Buyin a new computer

[Tyockell]

Alright heres the deal I have $1500 canadian and I want a decent gaming computer what should I get?. I dont really know fuck all about computers especialy not since they have changed so much latley.
Anyway thanks for your time if you have any ideas.

[Dittohead]

you can probably get a good enough system with that kind of cash.

Thats about 800 or so American right?

Assuming you already have a monitor, I'd get a good case with atleast 350 watt power supply. I'd then recommend an asus mobo, and spend a little cash on it - like a 120 bucks or so (american) because that will ultimately control how upgradable your machine will be. You could probably get 1 gb of pc3200 dual channel ram for around 180. Then I'd also recommend a radeon 9800pro, and those go for about 200 bucks american.

As long as you have those items, you'll be set. You just need to pick a hard drive and cdrom that matches what you want to do.

[Alientank]

Abit IC7 mobo
P4 2.8C
2x 512 mb Kingston Hyper-X PC3500
9800 pro 128 mb
Antec AMG1080PLUS tower (comes with antec 430 watt truepower PSU)
Audigy 2

[Sephiroth]

for truely good gameing rigs.... build your self!

if you dont know how to build, go to a local, well known, computer shop that does build them. I am talking about a shop that does nothing but computers, not a best buy or god forbid a wal-mart.

these shops will get you the parts you want and need, better than a "store bought" system.
more importantly you will get the full operating system, none of this restore disk crap.

though it is prefered you do it your self. you can save cash and get what you need. just do your home work.

[Quast]

last fall I put this together for less then $1100...not including monitor/cathode tubes/uv cables (17 inch LCD flatscreen ~$400...never ever going back to normal monitors)

amd 3200+
geforce fx 5900 ultra
asus a7n8x deluxe
maxtor 80 gig HDD

the memory, PSU, cdrw/dvd drive I skimped on initialy to save money...I have since had to replace them with higher quality stuff. I never realized how shoddy a PSU could be...

Seriously consider building it yourself...the benefits outweight everything

[Sephiroth]

as stated above. do it your self. it is not overly complex, though if you are not good with computers get a friend who is to help you.

[DoomDiz]

DONT GET A DELL PRECISION 220 WITH PENTIUM THREE, NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 GRAPHICS CARD, 256MB RAM, AND ONLY 16GB HD!!!!!!!!!

[wildweasel]

DoomDiz said:

DONT GET A DELL PRECISION 220 WITH PENTIUM THREE, NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 GRAPHICS CARD, 256MB RAM, AND ONLY 16GB HD!!!!!!!!!

Dell doesn't make those things any more. They've long since upgraded them - Pentium 4, more RAM, and a Geforce 4 Go I think...

[Quast]

wildweasel-r3000 said:

Dell doesn't make those things any more. They've long since upgraded them - Pentium 4, more RAM, and a Geforce 4 Go I think...

geforce 4 go? lol
irregardless, most preconfigured systems are filled with trash software and cheap hardware.
kinna like how my mom got upset over why her $500 walmart HP computer runs like shit...well, not really. turns out my sister is stupid (obvious). last weekend I dl and run ad-aware...it finds over 700! instances of shit including 13 running processes...wait, this doesn't have anything to do with anything...

[Sephiroth]

yea it is always best to build. HP and such offten use remade parts as well as poor or cheap hardware.

never ever ever buy a compaq! good god those things suck!

[Sporku]

Sephiroth said:

yea it is always best to build. HP and such offten use remade parts as well as poor or cheap hardware.

never ever ever buy a compaq! good god those things suck!

Oh, the horrible things that have occured in the past because of Compaq.. I had gotten a Compaq about 4 years back (a presario), and the thing pretty much had a fucked up hard drive. It worked fine for a grand total of 4 hours, when the hard drive just crashed for no reason. I ended up taking it back and getting a replacement, only to find that one didn't even work at all. So I brought it back again and got another replacement, and finally it worked. I don't know why I didn't just get my money back and buy a computer from a company that doesn't suck, but meh. Oh, not to mention the fact that the printer it came with didn't even work at all. Heh.

Anyways, I got a Sony Vaio PC a couple years back (1.5ghz pentium 4) as a Christmas present, and it works pretty good. Nothing really huge for me to gripe about.

All I know is, the next computer I'm going to invest money on is going to be a compilation of parts, instead of some junky brand-name computer that's filled with a bunch of useless software I'll never use.

[Skeletor]

about the Power supply....I recommend getting 550 watts. The video cards coming out recently need at least 350-450 watts. I know the new geforce 6800 needs around 400.

[AndrewB]

Skeletor said:

about the Power supply....I recommend getting 550 watts. The video cards coming out recently need at least 350-450 watts. I know the new geforce 6800 needs around 400.

Uhh what? So a desktop video card takes up as much energy as five high-end laptops running at full power? That is just plain stupid.

[Skeletor]

No, it's not stupid. I agree, it sounds stupid but its not.

System Requirements
RADEON™ 9800 Series of products requires connection to your PC's internal power supply for operation. Consult your system builder or OEM to ensure your system has an adequate power supply. Otherwise, ATI recommends a 300-Watt power supply or greater to ensure normal system operation where a number of other internal devices are installed.

It says recommends. I'm sure you can use a PSU that has lower wattage, but I don't think the card is going to perform well.

