Need new computer
12-24-2002 | 11:57 PM
#1
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Need new computer
Hey guys, I think I would ask you for your preference in getting a new computer. Personally I dont keep up with whats the latest processor as my PIII750 is plenty fast for web surfing, MS Office, and HTTP/FTP access. Besides my clients dont look for lastest and greatest and we normally just order DELL computers prebuilt for them. I used to know everything about the fastest HDD, CPU, RAM, etc... But now I just cater to tried and true rather then fastest and untested.
But as luck may have it, a customer of mine needed a new replacement motherboard and video card and took my Asus P3B-F and ATi Radeon. In return I will be buying a new motherboard, processor, RAM, and vid card. All at the expense of my customer!
So my question is this. I think I'm going to get a gigabyte MB, with a AMD 2000+ processor and some PC2700RAM. I'm torn on what video card to get. I really dont want a nvidia card, and the ATi Radeon 9500PRO looks good.
Or should I go and get a P4? But the cost goes up considerably....
I have been contemplating getting back into gaming too, so keep that in mind in recommending a vid card or whatever else.
But as luck may have it, a customer of mine needed a new replacement motherboard and video card and took my Asus P3B-F and ATi Radeon. In return I will be buying a new motherboard, processor, RAM, and vid card. All at the expense of my customer!
So my question is this. I think I'm going to get a gigabyte MB, with a AMD 2000+ processor and some PC2700RAM. I'm torn on what video card to get. I really dont want a nvidia card, and the ATi Radeon 9500PRO looks good.
Or should I go and get a P4? But the cost goes up considerably....
I have been contemplating getting back into gaming too, so keep that in mind in recommending a vid card or whatever else.
12-25-2002 | 01:48 AM
#2
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Mitch: Please don't get the new Radeons. They have much suck. Last 5 customers that requested a Radeon 9700/PRO complained about them. Mostly because ATI cards doesn't support all games like Nvidia's cards does. I tried out a few Radeon 9700 PRO's and 2D and 3D qualities are not as refined as my GF4 Ti4200. I have 2 friends who regrets it and I can have them give you their testimonials if ya want.
Heres the most popular package I've been offering my customers lately:
Nvidia nForce2 SSP motherboard(built in ethernet/5.1 dolby sound). The built in ethernet doesn't even use any processing power and the sound uses less processing power and sounds better than my Creative Audigy sound card.
AMD Athlon XP 1900+ Thoroughbred 2 1.6gHz(I have it and in stock form beats my 2.6gHz P4 so far and it can easily reach 2.1 gHz. Not bad for a $85 dollar business wholesale processor.)
PC 2700 DDR RAM(256-512 your choice...DDR RAM prices going down like crazy)
IBM Deskstar 120GXP 80GB or Samsung Spinpoint 80GB 7500rpm HDD(120GXP alot faster but louder, Samsung a wee bit slower but more quiet and has a 3 yr warranty. No other company now give a 3 yr warranty besides Samsung)
Nvidia Geforce 4 Ti4200(still the best bang for the buck)
Case your choice, but I do get cases for very cheap. Nice ones too.
CDROM/DVDROM your choice.
Basically I can get you that computer for around 590 bucks at TOPS.
97 bucks for the the motherboard
125 for the ram
80 for the HDD
80 for CPU
140 for the Vid Card
522 total before case/cdrom/powersupply and dun dun dun Shipping.
But if you currently have a good ATX power supply with at least 250 watts should be no prob. Esp if you wanna use your cdrom/dvdrom/cdrw from your current.
I usually charge people about 800 for that system but I will definitely make one for you without any labor or anything else. Just pay the parts and shipping. I can also get you the parts and you can build your own if you want to. If you're interested hit me up a pm or AIM at imboom. This also goes for rest of the Hawaii I-Clubbers.
John
Heres the most popular package I've been offering my customers lately:
Nvidia nForce2 SSP motherboard(built in ethernet/5.1 dolby sound). The built in ethernet doesn't even use any processing power and the sound uses less processing power and sounds better than my Creative Audigy sound card.
AMD Athlon XP 1900+ Thoroughbred 2 1.6gHz(I have it and in stock form beats my 2.6gHz P4 so far and it can easily reach 2.1 gHz. Not bad for a $85 dollar business wholesale processor.)
PC 2700 DDR RAM(256-512 your choice...DDR RAM prices going down like crazy)
IBM Deskstar 120GXP 80GB or Samsung Spinpoint 80GB 7500rpm HDD(120GXP alot faster but louder, Samsung a wee bit slower but more quiet and has a 3 yr warranty. No other company now give a 3 yr warranty besides Samsung)
Nvidia Geforce 4 Ti4200(still the best bang for the buck)
Case your choice, but I do get cases for very cheap. Nice ones too.
