Picking a new PC; advice?

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i just put together a workstation pc for a budget-minder friend of mine. He's a 3d-designer and needs serious horsepower, but he doesn't have 1000's of $ to spend

best bang for the buck imo

Intel Q6600 quad core (4 x 2.4Ghz)
4Ghz DDR2 RAM
500GB Hard Disk
P35 Motherboard
DVD Writer
HD3870 gfx card (not really necessary if you never play games...go for the cheapest card you can find then. If you do play the occasional game, you need this card or an 8800GT if you can afford it)

all this for 790€, assembled and delivered at your doorstep. Since the prices in the US are way lower than over here i would guess the same PC would cost you about 800$
 
Are you sure I can save on a video card? I remember when Avatar was picking his new computer, he was advised to get a good one.
Which one makes better sound cards: Creative Labs or Sound Blaster? (Yes, I am under a rock....)

I looked at Falcon Northwest, liked it. I'll sleep on it. How many of you use a Falcon? Anyway, who uses what?
 
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Sangamon said:
i just put together a workstation pc for a budget-minder friend of mine. He's a 3d-designer and needs serious horsepower, but he doesn't have 1000's of $ to spend

best bang for the buck imo

Intel Q6600 quad core (4 x 2.4Ghz)
4Ghz DDR2 RAM
500GB Hard Disk
P35 Motherboard
DVD Writer
HD3870 gfx card (not really necessary if you never play games...go for the cheapest card you can find then. If you do play the occasional game, you need this card or an 8800GT if you can afford it)

all this for 790€, assembled and delivered at your doorstep. Since the prices in the US are way lower than over here i would guess the same PC would cost you about 800$
Click to expand...

That's almost exactly my PC's configuration, only, I got an x38 instead of a p35 and an 8800GT instead of the HD3870. The beast can run almost anything.

With decent air cooling, and good memory, you can easily OC the machine to 3.6GHz. If you get one of the new quads (Q9450, slated to be released next week,) you could probably get it to 3.6 on just the stock cooling.. but you'll probably need one of the more expensive x38 motherboards.

Whitewolf, are you a gamer? If not, whatever integrated soundcard your motherboard comes with should be sufficient. Otherwise, I recommend the creative xfi gamer. It's great not only for games, but also music/movies.
 
whitewolf said:
Are you sure I can save on a video card? I remember when Avatar was picking his new computer, he was advised to get a good one.
Which one makes better sound cards: Creative Labs or Sound Blaster? (Yes, I am under a rock....)

I looked at Falcon Northwest, liked it. I'll sleep on it. How many of you use a Falcon? Anyway, who uses what?
Click to expand...

Well, I don't remember the specifics, but that might have been because I required a card that's good for high definition video workflow and editing, as well as video effects rendering.
 
Actually, she can. It's quite cheap contact or to go to a local computer shop and ask them to build it for her with the parts she specifies.
 
I can't build my own, I think I explained why somewhere in this thread. But it don't matter. Nowadays, pretty much every brand lets you pick the specs you want on their web site and they put it together for you. They also let you know what's compatible with what. You can't go wrong that way and it saves you a lot of time.

I am not a gamer, but I want good sound that I won't hate in two years. I remember being told that Creative Labs are the best, but I'm checking. :)
 
whitewolf said:
I can't build my own, I think I explained why somewhere in this thread. But it don't matter. Nowadays, pretty much every brand lets you pick the specs you want on their web site and they put it together for you. They also let you know what's compatible with what. You can't go wrong that way and it saves you a lot of time.

I am not a gamer, but I want good sound that I won't hate in two years. I remember being told that Creative Labs are the best, but I'm checking. :)
Click to expand...


ASUS MOBO are very good and also have the sound built into them. Did you check out the links I provided you about video cards?
 
I have an asus mobo, and the 'supreme fxII' soundcard that came with it sucks. Not only are the drivers extremely poor, but the sound quality is OK only for second rate 2.1 speakers.

You could get a creative audigy for less than $30
 
Okay, I can't believe I've been munching on this for so long. Anyway, it's right after taxes and time of need. I'm sticking with Falcon. Specs:

Power Supply: Silverstone 750Watt strider - modular
Motherboard: nvidia nforce 750I-SLI
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66GH
CPU Cooler: ICON Watercooling Kit
Memory: 4GB (2x2GB) 800MHZ DDR2 (I want 8 gigs, but they recommend to use 64 bit Vista instead of the offered 32 bit XP. Why is that?)
Video Card: nvidia geforce 8800Ultra 768 MB
PhysX Accelerator: Don't need, right?
Sound Card: Creative Labs Fatal1 ity
Extra Networking: Can do without it, correct?
Solid State Drives: Sounds good, but I can live without it.
Raid: No raid.
Hard Drive: Seagate 500GB 16MB cache SATA 2
Optical Drive: Plextor dual layer 20x DVD RW (I can wait a couple of years to get blu-ray, right?)
OS: Win Xp Pro
Productivity Software: Don't need
Monitor: Viewsonic 20in
Speakers: Still thinking. I need two sets anyway. Ready to take advice on this.
Surge Protector: Montser Power 800HP
Router: Don't need
Fans: Mag-Lev fans (I need them even though I'm getting water cooling, yes?)

