Buying a Computer

[Ludea]

CPU: (Quad-Core)Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX6700 with Factory OverClocked to 3.46GHz EM64T

Power Supply: Tagan 1100W TG1100-U95 TurboJet Quad Quiet SLI Ready Power Supply

Motherboard: Asus Striker Extreme nForce 680i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard (Supports Quad Core)

Memory: 4GB (4x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair XMS2 Xtreme Memory w/ Heat Spreader)

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB 16X PCI Express (XFX Extreme Edition Powered by NVIDIA) X2

Cooling Fan: Monsoon II Lite CLT-M2LI LGA775 CPU Air Conditioner Cooling System


I've been saving up for awhile since I got my job, and now I want to buy a top of the line computer. This came up to about $4655, my parents are matching however much money I put into it, so I got about a little over 2 grand, so this setup is actually possible for me.

My question to BG is, with the computer im writing this on has a Nvidia GeForce 3. I stopped playing FFXI a while back because FFXI stopped working on this computer, and I remember reading several places that other people had the same problem. I never heard if this problem still is going on for Nvidia cards, and if it still is then I don't want to spend all th is money on a Nvidia card. :/

Second, I've been researching and asking friends some questions about what to get, whats the best etc. Critique my setup! For example, I was told overclocked CPU's don't last as long.. well I want to use this computer for college, is it going to die in 3 years? I go to college in a year from now.

Thanks in advance!

[Calina]

i would wait till sept to buy new comp when new hardware comes out

Gforce 8900's and 8950's are coming out then 8900 ganna be 550$ and 8950 ganna be 600 from what i read 8950's either dual core just 1 of them will out proform 2 8800's

8800 goin down to 400-450$ range

as for a case if your not goin water cooling get this

antec 900 has 2 front 120mm fans a rear 120mm fan and a top mounted 200mm fan and optional 120mm side fan for your GPU's

http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails. ... dID=15900#

as for the OC core i would save the cash there and go for vista so u can go with 8gigs of ram that willl get u more proformance and seeing is how u goin with DX10 cards u ganna need vista anyway

iam upgrading my motherboard in sept to nForce 680i and buying a pair of 8950's for my comp cant wait till they come out

[Ichthyos]

the only reason to overclock your system these days is to make your system run hotter and fry your components so that you can spend money to build a new machine sooner.

the only reason to get an 1100 watt psu is so that you can run your electricity bill up higher.

what extra utility is this top of the line stuff giving you? you don't have to spend $4.5k to get a nice gaming rig. get hardware that's been on the market for like 6 or 12 months and you can throw some money into savings, or put it toward tuition etc.

[viperlasson]

Wow, you made a very kick-ass gaming computer. First off, the quad-core which is over clocked, over clocking your CPU is fine as long as you have adequate cooling. More and more games are being made to support multiple cores so you will see the results right away.

The motherboard is great, asus is a great mobo manufacturer.

4 Gigs of RAM is an overkill right now, and you would have to run a 64bit OS to even use the 4GB's. (32bit OS's can only manage 3GB's). So I would just stick with 2 GB's right now, you can always add more later.

The SLI-video card set-up is great too. You would benefit from the SLI if you plan to run games with a very high resolution and with all the eye candy turned up, otherwise SLI would be pointless. Do you plan on buying a good LCD screen? Most likely wide screen?

All and all, that is a great computer and will last you a very long time. And I would be careful with it in college, stuff gets stolen all the time.


edit: Oops, and yeah, the 1100 watt PSU is way more than needed, I would say a 700watt PSU should be plentiful.

[Calina]

4 Gigs of RAM is an overkill right now, and you would have to run a 64bit OS to even use the 4GB's. (32bit OS's can only manage 3GB's). So I would just stick with 2 GB's right now, you can always add more later.

