Rig i just ordered for my buddy who is going ot college

[Jeff7181]

Well... if it's his money... lol. I personally wouldn't spend $1600 on something that's going to be outdated in 2 months or less. The 9700 Pro would have been just fine... it'll run any game that exists today with pleanty of eye candy. And tomorrow's games will require tomorrow's hardware, so it's pointless to plan for the future right now when new generations of CPU's, GPU's, and RAM are all coming out in a couple of months.

 

[brettjrob]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
The 9700 Pro would have been just fine... it'll run any game that exists today with pleanty of eye candy. And tomorrow's games will require tomorrow's hardware, so it's pointless to plan for the future right now when new generations of CPU's, GPU's, and RAM are all coming out in a couple of months.

Agreed 110%. It's pointless IMO to pay big bucks for the best video card available and justify it with better ability to play tomorrow's games... the 9700Pro costs significantly less, and when games start hitting the shelves that cause the 9700 to stutter, well, so will the 9800 in all likelihood. At that point you will probably be able to pick up the 9800's successor for a reasonable price because there will be something bigger and badder to drive its price down. Same goes for CPU's. I'd say if you're going to buy something top-of-the-line the motherboard and the RAM, which can last through CPU/video upgrades, would be the way to go.

In this case I think he made good decisions on all the components except the video card (without getting into the Intel vs. AMD issue, at least).

 

[Colebert]

i would have done all my shopping with staples and newegg.

lurk newegg around 4pm cst for the refurb deals (case, mb) and use staples special order/coupon for processor, ram, and hard drive.

 

[tokamak]

Originally posted by: nick1985

and there isnt room for 5.1's in a little dorm room

i have logitech z560's (4.1). i bought a 100ft roll of speaker wire and put one in each corner of my room. the subwoofer for those things is HUGE. believe me, there IS room. dorm rooms dont come much smaller than mine.

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: brettjrob

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
The 9700 Pro would have been just fine... it'll run any game that exists today with pleanty of eye candy. And tomorrow's games will require tomorrow's hardware, so it's pointless to plan for the future right now when new generations of CPU's, GPU's, and RAM are all coming out in a couple of months.

Agreed 110%. It's pointless IMO to pay big bucks for the best video card available and justify it with better ability to play tomorrow's games... the 9700Pro costs significantly less, and when games start hitting the shelves that cause the 9700 to stutter, well, so will the 9800 in all likelihood. At that point you will probably be able to pick up the 9800's successor for a reasonable price because there will be something bigger and badder to drive its price down. Same goes for CPU's. I'd say if you're going to buy something top-of-the-line the motherboard and the RAM, which can last through CPU/video upgrades, would be the way to go.

In this case I think he made good decisions on all the components except the video card (without getting into the Intel vs. AMD issue, at least).

the 9700 is deffiantely a better deal that the 9800, but he had 2 grand to spend and he said get the best possible video, so i did just that 🙂 😛

 

[FishTankX]

Man, i've never seen anyone who's cheaped out so horridly on sound! And the monitor!

Please, this is college! Downgrade some of the components a little bit, and get him a nice LCD and a klipsch 2.1 or atleast a pair of Grado SR-80s. 10% performance difference (9700 pro) is an acceptable sacrafice to procure of a nice LCD. Or a nice set of speakers. Please try to get him to see this. He will thank you *so* much for it down the road. 🙂

You could very well get more relaxed timings on the RAM and save quite a chunk of change, there, too.

 

[Colebert]

totally agree on the LCD. as a recent college grad, the LCD is a godsend. seriously.

 

[Jeff7181]

If he's got $2000 to spare, then get him an FX5900 Ultra if you can find one... $500 and is slightly better than the 9800 Pro. Also go with a WD Raptor drive for speed, and then another slower but larger drive to store all the porn and MP3's. Also, get an XP2500 and overclock it... should have no trouble getting it to the speed of an XP3200.

 

[FishTankX]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
If he's got $2000 to spare, then get him an FX5900 Ultra if you can find one... $500 and is slightly better than the 9800 Pro. Also go with a WD Raptor drive for speed, and then another slower but larger drive to store all the porn and MP3's. Also, get an XP2500 and overclock it... should have no trouble getting it to the speed of an XP3200.

