Best Computer: Value and Quality

[mcotie]

Hey I'm in the market for a new box and I was curious as to what kinds of systems you freaks are using and what do you recommend. I want my shit to be capable of handling the new games (Quake4, Doom3, Halflife2, etc) without a hitch. Where did you shop, who built yours, whatever. lay it down, don't hold back. Let's hear it.

Mitch

[Deth Jester]

mcotie,

do you want to build it yourself? Or do you want a prebuilt machine? How long do you want it to last? What kind of warranty do you want? (ie: something breaks someone comes and fixes it, it breaks you ship it to them they fix it and ship back, or it breaks you figure out whats broken take the part back and get a new one?)

What other things do you want? CD burner? Dvd Player? Firewire card? Is this machine for games only? Or will you be doing any 3d modeling on it? or just 2d graphics and games?
Do you want all that crazy light effects crap or does it not really matter what it looks like? as long as it runs fucking fast? How many people will be using the machine?

Do you want a new monitor as well? LCD or CRT?

what kind of budget we looking at? How much you wanna spend?

let me know.. Ill see what I can muster up for you.

peace
-mike

[Blackhawk]

I built my own rig, bought all of my parts off of Newegg.com . I saved myself a lot of money, plus my machine screams now. I always build my own machines, if you know enough about computers, just build yourself one. You'll save a lot, but if you don't know how to build and service a machine, then I don't know enough about the major players to really tell you enough.

My system
3.2 ghz AMD
1 gig Ram
120gig HD
Abit Mobo
Radeon 9800

I think in total I spent 1100 for a completely new machine, case and all. Only thing I didn't purchase was a monitor.

[gasmask]

Hmm i have a similar setup as black hawk, but dell has just came out with some really nice gaming machines, high performance, i got one at 3ghz pentium 4, radeon9800 pro 1 gig ddr ram 120 gig harddrive and all the other extras, plus u can totally deck it out more than that like 2 gigs of ram or 3.2ghz............but that would easily play those games well and run art programs ovcoarse, that type of system would last u a long time, or u can check alienware even tho its a bit overpriced but go to dell and see for urself, the site automatically quotes a price based on the specs u want on their new ultimate gaming machine, only thing with dells is i never liked their harddrives but harddrives are cheap and at the site you have the option of other kinds for more money ovcoarse....hope this helps, i think the setup i said i had comes around 2200$ but thats basically full tech support and warranties and all the other BS

[cucaracha]

the newest Athlon XP3200+ is pretty shitty because:
- it's more expensive than the fastest Pentium IV
- it's slower than the fastest Pentium

oh, and it doesn't have 3.2 gHz, but 2.2 gHz. AMD uses the name for promotional reasons.

go for the pentium or wait for the 64bit-CPUs. seriously.

cu

[fungi]

cucaracha, i think your very wrong, the athlon xp3200 is 2.2 gig but runs at 3200. and it is definately not more expencive than the pentium. on komplett.co.uk the pentium 4 3.2 is over 150 pounds (200 dollers) more expencive than the athlon.

[stalecracker]

I have a Dell computer. It works well and is fast. They have really good customer suport. 1 year plus and going strong.

[BadMange]

Originally posted by cucaracha
go for the pentium or wait for the 64bit-CPUs. seriously.
cu

AMD has already released 64-bit processors (Opteron). They're pretty expensive, unless you get the 1.4GHz CPU. 1MB cache!

I just built a system for myself, cost was ~$1000 US. Asus mobo, 2.4B P4, 512MB RAM, GeForce4 128MB Ti4200, Antec Plus1080AMG case. I highly recommend buying the parts and building it yourself, or having a friend do it. You won't get a warranty on the full machine, only the individual parts. But you'll learn a lot doing research on components and putting it together yourself.

-Bad Mange

P.S. Anyone want to buy a 6mo old P4 2.4BGHz CPU w/ an Asus P4PE motherboard? :)

[Kortez]

All I can recommend is Dell, they're customer service is great. And it's really reliable, fast and just plain awesome :)

Dell rocks :)

[cucaracha]

Originally posted by fungi
cucaracha, i think your very wrong, the athlon xp3200 is 2.2 gig but runs at 3200.

Uhm well, do you mean, you overclocked yours to 3200 MHz?

