up til this point i’ve been programming on my laptop, which is only a year and a half old, but with significant limitations such as 256 mb of ram, and cramped for hard drive space, so im thinking of building a desktop pc. can anyone give me advice on whether its worth it, and if so where i can get good parts?
/me is building a new computer when Doom 3 comes out, and not before!
I almost built a new computer recently, but I choose to wait. Here are the specs and then my reasons for waiting.
Case: Lian Li PC-65 PC Case w/ 480W or higher name brand PSU - $191
Processor: Athlon 64 3400+ Retail - $423
Cooling: Retail Heatsink/Fan - $0
Motherboard: ASUS K8V Deluxe - $139
Memory: 2 X 512-MB Corsair TwinX XMS DDR400/PC3200LL - $249
Hard Drive: Western Digital 250 GB 7200RPM SATA - $212
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro- $421
Sound Card: SoundBlaster Audigy Platinum 2 ZS Retail - $166
Speakers: Logitech Z-680 5.1 - $284
CD-ROM/DVD-RW: NEC 8X DVD+RW/-RW ND-2500A OEM - $121
CD-RW: Lite-On 52x32x52 CD-RW LTR-52327S - $33
Mouse: MSFT Explorer - $30
Keyboard: Microsoft Natural Multimedia Keyboard - $20
Operating System: Windows XP Pro - $134
Total: USD 2423
It’s been years, so I was going all out. I’ve decided to wait a bit for three reasons:
[]DDR2 compatible mobos
[]PCI Express compatible mobos
[*]BTX form factor
That’s three big changes set to hit the market any days now. Will I buy DDR2 memory? No. Will I get a PCI Express Graphics card? Maybe! Do I want a motherboard that is ready to upgrade to that stuff? Definitely.
I’d love to hear opinions on this. I really need a new machine at home and I’m trying to draw the line between upgradable and not-worth-waiting for.
I would suggest going for GeForce 6800 instead of Randeon. It seems to be a real deal in high price range - a lot more capabilities in shader front and 2-3 times faster for most games…
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040414/index.html
[quote]I would suggest going for GeForce 6800 instead of Randeon. It seems to be a real deal in high price range - a lot more capabilities in shader front and 2-3 times faster for most games…
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040414/index.html
[/quote]
That’s quite impressive! Let’s see, if ATI manages to get a smiliar powerful card out.
ATI will bring out a competitor to the newest nVidia (got some scoop on it ;)).
Also, ATI had better MPEG2 hardware desompression, better texture quality, higher precision, and better “output”. Yes, driver stability was questionable as early as 2 years ago, but they have been really improved as of late.
-ChrisM
I thought about 2.4 GHz Celleron, or a low end prescott. 256 MB RAM
120GB HD (Is better Seagate, or Maxtor?)
Motheboard with 3 slots for memory. (And enough PCI slots)
17’’ LCD monitor.
128 MB 128 bit Nvidia FX would be enough.
DVD burner I seen ths beast. http://www.alzasoft.cz/DetailPage.asp?DPG=44731
to duncanIdaho
How long is waranty for that memory? I just recently seen one broken one, it looked like common Windoze breakdowns (uncommon ones actually), or HD controller problems. Nasty, it took me aprox 1 Day until I tried to remove older memory block.
BTW I seen a really nice (and expensive) case with noise reduction. http://www.alzasoft.cz/DetailPage.asp?DPG=44209
This one is crazy too. http://www.alzasoft.cz/DetailPage.asp?DPG=43817
Actually I don’t understand why do you want both DVD burner and CD-RW?
to NexusOne
Big HD is worth it, I’m unsure about the RAM isue.
[quote]ATI will bring out a competitor to the newest nVidia (got some scoop on it ;)).
Also, ATI had better MPEG2 hardware desompression, better texture quality, higher precision, and better “output”. Yes, driver stability was questionable as early as 2 years ago, but they have been really improved as of late.
[/quote]
It’s nice to have some competition. I’m just a little concerned about the power the new cards, or new PCs in general, need. (NVidia recommends a 480W power supply.)
[quote]I thought about 2.4 GHz Celleron, or a low end prescott. 256 MB RAM
120GB HD (Is better Seagate, or Maxtor?)
Motheboard with 3 slots for memory. (And enough PCI slots)
17’’ LCD monitor.
128 MB 128 bit Nvidia FX would be enough.
DVD burner I seen ths beast. http://www.alzasoft.cz/DetailPage.asp?DPG=44731
[/quote]
128 MB NVidia FX doesn’t mean a lot. It can be everything from an entry level to a highly expensive card. I recommend more RAM and an Athlon XP for games. Celerons usually have a good clock frequency, but this doesn’t automatically mean good performance (they are a good choice for office PCs). Regarding the RAM I’d surely take 1 GB, if I’d buy a new PC, so I recommend at least 512 MB.
