I'm after a New PC

[Obi Chris Kenobi 0]

I've used Ebuyer for a few years now, but nothing bigger then upgrading a graphics card, or buying some extra ram. I've had my PC for more or less 5/6 years now, in terms of Mobo and Processor, so I think its time I upgraded.

 

I'm mainly looking for a new Mobo/Processor combo, about 2gb of RAM and a huge HD (around 300gb). It won't be used for gaming (I have a 360) so I'm not that bothered about playing the latest amazing games on it. The most gaming that will get done on it will be Football Manager, TEW and perhaps World of Warcraft later down the road. The PC upgrade will basically be there for me to run pro tools of it and record some guitar tracks.

 

I was looking for some help and suggestions as to what would be a good Mobo and Processor to go for, as well as PSU to run it.

 

I was thinking of the following:

 

Processor

Gigabyte MOBO

PSU

Harddrive

 

Which comes to around £200

Thanks for any help,

 

Chris

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

I was in the market for a new laptop myself, dont think its exactly going to help you but for $480 (actually $550+tax-some leftover giftcards I had) I got a HP 15.1 inch laptop with an AMD Athlon dual core 1.9 ghz, 2 gb ram 160 gb hd dvd burner and an nvidia geforce7150 go graphics card. Im turning my 4 year old desktop into a hub that runs my internet connection sharing and everything to my Nintendo, directv box and other computers. Sad thing is in this configuration I cant set up wireless sharing since my EVDO doesnt support a wireless router so everything has to be done by ethernet cable. But I can always hook the evdo modem directly to the laptop and it would work just the same, but Id lose internet to the other devices on my network. But still for $480 I think I got a good deal on a nice laptop.

[AntiLeaf33 0]

Not too bad of a deal for that laptop. I will probably be in the market for a laptop once I'm done college in October. Not that there is anything wrong with my desktop, but I do a lot of PC repair jobs for friends and family and it would be nice to have a laptop to bring to these jobs rather then guessing what to put on my flash drive.

[Guest georgia003]

How about Dell?

[Guest Vitamin X]

How about not?

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

But dude, he'd be getting a Dell.

 

 

 

I don't get the Dell hate, really.

[Guest Vitamin X]

How about because they sell horrible computers at ridiculous prices with an unstable BIOS and horrible customer service. And they make their mobos so you can't really expand or upgrade it all that much.

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

I've seen some decent prices from Dell.

 

Not that I've bought one before. I have a Vaio.

[muzz 0]

If you're not doing much heavy gaming, that system looks pretty good.

[Guest Vitamin X]

I've seen some decent prices from Dell.

 

Not that I've bought one before. I have a Vaio.

For what you're getting, it's a ripoff. The computer I built for less than $500 would be a $1000+ Dell (or a $2000 Apple).

[ZGangsta 0]

I've seen some decent prices from Dell.

 

Not that I've bought one before. I have a Vaio.

For what you're getting, it's a ripoff. The computer I built for less than $500 would be a $1000+ Dell (or a $2000 Apple).

Too true.

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

I've seen some decent prices from Dell.

 

Not that I've bought one before. I have a Vaio.

For what you're getting, it's a ripoff. The computer I built for less than $500 would be a $1000+ Dell (or a $2000 Apple).

 

 

If you're building a desktop it's true, but the same isn't true if you're getting a laptop.

[Ripper 0]

Well, in terms of the apple being a ripoff its true. unless you like paying for prettier.

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

I was speaking of non-apple computers.

 

I seriously hate apple. All their shit's over priced. Fuck em.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Overpriced and underpowered, to boot.

[NoCalMike 0]

I have a Dell, I have no complaints but looking back on it, I did pay a hefty price for it a couple of years ago, but I think I made a few upgrades to it at the time like adding the surround sound system and upgrading the monitor.

 

However, yeah building your own is always the way to go if you have the knowledge to do so.

 

Question: Do places like Frys and/or Best buy offer assistance with buying parts to build your own PC. For instance if someone goes in and tells a rep that they want to build a PC from scratch, will they assist you and makesure you get everything you need and you don't get home with all sorts missing parts? I have a pretty penny coming between my tax return and the economic stimulus package and I am considering possibly getting a new PC built myself this time.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Fry's is pretty damn helpful. Best Buy, not so much.

 

To be honest, if you can plug something into a place where it can fit, you can build a PC. Most people don't even try and would rather pay the price, but it's really easy.

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

I have a Dell, I have no complaints but looking back on it, I did pay a hefty price for it a couple of years ago, but I think I made a few upgrades to it at the time like adding the surround sound system and upgrading the monitor.

 

However, yeah building your own is always the way to go if you have the knowledge to do so.

