New Computer Contest

[ivank]

Okay my parents gave me a price range of $2200-$2500 for a new computer, with screen.

I have no idea about compatiables with PC hardware, so I am giving the subsim community the chance to design a new computer for me! Have fun, cool case would be nice, make her powerful! She is to be geared to gaming.

Must have:
at least:
500GB hard drive
4GB RAM
Quad-core processor
2x HD capable video cards
1x DVD-ROM (writable)
V8 or a V10 coolermaster for the CPU(i have a v8 that is 2weeks old, so i rather just use the same)
No smaller than a 24'' screen
Not loud!

Optional:
Blu-Ray player
Hi-Def sound card
HD screen
Mid or Full size tower
Water-Cooling


Good Luck, I need to order by July 10th.

Thank you,
Ivan

[ivank]

anything?!

[FIREWALL]

Buy a DELL :haha:

[Task Force]

Okay my parents gave me a price range of $2200-$2500 for a new computer, with screen.



:o I wish my parents had given me 2200 to 2500 dollars when I got this computer put together.

mine cost less than 2000.

oah well... heres my some specs. what you planning on running on it in the first place.

Antec p5k deluxe mother board.
intel e 8400
8800 gts 640 factory overclocked
samsung HD501LJ
3 gigs of ram.
just the cooler that came on the mother board.
BFG 650 w powerpack.
28 inch Hannspree monitor
antec 900 case
8800s might be old. but they still are quite good in my opinion.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Make sure you have a power supply that can handle current and future specs.
Your components should specify what they need as far as power.

Is your hard drive large enough, how about a 1 TB of HD space.

Ram, is 4 gigs enough looking ahead?

Anyway, my .02 at the moment :)

[ivank]

:o I wish my parents had given me 2200 to 2500 dollars when I got this computer put together.

mine cost less than 2000.

oah well... heres my some specs. what you planning on running on it in the first place.

Antec p5k deluxe mother board.
intel e 8400
8800 gts 640 factory overclocked
samsung HD501LJ
3 gigs of ram.
just the cooler that came on the mother board.
BFG 650 w powerpack.
28 inch Hannspree monitor
antec 900 case
8800s might be old. but they still are quite good in my opinion.

Running on it? you mean OS? XP of course, then Windows 7 :)
Its a college/gaming computer. SH3, SH4, PT-B: KotS, COD 5, World in Conflict, FSX, Arma I&II, and future games.

Is this what you mean?

How much was your computer?

[Task Force]

Parts cost alot more back then... you can get a 8800 like mine for real cheap now...

Ill look up the prices...

Oah... vista 32 bit.:shifty:

[Task Force]

the card... (cost 400 something when I got it, but it was on sale for 300 something.)
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=8800+gts+640mb&cid=17459969334875293064&sa=title#ps-sellers
Processor. (you might be able to get the e 8500, but there probably isnt much difference.)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021
case only cost 100 dollars now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131182
the motherboard.
http://www.bfgtech.com/bfgr650wpsu.aspx
powersupply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152052
DVD drive.
(I got the motherboard and CPU from newegg, came in good condition, in packing peanuts.)
Im guessing between 1,500 and 1,800 dollars.

http://www.hannspree.com/US/product_detail.aspx?id=23792&c=25693
monitor.

[SUBMAN1]

Buy a DELL :haha:

NNNNooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!! :o

[SUBMAN1]

With $2K, you can make yourself an Uber machine these days. I usually spend $2500+ on an upgrade. THings are so cheap these days though that this upgrade I just did cost less than $1000. Way less.

Of course I already have a nice case and a nice PSU and I have a few HD's I re-used, but the CPU, motherboard, video card, RAM that I bought, including a Blu-Ray burner (8x LG no less) still ran less than $1K this time around.

-S

[CaptainHaplo]

If you want quiet and excellent cooling - with that budget - why not go liquid cooling? With the 2 HD capable linked cards, your going to be pushing major heat. If noise is a concern - liquid all the way.

