Poll: Computers

[stompy]

[Please Share. (I think) I live nearby.

Of course. MSY [http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/msy.htm] is used by pretty much everyone I know that buys parts. It's damn cheap, but its a wholesaler, so they won't build the PC for you.

Oh, and off-topic, you doing ABW?

Edit: The shop I'm going to is in Auburn. They have other shops, which are found on their homepage [http://www.msy.com.au/]. That, and their price changes according to the exchange rate. So, watch the prices over time, and be aware they change.

 

[Lord Krunk]

[Please Share. (I think) I live nearby.

Of course. MSY [http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/msy.htm] is used by pretty much everyone I know that buys parts. It's damn cheap, but its a wholesaler, so they won't build the PC for you.

Oh, and off-topic, you doing ABW?

Edit: The shop I'm going to is in Auburn. They have other shops, which are found on their homepage [http://www.msy.com.au/]. That, and their price changes according to the exchange rate. So, watch the prices over time, and be aware they change.

Okay. But what's ABW?

And I live a short drive away from Auburn, so that will probably be the place I'm going.

 

[iamnotincompliance]

Alright, my specs it is...

Case - Cooler Master Centurion 590

Cooling - 6 Thermaltake TT-1225s. That's 6 high-powered fans with blue LEDs. Excessive cooling, but not as loud or as bright as you'd think.

CPU - AMD Phenom 9550. Quad Core, 2.2 Ghz, 95 Watts at full throttle (which I don't think it ever has been)

Motherboard - Asus M3N78 Pro. Onboard video is an Nvidia 8300, almost enough power to play Portal.

Video - XFX Nvidia 8800 GT.

Hard Drive - A lonely 250 GB Seagate Barracuda.

DVD - Pioneer (random numbers and letters go here) that'll take damn near any disc you can throw at it short of Blu-ray.

Power - 550 Watt Ultra X-connect 2

Operating system - Windows XP SP3

Memory - 2 GB Kingston Twinx DDR2

...and sound - A comically out-of-date Sound Blaster Live! (yes, with exclamation point) 5.1 channel surround sound card.

So, you seek advice?

Graphically, I wouldn't recommend any less than the 8800 GT. They run around $100 US and will handle damn near anything you throw at them. Nvidia has been good to me, ATI has not, although I'm sure others here will say the opposite.

Any motherboard the handles quad core processors will take dual cores as well, so spend money here. If money is tight, get a dual core now and upgrade later when that power can actually be used. Intel is the performance leader in CPU-land, AMD the price leader. A quad core like mine runs about $150 US, and I have yet to tap all of it's power yet. AMD fan that I am, any dual or quad from either company will serve you well.

(Yes, I realize I called myself and AMD fan, and yet I'm not a fan of ATI. Deal with it.)

Memory seems to be dirt cheap these days, so max that out. If you still run XP, 3 GB is about the limit. If you run Vista (or plan to run it), go nuts, you will not be able to buy enough to max the OS' limit.

The rest is pretty much minutiae. As for you AGP users out there, [a href=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129116]you're not done for yet.[/a]

 

[Lord Krunk]

Alright, my specs it is...

Case - Cooler Master Centurion 590

Cooling - 6 Thermaltake TT-1225s. That's 6 high-powered fans with blue LEDs. Excessive cooling, but not as loud or as bright as you'd think.

CPU - AMD Phenom 9550. Quad Core, 2.2 Ghz, 95 Watts at full throttle (which I don't think it ever has been)

Motherboard - Asus M3N78 Pro. Onboard video is an Nvidia 8300, almost enough power to play Portal.

Video - XFX Nvidia 8800 GT.

Hard Drive - A lonely 250 GB Seagate Barracuda.

DVD - Pioneer (random numbers and letters go here) that'll take damn near any disc you can throw at it short of Blu-ray.

Power - 550 Watt Ultra X-connect 2

Operating system - Windows XP SP3

Memory - 2 GB Kingston Twinx DDR2

...and sound - A comically out-of-date Sound Blaster Live! (yes, with exclamation point) 5.1 channel surround sound card.

So, you seek advice?

Graphically, I wouldn't recommend any less than the 8800 GT. They run around $100 US and will handle damn near anything you throw at them. Nvidia has been good to me, ATI has not, although I'm sure others here will say the opposite.

Any motherboard the handles quad core processors will take dual cores as well, so spend money here. If money is tight, get a dual core now and upgrade later when that power can actually be used. Intel is the performance leader in CPU-land, AMD the price leader. A quad core like mine runs about $150 US, and I have yet to tap all of it's power yet. AMD fan that I am, any dual or quad from either company will serve you well.

