New computer

[Pushit2.0]

Newegg ftw, what would you use the computer for?

[cmspaz]

I'm with Matt D.

Only reason I'm AMD right now is because it was cheaper and fit my budget better.

[INTRIGUED]

I am finally getting school going after years of talking about it. Just got word back on a house we put a offer on and it has a perfect spot for a office. So going the desktop route, So using it for school things and I play a few games so performance is going to be a factor. Plan on getting a pretty decent graphics card. Hard drive size 500 or so would be the least I would do. Ram I would think at least 4 gig. I'm kinda computer spec retarded and figured a thousand bucks should cover it. Was going to try to get a decent desk and a new racing wheel and try to stay at or around the budget.

[Pushit2.0]

I would make a list of games and programs you have or would like to buy and us on your new rig. Then buy the parts that will fit best so you do not end up with something you did not want or is way to much for what you are doing. Putting together a computer is kind of like building a car, some things work, and some thing do not work. Also a lot of reading on the parts you would like helps and ask a lot of questions.

~John

[DoughtCom]

Newegg now gets owned by Microcenter IMO. Buying a motherboard locally is worth it's money even if it's an extra 20 dollars, I had to replace mine once before I got one that worked.

I just built a Q6600 (Quad 2.6GHz @ 3.2GHz on stock cooling), 750i SLI motherboard, 4GB of 1066MHz RAM and some other stuff for less than $1000.

Overall I saved about 100 dollars by going with Microcenter over newegg, WITH tax and shipping figured in both.

Then again, that's if you build your own.

[sleepy2lazy]

$100 - Cheap Case (Antec Lansing Gaming case or so)
$200 at most - E8400 Wolfdale 3.0ghz (best bang for the buck overclock card)
$200 at most - 8800 gts vid card
$175 at most - 780/790i SLI mobo
$100 - 650w battery
$80~100 at most - Cruc / gskill 4gb ram.

[SnoEclipse]

Don't bother with more than 4G of ram. 32bit XP and 32bit Vista won't see or use anything more than 4Gb.

But you should get your 4Gb in two 2Gb 'sticks'. That will leave you expansion room for more memory in case you go with a 64 bit OS in the future.

Any cpu you buy today will be 32 and 64 bit capable so no worries there.

[Tachyon]

If you were going for an all gaming rig and wanted future expandability, I would do something like this:


Case: Antec 300 - $49
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042

PSU: I haven't seen enough data to recommend one, but plan on ~650w cert 80: ~$60-120.

CPU: E8400 - $164 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037

RAM:OCZ Reaper HZC (4-gigs DDR2) - $109
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227289

Mobo: DFI Lanparty Dark (x38 northbridge) - $174 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136051

GPU: ATI 4850 - $159
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102770

DVD: Samsung Lightscribe DVD-R - $27
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151173

HDD: This is really time sensitive, each mfg seems to come out with good and bad series. I'll just arbitrarily say get a 640 gig - 1TB drive for ~$80-$120.


With this combination of parts, you could OC the CPU to ~ 3.8 Ghz on stock cooler. The ram, according to the research I've seen, is the best latency for overclocking with this setup. The ATI 4850 is hands down the best bang for the buck right now. with 1 card you outperform Nvidia's 8800GTX (which was selling at $600 1 year ago). with 2, in CF mode , you can beat their current $450 GTX 280 in most cases, while coming in cheaper at $300. The x38 chipset on the motherboard will supply both 16x PCI-e slots in full 16x mode, whereas the p.* chipsets you are limited to 8x per channel. The more expensive 48x NB set only provides about 1% more performance over the older x38, but costs quite a bit more. I've never really gotten excited about super flashy cases.. a bit too much like ricing a car out. So I would recommend something that is good and sturdy with a great airflow layout and tool-less design.

But if you really are never going to overclock your rig or go multi-GPU setup. I'd make a totally different parts selection, and the price would be closer to $560 rather than $900... probably go quad core too if gaming was not your primary objective.

SnoEclipse is correct, 32bit windows XP caps you are 3.25 GB of RAM.

[NOT THE BLUE LAMPSHADE]

Newegg has GeForce 9800GX2 dual cores for under $250!!!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130402
It is a re-man, but it works, think I might have to pick one up.

[DoughtCom]

Q6600 FTW, dual core is so 2007.

http://xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2quad-q6600_8.html