[quote] (Is better Seagate, or Maxtor?)
[/quote]
Go for maxtor. I’ve had more than one bad experience with seagate. Maxtor never failed on me.
[quote]Go for maxtor. I’ve had more than one bad experience with seagate. Maxtor never failed on me.
[/quote]
It’s all personal experience. I use Seagate and am very happy. 
Raghar
I thought about 2.4 GHz Celleron, or a low end prescott.
The Prescotts have not been getting the kind of press I’d like to see. Basically they aren’t any faster than the cheaper Northwoods.
256 MB RAM
You’ll want at least 512 if you are running XP and want performance. I want a gig so I can edit video or run doom3 in memory.
How long is waranty for that memory?
That’s a good question, and I don’t know, but Cosair seems to be the quality reccomendation across the board.
Actually I don’t understand why do you want both DVD burner and CD-RW?
There’s no good reason, just the convience of two trays for copying.
With regard to processors:
I would not purchase an Intel product today. AMD has proven to be more reliable, faster (compared to same level processors), cheaper and overclockable. In fact, I have only used AMD processors for the past 3 years and all of the systems we have built for GDC (this year and 2001) were AMD. Stay AWAY from Celeron unless you just want to surf the web 
512MB at least! 256MB won’t be enough to run XP and games properly. Also, don’t worry about FSB above 400MHz and make sure that you pair the memory up in dual channel systems.
If you are looking for a great systemboard, go with a KT400 chipset or nForce. I used a KT400 but forund that the nForce has better performance and a better feature set (integrated sound with SPDIF ports are amazing!) but are a bit more expensive.
With regard to DVD/CR-WR burners. If you case has the slots, get a DVD burner and a dedicated CDRW. Besides easier backups, you will probably be burning more CDs than DVDs and DVD drives tend to wear out more easily
-ChrisM
[quote] Also, don’t worry about FSB above 400MHz
[/quote]
I’m curious to hear your reasoning on the FSB, as it sets the speed limit for memory and all future upgrades. Which leads to another of the Athlon64’s advantages: since it has a memory controller on dye, it can run the board at the frequency of the chip ( or at least the memory. ) I don’t have my special issue of MaximumPC in front of me, but I was reading about it last month in their “355 PC questions answered” issue.
Because chances are you won’t be purchasing RAM above 400MHz give the price point you are looking at. Also, DDR RAM at 400MHz is quite stable and ther just isnt enough of a performance gain over 400MHz at this point to justify the MUCH higher prices of speedier RAM. HOWEVER! The new PC mobo architecture ( I forget the name of it) will be coming out later this year ( and will most likely be very expensive) and I would wait to see what they have to offer if you are looking beyone 400MHz FSB.
-ChrisM
From what I can tell, duncanIdaho is right. Everything I have read lately has said don’t buy a new pc now because everything you can buy at the moment is going to die out when the new motherboard technologies, pci express and friends arrive a bit later in the year.
My current pc was built from a lot of parts which are not terribly upgradeable ( I discovered when I started thinking about upgrading it ) and it’s really annoying when it happens.
[quote]My current pc was built from a lot of parts which are not terribly upgradeable ( I discovered when I started thinking about upgrading it ) and it’s really annoying when it happens.
[/quote]
If you keep your PC for at least 3 years, then at the end of 3 years it will probably not be sensibly upgradeable anyway. A processor upgrade will likely require a new motherboard and some new type of memory, maybe a new power supply. The hard disk capacity you already have will trivial along side a bottom of the range new drive.
[quote]If you keep your PC for at least 3 years, then at the end of 3 years it will probably not be sensibly upgradeable anyway. A processor upgrade will likely require a new motherboard and some new type of memory, maybe a new power supply. The hard disk capacity you already have will trivial along side a bottom of the range new drive.
[/quote]
I usually have the same strategy. Buying a moderately good PC for a good price and getting a new one after about three years with only small or no upgrades in between.
Agreement here as well. While things like PCI-Express will eventually make AGP redundant, that won’t happen for a while yet. AGP cards will still be produced years from now - they’re still not taking advantage of all the speed that the full AGP spec allows.
IDE is still going strong despite S-ATA being better and faster. You can still buy PCI graphics cards, even up to a 128MB GeForce FX 5200. Despite PCI coming out at the beginning of the nineties, you could still buy top-quality ISA graphics cards up until the turn of the century.
If you pay too much attention to the tech media, you’d never buy a new computer - there’s always something better on the horizon. Buy a computer for the here-and-now, and enjoy it - if anything can be salvaged half a decade from now, that’s a bonus! But it shouldn’t influence your purchase in 2004.