#136992 - 02/02/06 11:15 AM
Re: Building a computer
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Addicted Boomer
Registered: 05/25/05
Posts: 4838
Loc: Pinson, Al USA
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It's been my experience that PC manufacturers will sell you a PC that contains already out-dated hardware . It's best just to build your own . A good video card is the Geforce 7800GT 256 , not quite top-of-the-line , but an excellent card . It sells for about $300 , a good sound card $75 , a good AMD 939 motherboard $125 , PSU (power supply unit)$75 , good AMD Dual Core Processor $370 , fan and heatsink $40 , Seagate Barracuda 300GB Hard drive $140 , 2 of your favorite optical drives $60 . Decent ATX mid-tower case $125 , keyboard and mouse $50 , monitor well....the sky is the limit , OS $150 . For $1500 or so (less the monitor ) , you can have a stronger PC than Dell or HP or any other can build for you . Oh , I almost forgot RAM , 1GB add another $100 This machine would be capable of running the best FPS system hogs at very high res. , and maximum settings. Take a lookie here , System Build
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#136993 - 02/04/06 11:58 PM
Re: Building a computer
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Shy Boomer
Registered: 06/05/03
Posts: 68
Loc: Oregon
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GB has something for everyone! I want to thank Billie Bob for the link re dual booting, which helped to answer my question and to thank Robert for the System Build link, which was very educational, and I'd have to commend Corsair (and the writer) for doing a great job. (But it was a painfully slow d/l with dial-up;-)
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#136994 - 02/05/06 01:02 AM
Re: Building a computer
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Addicted Boomer
Registered: 05/25/05
Posts: 4838
Loc: Pinson, Al USA
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Hi Merle  , Your welcome  . I thought that system build article was quite fascinating myself .
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#136995 - 02/05/06 01:18 AM
Re: Building a computer
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Hints & Glitches forum Moderator
Adept Boomer
Registered: 06/03/05
Posts: 13121
Loc: In Missouri near St. Louis
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Robert, I want to build my own someday. Excellent link - I bookmarked it. I'm still a little intimidated by the over-clocking though! My step-son and I are talking about building one for the grand-son. Yeah, I know. Grandmas aren't supposed to be into this stuff.
Jersey doc, a hearty welcome to Gameboomers! I have what I consider to be the ideal setup for me. I kept my old 98SE computer (reformatted and reinstalled the 98SE OS for a brand new start with that one). My new(er) computer is an hp that I simply love. It has a P4 processor with hyper-threading at 3.0 GHtz; I upgraded to 1 G of RAM; a decent 128 MB Raedon Sapphire video card; 160 G hard drive etc. It's already outdated, but I can do everything I want with it. What I did to make this system work for me was to put in a wireless network and then use a KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switch which allows me to double tap my Scroll Lock key and switch between the two computers using the same monitor, keyboard and mouse. I'm playin Grim Fandango right now on the old computer (which wouldn't even load on my XP computer). If I need to touch base with a walkthrough, I just switch to my XP or vice versa if I'm playing on my XP. I love the set-up.
As far as a new one goes, do a lot of research. There have been a couple of great threads lately on GB addressing the same question. You've already gotten the best advice - get something you can upgrade. Avoid the ones with integrated graphics etc. I'm not a huge fan of Dells, but many people love them. The issues I have with Dells or hps like I have is they put a huge amount of things on them that I don't want. Then I have to go in and uninstall, delete, edit the registry etc. But stick around. I'm sure you'll get plenty of good advice here!
_________________________
In my PC corner for the winter, gaming, knitting and reading.
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#136997 - 02/05/06 02:59 AM
Re: Building a computer
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Addicted Boomer
Registered: 11/06/01
Posts: 1683
Loc: Isle of Man
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I would suggest (having built several PCs for myself & others) that overclocking is an entirely separate issue and you need not concern yourself with it until you're completely confident fiddling with hardware and bios settings. And anyway, in my experience, the gains available through overclocking are insignificant in the real world, rather than the megahertz obsessed world of the weenie overclockers Gremlin
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#137002 - 02/05/06 01:02 PM
Re: Building a computer
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Adept Boomer
Registered: 08/15/02
Posts: 10663
Loc: Massachusetts
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I am also a weenie then. I overclock anything and everything that is overclockable.  The performance gains can be quite substantial. Rusty 
_________________________
Even monkeys fall from trees sometimes.
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#137003 - 02/05/06 03:43 PM
Re: Building a computer
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The Medieval Lady
Sonic Boomer
Registered: 02/16/00
Posts: 26916
Loc: Stony Brook, New York, USA
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I think we should start a "Proud to be a Weenie" club. Robert -- thanks for the extremely helpful input! I think it may be time to move this thread into the Glitches forum, where we may get additional feedback from the experts, overclockers, and other kinds of hardware geeks that hang out there. So I'm copying the thread over there to Glitches.
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#137005 - 02/07/06 04:50 AM
Re: Building a computer
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Addicted Boomer
Registered: 05/25/05
Posts: 4838
Loc: Pinson, Al USA
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Originally posted by Geo: I think you should mention that when you start over-clocking you should also think about cooling and adding extra fans. That's a good point Geo . A good case with (2)120mm fans ( 1 intake , 1 exhaust ) is recommendable . Plus a good quality CPU fan and heatsink would be a must .
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