Build me a PC

[Kryton]

looking at getting a new PC come tax time, so even though its still 5 months away, i was looking at what i could get for my money.
what i want:
LCD screen (17inch at least)
whole new system (mother board, processor, DVD burner, HDD, memory, software etc)
wireless keyboard and mouse
printer that may or maynot be able to photocopy/scan.

price range will be between $1500-$2000.
ive had a look around at some deals and for that price you can get a pretty good PC.
PC will be used for games, net, multimedia etc.

so, post up what you could build for that price range and what i should be looking at and what i should be steering clear of.

(this is not an offer to physically build me a PC for cash either)

[Boss 260 Ute]

So you want a tower computer? Not thinking of going down the laptop road at all?

[Kryton]

Originally Posted by Boss 260 Ute

So you want a tower computer? Not thinking of going down the laptop road at all?

good point. forgot to mention that.
Desktop PC i will be looking at.

[cool65]

dell have 3.06mhz pent 4, with 19" lcd, 512 meg ram, 80gig hd +++, for
$899 + $100 delivery
spend an extra $350 for printer, another 512 meg ram & wireless keyboard

it of course now comes with windows vista

[nobbystang]

Originally Posted by cool65

dell have 3.06mhz pent 4, with 19" lcd, 512 meg ram, 80gig hd +++, for
$899 + $100 delivery
spend an extra $350 for printer, another 512 meg ram & wireless keyboard

it of course now comes with windows vista

You forgot to add the graphics card!! Seen as he wants it for gaming I would steer clear of Dell and build a custom PC, heaps cheaper.

[GT290]

Originally Posted by nobbystang

You forgot to add the graphics card!! Seen as he wants it for gaming I would steer clear of Dell and build a custom PC, heaps cheaper.

Yes if you go the build your own option you can update some parts b ut with the likes of dell you have to use dell parts. was a problem for me when all I wanted was a 3d ecellerater card from the local comp shop.

[DoreSlamR]

Originally Posted by cool65

dell have 3.06mhz pent 4, with 19" lcd, 512 meg ram, 80gig hd +++, for
$899 + $100 delivery
spend an extra $350 for printer, another 512 meg ram & wireless keyboard

it of course now comes with windows vista

shh don't talk about Dell, they're evil! Just me telling you this could get me killed..or worse still..trying to talk on the phone to a Dell service rep that doesn't speak english and lives in some foreign country like Uzbekinstan or Gutamala

[sickxr]

Originally Posted by DoreSlamR

shh don't talk about Dell, they're evil! Just me telling you this could get me killed..or worse still..trying to talk on the phone to a Dell service rep that doesn't speak english and lives in some foreign country like Uzbekinstan or Gutamala

man i cant stand n00bs that post coments like this putting **** on dell! i can tell you that ive had dell out onsite today to replace a failed scsi drive and within 2hrs of calling a perosn that i could perfectly understand the part had arrived and a tech arrived 30mins after. fair enough they might not make the best gaming "rig" but ppl that just bag out a company thats only experience with dell is calling after having issues with their $800 dell pc annoy me.

[charles_wif_xf]

2 grand will get you a killer computer now, let alone in 5 months. Roughly speaking,

Core2Duo CPU
2GB RAM
quality motherboard
320GB HDD
GeForce 8800GTS
22" Chimei 221D LCD
DVD burner (Pioneer)
Nice box

[El_Poochino]

Originally Posted by charles_wif_xf

2 grand will get you a killer computer now, let alone in 5 months. Roughly speaking,

Core2Duo CPU
2GB RAM
quality motherboard
320GB HDD
GeForce 8800GTS
22" Chimei 221D LCD
DVD burner (Pioneer)
Nice box

ATM, that is a very nice PC, recommend. E6600 Core 2 Duo is a good bang for buck part.

[StookEB]

Go for the New 2 core duo 2.4GHz. Or whatever upgrade they have then.
And definetely go for a Chimei Monitor

[mowog]

Go to www.umart.com.au pick all the parts for custom build...

[Kryton]

Originally Posted by EArulz

Go for the New 2 core duo 2.4GHz. Or whatever upgrade they have then.
And definetely go for a Chimei Monitor

i was looking at Dual Core and will definately go that path, its just a matter of what processor exactly and what speed.
ram will be at least a Gig, maybe 2 if the budget allows.
is Chimei the next best thing or something? ive never heard of them before.

[xrobx]

I've got a PC up for sale in the sales forum.

