Decent Computer for Price?

thedog789 · Post by **thedog789** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 5:02 pm

Semi- final build

$122.99 - DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D ATX AMD Motherboard
$189.00 - XFX Geforce 7600GT PV-T73G-UDE3
$164.99 - OCZ Gold Edition 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail
$67.99 - Thermaltake W0090RU 470W Power Supply
$325.00 - AMD Opteron 165 Stock
$79.99 - Thermaltake SOPRANO VB1000BWS

Total : 949.96 before tax / shipping.

Any thoughts?

I guess I will have to try and see what is causing my computer to crash but for sure I am going to get a new system.

gangstaj8 · Post by **gangstaj8** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 5:29 pm

I'm just concerned about you putting a possibly failing HDD in your new system. I'm not trying to deter you from getting your new system, but I think it would save you a lot of grief knowing that you're putting in a stable HDD. Wouldn't you just scream if you put your new system together and it crashed right off the bat simply cause your HDD was crapping out? Otherwise, the little knowledge I have about building systems, it looks like you've got a good line-up. Good luck.

NeoQuixotic · Post by **NeoQuixotic** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:13 pm

Mobo looks good.

Video card is good, but not the best price. I'd go with either of these two.
XFX $159 after MIR
EVGA $164 after MIR
If you ever need more 3d power, the 7600 GTs in a SLI setup kick ass ^_^!

Ram looks good.

Processor is good, but get a 3rd party cooler to OC even more, or consider an Opteron 170 to get a higher OC potential. Here's a link to a good 3rd party cooler. Many Opteron users have OC'ed the crap out of their processors with this cooler. The only downsides are it's $50+ and freaking HUGE!!!
Thermaltake Big Typhoon CL-P0114 120mm Cooling Fan with Heatsink

Case looks good except no power supply. DO NOT skimp on the power supply or it will hurt you sooner or later! I'd get at least a 500W rated for SLI if you ever plan on loading that system up or obviously getting another 7600 GT for SLI. Make sure you get a good high quality PSU or you may get sytem instablity/crashes or even damage parts!

I'd recommend for video editing and playing games to get at least one Western Digital Raptor hard drive. Load your games or video files onto that drive. If you have the money now or later I'd highly recommend getting 2 or more for a RAID 0 or 0+1 setup. Hard drives are still the major bottleneck in computers.

Joe88 · Post by **Joe88** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:16 pm

Your building more of a gamming machine here then what it was orginally intended for.
I got my comp out of the trash because it kept crashing on them so I fixed it and it works great now.

The graphics crad, you dont really need that one, if your inteneding on playing doom 3/hl2/bf2 any of those games.
You should look in a AGP crad for a cheaper price.

Willen · Post by **Willen** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 2:23 am

Joe88 wrote:Your building more of a gamming machine here then what it was orginally intended for.
I got my comp out of the trash because it kept crashing on them so I fixed it and it works great now.

The graphics crad, you dont really need that one, if your inteneding on playing doom 3/hl2/bf2 any of those games.
You should look in a AGP crad for a cheaper price.

At this point in time, new AGP motherboards with AGP videocards are a waste of money. The mobo he listed is a PCIe model so he has to get a PCIe vidcard.

I hope you can get the Opteron 165 Dual Core to overclock to 2.7GHz with the stock cooler. If you do get the system you spec'd out, I'd like you to reply with the highest OC you got out of the processor for curiosity's sake.

thedog789 · Post by **thedog789** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 2:33 am

Final build

$122.99 - DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D ATX AMD Motherboard

$159.99 - XFX GeForce 7600 GT XXX (590MHz) 256MB PV-T73G-UDD3

$138.88 - OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Dual Channel Platinum System Memory - Retail

$89.99 - Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 550W Power Supply

$275.00 - AMD Opteron 165 OEM

$79.99 - Thermaltake SOPRANO VB1000BWS

Total : 866.88 before tax / shipping

Think I'll pull the trigger on this tomorrow morning. Hoping none of the prices go up -_-
Decided not to get the Audigy for $65 nor the CPU cooler as I don't think I'll overlock THAT much.

LAST thing to decide on is the monitor.

The Dell is looking mighty attractive at $356.

Its down to either the Tyrius for the lowest cost / good features, the Viewsonic for the lower cost widescreen (and low power consumption compared to the Sceptre), or the Dell 2005FPW for pure sexiness (and relatively lost cost for what it is.

Realistically, its either the Tyrius or the Dell, as there is no point in getting a Viewsonic and not paying the extra ~70 for the Dell.

thedog789 · Post by **thedog789** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 2:47 am

gangstaj8 wrote:I'm just concerned about you putting a possibly failing HDD in your new system. I'm not trying to deter you from getting your new system, but I think it would save you a lot of grief knowing that you're putting in a stable HDD. Wouldn't you just scream if you put your new system together and it crashed right off the bat simply cause your HDD was crapping out? Otherwise, the little knowledge I have about building systems, it looks like you've got a good line-up. Good luck.

Sorry if I came across a bit strong...
Now that I think about it, you're perfectly right. Just how would I test my hard drive though?

Kariudo · Post by **Kariudo** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 3:07 am

if you have windows go to my computer
right click on the disk you want to check
select properties
under the tools tab you will see check volume for errors
click check now

I'm not sure if this tests if your hard drive is going out, but if it has lots of errors it could be a sign of that.
just make sure that you aren't doing anything else (as this takes up lots of cpu power and to do a full scan you need to restart so it can run it from the setup)
this is for xp home...your results may differ

gangstaj8 · Post by **gangstaj8** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 2:16 pm

thedog789 wrote:Sorry if I came across a bit strong...

It's not that, I just wanted to help you avoid a possible catastrophe.

But follow Kariudo's advice, that will tell you if there's anything physically wrong with the drive platter, thus, any corrupted data. If somethings wrong with the motor or the head, you'd probably be hearing some weird noises.

Defrag is also a good idea, it does a quick disk check, then arranges the data so it runs more efficiently. It won't tell you anything that the disk check won't, but it's a good utility to run every now and then to help keep your computer running smoothly. Good luck.

oldwrench · Post by **oldwrench** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 5:05 pm

I don't know what brand hdd you have, but most manufactures have tools on their web sites for testing their drives. Check the oem web page for support, they probably have a program to download that goes far beyond the windows test.