New Comp Suggestions

[Searo]

I'm looking to spend 700-1000 for a new comp completely. New mobo, monitor, everything.
What are your suggestions? I was thinking that a 15' or 17' LCD monitor would be awesome, but they're pretty expensive.

Preferably good RAM, 1024 of it.

Good graphics card.

A case. No idea on these.

No idea on fans.

Keyboard? Mouse?

Speakers?

Thanks for help.

[Rbstr]

well the LCD will cost you a good 250 or so, but you couls get a nice 865pe or a good NF2 400 a P4 2.4 or 2.6 ghz or a Decent athalon (respectively) get a Radeon 9600 pr or XT for a graphics card, some A GB of decent CL2 ddr400 ram. The logitec Elite (i think) keyboard with the MX700 mouse is sweet, Altech lansing makes good speakers, for good prices, for cases go realy most are decent, Thermaltake makes a nice case, so does Chieftec. I have a raidmax $50 one that came with a PSU, it has decent cooing and looks good but has some short commings.

go to www.buyxg.com for great deals on hardware
www.frozencpu.com and www.xoxide.com are great Computer cooling/case/psu places. www.Ajump.com is were i bought most of the stuff for this computer, and they have OEM versions of Win XP for $90 bucks if you buy a hardware item there

[Sentrosi]

Just priced a comp for you at ajump.com:

Case: Chenbro Xpider w/o Power supply - Blue
Power Supply: Vantec VAN400B 400W Power Supply
Case Lighting: Raidmax 10" Cold Cathode light - Blue
Motherboard: Abit KV7 KT600 Chipset (w/ 6 channel audio)
Memory: 1GB PC 2700DDR 333
Processor: AMD XP 2400+/2.0Ghz
CPU Heatsink/fan: Thermaltake Volcano 9
Hard Drive: Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM w/ 8Mb Cache
Optical Drive 1: Sony 16x DVD-Rom - black
Optical Drive 2: Sony 52x24x52x CD-RW Drive - Black
Video Card: Asus Radeon 9600XT
Floppy Drive: Sony 1.44Mb Floppy - Black
Operating System: Windows XP w/ SP1a

Total Price: $981.00

[Sentrosi]

Lets see what happens when we go shopping around for other vendors.

Case: Chenbro Xpider w/o Power Supply - Blue ($48.00)Click here for details
Case Power Supply: CWT 450W power supply with Free Sleeving ($79.00) Click here for details
Motherboard: Abit NF7-S Motherboard ($105.00) Click here for details
Memory: 2x Kingston DDR PC 2700 512Mb sticks ($148.00) Click here for details
Processor: AMD XP 2600+ ($116.00) Click here for details
Optical Drive 1: Sony 16x DVD-Rom - Black ($37.00) Click here for details
Optical Drive 2: Lite-on 52x32x52x CD-RW Drive - Black ($52.00) Click here for details
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9600Pro 128MB DDR Memory ($147.00) Click here for details
Floppy Drive: Samsung 1.44Mb Floppy Drive - Black ($9.50) Click here for details
Operating System: Windows XP OEM ($85.00)Click here for details

=$826.50

Saved some scratch and upgraded some parts, downgraded others. These prices don't reflect taxes or shipping costs. Use at your leisure.

[Searo]

This has me puzzled. What's the difference between all these cards? Why are some 50+ dollars cheaper?

And here the two categories of processors have a considerable price reduction. Is there anything different in performance there?

What type of ram should I get? 2700? 333mhz? Something better?

[Rbstr]

Some are XT's the best/ highest priced 170-200 the Pros are the nxt best and are 150ish and The Regulars/SE's are 120 ish

Get yourself some DDR400 (pc3200) no matter what if you go P4 if you go Athlon you can get ddr333 (pc2700) but i would stick with the 400 becuse if you ever get a newer Athlon like a 3200+ it uses DDR400. Go with Corsiar XMS or or Kingston Hyper-X those are both high quality memories, for a gb of it be sure to get TWO 512 sticks for the double data rate (with one stick you get only get single data rate, so ddr400 becomes sdr200)

[Searo]

Monitor- Kogi L4AX 14" LCD Flat Panel Monitor- www.amazon.com ($219.00), ($149) with 70 rebate

