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My First PC... awwwww...

yellow

yellow

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
Oct 21, 2003
16,018
6
Portland, OR
Well, it's happened. I've taken gaming on my Mac as far as I'm willing to go... So I've finally reached the point where I'm willing to plunk down some cash for the pieces/parts to put together a Windows PC so I can play games. I'm trying to put together a box that is expandable for the future (SLI ready/enough power), but won't break my budget and for the moment, will be one hell of a gaming rig. It will NOT be used for anything else.

As a Mac lifer, all this is pretty much greek to me. As far as I know I could be putting a hamster in a wheel in a chassis and calling it good. I also know that there's plenty of switchers/dual users/whatever who have a vastly superior knowledge when it comes to PC hardware.. to those folks, I'd like your opinions/suggestions/glaring-hole-fillings on the following list:


ASPIRE X-CRUISER-YL Yellow Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail: $69.00

ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail: $159.99

eVGA 256-P2-N563-AX Geforce 7900GT CO 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail: $274.99

SILVERSTONE SST-ST50EF ATX12V 500W Power Supply - Retail: $97.50

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3700BNBOX - Retail: $220.99

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model OCZP4002GK - Retail: $191.49

Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3200827AS 200GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM: $84.99

ASUS Silver ATAPI/E-IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model DVD-E616A2 SV - Retail: $21.99

Subtotal: $1,120.94


Thanks!
 
Dude, you're a PC owner now, you're supposed to write "teh" instead of "the" and say stuff like "it is teh l337est haxx0ri57 m4ch1n3!!!"

Not a bad price for all those specs, don't quite know what they all mean but there sure are a lot of them.
 
Chundles said:
Dude, you're a PC owner now, you're supposed to write "teh" instead of "the" and say stuff like "it is teh l337est haxx0ri57
Click to expand...

Hehe... damn untypos!

quigleybc said:
for that much $ why not pick up a 360?

just curious....guess there's more/better games for PC?
Click to expand...

No interest in the 360. I don't want another console.. I'll get a PS3 eventually to round out my console stack.

Ultimately, I prefer gaming with computers over consoles. Plus there's the whole expandability issue.
 
yellow said:
Hehe... damn untypos!



No interest in the 360. I don't want another console.. I'll get a PS3 eventually to round out my console stack.

Ultimately, I prefer gaming with computers over consoles. Plus there's the whole expandability issue.
Click to expand...

I can't for the life of me understand the attraction of the PS3. As a games console its not much more powerful than the 360 (most of the games will be straight ports to one another anyway), and as a blu-ray player it'll soon look very dated as prices fall and it becomes more mainstream (if it even becomes the industry standard at all).
 
yellow said:
Ultimately, I prefer gaming with computers over consoles. Plus there's the whole expandability issue.
Click to expand...


I'm too used to consoles now to play vids on my Mac...(or lack there of)

Using a keyboard to play games for me is like using my left hand to...do other stuff.

I bought a controler to try and make gaming better on my Mac, but most games don't recognize it, and setting it up in USB Overdrive is a chore, but it works. so, I don't really play vids at all now...I miss them.

Maybe I'll get a Wii
 
FleurDuMal said:
I can't for the life of me understand the attraction of the PS3. As a games console its not much more powerful than the 360 (most of the games will be straight ports to one another anyway), and as a blu-ray player it'll soon look very dated as prices fall and it becomes more mainstream (if it even becomes the industry standard at all).
Click to expand...

This isn't the thread to discuss the 360vsPS3 battle.

Suffice it to say, I prefer the PlayStation. I will buy the PS3 and continue to play all my PS2 titles.
I will not be knowingly putting any money in Microsoft's coffers.

mactastic said:
ArsTechnica has a decent rundown on different levels of computers for different needs.
Click to expand...

Cool.. thanks for the link. Looks like I've got a bit of the "Hot Rod Box" in my list.
 
For an extra $70 you can get a little more power plus dual core:
New Egg Rocks!

I would recommend dual core as gaming is going to be heading in that direction very soon...
 
x86 said:
I would recommend dual core as gaming is going to be heading in that direction very soon...
Click to expand...

So.. I figured it would be quite a while before games became multi-core aware. And by the time that was mainstream, I could just get a whole new (better) processor later. But.. I suppose I should/could consider it.

FleurDuMal said:
The only thing I can think of as an addition is a Western Digital 10k rpm hard drive
Click to expand...

I've been wrangling with that one as well. They way I figured it.. I really wouldn't notice coming from a Mac gaming environment. I know that the difference between a 7200RPM and 10000RPM hard drive is significant in seek speeds, but do I really need to worry about this expense now? They're still pretty pricey and I'm not convinced that I'll really notice (at the moment). But also something to consider.

Daveway said:
Since you've never owned a PC, I guess that means you don't have any OEM Windows XP discs.
A new copy of Windows will set you back more or are you going "under cover"?
Click to expand...

I've got the Windows stuff covered.
 
My gaming machine has the same 3700+ chip, has a 7800GT OC, 2GB Corsair... It is great. If you haven't played FEAR, make sure it's on your list. It's my favorite game. Oblivion crashes repeatedly, so save your money for when the official patch is released. Your machine will handle games beautifully.

I went for the plain black case... not the stylin yellow. :D
 
I built almost that exact same configuration for a friend a few months ago. We went with the AMD X2 dualcore instead of the 64 processor, otherwise same MB, graphics card, a similar harddrive, and a 550 watt power supply instead.