CDROM/DVDROM your choice.
Basically I can get you that computer for around 590 bucks at TOPS.
97 bucks for the the motherboard
125 for the ram
80 for the HDD
80 for CPU
140 for the Vid Card
522 total before case/cdrom/powersupply and dun dun dun Shipping.
But if you currently have a good ATX power supply with at least 250 watts should be no prob. Esp if you wanna use your cdrom/dvdrom/cdrw from your current.
I usually charge people about 800 for that system but I will definitely make one for you without any labor or anything else. Just pay the parts and shipping. I can also get you the parts and you can build your own if you want to. If you're interested hit me up a pm or AIM at imboom. This also goes for rest of the Hawaii I-Clubbers.
John
j/k!
12-25-2002 | 06:31 AM
#7
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From: San Diego
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Hey John, Thanks for the info.
I do already have the case, Floppy, 350watt pwr supply etc... I am only missing now a MB, CPU, RAM, and vid card.
With that being said, who do you work for? I was just going to go to Byteware to buy my stuff. Or I could go to CompUSA as I used to work there and still get a discount on anything I buy. But they dont really carry components but I can at least get a video card there or something....
And as far as your comment on the ATI cards, I thought of that brand originally becuase all the reviews on it were pretty good. I'm talking about the 9500PRO. We all know that vid cards can be a tad finicky in regards to driver versions, and ATi is no exception. In fact they only brought out a unified driver in the past 6 months. Nvidia has been doing it for a couple years now. But it looks like the newer ATi cards are in the lead over Nvidias offerings in terms of FPS. Besides, I'm not a heavy gamer and I hate integrated cards on an MB. So that kinda scratched out the nForce stuff.
What I was thinking of getting in terms of MB, CPU, and RAM is this:
http://www.byteware.net/index.php?page=info&id=2627
Not overclockable, but I dont do that stuff as it needs to be reliable as a work machine in my home.
Keep those ideas coming...
I do already have the case, Floppy, 350watt pwr supply etc... I am only missing now a MB, CPU, RAM, and vid card.
With that being said, who do you work for? I was just going to go to Byteware to buy my stuff. Or I could go to CompUSA as I used to work there and still get a discount on anything I buy. But they dont really carry components but I can at least get a video card there or something....
And as far as your comment on the ATI cards, I thought of that brand originally becuase all the reviews on it were pretty good. I'm talking about the 9500PRO. We all know that vid cards can be a tad finicky in regards to driver versions, and ATi is no exception. In fact they only brought out a unified driver in the past 6 months. Nvidia has been doing it for a couple years now. But it looks like the newer ATi cards are in the lead over Nvidias offerings in terms of FPS. Besides, I'm not a heavy gamer and I hate integrated cards on an MB. So that kinda scratched out the nForce stuff.
What I was thinking of getting in terms of MB, CPU, and RAM is this:
http://www.byteware.net/index.php?page=info&id=2627
Not overclockable, but I dont do that stuff as it needs to be reliable as a work machine in my home.
Keep those ideas coming...
12-25-2002 | 12:21 PM
#8
Originally posted by BoOm
Mitch: Please don't get the new Radeons. They have much suck. Last 5 customers that requested a Radeon 9700/PRO complained about them. Mostly because ATI cards doesn't support all games like Nvidia's cards does. I tried out a few Radeon 9700 PRO's and 2D and 3D qualities are not as refined as my GF4 Ti4200. I have 2 friends who regrets it and I can have them give you their testimonials if ya want.
Mitch: Please don't get the new Radeons. They have much suck. Last 5 customers that requested a Radeon 9700/PRO complained about them. Mostly because ATI cards doesn't support all games like Nvidia's cards does. I tried out a few Radeon 9700 PRO's and 2D and 3D qualities are not as refined as my GF4 Ti4200. I have 2 friends who regrets it and I can have them give you their testimonials if ya want.
http://www.techtv.com/freshgear/show...396472,00.html
by the way what motherboard is that could you get me a price on an asus a7n8x???? thanks
Last edited by ds baruuuuu; 12-25-2002 at 12:35 PM.
12-25-2002 | 01:39 PM
#9
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I actually work for...myself. Yep thats right. Hahha. seriously though, I have been building computers for people for 3 years now and have my own little one person company. Byteware, Compusa, PTC, PDCS all overcharge considerably high.
