Newegg (brag about your computer!)

Alright, so my current main computer is a 4-5 year old HP Laptop. Which, y'know... it works, I guess. Running Ubuntu, because no way can this thing handle Vista.

So that sort of dates the last time I've really looked into computer hardware stuff, and going back to school in a month here, I've decided it's time to finally get a decent computer. So, naturally, I check out newegg.com , or for me, newegg.ca . And... stop, and stare. Computer tech in the past half-decade has become incomprehensible to me! I mean, the basics - RAM, HD, etc - but there's a lot of crazy numbers here, and I don't trust myself to be able to figure out what's good and what's not anymore.

That said - what's your setup? Did you put it together your own, or get it from such as Best Buy? If you're feeling exceptionally generous, what would be a considered a good computer, these days? I'm looking to spend under $1000, and I'd prefer a decent graphics card (whatever that means these days, I'm sure a 16MB Voodoo2 would be out of the question) though I'm not much of a gamer. 500GB HD? Those are affordable now? Crazy.

I feel like I'm a decade out of date, and I appeal to your collective wisdom to set me straight!
 
Sony Vaio is a good laptop to have. Look it up and see what you think about it, it cost about a $1000 or possibly more. Over here in Canada it cost $1000 but it's worth it.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Bekul said:
That said - what's your setup? Did you put it together your own, or get it from such as Best Buy?

Here's what I have, from memory:

Case: Uhhh something I've had for a long time. I don't remember the reference nor even who manufactured it.
PSU: Fortron Green Power 400W
Motherboard: Asus Rampage Formula
Processor: Q9300
RAM: G.Skill Extreme 3 Series HK 2x2048Mo PC10600 Dual Channel CAS8
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT (forgot the manufacturer)
HDD: I have a lot of those, but the most recent one is a Samsung Spinpoint 500GB
Mouse/Keyboard: Logitech (whatever the reference)

Built it myself like I always do, and this time I had to saw some parts off so it'd all fit together. Does that make me hardcore or something? :ganishka:

Bekul said:
If you're feeling exceptionally generous, what would be a considered a good computer, these days?

I don't have time to check anything extensively right now, but what Saiya posted looks good to me.

Bekul said:
500GB HD? Those are affordable now? Crazy.

Considering the current market I would recommend you to get a Samsung Spinpoint 1TB. I can vouch for the 500GB model, it's pretty good.
 
Looking at this thread is like a crack addict looking at a site which talks about how sweet crack is. I currently have an old dell xps laptop which I am thinking about replacing but I am hessitant to do so as I know I will end up spending too much money on it .
 
Hey, ELECKRO, check out this sweet crack http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229116

My eyes are ON IT.
 

SaiyajinNoOuji

I'm still better than you
Bekul said:
Hey, ELECKRO, check out this sweet crack http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229116

My eyes are ON IT.
That is beyond overkill. 12GB's of ram? :ganishka:

Unless your doing heavy multimedia, you really don't need that.
 

KazigluBey

Misanthrōpos
Dell Inspiron 1720 right now. Once I start using the higher end music writing/recording software I'll build a new desktop.
 
Bekul said:
Hey, ELECKRO, check out this sweet crack http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229116

My eyes are ON IT.

That rig looks nice.
SaiyajinNoOuji said:
That is beyond overkill. 12GB's of ram? :ganishka:

Unless your doing heavy multimedia, you really don't need that.

There is no such thing as too much ram! heh I bet it would be sweet to have that much ram. Only thing missing is a sweet solid state hd to hold the OS.
 

SaiyajinNoOuji

I'm still better than you
I would advise anyone wanting to get caught up on current computer related items to check out www.techpowerup.com Its a great place to learn new stuff and the people there are very helpful. I go there quite often and have had my questions answered for various things. Thanks to them I was able to hit 3.5 on my E7200 wolfdale. :carcus:

Edit: I should clarify and say that although getting that chip to 3.5 isn't the greatest thing it is when you consider that most boards will let you change the specific voltage for the cpu in numerics. My board unfortunately only raises the damn thing via a percentage so I cant get precise tuning. :mozgus: Damn you Biostar!
 
Update: Taking SaiyajinNoOuji's suggestion as a great place to start my research, I've been poking around newegg for the past few days to educate myself, and have put this together:
newegg.png


Of course, this is something I'm constantly adjusting, but - for those who clearly know more about all this than I do, is there anything I'm missing, does anything stand out as incompoatible, wrong, or generally weird?

That whole setup comes out to $2,261.41 CDN, before shipping and tax, which I consider remarkable cheap for what I'm getting. I've decided to go for 6x2GB of the DDR3, and a single GTX 285, and a motherboard that (I think), will be able to support a second GTX 285 and 12GB of RAM in the future, should I decide to upgrade.