$1500 negotiable. A solid build that'll play the latest games.

Chimei are good value for money. I have a 22" Chimei widescreen, picked it up for $500, a bargain.

[pertuan]

Originally Posted by davway

looking at getting a new PC come tax time, so even though its still 5 months away,

If its 5 months away, I wouldnt bother looking now. I believe Intel will be releasing a new 45nm processor onto the market quite soon. Prices will change dramatically for a CPU in that time. nVidia will have more G80 GPUs out so that will change as well. All you can really look at right now is a case, PSU, RAM, and monitors as well as little things. The parts that make an impact in price will change dramatically in a 5 month period.

[Kryton]

Originally Posted by pertuan

If its 5 months away, I wouldnt bother looking now. I believe Intel will be releasing a new 45nm processor onto the market quite soon. Prices will change dramatically for a CPU in that time. nVidia will have more G80 GPUs out so that will change as well. All you can really look at right now is a case, PSU, RAM, and monitors as well as little things. The parts that make an impact in price will change dramatically in a 5 month period.

5 months is a long time in the PC world. thats why im trying to get my head around it all again. last time i looked at a build was 6 years ago so everything is new and confusing again.
dont want to pay out the cash and then get the usual...."you should have got that instead"....routine.

[xrobx]

That'll always happen. Sad but true. The PC industry is always updating.

[atec77]

Originally Posted by davway

looking at getting a new PC come tax time, so even though its still 5 months away, i was looking at what i could get for my money.
what i want:
LCD screen (17inch at least)
whole new system (mother board, processor, DVD burner, HDD, memory, software etc)
wireless keyboard and mouse
printer that may or maynot be able to photocopy/scan.

price range will be between $1500-$2000.
ive had a look around at some deals and for that price you can get a pretty good PC.
PC will be used for games, net, multimedia etc.

so, post up what you could build for that price range and what i should be looking at and what i should be steering clear of.

(this is not an offer to physically build me a PC for cash either)

Ask the question a week before you decide to buy , Amd and Intel will be releasing some additional toys so in this fast moving market advice geven now will be heavily out of date .

[DoreSlamR]

I'm glad you're protective of your faulty Dell, it was only a joke and please, i am not a n00b i am 3l1t3 d00d LOL!!1ONE!!ELEVEN!!

Anyway good luck with the computer build Davway!

[brenx]

take a look @ http://www.cpl.net.au & http://www.msy.com.au those will give you an idea of what you can get $ wise. I build all my systems. I'm yet to find a pre-built system that suits what I want.

I just upgraded my kids AGP vid card today to a Radeon 9600pro. Bench tested the sucker and thought. WTF?!?! Then I realised an 8X AGP card in a 4X AGP slot. DOH!!!! Now I'm trying to local a socket 478 board that has 8X AGP, no onboard video and supports the rest of the hardware thats there.

I just upgraded my vid card to a Nvidia 7600GT benched that and had to pick my jaw up off the floor. 3 times faster than my old card that was playing the latest games just fine. Very impressed. I was going for a 7300GS I think it was or an X1600pro. Got talking into the 7600GT which I'm happy with for the $ spent.

[xrobx]

Plenty of 478 boards that support DDR400, AGP 8X, etc.

ASUS make a good board.

[brenx]

Originally Posted by rob-xr6

Plenty of 478 boards that support DDR400, AGP 8X, etc.

ASUS make a good board.

I've found plenty with the right specs but for AMD CPU's and not Intel. Can you point me in the right direction please? It's driving me nuts ;)

[xrobx]

Just a quick google.

http://www.nextag.com/asus-478-motherboard/search-html

[brenx]

Originally Posted by rob-xr6

Just a quick google.

http://www.nextag.com/asus-478-motherboard/search-html

I can't find exact details but it appears to require a 800fsb cpu of which I don't have. doh! The kids CPU is a 1.8ghz 400fsb cpu. Not sure if that board is backward compatible? The search continues :(

[xrobx]

Originally Posted by brenx

I can't find exact details but it appears to require a 800fsb cpu of which I don't have. doh! The kids CPU is a 1.8ghz 400fsb cpu. Not sure if that board is backward compatible? The search continues :(

That simply means the motherboard has support for an 800MHz front side bus. Your 400MHz will work fine.

[robjh80]

Dont get caught up in the shelf brand rubbish if you want a decent gaming rig, do not listen to people who are not even in the biz and simply would not know, unfortunately that can also go for PC sales noobs who know nothing about hardware either!!

