Computer nerds and build ideas.

[sixpack70]

My computer is aging, and it makes it so  I can't play a whole lot of games. I want to build a new system. The problem is, when I built my old computers it was easy. I was a nerd and knew everything possible. All you did was look at the mhz and buy the processor and build away. Now there are so many opteron, duron, ENRON processors out there I have no idea what to build. I know I want an athlon system as they have done well for me. I know its going to be a 64 bit chip. Now what are the functions of each chip? Anyone know which 64 is better than the other? I'm not looking for a dual processor crazy setup. I know the numbers mean its faster (3300, 3800, 4000, 4400.)

Also whats up with video cards? When I bought mine you just bought the card with the highest number. A geforce 3 was faster and had more memory, so you buy a geforce 3 over the geforce 2. Now its 9800xtsabcdefg crap for the name of video cards.  I really don't don't care what brand, (nvidia or ATI, used and liked them both) I just want to know what the heck is the best bang for the buck 256mb video card. 

Anyone have any combos they have built lately and would like to share?

[73dodge]

That's why I don't build PC's for people anymore. so many options and who knows anymore. I liked it better when you knew that a 360 was slower than a 460. And you either put in a VGA card or a CGA video card and you got either a 10meg drive or a 20 meg drive full height and it weighed a ton and took up 3 hard drive bays. Then they started this funky stupid stuff like math co proccessors and if you had a DX it had a math co proccessor and an sx was slower. Why in my day we had to spend 100 bucks per meg of RAM and we walked to school in 10 feet of snow up hill both ways. Dang those were the days........

You young punks with your fancy video cards and CGI rendering we did not have all that fancy stuff in my day.


Sorry man I can't help you..... mumble mumble mumble

[TK73]

I gave up on trying to keep up with tech years ago, the current sytem I have, I went to the store, looked at the price I could manage and pointed... figured it'll be good for 3-4 years, then I'll go to the store, look at the prices and point... kinda like most peole when they buy cars.

[terrible one]

I build computers for people around here, and for myself. I started a few years ago, so I'm up to date  I used to be a big time gamer, although now I actually get out of the house and do stuff. I can help you and tell you everything you need to know, either through here or you can e-mail me messywires(at)gmail.com

Here's a picture of my current one before water cooling 

[TK73]

t.o., looks cool... that monitor seems a bit small for a gamer-type person, 17" ?

[terrible one]

t.o., looks cool... that monitor seems a bit small for a gamer-type person, 17" ?

Yeah it's a 17. Reason I got it was because I didn't have much money, and a 17" with a quick refresh time (to prevent ghosting) is a lot cheaper than a 19 or 21 with the same refresh time. I would rather have this one than a crappy 19 or 21.

[Troy]

It seems that you need something that will handle games so your biggest investment will be the video card. Most all modern processors will handle almost anything you throw at them - some will just be a tad faster. You can hang onto your IDE hard drives since SCSI won't show any real performance increase in games and barely any noticeable performance for a "normal" user. SATA drives are faster but the price used to be rediculous (I'm sure it's still higher but I don't know how much). I'd stick with regular DDR RAM because the performance increase for DDR-II just doesn't seem to be worth the cash at this point.

Because I have limited time... here's what I've done recently (after I started hanging out in car forums instead of computer hardware forums):
Go to HardOCP.com, look under Reviews -> System Guides. They run quarterly articles where they build systems for $500, $1,000, $1,500, $2,000 and I think there's even an "Ultimate". I just pick a price I want to stay near and read the last couple of guides. They link to reviews of specific parts and/or you can grab the name and do a Google search. On computer parts, most have a 6 month sales cycle so there's a price decrease if you wait a bit. I can usually build the $500 systems for $350 or less just by waiting a cycle. I buy all of my parts from Newegg - the prices are great, the return policy is excellent, and shipping is never more than 3 days. Newegg also has customer reviews of all of their items and I've had good luck searching for the 5 star rated parts.

You can also read the side of the box for the games you play and it will tell you the "minimum" and "recommended" system specs. Go a step higher than recommended if you can afford it.

Go here for and let AMD help you determine which processor will fit your needs: http://www.amdcompare.com/en-us/decide/desktop.aspx. It will most likely tell you to use the Athlon 64 FX and then you can go here to see the recommended configurations to go with it: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_869_9480,00.html. The 32 bit version of Windows XP will run great on these processors but you may want to do some reading about game compatibility if you plan on running 64 bit Windows.

Troy

[terrible one]

SATA drives have gone way down in price, but I see very little difference between them and my IDE drive.

