Author Topic: "Building" new PC - thoughts? (Read 311 times)

Saurdaukar · « **on:** February 23, 2008, 08:42:13 PM »

Building is in quotes because, so far as I can tell, there isnt much of a financial benefit, anymore, to building your own system as opposed to just ordering one.

That said, I fried my motherboard last week, took it into the shop for a quick fix and they ended up swaping my Jerry-rigged "dual core" (P4 3.2Ghz x 2) with a friggen AMD Sempron and telling me otherwise. Didnt find it until I got home.

Regardless... thats a different fight.

Was over on http://www.cyberpowerpc.com which, through a bit of shopping around, Im pretty sure offers the most bang for the buck.

Been awhile since I dove into this realm so any thoughts would be appreciated.

Here is what I have spec'ed:

Case: CoolerMaster Stacker 830 Tower 420W Case W/ Side-panel Window.
-Standard
Power: CoolerMaster Unit 600 Watts eXtreme Power
-Standard
CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6850 CPU @ 3.00GHz 1333FSB 4MB L2 Cache 64-bit
-Upgrade from standard 2.66Ghz
Cooling Fan: CoolerMaster Liquid CPU Cooling System
-Stardard
MoBo: Asus P5N-E nForce 650i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard
-Standard
Mem: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory
-3GB is another $100. I figure 2GB will get me by just fine and when I need 4, it'll be $50 per gig. 2GB is the 'prepackaged/standard' selection.
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 16X PCI Express
-Standard
HD: 500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD
-Standard
Optical: 20X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER
-Standard
Optical 2: 16X DVD ROM
-Standard
Sound: On board
-Standard
Network: ONBOARD 10/100 NETWORK CARD
-Standard
Wireless: PCI Wireless 802.11g 54Mbps Network Interface Card
Standard
OS: Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Basic w/ Service Pack 1 (64 bit)
-Upgrade from 32 bit
Software: Microsoft® OFFICE® 2007 BASIC EDITION
-Addition

As configured: $1,474 (with other misc. additions amounting to ~$30)

Key questions:

1.) I can save $160 if I ax MS Office. Now... I need Word and Excel. Can I simply install an older version of MS Office and will it run on Vista without major hiccups?
2.) Do I really want Vista or shall I select XP Home/Professional? Does Vista have any long-term staying power? Is XP really going to fall by the wayside? Is all the scuttlebutt just angry geek-types needing something to talk about over double light soy lattes?

The system, as configured (more or less), gets outstanding bang/buck reviews online and the basic package is set to expire tomorrow (2/24).

Thoughts? Any hardware conflicts as a result of my meddling?

Thanks. Going to go see if I can get through a sortie without the "uber" Sempron freezing.

Saurdaukar · « **Reply #1 on:** February 23, 2008, 09:48:53 PM »

Update:

Spoke with friend. He says not to get Vista so I can just reuse XP and Office 2003.

Whole system, as shown above, with a formatted HD, equates to $1,212.

LePaul · « **Reply #2 on:** February 23, 2008, 10:18:54 PM »

Avoid Vista til they tweak it better.

Buying MS Office really stinks, I was floored at the pricing lately. I'm still using my $129 copy of Office 97 and getting by

Sounds like a decent rig. I'd love to upgrade my gaming rig but my laptop's motherboard fried a few weeks ago...so Im laptop shopping first

DREDIOCK · « **Reply #3 on:** February 23, 2008, 11:59:04 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by LePaul
Avoid Vista til they tweak it better.

Buying MS Office really stinks, I was floored at the pricing lately. I'm still using my $129 copy of Office 97 and getting by

Sounds like a decent rig. I'd love to upgrade my gaming rig but my laptop's motherboard fried a few weeks ago...so Im laptop shopping first

Or get this one for free

Open Office

DrDea · « **Reply #4 on:** February 24, 2008, 12:17:21 AM »

Silly rabbit.....1K systems are for......um.....where can I get one?

eagl · « **Reply #5 on:** February 24, 2008, 12:23:50 AM »

I'd get a seasonic power supply instead of a coolermaster, but maybe you'll get lucky. The last couple of coolermaster power supply reviews I read were lukewarm, but seasonics pretty much always get great reviews and the two I have are very nice.

I chased system instability problems for years and they pretty much went away when I swapped out my thermaltake power supply for a seasonic. YMMV, but I won't ever again buy a power supply re-badged and sold by a heatsink company.

I'd also skip the second optical drive. I used to always have 2 optical drives but I started finding that the second drive would quit working from disuse, and on the very rare occasions I actually wanted two drives, the second one would not work properly. So I quit equipping my systems with dual optical drives. Saves money, doesn't use as much power, less hassle, and a lot less cussing when I realize the second drive doesn't work and probably hasn't worked in months.

Saurdaukar · « **Reply #6 on:** February 24, 2008, 10:17:54 AM »

Thanks for the input.

I found a promotional code which brought it down to $1,166 so I just bought it. Kinda hard to argue at that price and if I ever go SLI in the future, Ill arguablly need a 700+ watt power supply, anyway so we'll see how this one performs.

Terror · « **Reply #7 on:** February 25, 2008, 03:43:51 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by DREDIOCK
Or get this one for free

Open Office

I would also say ax MSOFFICE and use Open Office. It has all the features I have ever needed from a Spreadsheet or Word Processor. Feels very much like MSOffice also.

T

DREDIOCK · « **Reply #8 on:** February 25, 2008, 04:02:36 PM »

I use it here and my son uses it for college.

sure beats shelling out $120 to MS

The only thing you have to remember is to save as a Doc. File