(no subject)

[camwyn]

I am pondering buying a new computer. I just got my last paycheck from the Red Cross, and I had a lot of paid-time-off days comig to me, so it's a nice bit of money. I should like to upgrade to a system that doesn't go into hysterics about The Sims 2 quite as often, but I am no twitch gamer and otherwise rarely need that kind of processor power. Basically, a good processor and a really nice graphics card should do most of it, I think. For baseline stats, I'm looking for:

512 MB RAM (or more)
60 gigs hard drive storage (or more)
GeForce 5200 or better video
Windows XP Pro
2.4 GHz or faster

I am not fussy about the rest of it. Integrated sound is fine with me, as is integrated networking. I do not much care about a dial-up modem's capabilities if one is included with the system. USB is nice. So is a quiet power supply. Tempting as they are, I do not need a pimpin', stylin', shiny, or otherwise modded case. I already have speakers. I have a monitor at the moment and while I am not all that happy with it, there is no room on my desk for bigger, and I would rather wait until I have my own place before buying a flat-panel display.

Any suggestions for where to look?

Comments

[quintus.livejournal.com]

Well, I hear nice things about Dell. That spec is about right for the machines we get over here for about 350 sterling + 17.5% VAT (including monitor).

[camwyn]

*prods www.xe.net/ucc* Okay, so that's $650 or so before tax. Lemme see what Dell thinks of that price...

[kyrielle]

Dell laptops give me fits - they're too flaky and crappy, even still. I've had EXCELLENT experience with their desktops, tho', so must agree with quintus on them as a good possible option.

DIY

[(Anonymous)]

You could always just build your own rig.

Hardware for something like that, meh, call it 600, and that's without really shopping around at all for good bargains.

Re: DIY

[camwyn]

Well, see, the computer I'm using now is one I built myself. I wanted to see if anybody had the kind of machine I wanted before I broke out the screwdrivers. It seems, though, that the only available options seem to be 'office box that has to have nice graphics shoehorned in and probably has a crummy mobo' or 'L33T M4D P1MP1N M0DZ0R!!!!11!!'.

I think I'm probably gonna have to warm up the screwdrivers.

ClassicDrogn Re: DIY

[(Anonymous)]

You sound like you have a wonderfully sane attitude regarding windows and flashing lights and laser cut chromed fan grates, but for just a little flair without being tacky, with mighty royal boatloads of drive sace if you ever need it (four 5 1/4 inch bays, two accessible 3 1/2 and three hidden 3 1/2 - one of the 5 1/4 bays is behind a seperate sliding door at the bottom, intended for cooling controls or displays or firewire/USB/audio breakout panels - mine has a combo that's all three) I reccomend a Noblesse case if you can still find one - they come in blac with a midnight blue mirror on the drive bay access door or 'bone' (beige) with a dark brown mirror bay door. The mirrors are plastic but I've yet to get a scratch, and do make it look distinguished without costing an unreasonable amount of money. It's steel with a plastic faceplate otherwise, ATX tower form. Mine was hot when I built it with an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe mobo, Athlon 2800, 2x512Mb DDR 333MHz dual channel RAM and a succession of graphics cards that's currenty back down to GeForce FX 5600 after having the fan crap out on the most recent one prior to that literally the day after the warranty expired.

Of the bits I used, I highly reccomend whatever Athlon64 successor ASUS has made to the A7N8X, which had onboard NVidia Dolby 5.1 sound and both SATA and Firewire controllers, plus the sweet side feature of a spoken POST report (Leading to mine being named WISAL 9000 after SAL 9000, HAL's older sister machine who stayed on Earth in _2001_ and a song by Teque called _Wisal the Electric Love Camel_) It also has four USB ports on the back and risers inside for two more, plus risers for two Firewire ports and (as mentioned) two Serial ATA connectors - which have RAID 0 built into the controller chip, IIRC. For reasons unknown, it also features dual 100bT ethernet, but it's not like an extra unused ethernet port hurts anything, and I suppose if someone wanted extreme throughput they could have a doubled-up LAN with two cables to each machine, or something. Again, why exactly you would need that much throughput, I dunno...

