Purchasing new computer - need advice

[Koendog]

I'm no computer whiz, but am in the market for a new computer that will maximize AH performance and need some advice on a couple issues...

-Do I build a box myself, as I know this can be a cheaper route for good components, even with limited experience doing such?

-Or do I buy an "off the shelf" box, and if so where's the best place to do this? Not in the market for a new monitor just yet, but will be picking up an HD monitor in the future.

-Whats a good video card, CPU, MOBO, etc combination, without going crazy on price?

I know these are very general questions. Any and all help is appreciated! 

[ABDCWOT]

http://tdcomputersystems.com/        ....Have TilDeath build you one   

[Ghosth]

Read these forums every day for a month. Read the specs for all the sytems that Tildeath has built in the last couple months. By the end of that time you should have a pretty good baseline for what a good basic AH system will cost and consist of.

You'll also have a much better idea if your capable of pulling this off or not.

There is nothing like the security of knowing you built the system, you know it inside and out.
You know in a pinch you could strip it down, repartition, reformat, reinstall OS and get it back up.

[Spikes]

I'm no computer whiz, but am in the market for a new computer that will maximize AH performance and need some advice on a couple issues...

-Do I build a box myself, as I know this can be a cheaper route for good components, even with limited experience doing such?

-Or do I buy an "off the shelf" box, and if so where's the best place to do this? Not in the market for a new monitor just yet, but will be picking up an HD monitor in the future.

-Whats a good video card, CPU, MOBO, etc combination, without going crazy on price?

I know these are very general questions. Any and all help is appreciated!  

Go through TD if you want a great computer for a great cost and you don't really want to do it yourself...if you do want to take a whack at it, go right ahead! I just built my first with the help of this community, TD and a few other friends. Once you get done with the build you feel like you have so much more knowledge in you tech wise...you know every part, where it goes, how to put it together, etc. I know I feel much more confident with building now.
Edit: Also if you give us a price range we can help more.

[Ruler2]

DIY for SURE, you will save a lot of money, if you were to buy the equivalent PC for what you have in it from retailers, it will cost you significantly more.   

I would suggest an ASUS,MSI, or Gigabyte board for your PC, I was looking in to ASUS boards for a good while and everything I have seen, read, and heard about them was good, MSI sometimes even better, they have some unique utilities and features compared to some other mobos too, I have a gigabyte, and I love it, it stays pretty cool, even with a miniature sun of a CPU with a not so good heatsink.

CPU I would go AMD, they are more cost friendly and give you more for your money compared to Intel IMHO. I got a Phenom II 940 BE quad core for half the price of the i7 920, and the only difference I see online is a few seconds processing time with video editing software, it shouldn't give you much of an advantage over games compared to an AMD, so if you're not a big media/ video editor then you will be more than happy with AMD.

Graphics I can't really give you a good idea on, ATI seems to have a few better technologies, but there's a few nvidia is working on that look pretty sweet, temperature-wise I THINK, but don't quote me on this, but I think that ATI has a small advantage on their upper level cards with the stock coolers (HD4800 series and up). Either way you go I think you would be happy though.

[Kazaa]

http://tdcomputersystems.com/        ....Have TilDeath build you one  

I would go through TD if you don't have the ability to custom build yourself. Trust me, it's not worth the hassle.

Off the shelf systems will ofc be more exspensive.

[Ruler2]

wait a second... Koendog you live in JACKSON?????  that makes TWO of us in Jackson that play!

[TilDeath]

I would suggest an ASUS,MSI, or Gigabyte board for your PC, I was looking in to ASUS boards for a good while and everything I have seen, read, and heard about them was good, MSI sometimes even better, they have some unique utilities and features compared to some other mobos too, I have a gigabyte, and I love it, it stays pretty cool, even with a miniature sun of a CPU with a not so good heatsink.

ASUS quality has gone down hill the past 3 years unless your using their higher end boards.  The warranty period on the three makers you mention is max 3 years.  EVGA on the other hand has a lifetime warranty on their boards.

CPU I would go AMD, they are more cost friendly and give you more for your money compared to Intel IMHO. I got a Phenom II 940 BE quad core for half the price of the i7 920, and the only difference I see online is a few seconds processing time with video editing software, it shouldn't give you much of an advantage over games compared to an AMD, so if you're not a big media/ video editor then you will be more than happy with AMD.

