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OK, I need a PC. Buy? Build?

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fennec fox

ferrets ferrets ferrets ferrets FERRETS!!!
My PC died on me this morning; I lost the mobo and probably one of the hard drives, and hopefully that is all. I built this PC back in late 2001, so I'm thinking about just taking advantage of this situation and getting a wholly new PC.

This PC needs to satisfy two requirements:
- Cheap
- Reasonably fast (I don't need to run HL2 but I like watching DVDs, videos, etc)

Now, if I'm building, what would be a good cpu/mobo/RAM setup to get? I have a video card, DVDR and all that other junk, so I don't see any need to buy unless totally necessary. I'll get a new case while I'm at it, too, since the old one is dented and clunky.

Any suggestions on what sort of PC I should be aiming at? I don't really wanna do mail order, since I'm in a hurry, so I was just gonna go to Fry's and build over the weekend.
 
Oh thats a tough one because for you and only because you're special I would advise the athlon64 3200 or even 3000 they are both sub 200 chips and would fit your needs just fine. Problem with that is I am not sure about the availability of agp boards for 939, im assuming your video card from 2k1 is agp. HA nm http://www99.shopping.com/xPF-A8V_Deluxe this bad boy may meet your needs though its socket 939 and has agp x8, supports PATA and SATA etc etc good luck.
 
an athlon 64 3000 or 3200, a cheap socket 939 board, and a PCI-E Radeon x700... that is about as cheap as you are gonna get without your computer sucking wind.

edit - and as for the video card, I would strongly suggest upgrading at this point. AGP is out the door. if you got the AGP board and used your existing card, when your video card started sucking bad also, you would need to buy a new card AND board, assuming they discontinue all relevant AGP cards within the next year.
 
I made the mistake of keeping my old video card when I updated last year and got an AGP board. I just recently updated my video card and noticed that it's getting very, very hard to find the newest cards in an AGP variety (and both sides are basically bridging the connection, resulting in reduced performance). I would highly recommend getting a PCI-E board and getting a cheap, low-end card to hold you over until you want to upgrade for gaming.
 
Well, in your position I might try to just pick up a reasonably cheap Athlon64 (the 3000+ is around 120 bucks these days), and a small shuttle case with the right video interface for your card. I use one of these, but there are cheaper solutions for AGP cards. (and if you really don't mind having a floor brick...er, tower, then cheap-ass motherboard + case might be the way to go).

Alternatively, if Fry's isn't selling it for a big premium, you may be able to get away with a dual-core Pentium 4 system. I've been running a dual-core athlon since last month and I can't tell you how good it is to be able to play a video, run an encode, or play a game on one core and still do something else with the other. (ie: run PSP encodes while I'm watching anime). The lowest grade P4 dualcore is the 820d, which sells for around 250 bucks.
 
If you just need a general purpose pc? I'd check the fatwallet.com forums for a dell deal. You can get a pc that will do all you want with a monitor and printer, sometimes for as low as 250, but defintely under 400.
 
Pentium D <<<<<<<<<<<< Athlon X2

don't ever recommend a pentium d unless you want people to hate you. the pentium D only has a single pathway for both cores to the north bridge, thus heavily throttled performance. the X2 has separate pathways to hypertransport (Except for memory :( ) and thus is much closer to a true dual processor system.
 
borghe said:
Pentium D <<<<<<<<<<<< Athlon X2

don't ever recommend a pentium d unless you want people to hate you. the pentium D only has a single pathway for both cores to the north bridge, thus heavily throttled performance. the X2 has separate pathways to hypertransport (Except for memory :( ) and thus is much closer to a true dual processor system.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but:

1. Budget
2. He doesn't want to use it for games
3. Budget

I'm not going to say it's perfect but it's a cheap conservative solution.
 
A shuttle case, huh... didn't think about that. That'd be cool, but how big are those in reality? I got a couple of hard drives to stick in there, after all.

Athlon 64 3000/3200 seems to be the way to go. My vid card is AGP, but it won't kill me to get a new one if those cpus are that cheap.

As for "no games whatsoever" -- I don't have any desire to play anything of even Doom 3 level, but I do use emu's and play around with videos, so I'd like at least that much power. Basic fast XP performance is OK by me.
 
fennec fox said:
A shuttle case, huh... didn't think about that. That'd be cool, but how big are those in reality? I got a couple of hard drives to stick in there, after all.
Click to expand...

My current setup has enough room for 1 DVD burner, and two hard drives (depending on how hot they are...as they would have to stack, one taking the 3.5 slot normally meant for floppy drives). I leave my main drive inside the PC and use a USB2.0 enclosure (30 bucks) for the other one.

The setup is pretty damn tiny; the height of 3.5, maybe 4 internal DVD burners stacked? I think the shuttle site does a good job of illustrating the size difference next to a 17" LCD.

ST20G5-guad-monitor.jpg
 
well i didnt advise a PCI e system because he sounded like he wanted to keep his current card. He doesnt want to do any heavy graphics apps so that board i posted is fine just uses agp instead of pci E. PCI E does speed up all your apps thru the southbridge though since its point to point and not shared bus.
 
I go custom built machine all the game, but in this instance I'd go with a Dell. Considering that you want to buy the parts in the store. So it is going to be well over $500 to get any type of good machine at a place like Fry's.

If you wanted to go custom built on a budget. Here is what I'd get.
MSI K8N NEO3-F
AMD Sempron 64 3400+
SAPPHIRE 100591 Radeon X300 128MB
Kingston ValueRAM 512MB

that is $327 via newegg.
 
Slo said:
Honestly, if you really don't want to play games at all, just buy a $400 Dell.
Click to expand...
element said:
I go custom built machine all the game, but in this instance I'd go with a Dell. Considering that you want to buy the parts in the store. So it is going to be well over $500 to get any type of good machine at a place like Fry's.
Click to expand...
Listen to these dudes. Or a 500 dollar mac if that's an option. :P
 
That $349 Dell is an awesome value- comes with a 17' flatscreen? wow.

Anything today can play DVDs in its sleep. This one should also easily play back high def content.
 
I guess a Dell wouldn't be bad, but (1) I'm not on that much of a budget (2) I'd like to try building something again. Also macs suck, so go away you mac lusers.

Ah well. Either way I'll start poking around tomorrow. Got too much other work to take care of today. Thanks for all of your help so far.
 
fennec fox said:
I guess a Dell wouldn't be bad, but (1) I'm not on that much of a budget (2) I'd like to try building something again. Also macs suck, so go away you mac lusers.

Ah well. Either way I'll start poking around tomorrow. Got too much other work to take care of today. Thanks for all of your help so far.
Click to expand...
I said "IF" it was an option. For what you're using it for, it's not a bad machine and it's cheap. Otherwise, go for the Dell. If you're looking for in-store purchases, you'll get screwed and end up spending too much on items that aren't well serviced. If you're going to build, do you shopping online.
 
Only computer noobs say macs suck. Don't worry.

*NOTE* I've never actually owned a Mac but I've used and administered enough of them to know they don't suck. Well, unless you want to play modern PC games, in which case they kindda do. Unless you are like most gamers in that WoW is the only game in existence right now, in which case a Mac can play it just fine.

Though for just general computer use I would ALMOST consider a Mac, just because the virus/exploit threat is virtually nil. At this point I would only choose a Windows based system either for gaming or because I had to for some other reason.
 
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