Need Computer Advice

[GaryChildress]

Thanks Gem35. I found what looks like a good tutorial on building PCs but I hope you don't mind if I use you as a possible fall back in case I get in over my head. [:)]

Tutorial:
http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/

[Gem35]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

Thanks Gem35. I found what looks like a good tutorial on building PCs but I hope you don't mind if I use you as a possible fall back in case I get in over my head. [:)]

Tutorial:
http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/

I'd be glad to help and I am sure Veldor would be glad to help as well.[:)]

[Gem35]

One other thing you will need is a Microsoft Windows 98,Windows 98 Second Edition orWindows Millennium Edition CD-rom
it can be anyone's(friends or family members) to use your upgrade disk.
When you install your XP upgrade disk, windows will prompt you to insert any of those full version cd-roms to verify the upgrade disk. You do not need to have a validation key from any of those three disks, just the validation key from your current upgrade disk.

[panzers]

I don't claim to be a computer expert, but I do understand most of the numbers when it comes to pc componants, and what I see looks like a fine system. That video card will allow to to play a lot of games for several years to come. You can get the same card but with 256 mg and still get just about anything you need for several years and save yourself another 20 or 30 bucks in the process. The nvidia GF 8600GT would be the perfect card for what I'm talking about. I play a lot of WOW and it is a huge graphics hog and I have all the specs set to the max and it runs perfectly.

[Gem35]

panzer is right regarding the video card, even the cheapo 8400 gs card i linked earlier will play any game on the market today.
Video cards , especially the top -end variety like the one you chose(8800 GT) are great but a bit overkill imo.

[GaryChildress]

The difference in price I'm looking at between the 8600 GT and the 8800 GT at Newegg is almost $100. That is a significant savings. I'll have to look into it further. That would bring the price down from over $600 to something over $500. I like that! [8D]

[Gem35]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

The difference in price I'm looking at between the 8600 GT and the 8800 GT at Newegg is almost $100. That is a significant savings. I'll have to look into it further. That would bring the price down from over $600 to something over $500. I like that! [8D]

the card panzers listed as I said earlier is a solid mid-range choice. up to you, you can always upgrade later( smart PC builders upgrade btw[8D] and I will argue that to the death.[;)]
Unless you are a hard-core first person shooter or Action gamer, you don't need that 8800gt to get by for now.
So you can't turn up the whole entire eye-candy, games allow you to modify your settings based on your graphics card.(low medium high settings in the game preferences)
If you hav the coins, go for it, otherwise be frugal and buy what you need now with an eye towards ugrading later for alot less coin.

[Zakhal]

Hers one stalker chart on 8600GT vs 8800GT 1600x1200 dynamic lights, No AA, No Anis:
Link. 8600GT gets 21 frames per second while 8800GT is 63 frames per second.

Heres the most demanding game that was released last fall - crysis. 8600GT runs the game on 7,5FPS while 8800GT is 26,7FPS. The settings are dx10 1024x768: link

Its kinda slow at 21FPS and unplayable at 7,5FPS but if you play mainly strategy games then you dont really need a decent graphics card. But if youre interested you can find more of these comparisons by googling "8600gt vs 8800gt review comparison" etc. The card might run oblivion or wow but those games are many years old now so its reasonable that it would.

The best you can do before buying anything is check reviews of each and every component on google. Atleast two reviews for each. Youll see what the pros and cons are.

[GaryChildress]

Well, I have thought it over and I think I will go with the 8800 GT. I can play pretty much anything on the market and I won't have to worry about upgrading any time soon.

[SuluSea]

I needed a new PC and  just bought this . I don't know much about PCs but I paid a little over 800 for both the widescreen and gaming PC, seems like a good deal to me. My old machine had neadnerthal carvings in it when the cover was pulled off it.

[Zakhal]

I would double the memory to 4GB. Only 3GB of it is usable under windows xp 32bit but memory is dirt cheap now so theres no reason not to max it (windows likes memory...yummy). 

