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Ok, I've gotten both some yays and some nays on the tentative laptop idea (between LJ and FB). Since the nays seem to be more convincing... I think I'm going to stick with my original plan of getting a new desktop after all.
So now, I'm looking at stuff on Newegg. And, as I've said before, I'm not really a hardware guy. Therefore, I'll just post some stuff here and hope to get some more good advice/recommendations like I have in the past (thanks![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
korby and stuckinacave), even if I didn't necessarily heed that advice like I probably should have (i.e. I spent money on trying to get the old crap working again rather than just biting the bullet and going for new crap to begin with, as korby had suggested).
CPU: List of contenders. I pretty much just went to Newegg, did a search for CPUs, limited it to Intel, and then sorted by "Best Rating". What I see here is generally within the range I'm willing to spend on one. I think that $300 or so is around the high end of that range, because I'm not really willing to spend a full half grand on just a CPU. On the other hand, I don't really want one of the cheapo $40 CPUs, unless there's a compelling reason for why I'd be better off scrimping rather than going for one of the higher priced ones. As for Dual-Core vs Quad-Core, this is another thing I'm pretty much clueless about. I mean, I know that Quad-Core is obviously more, but I don't know that it's necessarily better or something that I'd really need, now or in the future. Also, lastly, the reason I limited it to Intel is simply because that's what I'm familiar with. If there are compelling reasons why I would want to go with something else instead, like AMD or whatever, I'd like to hear those as well.
Motherboard: This one I'm even less sure about. All I know is that the choice of motherboard will mainly depend on the choice of CPU. The ones with Socket 775 seem the most prevalent, but some of the higher end CPUs in the previous list need Socket 1156 or Socket 1366. Based solely on price alone, most of the 775 mobos seem a bit cheaper than I would expect new mobos to cost, which kind of raises a red flag for me (i.e. it makes me think they might be older than I'm looking for, which, in turn, makes me think that the CPUs they service also might be older than I'm looking for, and it might bottleneck me in the future for upgrades). The 1366's on the other end, seem just a wee bit pricey, although there are a few cheaper versions of that in there as well. Therefore, again based just on price, the 1156's (and their corresponding CPUs) look to be what I might want. Then again, I'm also looking for potential future upgradeability, so I might be better off splurging a bit more now, I don't know. As far as most of the rest of the motherboard specs are concerned, I'm mostly in the dark and don't know what's good and what isn't, aside from the typical "bigger is better".
RAM: This is the third component I'll need, but for now, I think I'll leave that alone until I get the above two situated. That said, 240 pin, seems to be the in-thing now, based on glancing at a few of those mobo specs. I'd probably just stick with 4GB or so for now, but I like the idea of being able to upgrade to 24GB as some of those mobos seemed capable of doing. Also, the difference between DDR2 and DDR3 is lost on me, aside from that I assume DDR3 is better, but I don't know if that's what I need right now. I guess as long as the motherboard could handle both, I could get cheaper crap for now and upgrade later if need be, but am also willing to maybe go ahead and splurge if it wouldn't be worthwhile in the long run to waste money on the lesser stuff. However, if a motherboard will only handle one or the other, I'd probably be better off going with the DDR3 (this applies to the motherboard selection as well).
Video card: The choice, as usual, is between ATI cards and Nvidia cards. I've used both in the past, and have no real preference for one over the other, though my previous three have been ATI. Looks like PCIe 2.0 is the most prevalent, versus the 2.1. I don't know what the difference is there anyway, so I'd probably be fine with the 2.0 anyway. My high end price range is probably $200 or so for that, maybe $300 but that's the absolute cut-off point. Again, the mobo will also probably depend on this as well, i.e. it will need a PCIe slot that supports the video card. I don't expect that will be a problem though.
Power Supply: Sincekorby said that the new 450W I bought for the old computer likely won't be beefy enough for a new one, I'm looking for some suggestions on this as well, though I'll hold off on that as well until the rest is squared away.
Case: I just want something that will work with the above. Nothing fancy, although I'd like it to at least be spacious/well-designed enough that I can replace the freaking power supply (or anything else) without first being required to remove the CPU+heatsink (or anything else). Anyway, not even going to really look into that yet until I get the rest of the above squared away. Just mentioning it here in case someone has a definite one that they adore and want to plug.
OS: Since I have a new, unused HDD that I can put into this one, I won't need to buy one of those. Also, I have a Windows XP disc that I can use to install that onto the new comp. However, I'm unsure if I might not just be better off going ahead and getting Windows 7 or something. For instance, I'm pretty sure XP has a max RAM limit that is pretty low, like 4GB or somesuch. On the other hand, I'm not really looking for much more RAM than that, at least not at the get go. Also, it doesn't really have to be done right now since I can always upgrade that later on, so there is that as well. I think I'll just stick with XP for now, but if there are compelling reasons to go ahead and upgrade, I'm open to hearing them.