So far its working out great. I'm not much of a gamer myself (tetris is it for me) but my friend insists that it works well. The graphics card we got came with call of duty and it runs flawlessly at the highest quality settings and 1920 x 1080 resolution on my friends 65" DLP. It looks as good or better then the xbox 360 version.

Our only issue was with the initial installation of the motherboard. Ours came fried, but we didn't realize it... the stupid thing would turn on for about half second and then turn off. We couldn't figure out what was going, and eventually sent it back for a replacement which worked beautifully. If yours doesn't work it also might be a bios issue. We discovered that our motherboard (they've probably fixed this by now) had to have the BIOS factory reflashed to work with the newest AMD chips. Other then those intstallation hicups it works great though.

Good luck.
 
I just want to mention one thing,BFG video cards and lifetime warranty. how you beat that?:)

keysersoze said:
My gaming machine has the same 3700+ chip, has a 7800GT OC, 2GB Corsair... It is great. If you haven't played FEAR, make sure it's on your list. It's my favorite game. Oblivion crashes repeatedly, so save your money for when the official patch is released. Your machine will handle games beautifully.

I went for the plain black case... not the stylin yellow. :D
Click to expand...
Thanks for the oblivion tip, i had the same thing:confused:
 
w_parietti22 said:
no offence, but I hate the case. it looks sooo.... ugly.
Click to expand...

That's ok. It was one of the only yellow ones offered by newegg... not sure why I want a yellow one.
Ultimately, it's just a chassis. I don't REALLY care what it looks like. Hell it could be a dark-days of Apple beige desktop, but I'd rather it wasn't :)
 
But what about the games? What titles will you get? Mmmh, let me guess your current lineup: solitare (running at a whopping 540fps:eek: ), minesweeper :D
 
yellow said:
ASPIRE X-CRUISER-YL Yellow Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail: $69.00
Click to expand...
I suppose... but personally I prefer the look of something like Lian-Li (almost anything from them), Silverstone (more expensive however), Coolermaster (specifically the original Stacker or the Stacker 830), or Antec (the new SOLO or original P150... I'd pass on the P180, too many issues)

yellow said:
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail: $159.99
Click to expand...
Good that you're going with S939... AM2 (at least until the latency of DDR2 comes down and gets more affordable) isn't all that worth it. You might consider Conroe however, and at the very least I would wait to build this PC until after July 24th... there are some rumors of heavy price markdowns by AMD on or after that day.

yellow said:
eVGA 256-P2-N563-AX Geforce 7900GT CO 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail: $274.99
Click to expand...
Not a bad compromise between price/performance.

yellow said:
SILVERSTONE SST-ST50EF ATX12V 500W Power Supply - Retail: $97.50
Click to expand...
Look at Fortron/Sparkle... really nice power supplies, and given the right sale (look on Zipzoomfly) can be had for pretty cheap. If you want to spend extra money here, you can't beat PC Power & Cooling... look at performance-pcs.com for modified/sleeved/modular version.

yellow said:
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3700BNBOX - Retail: $220.99
Click to expand...
Given the July 24th price markdowns, if you stick with S939 look at dual core. You said you were interested in future-proofing, that would be one additional way. Getting a Manchester core x2 3800 and overclock the hell out of it... people are getting FX-60 level speeds easy with that chip. My comments on your mobo apply here.

yellow said:
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model OCZP4002GK - Retail: $191.49
Click to expand...
Good choice, nothing else to add.

yellow said:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3200827AS 200GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM: $84.99
Click to expand...
Again, good choice... nothing to add. Though consider just getting two and put them in a RAID0 to squeeze a little extra performance. (EDIT: I saw you were considering a Western Digital 10k... don't. Putting two of these bad boys in a RAID will give you comparable performance with less noise/heat.)

yellow said:
ASUS Silver ATAPI/E-IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model DVD-E616A2 SV - Retail: $21.99
Click to expand...
No comments.

Add in an aftermarket heatsink/fan (I'd recommend a Scythe Ninja+fan combo) and I think you're set. Depending on the case you get though, you may want to consider changing out the fans with some Yate-Loons (Nexus real silent fans are the exact same thing, don't spend the extra cash on them) or something comparable to minimize noise. You may also want to consider and aftermarket cooler for your vid card... eVGA is one of the few, if not only, companies that allow you to take off the stock heatsink and not void the warranty. With a better heatsink/fan combo on your vid card you can maximize an overclock there without generating too much heat.

Last thing I'll say is if you can wait to see what happens July 24th, do it... I've seen numbers that result in 40-50% markdowns. You'd kick yourself if you missed out on that... the money you'd save there would basically pay for any upgrades to the stock cooling for the CPU and even the video card, with a little extra leftover for more efficient case fans.
 
yellow said:
That's ok. It was one of the only yellow ones offered by newegg... not sure why I want a yellow one.
Ultimately, it's just a chassis. I don't REALLY care what it looks like. Hell it could be a dark-days of Apple beige desktop, but I'd rather it wasn't :)
Click to expand...
That's where you want to be a little careful... poor airflow can kill the best setup. Not to mention poor case design/construction that contribute to rattling and other extraneous noises. So to say that it's "just a chassis" can enter you into some potentially annoying and sometimes even catastrophic territory.

Paying $25 or so more can get you a very nice Lian-Li PC-7B Plus II or a good Coolermaster/Antec case.

Silverstone's start getting into the uber-enthusiast price range, though their quality is right up there with Lian-Li.
 
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