32bit os can run up to 4gigs not 3 64bit can run up to 8gigs
the manage thing he sed is true tho well somewhat sometimes comp will only see 3.5gigs even tho u have 4 ive never had this problem myself only heard of it

with the system your building i would go with 64bit vista just cuase of DX10 and u can use up to 8gigs of ram

and ya 700w PSU is fine but still waiting for the new hardware to come out if good idea even if u ganna go with that same set up u will get it much cheaper or a much better system for about the same price

[Osede]

didn't xp only able to support up to 2gb of ram, or am i wrong?

and OP can wait a month or two since there is a price drop for intel chip, the second price drop will coming around october to november, i'm believe.


for the dual graphic SLI, i'm heard about some pro and con... so can't comment about that. But why asus motherboard ? I'm dont know about board here, but quite number of ppl piss of about asus product lately lol

[Ichthyos]

32-bit os's can address 4 gigs (2^32) of memory, but you have to understand that there's other stuff taking up address space too. all your pci devices and onboard peripherals are memory-mapped. i'm not a windows hacker, so i can't give you any more specifics, but the os uses up a lot of the address space doing other things. if you're really curious, you can google it. anyway, the end result is that you'll probably be able to address anywhere from 2.75-3.5 gigs of ram in 32-bit windows, because the rest of the address space is already used by the os.

[Rotsu]

You will need some serious cooling system for this beast. You might as well spend some good money of cooling parts...

I dont recommend overclocking, its not like you need it lol.

[thestalkmore]

You building this on your own?

[Ludea]

Thanks everyone!

No im using http://www.CyberPowerPC.com

I don't trust myself enough with these expensive parts, ill drop the shit or something and be pissed.

I've made some adjustments:
CPU: (Quad-Core)Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX6800 @ 2.93GHz 1066FSB 8MB L2 Cache EM64T

Memory: I want to get one chip thats 2GB DDR1000+, so in the future I can get another 1 if I want.

I hear that Vista doesn't run FFXI, and its buggy... so idk about getting it.

Calina, that case looks great im looking into it and I think im going to get it.

About waiting til Sept, I don't see the point. Lets say I did wait, then when I get it then people would say wait 6 months and the newer stuff will come out. Its just a evil scheme these companies have. idk your not the only person telling me to wait, I wanna use it over summer! but, I want to do whats best too :/ so idk.

[Calina]

Thanks everyone!

No im using http://www.CyberPowerPC.com

I don't trust myself enough with these expensive parts, ill drop the shit or something and be pissed.

I've made some adjustments:
CPU: (Quad-Core)Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX6800 @ 2.93GHz 1066FSB 8MB L2 Cache EM64T

Memory: I want to get one chip thats 2GB DDR1000+, so in the future I can get another 1 if I want.

I hear that Vista doesn't run FFXI, and its buggy... so idk about getting it.

Calina, that case looks great im looking into it and I think im going to get it.

About waiting til Sept, I don't see the point. Lets say I did wait, then when I get it then people would say wait 6 months and the newer stuff will come out. Its just a evil scheme these companies have. idk your not the only person telling me to wait, I wanna use it over summer! but, I want to do whats best too :/ so idk.

vista runs FFXI fine i was running FFXI on vista even when it wasent sapossed to work and got it working fine

SE released there vista instalers so u can get it to work easy way now

vista just as good as XP now with some minor ups and downs but givin time its ganna be worth it with DX10 games coming out your ganna wish u got it and u can use 8gigs of ram with 64bit versions

as for the ram i would get 2 sticks instad of 1 big 1 they work better together at least thats what i was told when i asked same question a few months ago i was quoted all the tranfer rates or whatever they where 2 together where better then 1 single

and point of waiting is getting everything either a few hundered off or getting better stuff for same price

i ended up adding 2 1 gig sticks to the 2 512's i alrdy had

made a huge diff

[Sonomaa]

Id go with someone like maingear instead of cyberpowerpc, they got some bad reviews for shitty tech service and build quality, maingear has been super reputable for everyone Ive known who has gone to them

[Panella]

Thanks everyone!

