Well, it looks like the SuaHomeMachine has given up the ghost, so I’m starting to price out new computers on-line. And I’m frigging lost. Help me out with answers to a few questions.
How good of a system do I need? I use my home computer for game-playing, watching movies (I want a DVD-ROM, see below) and surfing the 'Net. Do I need the Pentium IV, or will III do fine? Will 1.5 GHz make that much of a difference compared to 1.3? Etc., etc. (Corollary - if I go with lower power, will it greatly affect how long it will be before my system is obsolete?)
CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs. I want a DVD-ROM on my computer. I had always assumed that DVD-ROMs played CDs, but now I’m seeing options for “CD/DVD-ROMs”. Will a DVD-ROM play my CD-ROM games? If yes, will a straight DVD-ROM play them slowly? Is it worth shelling out the extra bucks for a CD/DVD-ROM?
Monitor. I plan to use my current monitor. Will I have software/hardware conflict issues?
I don’t really have any answers to your questions, but I just ordered a Dell online, and they are offering free upgrades on their CD or DVD drives. Also a free printer. With proper attention to what options I selected, I was able to get the high end 8100 with both a DVD and a CD/RW for a few dollars cheaper than the mid level 4100. 1.3 gig P4. 256 mb ram. 40 gb hard drive. No monitor. Planning on it lasting me for several years. Free upgrades end today.
My rule of thumb: Accept that your system is obsolete the instant you buy it. These days, CPU speed is less important than the speed of the other components (memory, hard drive, DVD-ROM, modem, etc.), which are much slower. I’m still using my trusty PII-400 and haven’t felt much need to upgrade my CPU. The biggest speed difference that I felt was when I upgraded to cable modem. (Won’t make the SDMB any faster, though.)
My DVD-ROM drive reads CDs, CD-ROMs, and DVDs just fine. I don’t know what CD/DVD-ROM drive is supposed to be.
Here’s the technique that worked for me over the past couple years.
Go to a bookstore or pharmacy or the like and buy Computer Shopper (comes out around the 18th to 20th of the month). In the first half of the magazine are ads from about 10 companies that sell a variety of computers. The two I ended up buying from were NuTrend and IBuyPower. (Not likely to strike fear into Dell or Compaq, but the price was right) They will have a variety of packages, which will give you an idea what options are expected in each category. Decide which category you fit in (e.g. “Family Desktop”). Now compare side by side with the closest category from the next company. You can winnow down your choices this way, then do your online fine-tuning, where you see what the final price is after you delete the monitor and keyboard you already own, but add more RAM, or whatever combo you desire.
Questions about some of the components, like the CD/DVD you mentioned? Call their 800 number.
I was cautious about these no-name companies at first, but I’ve had no problems (unlike previous name-brand), and saved two to three hundred each over Gateway, Dell, and the other big boys.
IMHO, the power of your computer is pretty much dictated by the games you want to play, since nothing else you mentioned will come close to taxing any processor that’s a Pentium 3 or better.
Personally, I’m a dedicated, if not necessarily ‘hardcore’ gamer, and my 600 MHz P3 handles all the games I need it to quite well. For me this is Diablo II, Baldur’s Gate II, Starcraft, Quake 3 Arena, and Unreal Tournament. Granted, the next generation of FPSes is going to run like an old, leprous, three legged dog that’s blind in one eye, but I get by for now.
Needless to say, any processor whose speed is measured in gigahertz will be able to handle most any game for the next three years or so, as long as you have a decent 3D accelerator and at least 128 megs of RAM.
And I’m also confused about the CD/DVD-ROM thing. Any (functioning) DVD-ROM will play CD-ROMs. Maybe it was a DVD-ROM/CD-RW? You know, one of those nifty drives that’s a DVD-ROM but can also burn CDs? They’re neat.
These days the best bang for the buck can be had with the AMD Athlon (make sure it’s socket A rather than Slot A - if your vendor can’t tell you, choose a different vendor) rather than any Intel CPU. And the Athlon is still a current product; Intel has indicated that they’re phasing out the PIII for the desktop and server market. There’s no real reason to buy a P4 for what you’ll be doing, and it’s actually slower for many activities (plus it uses RAMBUS memory, which is much more expensive than the SDRAM or DDR-DRAM that the Athlon users, so it’ll be less expensive to upgrade). And don’t get too hung up on Mhz; the P4 has higher Mhz ratings because it was designed to run with a faster clock speed (IMO this was a marketing decision rather than an engineering one). This does not mean it’s going to be faster for what you do. All reviews I’ve read indicate the Athlon outperforms the P4 with most activities, save MPEG-4 video encoding, except the newest P4s at 1.8Ghz and faster. The P4’s floating point processor appears to be particularly weak compared with the Athlon, ironically, since with early AMD processors (K6-III and before) the floating point processor was slower.
If you’re into 3D games, the speed of your video card will make a much bigger difference. All modern hard drives are all relatively fast, look for a 7200 RPM drive, they’re the best you can get in a desktop platform. Don’t worry about whether it’s ATA/66 or ATA/100 (most are 100 anyway), there are no current desktop drives that can transfer data even close to 66 Mbytes/second, let alone 100.
I’m serious. You do NOT want a P-IV and I’ll explain why.
Not only is a P-IV generally slower than an Athlon CPU you get to pay more money for the pleasure. A P-IV system requires a special case, a special power supply and uses RDRAM (Rambus) memory which SUCKS. All of these things come at a price premium thus making your P-IV more expensive.
