New PC, what should i get?

Hey all ive saved up a bit of cash and im sick of sharing the family pc, so i might buy my own.

Unfortunately i know nothing about hardware, just how to use programs and such ^^


Im looking for a nice not to expensive setup, and when is the best time to buy.

If anyones got some links for a already setup, thats ok too. But im after something that will let me play games, and multitask aswell.
Thanks in advance.

IMO build a Conroe setup, a very powerful one can be built in the $1200 range, if thats possible. Never go pre-built if you want your monies worth.

A general rule of thumb is that every 6 months the newest fastest thing just became 2nd best.

Aka no matter what you get, it's going to be "out of date" pretty soon so don't feel bad. There will always be that faster newer cpu, faster newer video card, and other things they may "jump" in tech after being static after a while.

My own personal preference is: Amd > Intel, Nvidia > Ati. I'm not saying the others are bad, I perfer my choices and they have done me well. Other's can say the opposite for the exact same reason

What I do is research. Check out websites such as www.anandtech.com or www.tomshardware.com

I do custom built (by me ordering parts and putting together)

What I do is pick a cpu type and socket. Then find out what motherboard chipsets support that cpu. That also determines the type of memory you need.

Here's what I would go for (general):
Dual Core Cpu - Windows Vistia and future apps will want it.
1 gb min to 2 gb of Ram - Again Windows Vistia plays very nice at 2-4gb
SATA II Hard drive (and make sure the mother board has a SATA II controller)
550-650 watt Power supply - Newer stuff that isn't out yet will eat a lot of power. Under powered systems can cause a lot of problems that don't appear to be power related.

I have a very limited budet so I had to do an unsually upgrade that someone pointed on in these forums that worked well but if I had the money I would be getting the following:

Amd Athlon 64 X2 (The new AM2 socket)
Motherboard using the newest Nvidia 590 chipset (AM2 cpu Socket, 2 16x Pci Express slots running at full)
600w power supply
2gb DDR II Memory with fast memory timmings
And the rest would be what ever I could afford

The biggest thing will be your budget and what route you take, OEM built (Dell, Hp, etc), cutsom built by some company (also check your local area for local computer stores), or buying the parts via mail order and putting it together your self. What is your plans & buget?

my budget is around 1,200 dollars

more if i can get finance

One thing you could do for a general idea is go to newegg.com and look at some public wish list, many people post diffrent builds that fit your budget.

*Points at Newegg reviews* Please don't trust anything those morons have to say, that is all....

dude!! get a dell!! haha thats what i had to do because i know NOTHING about computers... but i been listening to people talk about their computers and i guess my computer sucks =( even tho it was one of the latest dells... so if you know how to build 1.. looks like thats the way to go.

This is correct!!!

A dual core processor is a must
1-2GB of RAM
128-256MB, PCI Express, Nvidia video card should get you the desired graphics..
SATA II is also the way to go...unless you can afford to build a RAID 0/1, 0, or 5 array. SCSI FTW!!

I hope that you have a friend that knows something about computers, because your going to need some help building this thing after you get all your parts. Adding the drivers to get the SATA II harddrives working can be a pain in the butt.....My friend got a SATA II harddrive from newegg.com and they didnt send the driver with the harddrive.

If you have a friend that knows some stuff about computers, get him to help... and don't get one of those retards that "thinks" they know how to build a computer....I would say A+ Certified or 2 years of installation experience at bare minimum. I say this because you never know what you might run in to. If you can imagine it, it will more than likely happen.

Don't listen to that

For one a dual core processor is NOT a must, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't get one.

Nvidia is not better than ATI - don't listen to fanboys

SATA II is not needed.

Since when do you need drivers for a harddrive
I'd say that you fit the first part of the description pretty good

Something I do want to add to the list of what you shoud get Nerull touched apon:

Windows Vista perfers 512mb of ram on the video card so add this line:
256mb - 512mb PCI Express Video card (perfer 16x pci express card)

From what it sounds like with the SATA/II drivers is that Windows did not supprt them natively and you need that disk with the txt mode drivers to allow Windows to see the Sata/II drivers during the installation so it can actually install to the SATA/II drives.