(Yes, I realize I called myself and AMD fan, and yet I'm not a fan of ATI. Deal with it.)

Memory seems to be dirt cheap these days, so max that out. If you still run XP, 3 GB is about the limit. If you run Vista (or plan to run it), go nuts, you will not be able to buy enough to max the OS' limit.

The rest is pretty much minutiae. As for you AGP users out there, [a href=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129116]you're not done for yet.[/a]

XP has a limit? Aww...

And funny, I have that Graphics Card in my old compy.

Also; what do sound cards do? What one is recommended?

 

[stompy]

And funny, I have that Graphics Card (HD 3850) in my old compy.

And you're complaining? Jeez, I've got a 7600GT in my one, and that was after an upgrade from a... FX 5200 (you can stop laughing now).

 

[Jamanticus]

SLI is only worth it if you have a widescreen monitor

wrong, SLI will work just as well on a normal monitor as it will on a widescreen one

What I meant to say, as Eggo pointed out (thanks, Eggo), was that SLI is only worth it at extremely high resolutions (1680x1050 and stuff around there). If you're running an SLI setup in low-res situations, then noth cards do not have the proper opportunity to really work together properly...I mean, with low resolutions, you might as well stick with one card.

The reason I said a widesreen monitor is that's when the resolutions get to their highest, and thus provide the most performance increase when you're running SLI.

If you've got a monitor that doesn't go up to really high resolutions, SLI is only a slight performance boost, at best.

 

[perfectimo]

The worst part, my mobo only supports agp.

You too?

You guys too?

And for those that are saying quad core is too expensive, the place I'm planning to get my computer is selling the E8400 for $265, and the Q6600 at $295. One guess what I'm going to get...

Unfortunately yes. Although just 3 hours ago I bought a monitor [a]http://www.benq.com.au/products/LCD/?product=1368[/a] for my 9600 so now I have a use for the DVI port on the back.

 

[Lord Krunk]

And funny, I have that Graphics Card (HD 3850) in my old compy.

And you're complaining? Jeez, I've got a 7600GT in my one, and that was after an upgrade from a... FX 5200 (you can stop laughing now).

I don't understand what you just said...

...

...

(You can stop laughing now)

Anyway, my graphics card is the best thing about my computer; the rest is just crap.

I have a Pentium 4 3.2 gHz Processor,

A 30 GB Hard Drive,

A 50 GB Hard Drive,

A crappy ATI motherboard,

256 MB RAM

And so on.

See what I mean?

(By the way, I'm using my Mac to type this.)
No way I'm using that thing, unless I'm in dire need of a Windows computer. It (laggily) runs Oblivion, and barely runs CS:Source. Barely.

 

[Jamanticus]

My main desktop (I have five working computers, and one inoperational) is looking rather outdated:

3.0GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
Asus M2N-E SLI
XFX NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 560MHz (Yeah, that's the G80 8800GTS, which means that I get about 80% of the capability of an 8800GT)
500GB Samsung SpinPoint 7200RPM
2GB A-DATA DDR2-800 RAM
520W Corsair Modular ATX PSU
NEC DVD-/+RW drive
Windows XP SP2

I'll probably have to replace the CPU, mainboard, RAM, GPU and possibly the power supply next time I upgrade, unless I decide to make a brand new PC, in which case, you can add a DVD drive to that and a hard drive - and possibly a case, if I don't recycle one of my old ones.

Wow.... Sounds quite familiar....

My setup:

3.0GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
Asus M2N SLI
BFG nVidia 8800GTX (used to have two of them until recently.....)
2x 80 gig Seagate hard drives in RAID STRIPE(no idea about any other info about them)
4GB of Corsair DDR2 RAM of some type or another
750 Watt power supply (no idea who made it and too lazy to reach 6 inches and look inside the computer)
DVD-/+RW drive
Windows Vista 32-Bit Home Premium Edition....SP2

I should think that both of us won't have to upgrade for a few years yet....Hopefully....

 

[stompy]

Post

I'm not going to laughing at you, becuase, until recently, I probably would've been the same. Hey, I'm still kinda in the dark about the intricacies of PC building, and am getting a friend to help me pick parts (parents are adament that a technician builds my computer).

