hey i need your opinions

[angrynord11]

Heys guys i know absolutely nothing about computers, a little bit but nothing like some guys here, anyways whats a good computer package for gaming for like under a $1000, i know its impossible but i need some help here. I was checking out a compaq with an amd +3200 processor its cheap and the processor sounds pretty good. What do you think?

[Marxist ßastard]

...I'm just going to pretend for a second that, instead of "I was checking out a Compaq," you said "I was checking out OEM processors, because anyone who buys a prebuilt is a girlie man, and I've had bad experiences with the heatsinks that AMD includes with retail-packaged CPUs:"

 

If this is the 32-bit version of the processor (the Athlon XP) and you're feeling lucky, you can get a 2500+ for less than half the price and set the FSB speed to 400 MHz; the processor will get the same performance as a 3200+, and will, strangely, even identify it as a 3200+. Note that, though I -- as well as many other people -- have had good experiences with this method, there is still a good chance that the processor could poo itself.

 

If you can dish out a bit more money than what you're planning on spending on a 32-bit 3200+, or you can take a bit of a performance hit for the sake of a pretty large price difference from the 64-bit 3200+, you should also consider an Athlon 64 3000+ -- you'll get much greater performance than with the Athlon XP 3200+, and -- IIRC -- 90% of the performance that you'd get out of the Athlon 64 3200+ for a much more tolerable price.

 

...And since you're new to this, I'll point out a few caveats:

• Don't buy a prebuilt.
  
• Don't buy a GeForce FX.
  
• Don't buy a prebuilt.
  
• Don't base your decisions on anything other than reviews on BBSpot. Not even price, and expecially not this post.
  

[tyjet3]

If you decide to build your own desktop computer, here is a checklist for what you need:

 

Motherboard- I personally like any motherboard with an Nforce chipset, you can get a good one for like $100, Make sure it has onboard audio to save money.

 

Case- Make sure it matches the motherboard. ATX is the most common.

 

Power Supply- This where you can throw money around. You get a cheap on for 25 bucks or get a better one for like 75. I would say get a high wattage one.

 

Video Card- Radeon all the way. 9600 pros aren't bad and can be cheap ($200)

 

CPU- Athlon 64-bit is the best (in my opinion), make sure you get a CPU that matches the socket type of your motherboard. I think most 64-bits are 754 socket types. I would recommend buying a new fan for that too.

 

RAM- You have to get AT LEAST 512mb of RAM. 256mb is just weak.

 

I think that's it... Well, then there is a moniter and stuff, but that doesn't require much help.

[Dark0ne]

$204.00 - CPU - AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 512k L2 Cache

$74.00 - Motherboard - CHAINTECH nForce3 250 Chipset Motherboard

$180.00 - Memory - Geil Ultra Series Dual Channel 184 Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200

$72.00 - HDD - Seagate 80GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive

$233.00 - GFX Card - ATI RADEON 9800PRO Video Card, 128MB DDR

$38.99 - CD/DVD/CD-R - Sony Black 52x32x52x16 Combo Drive

$59.50 - Case - XCLIO Black/Silver ATX Mid Tower Case With Side Panel

$36.99 - PSU - Thermaltake Silent PurePower, 420W ATX power supply

 

-----

Total Sum: $898.48

 

Prices as of 28/10/04 from newegg.com

 

Not including monitor, keyboard, mouse, sound card (onboard Soundblaster with the mobo I think) or speakers.

 

Feel free to scrutinise my selections. Only area I can really see there being a problem is the socket 754 CPU which will be fading away soon, replaced by the 939 sockets.

 

Pretty similar setup to my own except I went with Intel this year (3.2Ghz P4) to try out the hyper-threading, which, as far as I can tell, does shite all. Back to AMD next year.

[wallernotsowelsh]

Hey, i also have as much knowledge of pc's as a slice of bread does, so please could you do something familiar (the whole set up for the pc, minus monitor,speakers and keyboard/mouse) for an english guy (ie £ not $) with a budget of £500

 

Maybe making a new pc when i get paid, or it could be in the january sales when everything goes cheaper so i can get a better one ^_^ )

[Dark0ne]

£76 - CPU - AMD Athlon "Barton" XP2800+ 333FSB

£129.69 - GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5

£68.45 - Motherboard - Abit AN7 nForce2 (Socket A) Motherboard

£93.77 - GFX Card - Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800SE 128MB DDR TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Lite Retail

£27 - CD/DVD/CD-R - Sony CRX320E 52x32x52x16 CDRW/DVD Combi Drive (Silver)

£23.44 - PSU - Q-Tec 550W Dual Fan Gold PSU

£38 - HDD - Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 80GB 6Y080LO ATA-133 2MB Cache

£46 - Case - Sunbeam Samurai Gaming ATX Case - Black

 

-------

Total Sum: £496.90

-------

 

Had to skimp out on the case (which isn't drastic) and the PSU. I have had some experience with the Q-Tec PSUs however and they seem to survive a good two years at high wattages....which is a good buy in my opinion for its ultra-cheap price.

 

Both these systems will be able to play any of the latest games at atleast mediocre settings.