1.Monitor should be priority over video speed
2. Raptor might be bottleknecked being tied directly into PCI. I dont' believe the Nforce2 southbridge has a direct tie into the south bridge.
3. He already ordered the CPU. 'Doh! Plus, no overclocking.

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
If he's got $2000 to spare, then get him an FX5900 Ultra if you can find one... $500 and is slightly better than the 9800 Pro. Also go with a WD Raptor drive for speed, and then another slower but larger drive to store all the porn and MP3's. Also, get an XP2500 and overclock it... should have no trouble getting it to the speed of an XP3200.

try reading the thread before posting :beer:

 

[FishTankX]

Oh, and if you already have an A06 it isn't worthit for the extra 1-2 minutes per disc for CD-R's to go with a seperate burner. Just drop the 52X.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: nick1985

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
If he's got $2000 to spare, then get him an FX5900 Ultra if you can find one... $500 and is slightly better than the 9800 Pro. Also go with a WD Raptor drive for speed, and then another slower but larger drive to store all the porn and MP3's. Also, get an XP2500 and overclock it... should have no trouble getting it to the speed of an XP3200.

try reading the thread before posting :beer:

tell him not to be a pansy and overclock it

 

[FishTankX]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: nick1985

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
If he's got $2000 to spare, then get him an FX5900 Ultra if you can find one... $500 and is slightly better than the 9800 Pro. Also go with a WD Raptor drive for speed, and then another slower but larger drive to store all the porn and MP3's. Also, get an XP2500 and overclock it... should have no trouble getting it to the speed of an XP3200.

try reading the thread before posting :beer:

tell him not to be a pansy and overclock it

Would you give your friend an overclocked rig if you knew he was going to come calling you at 12:00 at night everytime there was an illegal operation?

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: FishTankX

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: nick1985

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
If he's got $2000 to spare, then get him an FX5900 Ultra if you can find one... $500 and is slightly better than the 9800 Pro. Also go with a WD Raptor drive for speed, and then another slower but larger drive to store all the porn and MP3's. Also, get an XP2500 and overclock it... should have no trouble getting it to the speed of an XP3200.

try reading the thread before posting :beer:

tell him not to be a pansy and overclock it

Would you give your friend an overclocked rig if you knew he was going to come calling you at 12:00 at night everytime there was an illegal operation?

Oh geeze... some anti-overclocking people... but to answer your question... I wouldn't be stupid enough in the first place to give an untested overclock to someone. Any moron can change settings to overclock a processor or video card... but that's only half of what overclocking is about... the other half is finding the point at which it becomes unstable, backing it down to a stable point, and then running tests to insure it's stability. That's the problem with some of these threads here... you find people saying "how far can I overclock this CPU?" The truth is, you don't know until you try it... and if you're complaining that your CPU is unstable because it's overclocked, then you're dumber than a brick.

 

[FishTankX]

What happned here, then?

 

[metroplex]

Meh....

Just go with a Dell.

It will run quieter, cooler, and far more reliably.

All the large corporate banks in this area use Dell desktops, laptops, etc... If Dell is good enough for the financial backbone of many large multi-billion dollar corporations, then its good enough for Joe Six Pack.

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: metroplex
Meh....

Just go with a Dell.

It will run quieter, cooler, and far more reliably.

All the large corporate banks in this area use Dell desktops, laptops, etc... If Dell is good enough for the financial backbone of many large multi-billion dollar corporations, then its good enough for Joe Six Pack.

my home made comp will run better than any dell, i garuntee it. its been running non-stop for 6 months and i havnt had any major problems of any kind. its flawless 🙂

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: FishTankX
What happned here, then?

That's a case of overclocking stupidity... I'm not sure why he even had to ask... by his post count you'd think he's knowledgeable enough to know that overclocking shortens a CPU's life as explained in the post following his... and for the record... I had an XP1700 T-Bred A core that ran at 1733 Mhz for months and months and months until I sold it. If his XP2100 was a T-Bred A core, he's lucky he was able to run at 2.1 Ghz at 1.65 volts.

 

[wetcat007]

Originally posted by: metroplex
Meh....

Just go with a Dell.

It will run quieter, cooler, and far more reliably.