AMD processors are def not in the same league as Intel.  When building a system as mention in other threads, a systems components all need to be matched to work together nicely for a top performing machine for what ever budget your building in.  Your statement about pricing is unfounded.  The AMD you mention is 155.00, and i7 920s are about 215 now.  The AMD is 3GHz and the 920 is 2.67 GHz but still does not out bench the 920 even though it is a supposedly faster processor.

Graphics I can't really give you a good idea on, ATI seems to have a few better technologies, but there's a few nvidia is working on that look pretty sweet, temperature-wise I THINK, but don't quote me on this, but I think that ATI has a small advantage on their upper level cards with the stock coolers (HD4800 series and up). Either way you go I think you would be happy though.

ATI video cards have been and are know as "portable space heaters".  ATI does currently have fast video cards on the market and will be releasing the fastest card presently known will be released soon but has very limited supply.  Now for warranties, most all NVidia cards again from EVGA carry a lifetime warranty, run cooler and are faster in the low to mid level range.

DIY for SURE, you will save a lot of money, if you were to buy the equivalent PC for what you have in it from retailers, it will cost you significantly more.   

There is a lot more to building a system then just purchasing parts and putting in some screws.  There is the necessary BIOS tweaks (not overclocking), OS tweaks, and as the original poster stated he is not in the know about systems and familiar with building one.  If there is a bad component shipped and you have completed your build but the system does not boot or boots and blue screens where is this person to turn for assistance with the problem.  Sure he could post here, but running down a hardware problem is not all that easy when the system is not in front of you.  Spikes for instance did his first build on his own.  My hat is off to him, the guy (actually a young man) saved his money and purchased the parts, put his system together and guess what he had a bad component.  He and I spend a few hours on the phone over a few calls and turned out it was the video card and or motherboard... point of this is it took him over 2 weeks longer to get his system running due to RMA's.  To build a system again is not just put component A into component B.

My 2 cents worth
TD

[Ruler2]

Oh yeah... I COMPLETELY forgot about eVGA, I've just never looked in to them much, I don't know a whole lot about their products, but I was aware of their good warranty. But that's why there's people like you out there TD   

[skribetm]

AMD processors are def not in the same league as Intel.?  When building a system as mention in other threads, a systems components all need to be matched to work together nicely for a top performing machine for what ever budget your building in.  Your statement about pricing is unfounded.  The AMD you mention is 155.00, and i7 920s are about 215 now.  The AMD is 3GHz and the 920 is 2.67 GHz but still does not out bench the 920 even though it is a supposedly faster processor.

ATI video cards have been and are know as "portable space heaters".  ATI does currently have fast video cards on the market and will be releasing the fastest card presently known will be released soon but has very limited supply.  Now for warranties, most all NVidia cards again from EVGA carry a lifetime warranty, run cooler and are faster in the low to mid level range.

Legion Hardware has updated  the Radeon HD 5970 scaling article to include benchmarks with the Phenom II X4. The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 results are very similar to those seen in Left 4 Dead 2, and again the Phenom II X4 processors struggle when clocked at 2.6GHz or below. The performance does pick up greatly at 2.8GHz, and we saw steady improvements all the way to 4.0GHz. Interestingly, when maxed out at 4.0GHz, the Phenom II X4 was faster than the Core i7 by a small margin. However it wasn’t until we hit 3.0GHz that the Phenom II X4 was able to overtake the 2.0GHz Core i7. This is a pretty interesting article with some interesting results. The Core i7 performs great at 2GHz, but at 4GHz it hardly scales in performance at all while the Phenom II X4 doesn't look so good at 2GHz, but it steadily scales up as MHz increases in most cases. The Phenom II X4 results were quite different to those recorded when testing with the Core i7 processors, though this was not necessarily a bad thing. When operating at lower clock speeds, the Phenom II X4 did not fair all that well, as we saw a sharp decline in performance. However when clocked at 3.0GHz and beyond, the Phenom II X4 really picked up the pace, and in many cases was able to outclass the Core i7. http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=869&p=23

a phenom II 955BE(stock 3.2GHz) or 965BE(stock 3.4GHz) will outperform the core i7 in GAMING (not synthetic benchmarks) at speeds upwards of 3.0GHz, in most titles. with the money you save from having to buy more expensive triple-channel mems,  x58 mobo platform, a good aftermarket cooler (w/c is necessary for a stable core i7 overclock), and $40-$60 in processor price difference(for the lowest end core i7), you can pick up a BETTER/(HD4890, GTX285 or HD5870) video card which is more essential to a good gaming experience than the cpu.

