New Computer

[spacewaste]

Hello all, this is my first post on x10hosting, and it's going to be a computer related question ^_^.

I've customized a computer to be around 931$, less the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers.

The specs are as follows:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz, 1333FSB (Dual Core) 6000K
Spire Socket 775 Intel fan
ASUS P5KC P35, DDR3 & DDR2, 1333FSB, X-Fire PCI Express,1Gb LAN, iEEE
4GB (2x2GB) PC6400 DDR2 800 Dual Channel
ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB PCI Express 16x dual head, tv out
320.0GB Western Digital 7200RPM SATA2 UDMA 300 16m cache
Samsung LightScribe 20x SATA DVD Recorder Dual Layer +R/RW -R/RW (black)
AC 97 3D Full Duplex sound card (onboard)
Ethernet network adapter (onboard)
Nikao Black Neon ATX Case w/ Temperature control, front USB & iEEE
Okia 600W ATX Power Supply

My question to all of you is if this is a decent computer/what should I upgrade, or what could I live without/downgrade.

Any comments are welcomed .

 

[anirtak143]

yes.. thats a super decent computer... ^^
rock on with that..

 

[TechAsh]

Nice Computer.

Just a couple of things, you may find you want a bigger harddrive than that. Also you need to make sure that your PSU can handle all of that hardware, if it's not powerful enough you computer may fail to start, or you could fry something.
Lots of people say that Nvida Gforce graphics cards are better than ATI ones.

 

[DeadBattery]

That sounds like a pretty decent computer.
What OS are you running? (Windows, Mac, Linux)

 

[tnl2k7]

That sounds like a pretty decent computer.
What OS are you running? (Windows, Mac, Linux)

I'm guessing Vista; in which case a 320GB hard disk is way too small. Vista half filled my 400GB HD within the first month of use, with only Adobe Creative Suite 3, 4 games and a few browsers installed. I'd go for a 750GB or bigger if I were you.

Maybe go for an nVidia GeForce 8800GT or something as opposed to your current choice of graphics card. ATi's range of cards leave a lot to be desired when compared to the newer nVidia cards.

You may also want to go for a bigger (700 watt maybe) power supply. You've got a heck of a lot of power hungry components there that may well overload the power supply. A larger one will give you piece of mind.

Other than that, congratulations. Those specs look pretty damn good .

-Luke.

 

[Smith6612]

Nice Computer.

Just a couple of things, you may find you want a bigger harddrive than that. Also you need to make sure that your PSU can handle all of that hardware, if it's not powerful enough you computer may fail to start, or you could fry something.
Lots of people say that Nvida Gforce graphics cards are better than ATI ones.

nVidia cards are a lot better than the ATi cards since the nVidia cards have more RAW power, but ATi cards run more efficiently than the nVidia cards by design.

 

[Spartan Erik]

When it comes to getting PSUs, it is highly recommended to get name branded PSUs. I bought a Corsair 650W PSU that has 52 amps on a single 12 volt rail. Make sure you've got enough amperage on the 12 volt line to power your card.

I'm personally an nVidia fan, but I'm sure ATi is pretty good as well

$931 sounds high with those components, but I don't know how much that graphics card is worth. Good PC though.

 

[componentwarehouse]

First off, welcome to x10!

2nd - 320GB is fine for most computer, depending on what you'll be doing - I have Vista 64bit and Im using a 150GB hard drive, and its not even half full, even with Adobe Masters installed (all 20GB worth). Although 500GB would be a better bet price wise, as it will only be about $10-20 (guessing as Im in the UK) more.

That ATI card will be great, I have the card below, and its been excellent. You wont be disapointed with it, I think it gives a better performance to price ratio than any NVidia card ATM.

As said above, a decent PSU is highly recommended - get a Corsair, they are very good. With regards to the wattage, use this free tool to work it out:

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp

It gives you a VERY ROUGH guide, Id add about 100W onto its suggestion, but its a starting point. Also remember that you'll need a 64bit OS to take advantage of 4GB RAM. Hope all that helps.

Alex

 

[chianghl]

Get vista since XP can only support up to 3GB of RAM. For the hard disk, get 500GB since the pricing is quite near to the 320GB one.

Compare around the prices over the net, if you are in Singapore, check out www.vr-zone.com.sg under the pricelist section, you should be able to find out the prices for the various store in Sim Lim Square (Singapore)

 

[Sharky]

Get vista since XP can only support up to 3GB of RAM. For the hard disk, get 500GB since the pricing is quite near to the 320GB one.

Compare around the prices over the net, if you are in Singapore, check out www.vr-zone.com.sg under the pricelist section, you should be able to find out the prices for the various store in Sim Lim Square (Singapore)

Not true. 32-bit Vista has the same memory limitations as 32-bit XP, however, 64-bit Vista AND XP can both go up to 264 addresses (17.2 billion gigabytes or 16 exabytes of RAM). So you can have your 8GB of memory cake and eat XP too.

What, that phrase doesn't work? Bah :thefinger

 

[tnl2k7]

If I'm not mistaken, the 64-bit edition of Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft, and doesn't have very good driver support because x64 was only just starting out back then. Because of the security implications of running an unsupported OS, I'd advise you to run Vista over XP.

Vista shouldn't manage to eat 8GB of RAM too quickly, it'll eat half a gig to a gig without and programs open because of Superfetch, but it'll leave plenty for your applications. It worked fine with my 4GB of RAM before I switched to Ubuntu.

-Luke.

 

[Smith6612]

My gaming computer, despite me only running 32-bit on 3GB of RAM (even though I am 64-bit capable), has been on for 8 months and right now is only using 28% of my RAM. Vista doesn't require much, so go with Vista if anything. XP is going to be ending it's extended support phase in a couple years.

 

[gamesandluv]

Yea i wish i had it,

 

[Lu5ck]

According to the latest service pack. Window XP SP3 have 10% improve in performance according to many sources while Window Vista SP1 didn't have any improvement in performance.

Unless you are getting more ram or intent to use direct x 10. If not get Windows XP.

 

[Smith6612]

Vista Service Pack 1 had an improvement in it. They ultimately ctweaked it enough to shave some time off of the boot-up time and made shut down loads quicker.

And now a days, you should go for Vista. XP's support has ended, which means you'll only be getting updates for it for another 3 years. Vista at least has another 10 years left on it, and not to mention that most games coming out these days, even though can run fine under XP, are made to run with Vista, and Microoft has gone a long way by fixing the comatibility problems and working with program developers.

 

[DragonMaster]

And now a days, you should go for Vista. XP's support has ended, which means you'll only be getting updates for it for another 3 years. Vista at least has another 10 years left on it,

Microsoft keeps extending XP's support period, it's now set to 2014 I think. They're supposed to release Windows 7 in a year or two, so better stick to XP for now...

I don't believe Vista will last 10 years. XP is a special case, it was the longest lasting Windows release as nothing was released until Vista. XP was released in 2001 and stopped being sold this year. That's why it's supposed to last 10 or 13 years. If you look at earlier Windows releases however, the life period was only 6 years, Vista will probably be the same.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx (Hmmm... MS-DOS 6 was available until 2001)