What Parts?

[Fluffy_the_ic]

For Christmas, my parents are getting me computer parts, so I can build my own. I have a couple of questions regarding everything.

Q1: Laptop or Desktop? I'm gonna need this computer A LOT and I'm not sure if I'm up to the challenge of building a laptop, so I'm a little indecisive there.

Q2: Hard Drive? My parents don't wanna spend TOO much on this, and so no terabyte hard drives like I wanted... Well, I'm really gonna need it for school, and I want it for gaming, so I want a good hard drive size.

Q4: Graphics Card? I want this mainly for the gaming aspect. Who knows, I may use this for school. But I want a good one, that isn't too expensive, preferebly one that can run Halo 2 and Republic Commando with no problems. That means no (I wanna say) Nvidia GPUs, cuz I'm pretty sure they has bumbp-mapping problems.

Q4: Which type of Vista? Should I get Ultimate or Home edition? I don't know enough about either to know which is better for my uses.

Q5: Dual Screens? I remember being told they're good for working and multi-tasking. That's what I'll be doing most next year, most likely. So I want to know if I should get it. And I have at least two extra moniters, so that part's no problem.

[RED51]

[/somewhat offtopic]I was wondering about making my own labtop, but where would I get the parts? At staples?

[tsurugi13]

For Christmas, my parents are getting me computer parts, so I can build my own. I have a couple of questions regarding everything.

Q1: Laptop or Desktop? I'm gonna need this computer A LOT and I'm not sure if I'm up to the challenge of building a laptop, so I'm a little indecisive there.

Q2: Hard Drive? My parents don't wanna spend TOO much on this, and so no terabyte hard drives like I wanted... Well, I'm really gonna need it for school, and I want it for gaming, so I want a good hard drive size.

Q4: Graphics Card? I want this mainly for the gaming aspect. Who knows, I may use this for school. But I want a good one, that isn't too expensive, preferebly one that can run Halo 2 and Republic Commando with no problems. That means no (I wanna say) Nvidia GPUs, cuz I'm pretty sure they has bumbp-mapping problems.

Q4: Which type of Vista? Should I get Ultimate or Home edition? I don't know enough about either to know which is better for my uses.

Q5: Dual Screens? I remember being told they're good for working and multi-tasking. That's what I'll be doing most next year, most likely. So I want to know if I should get it. And I have at least two extra moniters, so that part's no problem.

Q1: I don't like laptops. I've had a bad experience with every one I've used that isn't a mac, so go desktop, especially if this is your first build.

Q2: I got a seagate 500 gb, but for quite a while I got along fine with 100 gb for a while. No one who isn't doing avi editing should really need a terabyte.

Q3: Depending on how much you want to spend, I wouldn't be so quick to turn down an Nvidia card. From what I know, only the 8800 series has those problems, and fixing them is as easy as setting bumpmap settings to low. DO NOT GET AN KNOCK-OFF CARD.

Q4: My advice? Don't get vista. To my knowledge though, the biggest difference is the amount of bloatware. Unless you get a 64-bit OS.

Q5: I don't suggest dual screens, they just take up desk space in my mind. Windows has this cool feature called Alt-Tab that does about the same thing as dual screens.

[MasterSaitek009]

For Christmas, my parents are getting me computer parts, so I can build my own. I have a couple of questions regarding everything.

Q1: Laptop or Desktop? I'm gonna need this computer A LOT and I'm not sure if I'm up to the challenge of building a laptop, so I'm a little indecisive there.

-I've only built desktops so I'm not sure what exactly goes into building a laptop. I would imagine it's quite a bit harder than building a desktop. Personally I would go with the desktop. They're usually more upgradable, easier to build, cheaper and better for gaming.

Q2: Hard Drive? My parents don't wanna spend TOO much on this, and so no terabyte hard drives like I wanted... Well, I'm really gonna need it for school, and I want it for gaming, so I want a good hard drive size.

-I have a 200GB HD filled with tons of music, games, modding stuff, Windows XP and Windows Vista and I don't think I've ever filled it over halfway. I would say speed over size. Make sure it's at least 7500RPM.

Q4: Graphics Card? I want this mainly for the gaming aspect. Who knows, I may use this for school. But I want a good one, that isn't too expensive, preferebly one that can run Halo 2 and Republic Commando with no problems. That means no (I wanna say) Nvidia GPUs, cuz I'm pretty sure they has bumbp-mapping problems.