[dunmer_jediknight]

buliding your own computer setup is really alot of fun. When i built mine I knew next to nothing about computers ( hence why my motherboard has pci and not agp connections lol). But I do run a gforce fx 5200 grapics card ( reason: it was cheap, ran on a pci connection, and I could play star wars galaxys lol) and I have had very little trouble or complants with it ( some frustration on the setup but I finaly worked that out ) but I would honetly start with getting a motherboard ( what everything is connected to) reading its manual untill you can see it in your sleep lol, and have a good ideal what you want it to do. as for ram memory cards the only advice I could give is the more ram you have the better. I hope this advice from someone who started with little computer hardware knowlege and made a really decent comp for under 1000 US Dollars is helpful. And when you do take advice from others who do have alot of knowlege just remember that they will tell you things in a way that may leave you more confused then before you asked ( ram memory was one of the big ones for me, I asked what dictates how much ram a computer has and the only answer I got was " it depends on the motherboard" , thats it. NOW I know that different motherboards have different number of slots were you put memory cards at ( at least it is that way with pci I don't know about agp setups) and the memory cards also have different ram amounts ( I run 512 mb but I am looking to buy another one, my comp can support up to 2.0 gb of ram) but that little bit of knowlege can at a cost of days of research lol. Good luck on your endevor. :D

[Abramul]

Operating System!!! Don't get XP, it's bloated. I'd go with 2k (although I've heard it is more expensive?). And do NOT get M.E. You could also try persuading game companies to release a Linux compile...but don't bother.

[Shakkara]

Operating System!!!  Don't get XP, it's bloated.  I'd go with 2k (although I've heard it  is more expensive?).  And do NOT get M.E.  You could also try persuading game companies to release a Linux compile...but don't bother.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeey, someone who agrees with me on this. But 2k gives some problems for me when I use a GeForce card and DirectX 8 or higher, DX7 works fine though. Thus I stick with Win98SE.

 

At the moment, I find it hard to buy a PC, since socket 754 is dying off and the new 939 mobos that are available in my area are not very good yet, I would like NForce4 on it. Same problem with videocards, the high-end videocards are quite expensive, and for that kind of money I'd like a card with 512MB, which are not released yet.

 

Currently I'm very very happy with my AMD XP3200, 1GB Corsair memory, ASUS GF5700 /w 256MB memory and my bunch of Maxtor harddrives, all of which I've got for more then a year now, with the exception of the videocard which I bought for 105 Euros on the black market a month or two ago (165 in shop). I've got the luxury to wait, unfortunately you don't...

[Cyborg16]

I've buillt mine and rebuilt it a few times now (3rd Mobo, though I'm using the second one after it got replaced under garantee from when I broke it). I've got a few questions to ask about what's been said here though:

 

RAM: I have 512MB (333MHz FSB to match the CPU; 2500+ Barton). Would another 256MB/512MB really be worth it? I do find loading times slow, though that's probably my hard drive. Also morrowind doesn't play with as high an FPS as I expect it should, with all my mods (Silgrad Tower and texture replacers). I get about 17 FPS often, or maybe more like 10 in the streets of Silgrad Tower, on my 9600XT.

 

Hard drives: I've recently looked at some reviews, and I'm wondering which are best. I've got a couple of IBM/Hitachi, which although some of the older ones have had a lot of problems, my one is fine, and the other older one (about 2 years old) has maybe had some problems, I'm not to sure (it's now my coisins). In reviews, I've seen that the Maxtor drives run very hot, although otherwise they're quite good (but I wouldn't expect a drive running that hot to survive so long), the Seagate drives are not as fast as most of the new ones, which leaves WD and IBM (out of which IBM is a little faster). So any info on this?

 

PSU: My system is running hapily on a 300W PSU, so WHY do people need more than 400W, unless they get a hilghly power-hungry graphics card?

 

Anyone know of good quiet fans? I got a thermaltake volcano 9, which is speed adjustable, but is a bit louder than I'd like (when I don't have music playing) and keeps my CPU at around 46°C (at this speed). What temp do people reckon is good to keep a CPU at anyway? I know athlon XP can officially run at up to 90°C, but how long are they going to last at that temperature?

 

Cases (this isn't a question): you don't have to spend £50 on a case and more on a PSU, I got mine for £30 including my PSU (which is quite quiet), and then made a custom wooden front for it to replace the ugly plastic one (that took quite a bit of work though).

 

Finally, OS: I used to use Win98SE, but I had problems with graphics drivers causing problems needing a restart about every other startup, with a G4MX440, so I then managed to get a copy of WinXP Pro. I don't see any problem with this, so why don't people like it (I know it's meant to be a little slower for games, but is this noticable)? Also, I'm probably going to get a laptop soon, so if I use WinXP, do I need the Professional version (realistically)? I don't know the difference between home and pro versions, as I've always used the professional version.

I'm also currently dual booting linux (Mandrake as I'm not very experienced with linux), but graphics hardware acceleration won't work, so I'll have to try installing drivers myself (I've tried several times before and ended up destroying the installation).

 

Thanks to whoever can answer my questions!