New Computer Recommendations

Off Topic
21

Fonebone listen to me very carefully I know what I am talking about.

  1. you probably do not need a super-powerful computer unless you are doing a lot of video editing, high powered statistics etc… however these days lots of people are doing video editing (making dvds etc… ) but still, you do not need to go for a super-powerful computer or the cutting edge. Anything medium level is good

  2. Dell in my experience are not so good. They were alright at first but they are not so great now, they don’t give cutting edge items but charge top dollar prices. You cannot modify the systems without voiding your warranty. I have never known anyone buy one and be happy. I’ve seen them in many companies let people down (and usually the employees don’t realise it is the machine).

  3. Avoid Norton antivirus it stinks. AVG from www.grisoft.com is GOOD, as others said here. I’ve seen nasty viruses come and go that Norton simply could not detect that AVG picked up. Norton hogs resources of your system and makes it shite.

  4. This site is pure brilliance

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/OptimizeXP.html

It will step you through optimising your system with everything from anti-virus to [everything else] … I highly recommend everyone take a look. You can have a look and see most software you need is free, and the others are highly recommended.

  1. building your own PC is a pain in the neck if you don’t know what you are doing, however it is not that hard to learn, but it does take time. You are probably better off finding a reputable local place that will build a package for you and also, allow you to tinker inside without voiding a warranty or anything. At a later date you might want to add components or something.

Really though it is hard to go wrong these days computers are so powerful it is mind boggling.

Just don’t get sucked in to paying top dollar for a medium level machine and don’t go too overboard.

22

[quote]ipjunkie wrote:
deanec wrote:
Also don’t waste your money on an antivirus subscription. AVG offers a single home user licence for free. We use the enterprise edition at work and it has proven very good. Their website is http://www.grisoft.com

Dean

http://free.grisoft.com/[/quote]

Thanks for the clarification.

23

If you want high end video you NEED to get a good video card, and get more than 256 mb of ram. Minimum 512. And don’t get some crap video card made by Intel. Get something decent, ie ATI, AGP, or Nvidia.

Of course if you are not a gamer it begs the question of why you need high end video.

24

[quote]Magarhe wrote:

  1. you probably do not need a super-powerful computer unless you are doing a lot of video editing, high powered statistics etc… however these days lots of people are doing video editing (making dvds etc… ) but still, you do not need to go for a super-powerful computer or the cutting edge. Anything medium level is good
    [/quote]

That is very good advice, listen to it.

[quote]Magarhe wrote:
2. Dell in my experience are not so good. They were alright at first but they are not so great now, they don’t give cutting edge items but charge top dollar prices. You cannot modify the systems without voiding your warranty. I have never known anyone buy one and be happy.
[/quote]

I’ve bought two, and they both served their purpose. Nice to meet you. :slight_smile:

Seriously, though, while I agree with what a lot of people are saying (it’s cheaper to build your own, etc…) if you build your own it doesn’t come with a warranty. Yes, each part comes with a warranty, but if you don’t know much about computers (and you don’t sound like you do, but I could be wrong), good luck finding out which component is bad unless you take it in to a PC Shop (or Best Buy, but don’t do that… Ever).

If you go to a spec build shop, sometimes they sell warranties; that would be very good for you if you went that route.

[quote]Magarhe wrote:
3. Avoid Norton antivirus it stinks. AVG from www.grisoft.com is GOOD, as others said here. I’ve seen nasty viruses come and go that Norton simply could not detect that AVG picked up. Norton hogs resources of your system and makes it shite.
[/quote]

More good advice. I wouldn’t tell you to build your own, because it can be tricky, especially if you get an item DoA, which is all too common. If you do decide to build your own, here are all the parts you’ll need:

Processor, Mother Board, Case, Power Supply, Monitor, RAM, Hard Drive, Optical Drive, Video Card, Operating System, Cooling Fan, Sound Card, Keyboard, Mouse.

[quote]cap’nsalty wrote:
If you want high end video you NEED to get a good video card, and get more than 256 mb of ram. Minimum 512. And don’t get some crap video card made by Intel. Get something decent, ie ATI, AGP, or Nvidia.
[/quote]

That’s bad advice, don’t listen to that. 256MB is more than enough memory on a video card for a system with the specs you posted.