On that combo: I can get the GA-7VAX motherboard for 89, 87 for processor and about 100 for ram. that is like only 276 total for that combo. My only concern is that which DDR ram Byteware gives. It could be generic PC2700 DDR which isn't really true PC2700 DDR but just an stock overclocked PC2100. The ram you want to get is the PC2700 ones with the SAMSUNG chips. They are the most reliable ram chips I've used so far. Alot of times Compusa have those PC2700 DDR RAM specials like last week for 256 at 40 bucks each. I'm one of those guys who will ask the clerk to bring out all the chips and I actually sort them out to find the Samsung chips. People actually think I'm crazy.
On the ATI Radeon 9700 PRO reviews, imo could be that reviews gave them were based on benchmarks. Its easy for a company to make drivers for a video card that tones down quality when a benchmark program is run to get more frame rates. ATI was known to do that before with their whole 'quack' debate where someone tried to rename their quake.exe benchmark demo to quack.exe and the frame rates dropped to hell on the Radeon. For myself, I like consistiency with video cards. After trying out the new Radeons, I refuse to put any ATI card in my system. But they are surely top of the line for now in terms of specs, but just not in my taste.
On the Asus A7N8X nForce2 motherboard...yes they rock for nForce 2 SSP chipsets but they are kinda pricey. I can get the A7N8X for 125 a pop and the A7N8X Deluxe(the one with serial ATA and RAID 0/1 support, 3COM ethernet instead of the nF2's MCP and onboard firewire) for 153. The one listed in my price list is the one I'm currently running now and thats the Leadtek K7NCR18. Not the quickest nForce2 ssp mobo in the list but sure beats all those VIA chipsets and plus its rather reliable and has SPDIC and firewire ACR cards. Best bang for the buck imo.
On that combo: I can get the GA-7VAX motherboard for 89, 87 for processor and about 100 for ram. that is like only 276 total for that combo. My only concern is that which DDR ram Byteware gives. It could be generic PC2700 DDR which isn't really true PC2700 DDR but just an stock overclocked PC2100. The ram you want to get is the PC2700 ones with the SAMSUNG chips. They are the most reliable ram chips I've used so far. Alot of times Compusa have those PC2700 DDR RAM specials like last week for 256 at 40 bucks each. I'm one of those guys who will ask the clerk to bring out all the chips and I actually sort them out to find the Samsung chips. People actually think I'm crazy.
On the ATI Radeon 9700 PRO reviews, imo could be that reviews gave them were based on benchmarks. Its easy for a company to make drivers for a video card that tones down quality when a benchmark program is run to get more frame rates. ATI was known to do that before with their whole 'quack' debate where someone tried to rename their quake.exe benchmark demo to quack.exe and the frame rates dropped to hell on the Radeon. For myself, I like consistiency with video cards. After trying out the new Radeons, I refuse to put any ATI card in my system. But they are surely top of the line for now in terms of specs, but just not in my taste.
On the Asus A7N8X nForce2 motherboard...yes they rock for nForce 2 SSP chipsets but they are kinda pricey. I can get the A7N8X for 125 a pop and the A7N8X Deluxe(the one with serial ATA and RAID 0/1 support, 3COM ethernet instead of the nF2's MCP and onboard firewire) for 153. The one listed in my price list is the one I'm currently running now and thats the Leadtek K7NCR18. Not the quickest nForce2 ssp mobo in the list but sure beats all those VIA chipsets and plus its rather reliable and has SPDIC and firewire ACR cards. Best bang for the buck imo.
.... so far ...
12-25-2002 | 01:41 PM
#11
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Good choices on computer stuff. I agree about the Radeon 9700. A lot of people just rave about how fast it is, and the image quality so on and so forth, but Radeon still has some *****IN driver issues. Go over to Madonion and ask about Radeon Issues and you'll start a flame war. However, you'll hear what I'm talking about. (Oh ****! Mad Onion got changed by someone named Futuremark... WTF)
Another good mobo to look at is the Abit KR7A-133. You can get it with or without RAID, and it scales at least to a 2600+. And it's cheaper because the new gen of mobo's that support above the 2600+ (333Mhz... mmmmm) are out. newegg has it for $85... not in stock right now but look around at other places. Oh yeah, if you're into overclocking it's real nice for that too. Especially with RAM faster than 2100.
Another good mobo to look at is the Abit KR7A-133. You can get it with or without RAID, and it scales at least to a 2600+. And it's cheaper because the new gen of mobo's that support above the 2600+ (333Mhz... mmmmm) are out. newegg has it for $85... not in stock right now but look around at other places. Oh yeah, if you're into overclocking it's real nice for that too. Especially with RAM faster than 2100.
12-25-2002 | 01:54 PM
#14
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I'm really **** about cables. I don't want any cables in the main mobo area. I'm sure you IT guys know what I'm talking about. When I put my hand in there, I don't wanna get cut.