What will really get you, however, is that the day you buy a P-IV system you are dead in the water. Intel’s next iteration of the P-IV is NOT compatible with what is out today. The next CPU iteration after that will not be compatible with EITHER version of the P-IV. As a result, the next time you want to upgrade, you will need to buy a completely new system (at the very least a new motherboard to go with your new CPU and quite possibly new memory as well)! (I have cites for this as well if anyone wants them…I’m just don’t have them easily at hand right now.)
Beware of systems that advertise a P-IV for the same price as ‘equivalent’ Athlon systems. They are NOT equivalent. In order to make the price point sweeter OEM’s usually screw you somewhere else in the system (i.e. giving you PC-600 RDRAM which especially sucks compared to already sucky PC-800 RDRAM or they hand you a piece of crap video card or other such tricks). Intel has realized these issues and has been losing market share to AMD (Athlon) and has been slashing prices as a result. The price of a P-IV system is nearly in line with a top end Athlon but it’s still not there…especially considering the Athlon outperforms the P-IV at almost every turn.
About the ONLY place a P-IV clearly pulls out in the lead against other options is in video editing (read MPEG) applications. This is the only case I know of where RDRAM’s superior bandwidth shows its stuff. (NOTE: While RDRAM can claim higher bandwidth it has horrendous latency issues which, in most applications these days, seems to matter more in terms of speed.)
All of that aside you need to ask yourself a few questions:
Exactly what do you want your computer to do? Others have mentioned it here and you yourself somewhat specified but you need to be really clear on this. Basic office apps, web surfing, e-mail, etc., will all work fine on just about any new PC you care to name. Games are what really stretch your system out. Some of the games out today can really make a system sweat when graphically maxed out (even one like mine which is described below). Still you can certainly get by with less than I have just fine but that puts you closer to the day you need to upgrade your system again. Pay now or pay later? (NOTE: Graphical Nirvana is going to add a fair bit to the price of any PC)
How dirty do you want to get your own hands? If you want something to work out of the box with as near to zero work on your part as possible then Dell is a good option (except that they sell ONLY Intel stuff and push P-IV’s hard). If you want something that you KNOW will rock then look to Falcon Northwest or Alienware. I’m partial to Falcon but you really can’t go wrong with either of them. They build custom systems and make certain that the whole thing makes sense (i.e. no P-IV’s with crap video cards here). Their customer service is excellent even after the sale (especially after the sale…at least Falcon’s is and a speak from personal experience). The downside? There is a price premium to be paid (not too bad though…a few hundred dollars maybe) and you usually have to wait about 3-4 weeks to get your system. Basically do you want a Rolls Royce or a Ford Taurus? They’ll both get you where you need to go but one is a helluva lot more fun than the other!
If you want to build your own system a whole new world of possibility opens before you. The upside? It can be remarkable inexpensive (for good stuff too). I just did this with my own system and went from a P-II 400, 64MB PC-100 RAM to an Athlon 1.2 Ghz, 256MB PC-133 RAM, a screaming fast 30 GB harddrive, a Soundbalster Live and a new CD-ROM for less than $600. (I also got a GeForce 3 which rocks although you get to pay around $300 for the pleasure [mine was a gift from my wife]).
The downside? If something goes wrong there isn’t just one place to call. No system warranty (the parts are warrantied separately). I also had to call multiple suppliers to get the parts I wanted and spent about 4 hours putting it all together.
If you want to go this route I can give detailed advice but its too long to go into here (especially since I don’t even know if you’d want that advice).
Hope that helps…let me know if you need more.
(BTW–If you live in Chicago I can be of personal help in building a PC…I work cheap too [I work for beer and pizza]).
In addition the sites mentioned above, I strongly recommend gamepc.com. They have reasonable prices, top-notch quality and the systems they build are fan-fucking-tastic.
This is exactly what I did, and it worked for me, too. I purchased a Quantex because the price was good ($200 lower than Gateway and Dell on a $1600 computer, with free") and because it was a local NJ company. I bought my computer 3 yrs ago, and I have had no problems. I also learned a lot from the ads and articles.
I will second everything that WaM said (even if he did reiterate a lot of what I said).
As far as building a machine goes (and it’s not too difficult), here’s a guideline:
If you’re looking for just a cheap machine, it will probably be cheaper to get a preassembled one. However, the bottom-of-the-line machines lack expandability, so you may end up with a high performance CPU with lousy on-board video, no available external drive bays, and no AGP wlot.
If you’re looking for a performance machine, you can usually save by building your own. The advantage here is you get to choose exactly what you want for each component. The disadvantage is that troubleshooting is your responsibility, and it’s your responsibility to ensure that all the components are compatible (it would be worthwhile to familiarize yourself with Usenet). Also, you can spend a lot on shipping charges if you don’t order everything from the same vendor.
Why is it the best bang for the buck or why a Socket A over a Slot A?
I’ll answer both.
It’s the best bang for the buck because it is faster in most applications thrown at it and it costs less.
This begs the question of why, then, people buy Intel? Basically because Intel has a long track record and it’s what people are used to plus Intel has a MUCH larger marketing and advertising budget to get people to believe hype.
Slot A is obsolete and I don’t think even manufactured anymore. Everything is socket processors today (you can tell the difference easily…a Slot processor looks like a Hershey bar and a Socket processor looks like a square chip with brass prongs sticking out the bottom).
If a vendor is selling you a Slot processor they are trying to dump old inventory.
Thanks for all the responses.
I don’t have a fear of no-name computer makers - my last but one computer was a Quantex, and my current (dead) one is a Cybermax. I’m thinking of going for a bigger name this time (but not Gateway, the overcharging b-----ds), because the part I need to fix my current computer isn’t standard, and I can’t seem to find Cybermax anymore to order the part (they seem to have changed into an e-business company).
Anywhoo, I’ll keep your advice in mind, and let y’all know what I get.
