I'm buying a new PC and need help/recommendations.

[Hickeyc31]

Hey,
I'm building my first PC and want people's input on the best setup for about 2500-3000 dollars. I know that with this money I can get a good computer built, but I don't really know what's compatible with what. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[George Hallam]

ok here you go this PC will ROCK!! i didnt inc monitor keyboard and mouse because its to your own taste and you have about $800 to play with over them.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188013
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130079
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133021
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153036
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151145
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136033
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073

all should be there to have a good PC in the price was windows vista premium for DX 10 games which will work fine on that rig.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116142

total = $2285 + P&P

if you have any questions about the parts post back and if i missed anything :p

by the way what will you be using it for

[Hickeyc31]

I'll be wanting to use it for gaming/everyday use, but gaming a lot. Do you think I should be getting the 2 hard drives or just the one? If I only get one drive, let's say I take out the 74GB drive, saving me 150 dollars. Would there be some other aspect in the list I could upgrade using that 150?

[odannyboy000]

You could take that out and upgrade to a better quad core. But I recommend keeping the Raptor; it is the fastest hard drive available.

[Hickeyc31]

I suppose I'll need a sound card too.

In addition, I have one final question for anybody to answer.
I was on Dell's website looking at customization options for the Dimension 9200. With a monitor, speakers, and mouse/keyboard included I can buy it, maxed out with a Q6600, 8800GTX (not superclocked) and 4GB DDR2 RAM. It would save me 500 dollars (plus heck it comes with all accessories I mentioned). Is it wise to just stick with the Dell? Am I going to have problems gaming on the Dimension or will I be fine?

Andddd is a Physics Accelerator really necessary for gaming? Is it going to enhance my experience greatly? (Disregard money, I don't care about how much I'm spending to be honest)

[Appolyons]

Realy quick, and I mean no offense, money is always an issue...unless we have a Bill Gates here. Nevertheless, I hear what your saying, as I'm kinda in the same boat as you are. I'll be purchasing a PC, roughly 3500 and I've had many of the same questions your kinda asking.

First, my opinion with the Dell theory. I've owned a few dells (my experiance with their service has been deplorable...perhaps others have had better luck), but I really dwell on this point. If you feel safe with an investment in them, by all means take it but i IMPLORE you to realize that since they are a larger corp., they can afford to put more of their useless (and I mean USELESS) programs into your system. This means any time you reformat your basically going to have to go into your system and delete all that trash you'll never use. For a while I toyed with making my new system a dell but decided that I was only going to do that if it was H2C. Seeing as only 720's are H2C now (making the price well above 6k), thats a no go.

In terms of the harddrive...my friend goooooooood luck. I've spent countless hours of research and reading (if you dont believe me, I think I also have a old thread in this forum under harddrives asking about Raptors vs RAID 0). If you want my opinion, Raptors are no doubt fast but one can not justify price per performance. I found a great website (if I can find it, I'll add it later), benchmarking 2x7200's vs 1 raptor. While the raptor did outdo the 7200's in most areas, there is more to the picture than just this raw speed. For less money, you can get much more space. Anyways, this is a long/controversial topic. If you google this answer, you'll find more people asking the question "which is better RAID 0 or a raptor" and I promise they all end in them flaming each other. All I can tell you is what I settled on which was 1 TB in RAID 0 with 4 identical harddrives (4x250) and got a backup drive (350 GB) in case of RAID 0 harddrive failures. My take, raptor is not always better and not the sound investment imo. It's been out for a few years now but they're still too new for me and not competing at a high enough scale.

I just wanted to throw this out there, thats a great link on the 4 gigs. I'm gona use that myself I think, thank you!

Oh and by the way, PhysX is another controversial topic. You ask me, its a must have BUT DONT BUY IT FROM VENDERS. They charge roughly 100-150+ on sites like Dell/cyberpower/etc. and there only at 128. Soon enough you'll see them at best buys with 256...I'm pretty sure about this but dont hold me to it. At any rate, they're worth it but as of right now, not enough games support the card (unless of course there is a game you absolutely love that you know supports it), so it might be worth holding off on for right now.

[Hickeyc31]

But in general is there going to be any hardware problems with the Dell? The parts look the same when you pit them side by side with exception of the motherboard. I can deal with the useless programs I think.

[George Hallam]

ok then i have looked and customized my own dell dimension 9200 like you said and there is quiet a few problems with it and that what makes it CHEAP
heres the link to try and customize it yourself
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=bdcwyfz&s=bsd

there is no hardware problems as such they just get away with the bear minimum and if you want to upgrade in the future its hard
here a FEW of the problems

- no vista home premium (small problem but still)
- yes you may get 4GB of RAM but at 667Mhz it wont OC and its slow and what make are they???? (cheap)
- you can only have 1 HDD (or two 7,200rpm in raid) and there is no choice of a 10,000rpm
- no sign of what MOBO you get is there a chance for SLI in the future
- no sign of the PSU what wattage what make will it cope with SLI
- yes it may be a 8800GTX but what make, model and is it OC'ed
- there is not much choice with the sound cards
- there is not that much you can choice from on the whole
- rubbish case
- not quality parts
- its a DELL :p

with the customizations i got, with specs still not as good as the ones i gave you it came out as more and you have to pay extra for warranty on top of that. 99% of the time its better and cheaper to build a gaming yourself

heres a good sound card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102014

[Hickeyc31]

Wow haha. You pinpointed a lot of stuff there. I'd really like to thank you for all of your help. That post right there decided it for me. Now the hard part is just getting someone to assemble the computer for me. I think I have a couple places in town who'll assemble. I'm too paranoid myself so I'm not risking ruining a motherboard with my lack of computer-building skills. Thanks again!!

[George Hallam]

its ok makes it all worth while ;)

[Appolyons]

We prevented another unsuspecting victim of making a dell purchase. It's time to go elsewhere and protect the innocent.