Building a new computer

Fodder said:
Careful V, you're dating yourself. =D
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I know, I know.... But I couldn't resist after looking up a little Wikipedia info about the Coco and having a huge nostalgia wave hit me. I ran into a Java applet that simulates a Coco and included a bunch of software I remember. It's a good thing today is slow at work.

P.S. I'm still younger than Spun. ^_~
 
Almost ditto exactly for me, I had a TRS-80 CoCo with the cassette interface as well as the paper-weight 5.25" Floppy Drive. In progression, I started with a TRS-80 CoCo around 1984, programming in Basic of course. Then I upgraded to an 8088 IBM with DOS 2 or a later version of DOS 1.x, can't remember. Eventually a 80386 with Windows 2.0 and then a 80486 with Windows 3.0... I upgraded the 486 to better hardware and Windows 95. Around 1992, I self-taught myself coxial networks & Novell via my H.S. Library (a number of "oops" moments there...) -- Then came serial networks and VAX clusters giving way to Ethernet 10BASE-T and so on.

I still remember DOS 4 being a big deal when it came out... I've got a catalog somewhere at home in America from Tandy computer shop listing their TOP machine, a 80386 running at 16MHz for a whopping $6,000. Back when 23MB HDD's were ALL you'd ever need! :google:


Varda said:
My first computer was a TRS-80 Color Computer. 32k RAM (eventually upgraded to 64k) and just under 900KHz (you could hit almost 1.8MHz but you'd lose hi-res graphics). A year later I finally got a color TV to replace the black and white one my parents had let me use. ^_^;;

Although the computer has long been retired, my parents still use that little color TV. ^_^;;;;
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Edlin anyone?
 
He said to me he was loving it, getting great FPS in FFXI, all that jazz. So seems all went well.
 
Pretty much what's on the first page :x I was a little impatient and pressed the submit order about an hour after I had made the post... and for some reason got it like 100 time faster than I had anticipated. Ordered it from newegg.com on a Saturday night, got it on Tuesday morning o.o and it wasn't even priority mail shipped.

Like Jot said, comp is fantastic. Exceeded my expectations in every way.
 
Consider yourself lucky, I ordered mine on a Thursday evening, next day mail, and it arrived the Friday of NEXT week.
 
Hi-jacking this thread :)

I can't decide on which board.

P5Q3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP

or

P5Q Deluxe

Or can you suggest something better?

CPU i'm looking at is E8600 or once again can you suggest soemthing better?:)

I don't mind if you suggest a QUAD, i want something to last me like my old system.

Not interested in overclocking, gets to hot here in summer and have no aircon. Had fun with my Abit IC7MAX3 but shes dead now and I no longer have the interest anymore to o/c.

Also not interested in Crossfire etc.

PC will be used for general/gamage use. Sometimes i encode movies but not often.
 
Well Def, Those two motherboard are essentially exactly the same board, one of them with built in wifi. Both are pretty much top tier.

For the CPU, I'd say get an E8400, but since you don't want to overclock, stick with the E8600. And since all Intel chipsets are crossfire compatible, go get an HD4870.
 
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Without going to check as i'm kind of late heading for work, One board is DDR3 and the other DDR2 or will they both support DDR2?

BTW what PC cases you guys have?
 
Oh, well, DDR2 and DDR3 are not THAT much different. They are not interchangeable, though. DDR3 will give you better performance, especially on the newer 45nm CPUs, but the price is rather high at the moment. The upside of DDR3 is future compatibility. The switch to 32nm CPUs with the integrated memory controllers will make DDR3 the best choice for users with Intel based systems. So, your options are:

Low price, wide availability, soon to be phased out
High Price, limited availability, futureproof
 
Newegg has a lot of negative reviews for that board it looks like.

Some of it seems to be related to issues with DDR3
 
defiant said:
Motherboard: P5Q Deluxe

CPU: E8500 (can't justify the price for an E8600 with the 8500 being $100 cheaper).

