Extremely pretentious new computer bragging thread.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Those of you with little RAMS need not participate. :wink:
Just bought one of these last night. Except I got 1G of RAM instead of 512M. And a 17" LCD.

Haven’t had the opportunity yet to really play with it to see what it can all do, but so far it looks pretty impressive. I like the multimedia aspect of it. You can connect the thing to the cable/sat box and use it as a TiVo type system. Came with a remote control too. I can (so far) open up earmarked folders and brouse them without getting off the bed. It also has TV out so I can use the TV as a monitor.
It also has an FM tuner. Kinda cool.
I’ve got a ton of digital (Dig8) tapes of the kids and now I can finally start to capture and burn the things to DVDs.
This is also my first time using XP, and it rocks! The machine is a screamer too.
Lots of cool stuff compared to the Win98 800MHZ machine I was used to.
What sort of things can I do that will really take advantage of this computer?
So how does this system compare to others out there and more importantly, to yours?

Let the bragging begin…

2

Real computer nerds like me don’t go with anything under 2 gigs of ram. Even then if it aint over clocked, its gotta be at least 533mhz. I will own when I build my new system this summer. SLI with 2 PCI express Nvidia 6800gt’s. Smokin!

3

Lucky for me the thing is upgrageable to 4Gs. What speed is DDR 3200? The bus speed is 800 MHZ.

4

How do you incorporate 2 video cards? Is that a function of the MB, or is some other trickery involved…

5

Nice machine, but over priced in my opinion. But that’s gateway for 'ya.

Granted, I’m a professional computer geek, but I’m sure I could build a comparable machine for about half that, and not have to put up with either Gateway, or their pre-installed “filler-ware”.

but, if you’re a novice, it’s not too bad.

6

I wanted to build my own, but I would have had to assemble a barebones package that had all the parts pre-picked out for compatability. I don’t know enough about the computer industry to know what goes with what reliably.
I did ‘build’ three of the older computers I have at home with spare parts and upgrade pieces that I scavenged around, but I decided to go with a tried and true and get it over with.

7

The specs look decent. Rather weak on the number of PCI expansion slots (3 but only 2 free?).

Dual PCI-e require a dual PCI-e board and an SLI compatible videocard with link (like my old voodoo SLI). It’s a pretty nice way to go but you better have a serious PSU. Even my 480 watt is just good enough for my BFG 6800 GTOC (400 MHz core/1 GHz ram).

8

I don’t have a new computer. I do, however, have a new printer. But the main reason I’m posting to this thread is so that you can laugh at me. I bought the printer, ink, and paper all at once, but refused to buy the USB cable on the grounds that I thought I had one at home. Before I got home, I realized that the cable my old printer needed had fatter ends than the USB cable the salesman showed me. Still, after trying to look at the back of my computer, I called my dad to say"Do I have an open USB port on my computer? What does it look like?" He told me, I thought I found it, but after I went out and bought the cable I discovered that the thing I looked at wasn’t the USB port. Also, if I’d just bought the cable in the first place, I’d have figured it out without calling him, because the symbol which means USB port was clear after I looked at the packaging, but not without it.

9

Not me, but my mom got a nice low-end Dell for about $500. Free shipping, flat-panel , and 3 year service contract included. Unfortunately she’ll still bug me everytime something happens with her computer.

Me? I’m still waiting for more money before I upgrade again.

10

I was about to say that.
only 1GB of RAM?
… hahahahaha…
:smiley:

11

Hmmm. If you purchased this computer without planning on ever playing games, then its pretty good. Kind of expensive for a non-gaming machine, but not bad.

If you planned on playing games with it though, you got ripped the hell off:

An AMD Athlon 64 of 3500+, 3200+ or even 3000+ outperforms the Intel 3.2e. They’re cheaper too.

The X300SE is utterly worthless for playing games. The 6600GT PCI-E is a very solid budget card for an MSRP of $199.

Should have gotten the 925 chipset instead of the 915, assuming you absolutely must have Intel (which is silly). An Asus, DFI or MSI motherboard with an NForce3 or NForce 4 chipset would have been better.

They probably gave you no-name RAM modules. It doesn’t list the model or timings or anything, so I can’t make a definite statement, but all the OEM machines I’ve seen have crappy RAM. At least they gave you adual-channel enabled motherboard.