25

I meant more than 256 megabytes on the computer, sorry if that was unclear. I realised it now looks like I said a more than 256 megabyte video card, which is not what I meant.

26

Do the proper research, and stick with tried and true computer brands.

For a motherboard I would reccomend Asus. They make excellent boards and have great support. Put that together with a processor from AMD (cheaper than intel and they run cooler) and you’ve got a winner!

Also, I’m kind of a noise freak so I prefer some of the silent fans from Thermaltake.

As for a hardrive pick something that has alot of space and is quiet (at least 7200RPM and if you get a HUGE one, more cache is better). Try Seagate, Maxtor and Western Digital You wont believe how much noisier the blasted thing gets when all the components are whizzing!

Also you said you weren’t a gamer. You can easily get a high quality videocard (previous generation) from ebay, used for a fraction of the prce, pretty much anything less than 4 years old will do. Get an ATI or Nvidia.(The best and only brands available)

I’m not too sure about ram though. I just got the highest frequency my motherboard can support. Try to do the same and stick with at least 1GB but if you can get 2GB. And if you eve hear of the term “dualchannel” its crap. It makes a performance difference of less than 5% on average.

But if you’d rather avoid the hassle of trying out components, comparing and researching… get yourself one of those newfangled Intel Macs! Or a low-end business Alienware. You can never go wrong with Alienware.

27

Oh yeah, one more thing. Just go to the local PC shop (not bestbuy or anything, something private) and just pay the guy to put it together for you. Hell, just order the stuff you need from there! amd they’ll assemble it.

28

Haha joker, it is true actually people are adequately happy with their Dells, if they are not too fussy, I have however encountered many people who were furious at the damned things, especially during the rambus days. And I don’t think they are great value.

The real issue today is that the cutting edge computers are so incredibly overpowered for what most people need, most people would be better off spending half what they do, and then putting more money into something like a giant monitor. And a lot of places put in mediocre parts but charge top dollar.

Asus - couldn’t recommend them highly enough, they are great, great, great.

Nearly choked when I read the poster who said 512meg video card … but realise he corrected that. 128meg is completely fine for the video card.

For the computer, look to get AT LEAST 1 gigabyte and hopefully, 2 gigabytes but again you don’t need that much. But it is nice.

All this talk makes me want to go buy another computer

29

[quote]Magarhe wrote:

[/quote]

Listen to Magarhe. The most a local PC shop will charge will be a $100 in labor, and you will end up saving $500-1000 in the components, which will be higher quality anyway. Newegg is a great site - you can just bring all of that stuff to a local shop and they will be happy to assemble it for you.

30

[quote]Magarhe wrote:
Haha joker, it is true actually people are adequately happy with their Dells, if they are not too fussy, I have however encountered many people who were furious at the damned things, especially during the rambus days. And I don’t think they are great value.
[/quote]

I don’t think they’re a great value, either, especially after shipping. However, it’s easy and you do get a decent warranty (although their phone service isn’t what it used to be). I couldn’t be happier with the system I made about a month ago:

Opteron 165 Denmark Socket 939 Dual Core
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
GIGABYTE 3D AURORA Chassis
RoseWill RP500-2 500W PSU
BenQ FP91G+ 19" 8ms LCD
CORSAIR XMS 1GB 2-2-2-5
WD Caviar SE16 250GB SATA II (Two)
NEC 3550A DVD+/- R/RW DL
NEC 4551A DVD+/- R/RW/RAM DL w/ LabelFlash
ASUS EN7800GT/Top/Silent/2DHTV 256MB
ZALMAN 92mm Cooling Fan w/ Heatsink
Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 8
Logitech Media Wired Standard Keyboard
Logitech MX518 Optical Mouse
XP Professional SP2

[quote]Magarhe wrote:
Asus - couldn’t recommend them highly enough, they are great, great, great.
[/quote]

Them and DFI both for MoBo’s, yes (except the ASUS A8N-SLI Premium, too many compatability issues).

[quote]Magarhe wrote:Nearly choked when I read the poster who said 512meg video card … but realise he corrected that. 128meg is completely fine for the video card.
[/quote]

Yes, unless you’re going to upgrade to Vista when it comes out, then I strongly suggest a 256MB as Aero Glass requires 128MB.

[quote]Magarhe wrote:
For the computer, look to get AT LEAST 1 gigabyte and hopefully, 2 gigabytes but again you don’t need that much. But it is nice.
[/quote]

I game a lot, so I went with 1GB of RAM with 2-2-2-5 instead of 2GB of 3-3-3-8, although I do plan on adding another GB of 2-2-2-5 when I get around to it.

[quote]Magarhe wrote:
All this talk makes me want to go buy another computer
[/quote]

Ahh yes, there’s a little geek in all of us, heh.

31

Just thought Id add for Fonebone: theres a lot of statistics, benchmarks and numbers thrown around with PC components, dont overly fret about one thing being 10Mhz faster than the other or having slightly more megs or whatever. Just use your common sense and buy a half decent machine and it’ll do what you want it to do. I have a high end machine for games but my media centre machine is very modest - an athlon XP 2000 CPU, 512 megs, 9800 ati GFX card, 160gig HD. It works totally fine for music and video. OK it might need upgraded to hande HDTV but nothing major.

Now if youre planning on using a monitor to watch video DO NOT buy a flat panel monitor unless it has a rediculously low pixel response time and youve seen it in action and are happy with the picture. If youre planning to output to your TV then just make sure your video card has the right outputs. Otherwise a regular (CRT) monitor offers high quality/cost ratio although I’d still want to see it running before I buy. Hint - look for dead pixels.

Get a half decent soundcard and speakers but again dont go overboard unless youre really fussy about sound quality. Creative and Terratec are both good manufacturers to start with.

And as someone mentioned you might want to look into some noise reduction, some fans and hard drives can make a hell of a racket which can piss you of.

Good luck, let us know what you settle on.

32

Any off the shelf name brand PC you buy will usually have a serious compromise…usually shared memory or a lousy video card. You could buy a barebones kit at TigerDirect (box, cpu, memory, ram), add a good video card, sound card, 2 gigs of RAM, a dual layer DVD burner and a 17" flat panel monitor for well under a grand with shipping. It would be a screaming system and blow anyway any name brand PC for the price. No doubt.

The only reason to buy Dell is if you want a customized laptop (which is what I did).

33

[quote]HoratioSandoval wrote:
Magarhe wrote:

Listen to Magarhe. The most a local PC shop will charge will be a $100 in labor, and you will end up saving $500-1000 in the components, which will be higher quality anyway. Newegg is a great site - you can just bring all of that stuff to a local shop and they will be happy to assemble it for you.[/quote]

I have bought dell before, and have built my own. Last time I priced dell, it was only about 10-15% cheaper to make my own, less than that when dell runs free shipping special. How are you guys saving $500 or $1000 when comparing apples to apples, on a $1500 dollar system. Someone else also said getting it for 1/3 the price by buying components. Cheapest I found was

intel 2.8/800 FSB was $192
decent motherboard $100
cheap video card 128 or 256 ~ $130
1GB ram - $80
Case - $100
160 GB hardrive (2 ie datasafe/raid 1) - $150
Dell printer and cable $120
optical drive $40
sound and network cards $20
LCD monitor $150 minimum
speakers $50
Keyboard and mouse $20
APC $70
windows XP home $100
Office Basic $130
Security software $50 (though can get cheaper, but again to compare apples to apples)

I got around $1500 via components. I think before when I found the best price on each and was comparing apples to apples I saved $10-15% or so, and felt that wasn’t worth my time.

Not being argumentative, but I am buying a new gaming system next Christmas (when Vista bug comes out), and will look at Alienware, Xi mtower, and Dell. If you can really build a same quality computer from components with same software and save 50%, I would look at doing it again.

How are you guys getting that much savings? Or have your guys not looked at component prices in last few years.

34

Guys, I really appreciate all the replies. The more info I have, hopefully the better decision I will make.

I should clarify something: when I say I want video, by that I mean I primarily want to be able to download clips off the Internet (like Diesel Weasel’s lifts, for example), or maybe post MY lifts for form critique, etc. I do not, at least for now, intend to use my PC to play DVD’s, etc. Also, as I said, I am not a gamer. So maybe I need a little LESS system that I was originally looking at…?

I just want good, fast Internet (I know, a function of the connection) and a monitor with good resolution. I also want the ability to play around with digital pictures (posting “me and my shoe” photos on T-Nation, for example).

