Hi, I'm new here, and to computers in general. Before two days ago I had never even opened up a case but since about a week ago I have been doing a lot of research and learning. I want to build a PC that would be used only for gaming. I have a mouse, keyboard, monitor, some headphones, and an empty Lian Li PC60 case that I ordered a few days ago. I really like the case, but after reading some reviews, I am kinda worried about cooling, but at the same time I don't feel comfortable enough with computers to be installing a full water cooling system. So if you think that my case might not cut it, let me know. I want a good system, and I hope $1,500 can bring that to me but if you think I should spend more or less money let me know. These are all the parts I need advice with: Processor Heatsink Motherboard RAM Hard Drive(s) PSU Sound Card Video Card CD-RW Drive Thanks, and I look forward to posting more often here. And if you have any other advice for me reguarding anything, I'd love to hear.
So many possibilities with 1.5k *drools* Wow, i'll go to www.zipzoomfly.com and www.newegg.com and see what i can whip up. How much more would you be willing to spend? The possibilities are endless if the wallet has no bottom. -Rob
Well, my wallet does have a bottom. I've been saving this money up for a while, but if you think I should spend more, I can do that, but just by reading your last post I am guessing that 1.5k is more than enough. oh yeah and Im going to need an OS too(probably XP).
Yes, more than enuff for a decent pc, but we want better than decent, don't we? And since you dont need monitor, etc, then we can just subtract $150 off the top for the price of the OS (windows xp pro, unless you want home and save you ~$60). Do you have a preference for either Intel or AMD? -Rob
No preferance, but, I'm thinking AMD because the general consensus seems to be that AMD is a better value, and I like good value. OH and in the prescott review, the Athlon 64 3400+ looked pretty impressive vs. Intel. However, I'm not sure if I can afford to spend $400 on just a CPU, and have enough money left for the rest of the computer plus XPpro.
amd was better value in the past (athlon XP was much cheaper for the performancve you got, but a bit outdated now) but now intel and AMD are neck and neck with performance and price, it would be better to wait a bit until the new AMD and intel platforms become more mainstream because S939 stuff is very expensive right now (the new amd platform) and LDA775 stuff (he new intel platform) is few and far between.
Well, are you planning on any oc? If not, then you should go Intel, they're fast stock, fairly cheap vs. high end amd, and are very, very stable. I, myself, am going AMD in my new setup because my budget is $1,100 usd, and that includes OS, monitor, and mouse (have keyboard), so really i only have ~$800 to play with, including tax & shipping -Rob
Heres my reccomendation as far as specs go: Processor: Athlon 64 3000+ Motherboard: Asus K8V SE RAM: 1 GIG OCZ or Corsair PC 3200+ Video Card: X800 Pro A couple of 250 Gig HDDs (Western Digital is nice) Sound Card: Audigy Pro Platinum Two A Sony CD-RW will be good PSU: Antec 480 Watt PSU. Those are my personal spec reccomendations. This is a more budget concious system in my mind, so if you want to go all out, you might consider getting a socket 939 processor. Good Luck, and Enjoy your purchases.
I would love to try and overclock, but I pretty skeptical with that when I don't even know how to put together a computer. I'm here to learn, so I want tounderstand the basics before I start tweaking things.
Don't know if that stays under $1,500 roto, check it: Two 250gb drives= ~$300 AMD Athlon 64= ~$300 RAM= ~$300 (if you want it to keep up with the fsb on a 64) GFX Card= ~$450 (in that area) OS= ~$150 Drives= ~$70 (just a cd-rw/dvd combo with floppy) Sound Card= ~$120 PSU= ~$100 Now, i dont know about you, but that seems like *quickly opens calculator* Nearly $1800, without tax And if he wants extra cooling, non-stock heatsink, etc, that's another $50 or so and all of the other goodies like ordering from a site that doesnt give free shipping (which is why i recommend www.newegg.com and www.zipzoomfly.com ). So, you could probably cut back if you wanted to stay under $2000, or you can buy that killer system. BTW, do you have a monitor already? -Rob
not quite so sure about that reccommendation, firstly wheres the motherboard?? second, no need to spend $450 on a graphics card because any card that is that sort of money will not be used to its full potential with toays processors, no need for 500GB of hard drive probably, would be better of going for a reasonably fast drive like a 74GB raptor for a main drive ($200) and a large cheap drive for storage (if you even need more than 74GB) as you will see a massive performance improvement with a 10k system drive over a 7200rpm drive you can get the OS for around $100 if you order it OEM along with the rest of the stuff go for a DVD-writer, since it i cheaper than buying seperate drives for everything with the ram, you get vasty diminishing returns once you hit a certain price point unless you are doing some serious overclocking you will find that you can get a very respactable system indeed for $1500, i wouldnt listen to a lot of the recommendations though as only you know exactly what you want and what you can spend, the best advice i can give is to go to somewhere like www.newegg.com (the only place i ever use in the states for hardware) and have a look at some different things and the prices, if you need opinions on something google for reviews, you can get a lot of false information from forums, and many people are biassed towards certain manufacturers as well. as for somewhere to start: motherboard: abit and asus are the daddies currently, DFI is also good CPU: A64 and P4 currently hold the performance crown, and are compareable in price and performance