Want to buy new PC

[Inky]

Is it weird that I'm finding cheaper parts on Tiger Direct? Or am I doing something wrong?

Last time I built a PC I ended up getting some parts from tiger direct and some from newegg. I think I ended up getting a few things on ebay and amazon too. just where ever you can find the part cheapest. who cares who ships it.

[GodPigeon]

For Speaker brands, you can go either Bose/Logitech/Altec Lansing.

 

For Headsets, read the reviews. Chances are, most headsets are very uncomfortable or are poorly made(as is the one i bought) So you should be careful about that one. Make sure you get good quality headsets if you want them to last.

 

i Wouldnt Pay for Vista at all, but even if i ever decided to buy Vista, it wouldnt be Vista Basic, id go for Ultimate; heck maybe even Home Premium. Aside from that, i suggest you Pirate XP SP2 and call it a day. Then later on if you want, u can pirate Vista Ultimate as i did(And it updates perfectly)

 

Yea i think One GTX 260 is worth it.

 

Not DDR3 ram, but they will still go down in price eventually. You shouldnt rush the purchase of your computer. Take it slow and you'll be happier guaranted. Took me a year after part searching till i finally bought it.

 

Most processors come with Heatsinks, usually differs from each processor. But i guess since this CPU is running at 3.12 x 4, it only makes sense to buy an aftermarket Heatsink.

 

And about those Mobos, that last one is Open Box.

[Lucandrake]

Open box? As in the tower case is open? That will go against the point of the big tower x.x. I might get the 150 Asus then since I'll only get 1 video card (is duel SLI even that "great"?).

 

O and the CPU is a duel core, if I had gone with quad core I'm pretty sure the price would've been an extra $100 or two (if I'm getting a quad core, I'm getting a 9K intel series).

 

The windows I put up is Home Prem dude x.x. I know about windows D:.

 

 

If anything I'll get DDR3 later in the year then. I'm still worried about the cooling though (what's a better way of cooling a system if your not going to use liquid?)

[Lucandrake]

New desktop after re-thinking

 

 

 

Case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811166004 $60

Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813131327 $150

Processor http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115036 $190

RAM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820231166 $110

Video Card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814143148 $316

Hard Drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822152098 $70

PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817148036 $180

HeatSink Cooling Fan http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16835118003 $50

Thermal Compound http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16835100008 $18

DVD Burner http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16827151173 $27

Surge Protector http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16812102407 $19

Keyboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16823126034 $90

Mouse http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16826104076 $50

Moniter http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16824009094 $200

Speakers http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16836113014 $25

Headset http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16826106931 $13

 

Total $1568

 

Should come out to about $1800-1900 with shipping and taxes.

[gymnist1026]

you can prolly save money by getting a surge protector at target or walmart or something...since shipping costs half the price of the actual protector...

 

also...i have a 9800 and it is definitely a massive card. I had to rearrange my case to get it to fit correctly...but it is a beast and i have not encountered a game that i have not been able to play with textures set to max (except crysis...but i stopped playing after the first level because it was boring...)

[Lucandrake]

Looked around a bit more and I made 2 changes that can effect the entire thing overall.

 

Mobo - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819103273 $145 (-$5)

Processor http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819103273 $175 (-$15)

 

I did some reading, and almost everywhere I go everyone recommends AMD for gaming, not to mention, when I saw the price of the phenom 2.6 MHZ was cheaper then a DUO 3.16 (or right next to it) I was like "Hey wait a minute, 4 cores X 2.6 > 2 Cores X 3.16".

 

Please someone review this who has built a PC, this is a lot of money and I want to make sure I got everything right in the first shot.

 

Hmm, also, FBS (front bus speed), for some reason NEWEGG doesn't show the FSB of the phenom but tigerdirect said it was 2k, so a mobo with 2.6k FBS should be able to run the phenom at full speed right?

 

Edit - Gymnist: yea the few reviews I read of the 9800 all generally said "Runs games on max single-handed", so instead of getting 2 9800's I'm pretty sure a X260 (cheaper price) will give me around the same power of those 2 and allow me to control temperature better. Which I still don't know how to do as well.

[ken_cinder]

Features. For starters, the first one (Most expensive) sports an x16 and x4 PCI-Express slot. The others only have one x16 and the others are x1 slots. Theres other things too.

 

You really need to sit down and make a list of what it is you WANT out of your PC, and make sure you buy parts that will do it for you. Don't just pull up parts that fit the general idea. Get EXACTLY what you want.

 

You need to do some serious research, and this isn't going to be an overnight thing. Start with a motherboard and make a checklist.

