Need a computer suggestion

[insertNameHere]

From everyone posting on my dell support chat im wondering what comptuer i should build because it seems they are in the process of looking into issuing me a refund. SO im gonna be building a new computer.

I want a quad core AMD, microATX board, and a medium sized case. Already have a power supply. Wondering what brands on newegg are good

[Andara Bledin]

I've bought my last three systems piecemeal through NewEgg. Haven't needed to enchange any of them, though my boyfriend did have to do an exchange on a damaged case for one of his systems, and it was painless.

I like to keep an eye on their specials, as you can often get a really good deal on a Mobo/CPU combo, and sometimes the same for case/power supply.

One thing to consider is size and form factor. Breadboxes are cute and all, but I find it's not worth the heat issues. I have a mid-tower, now, and really like it, although NewEgg no longer carries the line, which is a real shame.

The best way to figure out what you need is to determine what you want to use it for.

^-.-^

[Gravekeeper]

Brands of what, precisely? Cases? GPUs? Coolers? Fans? What's the computer used for? What do you need it to do? What resolution you working at?

Without details, it is hard to actually recommend anything.

For an AMD quad core, I just tossed a Phenom 2 X4 955 Black Edition in here a couple weeks ago and dialed it up on OC. Nice little CPU. OC's well, good bang for buck price at around $150 CDN. Just get it into a good mobo with a good cooler and turn er up. Though I got it up just over 3.6ghz on its stock cooler without so much as a hiccup. Didn't try higher yet. Stuck an H50 water cooler on it now but waiting on a better case ( more air flow ) and a new PSU before I start turning the dial up more.

Need to double up the fan on my H50 too, but this case doesn't really have the room. Eyeing a Corsair 600T, but waiting for the sexier white version to come in. -.-

I'd also whole heartedly recommend keeping an eye on NCIX's sales. They throw up crazy deals pretty regularly too and will even price match Newegg if its cheaper. I've been building my new box sale by sale from NCIX thus far the last couple weeks. Saved about $150 so far. <victory dance>.

[insertNameHere]

Gravekeeper, pretty much everything.
The main use of the computer is my HTPC on crack, I want to be able to run several virtual machines at once, I have some Kingston HyperX ram DDR3 that I would like to reuse. Right now I don't plan on OCing but it would be nice to have the option. I like the mid-tower size because it isn't to small but, can easily fit behind my TV. Also was mainly looking for something with decent intergrated graphics that would do the job for DVR/DVD watching till I spring for something nicer.
Ill have to get back to you on resolution I'm at the gfs something like 1980*1200..... but I really don't know thanks to PC being dead, it is a TV\monitor.

I guess right now mainly motherboard brands, working into the rest of it. It really depends on how bad the stock cooler is if I would bother upgrading that to something quieter. Also I was thinking of using my boss's old e-machines case and tossing in extra fans I have to keep it cool. along with the Antec power supply I have that got a 120MM fan built in.

never heard of ncix

[Andara Bledin]

Based on his description and the blurb on their website, it looks like a major competitor for NewEgg. And they have a US-based site, too, for those of us south of the border.

^-.-^

[Gravekeeper]

Gravekeeper, pretty much everything.

DDR3 is still the standard so no worries there, long as you have at least 4ish gig around. If you're not gaming I guess you could squeak by on 2. A Black Edition AMD would cover you for future OC'n. You can get a decent mid sized case pretty cheap ( really, really cheap actually. Catch one on sale from NCIX and you can score one for $30-40 sometimes ) long as you don't mind not having bells and whistles.

"Decent Integrated Graphics" is kind of an oxymoron, however, ehe. If you're sitting at 1920 x 1080, that's native 1080p HD rez. If you just want DVD/Blu-ray playback, look for a board with an integrated Radeon 4250. But frankly integrated chips are a bit more for laptops there's not a lot of point in it if you're using a mid sized tower and thus have the space for a vid card. You're just wasting money on the mobo for something you'll replace but can't sell seperately later.