If you're going for Super Spiff RAM, consider a matched pair of Golden Dragon ramsticks - also highly reccomended, but you pay for what you get, and they're not that much more than what Kingston chares for a matched set. Trying to get a non-factory-matched pair of DDR sticks to operate in Dual Channel mode is touch and go to say the least, make sure the vendor will let you try and return and replace several times if you don't want to shell out for a pair.

An unneccessary but (I thoguht) cool thing I did was to break the snaps off the black faceplate that came out of where I put the DVD drive, use an X-Acto to cut a couple of small notches in the back that intersected the grooves on the front to make sqare holes where the activity light can shine through and to put a paperclip in for the emergency eject, and then attatch it to the front of the drive tray with double sided tape, so the drive is effectively invisible when closed - tapping the coner of the faceplate that sits over the eject button scoots it right out, and a drive tray is plenty long enough to reach under, tap the button, and get your hand out before the faceplate catches you on its way back in. I tried something similar with cutting a slot and button/light holes in the floppy dirve palte, then using it to replace the stock plastic plate that came with the floppy drive, but it tends to pop out every now and then - perhaps if I hadn't broken the clips off of that it would have worked better. In both cases, the oval slots on the drve mounting rails only had enough room to get one screw in on each side, but the drives sit in there pretty snugly anyway.

- CD, who didn't mean to ramble on so long.

Re: ClassicDrogn Re: DIY

[camwyn]

I admit, I briefly wanted to go for something with lights and neon, but after the first half-hour of flipping through Maximum PC and staring at the ads, the voice of reason (an all-too-often ignored bit of my brain) informed me that 'ooh, shiny' is a bad criterion for the purchase of computer products, so the flashing lights were out.

ASUS has gone up to a fairly kickass mobo (I think the most recent one's been given a Kick Ass rating by Maximum PC), but I have to be honest. I get motion sick watching FPS games, and I don't play MMORPGs. I don't need that much power or graphics. Sims 2 is the most computationally expensive thing I use, so I'm going to go for the A7N8X; the reviews are favourable and the board isn't all that expensive.

I considered some really freaky RAM but I'm gonna go straight for Kingston and save myself some grief. Probably 512MB but I may go up to a gig if I can manage it.

Antec has a good record of quiet cases; this would make me very happy. I'll see if my local Best Buy has anything. Otherwise, I can order online.

Probably going for the ATI Radeon 9600XT graphics card.

[countgeiger.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'd say DIY is your better choice. I'd run the memory up to a gigabyte, look at the AMD processors instead of the intel, and definately go with a Serial ATA drive instead of IDE, plus go to a 2.8 or 3.0ghz proc - those seem to be the current 'sweet spot' in terms of bang for the buck.

[camwyn]

Yeah, I figured it'd come to that. I was planning on the Athlon 64 processors, but what I know about cooling systems these days can be written on the back of your average Timex wristwatch.

[countgeiger.livejournal.com]

Ehhh - most of 'em can still be air-cooled just fine, espeically in the up to 3ghz range. Just make sure you get something with a /good/ heatsink and fan assembly, and that the case you get has lots of airflow, and you'll be fine.

You might wanna look at these guys: http://www.centralcomputing.com for some ideas. We've bought stuff from them for years, and haven't had any problems with 'em. I'm not sure where your office is, but if you wanna play touchy-feely, there's always J&R down by City Hall in Manhattan.

[(Anonymous)]

Personally, I've enjoyed the big-ass Zalman 7000cu heatsink, and unless something new and interesting has shown up recently, I would endorse it.

[camwyn]

Hmmm. Zalman has a nice record for quiet PC equipment.

[kali921.livejournal.com]

I love a woman that can build her own!! I wish I knew how to do that.....I'm both proud and envious.

Build yourself a Ferrarri, babe, not a Chrysler!

[camwyn]

It's not that hard. Go to the nearest bookstore or magazine stand that sells it, pick up this month's copy of Maximum PC, and read the big cover article on How To Build Your Own System. I used their guide some years ago to build my first one.

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Try http://www.hdnw.com/ -- I bought my custom system from them a couple of years ago, and was fairly happy with the results (modulo a flaky net card, but if I'm too lazy to replace it, that's not their problem, is it?).

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

(Note: I didn't buy from the website, I walked into the store and talked to the saleslady directly.)