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Help buying a new computer ($1200 or so)

M

Medster

Junior Member
Howdy. I was wondering if you guys could help me pick out some parts for a computer I'm building. I'm going to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $1200 on it. I don't need a monitor though, I already have one. I was THINKING of getting an Asus CUSL2 w/ P3-933 (yea i know most of you guys hate pentiums). I saw a Voodoo5 for about 190 so that looked tempting also. Also saw a SB Live value for about 40 or so, so I'll probably pick that up. What do you guys recommend for a good speakers set (w/ sub). Something below 60 bucks though. Also are there any good web sites or companies you could recommend to me for for parts? Thanks.
 
Mwave

Good prices, great service, excellent selection.

But about the speakers...you're going to spend $1200 without a monitor, and you only want to spend $60 on speakers?

Besides the monitor, these will be the longest lasting part of your computer. I say that if you have the extra $$, grab a decent set like the Klipsch 3 piece for $199.


As far as other parts go, what OS are you going to be running? And what size of monitor do you currently have? Do you need a burner or a DVD drive?
 
I would say go with a Duron 700 and OC it to 900. Not quite the same performance of the P-III 933, but you'l save a lot of money and probably won't notice unless you compare the machines side by side. That said, Intel and AMD are about equal, there is no really compelling reason to pick one over the other except for personal preferance and price. I think a Duron 700@900 on an MSI K7T Pro 2 would be a good deal, though I have no personal experience with that particular combo aside from reading reiews. If you want Pentium, get it, its personal preferance all the way.

As for speakers, I have a set of Altec Lansing ASC33 speakers (2.1: Left, Right + sub) that have a very good sound. They were about $50 at Circuit City, but can be had for the same price almost anywhere. I have loved the speakers, the only drawback is rather nit-picky but they only have a volume control, you will have to adjust bass, treble, and balance from the computer rather than the speakers. It is not a big deal to me though.

Aaron Meyer
 
If you like to do multitasking (play a game while playing a DVD
while surfing the Web while encoding an MP3), I'd strongly consider
a dual processor board. Personally, I'd take a dual PIII 600 or 650
(or maybe even 500) Tyan Tiger 100 setup over a PIII 933Mhz/133Hz
setup anyday. But that's because I find myself up against more
bottlenecks that are alleviated by dual processors than by a
faster single processor. Also, you can easily overclock the TT 100
to 112Mhz FSB, so up the processor speed of whatever you plug into
it by 12%. I have a Tiger 100 with 2 x 800 @ 896Mhz, and it
is just terrific.

The trouble is that a lot of apps are not SMP (multiprocessor) aware.
So if you really only use a few apps on your machine and don't
do a lot of multitasking, then a single superfast processor will
probably be more your "speed".

Kwad
 
But a Tyan Tiger 100 plus 2 PIIIs can run you as little as
$300 or so. Overstock.com has had OEM Tiger 100s several times for
$89 ($69 after coupon) shipped. Add a couple of PIII 500s @ $125/ea
and you're at $320. Or go to higher speed PIIIs and you can still
stay in the low $400 range. That's gonna be comparable to a 933 and
some decent single processor motherboard. Or a Ghz Athlon system.

Kwad
 
Bye the cusl2 and the p3 you won't be sorry although the dual cpu thing is interesting to me. I would go p3 because of the stability not to mention the 815e chipset is excellent. I personally don't like amd because I had a bad experience with their classic athlon. There new stuff seems to be good.
 
Hold off just a bit longer and pick up a AMD 266FSB DDR board in a month. Youll only pay about 10% more for it.
 
And bet about 10% performance, and a very promising upgrade. If you need a system now, I'd go with a Duron 700, on an MSI Pro2. I wouldn't go for the first gen of DDR boards, I'd wait until they work some of the problems out. And with SDRAM so damn cheap right now...
 
Oh, and about the speakers...I got the ACS33's for chirstmas, My dad bought them for $60. They were good compared to the ones I had. Recently I ordered some ACS48's, and the difference is HUGE. They are refurbs I got from compgeeks.com and cost 41 with about 10 dollars shipping making them a total of 53.50. I would act fast, these speakers KICK ASS. Here are the specs for the ACS33's:
Driver (per satellite): One 3 inch full range driver
Driver (subwoofer): One 4 inch long throw
Frequency Response: 70Hz - 18kHz
Satellite Power: 10 Watts
Subwoofer Power: 15 Watts
Input Impedance: >10k ohms
S/N Ratio: >65 dB

Compared to the ACS48's:
Drivers (per satellite):
One 3 inch shielded full range driver
One 3/4 inch high frequency tweeter
Drivers (subwoofer): One 6 inch long throw woofer
Satellite Power: 20 Watts per channel RMS at 0.8% THD
Subwoofer Power: 40 Watts at 0.8% THD
System Response: 35 Hz - 20 kHz
Input Impedance: >10k ohms
S/N Ratio: >65dB
Built-in Power Supply
UL/CUL/CE Approved



I must say, that I would never go back to my 33's.

 
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