anyone build there own computers?? inside please

[Krazy]

so who here builds there own pc's ???

Been awhile for me and I need soem help with what route to go.

I'm an amd guy myself, my current pc is an old amd barton 2500 overclocked with a gig of ocz ram.

I am looking to stick with AMD but I dont keep up like i used to with whats good and what isnt..

Can anyone help out and lead me in the right direction?

I surf the net alot, play music and watch videos on the pc, not a gamer. I want it fast as I can get it for the $$$

I also want 2gb of ram minium.

I will order from newegg.com

anyone able to help me out a bit ?

thanks,
keith

[Aimiel]

I've built several, in the past, but have you looked at PC prices lately? Many manufacturers have the latest and greatest at very competitive prices. I bought an HP Media Center PC with an Intel 3gHz CPU for less than what it would cost me to buy half the hardware to do the same thing with. I upgraded the video card, by complaining about mine to a supervisor on the phone (in India), for $100. It now has two HDTV outputs instead of one SVGA. The card is an nVidia GeForce 7600GS. I also doubled the memory for about $80 and added a 500gb Seagate HDD for under $200. I recently bought a Samsung 24" HDTV monitor, and just love the picture. My ColorVision Spyder monitor calibration tool works great. It plays every game I've ever thrown at it but mostly I use it for studying computer graphics.

[Coral Dilema]

The last PC I bought that was pre-built was a commodore 64 (not counting my laptop).

I havnt really kept up with it either, Usually Ill do a lot of digging just about the time I want to upgrade and I dotn keep up with it the rest of the time.

The system im using now, which I build in June of 2006 is an AMD64 3500+ Im running 4 gig of DDR2 ram, I have 3 hard drives totaling about 600Gb. I have a tiger direct outlet store about 20 miles away in Raleigh and I can alwasy get good deals there.

If you want a computer to turn on and use for just general stuff, buy a prebuilt with the software you want. If you want a high end multimedia graphics and gaming system, like me, build your own. My system rivals an alienware system and might even be a little better, for less than 1/3 the price.

[woodycb]

tigerdirect.com and stick with an asus motherboard, very well built and reliable. Stay away from agp video if not using integrated video, will be obsolete soon. PCI express.

[Sk8r]

I'd go Dell. Excellent support, and definitely cheaper than building your own. Buy a refurb laptop or desktop for the best deal [from Dell Direct] and just lurk until the right deal comes along.

One thing about Dell---I had a falling-apart laptop [not their fault: I used to destroy one Smith-Corona typewriter a year: keys would just fly off [professional writer at 100wpm for hours and hours and hours]...and I just ordered the parts, googled 'replace keyboard' and 'replace touchpad' on the internet, got plenty of visual instruction, had the job done including replacing the screen and getting the face of my machine back on. I now have quasi-new laptop that should be good for quite a bit of pounding [I already can't read any of the keys on THIS machine]...plus I could call in and get help from Dell itself. Time I had a problem, a guy with a pocket protector and a briefcase full of Dell parts showed up on my doorstep and had it fixed within 15 min. 24 hrs. from my call to his fix. Not bad. IMHO, stay away from Tiger: they think it's legal to charge a 'restocking fee'. We got our money back but it took half a year.

[jgoodrich71]

I built the one I am using now a little over a year ago. Since that time, I really haven't kept up with the latest/greatest. I am another that will recommend Asus as the MB, with SATA, maybe something like the M2N .Just find one with an AM2 socket. I am also partial to the Lian Li cases. Expensive but worth every penny.

For those touting the Dells and HPs, I don't think you understand the quality of the components you are getting with those. I could build one for half the price as Dell, if I was using similar components. Or I could build one twice as good, and still come out cheaper selecting my own components.

[Aimiel]

I'm sorry, but pricing components simply equal to what is in mine exceeded the price I paid (just under $1000) before I got a HDD or a video card. Apparently you haven't made real-life comparisons.

