Computer M-M-M-MEGATHREAD

[slade]

what would you guys suggest for a good geforce budget video card? im talking most likely less than $200. It would have to at the LEAST play halo well, but im guessing most video cards on the market now could.

*edit* my system is a sony vaio VGC-RB53, P4 3.0 ghz, 512 mb ram (yeah, i should probably upgrade) and... integrated graphics

*double edit* oh yeah, and how necessary would more ram really be? i play games occasionally but not too much, but i always have a lot of stuff open (right now firefox w/ 8 windows, winamp, itunes, trillian and a folder... its usually more.)

*triple edit* oh, and how do i tell what type of graphics card i need? agp? pci? pci-e? on my motherboard there are three white connectors for things like a modem or a sound card, then one black connector thats longer, where the video card goes. it looks like the same type of connector that i had on my old dell, which used a geforce 3 ti200.

[Mango]

Slade:

Your system uses AGP most likely. I would recommend an eVGA 6600. These are great cards and good prices and eVGA has an upgrade program you can take advantage of.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=322687

As far as RAM is concerned, with modern operating systems it has become more and more advantageous to have more memory. Anymore the minimum you would want is around a gig. 512 and you are using your pagefile fairly heavily which will slow down performance. Most system will generally utilize around 750MB of memory at any given time for most tasks, start playing a game (like Halo) and that will quickly touch the gigabyte mark or beyond. Your system would see a boost in performance by going to a gig of memory and with that 6600 video card.

[slade]

Slade:

Your system uses AGP most likely. I would recommend an eVGA 6600. These are great cards and good prices and eVGA has an upgrade program you can take advantage of.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=322687

As far as RAM is concerned, with modern operating systems it has become more and more advantageous to have more memory. Anymore the minimum you would want is around a gig. 512 and you are using your pagefile fairly heavily which will slow down performance. Most system will generally utilize around 750MB of memory at any given time for most tasks, start playing a game (like Halo) and that will quickly touch the gigabyte mark or beyond. Your system would see a boost in performance by going to a gig of memory and with that 6600 video card.

thanks mango! it looks like i do have an AGP. Although you said a 6600 and linked a 6800, which did you mean? hmm, and it looks like id miss the mail in rebate anyway.

[Mango]

Yeah a 6800. Well you can find that model at many other online retailers, and just use that model as a guide.

[Indignant]

My cousins got me an MX518 from Logitech for Christmas.


I <3 it.

EDIT: Hmm, my computer runs CS:S fine with almost no lag at around 40-60 FPS (depending on if i'm in firefights and whatnot), do you think it would run BF2 at low settings? I'm not sure on the whole specs right now, but I can get them in a few days, going up to my buddies cabin to snowboard for a while

[behemoth]

I plan on building a computer, and i've talked about it for a little while.

I'm lookin for spend about 1000

Last time i had the cash, i ended up spending it on something else, but i had a dual AMD 64 3700+ planned.

Soon as i get another job :/

[slade]

wait... what exactly is the difference between AGP and PCI-e? if i look at a picture on a retail site both cards look the same.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=322687

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130263

gah... can i go back to looking at paintball? that i already understand i dont like getting this "newb" feeling.

[Timmee]

Alright, I'll post my modest specs:

A64 3200+ skt 939
Asus A8V Deluxe
1G Corsair ram
200G Maxtor SATA hd
ATI X700 Pro video card
Lite-On DVD-Rom/CD-RW (currently stealthed)
Lian Li PC-60 case
air cooling


Soon, I'll be adding:

Lian Li PC-70 case (almost finished with mods for W/C)
--weapon Shroud and Heatercore
DD TDX
DD Maze4 gpu low profile acetal top (with the dumb new 1/4 BSPP fittings)
DD Fillport (black)
Laing DDC pump (unless I upgrade to a D5)
3/8" Tygon

Here's a link to my worklog at bit-tech: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=99325



A good resource for modding/cooling/etc would be http://www.forums.bit-tech.net (mostly UK site, but good info anyways).

Good software (100% freeware):

Motherboard Monitor: http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/fil...id,7309,00.asp
Samurize: http://www.samurize.com/modules/news/


Motherboard Monitor is for monitoring system stats (temp, speed, etc). Samurize does the same, but has the ability to add plugins for news, weather, music, etc.


BTW Foo, I'd recommend the Storm over the Apogee, from what I've read, it's a better block (although slightly more expensive).

