1000$ for a good computer...what to get?Follow

Ok, since I just turned 16 on Sunday (woot =P) and Christmas is coming up...Im going to put off about 1000$ for my own computer( the one I share with my bro is totally messed up b/c of him and my parent's computer I can barely use).

I need some advice for a good computer with a 1000$ range.

I already have a Radeon 9600XT or 9800XT, I cant remember which.

I just want my own computer so I wont hear ******** from my parents.

Thanks all,

Coconut

go to dell.com - probably your best bet.

i run a desktop and a laptop from here www.abspc.com

$1000.00 wont get you much with a monitor.
without a monitor you'll have better luck for a decent upgrade.

good luck!

I once wrote a post called "75FPS for under $1000" but I can't seem to find it right now.

Basically:

AMD 3200+ (best performance/value ratio)
Asus A8N SLI Deluxe or Premium - DO NOT CHEAP OUT ON THE MOTHERBOARD
1gig of FAST RAM (DDR-4200)
nVidia 6600GT 128 SLI (or 6800GT 256 if you can afford it). DO NOT buy the non-GT models as they are not nearly as good
Any 7200 RPM SATA hard drive (size doesn't matter much)

A couple of other things:

- You can always add a second video card to this setup in the future - SLI = 2x video card compatibility
- You can always up it to 2gigs or even 4 gigs of RAM in the future (good motherboards support this)
- You can get 2-4 identical hard drives and set up a RAID 0 which makes all of the hard drives function as one, greatly increasing the read and write pipes. If you RAID 2+ hard drives, you will NEVER see "lag" in Orgrimmar again, and hard drives are dirt cheap

Rate up for Jord; that's a really good listing of what to get to keep the budget small and the performance really high up there.

I would -strongly- recommend newegg.com for ordering the parts. I've never had anything less than stellar experiences with them, and it's even to a point where everyone I know (including the places I work for and advise on machine upgrades) will order parts from them.

They have a decent return policy and their customer service reps are pretty helpful (especially if you're coming from bad experiences with Dell, you'll find newegg to be a bit of a breath of fresh air).

I'm on my fourth machine that I've built with parts from newegg, and the only problem I had was with bad memory which was replaced really fast and without incident.

Edited, Tue Dec 6 14:49:42 2005 by Diamondelle

I just built this PC for my friend, all parts from newegg.com except for case which was from colorcases.com:





Basically P4 3.0ghz 1 gig DDR2 200gig HD SLI Capable mobo geforce 7800

Basically just get a lower end video card and you should be ok.

AMD and Intel are very close on benchmarks depending on what proc you use to compare, both are good though AMD is winning out in the high end market (processors over $900 basically). For the price range you are going for intel and amd differences will be minimal.

The MB noted above is a good choice as it is capable of running SLI for graphics but you dont have ot right away. IT also supports dual core procs for when you want to upgrade later.

Also that setup is fairly overclockable. You can get to at least 3.3-.4 ghz with the stock heatsync and fan. With a similar setup on another PC i have mine clocked at 3.55 ghz with a Zalman heatsync and fan.

You could also get a cheaper power supply for around 40-50ish.

You could also get a smaller HD.

Stick with 1gig of ram definatley.

^^edit oh yea you can also stick with the onboard sound which is quite adequate for normal use. The above setup can easily be pushed below the 1000 mark even with shipping.
Good luck!

Edited, Tue Dec 6 18:19:10 2005 by TseTsuo

The Dell XPS gaming laptop is decent enough, also the Alienware one's are quite capable. Expect to be starting at $3000 easy though.

I talked to an alienware lady through the help line.. she linked me to this:
http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/Area-51_m5700/area-51m_features.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-AREA51-M-5700&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT


Seems nice, but now that I think about it, you all got me thinking a desktop would me better and more affordable.

Any other suggestions?

An Alienware computer good for WoW?


Edited, Tue Dec 6 18:36:04 2005 by Coconut

- AMD64 3000 gives a better price/performance ratio. ~$50 less and overclocks the same. Iv run my 3000 at 2.6Ghz stable for weeks. On air. Stock.
2.3GHz is easy to attain without much work. The $50 you save on this go into your -Video card.

$140~

- Being cheap or not on the MB is irrelevant. You want a stable board. Stable SLI boards run for about $150. Do not pay more for a hype. A8N has had good reviews, and for me the EPoX boards, while lamely supported, simply never need support to begin with. Stable (stability is 10x more important than %2 performance gain)

$150~

- 6600GT in SLi is one of the worst combos simply because 2x6600GT BEARLY outperform a single 6800GT at common resolutions, and cost about the same (but you’d be losing an entire video card slot upgrade) A bad investment.

$250~

- Fast RAM is nice, not as noticeable as some would lead you to believe, and only viable if its cheap. AMD64 utilizes memory better than older chips. 1GB of 3200 RAM will cost about 75$. You will not notice a difference. Getting 2x3200@$150 value select will be a better investment than 1x4200. Faster RAM (over 3200) has very little real effect on games like WoW. This is common knowledge. Ability to upgrade to 4GB of RAM is irrelevant unless you’re like doing CAD, Video editing, and have Photoshop open at the same time you’re running WoW. The $50~

$75~

- Hard drives _are_ cheap. Though "any" is not a good recommendation. Seagate, and Western Digital are the top rated (by consumers) brands. The optimum setup for this is 2x SMALL SATA and RAID0 them 32k stripe, and 1x normal SATA. ~120GB is a good price/GB ratio.

