Anyone sell PC's??

[Bax]

Hey, anyone here sell pc's for a living? It's time for me to upgrade and the gf wants one for herself aswell.

I'm contemplating making it myself but at this stage I'm not too sure, it all depends on whats on offer as they shouldn't be too dear unless I go all out.
She will be after something mid range. Possibly with on board sound, on board wireless, and maybe even onboard video.

Won't need a lot of hard disk space but they are cheap so probably around 100gb.

DVD Burner, USB 2.0 and that's about all I can think of. She wouldn't need too much I don't think but I will confirm it with her, as it should only be used for word processing.

Me on the other hand.
I'm leaning towards the upper end of the spectrum with Processors, a motherboard that can handle a decent graphics setup, either twin graphics or 1 large one. Probably twin 200gb drives, maybe more. I will drop 5.1 sound in there eventually I think I have a spare at home. Wireless, USB 2.0. Whatever the fastest DVD writer is at the moment, are we still at 16x??
And that's all - she will need a keyboard and mouse and monitor but I can track them down here.

[Patrio7]

those new twin code intels repotably kick some ass..

throw a budget and a ' i want ' at OCAU or atomic, someone should be able to spec one up for you

[vr_owner]

whats the budget? if i was you id go for a e6600 conroe c2d with 2gb of ddr2 800 ram, an 8800gts for a motherboard id get this P5N32-SLI-PREMIUM

but thats pretty much top of the line unless u get the 2 8800gts's in sli. but we need to know your budget to get started on some specs.

[Bax]

Well I was hoping I could get something along those lines for 1000.. Not much over. Not chasing the fastest processor in the world.

HDD's can be kept out of the price for now as I can manage on 80gb for a while.

[shaggerz]

bax your budget is the same as mine when i upgraded my pc a couple months ago. I can recommend the same config I have got as I did a massive amount of research before putting this list together...

ABIT AB9-Pro Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
nVidia 7600GT PCI Express Graphics Card
1GB DDRII-800 (get 2x512MB DIMMS so you can run it in dual channel)
320GB Seagate 7200.10 SATAII 16MB Cache
Lite On All-Write DVDRW of some sort

I whacked it all together in a cheap ($39 with power supply lol) case and used existing monitor. Total Cost came to just under $1K and yours should come to the same or less if you look around and visit a few places for parts.

EDIT: I have overclocked this configuration from the stock 1.86GHz to 2.73GHz stable with the stock heat sink... note that this core speed is just a little faster than the top of the line Core 2 Duo cpu. Gaming performance is outstanding. I run all games in 1024x768 with 4 x Anti-Aliasing and 4 x Anisotropic Filtering. Doom 3 runs a timedemo of 138fps at the stock clock speed. Overclocked is somewhere in the 170's. I have not found a game that even comes close to running slowly except for Tom Clancy's Rainbox Six Las Vegas, but I read that that game runs slowly on 99% of systems anyway. Oh and if 3DMarks mean anything to you, this setup gets just under 4000 in 3DMark06.

[Insane_Metal_Man_666]

Hey Shaggerz

Nice setup for a PC man...

I was thinking of upgrading me a new pc

spend around $4000

I cant believe you can get that sort of pc for like $1000.

I am thinking of upgrading my Machine to something more decent.

atm I have

64Bit 3200XP
1GB OF RAM
256MB Videocard
300GB HDD
250GB HDD
DVD BURNER
CD BURNER

I wanting to go either dual core or quad core

[VS Omega]

Bax something to consider if you're going to buy a PC running Windows Vista is it includes an awesome feature called the Windows Experience Index, where it rates each of the major components on the PC and gives you a score (both baseline and for each part). It's like benchmarking only a lot simpler and it would be worth investigating as it could really help with your decision if you're looking at PC's from a store or whatever..

If you're going to get a PC running Vista or wanna know more about the WEI give this a read here.

As for what PC to build, I just finished (literally today) building myself a new gaming machine, it's over-competent but there's some things which aren't necessary so I won't tell you about it (motherboard has onboard video for example because I wanted to use the PC ASAP and get the graphics card later)

[VS Omega]

Hey Shaggerz

Nice setup for a PC man...

I was thinking of upgrading me a new pc

spend around $4000

I cant believe you can get that sort of pc for like $1000.