All looks good? I want to be able to make this box more buff in the future if need arises.
 
cosmictraveler said:
ASUS MOBO are very good and also have the sound built into them. Did you check out the links I provided you about video cards?
Click to expand...

I did, and it looks good, but I'm sticking with a brand and I have to pick from what they're offering.
 
WinXP can't use full 4gb of ram, it can use only 3,2GB max or smthing like that.
On the other hand Vista is a resource hog and will eat up the excess ram any way.

What's the model of the monitor, is it good enough?

p.s. I suggest you get two hard drives. One a smaller one 200gb for OS and programs, the other bigger one for your media.
That way your media will get priority read/write access and won't compete with OS.
Besides it's safer, if your OS hd crashes.
 
whitewolf said:
I did, and it looks good, but I'm sticking with a brand and I have to pick from what they're offering.
Click to expand...

the motherboard you selected is superior in every way...

just to be painfully clear you got a Falcon NW?...

if so... you made the best choice possible in every way...

including in customer service and support after the sale...

whitewolf said:
Memory: 4GB (2x2GB) 800MHZ DDR2 (I want 8 gigs, but they recommend to use 64 bit Vista instead of the offered 32 bit XP. Why is that?)
Click to expand...

a 32 bit Operating system can only address 4 gig of RAM total... this includes ALL mapped memory addresses... the memory on the video card... even the CMOS in some cases... memory caches on hard drives... depends on the exact config...

they were giving you good advice... you can buy XP-64 online for around $130 or so if you want... find the 64 bit drivers and scale the memory up if you want to...

To address 4GB of memory you need 32 bits of address bus. (Assuming individual bytes are addressable.) This gives us a problem - the same problem that IBM faced when designing the original PC. You tend to want to have more than just memory in a computer - you need things like graphics cards and hard disks to be accessible to the computer in order for it to be able to use them. So just as the original PC had to carve up the 8086's 1MB addressing range into memory (640K) and 'other' (384K), the same problem exists today if you want to fit memory and devices into a 32-bit address range: not all of the available 4GB of address space can be given over to memory.

For a long time this wasn't a problem, because there was a whole 4GB of address space, so devices typically lurk up in the top 1GB of physical address space, leaving the bottom 3GB for memory. And 3GB should be enough for anyone, right?

So what actually happens if you go out and buy 4GB of memory for your PC? Well, it's just like the DOS days - there's a hole in your memory map for the IO. (Now it's only 25% of the total address space, but it's still a big hole.) So the bottom 3GB of your memory will be available, but there's an issue with that last 1GB.

And if you think devices can't possibly need that much memory-mapped IO, I have some sobering news for you: by this summer, you'll be able to buy video cards with 1 GB of video memory.

To be perfectly clear, this isn't a Windows problem-- it's an x86 hardware problem. The memory hole is quite literally invisible to the CPU, no matter what 32-bit operating system you choose.
Click to expand...

intel-system-memory-map.png
 
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Avatar said:
WinXP can't use full 4gb of ram, it can use only 3,2GB max or smthing like that.
On the other hand Vista is a resource hog and will eat up the excess ram any way.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I thought. It needs extra 4 gigs of ram to run. Can't win with these people. =(

Avatar said:
What's the model of the monitor, is it good enough?
Click to expand...

It says Viewsonic 20in, 1680x1050. I suppose that brand is fine. 20 inches is big enough for me.

Avatar said:
p.s. I suggest you get two hard drives. One a smaller one 200gb for OS and programs, the other bigger one for your media.
That way your media will get priority read/write access and won't compete with OS.
Besides it's safer, if your OS hd crashes.
Click to expand...

Advice taken.
 
Dr Mabuse said:
the motherboard you selected is superior in every way...

just to be painfully clear you got a Falcon NW?...

if so... you made the best choice possible in every way...

including in customer service and support after the sale...
Click to expand...

Thanks. Yes, Falcon NW. I saw your post a while ago.

I was told that Dell is a bitch to upgrade. Although as a 4 yr Dell user I say it is very durable and a good deal for the price they offer. They just don't have a wide enough selection.
 
It says Viewsonic 20in, 1680x1050. I suppose that brand is fine. 20 inches is big enough for me.
Click to expand...
Can you tell the specific model? Response time and contrast ratio matter.
 
Viewsonic 20" - 1680x1050
$479.00

Model: VG2030WM
Resolution: 1680x1050
Contrast: 800:1
Response: 5ms
Bightness: 300 cd/m2

Connections:
1 x RGB
1 x DVI-D

There are bigger Samsung monitors offered, with response time 6ms and contrast ratio 1000:1.
 
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