My old MB and my new one, I have to have a floppy for the driver, duing install hit F5 to load other drivers before windows could see my SATA/II hard drive to install to the drivers.

The Core2 Duo's less than 2 weeks out, and prelimenary results are incredibly good:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/07/...out_athlon_64/

The AMD FX line was previously the best gaming CPU available, but it will surrender that lead once Core2Duo hits the market based on real-world app benchmarks. Core2Duo won 35 of the 37 industry standard tests, with the lone 2 dissenting tests being synthetic benchmarks. AMD has already anounced price cuts accross their entire chip line to compensate.

The 2nd fastest clocked Core2 Duo is expected to sell at about $500 (the EE chip will be about $1k). I can't wait to put one in my Dell XPS M1710

In today's market, Dual Core IS a must. I just went from a single core P4 2.5ghz CPU to a Centrino Core Duo 2.0 ghz... The performance difference is insane. I can run GW, McAfee Virus Scan, 5+ IE browsers, etc... and still run with no visible performance impact. Since most of us run WinXP, and XP is a multi-tasking OS, you reap the full benefits of 2 cores without having to purchase multi-processor-aware apps. The price difference between single core vs. dual isn't as high as it used to be.

Jesh, no it's not - obviously he might as well get one since the other ones are being phased out.

They are NOT a must

And obviously you would see a big increase with the update you made (plus you obviously didn't just update your CPU) - your system was pretty weak as it was an upgrade to an single core athlon would have gotten you a big increase as well.

Again note I'm not saying not saying he shouldn't get one I think he should, I'm just saying it's not a must.


EDIT:
You won't be able to do that, so don't get your hopes up.

With the sub-$100 difference between single vs. dual core, how can anyone justify NOT going to dual, especially given the huge performance boost? XP runs lots of services in the background... these are offloaded to the secondary CPU while you work with whatever single-threaded app you have. As I said before, XP is multi-processor aware, so it will use the 2nd core whether or not you tell it to do so.

Single core CPU's are dying out of the market for a reason.

The M1710's are Merom-core ready.

Dude can't you read?

Yep, I can read AND reason.

Yeah I assume you see a lot of letters but somehow you can't put them together to form words or sentences.

Right. I know you said dual cores aren't a must:

However, based on present chip prices, there's absolutely no reason to purchase single core any more... you're losing out bad on the price/performance ratio. Hence, if you don't want to waste money, then dual cores are a must. Yes, you will be functional with single core, but why would you want to waste money on an antique chip?

Yes, I understood what you said. However, your conclusion doesn't benefit anyone here.

EDIT: PS, please try to stay on topic.

I recently built a PC, and am on a bit of a budget. I plan on upgrading to a dual core when it drops *really* low, locally the price of the CPU I bought was $145 and a high end dual core is $900+. I expect the Socket 939 processors to hang around for a while, look at the Sempron :P.

AMD 3000
1 Gb of Corsair Ram (2x 512 Mb for Dual channel)
Asus A8NE
7600GS video card
250 Gb SATA II hard drive
LG DVD burner
Thermaltek case Mambo (not great)
Thermaltek PurePower Supply, 430 W
Windows XP Home

The only game I play on it is Guild Wars and once I upgraded to the latest drivers, everything seemed to run ok, fingers crossed. I think it's best not to overdo it as prices drop fast and new models are constantly coming out.

EDIT: if I had to change anything I'd have prefered to have gotten 2x1Gb RAM, maybe a larger hard drive, and maybe a better video card, but budget wise hard to justify. The Thermaltake stuff was probably overkill too.

LOL, its nice to see that I helped to get this topic rollin.

Majoho, like Lord_Shar has been saying...why on earth would NOT spend the money to get a dual core? I dont know about you but 2 processors in 1 sounds pretty appealing. I have an idea, you get a single core and I will get my dual core...and we will see which system has the quicker response time

We can go back and fourth all day about Nvidia and ATI

Since when did harddrives stop requiring a device driver? WOW you must have a magical computer!!!!! Please tell me how you got around the HAL. Its obvious by that statement that you have never worked with SATA before.

