The Official Budget-Conscious Dream Machine!

I'm at a 3 hour a day program for working students. You have about a 2 week period to get so many assignments done. Like 10-15 for each class. I have 7 classes. No homework or tests.

The thing that allows me to go is getting 120 work hours per semester. A lot of kids take advantage of the program and just work 2 hours a day at McDonalds or Hardees. I take advantage and work at well-paying jobs for decent hours

I'll be getting a full High-School diploma and I've already been accepted into a 2-year technical college in my area. I'll be studying electronics, PC repair(I can get a second A+ Certification), and Industrial Design(aesthetics and modeling for cars, PC cases, and anything else that takes style to make).

 

Well I do hope you make tons of money! You have an expensive habit to feed lol.

 

lol...at least you guys work...i dont anyways...get back to topic...

Do you guys think AMD will be able to go against the almighty Intel?

 

That's not on topic for this thread. We're not about to start another AMD vs Intel thread, but to answer your question, not for quite some time. Think of it as like the P4 vs Athlon XP/64 days, AMD had the lead for almost 5 years before Intel caught up. I think the same is happening now but with reversed roles. I still prefer the way AMD's technology works underneath if I'm honest, but they are a long way behind in the performance race.

 

oops...i still live AMD...even tho its slower than Intel...i still like...

ok...do you think having 4Gb of unknown RAM is better or 2GB of good brand like OCZ etc...

 

Well, it depends whether you'll ever use more than 2GB of RAM. I would never buy cheap RAM these days, purely because the decent quality brands don't actually cost that much more.

 

If you dont use more than 2GB go with the name brand. But like Sam said good ram is really cheap these days so just go with that.

 

yeah i think so too...i would not risk it...if something happened to it...sorry for asking these questions...

you know theres ATX and BTX...which one is better and is micro mobo better or normal size one? i currently have a micro mobo...yes its small and save space but not a lot of SATA ports or spaces for other stuffs...

 

ATX is always better than microATX, but occupies more space. BTX was a kind of alternative to ATX and uses a completely different layout. However, ATX seemed to prove more popular and has stuck.

 

I'd be careful with those absolutes, sammorris. The Biostar Tforce 6100 was, and is a better motherboard than many full ATX motherboards I've seen.

Your going to have to rely on brands for quality and features.

Here's what I've seen from reviews and personal experience. These ARE NOT the actual ratings or anything:

Top Tier Manufacturers:

-ASUS(best ever for AMD)
-eVga(what I currently use)
-abit
-Gigabyte(my favorite brand)
-MSI(the K8N-Neo Platinum is a great board)
-Intel
-DFI
-XFX

Middle-of-the-road:

-Biostar(the Tforce is a very good microATX board)
-Sapphire
-ASRock(I think they're the budget sector of ASUS)
-Foxconn(Could be lower, but their high-end boards are decent)
-Albatron

Bottom of the barrel:

-ECS
-PC Chips
-Jetway(Considered the worst by many)
-Mach Speed(Never released a good board, in my opinion)

That's just what standing I consider the different manufacturers to be in. But it's also what I've figured from personal experience working on my own, and customers' computers.

:EDIT:

I'm gonna throw this out here randomly... I consider a decent budget for a "budget conscious dream-machine" to be at $1000. This is about what most American families have to work with. I'm not sure about you UK guys but I'm guessing that it's similar.

You can put together a decent gamer for this amount and it won't break the bank.

 

yeah you guys are all right...(seriously guys just got the full Crysis and Gears of War games...they are so awesome...BUT i have to run everything on low!)
ok isn't micro ATX more expensive than ATX...

never heard of these brands and this one

$1000 for a lvl 1 - 2 system...
$2500 for a lvl 3 - 4
$3000+ for a awesome rig baby!

thats what i think

 

I agree with all of those ranks except for Sapphire. Sapphire make great graphics cards. I know lots of people who've had Sapphire GPUs and none of them have ever had a single problem. Powercolor on the other hand, ugh.
The bottom of the barrel brands are all dire, but I personally would put ECS below the others.
As for the $3000 PC. Personally I fail to see how you could spend that much on the tower alone, you'd have to start including peripherals.

 

the $3000+ rig...includes everything...monitor, keyboard, sound system etc...

what is ECS...?

 

That sounds about right.
ECS are a PC part manufacturer - Elite computer systems. Their stuff is a bit cheap and nasty most of the time.

 

I'm talking about motherboard manufacturers.

Video cards... Sapphire is the very best for ATi video cards. While nVidia has more quality manufacturers(XFX, eVGA, BFG) ATi only has one decent one: Sapphire. Other companies make ATi cards, but they are usually of low quality and sub-par performance. Sapphire is where it's at for ATi.

 

HIS make pretty good ATI card as well, but Sapphire are who I've always gone with.

 

True, HIS is at least equal in quality to Sapphire. And if you can get actual ATi brand cards, then your lucky Their cooling isn't always really good, but official ATi brand cards never seem to have cooling issues(figure that out >.> ). Though, the fans do seem to die a lot.

 

Check this out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiCzq8ZG20I

One of the reasons I still use my old Enermax Liberty 620W.

I think the massive power requirements the companies give for video cards are just because any power supply below the recommended usually doesn't have the power on the 12V+. A testament to the excellent Enermax Liberty

 

What can I say, you only need about 300W to run that system...

 

as previously stated, most people have around $1000 to build their "budget-conscious dream machine". My question is, will this amount of money be enough buy a system that can run, say..Crysis, at full settings?