 

1: Do you want SLi or Crossfire? Hell do you even want either?

2: Do you want DDR3 support, DDR2 or both? (You will pay more for one that supports both, and you'll pay more for DDR3 only. Choose wisely)

3: Do you care if it has onboard audio? There are usually a few revisions of a board based on if it has onboard audio etc.

4: What kind of processor do you want? Do you want to be able to pop a quad core in there later?

 

Cross off every board you come across that doesn't fit ALL of those, and put ones down that do. Then go over the ones that made the cut, and cut them down even further by their specs for performance and other features. Do they sport features you could give a rats ass about? You may not want that board if you can save $20 by going with one that doesn't have those useless features.

 

Lastly, enough with Newegg etc. Start your research on manufacturers websites. Use Newegg to find stuff, but make a list and check the manufacturers site. Sometimes bios upgrades enable new features you don't see on store sites (My motherboard supports the Phenom/Quad Core, it didn't until a bios upgrade was released)

The LAST place you should be compiling a list of potential buys, is at a store. That's like grocery shopping while you're hungry!!!

[Lucandrake]

What do I want out of my PC?

 

Simple, a decent future proofed PC that can run the majority of today's games on max or near max settings with no frame-rate lag, a long with a hint of coolness factor coming out of a pretty pretty machine.

 

1.I want SLI but only now if I can hit it with a $400-450 mark. Hell Crossfire would do fine as well even though ATI is fairly new at doing it so I have trust issues with that, if decent SLI isn't realistic around that price range I would be fine with a single Vid card for now as long as it is SLI future proofed (in-case I want to buy another one when price goes down) and that the mobo has at least 2 (3 if no onboard audio) PCI X16 slots.

 

2. I would love Duo support, so that I can purchase DDR2 1066's now and maybe a year or 2 from now upgrade to DDR3, in terms of RAM I'm pretty sure 4 gigs will run anything fine, 8 gigs is a little too much and might become too pricey (the Monitor I planned on originally using only has a native of 1380 X xxxx, I really don't want all this fancy stuff and a monitor that can't support it so I need to include a Monitor into the budget now).

 

3.I don't want on-board audio, but I will be satisfied with it. I'm not a sound whore, but I don't want what I have now, sh!tty-fair sound. I would like to go 1 rank higher but I'm pretty sure a set of speakers with on-board audio will be enough for me, unless not including on-board audio into the mobo has any form of performance upgrade I can handle a mobo with it.

 

4.Considering everywhere I go everyone shouts AMD FOR GAMING, and the price of the quad AMDX2+ 2.6 is the same as a Intel Duo Core 3.16 I would really love to have a quad atm. Future proof already my system. Also, AMDX2+ (I think) is fairly new so if 5.0 MHZ quad cores ever get released I'm pretty sure the same mobo I get now will be able to handle it.

 

Also Cinder I'm on IRC if you wanna chat .

[GodPigeon]

Dont worry about Monitor Resolution. 720 = 32 inch

 

People crank up resolution on little 22' screens all the way up to 1200 and in reallity get nothing much better then if they'd put it at 768. My computer and all my systems are on this 32 inch screen and look great at 1380x768.

[Lucandrake]

The TV is a 26 inch, and I'm pretty sure the max native res is the one you just said pegeon, I was using it with this laptop and it looked great at 800X600 (by my current standards), maybe I should save up for moniter later on (like my bday in a few months).

[Lucandrake]

Ok since I'm not getting a Moniter I freshed up some parts.

 

Final Computer Parts List

 

Tips - Never use driver discs!

 

Case - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811144152 $77

CPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819103273 $174

Mobo - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813131290 $240

Ram - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820104038 $109

VidCard - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814143157 $329

PSU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817256036 $200

HardDrive - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822152098 $70

DVD Drive - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16827151173 $27

Thermal - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16835100008 $18

Surge - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16812102407 $20

Keyboard - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16823126034 $90

Mouse - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16826104076 $50

 

Current Total - $1404

 

I still need a heatsink, a audio cable (my tv supports it a really good audio cable though my current mono audio cable puts my $5 speakers to shame), and a headset, I'm trying not to go past $1600 now (so I can save up for a good moniter/set of speakers later). Sh!t, I just realized I have no router, and yes my sister does use the other laptop occasionally, help x.x D:.

 

If anybody has suggestions, please post ^.^.

 

Also these are the final selections for now, unless someone points me into a better source or something.

 

 

Also I would like to thank Cinder and Pegion (Don) for all the help and input they given, I seriously would've gotten screwed at least 4 different times when picking this sh!t out.