[SUBMAN1]

i7 920 - $ 279 at Newegg though you can do better than this if you hunt around - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202

X4 955 - $245 at Newegg. Not sure if you can do much better here since the overclockers are all over this CPU. It clocks to nearly 4GHz using the stock cooling that comes with the retail part. Add a custom cooling kit or water cooling to this and the sky's the limit it seems. Some idiot is posting online that he got one of these things running at 7 GHz. I'll have to read that one. I'll post a link to it when I get a second to find it again.

-S

[Bill Nichols]

If you haven't already seen my build thread, here's the link. With your budget, you should be able to afford something similiar to what I built.

Mine is still running great, haven't found a game it can't handle with ease!

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=148837&page=2

[SUBMAN1]

As I said - Some idiot has this thing running at 7.1 GHz. I bet he gets some impressive benchmarks.

-S

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/AMD-Phenom-II-Overclocked,7747.html


AMD Phenom II X4 955 Overclocked to 7.1 GHz


A group called LimitTeam managed to overclock AMD's Phenom II X4 955 processor and reach a record speed of 7.1 GHz.http://valid.canardpc.com/cache/screenshot/556849.png

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
Windows XP Professional SP3 (Build 2600)
CPU Arch : 1 CPU - 4 Cores - 4 Threads
CPU PSN : AMD Phenom II X4 955 Processor
CPU EXT : MMX(+) 3DNow!(+) SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSE4A x86-64
CPUID : F.4.2 / Extended : 10.4
CPU Cache : L1 : 4 x 64 / 4 x 64 KB - L2 : 4 x 512 KB
CPU Cache : L3 : 6144 KB
Core : Deneb (45 nm) / Stepping : RB-C2
Freq : 7127.85 MHz (250.01 * 28.5)

MB Brand : Asus
MB Model : M4A79T Deluxe
NB : AMD 790FX rev 00
SB : ATI SB750 rev 00

GPU Type : ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
GPU Clocks : Core 160 MHz / RAM 250 MHz
DirectX Version : 9.0c

RAM : 4096 MB DDR3 Dual Channel
RAM Speed : 833.7 MHz (3:10) @ 7-7-7-24
Slot 1 : 2048MB (PC3-10700H)
Slot 1 Manufacturer : Apacer Technology
Slot 2 : 2048MB (PC3-10700H)
Slot 2 Manufacturer : Apacer Technology

[ivank]

Thanks guys! Lots to look at!
So in with water cooling? or stay with a V8 or a new V10 COOLERMASTER?
AMD or INTEL?
ATI or NVIDA?

[ivank]

Corsair Dominator RAM would be compatible with your rig Mr Nichols?

I like your rig, might change a thing or two, the case maybe. And build her!

Where do I get info on water cooling?

[ivank]

how are these cases:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811215009
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133056
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119160

these power supplies:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182096
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121037

[ivank]

edit: I am thinking of 2x eVGA GTX 285 1GB SUPERCLOCKED, should I go with just the two or step up to 3?

[ivank]

Okay layout so far, just need to decide on water-cooling or not.

Intel i7 920 processor
Asus P6T motherboard
Corsair dominator 6GB( 3 X 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1866 (PC3 15000)
2 X EGVA GTX285 (SLI)
WD 300GB Velociraptor HD
Seagate 1.5TB Barracuda HD
Cooler Master HAF 932 case
Corsair 1000 W. PSU
Samsunf 22'' FHD LCD monitor

Any suggestions on the water-cooling front, feel free to speak up!
Should I go with just a standard DVD-ROM/RW or a Blu-Ray also?

[FIREWALL]

Sorry about the Dell post.

I hope you take up the challenge of building your own rig.

Besides the good feeling of doing it yourself just, think of the bragging rights when you take it to college. :DL

[ivank]

No problem :D.

I am dying to build her myself, but my mom is giving me sh*t about it!!
saying what if I dont do it right, I said I have 2 computer savy friends and SUBSIM!!
She said, what if parts break? I say there is warrenty, she said not unless you get from company to makes computers. I need to sit her down and show her Newegg.com!!

[Task Force]

No problem :D.

I am dying to build her myself, but my mom is giving me sh*t about it!!
saying what if I dont do it right, I said I have 2 computer savy friends and SUBSIM!!
She said, what if parts break? I say there is warrenty, she said not unless you get from company to makes computers. I need to sit her down and show her Newegg.com!!

