hey all, could you some opinions here, kinda long, but if you help me it would be GREATLY appreciated. I currently have a pentium III 1 ghz, 512 ram, and a radeon 9700 pro. Believe it or not it has help up play games until the latest wave of the new stuff. That FEAR demo was alittle jerky, but wow, u guys see this game? EXCELLENT. At any rate, I have my dad talked into buying me some upgrades as a poor college kid cant afford that and it is necessary for education... First decision, I was going to stick with a board that still has AGP slot and keep my video card to save money, but this PCI Express is sposed to be so much faster I thought maybe I should go ahead and switch to pci express, the benchmarks on Toms Hardware doesn't look like pci express is much better or even any better in some instances however Second, if I do go new video card, I'm looking to go ATI X850 PE or whatever its called or the nVidia 6800 or 7800. I have been ATI only until now and the only reason I think of nVidia is because SLI, next time I need an upgrade I could buy another of the same card, which would be cheap by then, and DOUBLE my video card power. intel vs amd? i hear enough of this even among several of my friends. again I've only had intel so i tend to want to stick with it, my one friend had an amd and had some problems and i dont kno much about them. if i go intel again i was thinking the most logical choice for price/power would be one of the dual core non-hyper threading 64 bit chips at 3.0 ghz, or something not dual core but with hyper threading around 3.4-3.6 ghz. What should I go with here, trying to stay middle of pack $300 +- $50 would be good. Lastly, I've used Tiger Direct to buy things countless times between myself, friends, and people paying me to upgrade. Skimming through this forum tho I see alot of people talking about NewEgg, any reason to switch to them? Thanks for your help
ZipZoomfly.com is usually cheaper than Newegg on hardware, but not always. Those are the 2 online stores that I use most often. Tiger Direct can be lower priced, sometimes, but not often. Tiger Direct usually has good deals on software, though.
thing about amd vs intel, an amd 2800+ runs like a 2.8ghz p4, even though it's only running at 2.08 (or so i've heard) imo, amd's run hotter, but that doesn't really effect anything. as for the graphics, i've been with ati for a long time, and i like their stuff, it's to me just a matter of preferance. get and asus or asrock mobo, i like those, they run nicely. pcie is something that imo, isn't a necessity in everything...yet...but soon. i would get a hyper threading chip, but that's just because i do a lot of multitasking and such, that can take advantage of hyperthreading, i'm not sure how much of a diff. they make gaming wise though. i would use Newegg.com, i've heard nothing but good things from them, and the packages are recieved in a pretty short amount of time. price wise, they kick ass.
i noticed that intel cools easier with stock heatsinks[have an old celleron that the heatsink looks like a pinwheel[lol]and it will stay cool.amd seems like overclocked or not,you need to apply artic silver 5 or something compareable,and an after mariket heatsink and fan to keep it as kool as intel.but intel sucks,good for data,not for gaming exspecialy now with dual core or 64 bit cpus.nvidia rocks and ati sucks for two reason:ati may be faster by a couple of frame rates right know[we are taking no sli]but now we have sli which cripples the speed of the ati cards.and the 2nd reason is the color.nvidias color adjustment on all gf cards is funominal compared to ati.the color vibrance, as nvidia calls it,[just increases the amount of color, alot or alittle,best feature,[i love alot of color in games]beats ati hands down,no ifs,ands or butts about it.i hate to be so one sided,but if half the people that have ati probably never tried nvidia and only go by stats or frame rates on the net.if they tried nvidia they would never go back.thats just my opinion,i dont want to piss everybody off. later on peace out
thanks gramps that zipzoomfly.com is a real good site.know any others for building a pc?also have you ever heard of building your own notebook?if u have....where can i get parts?thanks man peace
You are welcome. I have never had or built a notebook computer. PCNation used to have great prices for monitors, but the other 2 that I listed, are still the best for most everything else.
thanks again.another good site.i was looking at barebones notebooks they r a rip off.they give you the notebook[keyboard,moniter,motherboard,and maybe an optical drive]nothing else.have to buy cpu,os,hd.wireless card[internet],not even worth it.then they want to charge 600-900usd for this shell of a notebook.they got to be kidding me! when you can buy a notebook[good one]for the same price, as they want for the shell.no skin off my back,let those turtle shells collect dusts and rot[lol]thanks again peace
ok thanks for everything guys one thing though, on the intel chips i can't afford the dual-core plus hyperthreading chips, the pentium d extreme edition or whatever, close to a grand for that alone, so should i go with hyperthreading alone or dual-core? they are both in the same price range so what is better for multi-tasking and gaming?
amd 64 r better for gaming not intel.like a 3700+ san diego or dual core amd x2 4400+ toledo[has a 2...1mb cache]i think its the 4400 or 4200+.look on newegg.com