HDD: Wester Digital WD1500BLFS Raptor 2.5in 150GB SATA hard drives 10,000rpm

Case: Still looking

Memory: ?

Video: ?

Sound: Sound Blaster X-Fi
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Here is an update =o

I'm keep the DVD burner and older hdds (for storage) from old pc for now and upgrade them in the future.

i loathe reading up on is memory, i want atleast 2gig high quality ram. Can you maybe suggest something for me Furax?

I've had horribe luck in the past with ATI cards. I've owned 2 of them and both where replaced in a 3month span due to dieing on me so i went back to NVIDIA. I'm sure you wouldn't of mentioned the HD4870 if it wasn't good but what NVIDIA card would you get if ATI wasn't an option?
 
@ Lexa, i was reading up on that Case just the other night. I was almost convinced it was the one but i thought i should look around and so far nothing else seem appelaing yet.
 
For memory, I'd personally go with Corsair. You don't have to buy the really expensive stuff, but I've never had a Corsair chip fail. I also have had very good luck with buying memory from Crucial.com, I've bought a bunch of server-grade memory from them with no problems.
 
There's three brands I'd recommend as far as memory goes:
Corsair
Mushkin
OCZ

I've owned Mushkin and OCZ brands and they're all excellent. My 1GB OCZ Platinum DDR2 lasted me for 4 years before I fucked it up in my move. I've had 2 sticks of Mushkin DDR2-800 now for the past 2 months running somewhere around DDR-900 with zero issues.

What's your budget for a graphics card? If you're looking to get in under $300, get a GTX260. For $200 - 9800GTX+.

For cases: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010090007%2050001375%204017&name=%24100%20-%20%24200

For sound cards: Avoid SoundBlaster, please. They have notorious driver issues. Get a card from HT Omega, they are really great cards.
 
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I really don't have a budget. I planned to upgrade next year with the new CPUs and stuff but i'm kind of forced to do it now =\

Thanks for the info i'll have a look around later today and try and finalize it all.
 
update

Not going to worry about Sound Card for now.

<TABLE borderColor=#cccccc cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="80%" align=center border=1><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=8><TR class=tabletitle><TD width="60%">Product</TD><TD width="10%">Quantity</TD><TD width="10%">Price</TD><TD width="8%">Gst</TD><TD width="12%">Total</TD><TR><TD class=proname width="60%">Thermaltake Tough power 850W with PFC cable Management PSU <TD class=proname><INPUT size=3 value=1 name=box_1405495> <TD class=proname>$237.00 <TD class=proname>$21.55 <TD class=proname>$237.00 <TR><TD class=proname width="60%">Intel ATX E8500 CORE 2 DUO/3.16GHz/6MB/1333FSB/LGA775 <TD class=proname><INPUT size=3 value=1 name=box_1405457> <TD class=proname>$229.00 <TD class=proname>$20.82 <TD class=proname>$229.00 <TR><TD class=proname width="60%">Corsair TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF 4GB (2x XMS2 2GB) PC-8500 (1066MHz) DDR2 5 <TD class=proname><INPUT size=3 value=1 name=box_1405878> <TD class=proname>$199.00 <TD class=proname>$18.09 <TD class=proname>$199.00 <TR><TD class=proname width="60%">Asus P5Q-Deluxe ExGATE 16PP S775 P45 DDR2 FSB1600 3xPCIE RAID 3xLAN 2x <TD class=proname><INPUT size=3 value=1 name=box_1405461> <TD class=proname>$229.00 <TD class=proname>$20.82 <TD class=proname>$229.00</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

<TABLE width="100%" align=center border=0><TBODY><TR class=colbg><TD>XFX GTX260 896M xxx ED DDR3 Dual DVI HDTV (GX-260N-ADD9)</TD><TD><LN class=proname>Outofstock</TD><TD>$419.00</TD><TD>$429.00</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

That's the Video card i wanna order but they have no stock so waiting for a reply for ETA.

Raptor drive they have none so buying elsewhere.

What do you guys think? Appreciate feedback :)
 
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