And for the price, apparantly the benefit of a 10000RPM boot-drive (the 300GB one up there), currently outweighs the benefits of a SSD, in a cost:performance calculation. I have a 500GB external drive I intend to use for backups, though adding a second internal 1TB drive should be trivial and inexpensive.

Again, trying to future-proof a computer purchase is foolhardy, but hopefully with this setup I'll be able to remain reasonably current for the next three or for years, with only minor upgrades. That said, I'm planing on waiting until September before actually ordering, as I expect a full crop of deals to appear for the 'back to school' season.
 

Scorpio

Courtesy of Grail's doodling.
Only two things jump out at me: you need a disc drive and you need to make absolutely sure you have all the cables required. OEM means component only, so unless your mobo comes with extra SATA cables, you'll likely need to buy some more.

Oh, and when you build your own computer it does not come with an operating system, so make sure you have that worked out beforehand.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
My god, man. Do you really need that much RAM? And the GFX card... are you going to be rendering Toy Story 3 on that machine? :isidro:

If you're already shelling out $2k, you may also want to shell out an extra $20-30 for a non-stock CPU fan. The default fans are usually louder and less efficient than something with more panache, like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118019

Personally, I have no problem with the stock intel fan I have on my rig (which is actually nearly identical to Aaz'). But for those who desire 1GB of video ram and 6GB of system ram, you may as well, as Spinal Tap would say, push that fan to 11!
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Get yourself a real CPU fan. And nVidia aren't the kings of GPUs... Get a Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 Vapor-X 1GB. For the motherboard I'd recommend an Asus P6T SE. Can't go wrong with an Asus mobo. Processor is a good choice I think. For the monitor, how about a Hyundai W240D V2? Slightly smaller but it's really good stuff. Finally, considering the PSU you're purchasing, why not buy a Cooler Master HAF-932 case to go along with it?
 

SaiyajinNoOuji

I'm still better than you
Like Aaz said, definitely need a better CPU fan, the good thing is though, you can get an LG775 (Core Duo/Quad/Pentium D) CPU fan then buy a cracket for the new LG i7. Could save you a bit of money. I would agree with Aaz with the Video Card. ATI has been on a roll lately with their products. I have an older Sapphire 4870 512 card and there is no game that I have (Drakensang, Fallout 3, Darkfall, Diablo 2 :ganishka: , Dungeons and Dragons Online, etc) that I can't max out the settings and play at 2048 x 1158 resolution.

Also just to let you know that if you are going to try to do any overclocking with the new i7's that they do it differently then their previous brethren. No longer are the days of tweaking the voltage and bus speed but something entirely different.

Here is a link that would point you in the right direction if you are interested.
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=76464
 
Oh, and if it wasn't blindingly obvious, I thought I should mention - this will be my first time ever building my own computer. Might as well be a beast! :zodd:

Scorpio said:
Only two things jump out at me: you need a disc drive and you need to make absolutely sure you have all the cables required.
...
Oh, and when you build your own computer it does not come with an operating system, so make sure you have that worked out beforehand.

Good call about the disc drive. I honestly haven't used the one I have on this old laptop since I burned an Ubuntu CD from another computer - but I suppose they're cheap, and worth having for when they're needed. True about the OS - I worked Vista tech support for awhile, so no need to educate me there. I'm likely going to dual boot some Linux variant with either of XP or Win 7. I like Ubuntu, by the way, and find it perfectly functional, but I think I'm about ready to 'graduate' from it, so that's something else I'm going to have to research.

Walter said:
My god, man. Do you really need that much RAM? And the GFX card... are you going to be rendering Toy Story 3 on that machine? :isidro:

If you're already shelling out $2k, you may also want to shell out an extra $20-30 for a non-stock CPU fan. The default fans are usually louder and less efficient than something with more panache, like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118019

Need? There is no need! Only want! :griff:

Honestly, all my computing life I've felt at least two generations behind whatever was current, so I'm just blindly leaping at the opportunity to be within inches of a cutting-edge system. I'm greatly appreciating the advice! Good point about the need for a non-stock CPU fan - most of these components I'm looking at have reviews that mention heat as being a noticible factor. And much as I like panach, I'm afraid I'm not a fan of extra-fancy style fanlight LED's - but a cheap giant like this http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185054 , that pushes 133.60 CFM (cubic feet/minute), seems like just beast enough to fit in with the rest of these crazy components. :zodd:

Aazealh said:
And nVidia aren't the kings of GPUs... Get a Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 Vapor-X 1GB. For the motherboard I'd recommend an Asus P6T SE. Can't go wrong with an Asus mobo. Processor is a good choice I think. For the monitor, how about a Hyundai W240D V2? Slightly smaller but it's really good stuff. Finally, considering the PSU you're purchasing, why not buy a Cooler Master HAF-932 case to go along with it?