My mother thought the same thing... runs fine, no broke parts.

[Task Force]

Okay layout so far, just need to decide on water-cooling or not.

Intel i7 920 processor
Asus P6T motherboard
Corsair dominator 6GB( 3 X 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1866 (PC3 15000)
2 X EGVA GTX285 (SLI)
WD 300GB Velociraptor HD
Seagate 1.5TB Barracuda HD
Cooler Master HAF 932 case
Corsair 1000 W. PSU
Samsunf 22'' FHD LCD monitor

Any suggestions on the water-cooling front, feel free to speak up!
Should I go with just a standard DVD-ROM/RW or a Blu-Ray also?

hmm watercooling... what you looking into. and whats your current price for it all.:hmmm:

[Bill Nichols]

Water cooling won't be needed with your rig unless you intend on overclocking. Remember, if you overclock you're doing it on your own risk, don't expect Intel to give you a replacement if you make a mistake and fry your chip.

(Now standing by for incoming from water cooling advocates...)

:/\\x:

[Bill Nichols]

Oh, one more thing... If your mom absolutely insists on a commercially-build PC, then go with a Dell XPS. I own three (and have had more in the past) and have always been happy. Dell's XPS customer support, in my experience, can't be beat. Whenever anything has broke, they sent a technician to my house to replace it.

:cool:

[Onkel Neal]

Yeah, I second that, I got a Dell XPS in Feb, runs like a rocket. Of course, you will have about $1000 left over, that will buy a lot of Dr Pepper.:shucks:

[Bill Nichols]

Yeah, I second that, I got a Dell XPS in Feb, runs like a rocket. Of course, you will have about $1000 left over, that will buy a lot of Dr Pepper.:shucks:


Or games :DL

[CaptainHaplo]

Water cooling in a rig like your looking at should be done with a case that has it built in.

www.thermaltake.com (http://www.thermaltake.com)

www.Arcticmod.com (http://www.Arcticmod.com)

www.Xoxide.com (http://www.Xoxide.com)

However - if you want a "brand" built one - don't go water cooled. Major companies like Dell won't build a water cooled box.

You could always contact Alienware (owned by Dell I believe) to see if they might - as a specialty division they might. But I wouldn't count on it. If you want someone to put the box together for you - and you go water - then you need to look locally for a reputable company that has done it before. Ask for customer references and check them yourself.

Water cooling is NOT just for overclockers. Its more efficient, quieter and cleaner than air cooling. Run a PC for 3 months with air cooling - then open it up and look at the dust. Run a water cooled PC for 3 months and look inside - its all clean. :up:

Alot of people freak out at the thought of water and electronics. The cooling solution is normally non-conductive electrically, is not corrosive, and has anti-oxidizers in it as well. Water cooling is safe, as long as its done RIGHT. And lets face it - cooler temp components are going to last you longer. Do you want to open up your box every month and blow it out? Or would you rather see a gauge (or hear a audible signal) telling you that you need to put a little liquid in the tank to keep it topped off every once in a while?

[SUBMAN1]

Outside of the hassle of water cooling and the potential of leaking parts, I have to disagree with posts above about water cooling. It is a valid thing to do if you plan to 'silence' your system from the constant whirr of fans. I'm almost tempted to do it myself one day but I don't want to monitor the contraption.

On a side note, speed is no longer the ultimate end-game like it was in the PIII days or so. A good quad can be bought for cheap. The end game these days if to make a silent machine, yet one that still can crank out the FPS's with the best of them. That is the challenge. Water cooling is almost cheating in this regard, but it is the ultimate way to go. Large copper sinks are second.

The two types of sinks - copper and aluminum. aluminum will disapate more heat quicker than copper pound for pound. However, copper has much more mass in the same physical area and same form factor - probably 2 x the mass, so copper ultimately will be the better heat sink if they are of the same exact form factor, though it will weigh twice as much. Copper will also take longer to heat up - think large iron skillet vs small frying pan. So quick changes in temp will be ironed out as an average where the aluminum could theoretically overheat you component under the same conditions. Copper = less spikes.