[Krazy]

Ok well for a pre-built how is this one? Price is attractive...

http://www.buy.com/retail/Product.as...qdn45&GSCID=11

[Krazy]

Originally posted by Krazy K
Ok well for a pre-built how is this one? Price is attractive...

http://www.buy.com/retail/Product.as...qdn45&GSCID=11

Maybe ?

[Sk8r]

jgoodrich, we have done both, and are using both computers...really 'high quality, top of the line' in one, typical dell road warrior laptop in the other. They work alike, do the same jobs. I prefer the Dell laptop for its convenience. When you get into a meg or so of RAM, they're both pretty fast, and since the Dell is 2 years newer---the Dell has more whizbangs. Yep, I could go on endlessly rebuying this year's 'state of the art', but since building computers or installing new parts requires refamiliarizing yourself with the latest whizbangs every year [and maybe finding out you now have to replace 2 parts!], there's a kind of diminishing returns for my apps. If you ARE into computers bigtime and it's a major part of what you do, the constant rebuild is pricey, but alway up current --- until they make a real incremental jump in tech, and you have to root it all up and start with the motherboard...that's the real pita, imho: that and 'special' sound cards vid cards!
With the caution of 'that's me,' and your situation/needs may be something utterly different. Depends on what you're doing with it: graphics-heavy online stuff or astronomy, big state of the art machine; my brother does animations for games and his machine is killer and whizbang to the max. My consumer-end gaming is tamer stuff, word processing, low-end gaming, and just photography, much less so.

[ReefWreak]

Krazy K,

I've been building computers since I was old enough to afford them (7-8 years ago, I'm 20 now).

I've always tried to go with AMD, and I really did when I owned stock. The problem is that they just have yet to do ANYTHING even remotely competative with intels current offering.

If I were you, I would go with the last gen Intel Core2Duos, a nice Asus (for overclocking/expandability/features) or Intel (for ROCK HARD stability), one of the GeForce 8600GT cards (they're okay performers, but they're DX10 and not too expensive). Harddrives are great these days, just get a good name brand SATA150 (Western Digital, Hitachi) and if you're looking for speed go with the WD Raptor series (10,000RPM harddisk). I've had a raptor since the first 74gb came out. They're fast as lightening compared to the competition, and now up to 150gb, but you pay a price premium for the speed.

Ram, you've got to go with 2gb these days.

Keyboard, whatever. I still prefer the clickety keys, perhaps Das Keyboard (check it out, it's awesome).

Mouse, I've got the Logitech G5 wired, and I would never switch to anything else. Had it for a year or more now, it's amazing.

Building the comp will cost you more than the big box stores/online stores, but some people, people like me, just can't do a pre-built desktop.

At home I've got a 2.5 year old now (wowzers, so old!) Amd Athlon 64 3700+ (the overclockable one), EVGA 7800GT, EVGA NForce4 motherboard (came free with graphics card and was actually really decent mobo). 1gb of ram (it's killing me), the afformentioned mouse, some cheapo wireless microsoft keyboard that i've had for years, and a Dell 20" LCD.

I have spent $0 on my computer since I got a reef tank. I used to spend all my money on my computer.

I'm currently on my Dell 1705 inspiron at school, because I go to college and don't want to drag a desktop with me. I chose it because it has a GeForce 7900GT graphics card that performs equal to my desktop card, a intel Core Duo 2.0ghz, 2gb of ram, 120gb harddrive. It was like $1700 or so after 47% off customized inspiron series computers from dell. Get on their mailing list. They offer 35% off, then you get 12% more off when you get a 3+ year warranty.

[antony1103]

I go AMD all the way. my next i'm planning on an Athlon 64 X2 6400+ black edition CPU. Pretty pricey but you can't beat a 3.2 GHz dual core. ALong with that, an NVidia motherboard, 4 gigs or ram. This is more of a gaming/performance pc for me. I don't plan to upgrade soon so i want the best i can afford. Newegg is great. Good service and pretty decent prices.

[cichlid nutz]

Whats the info on the quad core AMD just came out??

[Aimiel]

Here's a rather lengthy technical article on the subject, and there are several other articles linked there: http://techreport.com/articles.x/13176