently available.

Pre-packaged would be nice, but probably not possible, so individual components are cool with me (I know a shop and some friends that could put it together).

BTW, since you're not Dutch, this is what I'm looking at right now (from that Tweakers site)
Product Prijs
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 € 219,-
motherboard Abit IN9 32X-MAX € 165,01
cooler Scythe Infinity SCINF-1000 € 35,95
memory 2 x Corsair 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400, CL4 € 153,70
Videocart 2 x Club3D GeForce 8800 GT (512MB) € 396,92
soundcart Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic € 64,35
I/O-controller Onboard raid
Networkcontroller Onboard lan
hard disk 2 x Samsung SpinPoint T166, 500GB € 171,70
Dvd-burner Samsung SH-203N (20x) € 26,94
floppy Apacer Embedded Card Reader 15 in 1 € 8,40
case Gigabyte Poseidon € 68,88
power supply Zalman ZM600-HP (600W) € 89,-
Monitor HP W2207H (22") € 335,80
speakers Creative Inspire T7900 (7.1) € 94,65
Headset Sennheiser PC-150 (Stereo) € 34,99
keyboard Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard (USB) € 49,99
Mouse Logitech MX518 Optical Mouse (USB) € 41,-
mousemat Steelpad Qck € 6,49
Minimum total € 1.962,77 = ~ 2,400$

If you like the look of that stuff, the best thing i can suggest is try and find a few reviews for the Motherboard, Processor, Ram, and GFX card.

Otherwise its hard to know where to start, theres so much hardware out there.

Personally ive had more success with AMD processors, but i know people who get on just fine with Intel.

Whats the speed of the processor aswell actually?

Dude, please don't spend $2,000 on a high end machine. Its a waste of money. You could build a badass machine for a $1,000 then save the other $1,000 for upgrades as the years go by. A chip that cost $1,500 now will cost a $100 a year and a half from now. Video cards will also depreciate like crazy.

I built my computer for $800 3 years ago. I bought a motherboard that would support future chipsets, but I bought an average chip with it. At the time I built mine, the AMD duel-core +4800 chip cost nearly $2,000 alone. I waited 2 years and bought it for $199 from new egg. I added a gig of ram for about $30.00. My high-end video card cost my about $200 6 months ago.

Conservatively, the computer I have no cost me about $1,300. Had I bought everything when it was new, it would have cost me over $3,500.

Ask yourself if it is worth it to spend 200% more money for 5% more computer power?

If there is someone you trust who has the knowledge, have it custom built. The service shouldn't cost more than €100 and you'll get a much better gaming rig for your money.

The hard question is: are you willing to go with Vista? If your only real focus (beyond surfing) is gaming, you might want to. Or you can have Windows XP installed and upgrade later as new games become DirectX 10 only.

You should aim for a processor that is one or two steps down from top of the line. This will give you better bang for you buck (or quid, as the case may be) than paying top pound for the top of the line CPU. You'll probably want to go with an Intel chip. Supposedly, they're the better chip right now (it goes back and forth between them and AMD). I'm not really sure on this, so get a second opinion.

Try to get the quietest CPU fan that you can get and still keeps your CPU cool. Trust me, this is important. It'll suck if your new rig sounds like a vacuum cleaner. All good CPU fans show, in dB, how much sound they make. Try to get something in the low 20s. Or one that has adjustable speeds.

Go with 4 gigs of memory. WinXP only supports 3GB, but you'll want dual channel, which comes in pairs. Go you can either go 2 or 4 gigs. But, if you go with Vista, or upgrade to it, it'll take advantage of the full 4 gigs. Or...if you do go with Win XP, there is a simple memory hack that will get windows to use the full 4.

Get a motherboard that has more than 1 PCI-x slot (three wouldn't hurt). That way you can add another card (or more) later as a great upgrade. I like ASUS or MSI brands.

Get a motherboard that supports RAID-1 (mirrored drives). Pretty much, you'll have two hard drives (at least 750GB, if you download movies and such) that are exact copies of each other. That way, if one of them dies, you still have the other to save your ass. Try to get a model that has at least 6 USB ports.