Otherwise: ... no.

:p

cu

[BadMange]

Originally posted by cucaracha
Uhm well, do you mean, you overclocked yours to 3200 MHz?
Otherwise: ... no.
:p
cu

You're totally wrong, cu. This article HERE (http://www.cix.co.uk/~davedorn/reviews/hard/pcsystems/athlonxp2400.htm) is what fungi was talking about. To quote the article:

"A while back, AMD stopped describing their processor speeds in terms of the actual MHz but in terms of the speed of an equivalent Pentium CPU. This rating system has been adjusted again slightly with these two new processors that actually perform better than their ratings would suggest.

The XP 2400+ is also the first AMD CPU to break the 2GHz barrier - internally the CPU runs at 2GHz even though it is rated at 2400 or 2.4Ghz. This apparent rating discrepancy is because Athlons run more efficiently that Pentium IVs at any given clock speed. AMD decided for marketing reasons to rate their CPUs in terms of Pentium IV equivalence rather than their true speed which would have made them appear slower."

And, just in case you still don't believe, this is from AMD's own FAQ on the XP 3200+:

"Q: What does the 3200+ model mean?

A: This is a model number. AMD identifies the AMD Athlon XP processor using model numbers, as opposed to megahertz. Model numbers are designed to communicate the relative application performance among the various AMD Athlon XP processors. As additional evidence that performance is not based on megahertz alone: the AMD Athlon XP processor 3200+ operates at a frequency of 2.2GHz yet can outperform an Intel Pentium® 4 processor operating at 3.0GHz with an 800 FSB and HyperThreading on a broad array of real-world applications for office productivity, digital media and 3-D gaming."


Understand now?

-Bad Mange

[Blackhawk]

Originally posted by cucaracha
the newest Athlon XP3200+ is pretty shitty because:
- it's more expensive than the fastest Pentium IV
- it's slower than the fastest Pentium

oh, and it doesn't have 3.2 gHz, but 2.2 gHz. AMD uses the name for promotional reasons.

go for the pentium or wait for the 64bit-CPUs. seriously.

cu

Actually, the fastest PIV is about $220 more than the fastest AMD. Also, comparatively, yes, the PIV is faster than the AMD, but it's a very slim margin. For me, it definitely wasn't worth the extra $220 for 10 FPS. Especially since I don't have tons of money to toss around and in all likelihood, this machine I recently built will still be my main rig in 3 or 4 years. I don't upgrade much.

Overall, the AMD 3.2 matches nicely with the PIV. The PIV gets the edge on speed, but the AMD is a lot cheaper price wise, and that became a main motivating factor for me. I did a lot of research on these two before buying my machine and AMD definitely came out to be the better option for me. I don't play fanboy when it comes to hardware, I pick what I feel is the best option at the best price. I'm a nasty shopper to deal with, I like deals and I never impulse buy, I research exhaustingly until I make my decision.

[mcotie]

I was hoping this would turn into a system pissing match :D thanks guys I appreciate your help. I too must keep it as cheap as possible, because I have to buy a winter beater so I don't have to drive the Bug.

anyway.

I agree that Dell kicks ass no doubt. I have a laptop that that I bought 3 years ago and it takes a real beating and it still kicks it in 3DSMax5 and Painter with a wacom without a hitch, but it was expensive. The desktop I'm using now:
1.6G Pentium 4
512 MB RAM
40Gig hard drive (almost full with art and games)
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 100

was made with a hodge-podge of stuff built by a friend of a friend for $1000 a couple of years ago. I had some minor problems with it last year that cost me about 100 smackers.

I was checking out the AlienWare and damn that looks cool as hell but I know that I'm paying for the cool look and I don't really care what it looks like as long as it runs like a raped ape. Just like I like my cars.

I'm thinking:
AMD Athlon XP3200
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
Big ass Harddrive
Dolby 6.1 sound system
at least 1G RAM
400 Watt power source
21 inch CRT screen
Network card
and a decent design for the case that keeps it cool

Mitch

[cucaracha]

ok ok ok....

I thought, you mean that a Athlon XP3200+ runs at 3200 Mhz.
Well, that is wrong, an Athlon XP3200+ is running at 2200 Mhz.