A board with a 4250 in it is gonna run you around $100 more or less for example. While just a solid barebones AM3 board would run you $50-60, then you could just grab a Radeon 5450 or so vid card for $40 anyway. At least you could ebay it for a couple of bucks afterwards or keep it in the closet for a back up or another system.

Mobo brands, Gigabyte, ASUS or MSI really. Never had any of the three fail on me over the last decade. Stock coolers work just fine if you're not planning to OC but be warned some of the AMD stock cpu fans are on the loud side on some models. You might want to spring for an aftermarket cooler. Nothing fancy, a Coolermaster Hyper 212 is only $30 or so for example and allows for actually some modest overclocking. You can also slap another 120mm fan on it later to improve its performance for OC'n down the road.

Don't rely on the PSU fan for system cooling though. That's entirely for its components alone. That said, fans are cheap and if you're not overclocking to start with you don't really need much beyond a decent CPU cooler and a rear 120mm exhaust. A case that allows a side or front 120mm from there would be nice just for good measure, but not really vital. Only thing you need to worry about is the CPU. Your GPU wouldn't run that hot at that level. 5450's are passive heatsinks, no fan. So they don't exactly warm up much. -.-

Long as the case has good circulation, that'd be about all that matters. I have:

2 x 120mm Front
1 x 120mm Side
1 x 120mm Rear
1 x 140mm Top

and water cooling on the cpu. But I'm overclocking and have a video card that actually heats up. ;p

Based on his description and the blurb on their website, it looks like a major competitor for NewEgg. And they have a US-based site, too, for those of us south of the border.

NCIX <3 I live relatively close to one of their shops here. They've taken more of my money over the years than the government. ;p

[Andara Bledin]

Also, Radeon is not the only graphics card out there, with GeForce being the competition.

I have a boatload of hate for how invasive it was for me to have to update my drivers constantly when I last had a Radeon card, and the fact that even with doing that every single week, there were still game-breaking issues with every game I wanted to play.

Swapped to a GeForce and the difference was amazing. Speaking of which, I haven't actually updated my video drivers since sometime around last August, so I should probably check into that... >_>

Do your research and find out which card will give better performance for your needs before choosing one.

^-.-^

[Gravekeeper]

Also, Radeon is not the only graphics card out there, with GeForce being the competition.

Frankly at this level, it doesn't matter which to be bluntly honest. That said, Radeon caters more to the low to mid/mainstream markets with bang for the buck and power effenciency. nVidia Geforce perform better at the high end, but are more expensive and power hungry. If you're not in "Spend at least a month's rent on the video card" territory, you'll get more bang for the buck with Radeon and their 6000s series. Which is the king of the $150-250 price bracket right now having usurp'd nVidia's last offering in the same bracket.

Brand loyalty is silly though. Buy whatever's the best part with the best deal on the current market. Currently, its Radeon until you hit the $300-350 mark. Then it goes back and forth with nVidia coming out at the top end. But seeing as the difference is 10-15% even there, it doesn't really matter. Both companies are good. They both make good products. Buy the best for the best deal. Ignore the squabbling back and forth between the fan boy groups. -.-

Right now, that's Radeon for the bracket we're talking about. Better deal, uses less power, don't need as honking a PSU, which saves you a few more bucks.

The place to pay attention is the brand name making the video card itself, not the chipset manufacturer to be honest. You want to pay attention to the part that says XFX, Sapphire, Gigabyte, MSI, etc. If you plan on keeping a card a while or reselling it, XFX is the best bet with a lifetime transferrable warranty that isn't voided by modding. That said, Sapphire and ASUS both make quality cards. Gigabyte's pretty good too, as is MSI. I'm not much for HIS or Powercolor though. HIS is especially asstastic.

Edit: Totally forgot to mention eVGA, they're great too.

I have a boatload of hate for how invasive it was for me to have to update my drivers constantly when I last had a Radeon card, and the fact that even with doing that every single week, there were still game-breaking issues with every game I wanted to play.