All the large corporate banks in this area use Dell desktops, laptops, etc... If Dell is good enough for the financial backbone of many large multi-billion dollar corporations, then its good enough for Joe Six Pack.

Well I agree with one thing quiet, however cooler, i beg to differ. Maximum PC recently reviewed Dell's XPS gaming rig, and they contacted Dell about irratic test results they were getting or having games suddenly slow way down. Turns out their cooling system is not good enough, and the CPU downclocks itself, they admited it was almost silent, but the CPU just ran too hot. Also note that he just ordered it, in other words he won't turn around and buy a different one 🙂

-Mark

 

[FishTankX]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: FishTankX
What happned here, then?

That's a case of overclocking stupidity... I'm not sure why he even had to ask... by his post count you'd think he's knowledgeable enough to know that overclocking shortens a CPU's life as explained in the post following his... and for the record... I had an XP1700 T-Bred A core that ran at 1733 Mhz for months and months and months until I sold it. If his XP2100 was a T-Bred A core, he's lucky he was able to run at 2.1 Ghz at 1.65 volts.

Yes, it shortens life span. Does it shorten it to 6 months?!


The point here is that Michael D was a responsible overclocker, overclocked his CPU, and 6 months down the road it started destabilizing.

If you took the rig he's building it today, and his friend goes to college 3000 miles away, he'd either need to travel 3000 miles to see what the problem is, or try all sorts of things over the phone, if it ever destabilizes. Thus, the ludircousy of your 'Tell him to OC it' suggestion.

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: nick1985

Originally posted by: metroplex
Meh....

Just go with a Dell.

It will run quieter, cooler, and far more reliably.

All the large corporate banks in this area use Dell desktops, laptops, etc... If Dell is good enough for the financial backbone of many large multi-billion dollar corporations, then its good enough for Joe Six Pack.

my home made comp will run better than any dell, i garuntee it. its been running non-stop for 6 months and i havnt had any major problems of any kind. its flawless 🙂

If your homemade computer runs better, than you might just have to advertise yourself out. I mean large corporations pay millions of dollars to Dell for stable desktops, workstations, and servers. If you can build one thats better, go contact them. My company recently bought 1/2 an entire rack full of Dell 1U servers. We'd love to see more stability.

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: dexvx

Originally posted by: nick1985

Originally posted by: metroplex
Meh....

Just go with a Dell.

It will run quieter, cooler, and far more reliably.

All the large corporate banks in this area use Dell desktops, laptops, etc... If Dell is good enough for the financial backbone of many large multi-billion dollar corporations, then its good enough for Joe Six Pack.

my home made comp will run better than any dell, i garuntee it. its been running non-stop for 6 months and i havnt had any major problems of any kind. its flawless 🙂

If your homemade computer runs better, than you might just have to advertise yourself out. I mean large corporations pay millions of dollars to Dell for stable desktops, workstations, and servers. If you can build one thats better, go contact them. My company recently bought 1/2 an entire rack full of Dell 1U servers. We'd love to see more stability.

i think i will advertise myself. my family computer is a dell 4300 or something and it has problems all the time, i havnt had a problem in over 6 months. a friend of mine is the same story, his family dell sucks and the computer i made him works just fine. ::shrugs::

 

[Regs]

This is like buying a Twin Turbo Porche for my 17 year old daughter and asking myself if it was fast enough for her.

 

[Jeff7181]

I think it's safe to say 95% of the problems with computers are due to user error. People download crap like Kazaa and Gator and other sorts of spyware crap... or they download viruses that don't do a whole lot of harm, but are just annoyances.
The people who benefit from Dell and other pre-assembled computers are the ones who can't troubleshoot problems themselves, and need tech support, and a restore disk.
All my other comments aside... if your buddy who's going to college needs a computer, and can't troubleshoot any problems himself, it may be wise to recommend a pre-assembled system that comes with tech support and warranties up the wazoo.
Custom bulit computers aren't for everyone... however, I dare say custom built is the way to go for pretty much everyone on these boards. Most people here either already have the knowledge, or the "computer smarts" to build their own.

So yeah... get your buddy a Dell if you don't want him to call you at "12:00 at night" saying his computer doesn't work.

 

[Regs]

Either way, did he save your life or something? Where can I find a friend to spend 3 grand on a pc for me? Hah. 😉