 

Question: Do places like Frys and/or Best buy offer assistance with buying parts to build your own PC. For instance if someone goes in and tells a rep that they want to build a PC from scratch, will they assist you and makesure you get everything you need and you don't get home with all sorts missing parts? I have a pretty penny coming between my tax return and the economic stimulus package and I am considering possibly getting a new PC built myself this time.

 

 

 

You should get a Quad Core processor.

[Ripper 0]

He should get a dual core AMD processor and get incredible performance for under $120.00.

 

All this quad core stuff...how many people actually need a quad core?

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

He should get a dual core AMD processor and get incredible performance for under $120.00.

 

All this quad core stuff...how many people actually need a quad core?

 

 

I'm still stuck with a Pentium 4 cause I dont feel like fucking around and buying a new motherboard/processor combo and having to buy new RAM, so a Quad Core sounds interesting.

 

 

Anyways, get the Core 2 Duo. I'd go with Core 2 Duo over AMD 2x 64

[Ripper 0]

Once again, a much more expensive motherboard and processor for a peformance increase that is barely noticable.

 

I wouldn't even go AM2 because they require a more expensive ram.

 

You can build a monsterously fast and powerful PC by using last generation stuff. The new stuff will give you 3 times the price but you won't get 3 times the performance boost.

 

Just shoot for any processer with at least 1mb cache on each core and you are good. Don't fuck with those 512's.

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

Once again, a much more expensive motherboard and processor for a peformance increase that is barely noticable.

 

I wouldn't even go AM2 because they require a more expensive ram.

 

You can build a monsterously fast and powerful PC by using last generation stuff. The new stuff will give you 3 times the price but you won't get 3 times the performance boost.

 

Just shoot for any processer with at least 1mb cache on each core and you are good. Don't fuck with those 512's.

 

 

It may be not that noticeable now, but will be in the future. Especially if you get the 64 bit Windows. When more programs come out that utilize both cores, it will be much more noticeable.

 

I don't think he would want to upgrade again in a year or two.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Ripper's right here though, actually. I just built a new PC with a fast Athlon X2 3.0Ghz, using an ASUS Barebone kit, and bought some new RAM (6GB!) to go along with it, then I just brought my old IDE hard drive into it that already had a copy of Windows XP on it. I built this for under $400 using the parts from Newegg. The only thing I plan to upgrade is the hard drive capacity and a better video card, but aside from that, I'm chill. I couldn't even really game much before, now I can play the sims and strategy games I like (I save all other kinds of gaming for consoles... which I don't have yet, but I will eventually, dammit!)

 

 

[Ripper 0]

Once again, a much more expensive motherboard and processor for a peformance increase that is barely noticable.

 

I wouldn't even go AM2 because they require a more expensive ram.

 

You can build a monsterously fast and powerful PC by using last generation stuff. The new stuff will give you 3 times the price but you won't get 3 times the performance boost.

 

Just shoot for any processer with at least 1mb cache on each core and you are good. Don't fuck with those 512's.

 

 

It may be not that noticeable now, but will be in the future. Especially if you get the 64 bit Windows. When more programs come out that utilize both cores, it will be much more noticeable.

 

I don't think he would want to upgrade again in a year or two.

 

they have been spewing that for almost 4 years now. I think you have to look at what programs do you really need?

 

I do animation work so I have a dual opteron server board and a firegl card. Cost a pretty penny, but its what I need(want) for what I do.

 

My laptop...its for internet and downloading movies. It cost 400 something bucks. My other desktop, I think all the parts ended up costing me like 250 bucks...and I can still game on that if I want to. Just not alot of the newer games, but still.

 

 

If you are using your computer for light gaming, internet, watch movies, listen to music, maybe some photoshop all that 64 bit, 10 gig, quad core system is just overkill. Save your money unless you are trying to do something special with your desktop.

 

Plus its alot less of a pain to upgrade a year or two later when all you spent was $350 dollars on your machine.

 

[NoCalMike 0]

I use the computer mostly for internet, downloading, music, and Microsoft office. Right now I have a Dell Dimension 9100 series.

[ZGangsta 0]

I was speaking of non-apple computers.

 

I seriously hate apple. All their shit's over priced. Fuck em.

Now we're talking.

 

 

I've got a quad core (Q6600) on my computer that I built a few months back and it's been smoking fast. Of course I may be experiencing no noticable improvment over a cheaper dual core if I had one. A couple new games are starting to be optimized for quads and they are better for multitasking as the OS can offload processes to different cores.

So getting a quad core now would give you a longer life on your processor since they ARE a higher end, faster CPU, but RIGHT NOW probably wouldn't make much of a difference.