I found this on Tiger Direct this morning. Looks like I get pretty much the whole package (sans printer) for less than $900. This appears to be a better value than the Dell, no?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1828825&sku=S278-ED908AA

Also, to the posters who mention building my own, I’m not certain I want to go that route, since I really know very little about it. Not that I won’t learn, but due to many other things currently going on in my life, I don’t think I am inclined to take the time right now.

35

Looks fine BUT it has the integrated video (which blows), and it’s low on RAM. If you could drop an extra $35 for a decent vid card and $70 for a gig of RAM you’d have a killer system.

The MSI Radeon 9250 and XFX GeForce MX 4000 are both good 128mb cards for $35.

36

If all you want to do is download clips and play around with photos then any piece of crap machine can do that!! Downloaded clips typically arent great quality / resolution anyway so dont worry. You could consider buying a second hand or reconditioned system and save some serious cash. Sometimes you can get real bargains from schools/colleges/local business who are updating their systems and basically throwing away old but perfectly fine equipment although obviously there’ll be no warranty. Also check pawn shops for stuff too. You probably want to use Win XP so just make sure whatever you get meets the minimum spec.

Oh and once you get online make absolutly sure you have a firewall and let windows update itself. Basically read up on internet security and take precations or some little geek WILL hack your computer.

37

Joker, even the newest videocard at this moment isn’t fully compatible with Aero in Vista.

Sounds weird? Well, then check for yourself. You’d be surprised.

38

[quote]MickeyG wrote:
Looks fine BUT it has the integrated video (which blows), and it’s low on RAM. If you could drop an extra $35 for a decent vid card and $70 for a gig of RAM you’d have a killer system.

The MSI Radeon 9250 and XFX GeForce MX 4000 are both good 128mb cards for $35.[/quote]

OK, look at this one (no, I didn’t write the ad copy). Barebones kit from TigerDirect for ~$450.

I can also get a 17" LCD for under $200. This actually looks like “more” than I need, but it sounds like a smokin system anyway (and they have a number of others for less $ too). What else would I need to get wth something like this in order to plug in and go? Also, could a “newb” like me set this up relatively problem free?

Viper 754 Mobo, A64 3400+ CPU, 1 Gig DDR.
Here’s your entree to that ferocious system you must have! The Mach Speed Viper K8M8S Socket 754 motherboard. The frightfully powerful AMD Athlon 64 3400 Socket 754 Processor. One gig of rapid-response Ultra PC3200 DDR at 400Mhz! The wonderful Premium Blue 2522 Mid Tower ATX case - Premium’s best selling, most gaming-ready chassis. Masscool’s mighty AMD K8 cooler - quiet yet amazingly efficient. Plus a comfortable, great looking PS/2 keyboard and optical mouse combo.

Our Viper K8M8S Socket 754 Sizzler.
Mach Speed’s superb Viper K8M8MS Socket 754 MicroATX motherboard supports DDR400, onboard VGA, AGP 8X graphics, 6-channel audio, SATA, ATA133, 3 PCI ports, superb audio, lightning fast Ethernet LAN, 6 USB 2.0 ports and much more. Plus, Mach Speed backs the ultra-reliable Viper K8M8MS with the unique Lifetime Warranty it applies to every one of its magnificent motherboards. This is the deal of your dreams! Just the right components to launch an outrageous system.

39

That’s perfect. All you’d have to do is pop a hard drive in and a video card (although it may have integrated video)…20 minutes labor even if you’ve never been inside a PC before. Add a DVD burner if needed. 1 gig of RAM will be fine for your needs.

Barebones Kit $330
Vid Card $35
17" LCD $170
Seagate 250g Barracuda HD $80

Killer system for $615 before shipping, that will do everything but super hardcore gaming (you’ll still be able to play most games). You could add a good dual layer burner for $50, and a 6 speaker system for under $60 if desired.

40

[quote]MickeyG wrote:
That’s perfect. All you’d have to do is pop a hard drive in and a video card (although it may have integrated video)…20 minutes labor even if you’ve never been inside a PC before. Add a DVD burner if needed. 1 gig of RAM will be fine for your needs.

Barebones Kit $330
Vid Card $35
17" LCD $170
Seagate 250g Barracuda HD $80

Killer system for $615 before shipping, that will do everything but super hardcore gaming (you’ll still be able to play most games). You could add a good dual layer burner for $50, and a 6 speaker system for under $60 if desired.[/quote]

Sweet!