The (new) Official PC building thread!

come on pepp you dont burn no movies???lol

that monitor looks nice i myself have been looking at the acer monitors too. 19in is the way to go (for me anyway)

 

I burn movies all the time - but Ive never been in that screen on Nero - I burn it, put it in the DVD player and watch it lol

The monitor is a nice size as it is to be a back up to the 26" HD TV the PC is currently connected to - means I cant watch TV and use the comp at the same time

Ive been looking at lots of monitors and mostly seemed to think I would need to spend about £160 to get a decent one with DVI input and that it wasn going to be worthwhile at that price getting a 20", but then I found the Acer 19" reduced from £150 to £115 and thought it might have to be for me

PS - gonna post my overclock results soon

 

cincyrob,
Check your PMs!

Russ

 

I broke down and pre-ordered the Q9450 today. I sent an email to customer support for the parent company of these 2 websites
CostCentral: Retail Box - $352.63
http://www.costcentral.com/proddeta...66G_12MB_1333MHZ/BX80569Q9450/Q32421/froogle/
PC superstore: - $352.63
http://www.pcsuperstore.com/products/Q32421-Intel-BX80569Q9450.html/froogle/
asking if presales are greater than their initial stock cause I dont want to wait for the second wave, (E8400's still arent back in stock are they?). I got a response a few hours later stating its a direct ship from INTEL and not their warehouse and to expect 2-3 week wait. It was from a human and not chain letter so I went for it. Now I just need a mobo...

 

Pepp: A lot of Acer monitors are a bit crap, so be wary of that. Some are fine, some aren't.

 

Pepp77,
There are only two 19" Widescreens that I would recommend as they both have Native Resolutions of 168x1050. Your picture will be sharper and the colors will have greater depth. The first one is an Acer and the other is a Viewsonic. The ones with lesser resolutions are pretty much garbage compared to these two!

Acer X193+BD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009127

Viewsonic VX1940w
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824116095

The Acer would be a much better buy for a couple of dollars more than the one you are looking at now!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

So guys I have 230 dollars and I need to get some memory and a new CPU. Maybe I should get a Quad Core...

 

Damn that Acer is nice and its only the equivalent of £80 quid - shame they dont ship here lol

I found this version of it only over here ($220):-
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000WFQBYC/ciaouk-ce-21/ref=nosim - you might notice some differences lol

 

Pepp77,
The problem with the one you found, it still has a crappy resolution and a moer washed out picture. It doesn't take a Rocket Scientist to figure out that 1680 x 1050 is a lot better picture than 1440 x 900 in the same amount of space. The real cheap 20" ones are even worse. It makes sense as the larger amount of dots in the same size screen means better everything. LCD monitors don't scale as well as CRTs. That's why the native resolution is important. It's really simple, more dots in the same amount of space, makes a much better picture. I learned the hard way years ago when Compaq used to do that with CRT monitors that had such a big dot pitch, that they hurt your eyes. There's would be .034" while the decent ones were .026" or .024".

I was getting real bad headaches all the time. So bad I went to the Doctor, and he asked me if I had a computer. When I told him yes he told me to check the dot pitch, and if it was larger than .028, to get rid of it and my headaches would go away. It turned out to be .034"! In an LCD monitor they use Pixel Pitch, which tells you how close together the pixels are or the blank space in between the actual LCDs. The higher the number, the worse the picture. On an LCD, poor pixel pitch makes the picture look a bit grainy and the colors somewhat washed out. It's the main reason I stayed away from buying an LCD monitor until a year or so ago, their Pixel Pitch was terrible and they caused bad eyestrain. My Sceptre 20.1" has a Pixel Pitch of 0.257 and just as good a picture as my Dell CRT 19", and the Dell's Dot Pitch is .024. I can sit at it for hours, play games anything and I've never had my eyes bother me.

Cheap LCD Widscreen monitors can vary from as high as 0.283", to as low as 0.243". needless to say there's quite a bit of difference in picture quality. Keep that in mind when looking for one, as it will help you make the right choice.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

I didn't even know you could get 19" screens at 1680x1050, that's quite neat. Those will have a very high ppi for crisp graphics. I would have the Viewsonic if it was in stock, but unfortunately not. The worst LCD monitor I have ever seen was an Acer and they're often made with very poor quality parts, so it's always worth bearing that in mind when buying one. Viewsonic are by no means perfect, but much better.
Abuzar: I thought you were waiting until next year?
Pepp: Guess what they also have? http://www.amazon.co.uk/ViewSonic-V...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1204589060&sr=1-1

For that money though, you could get a decent 20" from someone like Iiyama.