Processor- Intel Pentium 4 Processor @ 2.80Ghz 533mhz FSB w/ Retail CPU Fan-($192.00)
http://www.buyxtremegear.com/intel280.html

Graphics Card- ATI/Sapphire Radeon 9600 128mb DDR AGP8x w/ CRT, TVO, & DVI �OEM (1024-9C20) http://www.buyxtremegear.com/10249c20.html - ($104.00)

RAM- 2x Kingston DDR PC 2700 512Mb sticks ($148.00) http://www.z-buy.com/product.asp?item=RD-512KT333

Optical Drive 2- Lite-on 52x32x52x CD-RW Drive - Black ($52.00) http://us-depot.com/lion52becddr.html

Optical Drive 1- Sony 16x DVD-Rom - Black ($37.00) http://us-depot.com/son16xdvdrom.html

Floppy Drive- Samsung 1.44Mb Floppy Drive - Black ($9.50) http://www.openlinx.com/english/prod...roduct_id=1012

Case- Chenbro Xpider PC61166 Mid Tower Gaming Case w/ Window, Lock, Blue
http://www.dealsonic.com/chxppcmidtog2.html ($48.00)

Power Supply- Thermaltake W0010 Xaser Silent Purepower 480W Power Supply w/ PFC, S-ATA connector, Black, Retail Package ($68.00) http://www.dealsonic.com/thw0xasipu481.html

Cooling Fan- Thermaltake TT-9025A-2B 90x90x25 High Performance DC Case FAN ($8.00)
http://www.dealsonic.com/ther90higper.html

Hard Drive- IBM 80GB 7200 RPM HD ($99) http://www.buyxtremegear.com/hd-132-104.html

Total=$914.50

Suggestions? This is a rough draft of course, please correct me with any price reductions or OMG THAT IS TEH SUCK DON'T BUY IT!

[NoSurrender]

First off drop the LCD because they suck for gaming. They can't refresh fast enough to update your monitor. heres a awesome CRT that will blow you away http://store.yahoo.com/buyxg/e90fsb.html . Dont go with that 9600 because just looking at the lack of fan is not a good thing unless you want a slower but quieter system. I'd go with this http://store.yahoo.com/buyxg/sap9600xt128.html or http://store.yahoo.com/buyxg/ati9600xt128.html because you'll get much better preformance and overclockability.

[Smaug]

Originally Posted by Searo

This has me puzzled. What's the difference between all these cards? Why are some 50+ dollars cheaper?

And here the two categories of processors have a considerable price reduction. Is there anything different in performance there?

In response to this the video cards are cheaper because some of them (more expensive) are made by ATI. The other (cheaper ones) cards are made by 'board members' I think they call them. Basically ATI lisences out the GPU and the other companies make their own ati based cards which are usually cheaper.

Those processors have 2 different categories because the more expensive ones are Hyper Threaded, having a 800 mhz FSB, the others are just normal with a 533 mhz FSB.

[Searo]

So the more expensive processors are a better idea?

What's the actual hardware difference between the Radeon cards.

[Searo]

Well, I've looking at two different vid cards-

http://www.power-color.com/r96-d3g.htm
It's a Radeon 9600 with 256 RAM. Made by power-color.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/VGA/9800-xt.asp#Model Number
It's a Radeon 9800 with 128 RAM. Made by Sapphire. Is only 150.

What do you think?

[Smaug]

I have a sapphire radeon 9800 with 256 ram and its a good card.

[Rbstr]

Don't get a Radeon 9600 regular get a Pro they are much better, and its been proven that 256 mb of memory does not improve the preformance of card except when faster speed memory is used as part of the upgrade. also don't get a 533 mhz fsb P4 be sure to get a 800 mhz fsb P4

[NoSurrender]

yea the 800 is the way to go.

[Searo]

Ok. Switched processor to a Pentium 4 2.6GHz 800MHz FSB processor for $175.

Is an XT considerably better than a pro?
I'm now looking at these-

PowerColor ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB DVI+CRT+TV 8X AGP - RETAIL BOX (R96-D3G) ($156)

ATI/Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT 128MB DDR AGP8X w/ CRT, TVO, & DVI - OEM ($158)

As you can see, they're the same price. Which is better, XT or 128 more RAM?