Building a computer

I'm thinking of building a new computer during Thanksgiving break. I just wanted to see what people's opinions are on the latest technology.

1. Needs to be DirectX 10 capable (I know that means 8800, but hopefully the price will go down some)
2. Don't need speakers, already got those.
3. Thinking of getting a 2nd monitor, but might not end up getting one if I end up spending too much on the rest.
4. Processor, looking at a core duo probably
5. RAM, as much as I can get if the price is still cheap in two months

I guess I'm looking for suggestions of a good vendor or website. Anyone have any suggestions?

Newegg.com has very good prices. Tigerdirect.com is another name that comes to mind, but I've never purchased anything from them. You might be able to get really good deals at physical stores if they happen to be offering rebates on the components you're looking for. I don't know about places in Hong Kong, but over here in the States you can probably find good rebate deals at places like Circuit City, CompUSA, and BestBuy.

By the way, unless you have a specific reason to buy an Intel Core 2 Duo (I assume you don't mean the original Core Duo), you might want to check out the AMD Athlon 64 X2. It's a series of dual core CPUs that probably outperform yet undersell their Intel counterparts. A good place to start searching for the best deal on them might be here.

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Originally Posted by Squall

Anyone have any suggestions?

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Nope sorry

Hey thanks dsr. Newegg is great, i bought an external hd off the site last summer. And I'll check out tigerdirect. Thanks for the link, AMD is an option too, definately. And I'm actually back in the states now, guess I should update my location huh?

I'll second, third, and fourth Newegg.com. They have pretty much THE best prices, reasonable shipping, and a huge variety and selection of brands and products. Back when I was planning to build a computer, I was going to use them, and I did a heck of a lot of research before I settled on them. Not to be negative, but my sister ordered through Tigerdirect, and though they had great customer service over the phone, they didn't have a clue as to what they were talking about, and sent her the wrong product. So beware.

How much processing power are you needing, Squall? Because there are actually some processors out there that are considered outdated, and thus very cheap, that can outperform some much more expensive chips once overclocked. Check out Tom's Hardware for CPU reviews and comparisons. It's the best place to get the best info on processors. And you want to make sure that you get the right RAM to go best with your processor chip, too. If you plan to overclock, be sure that your RAM allows that. And do yourself a favor, and get the absolute best motherboard you can possibly afford, with plenty of connections for disc drives and SATA HDDs, and a BIOS that is designed for overclocking.

Also, your power source is the single most important piece. Make sure you get one with enough power, and buy quality. Don't cheap out there, either, trust me. If the power source isn't big enough, or if it's not made well, and it craps out, it's probably going to take at least your motherboard with it, likely anything connected to that as well.

Hope that helps. :)

Yeah Newegg is great (but beware of drowning in packing peanuts :D). also, while you're focusing on a lot of peripherals, remember that the MOTHERBOARD is the most important part. Don't be stingy, get a good one. The rest (e.g. soundcard) you can flake on for now.

You mentioned DirectX so I assume that you are going to be playing games. You definitely want the dual or quad core processors for that and probably 2 or 4 gigs of RAM. That way it's up to date for several years. I recommend also Windows XP rather than Vista.

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Originally Posted by ninja9578

probably 2 or 4 gigs of RAM. That way it's up to date for several years. I recommend also Windows XP rather than Vista.

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just bear in mind that 32 bit OS's can only support a 4Gb of address space
this roughly equates to a max of 3.5Gb of ram

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Originally Posted by Squall

Hey thanks dsr.

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Your welcome. By the way, as Man of Steel, Replicon, and ninja9578 have stated, make sure you get a good power supply and a good, extensible motherboard in addition to plenty of RAM and a decent CPU.

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Originally Posted by Ynot

just bear in mind that 32 bit OS's can only support a 4Gb of address space
this roughly equates to a max of 3.5Gb of ram

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Right, I forgot about that little snag. I guess then you would have to get Vista, I forgot that XP was 32bit. The problem is that Windows is still in the transition phase between 32 and 64 bits. (There is still a 32 bit version of Vista.) Within two years everything should be unified, but it might be hard to find 64 bit games until then.

Get yourself an Intel Kentsfield Q6600 quad core for $275 with a good overclocking motherboard for $150. Overclock it to 3GHz, and you will set for a long time - that is if you are up for spending that. :)

I would also buy the DDR2 RAM right now ahead of time. It is not going to get any cheaper - it has been dirt cheap for a few months now, and will only go up once DDR3 RAM becomes more mainstream.

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Originally Posted by blade5x

Get yourself an Intel Kentsfield Q6600 quad core for $275 with a good overclocking motherboard for $150. Overclock it to 3GHz, and you will set for a long time - that is if you are up for spending that. :)

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I've never overclocked anything, but if done safely, that would seem to be a very good deal.

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Originally Posted by blade5x

I would also buy the DDR2 RAM right now ahead of time. It is not going to get any cheaper - it has been dirt cheap for a few months now, and will only go up once DDR3 RAM becomes more mainstream.