[panzers]

ORIGINAL: Zakhal

Hers one stalker chart on 8600GT vs 8800GT 1600x1200 dynamic lights, No AA, No Anis:
Link. 8600GT gets 21 frames per second while 8800GT is 63 frames per second.

Heres the most demanding game that was released last fall - crysis. 8600GT runs the game on 7,5FPS while 8800GT is 26,7FPS. The settings are dx10 1024x768: link

Its kinda slow at 21FPS and unplayable at 7,5FPS but if you play mainly strategy games then you dont really need a decent graphics card. But if youre interested you can find more of these comparisons by googling "8600gt vs 8800gt review comparison" etc. The card might run oblivion or wow but those games are many years old now so its reasonable that it would.

The best you can do before buying anything is check reviews of each and every component on google. Atleast two reviews for each. Youll see what the pros and cons are.

They might be getting old, but WOW is constantly upgrading, and I would argue that it would match up to anything.
Ultimately, it's up to you, Gary. You just have to ask yourself: do you plan on getting a game like crysis or anything similar, or do you want to save your 100 bucks and still get to play just about anything you want. I have a 24"digital wide screen moniter with all the settings set to the max including the screen resolution to the max at 1680 by 1050, and I have never in my life seen such perfect high performance graphics. If you want to get as cheap a computer as you can with the highest bang for your buck, then I would highly suggest this one. Even if the 512 mb version is that much more graphics intensive, is it really that much more visable to the naked eye? I don't know, all I know is that I have this card and I thought it was just a shade under the 8800 gt card. So the 8600 gt card has gone down significantly. As I said earlier and I think we all agree on this one: outside of the monitor which you already have, this purchase will end up being the most costly of you're componants. Good lick, and let us know what you end up with. Hell, for $600 you might have a better computer than all of us.

[Arctic Blast]

I agree with Zakhal, it doesn't cost much to double up your memory, and you're already saving more than enough with your change in graphics card.

All in all, looks like a good build!

[Gem35]

ORIGINAL: Arctic Blast

I agree with Zakhal, it doesn't cost much to double up your memory, and you're already saving more than enough with your change in graphics card.

All in all, looks like a good build!

If he is not using Vista, the 64 bit version, getting 4 GB is worthless.
Besides Windows 7 will be out sooner or later and who knows what kind of RAM requirements you will need for that.
4 GB is a waste right now.

[Veldor]

I'd say spending money purely on "future-proofing" these days is a waste. Especially if you'll consider 2nd hand upgrades in the future. When I bought my 8800 I decided to get an SLI setup. To get certified SLI components across the board (So as to guarantee no issues) added plenty to the price. As would buying the second 8800 later on despite the price drops. In the end I'll probably have been able to just buy a better card entirely for less total money or will simply end up upgrading the whole system before I ever go SLI. Especially since SLI support seems to only have gotten worse and not better at least in the areas of gaming I participate in.

Unless I missed something your setup is missing 2 120mm fans. I'd say thats the best future proofing you can do at the moment as without those.. In my opinion your setup may not last through the first week [:D]

If I could change brand names I'd personally probably change them all, but understanding deals and prices, I know that you can save a lot that way (Say AMD vs INTEL as an example or EVGA vs anything). But if I had to change one it would be the G.SKILL brand. Buy Kingston or anything with a more long standing proven rep yet still competitive price. They've barely even been in the US market until recently. Memory is just too important to the stability and performance of your PC IMHO. (And I do see the great feeback its gotten so.. Again it really comes down to what you feel good about. Anyone can tell you the list looks great or its not what they would buy [:D])

When you assemble the PC don't do it on the carpet and ideally get a wrist-strap or otherwise make sure you dispense static electricity first through the motherboard installation portion. After that it doesnt much matter. (It scares me to think how many products returned as DOA were really damaged by the customer unknowingly though).

Good Luck!