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=2023&p=4

and for the geforce 6800, nvidia RECOMMENDS, 480 watts. Again, you can have a lower supply wattage, but you gotta remember that the wattage is divided into all connections: mobo, hdd, cd-drive, fans, etc. the lower the wattage, the less performance. and yes, PSU's take a part in performance.

[Alientank]

Skeletor you have no idea what your talking about with saying you need a 550 watt PSU. You MIGHT need that if oyu were running a 6800 ultra and about 8 10,000 rpm SATA raptor drives, along with a bunch of PCI cards and an overclocked and volt modded cpu. I have a 430 watt antec truepower and my system is fine, my PSU is overkill.

[Skeletor]

Alright, thats it. I'm not posting in anymore threads that talk about computer hardware.

BTW, hey mods, give Alientank a custom title that says:
"Hardware GURU"
or
"NO, I will not fix your computer."

but i think hardware guru is better.

[Goliath]

Im custom building a computer right now as we speak, waiting for 6800, this is going to be built to run doom and sence the recomendations aren't out yet im just going crazy and im finding that you really do need a lot of power to run this stuff. Yes on paper a 400w psu is fine but inless you are gong to buy 100 cables you aren't getting 100% of your power or even 90%. The fact is also that I'm finding it to be very expensive also. I am spending alot on graphics but good memory, good hard drives, good disk drives, are all over 200 bucks a piece. not to mention my 350 dollar tower. Im saying to build a top of the line computer it costs well over 800 dollars, try 4000 dollars if you go easy on graphic cards.
Asus PC-DL Dual Xeon DUAL-DDR333
KINGSTON - KVR400X64C3/512 512MB PC3200 DDR DIMM 184-pin 400MHz * 4
Intel Pentium4 3.4 GHz 800 FSB
Seagate 146GB 10k RPM U320 SCSI*2 (got a really good deal, 300 dollars for both.)
SB Live! Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro
Plextor 12X DVD+RW/-RW CDRW *2 (also really good deal, 250 for both os why not put them in.)
Enermax 660W Power Supply (now thats over kill)
Koolance Exos Liquid Cooling System (need it because the hard drives have such high rpm)
now then I can't decide which graphics card i want.
Now i now this is really overkill but my brother works for Pugetsystems and i can get almost anything i want for dirt cheap. But for this kind of computer, you really do need alot of power and power is what allows for upgrades and such.

btw i did spent 100 dollars on cables :)

[Skeletor]

wtf....300 dollar tower? mid atx, full tower.. what?

[Bloodshedder]

Wait what? Is that a dual Xeon motherboard you have listed? That won't work with a Pentium 4.

[Goliath]

du? I Don't no why I put that there, I ahve a piece of paper with differend mother boards on it and i put the wrong one on..
Im pretty sure this is the one i got or one of them
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe P4 DUAL-DDR
or i might have Asus P4P800 Deluxe P4 DUAL-DDR not quite sure but i will find out later when i go to the web site.
I will gladly where the dunce hat for today :(

[Goliath]

Skeletor said:

wtf....300 dollar tower? mid atx, full tower.. what?

I have liquid cooling and it is a full tower, but it is the power and the cooling that calls for that kind of case.

Okay I have a question, how does the Matrox Parhelia 256MB perform

[Alientank]

Skeletor said:

Alright, thats it. I'm not posting in anymore threads that talk about computer hardware.

BTW, hey mods, give Alientank a custom title that says:
"Hardware GURU"
or
"NO, I will not fix your computer."

but i think hardware guru is better.

I want you to keep posting but you are like me when I didn't know much, it's fine everyone needs to start somewhere. However I can say confidently that I am one of the top people on this site that know about OC'ing, volt modding, vdimm, vcore, etc.

[insertwackynamehere]

I just got a great comp from ABS

[Bloodshedder]

Goliath said:

Okay I have a question, how does the Matrox Parhelia 256MB perform

Like crap, don't buy it.

[Alientank]

Bloodshedder said:

Like crap, don't buy it.

Unless your doing 2D stuff which is where maxtor kicks the shit out of everyone else. Oh and ABS is the ONLY company I would recommend for a prebuilt gaming PC because they rip you off the least.

[Goliath]

so I should just wait for the 6800 or should i buy something now?

[Goliath]

god everything else is just so easy to buy because one system leads to another but graphic cards are a real pain in the ass to shop for.

(shhhhh)Plus Graphics cards is the only thing im not too informed with.

[Skeletor]

if you have the money wait for it. it should be out very soon.

[Alientank]

Goliath personally I'd get an ATI card for a few reasons.

1) STRONG STRONG DX performance, much better then Nvidia.

2) DX is 90% of games made out there meaning youll have better performance in most all games. Quake 3 engine isn't 90% of games everyone, so don't even mention the Quake 3 engine, it's a small % of game engines used in the thousands of games.

3) OpenGL is all Nvidia has going for it right now, if Carmack had used DX for Doom 3 then Nvidia would be tits up in the water right now.

4) ATI cards don't take 2 slots.

[Goliath]

Alientank said:

2) DX is 90% of games made out there meaning youll have better performance in most all games. Quake 3 engine isn't 90% of games everyone, so don't even mention the Quake 3 engine, it's a small % of game engines used in the thousands of games.

Yes maybe now but with the new nvidia will more games be coming out using Quake 3, I jsut don't want to spend 400 dollars on a card a relize that i can't use it after 2 years.