hello, can i get some opinions?

[boltizor]

hey guys, i will be building a new pc very soon, part by part (buying a few parts at a time) and i'd like to get some opinions on a few things, and i also got a question or two.

before i start, i gotta make a few things clear.

i live in montreal canada, so i will be buying from a local computer shop, not ordering on line, i will be buying from www.megapc.com

what i am building is a budget pc, because i am on a tight budget right now, i am not going for the best of everything, but anything is better then my current pc, lol..

i will be using the new pc for mostly internet, cd/dvd burning, large downloads, music/video, and some gaming (i dont play much games anymore, but my type of games are like world of warcraft, guild wars, etc etc. which my current pc can run these games no problem right now.

this is my current pc, so you guys can have some fun comparing, lol

dell dimension 4500
pentium 4 2.0 ghz
768 ddr ram pc 2100
40gig hard drive
nvidia geforce 4 mx 420 64 mb

i ordered it about 5 years ago.

now i am looking to spend about 850$ cdn on a pc in total, i will be getting the case/PS, mother board, and cpu first, then probably the rest a few weeks later, after looking on megapc.com at all there stock, i came up with this.

1: tower - Ninja Lightning Black Mid-Tower Case w/450W P.S 69$$$$

2: mother board - Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra Soc939 FSB2000 DDR PCI-E SATA S/L 129$$$$

3: CPU - AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Socket 939 (2.0GHz) 512K FSB1600MHz 139$$$$

4: hard drive - Western Digital 250GB 7200rpm 8MB 300 MB/s S-ATA WD2500JS 109$$$

5: video card - ATI Radeon SPH X700 256 MB PCI-E TV/DVI 149$$$$

6: sound card - Creative LABS SB Audigy SB0570 7.1 OEM 49$$$$

7: memory - 1GB PC3200 DDR 400Mhz 109$$$$

8: disk drive - LG 16X+16X- 4163B DVD/RW Beige 55$$$$


929$$$ after tax

it went over my price but 80$ extra is nothing, i dont need anything other then the fully loaded case right now..

all this is based on www.megapc.com, off their website, thing is by a month from now all these things can be cheaper.

so, how is it for a budget pc? how is the motherboard/cpu combo? how is the video card? and how is that case? lol


now my other questions..

Is it true amd prices will be dropping because of a new type coming out? possibly then amd cpu's will be cheaper in a month?

how is the case? you can see it on the megapc.com, it comes with that powersupply, that enough for a PS?

lastly, i am not into overclocking or anything like that, if it helps, lol..


please let me know

 

[boltizor]

BUMP, or do people on this forum only get pc's that cost like 5000$???

 

[oynaz]

A few thoughts:

I think AMD will drop their prices when Conroe comes out, so you might be better off waiting until July.

Do you need the Audigy soundcard? Perhaps the onboard sound in the motherboard is enough for you.

Why a 250 Gb harddisc? Isn't 300 Gb cheaper in terms of $/Gb?

1 Gb RAM is a bit on the small side, but then, you can easily upgrade.

 

[acegazda]

It is not true that people only consider ridiculously expensive pcs, and in fact, those people are crazy, as the market will shift and their pc will become obselete shortly. your setup is a good one, though I think the best case/psu combo would be the antec sonata. This can be found for $124 cdn and is most likely worth your consideration. The smartpower 450w will power you rig better than the ninja one included with the current case. Also, kingston value ram can be found here for $100 for 1gb. The a8n-e is just $108 here. Save $21. The processor is $112 here and that lg dvd burner is a good price you have. Anyway, hope this helps, happy building and welcome to the forums!

 

[boltizor]

Originally posted by: oynaz
A few thoughts:

I think AMD will drop their prices when Conroe comes out, so you might be better off waiting until July.

Do you need the Audigy soundcard? Perhaps the onboard sound in the motherboard is enough for you.

Why a 250 Gb harddisc? Isn't 300 Gb cheaper in terms of $/Gb?

1 Gb RAM is a bit on the small side, but then, you can easily upgrade.

yeah i am getting the case/cpu/mother board in july, so the amd may be cheaper.

i guess i need the soundcard, i do watch videos and listen to music on the pc sometimes.

i dont see much 300gig hard drives anywhere

and ill be fine with 1gig ram for a month, then ill put more, lol.

please remember, this is a budget pc, and has to be around 900$, and will be bought from www.megapc.com

more opinions welcome.

 

[acegazda]

like I said, you can save lots of $$$ if you buy from logiccupterhouse.com and cancomputer.com.