Oh, and your CPU is better then mine too. I only have a 2.8GHz P4... does yours support Hyper-threading [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-threading]? (If you don't know how, and you use steam, go to the 'Help' section, and then, click on 'System Information'. It'll tell you whether or not your processor supports Hyper-threading.)

Unfortunately yes. Although just 3 hours ago I bought a monitor [a]http://www.benq.com.au/products/LCD/?product=1368[/a] for my 9600 so now I have a use for the DVI port on the back.

I congratulate you on the purchase, but I'm not too clear how you could have a 9600 on an AGP bus... unless you're referring to the Radeon 9600 series.

 

[Lord Krunk]

Is this where we get to post our pc specs?

Yeah, I intended this thread for that purpose, but with a heck of a lot of sub-topics as well. It's pretty much an all-round computer thread.

Post

I'm not going to laughing at you, becuase, until recently, I probably would've been the same. Hey, I'm still kinda in the dark about the intricacies of PC building, and am getting a friend to help me pick parts (parents are adament that a technician builds my computer).

Oh, and your CPU is better then mine too. I only have a 2.8GHz P4... does yours support Hyper-threading [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-threading]? (If you don't know how, and you use steam, go to the 'Help' section, and then, click on 'System Information'. It'll tell you whether or not your processor supports Hyper-threading.)

I'm not really in the dark about PC building, as I know how to put together/take apart a computer. However, I suck when it comes to naming stuff, and how the hardware actually works. Most computer jargon also whizzes over my head as well, in particular random acronyms and Graphics Card names.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Is this where we get to post our pc specs?

Yeah, I intended this thread for that purpose, but with a heck of a lot of sub-topics as well. It's pretty much an all-round computer thread.

Post

I'm not going to laughing at you, becuase, until recently, I probably would've been the same. Hey, I'm still kinda in the dark about the intricacies of PC building, and am getting a friend to help me pick parts (parents are adament that a technician builds my computer).

Oh, and your CPU is better then mine too. I only have a 2.8GHz P4... does yours support Hyper-threading [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-threading]? (If you don't know how, and you use steam, go to the 'Help' section, and then, click on 'System Information'. It'll tell you whether or not your processor supports Hyper-threading.)

I'm not really in the dark about PC building, as I know how to put together/take apart a computer. However, I suck when it comes to naming stuff, and how the hardware actually works. Most computer jargon also whizzes over my head as well, in particular random acronyms and Graphics Card names.

P4=pentium 4. ANd hyper threading is a process that lets one computer core act like two. So a Pentium 4 single core chip with hyper threading is like a dual core.

 

[Lord Krunk]

Is this where we get to post our pc specs?

Yeah, I intended this thread for that purpose, but with a heck of a lot of sub-topics as well. It's pretty much an all-round computer thread.

Post

I'm not going to laughing at you, becuase, until recently, I probably would've been the same. Hey, I'm still kinda in the dark about the intricacies of PC building, and am getting a friend to help me pick parts (parents are adament that a technician builds my computer).

Oh, and your CPU is better then mine too. I only have a 2.8GHz P4... does yours support Hyper-threading [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-threading]? (If you don't know how, and you use steam, go to the 'Help' section, and then, click on 'System Information'. It'll tell you whether or not your processor supports Hyper-threading.)

I'm not really in the dark about PC building, as I know how to put together/take apart a computer. However, I suck when it comes to naming stuff, and how the hardware actually works. Most computer jargon also whizzes over my head as well, in particular random acronyms and Graphics Card names.

P4=pentium 4. ANd hyper threading is a process that lets one computer core act like two. So a Pentium 4 single core chip with hyper threading is like a dual core.

While I knew about what P4 was, Hyper-threading sounds awesome. I'm going to go and check it out.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

The 360's processors are hyper threaded. While it only has 3 cores, It's hyper threaded to act like it has 6. All of them at 3.2 GHz

Hyper threading isn't that good. While it's like having multiple cores, it cuts the number of transistors available to half.

 

[stompy]

I'm not really in the dark about PC building, as I know how to put together/take apart a computer. However, I suck when it comes to naming stuff, and how the hardware actually works. Most computer jargon also whizzes over my head as well, in particular random acronyms and Graphics Card names.

Sorry 'bout that. It seems we're opposites then, heh.

 

[Lord Krunk]

The 360's processors are hyper threaded. While it only has 3 cores, It's hyper threaded to act like it has 6. All of them at 3.2 GHz

Hyper threading isn't that good. While it's like having multiple cores, it cuts the number of transistors available to half.

Oh, ok, but it will make Source run more smoothly... right?