A site you must visit to learn of quiet parts:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/

Those guys will teach you the best of the best for making a silent rig. Full MP3's on the sound outputs from fans to PSU's. You will be able to tell in advance if a PSU or fan will annoy you prior to putting it in your rig.

As for video card - NVidia is no longer and option this year. They are out of the game till some time next year.

As for CPU - that is the crap shoot. i7 or 955. Both work. Both have their pluses and minuses if you are talking the 920 vs the 955. If you are talking a faster i7, then the i7 will be the clear winner with the real drawback being a crazy price tag. What does the i7 965 go for these days? $1000 just for a desktop CPU? That is just wrong. It is not even a server CPU where I could understand the price tag. This is for the person willing to pay the money for a part that probably is just a clocked up 920.

Remember, Intel is usually not out for the customer, but more out for the profit. They do not have your best interest in mind. So maybe it is a moral thing with you. If not, buy what you want.

-S

[ivank]

@subman1: so your saying go with AMD and ATI? I do not know the differecne between Intel and AMD so please help me compare them. I have an AMD now in my HP.

As for water-cooling, I need a silent rig because this is going to be in a dorm room, and I do not want to disrupt my room-mate. So if I can get a silent rig with fans and heatsinks, then bring it on:D

[FIREWALL]

I've had liquid cooling since my last build as it isn't kept in a surgicaly clean room without a problem. Nuff said.


What's all this about noisey fans ? My last rig had 7 fans and I couldn't hear a thing from it. All filtered and still got dirty quick.

What do you people have ? Elephant Ears !!! :haha:

[Bill Nichols]

My CoolerMaster HAF case also has 7 fans, and together they are much, much quieter than the 3-inch fan I have on my desk. Besides, when I play games I crank my sound way up... don't you 'elephant ear' guys do that as well?

:ping:

[AVGWarhawk]

I've had liquid cooling since my last build as it isn't kept in a surgicaly clean room without a problem. Nuff said.


What's all this about noisey fans ? My last rig had 7 fans and I couldn't hear a thing from it. All filtered and still got dirty quick.

What do you people have ? Elephant Ears !!! :haha:


What did ya say? :O:

[FIREWALL]

My CoolerMaster HAF case also has 7 fans, and together they are much, much quieter than the 3-inch fan I have on my desk. Besides, when I play games I crank my sound way up... don't you 'elephant ear' guys do that as well?

:ping:


:up: Bill :har::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

[AVGWarhawk]

My CoolerMaster HAF case also has 7 fans, and together they are much, much quieter than the 3-inch fan I have on my desk. Besides, when I play games I crank my sound way up... don't you 'elephant ear' guys do that as well?

:ping:

I can not get the volume up to loud or the wife starts bugging. Nothing like hearing some well formed swear words at 100 decibles while playing Call of Duty WoW:D Not to mention the grenades and M1 fire:D

[FIREWALL]

What did ya say? :O:

I can not get the volume up to loud or the wife starts bugging. Nothing like hearing some well formed swear words at 100 decibles while playing Call of Duty WoW:D Not to mention the grenades and M1 fire:D


:up: :har: :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

[ivank]

I can not get the volume up to loud or the wife starts bugging. Nothing like hearing some well formed swear words at 100 decibles while playing Call of Duty WoW:D Not to mention the grenades and M1 fire:D

FIREWALL's comment says it all!:D:har::haha::rotfl:

[Task Force]

I can not get the volume up to loud or the wife starts bugging. Nothing like hearing some well formed swear words at 100 decibles while playing Call of Duty WoW:D Not to mention the grenades and M1 fire:D

I wonder what the people that live next door to you think.:rotfl:

honey whats all that racket, sounds like theres a war nextdoor.

Dont worry its that nut and his computer again.

:rotfl:

[ivank]

Okay, you guys have helped me alot!! Thank you!
I have it down to either an Alienware M17 laptop, or the following rig setup.
Any final, suggestions/thoughts/random statements/etc... will be taken now.

