Pencil Quest: The Dream Machine

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Flamboyant-Pencil
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Pencil Quest: The Dream Machine

Post by Flamboyant-Pencil »

SO GUISE.

I've begun saving up for my computer. I have about 300 bucks or so. I'm planning on going for about $1,100, which will include the computer itself, keyboard, mouse, and everything, a headset, and assorted other things to make me awesome.

I ask you, Housepetites, (as well as other not-Housepet related tech geeks).. how i made computer?

I will edit this topic as I determine what I am buying.

So let's start with what I need and links to where I can find them. Buck told me all the parts I need before, but I lost the document I saved the info in.

Name:
Isabella

Part/Supplier/Price:

Personal Research Links
Newegg.com


Thanks in advance to any who participate! And no, I'm not asking you to do all the work for me, just if you guys could gimme a hand, I'd appreciate it :3.
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Re: Pencil Quest: The Dream Machine

Post by Senator_Sunburst »

Tom's Hardware is a great resource for hardware. Lots of useful reviews and such. It was extremely helpful when I made my computer.

Other than that, I'd suggest not really thinking about this until you actually have all your money together. Depending on how long it takes you to get the money, what was good now may not be the best for you later. Computer hardware is constantly coming out and improvements get made in all areas, things go on sale and off, prices go up and down.

Unless it's going to be like a week, in which case there are a lot of questions to ask. I was going to start listing some questions and giving my opinions, but I realised that the 1100 you want to set aside includes things like keyboard and mouse. It'd be very helpful to know how much you're willing to spend on hardware only, rather than hardware and peripherals.
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Re: Pencil Quest: The Dream Machine

Post by Flamboyant-Pencil »

Well, I'm hoping to get the funds up within the next few weeks. If it's too early to think about the specifics, sites of interest might be the priority then.

Also, I suppose I'll got for about 1000 bucks toward the hardware. I'm willing to go over my budget if thats what the peripherals make me do, but 1000 is the line fer the hardware.
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Re: Pencil Quest: The Dream Machine

Post by Typhon »

Your not thinking of adding flashy lights, and honky tonk bells and whistles are you?
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Re: Pencil Quest: The Dream Machine

Post by Flamboyant-Pencil »

HeCK no.

I want a durable, good specs gaming computer.
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Re: Pencil Quest: The Dream Machine

Post by Senator_Sunburst »

All right, 1000 dollars, let's see what sorts of things you want!

So, do you have a preference for AMD or Intel? Personally, I like Intel but there's nothing terrible with AMD unless you're going high end, which I don't think you can quite afford. Your choice between AMD or Intel will basically affect everything else.

Second, how do you feel about upgrading? Would you sacrifice current performance for upgradability later, or do you want to get the best thing now and don't plan to upgrade?

Planning to overclock anything?

Is this purely a gaming build?

Are there any other considerations? I'm assuming you don't want a particularly portable computer and don't mind a case being bulky.

Have a preference for Crossfire or SLI? I personally use Nvidia cards, so SLI for me, but for the most part I'd say Crossfire is the better option, at least if you're looking to upgrade later.

Harddrive preferences? How much space do you want?

Optical drive needs? Do you need to be able to burn things quickly, or need a blu-ray drive?
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Re: Pencil Quest: The Dream Machine

Post by Flamboyant-Pencil »

Senator_Sunburst wrote:All right, 1000 dollars, let's see what sorts of things you want!

So, do you have a preference for AMD or Intel? Personally, I like Intel but there's nothing terrible with AMD unless you're going high end, which I don't think you can quite afford. Your choice between AMD or Intel will basically affect everything else.

I'm guessing I'm going AMD, as a friend of mine's been recommending them over Intel.

Second, how do you feel about upgrading? Would you sacrifice current performance for upgradability later, or do you want to get the best thing now and don't plan to upgrade?

Definitely would rather upgrade than have a computer that'll become outdated in a few months.

Planning to overclock anything?

I am NOT smart enough to try overclocking stuff, so I doubt it.

Is this purely a gaming build?

Pretty much yeah. I doubt I'll be using it for anything else besides gaming and web surfing.

Are there any other considerations? I'm assuming you don't want a particularly portable computer and don't mind a case being bulky.

I have a laptop, so portability isn't an issue for me. I don't mind her being bulky.

Have a preference for Crossfire or SLI? I personally use Nvidia cards, so SLI for me, but for the most part I'd say Crossfire is the better option, at least if you're looking to upgrade later.

After asking a bud to explain, Crossfire seems the better option, though I'm flexible for all of this.

Harddrive preferences? How much space do you want?

Well, gaming computer, so HUGE SPACE for all the games.

Optical drive needs? Do you need to be able to burn things quickly, or need a blu-ray drive?
I don't really know yet. The option would be nice though.
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Re: Pencil Quest: The Dream Machine

Post by Senator_Sunburst »

Good stuff.

Okay, since you're going AMD, the AMD Phenom II 955 is very good at about 160$ (specifically about 155 dollars on newegg), and an overall Phenom II system is cheaper than the better Intel i5 system. Even though you said you're not smart enough to overclock, I'd recommend overclocking this anyway, at least eventually. Overclocking's not really hard, it's just time consuming. There are plenty of good guides out there and without overclocking this CPU isn't as good as it could be. Of course, overclocking still isn't required, I don't overclock my i7 because I don't really need to just yet.

I'm currently looking at motherboards, but I gotta go, so I'll post in here later when I can suggest more things.

EDIT - I'm back.

