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computer help

PostPosted:Wed Feb 23, 2005 12:17 am
by Nev
so i got the cash i was talking about earlier, i'm planning to invest some and buy a bomb-ass computer with the rest.

i have about three grand to buy computer components with. that does include everything however.

my goals are programming/gaming/hobbyist audio production.

the main things to figure out, as usual, are:

motherboard
cpu
memory
hard drive
sound card
graphics card
monitor
speakers
and possibly printer.

the biggest question i have in the immediate moment is: will professional audio cards (midiman etc.) work for pc gaming also? I REALLY really want to get some nice sounding MIDI but i also want to be able to play half-life 2 and etc without problems.

but any other advice would be great too.

PostPosted:Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:22 pm
by Imakeholesinu
ABIT "AA8XE" 925XE Chipset Motherboard
Leadtek nVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra Video Card, 256MB GDDR3, 256-Bit, HDTV-Out/Dual DVI, PCI-E
Intel LGA 775 Pentium 4 650 3.4GHz 800MHz FSB, 2MB L2 Cache Processor w/ Hyper Threading Technology - Retail
Crucial 240-Pin 1GB DDR2 PC2-4200, Model CT12864AA53E
WD Caviar Series 250GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive Kit, Model WD2500JDRTL
SAMSUNG 910T-Black 19" LCD Monitor
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum PCI Sound Card, Model "SB0350"
CREATIVE Inspire P7800 7.1 Black Speaker System

Did this on newegg.com and this is the link: http://secure.newegg.com/app/WishList.a ... 36-116-153

Tells you how much without shipping. The motherboard has an onboard 7.1 system, but if you want the remote and all the bells and whistles for the front bay of the case I'd go with the Audigy2, just don't use Norton because it doesn't like the audio manager when it boots.

Samsung does excellent LCD monitors and that is why I went with one of those. Not only that but they do excellent TV's as well. I've been looking at them at best buy recently (the monitors) to see if I wanted to order one or not.

Now, the reason why I had you go with the AA8XE over the Fata1lty board is because you get an extra PCI - E 1x slot and there really are no other benifits to the board, it actually takes away the 10/100 ethernet connection. You get a 10/100 and Gigabyte RJ45 ports on the AA8XE.

The Leadtek Ultra card is the best video card on the market and it's a 256MB card. HL2 will run no problems.

I picked the middle of the road processor at the 3.4, a 3.6 is $200 more and a 3.0 is roughly $150 less.

SATA is the way to go, and a 250 GB HD is also the way to go nowadays. If you don't want to deal with it, you can find a 250 GB drive for cheaper for an IDE connection. All of my drives are Western Digital except one Fuji drive I lifted from my brother's PC.

It's a 4GB max memory board, so why not start out with 1G? That's what I thought for the memory. No reason to go any higher than the 4200 anyway either since the bus on all the motherboards I looked at were only able support the 533 RAM which is what this is. The 5200 is clocked at 667, and unless you like overclocking (which you shouldn't need to do to this system) then you should avoid it for now.

That's all she wrote. I just killed an hour. Go me!

PostPosted:Tue Mar 01, 2005 10:24 pm
by Nev
dude, i'll have to check this out. i appreciate it, barret.

PostPosted:Tue Mar 01, 2005 11:15 pm
by Imakeholesinu
No prob, I was bored and I get off on shopping for pc parts...ohhhhh yeah....