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Help building PC and Iphone = good/bad?
JB07
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hello everyone, so Xmas is coming up soon and iam hoping to get some money and put it towards a new PC tower for diablo and starcraft! 
But i never built a pc before and I been out of the loop on what to look for in parts. This is where i would love to hear your suggestions, tips and help on building a pc. I am building on a budget, iam expecting a max of 999 and i want this tower to be at least upgradeable later so a min of about 600. Am i going to be able to build a decent gaming tower off that amount?
If i go with building it my self and buy some parts online, they need to be able to send to Canada, lucky newegg Canada is now up. I also have a local computer shop that iam told has good support and makes there PC proper. avalonsoftware dot ca is the site and list all the parts they have in stock. what i might be able to do is buy the pc from them but bring in a few parts i bought online to be installed to test the pc.
So the basic questions i should get some answers to first is, can a decent tower be built on a budget?
Would it be best to local from a brand name, build it my self, or a local store i can trust?
What are the main things to look for in a motherboard, and other main parts when buying?
Thanks for any help guys =D
I am also looking into getting a new cell phone and I was looking into the smartphones. Of course Iphone caught my eye and i was wondering what owners thought of it?
But i never built a pc before and I been out of the loop on what to look for in parts. This is where i would love to hear your suggestions, tips and help on building a pc. I am building on a budget, iam expecting a max of 999 and i want this tower to be at least upgradeable later so a min of about 600. Am i going to be able to build a decent gaming tower off that amount?
If i go with building it my self and buy some parts online, they need to be able to send to Canada, lucky newegg Canada is now up. I also have a local computer shop that iam told has good support and makes there PC proper. avalonsoftware dot ca is the site and list all the parts they have in stock. what i might be able to do is buy the pc from them but bring in a few parts i bought online to be installed to test the pc.
So the basic questions i should get some answers to first is, can a decent tower be built on a budget?
Would it be best to local from a brand name, build it my self, or a local store i can trust?
What are the main things to look for in a motherboard, and other main parts when buying?
Thanks for any help guys =D
I am also looking into getting a new cell phone and I was looking into the smartphones. Of course Iphone caught my eye and i was wondering what owners thought of it?
So much work, too many games.
JB07 on
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Oh and the lack of mms totally sucks.
The iPhone is nice, and other then it's well known little quirks, it really is a nice phone. Other phones to look at would be the G1 and the Blackberry Storm, if you're looking at an iPhone.
they dont ship to canada. the canadian site is limited and i seem to be limited in what i can buy and still be somewhat budget friendly.
One question that would help when buying on a budget is, budget or not, what should be the bar min specs i should be going for in here piece. EG: mother board should have at least 6 ram slots with 1100max FSB or what ever.
Also what brands should i stay away from, I already hate MSI, anything else i should stay away from?
For the smartphone, i dont NEED it, its just for personal use so thats why iam looking at the iphone. I did take a look at the storm and one huge factor that turned me off from it was no wifi.
This thread is probably useful. Just check the recent posts and see what other people are putting together/suggesting.
I really like Asus mobos.
PSN: SAW776
cool ty, i'll look into that card and others like it. i can always upgrade the card later to as long as i got the core of the computer right.
I been hit and miss with Asus. Mostly I found the cheaper products to be totally junk but the mid to high end stuff to work great. They really come off as a, get what u pay for, brand.
CPU: intel vs AMD. i know AMD overtook intel but that seems to changed again. anything big i should know about between these two?
Also, if you're in Canada I wouldn't get an iPhone, because you're stuck on the 3 year contract.
I believe www.newegg.ca is up and running for our chilly neighbors to the north.
http://www.ncix.com/
http://www.memoryexpress.com/
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/
http://www.newegg.ca/
So at least you can do a little bit of price shopping.
You betcha.
If you've got a local store that can assemble a system for you, that's an easy option. I avoid brand name systems for gaming, mostly for reasons related to PSUs and video cards (brand name systems tend to skimp on both and make it hard to upgrade either.) If you've done minor work inside your machine before, then building it yourself is an easy enough option if you're a careful person, take your time, and be sure you understand what you're actually doing each step of the way.
The most likely issue to crop up with a self-build is that you'll miss something little along the way (say, putting the HSF on in reverse; missing a motherboard standoff, not pushing your video card in QUITE hard enough, putting your memory into the slots in the wrong order) and you'll end up with a system that sure looks done but won't power up properly. You've gotta be ready to go backwards and if it comes down to it be ready to rebuild the system one step at a time.
Which is why I will put a little advice here somewhat out of order from the rest: when you build a computer, FIRST THING, connect your CPU (with heatsink/fan), video card, and memory to the motherboard and power the damned thing up before putting it inside a case.