Due to how Windows uses VM (virtual memory) regardless of how much RAM you have, if you have a slow hard drive, or a single random SATA, performance WILL SUFFER. Not just in the game, but in everything. Your frame rate wont be effected, but load times ect.

Size matters. Due to the density of the chemistry involved in making a hard drive. Smaller drives have lower density. In one spin they are not capable of seeing as much data as a higher density drive. This is _one_ of the reasons why 40GB 7200 drive of old preformed at around ~40MBps and newer drives, 250GB @ 7200 perform at ~60MBps.

SATA is on a 150MB pipe. (SATAII is 300), 2x120 will burst to the limit of this. This means with something like 4 your gains drop. Also with 4, you have a four times higher chance of _EVERYTHING CRASHING TO A HUALT_ and not being recoverable.

2x is optimal.

2x120
$150~
2x80
$100~


- POWER. This is more important than anything else. YES. It is. You DO NOT WANT to skimp on your power. Do NOT buy a case with a nameless 300w inside. Especially with SLi setups. You want 450w ((Quality)) power running to your devices, or things can and will melt, set on fire, or be generally unstable, twitchy, and you’ll go MAD trying to figure our why your computer likes to be a ***** sometimes. Freezes, glitches, etc etc.

Antec among others are good brands. This and the motherboard are something you should do more research on yourself.

$100~


-CASE
$30~ to $130. Depending on if you give a rats *** about the looks.


-Monitor. LCD is where it’s at now. I have a 25ms refresh rate LD (slow by today’s standards) and "ghosting" is not a problem. Not even in FPS games (and I AM picky about the quality of what I'm seeing.. I’ve spent countless hours on my wow UI). The crisp clear quality down to the pixel is like black and white from even the sharpest CRT.

CRT is around mainly because of its more accurate color representation. Meaning a $2000 (yes 2000) CRT would outperform an equally expensive LCD in terms of color. This is something none of us (unless we have a graphic artist here? :D ) are going to even notice. This does not mean a $300 CRT will perform better in color than a $300 LCD.

You will be able to find a 19" LCD for about $250 now. (I paid $500 3 years ago and ive been in love with it ever since)

An LCD is important due to the perks your future new graphic cards give. You will want ASPx16 (sharpens and details textures) and AAx4 (maybe higher, but it bugs out at 8x on the 6600GT for me in WoW). If you’re somehow able to find a 1600x1200 LCD under 300$, research it. Higher the resolution the better. Typical will be 1280x1024.

While I completely agree that a custom system is the best solution, building it yourself is not the only option. (Well, it is for me, but I've built all my own systems since 1975). If there is a decent computer shop in your area, you can supply the parts and they will put it together for about $100.

When buying a case for you new 'puter, make certain that there are places to hang extra fans on the side and back. You can never have too much cooling, and too little can make your life miserable.

My current system has an Asus A8N motherboard, AMD64 3800, 1G fast ram, 220G hard drive, ATI Radeon 9800 (256M), DVD burner, 500W power supply, 17" LCD panel, Microsoft keyboard, etc. and cost me less than $600 a year ago. I buy most of my parts at the local computer swap meet or through eBay.

My wife has my old system, which is essentially the same, except that the has an AMD64 3200, a 450W power supply, a Sony 17" monitor, and a 120G hard drive. Well, it's not really my old system - just my old case. I had to get a new motherboard, processor and power supply after my old ones saved the fuses by burning themselves out. That points to the big caveat... lack of warantee. I still feel that combining an upgrade with the repair was worth not having the warantee.

heck, i was on a student/part timer budget and i got the $599 dell on sale.

since ive upgraded ram, vid card (sux it was only PCI though), and all in all its a nice, decently quick computer, and it cost me about $800-850 for everything. its not a "gaming machine" but i pull about 30 FPS and have no AH lag.

im not savvy enough to build my own, so i just went ahead and bought one.

yes but warranties are not helpful really when another part causes the damage. I know this from personal experience.

PSU fried 2 graphics cards and a motherboard, i was able to get one graphics card RMA'd (the PSU then fried that one and no RMA was given for that one.)

I'm not saying not to do it, just saying there are risks.

If you buy from the same shop then yes i suppose you have a better chance.

That particular setup was purchased mainly from a computer show from a few different vendors.

Personally, I'm in the market for one of these. They can be brought with you to wherever you want to go quite easily, not very much unlike a laptop. (although, they can't actually be used on the go, but you can bring 'em anywhere)

They're not as expensive as a laptop, and you can upgrade them as you wish. Plus, the Shuttle monitor is awesome, if you want to splurge for it.

In all likelyhood, I'm going to buy a barebones kit from newegg.com or tigerdirect.com (both great sites for parts), and buy the rest of the components separately. It can easily match the power of a high-end PC, yet has many of the elements of a laptop.

The only problem I've found so far is that the barebone cases currently available don't support dual-core technology. However, my friend tells me that if I update the BIOS I can make it dual-core compatible, but I really don't like mucking around with BIOS settings, too easy to ***** everything over. Any chance someone could confirm if this is true?

Anywho, if you're willing to spend a little bit extra on a case and an LCD, a Shuttle works rather nicely.