 

[boltizor]

thats the thing, i dont really want to order online, i havent had a credit card for years, and i am sure with shipping and stuff the price would come to the same.

but yeah i admit, the can computer place is cheaper then everywhere else i've seen.

i try to do my pc shopping in montreal so i dont have to worry about ordering.

 

[acegazda]

kk thats smart, unfortunatly, we here in america are plagued by overpriced local retailers who target newbies and buisiness people, not the diy market.

 

[oynaz]

If you only listen to music and watch videos, the onboard soundcard is good enough for you. Though the Audigy is a nice card, and you $50 CDN is a good price, I would consider saving the money as you are on a budget.

300 Gb is the standard size for a harddisc here in Denmark now, so I am surprised you cannot find any.

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: oynaz
If you only listen to music and watch videos, the onboard soundcard is good enough for you. Though the Audigy is a nice card, and you $50 CDN is a good price, I would consider saving the money as you are on a budget.

300 Gb is the standard size for a harddisc here in Denmark now, so I am surprised you cannot find any.

using on-board sound will not be a problem. integrated sound has gotten better and better over the years. Standard size for hard drives here is 300 and 320gb. If you can't find any, an alternative is to get two 160gb hard drives and hook them up in RAID 0. However, there are a few risks to this idea - if one hard drive fails, you lose all teh data on both hard drives. also, RAID gives very little performance benefit; the only reason for my suggestion of stringing them up in RAID is to give you a combined 320gb hard drive space.

 

[Ika]

also for your video card, if you play games, you might want to consider upgrading to a 7600GT. it runs very well and retails here in the US for around $180. I'm not sure about your canadian price, but it shouldn't be too different. It's a world of difference from the X700 you're planning on getting.

 

[AssistantPimp]

I think it's better for you to wait july...and not x700...wait july and then buy everything...amd will drop the prices and then you can get 3200+...save some extra money and take x1600pro...it's my advice.

Sorry about the grammar.

 

[stevty2889]

What about the power supply? Never never skimp on the power supply. The ones included with cases are usualy generic. Fortron tends to fit well when you are on a budget, $40 for a 400w.

 

[MrDudeMan]

i would definitely wait to buy the whole rig in july. you should drop the audigy and spend more on the RAM or video card. you should get 2gb DDR400 dual channel. having more RAM is the easier, least expensive way to make a very substantial gain in overall speed. when the price drops for AMD hit, you should get the 3200+ instead of the 3000+, or maybe even the X2 3800+ because it may drop below 200 dollars. that would be dual core 2.0ghz, 2gb of ram, and you could possibly spend a little more on the video card as well.

also, i am coming to visit montreal next month from the 16th to the 29th, so maybe if you have some time we could meet up and talk about computers.

 

[boltizor]

Originally posted by: MrDudeMan
i would definitely wait to buy the whole rig in july. you should drop the audigy and spend more on the RAM or video card. you should get 2gb DDR400 dual channel. having more RAM is the easier, least expensive way to make a very substantial gain in overall speed. when the price drops for AMD hit, you should get the 3200+ instead of the 3000+, or maybe even the X2 3800+ because it may drop below 200 dollars. that would be dual core 2.0ghz, 2gb of ram, and you could possibly spend a little more on the video card as well.

also, i am coming to visit montreal next month from the 16th to the 29th, so maybe if you have some time we could meet up and talk about computers.

nice, sounds good.


but guys, like i said this is a budget pc, has to be 900$ around, and you guys are talking about dual channel ram and expensive video cards.

my current system (the dell i said in my first post) has been through hell and back, with a 200 watt power supply, 768 ram, and that crap mx 420 video card, and i played games like UT2004, world of war craft, etc, without any problems at all, so any computer is better then mine.

listen to this, i even have a chance to buy a cheaper pc from a mom and pop type pc store, 1 gig ram pc 3200 ddr, 100gig HD, DVD all in one drive, P4 2.8ghz cpu.

problem is the sound and video are onboard, but if i buy that pc, a few weeks after i buy that, i can buy another gig of ram, and a 200$ video card.

not sure yet, all i know is either of the pc;s i said, will blow my current one out of the water, lol

if anyone feels like talking on msn, its lord_boltizor@hotmail.com

 

[Jiggz]

You are on the right track except for the sound card. Skip on the Audigy for now and if you do not like the onboard sound then get it later. Ensure you get a single stick 1 GB ram for future upgrades and not the 2X512MB sticks. As for $5K rigs, well I'm still on the last leg of my 2500+XP CPU OC'ed to 3200+. I don't do gaming. Mostly just internet, music, pic viewing, DVD/CD Burning and office work. It's still doing great except when I do movies and pic editing. I will hold up until the end of this year for lower prices on the duo cores.

