Build a Computer, pt II

[Hugella]

Just like Debaser's thread, except you have ~$1500-$2000.

Only requirements:

Can play Half-Life 2.

Suggestions?

[Jethro Q. Walrustitty]

You'd have to try awfully hard to spend $2k on a computer.

Case: whatever, but with the biggest power supply you can find. 460w or higher.

Motherboard: Ehhh... not sure. For now, Via chipset, maybe the upcoming nForce 3 with SoundStorm once that's released.

CPU: Athlon 64, fastest you're comfortable with.

Memory: 2x512m DDR400, leaving a slot free to go high if you want more in the future.

Hard drive: 250 gig, and one of the 8-meg-cache models. Gotta lean towards Seagate now what with the 5-year warranty. If you want to be really 133+, RAID them mofos - you'll need 2=3x the hard drives but you'll have backups and potentially higher speed depending on which RAID you choose.

Video: ATI X800, fastest you can stomach. They top out at $500 IIRC.

Sound: Audigy 2.

Mouse/kb: I still go with basically the same Logitech stuff whether it's high-end or low-end.

Monitor: here's the controversy... I still prefer CRT monitors for the brighter colors, consistent image, instant updates, and the ability to work at different resolutions.

LCDs are "sexier", smaller, and have more clarity, but the colors aren't as bright, you might not get a consistent image depending on the angle you look at it from, there's a little bit of blurring (not nearly as bad as the old ones but still there)... and the killer, for games at least, is the fact that they only work in one resolution. Say you get a 19" screen - it'll run 1280x1024 - and you want to run a game in, say, 800x600. (Flash forward to the release of Half-Life 3.) You either get it small with big black borders, or you get it "stretched" to 1280x1024 - which will make it kind of blurry and blocky. Again, the newer ones do a better job of it, but it'll never be as good as actually being in the proper resolution.

So, for a monitor, a good 19" CRT (a "graphics" one, and look for 1600x1200 at at least 70hZ to stop the flickeries if you decide to go really highrez), or a 17-19" LCD.

ROCK ON

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Just like Debaser's thread, except you have ~$1500-$2000.

Only requirements:

Can play Half-Life 2.

Suggestions?

Do you have any of the components already, or is this a brand new machine? If it's brand new we might get a better deal with a machine pre-built from somewhere. But if you have a few components already like Debaser did we could be rocking and creating a new machine that way.

[Hugella]

Well, my current computer is a Compaq 6000z (1800+ Athlon, 512M RAM, 80G hd...got it for $300 bucks at Sam's Club last year..hard to beat that price for what is really a nice system.) I've got a set of Altec-Lansing speakers (including subwoofer), keyboard, mouse, etc. The monitor is a 15' generic 800x600 VGA that's at least 5 years old, and needs replacing, regardless.

I've also got a NIC that I use to connect to my cable connection, but it uses nVidia nforce and I consistently have problems getting it to work with (Slackware) Linux. Since I'll have a dual boot system, I'll replace the NIC too. Do you know how well the Athlon 64 works on Linux?

I do have a question about DVD players. I really don't care about either burning or watching DVDs on my computer, so is there any advantage to getting one?

[bruce]

I do have a question about DVD players. I really don't care about either burning or watching DVDs on my computer, so is there any advantage to getting one?

Lots of software only comes on DVD now, and that trend's only going to accelerate.

Bruce

[chris]

Lots of software only comes on DVD now, and that trend's only going to accelerate.

That and the fact that you can get a name brand DVD-ROM drive for less than $30 doesn't give you much of a reason to NOT get one.

As for a monitor, I certainly don't live on the bleeding edge of technology, but I'm a huge fan of LCD displays....CRTs are dinosaurs and their days are (thankfully) numbered. The enormous space/energy savings alone make LCDs worth the extra money, and the picture on LCDs these days are stunning.

[Jethro Q. Walrustitty]

Just like Debaser's thread, except you have ~$1500-$2000.

Only requirements:

Can play Half-Life 2.

Suggestions?

Do you have any of the components already, or is this a brand new machine? If it's brand new we might get a better deal with a machine pre-built from somewhere.

COMMIE PINKO.

Even PC World's latest survey showed that home-built PCs are the best PCs that money can buy.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Even PC World's latest survey showed that home-built PCs are the best PCs that money can buy.

JESUS CHRIST! Are you intentionally obtuse to the demands and pitfalls of trying to advice someone around a PC over the Internet or are you truly and sickly insane? Do you have ANY IDEA how difficult it is to troubleshoot this stuff over the net?

ICJ: "Plug in a Port 80 card and tell me what comes up."
PersonX: "I don't know what that is, or have one."
ICJ: "Oh, OK, I'll send you one via snail mail."

Now I get to go down to the post office. Is this what you want? Is it?

Are you insane? You're insane.

Let's at least get some sort of idea of how comfortable Hugella is with all this before we start Frankenstiening together a system for her.

[Debaser]

ICJ: "Plug in a Port 80 card and tell me what comes up."
PersonX: "I don't know what that is, or have one."
ICJ: "Oh, OK, I'll send you one via snail mail."

You don't have to take the stickers off the memory.