If you mean, that an Athlon can compete with a 3.2 GHz CPU because of its Quantispeed technology, you are right.
If anyone's interested, here's the datasheet: http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/26237.PDF

The Intel Pentium IV 3.066 GHz Northwood 533MHz is at 360$ and were in 19 of 21 disciplines of a benchmark test faster than the AMD Athlon K7 XP 3200+.

It has 144 MHz less than the newest Pentium IV, which are only 4%.

The Pentium 3.2 GHz and the Athlon 2.2 GHz are only for benchmark-hunters, the most reasonable solution for costs/value is:
The Intel Pentium IV 3.066 GHz Northwood 533MHz

cu

edit: a little price overview I found:
Intel Pentium IV 3.066 GHz Northwood 533MHz boxed: 399$
Intel Pentium IV 3.2 GHz 800MHz boxed: 669$ (remember, only 144 MHz more...)
AMD Athlon K7 XP 3200+ boxed: 449$
a good alternative:
AMD Athlon K7 XP 3000+ boxed: 279$

[Kortez]

Hey Mitch,

You should check this site out Price Watch (http://www.pricewatch.com/) .

I have no idea if this is worth your time, but some guy recommended it to me when I was looking for a cheap hard drive.

Oh and Pricegrabber.com (http://www.pricegrabber.com) is pretty cool also.

Hope it helps :)

[BadMange]

I second PriceWatch and PriceGrabber. I used both when I bought my system.

For a nice case, check out the Antec Plus1080AMG (http://www.antec-inc.com/pro_details_enclosure.php?ProdID=91082). If it's too tall for your tastes, check out the smaller Plus660AMG (http://www.antec-inc.com/pro_details_enclosure.php?ProdID=90662). Or, if you want to have the window and neon lights and all that cheesey BS, check out the aluminum LanBoy (http://www.antec-inc.com/pro_details_enclosure.php?ProdID=90662). Their TruePower power supplies are really great, too.

Lastly, if you're into overclocking, check out the forums at Overclockers.com (http://forum.oc-forums.com).

Oh, and stay away from Apple... (you said you wanted a platform war ;)

-Bad Mange

[davi]

i used Http://www.micropro.com and found good prices

spent $900 on a new computer and only kept my monitor and wacom :P

[Johannes]

Hi Mcotie.
Im thinking of upgrading too, and thought Id share what Ive come to think so far:

buy a really good case - its hell to work with a cheap case - cutting your fingers on sharp metal and stuff! I have a chieftech dragon midi-tower which suits me good with lotsa space for fans and extra hds (up to 4), burners (up to 4 also) and stuff. This one comes with 340W power but I think the maxitowers have more power.

Im also leaning towards ati graphics, but Im on a budget so maybe a 9600 will have to do

Harddrivewise, Im thinking 120GB seagate barracuda ata V 7200.7 - not only is it among the fastest (and cheapest!!!), but Ive heard from people who have it that its ultra silent too! :D
before this I always went with IBM (nowadays hitatchi) drives, they have never (knock on wood...) failed me yet. Im a bit of an old geezer, when it comes to tec-stuff - I dont like to buy the fastest drives out there in a new generation, theres almost always some minor or major "child-diseases" on them.

Now Ill only have to decide on processor and motherboard... If someone knows a great motherboard, please advice me about it

Ill keep checking this thread :D

[BadMange]

Originally posted by Johannes
If someone knows a great motherboard, please advice me about it

Definitely depends on the platform you want (Intel or AMD), but I'll recommend the Asus P4C800-E Deluxe. You can read about it HERE (http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket478/p4c800-e_d/overview.htm). For a processor I'd recommend the Pentium 4 2.4C (Hyperthreading, 800MHz FSB). It's a great price/performace buy, and it overclocks to 3.0+ GHz with just air cooling (if you're into OC'ing).

I'm sure others can recommend other boards, I'm just partial to Asus. Abit has good boards as well, but I've never had experiences with them. The best places to check for boards and processor recommendations is an overclocker's forum. Even if you never plan on OC'ing, they know which boards are stable and will last awhile.

My $0.02...
-Bad Mange

[Johannes]

thanx bad mange, I checked it out, and it sure looks good. Maybe a little pricy for me-on-a-budget, but I´ll definetly take it into consideration. :D