House burgled...computer stolen need help.

[imported_Nicepants]

A friend of mine recently had his house broken into, and his good computer was taken. Fortunately he was insured, and is getting around $3000 to play with. His 'good' computer was a 3 year old Dell, so he was thinking about getting another one, but I've convinced him that building his own would be the best way to go value-wise. His main concern about putting together his own computer lies with potential compatibility problems.

My question for you is...if someone walked up to you and gave you a check for 3k, on the condition that you'd only be able to spend it on a computer/monitor/accessories....how would you spend it? SLI MB with 2 6800 GT's?

He says he wants 2 gigs of ram, a cheap but decent 19 inch CRT monitor, and something that's fast fast fast. He doesn't care if it's Intel or AMD. He mostly plays EQ2, so he's not really into FPS-type games. He had an 80 gig HD before, but says he didn't even fill half of it. I'm thinking a WD Raptor would impress him. He will probably never overclock this machine, or if he does, it will just be a little bit.

Any help or advice would be appreciated. He's taking advantage of the general goodwill of his wife in this instance, so who knows how long he's got before she comes to her senses.

 

[Gunbuster]

Dell 24" LCD $1200

 

[imported_Nicepants]

Originally posted by: Gunbuster
Dell 24" LCD $1200

Whoa. That would be great if he got $4200.

 

[mwmorph]

o man, this is gonna be fun. ill edit my post when i do my newegg shopping.

 

[StrangerGuy]

I thought this thread it was your PC that was stolen when I saw the thread title

Anyway, here is a sample build:

Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester
DFI nforce4 SLI-DR
2 GB PC3200 Value RAM 2x1GB
Geforce 6800GT 256MB PCI-E
WD Raptor
And other misc stuff...

 

[UsandThem]

Originally posted by: Nicepants
A friend of mine recently had his house broken into, and his good computer was taken. Fortunately he was insured, and is getting around $3000 to play with. His 'good' computer was a 3 year old Dell, so he was thinking about getting another one, but I've convinced him that building his own would be the best way to go value-wise. His main concern about putting together his own computer lies with potential compatibility problems.

My question for you is...if someone walked up to you and gave you a check for 3k, on the condition that you'd only be able to spend it on a computer/monitor/accessories....how would you spend it? SLI MB with 2 6800 GT's?

He says he wants 2 gigs of ram, a cheap but decent 19 inch CRT monitor, and something that's fast fast fast. He doesn't care if it's Intel or AMD. He mostly plays EQ2, so he's not really into FPS-type games. He had an 80 gig HD before, but says he didn't even fill half of it. I'm thinking a WD Raptor would impress him. He will probably never overclock this machine, or if he does, it will just be a little bit.

Any help or advice would be appreciated. He's taking advantage of the general goodwill of his wife in this instance, so who knows how long he's got before she comes to her senses.

In the guide I did (at the very top of the general hardware thread). It has systems and prices listed. Look at the "beast system" and then add a nice monitor.

 

[imported_Computer MAn]

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
I thought this thread is going to be about how to track down YOUR stolen PC when I saw the thread title

Anyway, here is a sample build:

Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester
DFI nforce4 SLI-DR
2 GB PC3200 Value RAM 2x1GB
Geforce 6800GT 256MB PCI-E
WD Raptor
And other misc stuff...

looks good and if he has any money left over try and get another 6800GT.

Edit: Nevermind if all he plays is EQ then dont go SLI now as EQ curently does not have a SLI profile for it

 

[mwmorph]

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=11-133-132&DEPA=1
Thermaltake VA3000 Dream Tower Black-$112
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-141-198&depa=1
PQI POWER Series 184-Pin 1GB DDR PC-3200-149.99<--buy 2=$300
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=17-153-021&depa=0
Thermaltake Silent PurePower 680W Power Supply-$199
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-465&depa=1
AMD Athlon 64 3800+, 512KB L2 Cache, 64-bit Processor, Socket 939-$425
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-130-487&depa=1
MSI "K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI-$189
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=27-101-632&DEPA=0
BenQ 16x, Dual Layer DVD+/-RW-$52 <--BUY TWO=104
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=14-130-196&DEPA=1
eVGA nVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra Video Card-$439 <--SLI=878
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-366&depa=1
WD Raptor Series 74GB-$229
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=37-102-153&DEPA=6
Microsoft Windows XP Professional With Service Pack 2-$143
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=23-126-114&depa=0
Logitech Elite Keyboard USB/ PS/2 104keys-$26
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=26-104-158&DEPA=0
Logitech Laser Cordless Mouse (Blue/Black), Model "MX1000"-$62
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=24-116-282&depa=0
ViewSonic G90FB 19" PerfectFlat CRT Monitor-$209
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=36-121-121&depa=0
Logitech Z-5300e 5.1 THX Certified Speaker System-$143.50
TOTAL:3019.50

nothing better than 680w, sli goodness...

guys, read his post. he HAS to spend this 3k insurance money on computer and computer accessories ONLY! why not sli? they force him to spend 3K so just do it, it's not like you could use the money on other things.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Two DVD burners? I'd probably get a Lite-On DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive, and a Benq or NEC 16X burner. Don't forget, some games don't play from a DVD-burner correctly. (Not sure if they have the same issue with DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drives too or not.) But the Lite-On can do "correct EFM encoding" for copying protected CDs.

I also wonder, if, given the budget, it might not be prudent to wait until the dual-core AMD64 chips are available, and then pick up a mobo and RAM built around one of those, to ensure compatibility. But if the rumors are correct, that board will likely handle the S939 dual-core variant.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Nicepants

He says he wants 2 gigs of ram, - 1GB is fine, 2 is tossing his cash down a drain.
a cheap but decent 19 inch CRT monitor, - He wants 2GB of RAM but only a 19" CRT... "Lamer"... he should use the extra RAM cash for a nice 21" CRT
and something that's fast fast fast. He doesn't care if it's Intel or AMD. - Compaired to his 3 year old system, anything is fast.
He mostly plays EQ2, so he's not really into FPS-type games. He had an 80 gig HD before, but says he didn't even fill half of it.
I'm thinking a WD Raptor would impress him. - Wise choice.
He will probably never overclock this machine, or if he does, it will just be a little bit. - He should stay away from OCing until he learns more about how systems operate. He should also learn more about the background of how OCing came into being.

BTW, I just pulled my slot loading Pioneer DVD and replaced it with an LG 4163BI. I use the LG to read data for burning on my BenQ 1620.
Both make an excellent duo to copy DVDs. :laugh:

 

[mwmorph]

well the benq is on a sale at newegg so i thought 2 was gonna be about the same price as a lite-on and a dvd-rom drive.

amd64 are still a long way off too. 8+months at least for a desktop application. not even sure if they'll be faster than a single core. my friend's dual 1.6ghz axp setup isnt any faster than my 2.4ghz a64 in most applications. hell it's slower in some cases.

 

[Bozo Galora]

did we really need all that stuff about the burglary
House burgled.... computer stolen - need help - is some kind of a headline to get more answers?

 

[HannibalTheCannibal]

My house has been burgled before. I did not recieve any money for my losses though.

I looked up the word "Burgled" in the dictionary, and was shocked that it actually means to be burglarized.
hmm

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: mwmorph
well the benq is on a sale at newegg so i thought 2 was gonna be about the same price as a lite-on and a dvd-rom drive.

No, I didn't mean a seperate CD-RW and a DVD-ROM, I meant a Lite-On combo-drive, it reads DVDs at 16X, and is a 52X CD-RW, combined for around $30, which is probably cheaper than another Benq, and still would allow copying disc-to-disc, and buring CD-Rs well and quickly. Then again, the Benq 1620s are supposed to be excellent DVD readers too, so it might give better DVD disc-to-disc copying results.

I also disagree that buying 2GB instead of 1GB is tossing money down the drain. If anything - buying 2 x 512MB DIMMs, instead of 2 x 1GB DIMMs, when the price between them is so slim, would be the real tossing of money down the drain, because when the OS/gaming RAM requirements go up above 1GB, then those two 512 DIMMs may need to be "tossed", whereas, for an extra $30/DIMM, you could future-proof fairly significantly. I found those PQI 1GB DIMMs interesting, I didn't realized that 1GB PC3200 DIMMs had come down in price that far. (2 x 512MB PC3200 DIMMs being around $120-130 in cost for comparison.) I don't know much about the brand quality of PQI though; if I were buying 2GB of RAM, I'd probably spend a little more for a more well-established brand name, like Crucial/Kingston. (And in fact, I've heard that more than 1GB of RAM does help with EQ2, due to the huge levels and graphical models that they use.)

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: Bozo Galora
did we really need all that stuff about the burglary
House burgled.... computer stolen - need help - is some kind of a headline to get more answers?

The #1 problem with internet discussion is poor titles. This one still beats "help" or "lcd" though.

 

[Sniper82]

If it all doesnt have to be spent on a PC then a $1500 computer would run EQ2 no problem. Have him keep the rest. Unless he never hurts for money.

 

[3chordcharlie]

$3000 on a computer is overkill - I would probably pocket at least half if that's not against the insurance rules. Otherwise I'd be looking at a dual monitor setup, one of which would be a widescreen LCD TV, deskspace permitting.

 

[Philippine Mango]

I think he should just buy a laptop and build a good computer because most of this SLI stuff is really a waste. Getting him a nice laptop (IBM) and building a fairly good computer would be the best idea...

 

[overclock]

buy as much stuff with rebates as possible that way your friend will have $$$ in his pocket in the end.

 

[Zepper]

If you've got 3k to spend, why mess with budget optical drives? Go Plextor all the way PX-716A dual layer DVD Combo burner and their new CD/RW/DVD-ROM combo burner. There are $30 rebates on some Plextor thru the end of March, so you can buy top end and still end up with a bit O' cash in your pocket when the rebates come in (good Idea to look for lots of rebates - so you can wisely spend 3k, but not spend 3k if you get my drift ...
.bh.

 

[suse920]

if all he plays is EQ2 then $3000 is way overkill. I mean he didnt even fill up an 80GB drive in four years? slounds liek he should get a good computer (maybe even a dell so you don't have to be his customer support) and poclet the rest or spend it on displays. Thats my two cents.

 

[Plumcuda1]

Buy a $1500 PC with a 19" crt then blow the other $1300 on the biggest LCD you can get and sell it!

 

[Tab]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
$3000 on a computer is overkill - I would probably pocket at least half if that's not against the insurance rules. Otherwise I'd be looking at a dual monitor setup, one of which would be a widescreen LCD TV, deskspace permitting.

Agreed.

 

[Tab]

I go with something along the lines off....

24" WIDESCREEN LCD
High End AMD 64
DFI Nforce 4 SLI-D
Gig of Ram
74Gb Raptor Drive
2x6800GTs in Sli or X850 XT

 

[Chinoman]

Gut un Aleenwure returdz