Rig:
Coolermaster HAF932
WD VelociRaptor 150GB
Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB
Acer 23'' FHD 1080P LCD
2x EVGA GeForce GTX 285 Superclocked Edition 1GB GDDR3*
Creative Inspire T3100 2,1 speakers
LITE-ON standard keyboard
Logitech 3-Button mouse
Corsair DOMINATOR 6GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM 1600 (PC3 12800)
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 X58 ATX Intel
Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz Quad
Coolermaster V8
LG Blu-ray/HD DVD-ROM & 16X DVD-R DVD Burner

All for $2,361.06 and $273.01 in shipping :)

[FIREWALL]

Bigger is better. :D :rotfl:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103056

[Bill Nichols]

The Alienware M17 or M17x looks to be a good choice.

Whichever way you go: You didn't say anything about your OS... remember that if you want to take advantage of anything over 3GM RAM, you'll need a 64bit OS.

[Arclight]

Some random statements:


Get another HD and set up RAID0; use the big one as primary drive, partition it into 2 parts, one smaller for OS + progs (say 32 to 64GB) and a large one for storing data (music,video,etc). Keeping data on a separate partition avoids having to defrag 1,5TB every time you (un)install a progam.
Use the 2 (identical) drives for a RAID0 array and again create 2 partitions: 1 small one for page-file (4 to 8GB) and larger partition where you install all your games on. Create the small page-file partition first so it ends up in the fastest part of the drive. Don't put anything else on there to avoid fragmenting the page-file. Game-files will load faster from the array than a single drive.


For gods sake man, if you're building a gaming system with that budget, the least you can do is get a soundcard! :D
A decent mouse wouldn't hurt either. One with 2 thumb buttons on the side will give you great pleasure while either browsing or gaming.
Case doesn't come with power supply. You're gonna need one. ;)
If you find the system produces too much noise, look to cancel out vibrations from the HDs first. Those Raptors make big RPM, and are going to be the primary source of vibrations in the case.

[ivank]

The Coolermaster V10 will not give enough room for the Dominators.

I am going with Windows XP for the OS.

And @ Arclight: thanks for the tips, I will look into that. And I would get a sound card but with a $2200-$2500 budget and ~$2600 rig w/ shipping I do not have the money at the moment. So later I will.

[ivank]

Does SH3/SH4/IL-2 run on Vista? I heard about problems in the past.
Also can I get Direct-X 10 on XP? Because I really did not like Vista.

[Sledgehammer427]

DX10 is a vista-only thing AFAIK

[ivank]

So do those games work on Vista?

[Bill Nichols]

So do those games work on Vista?

Yes. I have all of them running on my Vista-64 PC.

Here is the list of games I have installed (in no particular order):

Call of Duty 4
GTR 2
Janes FA-18
Falcon 4.0 Allied Force
Flight Simulator 9
Combat Flight Simulator 3
Over Flanders Fields
rFactor
GTR Evolution
Strike Fighters
Wings over Europe
Wings over Vietnam
Wings over Israel
First Eagles
Strike Fighters 2
Silent Hunter 3
Silent Hunter 4
IL-2 Sturmovik 1946
Lock On Modern Air Combat
Grand Prix Legends
Dangerous Waters
ArmA
The Chronicles of Riddick - Assault on Dark Athena
Barrow Hill
Call of Cthulhu
Clive Barker's Undying
Darkness Within
DOOM 3
F1 Challenge 99-02
Eagle Lander 3D
Battlestations Pacific
Steel Beasts Pro PE
Sherlock Holmes - The Awakening
Scratches Director's Cut
Orbiter
Jutland
Dracula Origin
Space Shuttle Mission 2007

Do I have time to ever play these? No way. :wah:

[ivank]

WOW thats alot :)

[SUBMAN1]

The Alienware M17 or M17x looks to be a good choice.

Whichever way you go: You didn't say anything about your OS... remember that if you want to take advantage of anything over 3GM RAM, you'll need a 64bit OS.

4GB. People forget that the kernel is loaded into the last part of a 4GB system on a 4GB system. This allows your programs to have access to approximately 3.5GB with the system owning the rest. However, without the /3gb switch, a single program will only have access 2GB at a time unless that switch is present. Of course, sloppy programming means some applications will break with the /3gb switch, particular old software that wasn't designed on Visual Studio 6 or above. What happens is they expect the end of the address space to be 2GB and when its not, they freak out.

-S