The Official PC building thread!

Is the OCZ Platinum better than the Titanium for what I am trying do with my system(gaming,play/burn dvd mostly)?

Thanks

 

In 1GB form (which is generally what you want for gaming and video editing, 2x1GB), the titanium is better (2-3-2-5 latency rather than 3-3-2-8).

 

A 500 dollar budget computer, already have monitor and OS. What other parts should i buy?

What is a current up to date list of parts you would want for a new computer to play video games on that is the best price for performance? mostly the game generals. I would also like to know brands to stay away from and good brands for every type of hardware.

Already have the case picke out
Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129145
120mmx2 Fans, quiet with lots of air flow .

Power supply?

Mother board?

DVD drive?

Floppy Drive? just in case

Hard Drive?

Aftermarket Heat sink?

Video Card?

Monitor?For later, already have 19" CRT from old computer

Sound Card?

Ram?

Wireless Card?

OS will be windows XP Professional

 

what about processor?
In general, get reputable brands for PSU and RAM, they're the most important to get right, because you can easily get them wrong.
as far as CPU/Mobo, a low end Athlon64 and Abit motherboard would do well but may put you slightly out of your price range. For $500, you may want to consider a Sempron64 and low cost motherboard (avoiding ECS and Biostar).

For sound card, unless you're an audiophile or keen gamer, Integrated sound should suffice, With graphics it's really up to how much money you have left. If you play games at all, you'll need a form of dedicated card. Leave this till last to see how much you can spend.
For optical drives get a DVD Writer (they're about the same price as anything else now), avoiding Benq/acer drives. LG, Pioneer and Samsung are recommended.
floppy disks are pennies really, so get one of those.
Make sure you remember to get the cables for these.
That leaves the hard disk. If you're just going to install a couple of games and maybe use mp3s, 80GB is plenty. 40 is very little less than 80, so avoid it. If you're a serial downloader though, 160GB is little more, but obviously twice the space.
As for wireless, you may want to try for a combination bundle with any other wireless gear, it's not cheap.

 

what about this list? I am pretty sure a new video card because the goal is to have a silent pc.

case: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811129145

motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813152053

video card: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814102613
this is being considered swapped for a quieter one, any suggestions?

power supply: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817103935

processor: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819103537

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820231012

hard drive: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822148105

dvd burner: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16827106256

Monitor: already have 19" CRT

Thats what i already had chosen but need to cut it down to 500, pm me if u want and ill let u know one of my messenger names.

 

@Sammoris,

I noticed you would want a dual core CPU when playing games, i can tell you right now that single core is the better choice for the time being. I have the 3800+ X2 and it does not play games well.

 

Nah, come a few months time you'd definitely see the advantage of a dual core. The X2 3800 is great at playing games, there's obviously a weak link in your system with the RAM or GPU, it's a perfectly adequate CPU even now.
But look at it logically, the FX57 is like an Athlon64 5100+ essentially. The X2 3800+ will eventually be a 6400+ with dual core support, eclipsing a CPU 3x the cost. I know which camp I'm in.

I think that list (minus the VPU) is about $530. For a powerful silent GPU look for the Asus Silextreme X1600XT. That's a fine piece of kit. Might be a bit pricey in your neck of the woods but probably little more than the noisy X800GTO fireblade. As it happens I think that would be the most noisy variant of the X800GTO.
X1600XT is almost as powerful as the X800GTO but the silextreme has a big heatsink and no fan at all (so under 1dB).

 

I am building a PC and noticed what sammorris had said:

and was wondering what would cause that problem.

I am also looking for a wirless router and have seen that some routers have 100M WAN and 1000M LAN. If all access will be over the internet(WAN), will the higher speed LAN be of any use, considering that the router will be connecting 4 computers to the internet?

 

@sammorris

you are completely wrong about the 3800+ X2 being great at playing games, it totally sucks!!! I have one, have you owned one? I had to overclock to 2.4 so the graphics would run smoother. And my graphics card is fine, it ran better on AMD 2400+. No one should buy a 300 dollar dual core processor to play games when they could buy a much better gaming processor for the same price. And all this talk with the processor is going to be good in the future games is a bucnh of crap, you can not predict the future. As windows x64 came out and how many companies actually support 64 bit drivers? I would not buy a processor for future reasons, you only know what you will you use it for today.

 

On the contrary, a friend of mine uses an X2 3800+ with an X800STD GPU (not the fastest in the world). and with 1GB of RAM it steams through gaming.

We've already seen proof that Quake 4 is multi-threaded and we know that UT2007 will be majorly dual core-oriented.
In a few months time you'll see a low end X2 CPU that I'll have bust your single core CPU that doesn't "totally suck" to kingdom come.

Windows x64 was a flop, I'll agree on that one, but have you heard of Windows Vista? I don't claim to stake major support for it, but it'll be using a 64-bit kernel and full dual-core operation.
It'll become the MAINSTREAM OS for everybody when it comes out in under a year's time, and oh look, that'll mean it's supported properly. I assume you don't replace PCs every year, do you?


With RAM/CPU, you basically need to not have it "Full up", once you're out of RAM that's when you get serious jerks and short freezes. My system ran like dung in gaming until I added more RAM then it rran smooth as silk with the same graphics card.
On the router issue, a higher LAN speed (if supported by your network card, a lot of PCs still only use 100Mbit LAN) will get you faster network speed, so you can access other local PCs quicker, but unless you have a ridiculously fast internet connection you're not going to see any higher internet speed.

 

i have a dual core amd and it runs everything i got on full specs
think of the future

 

That's not really all that surprising. Firstly, the 4200+ is a fantastic CPU, and second you're also running a beast of a GPU to boot.

 

Should be a cinch!

 

Erm, Nephilim, since you're a mod and all, should you not adhere to the site rules about profaning? I know it's a bit purile, but I stick to them!

 

@sammorris and whoever might now

Why when i run microsft flight simulator is it choppy, so choppy it takes seconds for it to move?

I look at the processor while i play and one core is always at 100%.

 

100% will be the case for all games, because they use loop programming, and hence will always use 100% of one core, 100 of both with dual core games, but MSFS isn't.
How much RAM have you got, and also, are your graphics drivers installed and up to date?

 

I have 1GB ram and everyhing is up to date. I just put everything on minimal and it ran fine.

The X2's seem to have problems with some games, not all.

you can read about it here
http://forums.amd.com/index.php?act=Print&client=printer&f=31&t=60070