 

[Modular]

Geez...I'm not sure why everyone here is saying get a better this or this...


The setup you initially listed is fine. I would agree that while the Audigy card might be a nice add-on, you will gain nothing over the MOBO sound.

The only thing I agree with is buying a 7600gt instead of the X700 or the X1600 (good God don't even waste your time).

1 GB of ram is PLENTY for a budget PC running Windows XP. You don't need any more than that. You will not notice any difference between 1 GB to 2Gb unless you play BF2 or some other memory intensive game. *This comes from experience of the poster, the only reason for 2GB is if you are planning on running Vista or BF2, other than that, there is no benefit. I had 512 and played games on it for the longest time. I upgraded to 1.5 gb if RAM and nothing was faster or better besides BF2, which I don't even play anymore *

Who cares about $/GB if the 250 GB HDD is 109 and the 300GB is 150 then sure he got better $/GB but he's spending more money on space he doesn't need and won't use! Common sense would dictate that if he's had the Dell in his original post for 5 years, and it only has a 40 GB HDD, then assuming that it's full, he uses 8 GB per year....it would take 37.5 years for him to fill a 300 GB HDD....

That being said, may I suggest that you try and get a cheaper HDD? You could get an 80 GB hard drive for half the price of the 250 GB that you are looking at now, and it would still take 10 years for you to fill it at the calculated rate.

Good luck on the system build. As you can see, asking for opinions will only make the mess you are trying to sort out that much worse. That being said, here's my opinion

These are the only things you should change from your original post:

Get a smaller HDD
Get the 7600gt
Don't get the Audigy soundcard
Invest in a better PSU

 

[adammthompson]

You said that you are going to be building the pc part by part. I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. I think you want to buy all the parts at once, otherwise many of the ones you bought first will have gone down in price by the time you're ready to build, so you would have wasted a lot of money. You could buy a case first, but buy everything else at once (sometime after July 23). The other thing you might consider is starting with a mobo that has integrated graphics (e.g., MSI K8NGM2-L, $89) and adding a video card later.

For the case, I'd recommend the Antec SLK1600 with a 300w power supply over the Ninja. An Antec 300w power supply will be a better bet than a generic 450w power supply. Not that Antec is perfect; judging from these forums, they're having some quality control problems. Still, I'd go with Antec rather than risk a generic power supply. If you can spend a bit more on the case/power supply and save money somewhere else, that would be a good idea. I agree with other people's recommendation to pass on the soundcard for now. If you have money later and you're not satisfied with the onboard sound, you can buy a soundcard then.

Oh, you're gonna need to buy Windows too, right? Looks like that's another $136.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: boltizor

Originally posted by: MrDudeMan
i would definitely wait to buy the whole rig in july. you should drop the audigy and spend more on the RAM or video card. you should get 2gb DDR400 dual channel. having more RAM is the easier, least expensive way to make a very substantial gain in overall speed. when the price drops for AMD hit, you should get the 3200+ instead of the 3000+, or maybe even the X2 3800+ because it may drop below 200 dollars. that would be dual core 2.0ghz, 2gb of ram, and you could possibly spend a little more on the video card as well.

also, i am coming to visit montreal next month from the 16th to the 29th, so maybe if you have some time we could meet up and talk about computers.

nice, sounds good.


but guys, like i said this is a budget pc, has to be 900$ around, and you guys are talking about dual channel ram and expensive video cards.

my current system (the dell i said in my first post) has been through hell and back, with a 200 watt power supply, 768 ram, and that crap mx 420 video card, and i played games like UT2004, world of war craft, etc, without any problems at all, so any computer is better then mine.

listen to this, i even have a chance to buy a cheaper pc from a mom and pop type pc store, 1 gig ram pc 3200 ddr, 100gig HD, DVD all in one drive, P4 2.8ghz cpu.

problem is the sound and video are onboard, but if i buy that pc, a few weeks after i buy that, i can buy another gig of ram, and a 200$ video card.

not sure yet, all i know is either of the pc;s i said, will blow my current one out of the water, lol

if anyone feels like talking on msn, its lord_boltizor@hotmail.com

i had budget in mind. dual channel ram is a must and not much more expensive.

 

[boltizor]

thanks for the awesome reply, ill think about all what you said.