SATA is not needed but I would never suggest that someone get IDE over SATA II. IDE, like your single core processors are becoming obsolete...why waste the money?

Like I said before, stay away from retards who just think they know what they are talking about...he knows who he is. Could you imagine what would happen if he tried to install SATA II harddrives, not knowing that harddrives USE DRIVERS!!!..LOL Like I suggested before, find someone who is experienced with what your are trying to build.

Heh thought I'd stop by .

First, here are my computer specs

AMD x2 3800+ Manchester s939
DFI LP NF4 Ultra-D
Tsunami Case (etc..)
2gb G.Skill [email protected] 3-3-2-5 @500mhz
XFX 7800gt UDE7 "Extreme Edition"
OCZ Powerstream 520w
100gb Maxtor Sata (30$ ^^ Microcenter ftw sometimes)
Opticals...

Course there are problems such as the 100gb Maxtor...

However, all together cost me 1270$. This was bout 3/4 a year ago. Runs everything fine.

Next, Single core processors are NOT obsolete... Honestly... On the intel side they almost are, due to the fact that a 3ghz Single processor is only 30$ off from a Dual core. This is where it is useless..

HOWEVER, on the AMD side, The difference is 100-200$. Some people don't want to multi-task.. Some people don't want to put the money into their cpu. It all depends.


You can say what you want, but that's my standpoint.

nVidia vs ATI, whatever bakes ur cake.

=\. Not really...... Vectors are not extremely difficult for graphics cards.. As now 128mb cards are dying out, and more marketing scams are flowing in. 512mb Cards for 99$, oh wait 128bit memory interface. Only high end cards in the 400-600$ range have 512mb AND 512bit memory interface, course there is the 7950GX2... but w/e. 256mb does fine, becuase if it doesn't, then Microsoft truly needs to go bury itself in its stupidity

Yeah, just forget how people have budgets... and that 100-200$ can go pretty far in computer parts.


One thing that is DEFINITE, is 2gb of ram. The performance increase is huge, and many games are stepping up the reccomendation to 2gb, and minimum to 1gb. Course, you can't always trust those..

Sata, is a need, a must... If you are so cheap that you can't spend 2$ for Sata over IDE... I mean IDE drives are targeted with FAR, so u get like a 160gb IDE for 10$ sometimes.. Just remember, if you need more space, such as 400gb, IDE and SATA dont matter.

SCSI, yes.. but that would blow half your budget..
Raptors, IMHO, they are loud, grindy, fast yes, but even Western Digital admitted in an interview that the numbers are for show. You dont need to get Raid-0.

Why not? These are people who bought the product, and if the product is crap, they tell you... Of course there are the people who, "OMG IS WAS DOA, BAD PRODUCT NEVER BUY." and the people who, "I ONLY PUT THE PROCESSOR IN WATER, IT SHOULD STILL WORK, AMD SUCKS!"
That is inevitable, but trust some reviews, just make ur own decision in the end.

Oh and tomshardware used to be kickass, but then they got biase with money =\.

What I reccomend to you, is you put together a list yourself, and then if you want, we give you insight on why or why not, also it brings out your personal preferences..

Huh, they didn't delete my account.. thats good ^^


Oh and currently AMD and Intel are racing for Reverse Hyper Threading, which is the opposite of Hyper Threading, duh..
So it'll take dualcores, and then actually more or less combine the speeds... In which hyper threading split ur physical processor into 2 virtual ones. Now its, 2 physical to one virtual. The result should in theory be extreme speed.

Blade Rez, I do respect your opinions, but anyone running WinXP is already multi-tasking given all the services and background processes windows normally runs without the user's knowlege. Single cores are still functional, but it makes little sense to buy them without seriously undercutting the new PC's available processing power due to the minimal cost difference between single vs. duals. If the user's budget is too constrained, then that person is better off waiting a few weeks or saving a few more dollars to get a PC that performs 50%+ better, instead of settling for a soon-to-be-junker.

Also, it doesn't make much sense to buy anything now with the Core2 Duo only 2 weeks away, especially given the huge performance boost the chip promises. They will be starting as low as $183 USD for the E6300's. The Pentium-D 805 is still the absolute bargain of the bunch at $93 USD and 4.1ghz overclocks and available now, but it's not something I recommend for novice users. AMD will drop their prices dramatically once the Core2 Duo's hit the market. Either way, the consumer wins.