It's not hard: pretty much everything can only plug in one way (visually determine what this one way is before trying to plug anything into anything else.) It's like expensive lego. Really expensive lego.
If you've got a local shop that will take parts YOU buy and put them into a computer for you, then I'd just say to try it yourself carefully first, and if it doesn't work out box the parts up and get the local store to assemble it for you. If you know a friend who builds or has built computers before, invest in some aid for a case of beer or something.
My personal motherboard recommendations, for brand are usually Asus and Gigabyte. Pick your motherboard based on CPU choice (Intel/AMD) followed by features you want within the available motherboards (ie: do you want to overclock? do you want SLI/crossfire? onboard RAID? onboard video? DDR2 or DDR3?) Get a list of the boards that meet your requirements.
My specific advice on features which is based on somewhat general presumptions about getting performance for price: skip SLI/crossfire, get RAID if you want it, get onboard video IF it's on a high-performance board and won't cost you extra (makes it easier and cheaper to turn an old system into a media PC or something you can give your grandma a couple years down the road) and get DDR2 (unless you opt for a core i7 in which case... enjoy your DDR3) because it's much cheaper, generally faster, and MUCH faster if you take into account the amount of money you save to buy a better video card or CPU.
When you've done that, go to google and type in: 'newegg asus-p3n-1s' or whatever. This can give you a general impression about the quality of a board. Scan comments for 'deal killers' (ie: repeated comments about a boards inability to overclock would be a deal killer to me.) Come up with a 'short list' of motherboards that meet your needs / budget, then google for specific reviews for the mobos you're interested in by enthusiast sites to get a much better impression of what sort of board you might be buying. THEN (and you can skip step two if those reviews are just greek to you) when you think you've settled, come into the build thread here and ask about a couple boards you're interested in (it never hurts to ask for advice, and mobos are such an important choice that you really don't want to go wrong.)
For video cards, start with a short-list and then decide based on online reviews which card you actually want. Look at performance in games you play, performance with settings you like (ie AA/AF, high resolutions, whatever) and performance 'in general.' Here's a short list:
nVidia's 8800 series: a generation old but still a good. If you find them at budget prices (50-100$) then they're good cards and will probably do you fine.
nVidia 9800 GT: the same card as the 8800 GT. Did I mention the 8800 series was good? Good enough to sell twice.
nVidia 9800 GTX: ALMOST the same card again, with some more shaders. 10% performance increase, more or less. Good cheap card.
ATI HD4850: in general terms, a better card than the 9800 GTX, but the difference isn't immense. The 4850's handle AA/AF way better, and tend to be a little quicker though some games go to one card or the other. They also usually cost a bit more. A well priced 1gb HD4850 would probably be my mid-range card recommendation.
I don't really think you'll want to dip into the high end with your budget, but if you do, the 1gb HD4870 is a really admirable performer in general. That said you should never buy something really expensive because some random stranger on the net tells you it'll be nice, so if you do want to go high end, read a lot of video card reviews and pick what you like.
If I were building a gaming system on a budget, today, I'd buy:
CPU: e7200 (e8400 or e8500 if I didn't plan to overclock OR if I planned to overclock but still had some more money to spend)
motherboard: Gigabyte EP45-xxxx or EP43-xxxx
video: HD4850 or 9800GTX
memory: 4 or 8 gigs of low latency DDR2.
hard drive: 640gb or 1tb
optical: 20-30$ cheapo LG burner (not like the brand matters... it's just LG is what I'm used to seeing on the cheap end.)
case+PSU: Antec. Good cases bundled with good PSUs for the price.
Then I'd overclock the heck out of the CPU, maybe replace the stock cooler (it sucks but the chips are good overclockers so you can still OC on 'em), slap in an extra case fan and call it a day.
Hope this helped you out.
edit: I like my iphone. If you want a phone-sized web browser, it's the best one, and being able to look at office documents and PDFs is handy. But as someone said, as an actual smartphone, it's pretty fucking retarded (well they didn't say that but I did. I can't take a picture and text it to someone, I have to e-mail it to them? I can't record a video on my phone? I can't copy and paste text messages? I CAN'T COPY OR PASTE PERIOD?! GEEZ!) If you want a phone that browses the webs and previews documents and has some neat apps, it's good. It's a terrible PDA, though, compared to actual PDAs or PDA/phone combos. Elegant, but terrible. In PDA terms, the iphone is like a woman (or man, if that's your fancy) who's gorgeous, beautiful, and as smart as a sack of rocks.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=70070
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=19715
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=72479