 

As for 64 bit, if you want to be bleeding edge or need more than 4 gigs of RAM (actually the limit is less than that depending on what other hardware you have in your system, but it's some complicated math) than yeah you can go with a 64 bit OS (I did), but other than that there's really no reason.

Also if you need a 64 bit OS stay the hell away from XP64. Go straight to Vista. XP64 is actually a whole hell of a lot less stable and compatible than Vista64. Mostly because MS really doesn't care much to support XP64.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Well the funny thing is, my mobo can accomodate up to 8GB of RAM, and I had thought that my RAM was messed up at first (turned out being I just didn't seat it correctly right away) so I had bought an extra 2GB stick in addition to the 4GB I already had, which gave me 6GB. Windows XP only recognizes 3.5GB of the RAM, but apparently if you have more than that, it's allocated to your video memory, so my 256MB video card is actually recognized as 700MB, which is nice.

 

I might upgrade to Vista later this year, especially since SP1 is coming out soon. But yeah, I think the best idea is to wait until quad cores start becoming more of the standard than just an early adopter thing, since they're liable to be overpriced and underpowered right now. That same quad core you're getting for $300 now will cost $100 in a year if not less, mark my words.

[ZGangsta 0]

Well the funny thing is, my mobo can accomodate up to 8GB of RAM, and I had thought that my RAM was messed up at first (turned out being I just didn't seat it correctly right away) so I had bought an extra 2GB stick in addition to the 4GB I already had, which gave me 6GB. Windows XP only recognizes 3.5GB of the RAM, but apparently if you have more than that, it's allocated to your video memory, so my 256MB video card is actually recognized as 700MB, which is nice.

??? Are you using 64 bit XP or 32 bit XP? Cause that whole allocating to the video card thing doesn't make any sense to me. It might just be detecting the amount of video RAM you have wrong.

Also the RAM limit on 32bit OSs isn't a hard limit but rather is dependant on the system set up (though 4GB is the absolute ceiling for a 32 bit system) cause of memory mapped I/O.

This explains it pretty well.

 

 

I might upgrade to Vista later this year, especially since SP1 is coming out soon. But yeah, I think the best idea is to wait until quad cores start becoming more of the standard than just an early adopter thing, since they're liable to be overpriced and underpowered right now. That same quad core you're getting for $300 now will cost $100 in a year if not less, mark my words.

Not quite, you're not going drop to a third of the price in one year on a quad core. The Q6600 hasn't moved from $300 in the 6 months since I got one.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Well the funny thing is, my mobo can accomodate up to 8GB of RAM, and I had thought that my RAM was messed up at first (turned out being I just didn't seat it correctly right away) so I had bought an extra 2GB stick in addition to the 4GB I already had, which gave me 6GB. Windows XP only recognizes 3.5GB of the RAM, but apparently if you have more than that, it's allocated to your video memory, so my 256MB video card is actually recognized as 700MB, which is nice.

??? Are you using 64 bit XP or 32 bit XP? Cause that whole allocating to the video card thing doesn't make any sense to me. It might just be detecting the amount of video RAM you have wrong.

Also the RAM limit on 32bit OSs isn't a hard limit but rather is dependant on the system set up (though 4GB is the absolute ceiling for a 32 bit system) cause of memory mapped I/O.

This explains it pretty well.

Hmmm, I can't see the first link, but as soon as I get to my home PC, I could show you what I mean by it. I guess it would be incorrectly detecting the video RAM, although my video card, which is jsut an integrated ATI Radeon 1250, does seem to run significantly better than it would normally. The card uses shared memory, not 256MB, so my mistake on that. It's 32bit XP. And although XP only detect 3.5GB, (leaving the additional .5GB to the video memory) that would still leave 2GB of DDR2 RAM that is, presumably, not being utilized.

 

I might upgrade to Vista later this year, especially since SP1 is coming out soon. But yeah, I think the best idea is to wait until quad cores start becoming more of the standard than just an early adopter thing, since they're liable to be overpriced and underpowered right now. That same quad core you're getting for $300 now will cost $100 in a year if not less, mark my words.

Not quite, you're not going drop to a third of the price in one year on a quad core. The Q6600 hasn't moved from $300 in the 6 months since I got one.

 

The Q6600 is selling for $276 right now on newegg. I was actually referring to the AMD Phenom (which hasn't been out for very long, and is already at $199.99 for a 2.2Ghz chip) dropping in price faster, but especially with that being out there, now that there's adequate competition, I expect both of the big two chipmakers to produce a lot more, and better components, which will drop the price of those chips significantly.

 

I know a lot of people are geeked out over the Q6600, and even though Intel is technically a local company for me, I'm still a big AMD fan. Although their stock heatsink is a bitch to install.