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I don't know much about economics, but when DDR3 is in vogue, won't there be less demand for DDR2 and subsequently a decrease in price?

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I don't know much about economics, but when DDR3 is in vogue, won't there be less demand for DDR2 and subsequently a decrease in price?

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Manufacturers are cutting DDR2 production and it will become much less available pushing the prices up - they won't go up too much, but if the OP wants to spend the least amount of money, there are some good 'AR' deals which can get you 2GB DDR2-800 for $60.

Also, older slower DDR has been more expensive than DDR2 for months now.

Tons of people have, and will still have DDR2 based motherboards. Only enthusiasts will upgrade to the currently ripoff DDR3 memory. Demand will stay similar, production will drop (is dropping, manufacturers are currently unloading older DDR2 stock at lower prices to make way for DDR3), and the price will go up.

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I've never overclocked anything, but if done safely, that would seem to be a very good deal.

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If done safely, you get more performance for your money, and your parts will not die on you. I have everything overclocked in my system... computer chip, motherboard, RAM and video card. The temperatures are kept low (I spent a little extra to get better cooling), all voltages within reason - so I should really have nothing to worry about for years. It's free performance if you do a little bit of research. Once you get into heavier overclocking you'll need to spend extra on better cooling, though not much at all. Another $100 tops buying better heatsinks and fans for your system.

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Originally Posted by blade5x

Manufacturers are cutting DDR2 production and it will become much less available pushing the prices up - they won't go up too much, but if the OP wants to spend the least amount of money, there are some good 'AR' deals which can get you 2GB DDR2-800 for $60.

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I didn't know that. One learns something new everyday. By the way, what are 'AR' deals?

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Also, older slower DDR has been more expensive than DDR2 for months now.

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As the adage goes, past performance is no guarantee of future results. However, the two do seem to correlate .;)

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Tons of people have, and will still have DDR2 based motherboards. Only enthusiasts will upgrade to the currently ripoff DDR3 memory. Demand will stay similar, production will drop (is dropping, manufacturers are currently unloading older DDR2 stock at lower prices to make way for DDR3), and the price will go up.

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I don't know much about RAM or its market value, but your logic makes sense.

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If done safely, you get more performance for your money, and your parts will not die on you. I have everything overclocked in my system... computer chip, motherboard, RAM and video card. The temperatures are kept low (I spent a little extra to get better cooling), all voltages within reason - so I should really have nothing to worry about for years. It's free performance if you do a little bit of research. Once you get into heavier overclocking you'll need to spend extra on better cooling, though not much at all. Another $100 tops buying better heatsinks and fans for your system.

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Overclocking sounds almost too good to be true (although I know it's not). Then again, so does lucid dreaming.

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Originally Posted by dsr

Overclocking sounds almost too good to be true.

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depends entirely on what you're trying to achieve
there's pro's & cons

while not as prominent as gamers overclocking to get max bandwidth throughput, underclocking certain components of your system can give you benefits
you can gain latency advantages by running your ram at lower frequencies - this is important for music production, as it frees up the CPU to deal more quickly with other system resources (MIDI signals, for example)

it's entirely dependant on what you're trying to achieve

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Originally Posted by dsr

I didn't know that. One learns something new everyday. By the way, what are 'AR' deals?

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Overclocking sounds almost too good to be true (although I know it's not). Then again, so does lucid dreaming.[/quote]

'AR' = After Rebate (there's always rebates... but I never have had problems with them, yet *knock on wood*).

Overclocking is too good to be true for those people who buy pre-built computers from Dell or Gateway or whoever else makes them. If you buy your own parts, you can pick from a bunch of parts that are 'built for overclocking" and honestly - today that is just too easy to do.

Overclocking definitely is a bit of a scary concept when new to it. I remember the first computer I ever tried to overclock was my older pre-built Celeron 2.0GHz, and I ended up corrupting Windows and really messing up the computer - but I had no idea what I was doing. Then I built my own computer shortly after Core2 was released, and overclocking was a breeze. Been running an E6600 at 3.33GHz (a 930MHz overclock) for over a year now, and it's still going strong. Now... at the time I bought the E6600 for $350, and there was another chip the X6800 cost $1000. That chip by default ran at 2.93GHz - all other attributes identical to the E6600 (except for an unlocked multiplier). I pushed my chip past the performance the $1000 at the time offered - now how could overclocking not have been attractive when one had the ability to get the performance of a $1000 computer chip? ;)

Okay I ordered finally. It's all going to be here by next Wednesday!

Here's the main components:

C2D E6750
GeForce 8800GT
ASUS P5N-E
2 GB DDR2 800 (matched only 50$ AR from Newegg!)
500 GB SATA-II (Decided to get a new one cause my old external was almost full anyways)

Zipzoomfly also has a lot of good deals. So I'd recommend it to everyone. They have free shipping on a lot of their products as well.