New computer?

S

SuperFudd

Senior Member
While buying a new AGP video card to keep my 6 year old computer running a bit longer, I checked in to having the shop make me a new computer.
I got an estimate of $950 including tax for the following:

Asus M3A78T mother board
9800 Gtx+ video card
2G of RAM
Windows XP Home
+6000 AMD CPU (dual core)
Seagate 750Gb HD
Case
500 watt power supply
labor

I would supply the DVD/CD burner, floppy drive and sound card.

Any comments?
 
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I just built my unit for $980 aus

AMD 9750 125W Quad Core
4 Gig DDR2 800 Ram
1 Gig NVidia Gforce 9500GT
Thermaltake Matrix Case
2 x SATA WD 500Gig
Gigabyte S3 Motherboard
22x LG DVD SATA

Running Vista Ultimate
 
Hands down drop the ASUS motherboard and go with a different company. In the last 6-7 months ASUS quality has gone down the drain, I'd avoid the at all costs when looking for a new computer.

Gigabyte, ABIT, DFI, Biostar are all good alternatives. I run a DFI myself and couldn't be happier (well ok if they'd had the fancier version out when I built I'd be a bit happier, but the board is solid none the less).

I'd also have them bump the Power Supply up to a 650W just to be safe, either way SLi would require a new PSU, but some of those parts are a bit hard on the PSU at full draw and the extra 150W is comforting to know you're not risking everything inside.

I built mine this summer for just shy of $1400
AMD Athlon X2 6400+ (3.2ghz, 2x1MB L2 cache)
DFI Lanparty DK 790FX-M2RS AM2+
Crucial 4GB DDR2 PC-1066 (4x 1GB)
ATI HD4870 512MB GDDR5
Creative XF-I Champion Edition
Western Digital 500GB SATA II (2x RAID 1)
Antec 850W PSU
Windows Vista Business 64-bit

Runs everything like a dream, Trainz, CMP everything cruise without a hint of load times.
 
Intel cpus have better ratings on Tomshardware. I might go quad, I have an idea there is a new AMD processor due out this month.

Cheerio John
 
The only thing I am concerned about is the 500w power supply with that video card, I would be going around 600 - 650w to be safe, they do use a lot of power.

Asus are not as good as they were, I am in the process of designing myself a new system too, I am thinking another Gigabyte board or one of the new EVGA boards.
 
Oh great . . . :'(

I just took delivery of a new ASUS motherboard (P5-ND) with Nvidia bios and SLI capable for $150. Did I buy a lemon ??

My new computer came with an ASUS board but I didn't realize that it didn't support PCI-E 2.0 . . . and the new one does.

I've been getting momentary video FREEZE of a second or two in Beta. Now, its worse with the Gold version with SP1. The FREEZES are 5 to 10 seconds long and it happens every 3 to 8 minutes, both in Surveyor and Driver mode. Its no fun !

I've tried everything from changing resource cache to 2048 and greatly increasing page size disk space allocation. Its acts the same way with DirectX and Open GL. I've de-fragged the HD as much as I can. Nothing seems to work.

Since my new GTX280 is PCI-E 2.0, I'm thinking this board might be struggling to work in the PCIE-E 1.0 environment. AND possibly, the MB that came with the computer is just junk for intense 3D stuff. Its one of the first MB I've seen that has only 2 Ram slots !

Maybe it might the original motherboard that is faulty/inadequate . . .

My new motherboard is still in the box . . . haven't had a chance to replace it. You know how much time it can take to replace the MB and get the computer up and running.

I wonder if I should return it and get one from E-VGA, since my 280 is from them. What would you do in my shoes ??

I have the Core2Duo 8400, 580 watt PS, 3Ghz CPU with 4GB Ram and XP-Home.
 
I just built a new computer for about $1400 USD with the following specs

Gigibyte GA-EP45-UD3R LGA 775 Intel motherboard
Intel 3.0 GHz Dual core processor
Nvida GeForce GTX 260 video card 896 MB
850 watt power supply
heavy duty case cooling
Windows XP Pro

This system runs like a dream on the most demanding routes with all sliders at max. The lowest frame rates I saw were 60 fps.

Earl
 
SuperFudd,
Personally, I'd change the CPU to one of these; (depending on your overall budget)...