Both companies use unified drivers now, this hasn't been an issue with either brand in some time to be honest ( and yes nVidia's drivers have sucked nuts at times too ). The trick is to never ever use the drivers that come with a card. Those are typically from the vid card manufacturer, not the GPU manufacturer and are typically shit as a result. Always go straight to AMD or nVidia's site and get the latest Catalyst or ION drivers.

If you want to totally avoid driver issues, never buy either side's cards within a month of their release. >.>

Do your research and find out which card will give better performance for your needs before choosing one.

Which is precisely why I suggested what I did, silly. Having already done the research 8 ways from Sunday for the current market upgrading my own computer the last couple weeks. <cough>

[insertNameHere]

I'm trying to avoid having a lot of extra heat. Else I need to devise a way to run the computer outside of my room in the summer because in the winter it makes a nice heater in my small room.

Gravekeeper, I guess you have a point if integrated graphics will cost more. Right now I don't plan on playing games but that might change. I'm also trying to not spend more that $450 which I guess I forgot to mention.

[Gravekeeper]

Gravekeeper, I guess you have a point if integrated graphics will cost more. Right now I don't plan on playing games but that might change. I'm also trying to not spend more that $450 which I guess I forgot to mention.

Not so much more as it'd cost the same to get an equivilent vid card, which you could at least take out later and sell or use to build another system.

What all do you need for $450 ( US? )? CPU, mobo, vid card and maybe a case?

[insertNameHere]

Not so much more as it'd cost the same to get an equivilent vid card, which you could at least take out later and sell or use to build another system.

What all do you need for $450 ( US? )? CPU, mobo, vid card and maybe a case?

Right now I'm looking at
BIOSTAR A770E3 AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard

SAPPHIRE 100254HDMI Radeon HD 4650 1GB 128-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card


AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor ADX640WFGMBOX

APEX PC-389-C Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

LITE-ON Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA CD/DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit 1-Pack - OEM

------------
$457.76 after shipping

I already have a power supply just sitting around, and Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model KHX1600C9D3B1K2/4GX

Might change it a bit, but that is what I quick search popped up, my friend swears by the vid card marker, never heard of them persoanlly

[Andara Bledin]

Wow. I just did a side-by-side on pricing between Newegg and NCIX, and NCIX want's over $200 more for the same list.

I probably will be sticking to Newegg when I have to go the mail order route.

^-.-^

[insertNameHere]

Now I'm looking at BIOSTAR A870U3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
I like the USB 3.0, as I really don't care if I have IDE anymore, along with being able to taek 1600OCed ram (which I already have)

andara, your kidding me same exact things? good to know, lol I was gonna do newegg anyways because whenever I have had a problem they have been extremely responsive and went above and beyond what I needed. I ask a question on doing a return and they toss in removing the restocking fees.

-----------
This is why I originally bought a pre-built computer, I keep wanting to upgrade just a bit more, Now I'm going to use

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EALX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Run a RAID 1 for a bit of piece of mind, as I keep hearing a bad things about just every harddrive marker these days.

[Andara Bledin]

Almost the exact same, yes. I couldn't find exact matches on a couple items (like the case and optical drive), but found close enough to count, and those were the least notable differences.

Check the reviews about sound on your optical drive before picking it. Mine is fast and works really well, but sounds like a jet engine when it's spinning. I'm going to get a slower one for my next system and a high-speed external for when I want to burn things to disk.

^-.-^

[insertNameHere]

Almost the exact same, yes. I couldn't find exact matches on a couple items (like the case and optical drive), but found close enough to count, and those were the least notable differences.

Check the reviews about sound on your optical drive before picking it. Mine is fast and works really well, but sounds like a jet engine when it's spinning. I'm going to get a slower one for my next system and a high-speed external for when I want to burn things to disk.

^-.-^

Well, outside of making backups of movies and watching a movies with my stereo loud, I don't think it will be a problem. if it really that bad I will have just spent $20 to have a spare drive.