The gist: I'm being hella lazy here and just asking whoever is reading this (who knows more about this kind of thing than I do, naturally) to basically build me a hypothetical new computer based on the above lists of stuff, or whatever you may want to substitute instead of the above, if there is something that is better. My order of priority is: potential future upgradeability->cost efficiency->current awesomeness. That is, I want it as cheap as possible, but I also want to be able to upgrade it later and not be bottlenecked into needing a new mobo or something six months down the road, so am willing to maybe spend more to get that. While it would be nice to get a system that is super awesome right now, that is secondary to getting one that is affordable. $1000-$1500 overall is the upper limit (given that I have some parts that I can reuse from the old comp, like the HDD and DVD-RW and such), though cheaper is better if possible, of course. Not sure if that's actually reasonable, though. Mainly, the motherboard is probably the thing I am most willing to splurge on for the sake of upgradeability, while I'm fine for now with the rest of the components being whatever is low-mid range for their corresponding slots on the motherboard. But, again, I might be willing to spend up to an extra $20-50 for something that is significantly (perhaps disproportionately) better, than settle for something cheaper but way crappier.
So now, I'm looking at stuff on Newegg. And, as I've said before, I'm not really a hardware guy. Therefore, I'll just post some stuff here and hope to get some more good advice/recommendations like I have in the past (thanks
korby and stuckinacave), even if I didn't necessarily heed that advice like I probably should have (i.e. I spent money on trying to get the old crap working again rather than just biting the bullet and going for new crap to begin with, as korby had suggested).CPU: List of contenders. I pretty much just went to Newegg, did a search for CPUs, limited it to Intel, and then sorted by "Best Rating". What I see here is generally within the range I'm willing to spend on one. I think that $300 or so is around the high end of that range, because I'm not really willing to spend a full half grand on just a CPU. On the other hand, I don't really want one of the cheapo $40 CPUs, unless there's a compelling reason for why I'd be better off scrimping rather than going for one of the higher priced ones. As for Dual-Core vs Quad-Core, this is another thing I'm pretty much clueless about. I mean, I know that Quad-Core is obviously more, but I don't know that it's necessarily better or something that I'd really need, now or in the future. Also, lastly, the reason I limited it to Intel is simply because that's what I'm familiar with. If there are compelling reasons why I would want to go with something else instead, like AMD or whatever, I'd like to hear those as well.
Motherboard: This one I'm even less sure about. All I know is that the choice of motherboard will mainly depend on the choice of CPU. The ones with Socket 775 seem the most prevalent, but some of the higher end CPUs in the previous list need Socket 1156 or Socket 1366. Based solely on price alone, most of the 775 mobos seem a bit cheaper than I would expect new mobos to cost, which kind of raises a red flag for me (i.e. it makes me think they might be older than I'm looking for, which, in turn, makes me think that the CPUs they service also might be older than I'm looking for, and it might bottleneck me in the future for upgrades). The 1366's on the other end, seem just a wee bit pricey, although there are a few cheaper versions of that in there as well. Therefore, again based just on price, the 1156's (and their corresponding CPUs) look to be what I might want. Then again, I'm also looking for potential future upgradeability, so I might be better off splurging a bit more now, I don't know. As far as most of the rest of the motherboard specs are concerned, I'm mostly in the dark and don't know what's good and what isn't, aside from the typical "bigger is better".
RAM: This is the third component I'll need, but for now, I think I'll leave that alone until I get the above two situated. That said, 240 pin, seems to be the in-thing now, based on glancing at a few of those mobo specs. I'd probably just stick with 4GB or so for now, but I like the idea of being able to upgrade to 24GB as some of those mobos seemed capable of doing. Also, the difference between DDR2 and DDR3 is lost on me, aside from that I assume DDR3 is better, but I don't know if that's what I need right now. I guess as long as the motherboard could handle both, I could get cheaper crap for now and upgrade later if need be, but am also willing to maybe go ahead and splurge if it wouldn't be worthwhile in the long run to waste money on the lesser stuff. However, if a motherboard will only handle one or the other, I'd probably be better off going with the DDR3 (this applies to the motherboard selection as well).
Video card: The choice, as usual, is between ATI cards and Nvidia cards. I've used both in the past, and have no real preference for one over the other, though my previous three have been ATI. Looks like PCIe 2.0 is the most prevalent, versus the 2.1. I don't know what the difference is there anyway, so I'd probably be fine with the 2.0 anyway. My high end price range is probably $200 or so for that, maybe $300 but that's the absolute cut-off point. Again, the mobo will also probably depend on this as well, i.e. it will need a PCIe slot that supports the video card. I don't expect that will be a problem though.
Power Supply: Since
korby said that the new 450W I bought for the old computer likely won't be beefy enough for a new one, I'm looking for some suggestions on this as well, though I'll hold off on that as well until the rest is squared away.Case: I just want something that will work with the above. Nothing fancy, although I'd like it to at least be spacious/well-designed enough that I can replace the freaking power supply (or anything else) without first being required to remove the CPU+heatsink (or anything else). Anyway, not even going to really look into that yet until I get the rest of the above squared away. Just mentioning it here in case someone has a definite one that they adore and want to plug.