No im using http://www.CyberPowerPC.com

I don't trust myself enough with these expensive parts, ill drop the shit or something and be pissed.

I've made some adjustments:
CPU: (Quad-Core)Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX6800 @ 2.93GHz 1066FSB 8MB L2 Cache EM64T

Memory: I want to get one chip thats 2GB DDR1000+, so in the future I can get another 1 if I want.

I hear that Vista doesn't run FFXI, and its buggy... so idk about getting it.

Calina, that case looks great im looking into it and I think im going to get it.

About waiting til Sept, I don't see the point. Lets say I did wait, then when I get it then people would say wait 6 months and the newer stuff will come out. Its just a evil scheme these companies have. idk your not the only person telling me to wait, I wanna use it over summer! but, I want to do whats best too :/ so idk.

Considering the huge amount of money you're about to drop on that computer, especially since it's a rather high end one and going to be more prone to problems, I would suggest you go with someone that will probably cost you a few hundred more or so but comes with a high track record of quality parts, build, and technical support.

Granted this is a computer they reviewed from may '06(only cyberpowerpc one they had) but hardocp had this to say about the computer they reviewed
"The Bottom Line – 7.0/10

A score of 7 is considered “substandard,” and that’s exactly what we felt about this computer. We felt this computer was more than disappointing. Things went wrong in many different ways. We’ve evaluated computers that have scored in this range before, and they typically were good quality computers with one large and glaring exception that severely overwhelmed the rest of the computer’s ability to get stuff done. That’s not the case here. This is not a good computer with a terrible flaw – this is a below average computer across the board. "

Not exactly gushing with praise. Granted it's been almost a full year so of course things could be different now(I'm sure you can find plenty of other reviews on other sites) but if I was about to drop almost 5 grand on a computer I'd want perfection

Also, out of idle curiousity... when your parents said they would match what you put into it... did they do so knowing you were planning to drop that much on a computer? You're really taking them up on their word

Edit: Oh, and something you may want to keep in mind since you're going off to college in the near future? You do realize if you're going to be living in a dorm you're going to have to be lugging that thing around a few times a year at least. If you're going to use a builder that lets you choose between a bunch of different cases it may be prudent for you to check the weight listed(which unfortunately can be a pain in the ass to find) for that particular case. Things like a Thermaltake Armor weigh in at like 38 lbs. or so for the case alone and certain Lian-Li cases being notorious for sharp edges.

[Isiolia]

Wouldn't it be smarter to spend half that (or less) to build a solid gaming system now...then bank the other half to build a new system in a couple years?

It's not like any computer purchase will be the "last machine you ever need".

If you've got the money to keep buying machines like that, or will be able to easily afford a new machine in a couple years anyway, then great. Have fun. But given your statements about saving up, I'd definitely consider spreading your money between system. $4600 will keep you in hardware for all of college easily, but spending it all in one lump sum at the start isn't really the most effective use.

[Sonomaa]

Thanks everyone!

No im using http://www.CyberPowerPC.com

I don't trust myself enough with these expensive parts, ill drop the shit or something and be pissed.

I've made some adjustments:
CPU: (Quad-Core)Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX6800 @ 2.93GHz 1066FSB 8MB L2 Cache EM64T

Memory: I want to get one chip thats 2GB DDR1000+, so in the future I can get another 1 if I want.

I hear that Vista doesn't run FFXI, and its buggy... so idk about getting it.

Calina, that case looks great im looking into it and I think im going to get it.

About waiting til Sept, I don't see the point. Lets say I did wait, then when I get it then people would say wait 6 months and the newer stuff will come out. Its just a evil scheme these companies have. idk your not the only person telling me to wait, I wanna use it over summer! but, I want to do whats best too :/ so idk.

Considering the huge amount of money you're about to drop on that computer, especially since it's a rather high end one and going to be more prone to problems, I would suggest you go with someone that will probably cost you a few hundred more or so but comes with a high track record of quality parts, build, and technical support.

