Opinions on new PC

w00t · 02-08-2003, 04:42 PM

I've been crunching numbers trying to put together a great new PC setup for myself. I want it to be a great gaming PC. I'll be doing this over e-bay and assembling it myself to try and get a good deal. Here's the proposed specs:

2.4GHZ Pentium 4 CPU
ASUS P4PE/L 533FSB Motherboard
Ati Radeon 9700 Pro AGP video card
512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM
100GB Western digital HDD
52x/28x/52x CDRW Drive
Windows XP Pro/Redhat 8.0

Price < $1200

Any thoughts on this setup?

Ilya020 · 02-08-2003, 04:55 PM

price is less than 1,200!!! WOW....I like..alot

Ilya

BTW-I AM Forum God!!!!

02-08-2003, 06:28 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by w00t
I've been crunching numbers trying to put together a great new PC setup for myself. I want it to be a great gaming PC. I'll be doing this over e-bay and assembling it myself to try and get a good deal. Here's the proposed specs:

2.4GHZ Pentium 4 CPU
ASUS P4PE/L 533FSB Motherboard
Ati Radeon 9700 Pro AGP video card
512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM
100GB Western digital HDD
52x/28x/52x CDRW Drive
Windows XP Pro

Price < $1200

Any thoughts on this setup?

Thoughts:

P4s suck! Get a AMD Athlon XP or a Intel Xeon (/me drools, best CPU out there).

More RAM ;-)

SCSI kicks IDEs ass

Windows blows

w00t · 02-08-2003, 07:07 PM

Xp's are too slow and Xenon's are way too expensive.

revolution · 02-08-2003, 07:16 PM

id be very happy about a set up like that, maybe a bit more ram for a gaming system?

w00t · 02-08-2003, 08:28 PM

Is there a big difference between XP home and XP pro?

Getting home instead of pro would save a cool $50.

Pussnuts · 02-09-2003, 08:10 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by w00t
I've been crunching numbers trying to put together a great new PC setup for myself. I want it to be a great gaming PC. I'll be doing this over e-bay and assembling it myself to try and get a good deal. Here's the proposed specs:

2.4GHZ Pentium 4 CPU
ASUS P4PE/L 533FSB Motherboard
Ati Radeon 9700 Pro AGP video card
512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM
100GB Western digital HDD
52x/28x/52x CDRW Drive
Windows XP Pro/Redhat 8.0

Price < $1200

Any thoughts on this setup?

Not totally sure but that price seems reasonable, although on the high end. Checkout www.pricewatch.com. They usually have the best deals around and you dont have to worry about stuff not working like you do with ebay. The p4 is a good choice, AMD XP might be better if youre considering it. They are extremely overclockable and that usually makes up for their being slower. I would consider swapping out the cdrw for a dvd-burner because those are getting cheaper now and will be big soon, plus they read/write both dvds AND cds so you get 2 drives in one for a little extra $. I would swap out the ATI for a geforce4-4200 or better. The ATI card is bascially crap. you have all this extra software to install and nvidia is just generally easier+more compatable. As far as the software is concerned... *cough* *cough* there are ways to save alot of money on that as well.

bdl · 02-09-2003, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by w00t

2.4GHZ Pentium 4 CPU
ASUS P4PE/L 533FSB Motherboard
Ati Radeon 9700 Pro AGP video card
512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM
100GB Western digital HDD
52x/28x/52x CDRW Drive
Windows XP Pro/Redhat 8.0

Price < $1200

Any thoughts on this setup?

I just built basically the same exact machine, works nicely. The P4PE is a nice mainboard, with the exception that getting the onboard sound to work under Linux takes a bit of work (you'll need to use the Alsa drivers). I say go for it. Your numbers look perfect, as long as you're shopping at newegg.com. ;-)

Oh, and, I do have a GeForce 4 ti4200 graphics card, performs nicely.

bdl · 02-09-2003, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by w00t
Is there a big difference between XP home and XP pro?

Getting home instead of pro would save a cool $50.

AFAIK there are no real differences that a gamer/home user would miss at all, mainly some security issues and more remote capability, but you wouldn't use that anyway. XP Home with SP1 is very stable IMHO.

w00t · 02-09-2003, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by bdl

AFAIK there are no real differences that a gamer/home user would miss at all, mainly some security issues and more remote capability, but you wouldn't use that anyway. XP Home with SP1 is very stable IMHO.

Great. I'll be saving all of the programming and productive computer work for my other computers/ linux so it shouldn't be an issue.

w00t · 02-09-2003, 12:33 PM

Okay, here's a finalized picture of what i'm getting. Thank you Newegg.com and thank you bdl!!!:rock:

ASUS P4PE/L mobo

Pentium 4 2.4 GHZ CPU

ATI Radeon 9700 Pro Video card

120 GB Western Digital HDD

512 MB Kingston PC2700 DDR RAM

48x/24x/48x CDRW Drive

Soundblaster 5.1 Sound card

Creative 4.1 speakers
(4 speakers, 1 subwoofer :rock: )

Windows XP Home sp1

Black ATX Case with Window and 350 watt Power supply

Black M$ keyboard & Mouse

Total: $1260 with FedEx shipping

revolution · 02-09-2003, 01:08 PM

damn, nice. let us know how it goes. Im thinking of building a another system close to that :rock:

Ilya020 · 02-09-2003, 02:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by w00t
Okay, here's a finalized picture of what i'm getting. Thank you Newegg.com and thank you bdl!!!:rock:

ASUS P4PE/L mobo

Pentium 4 2.4 GHZ CPU

ATI Radeon 9700 Pro Video card

120 GB Western Digital HDD

512 MB Kingston PC2700 DDR RAM

48x/24x/48x CDRW Drive

Soundblaster 5.1 Sound card

Creative 4.1 speakers
(4 speakers, 1 subwoofer :rock: )

Windows XP Home sp1

Black ATX Case with Window and 350 watt Power supply

Black M$ keyboard & Mouse

Total: $1260 with FedEx shipping

You shoudlve got some more RAM, RAM is CHEAP nowadays!!!

Just my 2 cents...

Ilya

rdove · 02-09-2003, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by bdl

AFAIK there are no real differences that a gamer/home user would miss at all, mainly some security issues and more remote capability, but you wouldn't use that anyway. XP Home with SP1 is very stable IMHO.

No IIS support though...Thats a must on my computer.

bdl · 02-09-2003, 06:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by w00t
Okay, here's a finalized picture of what i'm getting. Thank you Newegg.com and thank you bdl!!!:rock:

48x/24x/48x CDRW Drive

RIght on. Glad to see you're getting a deal on the stuff you want. A couple of points...

First off, I've spent more money than I care to admit with newegg.com. ALWAYS excellent service. Product is at your door in two days or less, I swear. They have pretty much anything you'd want in stock, and for less than most.

Secondly, I'm betting that the CDRW drive you're looking at is a LITE-ON. I got one from them, best drive I've used thus far, and I've had two Plextor CDR/CDRWs and an HP CDRW, not to mention installing a LG (very bad quality, don't ever buy an LG drive) in my uncles machine. I'm currently waiting for a Sony DRU-500X DVD-r/rw +r/rw drive to come in, i'll give the reviews this next week (I hope).

Before you order, take a look at getting some rounded floppy/IDE cables, they've got a ton of them at reasonable prices.

One last thing; I bought the P4PE along with the same 512MB DDR 2700 RAM you're looking at, and the performance has been great thus far. I've yet to run out of memory doing practically anything, and I've ripped DVDs, burned CDs, encoded MP3/Ogg files & MPEG files with this new machine. No problems with 512MB ram.

Enjoy the new toys!