Get a video card that is one or two steps down from the top of the line, for the same reason as the CPU. Make sure it's an SLI-e card. That means that you can use more than one in tandem.

If you're an audiophile, get a good Sound Blaster sound card with all the audio hook-ups that you're likely to need. They also have some advantages for games that support EAX (an enhanced audio system) Plus, they come with a remote.

Get a DVD burner, and if you plan on copies CDs, or ripping DVDs with DVD Shrink, get a second DVD reader.

Lastly, with the USD in the shitter, you may want to order your parts from a US supplier. You'll need to do a little research to see if this is the better economic choice.

Mind you, I made this post despite the fact that you only visit my journal for the hot chicks.

Originally Posted by KelJu

Dude, please don't spend $2,000 on a high end machine. Its a waste of money. You could build a badass machine for a $1,000 then save the other $1,000 for upgrades as the years go by. A chip that cost $1,500 now will cost a $100 a year and a half from now. Video cards will also depreciate like crazy.

I built my computer for $800 3 years ago. I bought a motherboard that would support future chipsets, but I bought an average chip with it. At the time I built mine, the AMD duel-core +4800 chip cost nearly $2,000 alone. I waited 2 years and bought it for $199 from new egg. I added a gig of ram for about $30.00. My high-end video card cost my about $200 6 months ago.

Conservatively, the computer I have no cost me about $1,300. Had I bought everything when it was new, it would have cost me over $3,500.

Ask yourself if it is worth it to spend 200% more money for 5% more computer power?

Computers aren't going to get that much better in the next 5 years (ie: Moore's law limitations) so he would potentially end up wasting money from constantly upgrading every 2 years.

Also, he would need DirectX 10 and vista if he wants his games to look awsome, which would require a little bit of money.

Aside from that things like cases, sound cards, power supplies, fans, keyboards, wireless cards and so on wont change in the next 5 years so feel free to purchase the best.

This is also true. I spent a grand on my PC 3 years ago, and even though the spec is nothing compared to the stuff thats coming out now, it still runs all the latest games well, and i havent upgraded it once.

If id have spent an extra grand for all the really top of the range stuff back then, id really be no better off even three years down the line.

Originally Posted by Steele20

Computers aren't going to get that much better in the next 5 years (ie: Moore's law limitations) so he would potentially end up wasting money from constantly upgrading every 2 years.

Also, he would need DirectX 10 and vista if he wants his games to look awsome, which would require a little bit of money.

Aside from that things like cases, sound cards, power supplies, fans, keyboards, wireless cards and so on wont change in the next 5 years so feel free to purchase the best.

As usual you are talking out of your ass and have no clue what you are talking about. Most computer scientist and experts agree that Moore's law limitation will not kick in for another 2 decades, and the rest are saying by 2017. So we can be 99% positive that current trends will continue for at least another decade.

Also, you can buy video cards for $50.00 with DirectX 10. DirectX 10 has little or no effect whatsoever on the overall cost of a video card.


Don't quote my post unless you know what you are talking about, mkay, thanks.

Originally Posted by KelJu

As usual you are talking out of your ass and have no clue what you are talking about.

Woah! What'd I miss? What's with the hostility?

Originally Posted by DOMS

Woah! What'd I miss? What's with the hostility?

Mind your own god damn business!

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Waits to be banned!

Just going by GFX cards you can see the progression. 3 years ago they were bringing in 512MB cards you could put in SLI.

Now they have two 512MB GFX cards on one board, which you can SLI with another one, effectively giving you 4 GFX cards.

Kind makes my single 256MB card look like a torch held up to the sun, or a cocktail sausage held up to Lexx Steel...

Wowowow, I don't have time to research all of this right now, but I definitely will this week. This is great stuff. I hadn't thought about the cost/benefit ratio the way you did, KelJu, but you're absolutely right. Thank you very much for your input.

One quick thing before I do more research: should I go for a quad core or a dual core? I hear dual core is better for gaming at the moment, but quad core is the future. Is it possible to upgrade to quad core from dual core?

Originally Posted by Witchblade

Wowowow, I don't have time to research all of this right now, but I definitely will this week. This is great stuff. I hadn't thought about the cost/benefit ratio the way you did, KelJu, but you're absolutely right. Thank you very much for your input.