Right now, as in today...........Core2 Due E6600 is the pick of the bunch for various reasons (wont bore you with the details), may be different story in 5 months time though as AMD will be releasing new architecture into the second half of the year.

Want a good Motherboard for that processor, Asus P5B Deluxe would be a my pick, dont get caught up in SLi motherboards unless you have very deep pockets (as in you need to buy 2 video cards to get SLi working)

You need to be carefull about your RAM selection as the Intel P965 chipset as used on the Core2 Motherboards including the P5B Deluxe can be fussy, some may even cause the PC not to boot at all.

I would recommend 2Gb of Corsair PC6400 800Mhz DDR2 dual channel RAM (get the CAS 5 sticks not the more expensive CAS 4 stuff), the reason is that the default voltage of the CAS 5 sticks should allow your PC to boot trouble free, with the CAS 4 sticks you may run into issues, the so called performance gains are more "marketing hype" than anything else, not worth wasting your money or patience on CAS 4 stuff.

"GET A DECENT POWER SUPPLY"...........probably the most overlooked part in the PC and yet arguably the most important.
A nice "Antec Neo 2.2 550W" will be perfect..........Antec make very nice gear.

Video Card, you would be crazy with that sort of budget to not get a DirectX 10 compliant card for future game releases and with that in mind there really is only 1 choice as only 1 graphics card chipset is compliant at the moment...........it's the Nvidia 8800 series of cards, go the 8800GTX if your budget extends to around the 1K mark for a video card, you wont be sorry!

Case, well thats a personal choice, I always use Antec cases as I find them of a very good quality......on my current rig i'm using an Antec SLK1650, only cost about $100, replaced the 350W power supply that comes with it for an Antec 2.2 Neo 550W.

DVD Burners etc.........take ya choice, I currently have a couple of LiteOn drives in this rig, never had a problem, but have used pretty much all other makes as well, they are all so cheap now that if they do break down.....who cares? (just get another one.)

Now to the monitor.........difficult area this one as it's the monitor you are constantly looking at to actually interact with the PC, if your monitor is not right your whole experience will not be a satisfying one, its a very personal choice when it comes to monitors........for gaming your LCD needs to be able to keep up with the fast on screen action (not to mention the eye candy that 8800GTX is going to be pumping out), put simply you need a fast monitor with a very fast refresh rate, look for the 2ms ones, you will need it..........personally I would rather have a nice CRT over an LCD any day, problem is they are not easily found these days, if it were for me I would look in the weekend papers or similar for a good Flatscreen 19" CRT, I am not a fan of LCD's, have not seen one yet that holds a candle to my 19" Hitachi CM721F Flat Screen CRT,........ " i'm going to cry when she finally dies."

Get a decent sound card and speakers for all that gaming action, i'm running a Creative Xfi Xtreme Music card with a set of Altec Lansing MX5021 THX 2.1 speakers..........they sound absolutely superb!!, rocks the house on CSS.

Hard Drive.........Seagate SATA2 7200.10 ???Gb size, take ya pick, I have always found Seagate drives to be the best, nice and quiet and rock solid reliable, have used Western Digital as well a few times but find them a touch noisier.

And dont forget you need to keep all this adequately cool.........get some 3 speed Antec fans for whatever case you end up getting, that way you can drop the fan speeds down to get a good compromise between cooling efficiency and noise generated, iv'e got all mine set on the medium speed settings.

Hope all this has been of some help, good luck with it all..........Rob.

[Kryton]

Originally Posted by robjh80

Dont get caught up in the shelf brand rubbish if you want a decent gaming rig, do not listen to people who are not even in the biz and simply would not know, unfortunately that can also go for PC sales noobs who know nothing about hardware either!!

Right now, as in today...........Core2 Due E6600 is the pick of the bunch for various reasons (wont bore you with the details), may be different story in 5 months time though as AMD will be releasing new architecture into the second half of the year.

Want a good Motherboard for that processor, Asus P5B Deluxe would be a my pick, dont get caught up in SLi motherboards unless you have very deep pockets (as in you need to buy 2 video cards to get SLi working)

You need to be carefull about your RAM selection as the Intel P965 chipset as used on the Core2 Motherboards including the P5B Deluxe can be fussy, some may even cause the PC not to boot at all.