-For hints on that and other PC building related stuff, go here: http://www.hardware-revolution.com/computer-systems/

Q4: Which type of Vista? Should I get Ultimate or Home edition? I don't know enough about either to know which is better for my uses.

-Home Premium should suit your needs fine. The only advantage that Ultimate has are the Ultimate Extras. Probably not worth another $50-80.
I would also go with a 64-bit OS and Motherboard. Also, I wouldn't avoid Vista. It's been grossly misportrayed. Virtually all Windows hardware that is being sold now is compatible with Vista. Almost all BSOD errors were fixed with SP1. On a new "this-gen" PC it's a great OS.

Q5: Dual Screens? I remember being told they're good for working and multi-tasking. That's what I'll be doing most next year, most likely. So I want to know if I should get it. And I have at least two extra moniters, so that part's no problem.

-As long as your GFX card has more than one port on the back and you have more than one monitor your wish should be granted.

[Teancum]

Q1: Laptop or Desktop? I'm gonna need this computer A LOT and I'm not sure if I'm up to the challenge of building a laptop, so I'm a little indecisive there.

Desktop, definitely

Q2: Hard Drive? My parents don't wanna spend TOO much on this, and so no terabyte hard drives like I wanted... Well, I'm really gonna need it for school, and I want it for gaming, so I want a good hard drive size.

Watch around for specials. I recommend watching http://www.pricewatch.com - all of the big internet vendors post specials there and so rather than looking on 10 sites you can look on one to find the cheapest price.

Q4: Graphics Card? I want this mainly for the gaming aspect. Who knows, I may use this for school. But I want a good one, that isn't too expensive, preferebly one that can run Halo 2 and Republic Commando with no problems. That means no (I wanna say) Nvidia GPUs, cuz I'm pretty sure they has bump-mapping problems.

I'm not sure where you heard that, but nVidia GPUs rock. I have an ATI card now, but only because I got a good deal on it. If it weren't for that I'd always go with nVidia.

Q4: Which type of Vista? Should I get Ultimate or Home edition? I don't know enough about either to know which is better for my uses.

XP -- Vista is on its way out with Windows 7 on the way, and you'll know that every single program you have will work fine on XP. Vista is cool, but extremely overrated.

Q5: Dual Screens? I remember being told they're good for working and multi-tasking. That's what I'll be doing most next year, most likely. So I want to know if I should get it. And I have at least two extra monitors, so that part's no problem.

Unless you're doing some sort of development work it's pretty pointless. I have dual monitors at work so I can have Visual Studio in one monitor, and the live website I'm working on in the other. But at home it ended up being pointless.

[swbf_lase]

nVidia is the way to go. I'm a nVidia follower and I personally love there cards. I have a Geforce 8500 GT and you can get it pretty cheap at newegg now. It's pretty decent and can run HL2 on all high settings and I must say, Battlefield 2 is a beauty on it.


I'd also say to get Vista. I have a 64 Bit version and its actually running faster then XP was now that it has Service Pack 1. Windows 7 will still be another year or so, so I'd get Vista.

[Fluffy_the_ic]

So, 64-bit home premium with an Nvidia GPU (non-8800 series) that's a desktop, a 200gig hard drive or one that's good and is a special, and any other things that are useful, and so maybe Dual Screens.
Also, I was jk on the terabyte part, if you couldn't tell.

[Penguin]

Don't get Vista, there's so many compatibility problems with it...

[Fluffy_the_ic]

The biggest reason I want Vista is Halo 2. My friend's getting it, and so I wanna get it, too, so we can mess around with it. You CAN mod halo 2 on PC, right? Besides, I just wanna know a few things it has compatibility issues with, OTHER than BFII.

[MasterSaitek009]

Don't get Vista, there's so many compatibility problems with it...

Hardware or Software?

With a new PC you shouldn't have trouble with hardware compatibility. And as far as software goes, I have yet to run into a program that won't run on my Vista PC.

[VF501]

For less OS headaches get WinXp Pro 64 Bit. 64 Bit Vista can run some stuff faster than WinXP 32 because a 64 Bit OS has more User Space than a 32 Bit. For Full Halo 2 compatibility get Vista Home 64 bit. For gratuitous have it all fun, get both, XP for everything else, Vista for Halo2.