Granted this is a computer they reviewed from may '06(only cyberpowerpc one they had) but hardocp had this to say about the computer they reviewed
"The Bottom Line – 7.0/10

A score of 7 is considered “substandard,” and that’s exactly what we felt about this computer. We felt this computer was more than disappointing. Things went wrong in many different ways. We’ve evaluated computers that have scored in this range before, and they typically were good quality computers with one large and glaring exception that severely overwhelmed the rest of the computer’s ability to get stuff done. That’s not the case here. This is not a good computer with a terrible flaw – this is a below average computer across the board. "

Not exactly gushing with praise. Granted it's been almost a full year so of course things could be different now(I'm sure you can find plenty of other reviews on other sites) but if I was about to drop almost 5 grand on a computer I'd want perfection

Also, out of idle curiousity... when your parents said they would match what you put into it... did they do so knowing you were planning to drop that much on a computer? You're really taking them up on their word

Edit: Oh, and something you may want to keep in mind since you're going off to college in the near future? You do realize if you're going to be living in a dorm you're going to have to be lugging that thing around a few times a year at least. If you're going to use a builder that lets you choose between a bunch of different cases it may be prudent for you to check the weight listed(which unfortunately can be a pain in the ass to find) for that particular case. Things like a Thermaltake Armor weigh in at like 38 lbs. or so for the case alone and certain Lian-Li cases being notorious for sharp edges.

take a look at the maingear system review here at hardocp
http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.htm ... NvbnN1bWVy

the f131 is their big dog system, it will end up being better for you I think, maingear is made of win and awesome

edit:

The Bottom Line – Highly Recommended

Maingear’s F131 was a fast, stable PC, and the Maingear name means a lot in both quality and customer service. Their personalized service is a great value-added feature, and the technical savvy that Maingear’s staff possesses - from the great internal wiring and hardware installation to the handling of support issues - place the company head and shoulders above much of the competition.

Our experience with Maingear shows what “premium service” can mean to the consumer. A major advantage to buying from Maingear is that one person is responsible for your entire experience. While they have a whole staff of folks that are more than qualified, to have a person that you can call who knows more about your computer than anyone else is a great comfort - and a feature that not many other companies can offer. Our system was a few hundred dollars more expensive than comparable systems, but the great build quality and expert technical support we received gives a huge boost to the perceived value of this system. While you may pay a bit more for a Maingear system, you’re getting a remarkable ownership experience out of it.

[Lost]

If you want to build a top of the line system, then wait. Intel is planning to pre-releasing their new 45nm processors towards the end of july and be on the market a few months after that. If you can't wait that long then atleast wait till late may when intel releases its new Core 2 duo, which have a 1333 FSB.

[Epical]

Everything you just stated is way way overkill at the moment, but if you're really gunning for top-of-the-line, you're going to want to get Vista (unfortunately). DX10 is revolutionary when it comes to graphic quality and graphics processing. Nothing will suck more than using bleeding edge cards in DX9. =P

Question though: what exactly do you plan on doing with this computer that will need this much juice (and don't say gaming)?

[Calina]

Everything you just stated is way way overkill at the moment, but if you're really gunning for top-of-the-line, you're going to want to get Vista (unfortunately). DX10 is revolutionary when it comes to graphic quality and graphics processing. Nothing will suck more than using bleeding edge cards in DX9. =P

Question though: what exactly do you plan on doing with this computer that will need this much juice (and don't say gaming)?

id assum he/she wants it for gaming school work and id hope at least video editing and shit like that if u ganna spend that much

[Ludea]

Also, out of idle curiousity... when your parents said they would match what you put into it... did they do so knowing you were planning to drop that much on a computer? You're really taking them up on their word.