I am thinking of upgrading my Machine to something more decent.

atm I have

64Bit 3200XP
1GB OF RAM
256MB Videocard
300GB HDD
250GB HDD
DVD BURNER
CD BURNER

I wanting to go either dual core or quad core

You can build PC's for cheap these days that kick much arse. For under $1,500 I built the following:

Core System:
- CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (stock cooling @ stock 2.0GHz)
- Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-M55plus-S3G
- Graphics: nVIDIA GeForce 7900GS 256MB (Asus EN7900GS 2DHT, stock cooling, o/c'd @ core 500MHz / mem 700MHz)
- Memory: 2* 512MB Samsung DDR2 @ 667MHz

Storage:
- HDD: Seagate ST3120022A (120GB 7200RPM IDE)
- HDD: Seagate ST3200826A (200GB 7200RPM IDE)
- Optical: Pioneer DVR-109D (DVD-RW)

Peripherals and Accessories:
- Logitech G5 Wired Gaming Laser Mouse (added 35g weight)
- Logitech G11 Wired Gaming Keyboard
- Microsoft XBOX 360 Controller (Replaced small motor with a large motor)
- Vimicro 301x Web Camera
- Generic Bluetooth Dongle (Bluesoleil software based)

Other:
- Case: Speed H668 Black/Silver (120mm front intake / 2x 80mm exhaust fans)
- Power Supply: Cooler Master RS-430-PCAR (eXtreme Power 430w)
- 17" Diamond View Monitor (1024x768@85hz)
- Philips MMS 130/10 Speakers


I reused the hard drives, burner and the monitor, everything else is new

[TheForgotten]

I bought my laptop from www.bestdeal4u.com.au for 2500

My 2 comps are
laptop - ITC Centris, 3.06ghz, 512mbddr, 50gbhdd, onboard sound/vid, 52x24x52x8 cd/r-dvd combi, forget everything else, bought from BD4U. win XP SP1 using sygate firewall

desktop - DELL Pieceakrap, 2.80ghz, 512mbddr, 80gb hdd, o/b sound/vid, 52x40x52x8 cd/r-dvd combi yadda yadda yadda. win XP SP2 using macafee and xp firewalls

anti-badstuff programs are same on both units, (except desktop has macafee) but desktop is always plagued with problems ranging from registry, ram, speed, spyware. runs really slow by comparison...
only problem I've ever had with my laptop was hddcrash, covered by warrenty, and cracked case 2 years later (warrenty ran out dammit!)

anyway, I'm not saying you should go through these guys, maybe just talk to them about it- plus they do interest free finance (1/4 deposit) and frieght anywhere.

[andyman]

I bought my laptop from www.bestdeal4u.com.au for 2500

My 2 comps are
laptop - ITC Centris, 3.06ghz, 512mbddr, 50gbhdd, onboard sound/vid, 52x24x52x8 cd/r-dvd combi, forget everything else, bought from BD4U. win XP SP1 using sygate firewall

how long ago was that cause december 2005 i bought a dell inspiron 6000
specs are 1.73 ghz Centrino (approx equiv to a Pent. 4 3.2ghz with HT), 1gig of ram, 80 gig hdd, dvd burner, wsxga+ screen at 1680x1050, ati x300 64mb graphics card, wireless etc for just under $2000

[bezz]

got mine for around 1200 about 8 months or so ago...

amd x2 4200 (about a month before they halved in price)
2gb ram
250gb sata hdd
pcie radeon x1800 gto (on par with nvidia 7600gt, but slightly cheaper)
lg dvd burner
msi motherboard aka pile of **** rs482ild
antec smartpower 2.0 500w psu
snazzy black case to put it in
samsung 17" lcd

bought everything at the time except the screen and burner.
nowadays i'd definately go for an intel cpu, what they have at the moment absolutely kills the competition... however the amd x2s are great value.

[TheForgotten]

ah geez andy don't make me think....mid '04 pretty sure. price was a bit steeper for finance and frieght, if i paid cash in-store would have been 2100

[shaggerz]

nowadays i'd definately go for an intel cpu, what they have at the moment absolutely kills the competition... however the amd x2s are great value.

Considering my Core 2 CPU cost $270 (i think... something like that anyway) and when overclocked it absolutely flattens AMD's $950 powerhouse the Athlon FX-62, I know which I would buy you just need to look at the benchmarks to see that!

[mattman]

Whirlpool.net.au has a fabulous wiki on exactly this - building a pc to a budget.

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/index...oolpcs_systems

$1000 Intel System - RAM is easily upgradeable (or in your case, rip out the HDD and throw more RAM at your config), GPU is basic but upgradeable, only one socket but 1 GPU really is enough.

Motherboard is great for OC'ing, but even if you aren't into that it is solid, and will take new CPU's for a while to come yet (including quad-core).

[ProphetVX]

For $1200 close to a year ago I built this system

AMD X2 3800+
Gigabyte Motherboard with onboard sound, ethernet etc etc
GeForce 6800
2gb Kingston Ram
400gb Seagata SATA 7200rpm
16x DVD burner

An equivalent system assembled could have cost up to $2500-3000.

Source parts from a few stores and you'll save heaps.