Seeking advice from PC hardware experts

[Falcon Freak]

I am looking at building a new system in January 2006. My budget is $2000. I would like to receive suggestions from people who are familar with PC hardware as to what are the best components I can purchase in that price range. The components I require are as follows:

CPU - AMD 64 bit
Motherboard - with onboard 5.1 sound card
Memory - Fast 512 Meg
Video card - GF6200 minium or better
HDD - 120 Gig capacity
Dual layer DVD burner
CD burner
Power supply
Case
O/S - MS Windows XP Professional

Plus any other essential items I may have overlooked.

Thanks in advance to those who respond.

FF

[phoon]

FF, it all depends on what you are mainly going to use the computer for. Are you into gaming, just work stuff, burning etc etc. My son Has his own business building and repairing computers as well as repairing software problems which seems to be the majority of his work. What ever purpose it is you are building the puter for, dont let dodgy puter builders talk you into internals you dont really need. OH, and make sure you get a good firewall and virus software. As I said, the majority of my sons work comes from peoples puters crashing cause they were to stingy to install decent securtiy.

[Falcon Freak]

Fair enough question. I mostly use PCs for e-mails, newsgroups, surfing the net and some game playing.

The main reason I ask is that I want to make sure that the components I purchase match each other. Any idiot can purchase the items which I listed above. However if the parts are not correctly matched then it may compromise the PC's overall performance.

FF

[mik]

i dont know that you can build a machine for much cheaper than you can buy one already built with a warranty, i would have a look at some of the big companys stock first, tell them what you want see if they can do you a good deal, if you want to build it yourself maybe look at (tomshardware.com) also www.comtrader.com.au check reviews for good hardware, do your homework can get some good deals at computer market also some dodgy ones goodluck

[Paris Hilton]

I have an...interesting idea.

Dell's bottom of the barrel machine (I haven't done any research on this, I have no idea if it will work, I have no idea on the specs) is a P4 2.8? with 40GB HDD, 256MB RAM, Case, PSU etc, no monitor and is less then $500? (I am trying to remember a brochure from a few weeks ago...)

Anyways I was thinking...Case, CPU, PSU, Motherboard, onboard 5.1 surround? (I'm thinking it would be as most Intel boards do), Licence for XP Home...

That leaves you with $1500 to get 256mb more of ram (I'd suggest at least a gig now days for a new computer, but some people would contest this, and you only want 512mb so i'll leave it at that), a DVD burner, 256MB video card, another HDD...sure it wouldn't be a AMD 64, but you'd be saving a bit of dosh, as long as you're willing to void the warrenty...

Also I have no idea on the Dell board, it might do dodgy things like only accept Dell RAM, As I said, I haven't done any reseach on it, it's only a (crappy) suggestion...

[pauljh74]

Originally Posted by mik

i dont know that you can build a machine for much cheaper than you can buy one already built with a warranty, i would have a look at some of the big companys stock first, tell them what you want see if they can do you a good deal, if you want to build it yourself maybe look at (tomshardware.com) also www.comtrader.com.au check reviews for good hardware, do your homework can get some good deals at computer market also some dodgy ones goodluck

The good thing about custom building is you can fit quality parts throughout the machine. Most PC vendors have a few highlight parts eg AMD Athlon64 XXXX+ CPU, reputable brand name motherboard, good brand name performance graphics card, then the rest is generic - like RAM, case, power supply. RAM and power supply are worth spending a little extra on.

Prices from MSY http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/msy.htm in Melbourne
or Computer Parts Land http://www.cpl.net.au/

CPU - AMD 64 bit Athlon 64 3500+ (Venice core-latest evolution) $299
Dual core isn't beneficial unless you're really into heavy multi-tasking. Games usually aren't written to take advantage of dual core/dual CPU setups. So you'll have one running the game, the other handling the OS overhead and heating up your case. Single core at higher speed is the best option

Motherboard - with onboard 5.1 sound card
MSI K8N Neo 4-FI 1394 Nforce4 Ultra $130. I got the SLI platinum version and it got very good reviews - ahead of the ASUS. This model has a few less features, but has the same core as mine
ASUS A8N series is also pretty good
DFI Lan Party NF4 Ultra $205 - This series is very highly rated - probably the best of these 3 brands (Price CPL)
NForce 4 is the motherboard chipset of choice at the moment for Socket 939 CPUs with PCI Express graphics. NForce3 if you want AGP graphics with a Socket 939 Athlon 64. Pretty much all have onboard sound/onboard LAN - gigabit LAN on all but the cheapest boards. Firewire generally isn't on cheaper boards - it's faster and more reliable than USB I believe.