as with synthetic benchmark(eting)s, i'd take those "reviews" with a bag of salt. the data or programming models run by benchmarks are markedly different from the way real world applications and workloads affect cpu performance. first of all, does the benchmark program/code bear any semblance to the application you will be running on your new machine most of the time? are you privy to the benchmark source code so as to give it merit and base your purchasing decisions on the results of those same benchmarks? there is no substitute for running real workloads, hence my preference for actual game benchmarks over synthetics.

edit* btw, re: video cards, i don't see much difference in thermals between nV and ati, they both run 70C-80C on air with fans set to auto. xfx & visiontek offer lifetime warranties for ati. nV's cards are only DX10(thankfully AHII is only DX9c), while ATI offers DX10.1 and DX11 capability in their video cards. nV, last i read, will only be able to offer similar cards 2Q 2010 at the earliest.

 

[Spikes]

Spikes for instance did his first build on his own.  My hat is off to him, the guy (actually a young man) saved his money and purchased the parts, put his system together and guess what he had a bad component.  He and I spend a few hours on the phone over a few calls and turned out it was the video card and or motherboard...

TY sir, means a lot coming from you!

I have yet to test out my new card (HD5770) but will be testing it out tomorrow as it just got in from RMA. When I got the stuff I wasn't too build savvy but it's not like it is a bad card, I probably could have gotten a better evga card or nvidia card, but this one was also a fairly decent deal with DDR5 mem.

[1701E]

Of course we'll all suggest, build your own or ask TD (only conversed on here with him a few times, but very nice guy).  If you build your own, there's an easy way to learn how to do it.

Open your current Tower, and study it, figure what wires go where, what has to connect to what, and where things go.  If your memory is crap like mine, you can write a few things down.  That's what I did when I started build mine about 1-1.5 years ago.

Started with an E-machines and had to replace Motherboard (twice), then had to replace PSU (on my 4th one now), Had to replace CPU (went from Socket 939 to AM2), then got a new case (Aerocool M40), then when I got the new case I just started asking around here to figure out what parts I should get, that was the point I knew I needed to get better brand parts.  I was buying 20$ PSUs til I got excellent advice from here, and now I'm 1 major part away from having what I should have gotten 2500$ earlier.   Even I can do this alone, and I'm half brain dead most of the time!


As for parts, that purely preference and price.  Major brands to look for though: EVGA, Gigabyte, PC Power and Cooling, OCZ, NZXT/Antec, Western Digital/Seagate and Biostar.

[Kazaa]

TY sir, means a lot coming from you!

I have yet to test out my new card (HD5770) but will be testing it out tomorrow as it just got in from RMA. When I got the stuff I wasn't too build savvy but it's not like it is a bad card, I probably could have gotten a better evga card or nvidia card, but this one was also a fairly decent deal with DDR5 mem.

That sucks Spikes, I hope everything works out well for you!

Gratz on you're first build!

[ozrocker]

Cyberpower pc.com
Bought a dual core AMD 6000, liquid cooled, dual 9500 vid cards, 4 gigs ram, lots of goodies $738.00 free shipping. Only set back, they are a little cheap with the power supply. 400 watts shipped. I added 4 more gigs ram, and it over worked the power supply. No problem though as I intended to upgrade( always at/ near top of items to upgrade) power. I put a 1000 watter in. System is great!
                                                                                                                                                           

                                                                                     <S> Oz

[cattb]

There is nothing like the security of knowing you built the system, you know it inside and out.
You know in a pinch you could strip it down, repartition, reformat, reinstall OS and get it back up.

can't agree more

To build a system again is not just put component A into component B.

Can't agree more
look at the internet about building a computer, see if its something you want to do. Yes you could get a bad part and have to troubleshoot. Troubleshooting can be a pain in the arse, but also at the the same time is a learning experience that will help in the future.
The Amd,Intell choice.  www.tomshardware.com  go here and you can read revues.  Theres many debates, if you have the money to burn for a high end processor I think I would goto Intell, if you want to save money money go AMD. They are both good products. I run AMD and meets my satisfaction, my PC does everything its need to do.
You could talk to TD but at the same time go look at other system builders see what your money will buy you,have a computer shop by you?
Good luck