One quick thing before I do more research: should I go for a quad core or a dual core? I hear dual core is better for gaming at the moment, but quad core is the future. Is it possible to upgrade to quad core from dual core?

Quad core isnt really well supported by anything right now, Dual core is better but still not supported by everything. As for upgrading, i guess it depends on the motherboard. Some will be quad core compatible and others wont.

Again, its the cost/benefit thing.

I will say that my dual core AMD is a great chip, and hasnt run into any problems as yet. Touch wood .

Originally Posted by Gazhole

Quad core isnt really well supported by anything right now, Dual core is better but still not supported by everything. As for upgrading, i guess it depends on the motherboard. Some will be quad core compatible and others wont.

Again, its the cost/benefit thing.

I will say that my dual core AMD is a great chip, and hasnt run into any problems as yet. Touch wood .

You touch your wood? Roughly, how many times a day would you say you touch your wood?

Go with a dual-core. It's has a better money to performance than the quads. Plus, like Gaz said, you won't find much support for the quad on XP. But XP (and Vista moreso) will utilize a dual-core.

Originally Posted by KelJu

As usual you are talking out of your ass and have no clue what you are talking about. Most computer scientist and experts agree that Moore's law limitation will not kick in for another 2 decades, and the rest are saying by 2017. So we can be 99% positive that current trends will continue for at least another decade.

Also, you can buy video cards for $50.00 with DirectX 10. DirectX 10 has little or no effect whatsoever on the overall cost of a video card.


Don't quote my post unless you know what you are talking about, mkay, thanks.

Moores law wont kick in for TWO decades? Really dude are you this retarded? Do you even know what Moores law is? Did you really just get your information from wikipedia? Dumbass.

DirectX 10 Video cards for $50.00 may be possible but please link one.

Any PC I wanted? I'd blow like $10,000 and get top of the line everything and 10 terabytes of disk space...hell maybe I would get 4 top of the line dual core's and make a cluster with 2 large lcd's I have the space...

Originally Posted by Steele20

Moores law wont kick in for TWO decades? Really dude are you this retarded? Do you even know what Moores law is? Did you really just get your information from wikipedia? Dumbass.

I don't quote wiki. I'm quoting Gorden Moore.

Originally Posted by Gorden Moore

In terms of size of transistors you can see that we're approaching the size of atoms which is a fundamental barrier, but it'll be two or three generations before we get that far—but that's as far out as we've ever been able to see. We have another 10 to 20 years before we reach a fundamental limit. By then they'll be able to make bigger chips and have transistor budgets in the billions.

L542 - Project 2: Moore's Law: Limitations
Gordon Moore on 40 years of his processor law | Newsmakers | CNET News.com
Techworld.com - Moore's Law is dead, says Gordon Moore
Moore's Law: Definition and Much More from Answers.com
Moore's Law

I will admit that I believe we will hit that road black sooner than later. I am sure that we won't hit the limitation in the next 5 years which is about the life of Witchblade's new pc.

Originally Posted by Steele20

DirectX 10 Video cards for $50.00 may be possible but please link one.

Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!


You want 1? How about over a 100 with one link.

is that what they call a bitch slap??

Maybe by then we'll be using Quantum Photonic Processors...

I mean intel is already talking about using photonics for pipelines in their 8 or more core future processors....

they are already playing around with this stuff folks...

Lol, KelJu just owned that sucka.

0n1y t3h 13373st h4x0rz bui1d th3ir 0wn b0x. I put it on my resume.

Sk177z:

• bu1lt t3h 13373st b0x.
• v1s1t t0mzw4rez.c0mz t0 g3t t3h kn0wl3dg3.

Originally Posted by BigDyl

0n1y t3h 13373st h4x0rz bui1d th3ir 0wn b0x. I put it on my resume.

Sk177z:

• bu1lt t3h 13373st b0x.
• v1s1t t0mzw4rez.c0mz t0 g3t t3h kn0wl3dg3.

Wow, you are so 1337, you can even speak in Hexidecimal.

Bigdyl is the man folks. Never forget that.