The (new) Official PC building thread!

U think it will be outdated anytime soon.

 

It's the unfortunate case that PC parts are always getting outdated, but that's a modern CPU, there's no real need to upgrade it yet.

 

Dont look at it as outdated, a year and a half ago your system wouldve been 3-4x as expensive. Think of it as finding a deal. They are still really good parts, just last generation parts.

 

Cool thanks guys i really appreciate the help.

 

tom804,

Look at it this way. Your chip is by no means slow and you're right in between the Pentium Ds and the C2D. For what you are spending it's a good deal that won't be obsolete tomorrow!

Clock On,
theone

 

fan works - changed the settings in the bios to the intel sensin & speed control. seems like it "woke up" several other diagnostic inputs when i did that as well.

Here's my next question - I installed XP Pro and it's screaming for activation - was wondering if I could still overclock if I use Ubuntu instead. Another point to ponder is if all that speed and power would be a waste if I use Ubuntu instead of XP.

If this is was an illegal copy of XP Pro SP1 I wouldn't be so frustrated, but I bought it for school for my XP classes and it never asked for activation on any install until now. (Had to uninstall and reinstall multiple times until we learned it thoroughly lol)

 

If it's genuine, what have you got to lose?

 

nighters I'm with sam on this one. If the Win XP disc is genuine then there should be zero problems. If they want you to call just tell them that you have purchased another computer because the old one "quit" on you and you need to activate this copy. Worked for me more than once.

....gm

 

alrighty - have to give it a try then.

 

Just built a new system last week... first time I've done it myself, and my first new computer in about 4 years.

Antec Designer 500 Midtower
Antec EA-500 Earthwatts PSU
Asus P5K-E Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66Ghz overclocked to 3.0Ghz
OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel 2GB kit ($40 MIR)
Seagate Barracuda ST3400620AS 7200.10 400GB
Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB

All said and done, it cost me around $885 CDN before taxes.

I considered going for a Quad Core, however the only Quad Core with the 1333Mhz FSB support is still in the ludicrously expensive price range. And I figure since my board uses the P35 chipset, in a year and a half's time I'll be able to upgrade to one of the 45nm Yorkfield Quad or Dual core processors (hopefully Quad). Similarly, with the memory, 2GB seemed enough for the moment as I still haven't got a 64-bit OS and I'm not really an extreme gamer. The new system will be used mostly for video and audio editing. At the same time I replace the processor, I may go up to 4 or 8GB of memory.

For now, I transferred my still perfectly usable Lite-On SHM-165H6S DVD-RW and SOHC-5235K Combo drives and Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro along with an M-Audio Delta 44. I may eventually upgrade the optical drives to SATA, however probably only for the smaller cables as apparently the speed difference is inconsequential, if it exists at all.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the system, considering I was previously using a P4 1.5Ghz with 768MB of memory. Personally, I feel I got a decent price, though I haven't bought a new computer in so long my scales me be out of whack... the store I picked up the components from is well-known as having some of the most competitive prices in Toronto.

 

for under 1000 canadian dollars pre-tax, that's an absolute bargain, nice work!

 

gigabyte has some interesting software.

Changed my boot screen to this

much better than the default lol.

About ready to try my hand at overclocking this new beast.

 

How do you change your boot screen?

 

There is a myriad of ways(personally I use tune up utilities 2007)You can also use msconfig but tune up utilities 2007 is easierJust google change xp boot screen and you will soon learn!!
Regards,Crowy.

 

Oh you meant your XP boot screen. lol I'm a retard, I thought he was talking about screen when your PC starts up.

 

abuzar - you were right - I changed the image displayed while the PC is doing post. Gigabyte has a program called face wizard included on their driver disk.

it's pretty strict on the image size, format and color depth though.

 

I'm downloading it right now. Lets see if I can change it to US Navy or something lol.

 

Hey nighters, what's the requirements on image size and stuff for Face Wizard?

 

Let me look - sorry for the post delay - I was at work.

Size:
640x480

Color Depth:
256 Colors or less

Format:
.bmp or .pcx (I used bmp)

if you have trouble post me a link to what you want to use and I might be able to help.

 

wow, PCX, it's been a long time since I had to use that format!