[Gem35]

G.Skill has a solid reputaion in the enthusiast market. It is solid RAM no doubt.
Kingston OTOH is cheap memory, If you can buy it at wal-mart or Best Buy, don't bother.
Stay with G.Skill, solid RAM.

[Veldor]

ORIGINAL: Gem35

G.Skill has a solid reputaion in the enthusiast market. It is solid RAM no doubt.
Kingston OTOH is cheap memory, If you can buy it at wal-mart or Best Buy, don't bother.
Stay with G.Skill, solid RAM.

Enthusiast is a fancy name for Hobbyist, which in turn is (if not the opposite) still very far from Professional. The best reason you give to not buy something is because its sold at Best Buy? Now my plasma TV and a bunch of other stuff must be crap too! You do border at least on what I talked about earlier in terms of "My stuff is better than yours simply because you can't get it retail". The famous example being why so many believe all Bose products MUST suck. Because if any idiot can buy them at Best Buy.. well then they must be made for idiots.

So what does it mean since I can buy G.Skill in a store in Syria and other Middle East countries but not Kingston? What about those Japanese brands with nothing but a symbol on it that aren't even making it to America yet like G.Skill finally has (They must be super great if it cost $100 special import fee all the way from Japan!!!) C'mon now...

In fact much like your criteria, I have a criteria that works the opposite but speaks more to quality in my opinion.

I will liken it to western digital hard drives which I think are mostly crap. They don't show up in even low-end Storage Area Networks. There are reasons for that. Seagate and many many others do. Obviously your not buying the same drives but it speaks to the level of quality they have the inate ability to achieve. Kingston has achieved memory that is usable in high-end corporate servers where-as G.Skill never has and likely never will.

Also almost any industry insider knows there are tiers within hard drives, memory, and processors. Processors are the most publicly talked about in historical terms. The whole x number of actual speeds are made and the ones that dont perform well in tests are simply sold at lower speeds (They aren't actually made to that spec). Likewise there aren't actually 100 memory makers, there are less than half a dozen. The rest each buy the raw chips and assemble, if even that much. Different grades are bought by different companies and the price reflects that. In older days the ultra bottom of the barrel was the generics in the back of Computer Shopper that everyone got and was lucky to last the first year.

For professional organizations one thing looked at is publicly published MTBF Rates (Mean Time Between Failure). Thats a more solid basis on which to compare two brands. Note Kingston was only a quick example as I know it is cheaper but still would meet all of the above criteria. I don't even know that G.Skill publicly publishes any failure rates period but it would be interesting to see them.

One more note. So-called Enthusiasts on average are always buying new stuff. That already is a different criteria than my interpretation of what was given here. Where the idea is to build a system that will last and last and last..

Two different sides, two different opinions. I do respect yours, and have given the basis for mine.

"There are no wrong decisions, just indecisive ones" - Said someone I forgot

[Gem35]

ORIGINAL: Veldor

ORIGINAL: Gem35

G.Skill has a solid reputaion in the enthusiast market. It is solid RAM no doubt.
Kingston OTOH is cheap memory, If you can buy it at wal-mart or Best Buy, don't bother.
Stay with G.Skill, solid RAM.

Enthusiast is a fancy name for Hobbyist, which in turn is (if not the opposite) still very far from Professional. The best reason you give to not buy something is because its sold at Best Buy? Now my plasma TV and a bunch of other stuff must be crap too! You do border at least on what I talked about earlier in terms of "My stuff is better than yours simply because you can't get it retail". The famous example being why so many believe all Bose products MUST suck. Because if any idiot can buy them at Best Buy.. well then they must be made for idiots.

So what does it mean since I can buy G.Skill in a store in Syria and other Middle East countries but not Kingston? What about those Japanese brands with nothing but a symbol on it that aren't even making it to America yet like G.Skill finally has (They must be super great if it cost $100 special import fee all the way from Japan!!!) C'mon now...

In fact much like your criteria, I have a criteria that works the opposite but speaks more to quality in my opinion.

