Club409

The best damn waste of time!

PC Parts Guide + Matt's New Computer

mwinter
Total posts: 4315
I can never remember what text file i save this link in so I'm going to put it on here along with some keywords so i can search for it years from now.. hardware pc parts new computer.

It's a pretty good list of stuff with pro's and con's and i think it's updated semi-regularly.

http://shsc.info/PCPartsPickingGuide

If you're building a budget PC (i.e. $500 give or take $100) read this instead:

http://shsc.info/BudgetPCPartsGuide
mwinter
Total posts: 4315
If you read the article you'll find that Intel's new processor family "Conroe" is coming out July 27.. I might be lookin to buy me one of those. I went snooping for a compatible motherboard and found this AnandTech thread that links to the Asus P5W DH Deluxe. That is one hell of a motherboard; includes a Wi-Fi AP (can serve as a wireless router or a client) a remote control that lets you do god knows what and plenty of other goodies. More to come for sure.
mwinter
Total posts: 4315
Yeah so I've been browsing teh newegg.. Here's a rough sketch:

MOBO (sound & net incl.)
RAM
VIDEO
HD - changed to this one; already purchased
CASE+PSU

I'll take my CD/DVD burner out of the current box and just leave the other CD-RW drive there (although that will leave an unsightly hole in the front of my box.. never stopped me before I guess).

For the prices currently on newegg the total's up to (706.53 - 60 mail in rebates) = $646.53. That doesn't include the processor because it's not available yet so I don't know which one it'll be or how much it'll cost.
Oscar
Total posts: 1323
"Note that you do not need a 64-bit OS for an Athlon 64 or 64-bit Pentium. Both chips execute 32-bit code natively with no performance hit and they will work just great with your old copy of Windows XP."

lollercaust
Oscar
Total posts: 1323
64-bit pentium = teh noes
Oscar
Total posts: 1323
also you should boycott intel regardless of the quality of their products cause they're lying shady bastards
Shawn
Total posts: 1364
You definitely want to get a battery backup I think. Plus I am all about two hardrives even though I know you are going to partition.

Also why have one processor when you can have two?

10k Western Digital 250 gb
Battery Backup: Same one Steven has I think. It lasts a good 20-30 minutes.

Did you order a monitor yet?
mwinter
Total posts: 4315
My parents have 2 computers at their house; one of the monitors died (the 10+ year old Gateway 2000) so I replaced it with the other computer's monitor (the Dell that my brother and I bought for mom & dad a short while ago). In its place I put my 17" CRT that went with my current Dell machine because I got my spiffy new Acer 19" flat panel for my birfday.

I'll probably use this monitor for the new computer and I've already got two CRT's waiting in the wings (one was bought from Shawn's sister and the other was $10 at the 50% thrift store sale) to use on my current computer.

Good call on the battery backup. If I do get a 10k RPM HD I probably wont go with 250 gb since the other drive will be so huge. maybe 80 tho. btw shawn the drive you linked to is 150gb not 250.

As for the AMD vs Intel situation I dunno. The review page seemed to say that AMD was the way to go (better performance less power hungry which means more quiet) except for the wonderful new Conroe that's coming out this month. They didnt really have much to say other than its currently beating the pants off of everything. You have to take that with a grain of salt because as Pip said Intel are lying shady bastards and they probably optimised the benchmarks for the intel chip. AMD will probably come out with a chip with similar or better performance in the near future but I dont know how soon that will be compared to my new computer patience.
mwinter
Total posts: 4315
What do you guys think about 42" Plasma HDTV Monitor Displays?
Oscar
Total posts: 1323
"Intel are lying shady bastards and they probably optimised the benchmarks for the intel chip."

it's much much worse than that... they got busted not too long ago for disabling the instruction set checks in the intel C compiler (which most high performance software developers use) except for intel chips. so even tho your AMD chip may be capable of running SSE or SSE2 code software compiled with the intel compiler wouldnt even check for that capability and just default to the slower pure x86 instructions.


and as for that battery backup: stay as far away as possible from tigerdirect. they're shadier than intel and microsoft put together and multiplied by enron