[chris]

JESUS CHRIST! Are you intentionally obtuse to the demands and pitfalls of trying to advice someone around a PC over the Internet or are you truly and sickly insane? Do you have ANY IDEA how difficult it is to troubleshoot this stuff over the net?

And you're SURPRISED by this?

Fact of the matter is that somebody with a reasonable amount of computer knowledge can cobble themselves together a decent computer. Somebody who doesn't know which end of a screwdriver is the business end is better off buying the HP Pavilion for $499 at OfficeMax.

[Jack Straw]

What would be the recommended board for a Celeron Socket 478, with as much onboard shit as possible (LAN, sound)?? Thanks, haven't paid attention to Intel since my 450a.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Did you ever get an answer to that?

And Hugella, did you ever end up getting a PC?

[Jack Straw]

Nah, but fuck it.

Guy drops off a PC, asks me to fix some Windows problems. Stupid shit like "how to convert .bmp to .jpg" and "AIM acts flaky".. OK no prob. Finally get around to hooking it up and the damn thing won't even POST. It's one of the red PCB MSI boards with everything onboard.. only card is a Geforce4MX440... so I start pulling shit out one by one. Everything tests OK in my PC except for the CPU (Intel garbage, I have an Athlon board)
So, I call him up and ask him how he was having problems with AIM when the PC didn't POST. LIke I was going to have an extra MAINBOARD laying around, and I would throw it in and not even mention it or something. He gets back to me later and says he remembers SOMETHING like what I'm talking about. And if it needs a motherboard then just go get one. But get it locally because he can't wait for it to be shipped because he has Internet honeys to get back to. Sure, buddy. No one gets over on Jack Straw. I told him to take it to J&N, minus my diagnostic fee of course. I don't even know why I was looking at a motherboard for the thing... guy knew his system was FUBAR and if he wanted me to install a new mainboard, and who knows what else, he should have at least given me some $$ upfront as a hardware allowance. SOme people piss me off.

[chris]

Nah, but fuck it.

That's exactly why I don't do computer work on the side. Yeah, I could make a few extra bucks throwing together PCs for people, but having to provide endless support for them (which means you're stuck wearing a "take advantage of me as much as you can" sign around your neck) isn't worth it. Besides, it's not like I have free time to do crap like that...those of you with young kids know what I'm talking about.

[Hugella]

Well, not a new computer yet, but I did get a new 17'' Microtek 710S LCD monitor for about $350. Coming from my poor (but trusty) 14'' 800x600 display, it's taking some time to get used to all this real estate!

My next purchase will be a video card. I was looking at the Radeon 9600se (128M) vs the XTACY 9600se (256M), but I'm unclear on the real differences (other than manufacturer and memory.)

Anybody have any recommendations for video cards less than say, $200?

[AArdvark]

Wow, must be some loser users out there. Everyone that askes me to 'look at thier PC' has been real upfront about it. I usually don't ask for money, but if they want to shoot a couple bucks my way then sure I could use beer money. Most of the time it's just that they are software illiterate and don't understand Windows (or how to surf for drivers) If it is a hardware problem I tell them to go buy the component and i'll install it for them. Of course I don't help out strangers or friend of a friend of a friend people either.


THE
DONT TAKE CANDY
OR GIVE TECH SUPPORT
AARDVARK

[chris]

Wow, must be some loser users out there. Everyone that askes me to 'look at thier PC' has been real upfront about it. I usually don't ask for money, but if they want to shoot a couple bucks my way then sure I could use beer money. Most of the time it's just that they are software illiterate and don't understand Windows (or how to surf for drivers) If it is a hardware problem I tell them to go buy the component and i'll install it for them.

The problem is that 95% of the people who have computers know nothing about them. As soon as they discover somebody who DOES know something (be it how to use a software program, or how to fix them, or whatnot), my experience has been that they'll glom onto you and won't let go. Any conversations with them always start with "I'm having a problem with my computer" or "Maybe you can help me with my computer?". It just isn't worth it.

(Okay...if it's a really hot chick that'll bang you if you get her AIM working again, then maybe it's worth it.)

And it's a living hell if you're a systems admin like me. Everybody KNOWS you know something about computers, so you get bombarded with questions. It can really, really suck.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

My next purchase will be a video card. I was looking at the Radeon 9600se (128M) vs the XTACY 9600se (256M), but I'm unclear on the real differences (other than manufacturer and memory.)

Hey! The Radeon 9600 is what I think *I* have! I can't recall exactly, however. I'll bring up Newegg here...

... Well, sort of. I ended up with a Radeon 9600XT with 128MB of on-board RAM, apparently. I can't tell the difference any longer. I used to be hyped to the max with all this crap, and could spout off details regarding the various frames per second that a given chipset could do on the various manufacturer's boards, though they really were exactly the same. Now, I need to lookup my Newegg password just to see what Radeon card I got.

I'd say "getting older sucks" but it doesn't suck that much.

Anyway, Radeon has been very very good to me. Dunno anything about the Xtasy other than that's not how we spell pleasure in Colorado.

I also grabbed a "refurbished" card from Newegg. It was significantly cheaper! But it worked correctly, so I didn't care about the risk. I probably would have if they had shipped me a bunch of capacitors and a green slab and some paste with instructions on how to build it myself.