Memory - Fast 512 Meg
Kingston, OCZ and Corsair are very good brands - you would be better off with 1GB for gaming. Get a matched pair to enable you to have dual channel memory=better performance.
All pretty much close to the $150 mark for a 1GB matched pair DDR400 - usually listed as 2x512MB. It also gives you redundancy if one stick goes kaput. Half memory is better than no memory.

Video card - GF6200 minimum or better
The GeForce 6600GT is good value for money at around $250-$300 for a good brand name one. The 6200 will cripple your gaming performance - it's a cheap card. From ATI, look around Tom's hardware for benchmarks on the X800 and X850 pro and compare against the 6600GT and you can then decide.
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...524/index.html
Brands to stick to - ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, Winfast/Leadtek. The 6800GT or the X850XT would be good buys if you wanted more performance at a higher price.

HDD - 120 Gig capacity
Most, if not all new motherboards have SATA connectivity. The brands to look at - Seagate and Western Digital. I personally choose Seagate. 120GB in SATA would cost you around $110. But for a mere $60 more, you can get double - 250MB in the latest evolution models from both companies in SATA and with the now standard 8MB cache. This is the sweet spot in cost per gigabyte right now - less than 70 cents per GB. After that it goes up - even the 120GB hard disks are lower value.

Dual layer DVD burner
2 models - Benq DW-1640 - which is topping reviews at the moment $60
Pioneer 110, for a little under $70 - Pioneer is consistently at or near the top in DVD-RW, but they're behind this new Benq drive at the moment. The 110 wasn't that much of an improvement over the 109

CD burner
Don't know why you'd need one if you have a DVD-RW. Perhaps you want a second optical reader. If that's the case, probably the Lite-On DVD-ROM. The ASUS is a little better, but has no "unoffical" firmware support for things like DVD region free. Costs about $35

Power supply
Case
I've found the Antec cases quite good. Got a few design features that make them so much better than the generic beige boxes. Mainly for improved noise suppression and ventilation. As well as ease of assembly. I was seriously impressed by the features of the Antec case when I got it. Something like the Sonata II would suit well and is very quiet - their "quiet" model. Got sound absorbent material inside the case. You'll probably want the version II as these latest NForce 4 motherboards require ATX 2.0 power supplies. The ATX 2.0 has a slightly longer plug 24 pin vs 20 pin to power the motherboard. Probably a Thermaltake power supply would be the minimum quality. I got the Antec SLK3000B case which comes without a PSU for $80 - which is cheap for an Antec case, then got an Antec power supply separate - to pick the power rating I wanted. The generic PSUs tend to overstate their ratings by around 50W in some examples.

O/S - MS Windows XP Professional $199

Also if you don't have one to carry over - Floppy Disc drive. They are still useful for driver discs and at $15 are worth getting to avoid hassles

Monitor - you can look up reviews and pick one for yourself if you need one. I bought an LG CRT monitor not long ago. Don't know much about LCD monitors

You'll be looking at close to $1500 for the stuff on your list. Extra for a monitor. You can get a faster CPU - but the price hike vs performance increase isn't worth it. You'd be better off buying a cheaper CPU now and dropping in a more powerful one later with the couple of hundred bucks you'll save. Graphics card is up to you. The 6600GT is a good pick. Good balance between cost and performance. The ATI X850 pro looks good if you want to spend another $100

[MITCHAY]

Isnt the new version of Windows due out next year? Maybe it's worth waiting until thats out so you can know what the minimum requirements are and your OS will be up to date.

[max^power]

Certainly get 1GB of RAM, DDR2 is quicker than the 400Mhz DDR. Wholesale, DDR2 is cheaper than DDR now. Keep in mind, XP will use about 512 for itself, so the extra is well worth it, and for the $55 odd bucks it shouldn't be a debate on a $2k machine.

Advantages of DDR2 can be seen here: http://www.kingston.com/newtech/ddr2_advantages.asp

[SpoolMan]

What to build a custom computer, you can configure it on line and get a price straight away, best street prices in Vic without going to a swap meet is- www.centrecom.com.au click custom quoter on the left side of the page.

[EA_GT]

www.digitalyes.com.au is pretty good too, quick delivery.