Onboard sound, excluding NForce, is crap and taxes the CPU. You probably have the AC’97 audio codec built-in. Should have gone with a decently-priced dedicated PCI sound card, such as an Audigy or Audigy 2. Or you could have killed two birds with one stone with NForce 4.

I cringe at the thought of what hideously underpowered power supply they gave you. 305 watts? Hopefully sufficient for the exact hardware you have now, but upgrading to more powerful stuff will likely give you problems because of insufficient amperage, particularly on the +12V rail (hint hint, video card.)

OEMs generally give you overpriced crap. If you wanted to brag about a beastly new computer, you should have hand-picked each component and put it all together by hand. You would have gotten better stuff for cheaper, and greatly increased the size of your e-penis to boot.

12

Brag all you like, I seriously doubt the threads on this board open any quicker for you ramaholics than they do for those of us with 1990’s latest and greatest technology. :wink:

13

You can laugh at me too. I ordered a new computer, monitor, and printer in August. The printer took a week longer to arrive than everything else. Somehow, I failed to a. realize that the new printer would be USB b. realize that the cord was not included c. realize that the not-included cord wasn’t one I could buy at any of the several stores I looked in once the printer arrived so I’d have to order it online. So two weeks after I got my computer, I was finally able to print again…

Uncommon Sense, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m impressed by the size of your hard drive :smiley:

14

Earlier this month I got this little beauty. I had the RAM upgraded to 512; will get 1 GB later on.

I love it. It is whisper-quiet, and does what I want it to do. And saves a lot of desk space. :slight_smile:

15

Hate to brag but…

Catastrophic motherboard failure last week (drive’s OK, so no data loss…just PITA middle-of-doing-my-taxes issues…)

Open-box deal at Best Buy…Shuttle PC (about the size of a shoebox). 512 GB PC 3200 DRAM, 800 Mhz FSB, 160 GB drive, 256 MB AGP ATI video, DVD-RW, USB Floppy and secondary CR-R/RW, keyboard, and mouse, extra USB ports (9 total), 3 FireWire. $849 for the box…about $1200 by the time I got done adding stuff.

Downside…not a lot of expansion capabilities…but given that I’m a Luddite at heart, this sucker should last me a while. Oh, and no parallel port.

16

I finally ordered a new Athlon 64 3000+ (Socket 754) & Abit KV8 pro MB, to replace my old burned-out XP2000+. It’s a band-aid until I can get a new PCI-e system later this year. I’ll be reusing everything else like the old video card & memory. Well, in truth, I’ll probably be upgrading the memory and video card too - you can get a 256MB ATI 9200 for ~$65, and I want to put 400MHz memory in it anyway. Maybe 1gb, maybe 2 - I haven’t decided yet.

Eventually it will be the “public” computer in the house, mostly used for surfing & printing homework, once I get the new one. The old 300MHz is getting a little long in the tooth.

The MB comes with a full version of Far Cry & a Half-Life 2 “Coupon” (whatever that is - probably a rebate thing).

It should be here tomorrow!!

17

ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard
AMD Athlon 4000+
2 GB Corsair XMS TWINX2048-3200PRO DDR400
2 nVidia GeForce PCIe 6800GT 256MB
3 Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000 RPM SATA drives
550W power supply
Plextor 52x/32x/52x CDRW
Thermalright XP-90 heatsink
ViewSonic VP912B 19" LCD Monitor, 12ms response time

My PC owns yours. :wink:

18

Oh, and did I mention that it glows in the dark? :smiley:

19

As other’s have said, with a Radeon x300 videocard, that machine of yours is going to suck for gaming. My machine, with an Athlon 64 2800+, Asus K8N Nforce 3 250GB motherboards, 1GB Corsair Value Select, a GeforceFX 5900 (grapped for cheap off ebay), a 250GB & 100GB hard drive, and a 450 watt Antec power supply, will beat that Gateway in most benchmarks, be more reliable, and the total cost is hundreds of dollars less than the Gateway.

20

Uncommon Sense, welcome to 2002! Next year you can look into replacing your walkman with one of those mp3 players that will be coming out. :wink: