Help me build a PC

[WB]

I have $3000.00 USD with which to buy a brand new setup. Tower, hard drive, monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. everything.

I have a lot of knowledge about computer software. But when it comes to Hardware, I really don't know too much, or at least, im always a few steps behind current stuff. So anyone have any suggestions on Motherboard, processor, video cards, hard drive, ram?

[IskatuMesk]

pentium 2

[Marco]

Right now the difference between a 1500$ PC and 3000$ PC is extremely negligible.  If you really want to spend the full 3000 all on the computer you are welcome to, but I'd wait till better stuff comes out.  On the other hand, 1500-1800 for a PC, the rest for a kickass monitor sounds about right.

GeForce 8800 series are well priced right now and extremely comparable to the 9800 series.  In other words there is very little difference in the 9800 series.  Competition between GeForce and ATI is at an all time low, so neither side is moving particularly fast right now.  I haven't kept up with the very latest developments, but I don't think there is anything huge on the horizon.  Check out PCs on eBay, I'd go with 3gb ram, at least 500gb hard drive, quad-core, and something with an 8800 in it, or maybe even an SLI setup if you want.  This is pretty much the setup (SLI 8800 GTX) I have and it runs everything, even Crysis on highest settings, smoothly.  Of course, you have the benefit of paying much less than I did, as I bought this baby quite some time ago, 8 months or so I'd estimate.

[IskatuMesk]

if you like dealing with horrible drivers and subpar performance yeah you'd go with a 8800

[chris]

get 4 or 3 gigs of ram. Get a intel quadcore Q6600 and get radeon's equivalent to the geforce 8800 GTX, if they have any. All I know is dont go getting yourself nvidia. Their drivers are horrible and they dont give a damn.

[wibod]

get 4 or 3 gigs of ram. Get a intel quadcore Q6600 and get radeon's equivalent to the geforce 8800 GTX, if they have any. All I know is dont go getting yourself nvidia. Their drivers are horrible and they dont give a damn.

You don't need anymore then 2 gigs of RAM, you're dumb. You were sucking nVidia's cock last time you posted about video cards, so stop trying to kiss Mesk's ass.


WB> I think you have my AIM screen name, so hit me up and I'll spam you with a bunch of links to stuff relevant to your interests.

[Mucky]

What is with the quadcore craze anyway?

[wibod]

What is with the quadcore craze anyway?

It does provide a noticeable upgrade, but it's still not worth it since those cores are not being used 90% of the time. Hell even dual cores are useless asides from super new stuff like Crysis and CoD4 that actually use them.

[Lavarinth]

get 4 or 3 gigs of ram. Get a intel quadcore Q6600 and get radeon's equivalent to the geforce 8800 GTX, if they have any. All I know is dont go getting yourself nvidia. Their drivers are horrible and they dont give a damn.

Can you stop bitching about nVidia? You've probably never even owned an nVidia product worth mentioning. At least nVidia has a lifetime warranty and isn't owned by a company that creates processors. I've owned ATI products since they first started making them for gamers, and recently got my FIRST nVidia and I see no reason to start saying I dislike ATI or praise nVidia over ATI. It's a freakin' market and they both obviously make GREAT products. One's cheaper, and uses different techniques, which is probably why they don't have lifetime warranties, while another is more expensive and does things the standard way which is less likely to 'splode, so they offer lifetime warranties.

[Marco]

Just from my experience, no noticable problems with my 8800s in the past year.  Played all games I own without problem, just needed the occasional driver upgrade once in a while.  Up to you, read all comments with a grain of salt, do your own research if you don't feel you can trust em.

[Anonymous]

After personally dealing with Nvidia's drivers for quite some time I have made it a vow to never, ever touch an nvidia product ever again.

I guarantee that anything Desler's SLI does, my 2900 can do just as well - and there's much better ATI cards out there for cheaper, now. Crysis, you name it, I've played it.

Additionally, quad cores are a waste of money right now; but hey, you have 3 grand.

If you are willing to wait a while, there is a very, very promising new line of ATI cards coming out in the future.

If I were you, I'd take up wibod on his offer and have a chat. We three usually talk about these kinds of things.

Oh, and outside of all the video card fanboyism, 4gigs of ram minimum. Period. You do 3d work, you need it. I recommend corsair. I'm using 2gb PC8500 and there's nothing wrong with it whatsoever. If I ever wanted to castrate myself and try out vista, I'd immediately pick up another 2gb.

[wibod]

If you're doing graphics work and you need the 4gigs then you have to pick up a 64bit copy of XP or a copy of Vista.

[WB]

I do a fuckton of graphics work(I made my avatar!) so yes, I will be grabbing 4 gbs of Ram, and 64bit...something. On the fence about switching to vista

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Considering all the trouble I heard about Vista in general ... what Vista really provide over XP other than DirectX10 to justify the trouble?

[Frozty]

I've been using Vista since it was released.  The only problems I have ever had with it were due to insufficient memory.  It is a RAM  WHORE, so I would recommend a minimum of 2 gb of RAM.  But 4gb for anything more than standard gaming and surfing.  Vista runs fine as long as you have a wealth of memory and hard drive space.  Oh, and you have to either be really patient or turn off the "Ask-you-a-fucking-question-every-time-you-wanna-breathe" thing.