 

No suggestions for Abuzar? lol

Say if I can get a Q6600 for 200, then the Q9450 isn't worth it right? I mean sure it's probably gonna be better but for 150 more, is it worth it?

 

Russ: I can definitely go with that. You do NOT upscale with an LCD lol - the picture quality difference is huge.
Abuzar: Well, one minute you want one, next one you don't. I personally would try and grab a Q9450 since it's newer, faster tech, but if you can find a Q6600 really cheap, I wouldn't turn it down.

 

Sam I want a Q9450, but it's a matter of money. I'm sure you've been in the same situation. I certainly prefered the Q9450 when I thought the Q6600 was 280 and the Q9450 316.

Would you get a Q6600 if it was 100 pounds?

 

heh, I can sympathise. I wouldn't take a Q6600 for £50 right now, because I don't even have £50 in my bank account.

 

Man that's a heavy processor. hehehe.

boozer why do you need a cpu and RAM?? I thought you had the E6750 and some Crucial RAM..... If you can get the Q6600 for $200 I would, especially if it's the SLACR GO stepping model. Better OC'in capabilities from what I've heard.

What kind of RAM are you looking for?? DDR2 800 or DDR2 1066?? I would of course look at Corsair DDR2 800 RAm cause it's so cheap but there are other "dependable" companies out there besides Corsair and Crucial. Mushkin for one. /me likes it!! I have some DDR2 1066 RAM and it seems pretty danged good so far. It does take a little more juice tho so consider that too.

....gm

 

I sold my E6750 and my Ram for 230.

More on this later.

 

Ok so I sold it all because I always get worried about my parts getting outdated so I like to cycle them through.

I'm bidding on a Q6600 right now. I'm highline-cars-of-florida.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...26539&_trksid=p3907.m32&_trkparms=tab=Bidding

 

So you finally sold the computer?? Or did you just sell the cpu and RAM? lol. Outdated?? That's silly!! You know that once you buy it, IT'S outdated. If you have a GOOD working reliable computer that's made with 6 month old tech it can't be that bad. Well at least within the Intel realm right now. lol. Who knows 6 months from now??

Good luck putting another one together!!

...gm

 

Nope just CPU and RAM.

If anyone wants a high quality MSI 3850 that's highly overclocked AND stable it's 160 bucks! lol

Hey by doing what I do I stay closer to that sharp edge we all try to get.

 

sammorris,

Yes it is! I found exactly two 19" Widescreen monitors at that resolution, the two I posted! LOL!! Ought to be a Razer Sharp pic though!

BTW! I'm working on an e-Machine! LOL!! One of their cheap 2.20 Celerons! Get this, it has on-board graphics and comes stock with 128MB of memory! That's not even funny! I thought it was a felony to torture hard drives! ROFL!! I replaced the 128 stick in it with an old 128! Runs like it's wading in Fudge! The PS took out the Memory, the On-board sound and USBs. Went to e-Machines and downloaded the drivers. Un-installed the drivers and re-installed fresh, but they still don't work. He's a friend so I threw him an old SB 16, and I'll get a Pci USB 2 card and put it in. All he'll lose is the front USB Ports (maybe) and the headphone and mike jacks. I had a pair 2 x 512 Corsair XMS Cas2 DDR 400MHz, and put that in and it runs pretty good for what it is. Hell of a lot faster! LOL!! I upgraded it to SP-3, which helps too! I installed WMP-10 so he can play MP-3s, and I had a 500W PS in stock! For the money I'm charging him it will very hard to beat! It used to take over 4 minutes and change to boot up. Now it boots in under 2 minutes! It no longer takes about 10 seconds for a window to open when you click one. I charged him $175, and he can't get as good a computer as he has now for that price! I made money too as I'm on Neweggs business list and I get special deals on things from time to time. mostly overstock, discontinued items. Hey it's got the same warranty as something current, so what's the diff? I get some pretty good prices on certain things and when I do, I stock up! Now if they would only do that with CPUs and 8800GTX vid cards! ROFLMAO!!

Also BTW! What a bunch of stiffs around here! LOL!! I posted that link for an XFX 9600GT 512/256 video card for $179 the other day and not a single comment. Usually I would get at least 1 person telling me what a piece of "tihs" something is, or an argument as to why something else is so much better. You guys are slipping! ROFLMAO!! Still a good price though! I wouldn't turn one down!

Best Regards,
Russ