Also, if you want to run Halo 2 on XP, there is a Loader that allows it to install and play on XP, if you want to try it out I have it and the Gravemind Level 12 fix. There are a few bugs with Win LIVE though, like Achievements don't work, and Multiplayer only works partially.

For the All important basic guts of a comp the following can and will play Crysis on High at 30-42 FPS and can handle any and all games out now.

CPU: Intel E8400 Wolfdale 45nm 3.0GHz Core 2 Duo- Should be around $163 now

Motherboard: Not saying buy from newegg, but Try these ASUS Motherboards, ASUS is one of the better companies for Parts.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131284
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131232

Graphics: EVGA nVidia 8800 GT 512MB VRAM or EVGA nVidia 9800 GTX 512MB VRAM. 9800GTX runs cooler and faster but costs more.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130412
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130415

Memory:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820227334
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820145197

PSU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817182069
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817182072

Hard Drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136320

Total Cost from Lower to Higher End
$703-$1081 USD

Things like the Case, Optical drive and fans can be used or salvaged from an Old or junked comp easily. Add $99-$170 for a fancy case and around $99-$120 for a new optical drive. New fans if desired will add around $30 bucks. WinXP Pro 64 Bit should cost $84-$124 depending on where you can find it.

Total Cost for the Higher End Machine with listed Parts $1482 Thats with everying at the highest prices. So about $1550-$1600 should be the area you should use. Seems like alot but this will beat out any locally Store bought computer at the same price and has a long usage life, is SLI capable and can be easily upgraded.

[MasterSaitek009]

From what I've heard, you'll actually get better driver support with Vista 64-bit than with XP 64-bit. Back when XP was released very few people had 64-bit CPU's. So conforming to supply and demand, hardware manufacturers didn't always provide 64-bit drivers. There really wasn't much of a reason to provide 64-bit support because, except for the occasional Itanium(2001) and AMD64(2003), everything was 32-bit/x86.

Nowadays 64-bits are getting much more common and the OEM's are getting much better about providing 64-bit drivers. These new 64-bit drivers are almost exclusively Vista driver structured (e.g. they won't work in XP 64-bit). So in the end the 64-bit version of Vista would let you use a much broader range of hardware than would XP's 64-bit version.

[Fluffy_the_ic]

Total Cost from Lower to Higher End
$703-$1081 USD

!!! Me likey. That's a great price range, even if I go high end. I know I'm gonna go high end with the graphics card at least for bump-mapping, so thanks!
Would an Nvidia Geforce 8400 series work out well? My area's circuit city is closing soon, and so the 8400 series that they have there is only $63 with the discount, so that's what I'm gonna get.

[Fingerfood]

Economy crash = Computer upgrading time.

Anyway, I'd go with nVidia. When I get my new computer it's most likely going to have an nVidia, although the only kind I can find are Geforce 7100s... From what I know, the higher second numbers are better. (7600 > 8100) Forgot where I heard that though.

[Fluffy_the_ic]

Also, can anyone tell me where you can figure out what type of card port your comp has without opening it? I haven't the time to open up and my comp to see if it has a PCIe port, so are there any sites that can tell me based on my comp's model number or whatever they call them with comps? Or could one of you guys tell me?

[Taivyx]

To find out what chipset you currently have:
Go to the Control Panel.
Click on System.
Go to the Hardware tab.
Click on "Device Manager".
Expand "Display adapters"
That will tell you what type of chipset you have.
Research that up. Generally, if it came out after 2004, then it uses PCI Express.
If before, then it used either AGP or PCI.

Also if you really don't want to use a Geforce series chipset, I'd recommend this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102719

[Teancum]

. . .
Research that up. Generally, if it came out after 2004, then it uses PCI Express.
If before, then it used either AGP or PCI.

It could also be an integrated chipset, built into the motherboard.

[Taivyx]

That too, but usually it will say that right in the Device Manager window

A quick note, I bought a Geforce 8800 that used the PCI-express 2.0 bus, and I plugged it into my 2006 Dell XPS 410 with no problems.

[Fluffy_the_ic]

Plain PCI... That circuit city only had maybe 30 PCIe cards and 5 AGP, and not a single plain PCI...

[Teancum]

eBay or PriceWatch.com are what you'll need to find one, but to be honest it's not worth the upgrade. Even if you found a 256mb card the sheer slowness of a PCI port makes it worthless.