My current system is only a few months old:

Dell XPS M1710 gaming laptop (black)
1 gig DDR2 RAM (I'll get more memory later, don't need it yet)
NVidia 7900GTX-512MB video card
17" Dell Ultrasharp 1920x1200 display
SB Audigy2 sound
NEC 8x DVD Burner
lots of bells/whistles...

Definitely NOT a bargain PC/laptop, though my co-worker picked up a similarly spec'd XPS M170 (single core Centrino) with Nvidia 7800-256MB Go for about $1300 from Dell Direct.

Well they never did the controller needs a driver, and it will come with the motherboard.

I said SATA II was not needed obviously he should go with SATA of some kind.

LMAO, once again

Hooray..

Well we'll wait and see what happens

Yes, but the l2 cache is only 512kb, which means 256kb per core, which is like a celeron...

That depends on the person, if the person has a consitent job, then yeah that's a good idea. But if they make it off allowance lol.. or w/e, then its a different matter.

Either way, if you dont have the money to put out, there are only 3 chips you shoudl consider buying.

If you do not buy a core2duo. If your gettin an AM2, then get a 3200+, or a x2 3800+. 3200+ for the 10x multiplier.. Dont get anything inbetween.

If your getting a s939, then either get a 3200+, or a 3700+, or a x2 3800+. It is less reccomended thought that you get a s939.

Intel, just get w/e.

Either way, lets just see if the Core2duo is really that promising to the public.

Majoho .... Sush, your just wasting everyones time.

And No, the driver for the SATA II drives does not always come with the motherboard. If it did, you wouldn't need techs.

Yep, at this point, it's the usual "wait and see" game with another technology turnover in the works. Either way, we will see AMD drop prices to remain competitive.

Who says we have to wait

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthr...hreadid=288638

If you're referring the the AMD chip price drops... they might still go lower. AMD already announced that it refuses to surrender the price/performace lead to Intel once the Core2 Duo is released and will drop prices accordingly.

More details on AMD chip price cuts, but based on this article, AMD has to slash prices by ~51% to maintain it's price/performance lead.

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/07/20/am...ch_51_percent/

It's going to be a PC shopper's market shortly

anyone find the NEW prices yet? time to get that x2

The last time I posted, Core2 Duo's were roughly 2 weeks away from release. More recent pricing updates have appeared on THG as well: http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/07/25/fo...ormance_curve/

Based on the the last set of benchmarks from THG (http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/07/...ut_athlon_64/), the $316 USD Core2Duo E6600 midgrade Intel chip is actually faster than the current AMD flagship FX-62. With quad-cores chips supposedly slated for Q4 this year from both companies, I'm actually tempted to wait a bit longer

Ive got a Gigabyte GA-K8U-939 motheboard, with a 3000+, my old 20 gig Maxtor hard drive (as single partition), a 120gig WD drive(3 partitions), and a 320 gig WD SATA drive I got about 3 months ago. I needed ALOT more space, as I was sick of having to constantly dump screenshots and videos onto dvds, as well as editin registry to move larger game folders to a new partition. Have a Audigy2 ZS for sound, with Ti7700 speakers, and video is still my trusty FX5900(untill it cant hack it anymore). Theyre right though, the dual cores ARE cheap http://castle.pricewatch.com/s/search.asp and if youre buying parts for a self built PC, Id go with dual core if you think you'll need it(playing CPU intesive games with high graphics/resolution settings).

Looks like both Conroe (desktop chip) and Merom (mobile PC chip) will be released at the same... probably in the next few days:
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/07/27/co...ed_from_intel/

This is good news, since my XPS M1710 laptop is Merom-core ready. There's also the impending AMD price drops accross their entire chip line.

Intel core 2 duo is much faster than AMD right now, look here: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...oc.aspx?i=2802

Even E6600 ($316) in some tests is faster than FX-62 ($1000+)

Here's one for under 1k I just put together online to help someone out. Just an idea.