OS: Since I have a new, unused HDD that I can put into this one, I won't need to buy one of those. Also, I have a Windows XP disc that I can use to install that onto the new comp. However, I'm unsure if I might not just be better off going ahead and getting Windows 7 or something. For instance, I'm pretty sure XP has a max RAM limit that is pretty low, like 4GB or somesuch. On the other hand, I'm not really looking for much more RAM than that, at least not at the get go. Also, it doesn't really have to be done right now since I can always upgrade that later on, so there is that as well. I think I'll just stick with XP for now, but if there are compelling reasons to go ahead and upgrade, I'm open to hearing them.
The gist: I'm being hella lazy here and just asking whoever is reading this (who knows more about this kind of thing than I do, naturally) to basically build me a hypothetical new computer based on the above lists of stuff, or whatever you may want to substitute instead of the above, if there is something that is better. My order of priority is: potential future upgradeability->cost efficiency->current awesomeness. That is, I want it as cheap as possible, but I also want to be able to upgrade it later and not be bottlenecked into needing a new mobo or something six months down the road, so am willing to maybe spend more to get that. While it would be nice to get a system that is super awesome right now, that is secondary to getting one that is affordable. $1000-$1500 overall is the upper limit (given that I have some parts that I can reuse from the old comp, like the HDD and DVD-RW and such), though cheaper is better if possible, of course. Not sure if that's actually reasonable, though. Mainly, the motherboard is probably the thing I am most willing to splurge on for the sake of upgradeability, while I'm fine for now with the rest of the components being whatever is low-mid range for their corresponding slots on the motherboard. But, again, I might be willing to spend up to an extra $20-50 for something that is significantly (perhaps disproportionately) better, than settle for something cheaper but way crappier.
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Date: 2010-01-23 11:14 am (UTC)From:I think Nvidia is the current generation graphics winner. 99.9% of all video cards are PCIe-x16, and some motherboards will have at least 1 of those slots. You'll only need more than one PCIe-x16 slot if you are going to have more than one video card. Also video cards now need direct power plug-ins from your power supply. My current card *reads the box*, a EVGA GeForce GTX285 requires at least a 550W power supply with 2 6-pin PCI Express power connectors or 4 available hard disk power connectors. It's no wonder I have an 850W supply in my current computer.
How your case looks is just a matter of personal preference, but if you want a beige box, good luck. Everything is black now, or some kind of ridiculous neon light infused glass windowed behemoth. I tend to care more about how many hard drive bays it has inside, and for that the pictures on NewEgg are wonderful. I don't think you'll find any problems in new cases like you had in your current one though.
How much RAM your OS can support depends on if you have a 32-bit OS or a 64-bit OS. XP 32-bit and Win7 32-bit support a maximum of 4GB RAM, minus the RAM on your video card, while a 64-bit OS has a limit of something like 127GB, or some other gigantic number that we don't have to worry about reaching in the near future. A good example is my current computer, built with Win7 64-bit in mind, I am currently running XP 32-bit because I'm too lazy to upgrade the OS so far (I've had the damn CD since October too). I have 6GB of RAM installed, and a 1GB video card. As a result, Windows XP only makes use of 3GB of RAM. Once I get off my lazy butt and install Win7 64-bit, Windows will see all 6GB of RAM.
I'd suggest checking out the forums at tomshardware.com. People post there all the time asking for opinions on a new computer, and the forum regulars tend to take the time to work within price limits and needs to come up with new systems. When I start thinking about new computers, I tend to lurk there for about a month just getting a feel for what they like and in what directions things like CPU speeds and graphics brand superiority are moving. Who knows, they might even be able to suggest ways to fix your current computer that have escaped me.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-23 02:33 pm (UTC)From:Motherboard: You'd have to check, but getting something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131620&cm_re=asus_p7p55d-_-13-131-620-_-Product which is futureproof with USB 3.0 and the newer SATA spec is a good choice. Just make sure you match it with whichever video card you're getting.
RAM: If you go with the above board (or something similar) You'll be able to get some lightning quick ram. I'd go with 4GB for now. Not the fastest, but again, good price/performance. I'm a fan of Corsair and something like this should do fine http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145265&cm_re=240_pin_ram_ddr3-_-20-145-265-_-Product
Video Card: I (think) I put an ATI Radeon 5770 into my brother's computer. I'd go with a brand you like, but the Powercolor one seems to be the better user reviewed card on Newegg. I have an nVidia 275 GTX (a little more money) and it's really good as well (a little beefier than the ATI, but the cost reflects that).
Power Supply and Case...Korby has said what I would say as well...
As for OS, if the budget allows it, go for Win7 64bit version and be done with it. I've upgraded 3 computers in the past 6 months (mine, my brother's and my dad's), and each one is running Win7 and we all like it. Each of these systems has 4GB+ of Ram (Mine has 6GB) and at some point you'll need the upgrade anyways.
PS (and only one "p" :D) The system I've shown above is almost exactly what I built for my brother and he loves it. He's running games like Dragon Age without a hitch on some pretty high settings and I suspect the system will be good to him for some time.