[kosmo]

Blah no pics. Heres what Ive got:

SFF #1-
Black Aspire Qpack
Biostar Tforce Mobo
Athlon 64 3500 winchester
1 Gig OCZ VX
34 GB Raptor, 180 GB Hitachi
X800 GTO2 unlocked to faster than X850XT PE
Dell 20.5 inch widescreen monitor

SFF #2- (Possible carputer when I put the work into figuring it out)
Biostar IDEQ200
P4 3.0c
1 gig Corsair value ram
80 GB western digital HD
9800 Pro
SB Audigy 2 NX external soundcard
Klipsch Promedia 5.1s
17 inch Samsung LCD

Skeleton Computer-
Silverstone TJ06 case
Epox Nforce 3 ultra mobo
no processor or ram anymore, went in the Qpack till i get the q a dual core opty
BFG 6800GT

Emachines 6805 laptop
Athlon 64 3000
64 meg 9600 pro graphics
512 ram
60 gb hard drive
15 inch widescreen

[Timmee]

wait... what exactly is the difference between AGP and PCI-e? if i look at a picture on a retail site both cards look the same.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=322687

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130263

gah... can i go back to looking at paintball? that i already understand i dont like getting this "newb" feeling.

Someone was just lazy when taking pics. Here's a link to a site that has a pic of an AGP board right next to a PCIe board (same brand): http://www.tcmagazine.info/articles....ge=1&pagenum=3

[Steelrat]

Steelrat, I'd suggest going for the budget performer machine. My system (when I bought and built it) is a basically cutting edge machine for its form factor. I ran top line CPU, Graphics Card, maxed out ram, high end sound. I could have gone higher if I had more space but I ended up at 1600 dollars. The only thing is I'm regretting cutting costs because I'm already updating my motherboard and cooling (which I cut costs on in the first place). I say plan for budget performance and that way you don't get stuck with some weird alternate if you're stuck cutting costs. If you can hold out, the next top end ati vid card is due out in a month so prices will drop even more for lower end budget models.

CPU: I'd suggest going for either a pentium M or A64 (dual core or not doesn't matter unless you do encoding and rendering) based system. The pentium M will give you a lot of overclocking power. It'll also be good for gaming. A64 is more of a power hog but it is a performer.

Memory: Always get more memory. That's the bottom line. Sometimes even 1 gig isn't enough for these performance hungry programs.

HD: You either get capacity or silence, Samsung has great silent drives and almost everyone else has great capacity.

Video cards: Like I already said, the new ATI video card is due out at the end of january so prices will drop on budget performers like the 6800gs or x800gto

Okay, so what do I need to get exactly? My list, as I understand it:

-Motherboard
-Processor
-RAM
-Video Card
-Sound Card
-Hard Drive
-Optical drives

I'm looking at going for cutting edge where possible. My machine is a game rig for me, plain and simple. I would, however, like to keep it as affordable as possible, because while gaming is fun, its not worth many thousands of dollars to me. So graphical performance and noise levels are very important to me. I could care less how the box looks, though if I can get cool looks for low $$$ i'd do it.

Steel: I'll hook you up on some great parts if you want to build a new system. All new and still with full warrenties.

I'd be interested in what you have, if you can tell me what it is, how I can go about using it, and what else I'd need to buy to make it all work. I've never built a system myself.

[slade]

Someone was just lazy when taking pics. Here's a link to a site that has a pic of an AGP board right next to a PCIe board (same brand): http://www.tcmagazine.info/articles....ge=1&pagenum=3

thanks for the link. in that case, i guess i do have a PCI-e score one for sony! i was wrong, its not teh same as my dell, that was an AGP.

[slade]

Sony Vaio VGC-RB53
3.0 GHz processor, 800 MHz front side bus
512 MB PC-3200 400 MHz DDR
integrated graphics
DVD+-RW drive
2 200GB hard drives
<3 sony case <3
it has a memory card reader and two usb connections on the front, which is very convenient. especially considering i just got a camera which is compatable with the memory card reader. our old digital camera used floppies it was about 7-8 years old.

my parents wanted to get a dell, i wanted to build my own computer or at least get something less... well... dell. this was the compromise.

the case is open right now because the SATA cable that came with the second hard drive is too big to fit, the other cable is a 90 degree cable. i needed a second hard drive because the preinstalled software was messed up, and i had to do a whole system recovery/reinstall which took most of the day yesterday. i backed up the data and reinstalled everything, and its working fine now. half of the programs, norton included, would crash and the entire computer would crash, and i couldnt install itunes. later on im planning on installing linux on the second hard drive for a dual boot... its sort of confusing me though, aparently windows XP uses an NTFS file system and linux uses FAT32, and when im in linux i wont be able to write to the NTFS drive .

[Mango]

I'd be interested in what you have, if you can tell me what it is, how I can go about using it, and what else I'd need to buy to make it all work. I've never built a system myself.

You got e-mail! Don't want to hijack Foo's thread with sale stuff. I will fully walk you through the process if you purchase my wares. 24/7 personal tech support, how's THAT for service!

[FooTemps]

Modification Talk

BTW Foo, I'd recommend the Storm over the Apogee, from what I've read, it's a better block (although slightly more expensive).

The reason I'm going with apogee over storm is because of flow rates. I'm running 3 90 degree fittings in my system and I don't want to risk having high heat due to low flow.

Btw: WATERCOOLING PARTS ARE IN THE MAIL YAY!

Another thing... Where's a good place to get a dremel cheap? I need to buy one that isn't crap or 100 dollars. I've checked out home depot, sears, kmart, and costco.