Great point about going with the Radeon. I checked out the specs, and in comparison they come close to and sometimes exceed, sometimes not quite reach those of the GTX - but at half the price. That right there saves me $200! And if I ever somehow need the extra power, I can add a second Radeon. Gratitude for pointing out that Asus 66T SE, too - it's about $100 cheaper than what I had, and actually has better specs overall, and even an eSATA connection that my previous board didn't. The case is more expensive, but looking at it, it's clearly better than the case I'd had before, and the case is important enough for me to want to spend enough to get something better. I think I did look at it, briefly, but I'm generally not a fan of caselights or fanlights - though in this case, I think I can make an exception. I'm sure they're easy enough to disable anyway.

Hmm, I checked out that monitor, and that does look impressive - I've only given a cursory glance at monitors, so far, so that's the next thing for me to research.

As for overclocking... I'm not /intending/ to, since I'd really have no idea where to start, but... once I have everything put together, I might be tempted! :carcus:

Again, thank you all tremendously for the advice! You've saved me a couple bucks while improving the specs of what I've got listed, and I'm really excited to put this beast together in a few months - I'll post pics when I do!
 

SaiyajinNoOuji

I'm still better than you
Bekul said:
Oh, and if it wasn't blindingly obvious, I thought I should mention - this will be my first time ever building my own computer. Might as well be a beast! :zodd:
I would highly suggest you take a look at this thread then.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=58149

One piece of advice that I can give to you is to take your time with your first time build. Everything doesnt have to be done in a day and some of these items can break easily if you rush and try to force things down/through.

Also just to let you know, you will need to get a 64 BIT OS to make use of all that ram. I would highly suggest downloading Windows 7 RC1 64 BIT. Its a great solid OS and its free for the time being (Until May or June of next year). Good luck and let us know how it goes! :guts:
 
Btw if you want to do 3d gaming remember you will need a 100-120hz monitor, Nvidia has decent 3d glasses + monitor bundle.
 

SaiyajinNoOuji

I'm still better than you
ELEKTRO said:
Btw if you want to do 3d gaming remember you will need a 100-120hz monitor, Nvidia has decent 3d glasses + monitor bundle.
Nothing like playing a FPS then getting to see your dead body tea-bagged by XXXxxHardAssUSMCxxXXXX in 3D! :troll:
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Bekul said:
either of XP or Win 7.

Go with Windows 7 (64 bit). It's useless to get XP with a machine like the one you want, and it's especially useless to get 6GB of RAM with XP since it can't even handle 4GB properly.

Bekul said:
And much as I like panach, I'm afraid I'm not a fan of extra-fancy style fanlight LED's - but a cheap giant like this http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185054 , that pushes 133.60 CFM (cubic feet/minute), seems like just beast enough to fit in with the rest of these crazy components. :zodd:

Cheap fans are a big no-no, unless you like poor performances and inhumanly annoying noise. Get a fancy fan with good reviews, like the Noctua NH-U12P SE. But make sure it'll fit the motherboard and the case (another reason to get a good case like the one I recommended you).

Bekul said:
Great point about going with the Radeon. I checked out the specs, and in comparison they come close to and sometimes exceed, sometimes not quite reach those of the GTX - but at half the price. That right there saves me $200! And if I ever somehow need the extra power, I can add a second Radeon. Gratitude for pointing out that Asus 66T SE, too - it's about $100 cheaper than what I had, and actually has better specs overall, and even an eSATA connection that my previous board didn't.

:slan:

Bekul said:
The case is more expensive, but looking at it, it's clearly better than the case I'd had before, and the case is important enough for me to want to spend enough to get something better. I think I did look at it, briefly, but I'm generally not a fan of caselights or fanlights - though in this case, I think I can make an exception. I'm sure they're easy enough to disable anyway.

Yeah, ignore the LEDs and all the other tacky shit. They're not the reason the case is more expensive: quality is. And believe me, you don't want to go for a cheap component, not a single one. They're all important to some extent, and may be a pain in the ass in the short/mid/long term if you cop out.

Bekul said:
Hmm, I checked out that monitor, and that does look impressive - I've only given a cursory glance at monitors, so far, so that's the next thing for me to research.

It's currently the best 24" monitor out there, plain and simple. If you want something bigger, I recommend the ViewSonic VX2835WM.
 
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