GFX card: a x800 or 6800GT will be more than enough for a good long time, seeing that current CPUs cant even keep up with them, the 6800GT is a bit faster but it is also a bit more expensive in most palces, these 2 cards are a bit overkill for now but will come into their own rather soon, you can save heaps of cash by getting either a 9800pro or a 5900XT, which will both be quite adequate for playing games of the future, they just wont be able to cope as well as the new ones (but we are talking less than 1/2 the price here) ram: corsair and OCZ make great ram but they are very expensive, you may find something like geil more cost effective without losing much performance, kingston is also very nice ram sound: terratec, M-audio, Creative labs, all good cards PSU: enermax, antec, tagan, fortron, hiper, thermaltake, PC power & cooling, 400w give or take (in a quality one, not a cheap one) stay away from budget or generic, if it is cheap there is a reason, ideally you are looking for something with 20A+ on the 12v rail (a 550w cheapo psu may have as low as 12A) HDD: western digital raptors are ncie for a main drive (the 74GB is faster, quieter and quicker than the 36GB) for storage drives, WD, Maxtor, seagate, samsung, hitachi, something with 8MB cache and a 7200rpm speed will do nicely, SATA has no real advantage over an IDE drive other than the cable is easier to work with, SCSI is very fast but prohibitively expensive, but a 15k drive can do wonders for system responsiveness, highly unlikely that scsi will fir in that budget though, but many people dont pay much attention to hard drives and just get the fastest processor and graphics, which is silly because hard drives are the main thing that holds back overall system speed, they are *very* slow compared to all of the other components in a system heatsinks: stoclk heatsinks are adequate, but not great and sometimes noisy. swiftech and thermaltake are the kings of air cooling, but come at a price, zalman makes nice heatsinks for quiet systems while maintinaing decent cooling, the new gigabyte cooler is very good as well (3d cooler pro or something like that) that should be enough to get you on your feet it is generally better to have a guide as to what to look for and make your own mind up as to what yo get instead of havgin people say "get this...) with no reason, when you pick out some stuff yo may want to check back with the list to make sure youre not making a mistake
I was much like you. Didnt really know how to build a computer. Luckily I had a friend that was a guru. Anyways, back in Febuary, I bought my system (in my sig i believe...) and I had a budget of 1200. That was shipping and tax. I like what mister_tad said, and bleieve it too, but I would like to throw my two cents in. For a gaming computer, and for space reasons, I would not go any other way than what I did. I love my raptor, and my 80 gig. Put all games and OS only on the Raptor and everything else on the 80 gig. I think it works out great. Though I believe my next buy is another raptor to raid. And I would go with a 9800 pro and keep the money you save. With my system I can run everything on high and still 4AA and 16AF. Just my two cents.
I can help you immensly with this. Because I spend a good hour a day making up "I wish I could afford" systems on newegg. AMD 3200+ 1MB Cache ASUS K8V Deluxe w/SATA Nvidia 6800 Plain? (only one found on newegg search) Corsair XMS 3200 512 X 2 Zalman Copper CNPS7000 Heatsink Antec Tru-Control 550w PSU Western Digital 74GB Raptor (main drive) Western Digital 120GB Special (storage) Audigy ZS Platinum Soundcard Lite-ON CDRW ($25!) This puts it at $1520 at newegg. Minus OS though. Figure $100 for XP Pro. (I highly recommend XP Pro) If you want to make cash for the OS just dump the XMS memory which is quite useless except in benching and pickup twin 512MB Corsair ValueRam sticks. They run 2.5-3-3-8 on my Nforce 2 system @ 400FSB. 2.5v Not bad. Example, swap the XMS and Audigy Platinum for ValueSelect and Audigy Gamer and you have money for the OS. $1536 that way. Plus the gamer comes with badass games. Splintercell and Jedi Academy for starters. Then you can play it full settings on your badass 6800. If you want, PM me your email and I will send you the shopping cart over newegg.
Use Mandrake Linux 10 (or Fedora 2) for the OS, it's free (except for the blank CDs, but those are very cheap).
For one thing, this is a GAMING PC. While Linux is good, stable, efficient, etc... He wont find it at all useful for this application. Honestly just get OEM XP, an Athlon 64 3000+, $220 a K8V Deluxe, $180 A 9800 pro or X800 pro ($200 or $450 respectively) 1 gig of good RAM ($320) And a single big HDD (120 gigs should be enough $120) paired with a nice CD-RW/DVD combo drive ($70) and XP PRO (Retail $200, OEM $150, connections through Microsoft Company store, $50). This makes for the following costs: $1560 with the full OS and x800 pro, $1360 with the 9800 pro, $1410 with the x800 pro and my connections to the Microsoft Company Store. I dont think that you can do too much better for that price. EDIT: And besides all this, you really dont need a soundcard; thats why I didnt include one. Also, if you really want to go cheap, the least is 1210. Thats still an extremely respectable system, and not so hard on the wallet.
well if u dint have the case i would sugest a dual operton(spelling) shuttle with a gig of geil ram a raptor 36.6gig and an x800xt. all that is about 1500.sell the case...hmm to me
Linux already includes a lot of games (even more available on the net). Anyone ever play Quake on a Linux box?
One reason I am not so eager to recommend X800 series (don't get me wrong, I like ATI, my next card will be one) is because Nvidia has a trump card on their 6800s. There is a shader intruction set (forget the name) that apparently the ATI cards DONT have. I rather not risk it. Provided they become popular in games.