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU *1333Mhz *3.00Ghz *6Mb cache *45nm
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 CPU *1333Mhz *3.16Ghz *6Mb cache *45nm
Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 CPU *1333Mhz *3.33Ghz *6Mb Cache *45nm
or even a; Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 1066Mhz running at 3.00Ghz 4Mb Cache

*NOTE...These CPU's will not clock back to 1066MHz. If you choose one of these CPU's, you would need to check that the M/B has a 1333MHz FSB (or greater)...
Cheers, Mac...
 
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Your big problem is XP-Home you need XP-Pro to run a dual core CPU Home will only see and use one core. The ASUS motherboard (P5-ND) if that was a typo and is a P5N-D it's the one I have and works fine.
 
whitepass,

Yes, its a typo. I have the P5N-D. Despite the dissing of ASUS boards . . . I think I'm going to keep it and install it the next time I have a full day free to take apart my computer.

XP-Home DOES NOT RUN DUAL CORE ??!! Are you sure . . . absolutely? Where did you find this out ?? My work laptop isrunning CAD is also on XP-Home . . . Yikes ! Although Its been fine for CAD software.

If so, any improvement Auran made to 2009 to take advantage of dual core isn't working for me !! ALL XP-Home users . . . TAKE NOTE.

I had been going on the assumption that XP-Home took full advantage of dual core. Great . . . another $120 to upgrade my OS to "Pro" . . . :'(
 
XP Home does support Multi Core Processors, it does not support multi processors.

ie, you have one physical processor with 2 cores (core2duo for example), this will work fine.

if you placed 2 x core2duos in the machine XP home will only see one of them.

basically the rule is as long as you see only one processor in your machine (physically looking in the case) XP Home should be fine.

I believe that full use of the dual/quad cores was introduced with XP Home Service Pack 2.

You can check if you system is using both cores by opening task manager and looking at the CPU graph, there should be 2 graphs on a dual core, one for each core.
 
PHEEWW ! Thanks spiffy. I think you're right . . . the IT consultant at work surely would have said something about XP-Home if it was not supporting Dual Core.

Dual Processor . . . that is a different party all together. I think NT is the last OS that supports it.

:):)
 
I found this thread and wanted to know if the following statistics look good for a new PC, my OS is Windows XP I am not going to change to VISTA.......:p
I have chosen XP Home edition, as I've been using that for the last 6 years, but can go up to XP Professional for an extra £ 43.50.

This is a workable quotation today from a reputable company in the UK, I have just about maxed out all my options for the majority of the fields available, I can increase the CPU cooler to the next option for a small cost ( about £23.50), the motherboard is non negotiable, they only have the one available....:hehe:
The graphics and sound cards are the best available.

Your suggestions and advice would be appreciated....

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.


20-001 Intel Dual Core PC (20-001)

Customizations:

CPU: - Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200
CPU Cooler: - Standard CPU heatsink & fan
Motherboard: - Asus P5KPL-AM (Intel G31 chipset, onboard video)
Memory: - 4GB DDR2 800mhz (2x 2GB)

Hard Drives: - 500GB S-ATAII 3.0Gb/s
Optical Drive: - 20x DVD±RW DL
Graphics card: - NVIDIA GeForce 9500GT 1GB

Sound card: - Onboard 7.1 Audio

Operating System: - Microsoft® Windows XP Home SP3

PSU: - 700W EZCool Tornado
 
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Well, as long as I can hear the enginesounds and horns properly, this sound card will do for the time being, I suppose......:hehe:

Ohh, I forgot too mention, the cost so far is only £399.00 including VAT....

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.
 
Ex-railwayman:

Everything looks fine except the video card. I would personally get the smallest you can find, purchase a video card separately, and install it; you'll get a much better one for (probably) about the same money. I just built a whole new computer for 263GBP($400 USD), and it's got a Radeon HD4650, which as far as I know completely slaughters the 9500GT. Get at least a 9600GT, perhaps a Radeon HD4850, and you'll be happier.

Oh, and you should need nowhere near 700 watts; 500-550 sounds better for that, but if you plan on some serious upgrading, 700 will do!
 
Hi Robbie,

Yes, I can go an option lower on the PSU to a 500 watt, that's no problem.....The graphics card could be a problem though, as the Nvidia is the highest available at 1GB, then the next one down is a Radeon HD 2400, but, it's only 512mb, wasn't sure if that's powerful enough for the modern routes with their spline usages, etc.....

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.
 
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