computer suggestions

[Hades]

since lots of you seem to know alot about computers and whatnot i was thinking about buying a new computer since mine sucks and i was looking for suggestions...

[Edgar1898]

http://cyberpowerinc.com

They are the cheapest place I have found for what you get. You get top quality stuff at rock bottom prices :)

[Hades]

intel or amd? whats better and why?

[Bearik]

AMD gives you more bang for you buck. and the fastest AMD cpu available outperforms the fastest Intel. But the difference is small, the price is not.

AMD is always a good choice, cant go wrong.

[Trumpcard]

I disagree.. You can go wrong with AMD... I've built hundreds of computers in the past few years (yes hundreds, owned a small computer company for a couple of years on top of my computer hobby).

AMD , while cheaper, tend to have a much higher death rate than intel processors. I've had to replace several at home, the XP line in particular have been extremely shoddy, and have serious heat problems.

I would rate AMD's as fair, price wise these not as much difference these days between Intels and AMD's, but in all fairness I've found the longevity of INTEL far outperforms AMD processors. Speedwise, I doubt you'll see too much of a difference between the 2 these days...

I'd say if you're looking to save a dime, go with AMD, if you're looking to have something that will last, go with Intel

[Hades]

ive been lookin around and was wondering if it would be good or bad for me to buy all the parts and put it together myself? was wondering how hard it is... also if certain things dont work together... or if someone could link a website that can explain that to me... umm i'm not totally stupid but i wouldnt wanna buy all the stuff and then realize i cant use certian parts with what i bought... or if its hard to put it together or somethin im tired and i cant think very well... but any help would be great just anything about it...

thanks a lot

[xXToilet_DuckXx]

it sounds to me that you are not familiar with the insides of a computer.... not to worry!

instead of buying one of those ready-made computers at futureshop, you can find one of those little retail computer stores that are privately owned. they will probably put a computer together for you. that way, YOU get to chose what goes in there, and they will worry about any compatibility issues. plus, i think it's still cheaper than buying a computer already made. caution: if you will be looking for customer support and that little store goes out of buisness.... then you won't get any. same goes for a warrenty as well. don't be expecting a futurshop 1 year warrenty etc.

[Aangus]

Whether you build it yourself or have a computer shop build it for you, go with what in the industry is known as a "white box" computer. If you want a decent computer stay away from the major brands, they have been in such serious competition with each other that they are having to use cheaper and cheaper parts to compete with each other. If you want to build a really nice box without spending an arm and a leg these are my suggestions:

Start with a mid tower case with front usb ports and a decently large power supply - at minimum 350 watts and 400 - 500 watts is preferable. You want the case to have at least one extra cooling fan and good airflow because heat is the biggest killer of computer components.

The athlon xp 2500 is the best buy in a processor at the moment - less than $100 and it has 512k cache and a 333 mhz bus. There are a lot of good motherboards available. Personally I have always been a fan of Soyo or Asus, but Gigabyte, Abit and MSI all make good boards. Whatever brand you buy get something that supports the 333 bus, dual channel memory, has an 8x AGP slot, onboard raid (either IDE or Serial ATA - more on that later) and at least 4 pci slots. Get a matched pair of 256 meg ddr 333 memory modules to go on it for a total of 512 meg ram (unless you want to spring for a pair of 512's and have a gig of ram).

For drives I strongly recomend the Western digital JB line of drives because they are 7200 rpm, have 8 meg of cache and a 3 year warranty, something the other drive manufacturers have given up on. WD also makes a line of 10,000 rpm SATA drives that have a 5 year warranty. Whichever your chosen board supports get a pair of matching drives and set them up in a striped raid configuration, this will fantastically increase your drive data transfer speed.

For a video card the GeForce FX5200 is the best buy for the least money. If you want to spring for more the FX5600 and 5900 are better. Dont mess around with the MX line, the FX5200 is about the same price and lots better. Brand name does not matter much - all the GeForce cards perform about the same.

Other than that a dvd and a cdrw or a combo drive are nice to have - I personally think Lite-on are the best value, you might as well get a floppy - they come in very handy sometimes. Most motherboards have excellent sound on board these days so a sound card is not really an issue anymore. If you go with windows as an OS XP pro is the way to go - stay away from home - the only nice thing I will say about XP home is it is not quite as flakey as Millenium.

Adding it up roughly;
Case ~ $50
athlon xp 2500 ~ $100
decent motherboard ~ $100
pair 256 meg ddr 2700 ~ $90
pair WD JB800 80 gig drives ~ $180
GeForce FX 5200 ~$90
CDRW/DVD combo drive ~ $80
Floppy ~$10
XP Pro ~ $150

So for about $850 you have a really nice computer - Spend a couple hundred more on a decent optical mouse and keyboard, some decent speakers and a 17" monitor and you have a nice system for under $1100 bucks.

[mattmeck]

You want the case to have at least one extra cooling fan and good airflow because heat is the biggest killer of computer components

Just go with a water cooled processor, expecialy if you are building from scratch, the extra $100 spent to do this will save you a lot of hastly expecialy if your going with an AMD.

[Aangus]

Water cooling is great for the true geek overclocker - dont know if I would recommend it for the novice in hardware - the factory fans that come with the retail box processors from AMD do a pretty good job these days.

[mattmeck]

dont know if I would recommend it for the novice in hardware

Hmmm, I just had images of him messing with it and water going everywhere the first time he turns on the computer.....

[Nova_Blaze]

I prefer AMD only because on the old Processers you could overclock alot easyer and go alot higher then Intel. Also Intel's new P4s have a locked in core speed so no searous overclocking :(
Dont know about the New AMDs yet.

Has anyone tryed the AMD 64's Yet?? Was saving up money for it but bout a ATI radion 9800 instead :)