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Computer hardware - recommend some stuff for me
Librarian
The face of liberal fascismRegistered User regular
The face of liberal fascismRegistered User regular
I know that there was a generic computer thread here once, but couldn't find it, so if I am posting this in the wrong place please forgive me mods.
Looks like I will get a nice tax return this year, so I am currently thinking about getting a new PC.
I am willing to spend about 700 € (currently a bit more than 1000$), problem is, that I am really not that informed when it comes to hardware.
1. What is a good mainboard for maybe 200$ tops, what is a decent CPU? I am not even sure what the standards are currently, I just noticed when I was shopping 2 days ago that my machine I bought last year for about 700$ is already hopelessly outdated.
I am willing to spend a bit more on the main board if I get a decent option for upgrades later on.
2. I want lots of RAM, its cheap and good, but a friend told me a couple of days ago that XP can only handle 2 gig? I assume thats true, is Vista a decent option or is it still buggy?
3. graphics card....basically the only thing I know is that there's Nvidia and Radeon and they both make....cards....and some game developers used to suck when programming for Radeon but I guess things are better now.
But from browsing shop sites it looks like there are a gazillion modells for every chipset of Nvidia cards for example, so I got no clue whats good.....willing to spend about 250 - 300 dollars on the card btw.
basically that's it, I want no fancy case or anything, I can buy that stuff for myself and I am able to plug it all together and get it running, it's just that I noticed I got no clue about main boards, CPUs and graphic cards.
Looks like I will get a nice tax return this year, so I am currently thinking about getting a new PC.
I am willing to spend about 700 € (currently a bit more than 1000$), problem is, that I am really not that informed when it comes to hardware.
1. What is a good mainboard for maybe 200$ tops, what is a decent CPU? I am not even sure what the standards are currently, I just noticed when I was shopping 2 days ago that my machine I bought last year for about 700$ is already hopelessly outdated.
I am willing to spend a bit more on the main board if I get a decent option for upgrades later on.
2. I want lots of RAM, its cheap and good, but a friend told me a couple of days ago that XP can only handle 2 gig? I assume thats true, is Vista a decent option or is it still buggy?
3. graphics card....basically the only thing I know is that there's Nvidia and Radeon and they both make....cards....and some game developers used to suck when programming for Radeon but I guess things are better now.
But from browsing shop sites it looks like there are a gazillion modells for every chipset of Nvidia cards for example, so I got no clue whats good.....willing to spend about 250 - 300 dollars on the card btw.
basically that's it, I want no fancy case or anything, I can buy that stuff for myself and I am able to plug it all together and get it running, it's just that I noticed I got no clue about main boards, CPUs and graphic cards.
Librarian on
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One thing to keep in mind is that in computer hardware terms, 700EUR is closer to $800 than $1000, because hardware manufacturers and retailers don't really care that the value of the Euro relative to the dollar has gone up since, like, 2002.
32-bit XP supports up to ~3GB of RAM, so if you want to use more than that, you'll need the 64-bit version of Vista. XP64 apparently has shitty driver and app support, so you'll want to steer clear.
Tom's pretty good guide on the best video cards for the money here, updated monthly.