Now, the cpu i wanted was the amd athlon 64 3000 right, very cheap, and beats alot of pentiums in benchmarks, someone just told me the semprons are better, yet in the benchmarks with the sempron, it seems to be crap, so would the athlon 64 3000 be ok?


and about the video card you guys keep suggesting, thats one for a hardcore gamer, right? isnt it over 200-250$?

i dont think i'd be able to get that one, i couldnt even find it on any canadian sites, plus i am only buying from mega pc, walking distance from my house, lol there are other pc shops near me, but not as close as mega pc.

i am not really a hardcore gamer lately, i dont play games like bf2, oblivion, FEAR. doom 3, etc.

the only games i play are like WoW, star wars galaxies, and maybe a few more like lego star wars

so i dont think i need a 250$ video card, after seeing decent ones for 150$, it will still be better then my geforce 4 mx420, lol


more opinions welcome.

 

[boltizor]

Originally posted by: adammthompson
You said that you are going to be building the pc part by part. I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. I think you want to buy all the parts at once, otherwise many of the ones you bought first will have gone down in price by the time you're ready to build, so you would have wasted a lot of money. You could buy a case first, but buy everything else at once (sometime after July 23). The other thing you might consider is starting with a mobo that has integrated graphics (e.g., MSI K8NGM2-L, $89) and adding a video card later.

For the case, I'd recommend the Antec SLK1600 with a 300w power supply over the Ninja. An Antec 300w power supply will be a better bet than a generic 450w power supply. Not that Antec is perfect; judging from these forums, they're having some quality control problems. Still, I'd go with Antec rather than risk a generic power supply. If you can spend a bit more on the case/power supply and save money somewhere else, that would be a good idea. I agree with other people's recommendation to pass on the soundcard for now. If you have money later and you're not satisfied with the onboard sound, you can buy a soundcard then.

Oh, you're gonna need to buy Windows too, right? Looks like that's another $136.

lol, i dont need to pay for windows, windows nemesis titan edition is my best friend.

i was gonna get the case, mother board, and cpu first, then everything else at the end of july.

 

[Modular]

Whoever told you that the Sempron was better than the Athlon 64 was either flat out lying to you or they are completely inompentent when it comes to the topic of hardware...The Athlon 64 is way better than the Sempron.

The 7600gt is the middle of the road nVidia card. It can be had (here in the states) for $139 after rebates. I think it's actual selling point is about 160 USD. I'm not sure what that means in CDN...it's a great card for what you pay for. Much like the 6600gt in the last line of nVidia cards.

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: boltizor
thanks for the awesome reply, ill think about all what you said.


Now, the cpu i wanted was the amd athlon 64 3000 right, very cheap, and beats alot of pentiums in benchmarks, someone just told me the semprons are better, yet in the benchmarks with the sempron, it seems to be crap, so would the athlon 64 3000 be ok?


and about the video card you guys keep suggesting, thats one for a hardcore gamer, right? isnt it over 200-250$?

i dont think i'd be able to get that one, i couldnt even find it on any canadian sites, plus i am only buying from mega pc, walking distance from my house, lol there are other pc shops near me, but not as close as mega pc.

i am not really a hardcore gamer lately, i dont play games like bf2, oblivion, FEAR. doom 3, etc.

the only games i play are like WoW, star wars galaxies, and maybe a few more like lego star wars

so i dont think i need a 250$ video card, after seeing decent ones for 150$, it will still be better then my geforce 4 mx420, lol


more opinions welcome.

and athlon 3000+ would be a good CPU to pick, especially if you can find it for a good price. If you know anything about overclocking, it would raise the value of the 3000+ [venice core] through the roof, however.

a 7600gt, as Modular stated, is an excellent middle-of-the-road card, costing around $150US or less. It probably shouldn't be any different in Canada, but who knows. I would definitely recommend it if you're going to keep your computer for a while.

 

[JMoore]

The 7600 Gt is only about $160 USD from most online retailers.

 

[imported_Imp]

For a budget build, the 3000+ is fine. I have a 3200+ stock I built last Christmas and it's pretty kicking in the latest things (Oblivion). I hear it's extremely OC'able if you're into that. I'm also using a 7600gt I got in March. The X700 is pretty ancient and it's $149 better spent saved or on something better. The 7600gt can be had for around $200 now. Check this store out: www.canadacomputers.com. You probably won't buy from it, but it's a pretty good benchmark for pricing.

Also, I'm not sure if $49 is worth it for an Audigy. Onboard is probably fine for a while until you have enough for an Audigy 2 ZS or X-Fi (just got one, amazing; was using onboard before, it was fine, but crap compared to this).

The case I'm not so sure about. When researching cases and PSUs, the most consistent advice was not to get a crappy PSU and don't skimp on the case. The Antec SLK1650 is great (ya, I got it) for the price. It comes with a Smartpower 350W PSU, but the case may be a bit cramped (I had to hold the board by the sockets when putting it in). Anyways, good luck.