Also, I agree with Troy. Stick with DDR RAM because DDR-II really shows no advantage, and a lot more motherboards are compatable with DDR

[Chargen69]

I have a computer that I could let go.

Lastest mother board  a real high-end mother board   ASUS  (lot of stuff packed on it)

Dual Pentium 4 processors  2.8's  3 Serial ATA harddrives (Western Digital 10,00rpm drives)   C drive is 140 gig   F drives are two 73gigs currently striped together

Nvidia Quadro FX 1100 (with second monitor output)

Four firewire slots (three on one pci card, and one directly hooked to the mother board)

2 gigs of RAM

1 gigabit(sp) transfer network card

3 1/2 floppy

DVD drive (write to and read from drive)

server type case

Six cooling fans (colored)

See through case on side

Two DVI connections to go to monitors (VGA Adaptors
included)

Barely used, only on the Internet once, (to register
the AVID video editing software)


I paid $3300 for it(my computer guy built it for the cost of the parts only), the equilivant HP computer right
now would be much higher than that.  This thing rocked on the internet the one time I hooked it up to my cable modem. It would be an amazing game computer.

Let it go for $2500 PM me or email - Malib80@yahoo.com     

Pics available:

http://www.myonlineimages.com/Members/m80malibu/images/DSCN1516.JPG
http://www.myonlineimages.com/Members/m80malibu/images/DSCN1530.JPG
http://www.myonlineimages.com/Members/m80malibu/images/DSCN1517.JPG
http://www.myonlineimages.com/Members/m80malibu/images/DSCN1521.JPG
http://www.myonlineimages.com/Members/m80malibu/images/DSCN1519.JPG
http://www.myonlineimages.com/Members/m80malibu/images/DSCN1526.JPG
http://www.myonlineimages.com/Members/m80malibu/images/DSCN1525.JPG
http://www.myonlineimages.com/Members/m80malibu/images/DSCN1528.JPG
http://www.myonlineimages.com/Members/m80malibu/images/DSCN1518.JPG
http://www.myonlineimages.com/Members/m80malibu/images/DSCN1527.JPG

(AVID software not included)

Jonathan

[Rick Keesler]

If any of you guys could build me a computer that could DDR RAM or liquid cool two pair into a full house or a straight into a flush.........

PLEASE....pm me!!

[Telvis]

Every time I think I have a little knowledge on a subject I read a post like this and realize I actually have no clue. 

I feel so inadequate......

[sixpack70]

I do have a few parts laying around I am going to use already. I'm mostly just looking at the mobo, cpu, and video card. I'll reuse my monitor, speakers, hard drive as I have three here, and my keyboard mouse set up. I think you guys have clarified a few things up for me. I'll check some articles that you guys posted too. Thanks for the help. I'll let you know what I plan when I figure it out.

[2Gunz]

This is all about money.  You need to decide how much you are willing to pay for the upgrade.

With that in mind we can help you get the most bang for the buck.

As stated before the most money should go to the Video card. Any 3Ghz area CPU will be fine.

Heres two Video cards.
http://www.evga.com/products/moreinfo.asp?pn=256-P2-N384-TX&family=17      6800GT  $229

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130249            7800GT  $294

The larger the number the better and generally the more words after the number the better lol.
All my Video cards are NVidia. A while ago we went through an ordeal with a radeon 9800 pro.
It crashing Locking up, choppy and in general a pain in the ass. Swapped it out once and same thing.
Got an Nvidia 6800GT and all the problems went away. So never again will I own one. But as always
your mileage will vary.  Im sure somebody else has the same exact oppisite story.

These are not the top of the line cards, but they are great performers and you are not paying for hype.
My laptop (yes laptop) has a regular 6800 in it, And it Plays anything and everything I have thrown at it without fail.
And not "just" play the games, playes them well.  It even does a great job of playing F.E.A.R, which is
a very GPU intensive game.

Keep in mind there are AGP and PCI-E slot motherboards for the video card now. And you will need to
make sure you get the Right VC for your motherboard.

Anyway come up with the budget and Ill try to help more 

[sixpack70]

Those look to be arounf the budget for video cards. I'll be buying it in pieces, sort of like my car projects. I do have a soft spot for NVIDA as I am running a geforce 3 (non TI) and never had any problems. The processor and mobo I am looking to spend about the same. Looks like they have around a AMD 64 at around 3800 for 230 bucks and the mother boards are around 130 or so. Ram is dirt cheap at about 100 for a 512kb stick. I'll look at getting as much ram as I can take. I already have a 160gb hard drive. The suggestions are getting me more on track.