This is EVERYTHING for the computer including the monitor, mouse, and keyboard.

ASUS A8N-E Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard $87.98
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3700BNBOX $109.00
Thermaltake CL-P0200 Silent 939 K8 - AMD K8 solution w/ Heatpipe Cooling Tech $29.99
eVGA 256-P2-N554-AX Geforce 7600GT KO 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card $165.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3120213A 120GB 7200 RPM 2MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive $59.99
Patriot Signature 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory $86.99
Rosewill R6A34-BK 0.8mm SECC 120mm Fan ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $39.99
ASPIRE CONCORD ATX-MR500W ATX12V v2.03 500W Power Supply 115/230 V cUL, FCC, CSA, CB, TUV, CE, NEMCO, DEMCO, SEMCO, TC $59.99
NEC Black 16X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 16X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2M Cache IDE/ATAPI DVD Burner $30.99
Tyris T701DB Black 17" 8ms DVI LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 500:1 0.264mm Pixel Pitch $145.99
Thermaltake A2364 80mm Sleeve Case Cooling Fan (Pack of 4) $11.99
Logitech G5 Laser 931376-0403 2-Tone 6 Buttons 1x Wheel USB Laser Mouse $45.99
Logitech Ultra X 967353-0403 2-Tone 104 Normal Keys 6 Function Keys PS/2 Wired Standard Keyboard $21.99
Cyber Acoustics CA-3090rb 26 watts 2.1 Speaker $25.99

Total: $917.86

Just to touch up a few points posted here.

Dual core processors are by far improved over single cores and there really is no need to buy a single core processor anymore, they're are plenty of dual core mobo bundles that have really strong options for $150-250, many with dual pci-e slots and SATA II RAID built-in. But no, you wont see a huge difference, if any at all, in guild wars or any other game between dual and single cores. Perhaps with the release of vista we will see a utilization of the dual core tech enough to make a gaming difference.

Raid 0 SATA (or II) will seriously lower caching (VRAM) and loading times. So much so that you won't know how you put up with the terribly low load times with a single drive. And honestly, sooo many boards now support RAID and the drives are cheap! Absolutley no reason, if your building a new machine, to not go that route. SCSI has gone the way of the dog for the most part and is far more expensive, most high-end server RAIDs don't even use SCSI, where SATA II speeds are very much in sync with SCSI speeds at a much lower cost. Basically, you're only going to get as fast as the drive can spin/find data, even with pre-emptive caching @ 12k RPM, the bus speeds are still far greater then drive technology can keep up with.

RAM RAM RAM, 1-2 gigs period. Even if your board is older, going even from 256k-512k to 1gb will make your machine peppier, breath a bit of new life in. Virtual mem is a hard drive cache's worst nightmare and the more you rely on your drive for *extra RAM* the more your going to see performance suffer, even with a RAID config.

Video Card, for gamers this is the backbone. You may be able to handle slow loads and ocassional drive read lag spikes, but with a cheap/low end card you're crippled right out of the gate. Almost every single game on the market is so reliant on the video proccessing power that a low end AMD +1000 compared to a Dou X2 +3200 on up, make no visual or speed improvements if you have an agp 8x or 16x pci-e card (nvidia 7200 on up ati x700/1300 on up). No doubt thats where the money hole is, cards aren't cheap, both manufactures have their issues/downfalls also. Nvidia and ATI battle is still raging, but neither have gained a superb advantage. ATI x800xt is still the higher performer in most games, but the 7950 gx2 nvidia is such a close second that most people won't be bothered by the difference. Both are $600 and both have dual card options as well (SLI for nvidia and crossfire for ATI). Don't be fooled by RAM either, anything right now over 256MB just isn't utilized fully amongst almost every game out, including Oblivion, the most demanding graphics engine to date.

Bottom line is, even if you go with a refurbished/older GPU (video card) like the 8500/9500 from ati or a geforce 3 Ti 500, your still going to get a far better card for the bones, then the current bottom line offers from ati (x300-1300) or nvidia (5000-6000), but they won't support the new shader models or take full advantage of newer direct-x functions. So check out those return bins, refurbished listings or older model offers, you're bound to find a deal you happy with!