I let my dad see the specs and price yesterday actually, suprisngly he told me to get 4 gigs instead of 2 because its faster. My dad has a strong spanish accent, so it was hilarious to me. Well im paying for half of it, and being that he can't afford me a car he feels that it makes up for it. So hell, ill just drive my parents car for another year or so no biggy. :D

Take a look at the maingear system review here at hardocp
http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.htm ... NvbnN1bWVy

the f131 is their big dog system, it will end up being better for you I think, maingear is made of win and awesome

edit:

The Bottom Line – Highly Recommended

Maingear’s F131 was a fast, stable PC, and the Maingear name means a lot in both quality and customer service. Their personalized service is a great value-added feature, and the technical savvy that Maingear’s staff possesses - from the great internal wiring and hardware installation to the handling of support issues - place the company head and shoulders above much of the competition.

Our experience with Maingear shows what “premium service” can mean to the consumer. A major advantage to buying from Maingear is that one person is responsible for your entire experience. While they have a whole staff of folks that are more than qualified, to have a person that you can call who knows more about your computer than anyone else is a great comfort - and a feature that not many other companies can offer. Our system was a few hundred dollars more expensive than comparable systems, but the great build quality and expert technical support we received gives a huge boost to the perceived value of this system. While you may pay a bit more for a Maingear system, you’re getting a remarkable ownership experience out of it.

As much of a good review that it recieves I notice they don't have much of a selection for certain parts. For example I want the Asus Striker Extreme nForce 680i SLI but they only have the NVIDIA nForce SLI Motherboard. Maybe people don't see this as a big deal, but I want to buy this once and with what I want, exspecially with the amount of money I am spending. This also goes for their case selection and price. I got less expensive parts (i.e. that motherboard) and the total winded up to be like 6 grand where as I picked the parts I wanted on CyberPowerPC and it was around 4.5 grand.

I will be using this computer for a lot of things, and I expect to have it for a very long time. I will be obviously gaming, video editing, I do a lot of quick photoshopping for websites, own part of a website for college loans a forum, and part of a uploading directory, school, storing the latest HD movies along with uploading, I make videos for my friends for FFXI, Halo, Counter-Strike 1.6/CS:S, BattleField 2, and secret stuff that can't say.. dun dun dun.

Any other computer building sites out there? I tried Falcon Southwest (WAY too expensive, holy shit, same parts but it was like 15 grand.), maingear, and Ibuypower.

[Panella]

mm, no offense to maingear but did you try their 'lower end' Prelude or whatever PC? Their F131 thing comes with a fancier paint job and the option to over clock stuff and weighs in at like $1k+ tacked on because of it.

Try AvaDirect - I'll probably be buying my next computer from them, a /lot/ of parts to choose from and I believe I found everything you listed in your op but I was going kinda quick They're on the 'cheap' side and still hold up well on reviews that I've found.

If you want to take the time you can browse reviews listed here but the search part is a little buggy on a few manufacturers. Trying to find a place that carries things like the exact motherboard you want and still have good reviews is hard :\ Velocitymicro, Hypersonic, Overdrivepc(bit on the expensive side but they have very high quality and are the best overclockers in the business if that gives you a hardon or w/e), and Digitalstorm(had a few issues though), all did well on the reviews that I can remember at the moment if you want to look at their sites.

Not saying that hardocp is some kind of all knowing god of computer builders but when I check the reviews portion of most sites it's full of some variation of MaximumAwesomePCGamerz!! for their name and they have like 5 reviews, usually not even that many . This place at least has a /lot/ of reviews in one place and seem to know what they're talking about. But mostly just trying to make sure you do some serious shopping around before you drop all that money on a computer. They also have a 'best of 2006' or w/e with their opinion on the best manufacturer that they reviewed for different catagories and all that jazz but their site navigation kinda sucks and I can't find it at the moment if you want to go through the trouble.


Based on your last post though I'd say get your ass a job and try to buy a car of some kind before you go off to college instead . Unless you're taking their car off to college with you it's going to suck not having one lol. But that's kind of irrelevent opinion