I will liken it to western digital hard drives which I think are mostly crap. They don't show up in even low-end Storage Area Networks. There are reasons for that. Seagate and many many others do. Obviously your not buying the same drives but it speaks to the level of quality they have the inate ability to achieve. Kingston has achieved memory that is usable in high-end corporate servers where-as G.Skill never has and likely never will.

Also almost any industry insider knows there are tiers within hard drives, memory, and processors. Processors are the most publicly talked about in historical terms. The whole x number of actual speeds are made and the ones that dont perform well in tests are simply sold at lower speeds (They aren't actually made to that spec). Likewise there aren't actually 100 memory makers, there are less than half a dozen. The rest each buy the raw chips and assemble, if even that much. Different grades are bought by different companies and the price reflects that. In older days the ultra bottom of the barrel was the generics in the back of Computer Shopper that everyone got and was lucky to last the first year.

For professional organizations one thing looked at is publicly published MTBF Rates (Mean Time Between Failure). Thats a more solid basis on which to compare two brands. Note Kingston was only a quick example as I know it is cheaper but still would meet all of the above criteria. I don't even know that G.Skill publicly publishes any failure rates period but it would be interesting to see them.

One more note. So-called Enthusiasts on average are always buying new stuff. That already is a different criteria than my interpretation of what was given here. Where the idea is to build a system that will last and last and last..

Two different sides, two different opinions. I do respect yours, and have given the basis for mine.

"There are no wrong decisions, just indecisive ones" - Said someone I forgot

Enthisiast is for hard-core overclockers that push their products far beyond the realm of your corporate friends who don't know much about what makes hardware tick.
I can argue with you forever but the numbers don't lie, Kingston falls way short on the overclocking scale and that will always end up for me at least as a cheap product.
G.Skill outclasses Kingston my good friend.

[Veldor]

[Enthisiast is for hard-core overclockers that push their products far beyond the realm of your corporate friends who don't know much about what makes hardware tick.
I can argue with you forever but the numbers don't lie, Kingston falls way short on the overclocking scale and that will always end up for me at least as a cheap product.
G.Skill outclasses Kingston my good friend.

Basement Geeks are pushing products beyond the realm of corporations who process half a million credit card transactions a minute or who do millions of business AI calculations a nano-second? Any of this desktop memory would fry inside of an hour under such usage scenarios. It would be the equivelant of running your entire computer off a thumb drive... Even if you could achieve it the hardware just isn't made to withstand it.

What do you do for a living my good friend?

PS. Unless I missed something this is not a "performance system" If we were talking purely about performance (such as for overclocking) thats a lot different than durability (for lasting a long time) or value (bang for buck) or the assumed by me balance of all three. If I had to overclock it'd probably be Corsair and on a similar note SLI Certification is also a nice thing about Corsair. No G.Skill memory has ever achieved SLI certification. Do you realize how stable memory or ANY component must be to achieve SLI Certification??? Even Kingston, Crucial, many many others have SLI Certifications but not G.Skill. And that has plenty to do with Enthusiasts.

One more strike against it in my book.

Anyway.. Just saying I personally would choose just about anything else. Thank god I didn't go into any of my other preferences...

[Gem35]

ORIGINAL: Veldor

[Enthisiast is for hard-core overclockers that push their products far beyond the realm of your corporate friends who don't know much about what makes hardware tick.
I can argue with you forever but the numbers don't lie, Kingston falls way short on the overclocking scale and that will always end up for me at least as a cheap product.
G.Skill outclasses Kingston my good friend.

Basement Geeks are pushing products beyond the realm of corporations who process half a million credit card transactions a minute or who do millions of business AI calculations a nano-second? Any of this desktop memory would fry inside of an hour under such usage scenarios. It would be the equivelant of running your entire computer off a thumb drive... Even if you could achieve it the hardware just isn't made to withstand it.

What do you do for a living my good friend?

I live in a basement.[:)]