I would recommend 2Gb of Corsair PC6400 800Mhz DDR2 dual channel RAM (get the CAS 5 sticks not the more expensive CAS 4 stuff), the reason is that the default voltage of the CAS 5 sticks should allow your PC to boot trouble free, with the CAS 4 sticks you may run into issues, the so called performance gains are more "marketing hype" than anything else, not worth wasting your money or patience on CAS 4 stuff.

"GET A DECENT POWER SUPPLY"...........probably the most overlooked part in the PC and yet arguably the most important.
A nice "Antec Neo 2.2 550W" will be perfect..........Antec make very nice gear.

Video Card, you would be crazy with that sort of budget to not get a DirectX 10 compliant card for future game releases and with that in mind there really is only 1 choice as only 1 graphics card chipset is compliant at the moment...........it's the Nvidia 8800 series of cards, go the 8800GTX if your budget extends to around the 1K mark for a video card, you wont be sorry!

Case, well thats a personal choice, I always use Antec cases as I find them of a very good quality......on my current rig i'm using an Antec SLK1650, only cost about $100, replaced the 350W power supply that comes with it for an Antec 2.2 Neo 550W.

DVD Burners etc.........take ya choice, I currently have a couple of LiteOn drives in this rig, never had a problem, but have used pretty much all other makes as well, they are all so cheap now that if they do break down.....who cares? (just get another one.)

Now to the monitor.........difficult area this one as it's the monitor you are constantly looking at to actually interact with the PC, if your monitor is not right your whole experience will not be a satisfying one, its a very personal choice when it comes to monitors........for gaming your LCD needs to be able to keep up with the fast on screen action (not to mention the eye candy that 8800GTX is going to be pumping out), put simply you need a fast monitor with a very fast refresh rate, look for the 2ms ones, you will need it..........personally I would rather have a nice CRT over an LCD any day, problem is they are not easily found these days, if it were for me I would look in the weekend papers or similar for a good Flatscreen 19" CRT, I am not a fan of LCD's, have not seen one yet that holds a candle to my 19" Hitachi CM721F Flat Screen CRT,........ " i'm going to cry when she finally dies."

Get a decent sound card and speakers for all that gaming action, i'm running a Creative Xfi Xtreme Music card with a set of Altec Lansing MX5021 THX 2.1 speakers..........they sound absolutely superb!!, rocks the house on CSS.

Hard Drive.........Seagate SATA2 7200.10 ???Gb size, take ya pick, I have always found Seagate drives to be the best, nice and quiet and rock solid reliable, have used Western Digital as well a few times but find them a touch noisier.

And dont forget you need to keep all this adequately cool.........get some 3 speed Antec fans for whatever case you end up getting, that way you can drop the fan speeds down to get a good compromise between cooling efficiency and noise generated, iv'e got all mine set on the medium speed settings.

Hope all this has been of some help, good luck with it all..........Rob.

AWESOME information! exactly what i was looking for. if i remember in 5 months time, i will ask you again for your advice on what i should be looking at.
as the system sits above, would all that come in at $2000 or less right now?

[xrobx]

Originally Posted by davway

AWESOME information! exactly what i was looking for. if i remember in 5 months time, i will ask you again for your advice on what i should be looking at.
as the system sits above, would all that come in at $2000 or less right now?

Nope. That'd probably exceed the $2000 mark, though depends on where you look.

put simply you need a fast monitor with a very fast refresh rate, look for the 2ms ones, you will need it

LCD's don't use refresh rate. They use response time, and there is no known LCD that has a 2ms response time.

Anything below 8 should do you fine. CRT's are also useless antiques. It's all LCD, much better display, etc.

[Kryton]

Originally Posted by rob-xr6

Nope. That'd probably exceed the $2000 mark, though depends on where you look.

just built the system (as close as i could) on one of the links provided and it came in at $3700 without a power supply.

[robjh80]

Originally Posted by davway

just built the system (as close as i could) on one of the links provided and it came in at $3700 without a power supply.

You have to shop around for your hardware, some PC parts suppliers are "off the planet" when it comes to their pricing.

I find Umart or MSY fairly reasonable, you can get stuff even cheaper still but you have to shop around.

Umart......... http://www.umart.com.au/
MSY.......... http://www.msy.com.au/

Again I can only recommend you "listen" to those who actually know what they are talking about...........there are lots of "Weekend Warrior PC Tech Wannabe's" out there.

Do a lot of research over the net on hardware, read reviews etc, and take your time, hardware is only getting better and cheaper as the months roll by.

heres a few good places to start........

http://www.tomshardware.com/

http://www.anandtech.com/

http://www.xtremesystems.com/