A great motherboard for an AMD build is the ASUS M4A79T Deluxe. It's actually the board one of my friends uses, and as it turns out (I had to look around because I'm not familiar with AMD builds) this board serves all your needs well. Currently 170$ on Newegg.

I'm a fan of Mushkin memory, but I hear good things about G.Skill, and G.Skill is pretty thrifty so that's good. Here is 4 gigs of memory that shouldn't require any voltage or speed tweaks in the bios, priced at 90$. Later on you can always buy more memory, but I'm pretty sure 4 gigs is fine for your needs.

Now, as far as GPU's go, this is great for the money, and later on during an upgrade you can just buy another one since it supports Crossfire, for 130$. Something to note is that it's huge. But you can get around that. Another option which is probably better, is this. At 160$, it's more expensive now, but it's way better, and also supports Crossfire. Unless you have a specific reason, go with the 160$ one.

Now we're to the easy stuff. Western Digital is the best for hard drives and has been the best since forever. I wouldn't trust anything other than Western Digital.

So you have two choices here. 1TB Caviar Black or Caviar Green. The differences aren't too big but they're important to know. Caviar Black is the more expensive of the two, at 90$, while the Green is 80$. The Green's main focus is that it's quiet and doesn't use a lot of power. The Black is pure performance. Green is fine for storage but unless you want to save money, I wouldn't use it as my main OS drive due to being slower than the Black. I'd go (and I did) with the Black, with the possibly exception of buying one Black for the OS and other important things and then Greens if I just needed more space.

Since you don't really need any special sort of optical drive, just go with a good ol' Lite-On like this for 20$. It does everything you need it to well, it's cheap, and Lite-On is a reliable manufacturer in my experience. No Blu-Ray though, because I don't think you want to spend that much money.

Now you're going to need a decent power supply if you ever end up upgrading to another GPU, and this is a pretty good one at 110$.

Now, unless I forgot something, you just need a case. I have no idea what are awesome cases out right now, but this looks like it'd serve your needs judging from just Newegg reviews and a glance at the specs and price (130$).

So, add up all that and you've spent 930$ on hardware, leaving 170$ on peripherals.

One thing I should mention is that the stock fan for the CPU apparently runs loud and isn't that amazing (but really, stock CPU fans are usually always mediocre or utter trash). You might want to try and invest in a CPU fan, but it'll set you back a bit. I use a Noctua myself and they seem to be a good brand generally. This seems good, it's cheap, it's not overkill, it should serve well. A possible problem is that it might not fit properly, but that's something you really can't figure out until you look at it and try it. For 60$, you can buy it and still have 110$ for peripherals.
Last edited by Senator_Sunburst on Thu Aug 19, 2010 4:17 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Pencil Quest: The Dream Machine

Post by Typhon »

Senator_Sunburst wrote:All right, 1000 dollars, let's see what sorts of things you want!

So, do you have a preference for AMD or Intel? Personally, I like Intel but there's nothing terrible with AMD unless you're going high end, which I don't think you can quite afford. Your choice between AMD or Intel will basically affect everything else.

Second, how do you feel about upgrading? Would you sacrifice current performance for upgradability later, or do you want to get the best thing now and don't plan to upgrade?

Planning to overclock anything?

Is this purely a gaming build?

Are there any other considerations? I'm assuming you don't want a particularly portable computer and don't mind a case being bulky.

Have a preference for Crossfire or SLI? I personally use Nvidia cards, so SLI for me, but for the most part I'd say Crossfire is the better option, at least if you're looking to upgrade later.

Harddrive preferences? How much space do you want?

Optical drive needs? Do you need to be able to burn things quickly, or need a blu-ray drive?
I'm always afraid to overclock because iv heard terrible stories of overclocking nightmare. Smoking cpu anyone?
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Re: Pencil Quest: The Dream Machine

Post by Senator_Sunburst »

Typhon wrote: I'm always afraid to overclock because iv heard terrible stories of overclocking nightmare. Smoking cpu anyone?
Never had that happen to anybody I know. You just got to be careful. Gotta take your time, test the stability for a very long time until you know for sure it's completely stable.

The reason I haven't overclocked my system just because is because it takes too long and I just don't need it right now.
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Re: Pencil Quest: The Dream Machine

Post by Flamboyant-Pencil »

How much of this do you think will change in the next month or so?

This is awesome! I'll run it by a few other people to make sure this sounds good, and maybe search around a bit to see if I can find the same parts from different suppliers for cheaper, but if nothing changes in the next month or so I might just go with this. :D
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Re: Pencil Quest: The Dream Machine

Post by Senator_Sunburst »

Flamboyant-Pencil wrote:How much of this do you think will change in the next month or so?
Not much. If anything happens, I'd just expect some things to get cheaper. But for a month, nah, I wouldn't worry about it.
This is awesome! I'll run it by a few other people to make sure this sounds good, and maybe search around a bit to see if I can find the same parts from different suppliers for cheaper, but if nothing changes in the next month or so I might just go with this. :D
Yeah, I'm not expert on making mid-range builds, or AMD builds for that matter, so I could be bottlenecking you somewhere, although I don't think I am. Definitely want to run it by people you know who know more about this.
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Re: Pencil Quest: The Dream Machine

Post by Typhon »

Flamboyant-Pencil wrote:How much of this do you think will change in the next month or so?

This is awesome! I'll run it by a few other people to make sure this sounds good, and maybe search around a bit to see if I can find the same parts from different suppliers for cheaper, but if nothing changes in the next month or so I might just go with this. :D
Technology grows exponentially. Who knows, we might reach a technological singularity in the next month. And then I-robot will be reality. I want three personal robot chefs thank you very much.
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