Building a system

[Bobthelost]

Not bad, for comparisons you can do far worse than looking at Tom's hardware for thier graphics card roundups.

 

[dwdty9]

here's the vid card i'm gonna get

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814122201

great software bundle too

 

[dwdty9]

Here's my build so far. Need pvr and OS.

NEC Black IDE/ATAPI DVD Burner Model ND-3550A - OEM
Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 450Watt SmartPower 2.0 ATX 12V V2.0 for AMD & Intel systems Power Supply - Retail
Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
DFI nF4 Ultra-Infinity Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Leadtek PX6600GT TDH Geforce 6600GT 128MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model VS2GBKIT400C3 - Retail
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model ADA3800BVBOX - Retail

 

[dwdty9]

thing thing is, i can get this a nice HP setup with a monitor for $1100. What are the pros/cons on building vs retail?

 

[Caly]

Upgradeability, like avoiding proprietary hardware.

And I would avoid HP like the plague. Almost everyone I've known that has had some form of HP has regretted it.

 

[dwdty9]

ok, done. that didn't take much to convince me to build

 

[dwdty9]

how do you think that system i posted would compare to a similarly spec P4?
NEC Black IDE/ATAPI DVD Burner Model ND-3550A - OEM
Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 450Watt SmartPower 2.0 ATX 12V V2.0 for AMD & Intel systems Power Supply - Retail
Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
DFI nF4 Ultra-Infinity Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Leadtek PX6600GT TDH Geforce 6600GT 128MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model VS2GBKIT400C3 - Retail
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model ADA3800BVBOX - Retail