28 replies to this topic

[Black Scout]

i was looking at getting this computer. is it good. I would replace the memory with 2 sticks of 256 DDR and put a Gforce4 graphics card in it. Also, my friends says it won't support that much memory or the graphics card. Is that right?

[neonerfer]

Um...what computer? Give us some scecs. Assuming that it supports the GeForce 4 and 512 MB DDR, you should have a pretty descent machine. The Ge4 is a nice card for the price, but it won't be able to keep up with the absolute latest games.

[Black Scout]

here's the link:

Computer

It's the 300y.

[Famine]

Your ghetto link ain't workin dude. Why don't you just list the specs for us?

[Alexthebeast]

I found the computor, and it's a build-a-PC model, so list ALL of the PC choices

[Sylent Blade]

The Ge4 is a nice card for the price, but it won't be able to keep up with the absolute latest games.

He's right, good card for price, but not very good. Want a good card for a reasonable price?ATI® Radeon™ 9600XT 128Mb DDR AGP DVI. That's one sick card. Sells on PC Canada for $264.99. It's my next card... I can't wait to unwrap that baby and stick in my case.

And I don't really know if your computer is very good... like others before me, I ask, please list the specifications of this computer. Thanks.

SB is out.

[Alexthebeast]

Hehe, I slaughter you all, I have 2 yes, 2 Gragpics cards in my machine now, a Radeon 9800 Pro, and an Avix 13400. Beat that bitches.

[Sylent Blade]

A 9800 Pro? Nice ATB. Well, that beats me anyways... you pay full price for that fucker of a vid card? Or was it used? Yeah, that's cool. And you have two? What the hell do you need two for, you crazed mad-man (synonyms... needed to make a point however).

[Alexthebeast]

To run Games at uber-speed, duh!

[neonerfer]

I'm building a new computer. Should be ordering it within a week, just got to get my dad to agree on the price, ordering it from New Egg.

Specs:

• FIC A98P RADEON 9800 Pro 128MB
• Pentium 4/ 3.0C GHz 800MHz FSB
• ABIT 875P Motherboard for Socket 478 800MHz Canterwood Model "IC7-Max3"
• Corsair XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series, (Twin Pack) 184 Pin 512MBx2 Registered DDR PC-3200 w/ Platinum-Silver Heat Spreader
• Hitachi 200GB 7200RPM IDE Internal Hard Drive
• Sony DW-U14A Black DVD+/-RW Recorder Drive
• Antec 480W Power Supply TRUE480
• Black Cheiftec case with door-window in side
• Green cathode voice activated lighting
• 4 fans (2 green w/ LED's and 2 clear)
• 19" viewsonic flatscreen monitor
• Logitech Wireless Mouse-Keyboard combo

Grand total: $ 1,952.86...ouch, but it would be $3000 at Fry's.

I can't wait to get it and put it together, I'm going to make such sweet, sweet lo......errrr...I'll finally be able to play all the latest games at uber speeds!

Edited by neonerfer, 05 December 2003 - 08:49 PM.

[lech]

Fuck'n nice specs neo.

[Sylent Blade]

That is one expensive machine... looks like it's worth it though. Honestly, I would go for AMD CPUs, Intel never really did it for me. I'm getting a AMD Athelon 2800XP, which is the equivilent of your Pentium 4 3.0 I believe. Anyone seen the price on the AMD Athelon 64 CPU?!?! HOLY CRAP! One expensive little box, but it does wonders...

[merlinski]

That is one expensive machine... looks like it's worth it though. Honestly, I would go for AMD CPUs, Intel never really did it for me. I'm getting a AMD Athelon 2800XP, which is the equivilent of your Pentium 4 3.0 I believe. Anyone seen the price on the AMD Athelon 64 CPU?!?! HOLY CRAP! One expensive little box, but it does wonders...

If you go by clock speed, the Athelon 2800XP be less than the P4 3.0

I have a Geforce4 Ti4400, and I have to disagree with NeoNerfer. The card is much much more than able to keep up with the latest games, I just installed Max Payne 2 and I can run it on the highest possible graphics settings. If you believe that a 6-month old card is inable to compete with new graphics technology, you're just falling into the marketing scheme that they use. The Geforce4 series will be able to run the newest best games until at the earliest a year from now, and I'd be willing to bet it can run them at the highest settings until middle of next year.

[cxwq]

[*]Black Cheiftec case with door-window in side

As I told you already, nice machine!

Maybe it's just cause I've built 50+ machines using Chieftec/Antec cases in the last three years, but aren't those cases just the most boring things in the world?

My latest machine is built in this AMS case ($40 at NewEgg) which is extremely well made and nice to work with.



High-gloss automotive style paint job with an acrylic panel over the front. The finish really has to be seen to be appreciated. I took the acrylic panel off and printed out some wallpaper to go under it. Window kits are cheap and you can throw a 120mm fan in the middle of the window right over your video card.

Regarding Intel vs AMD, Intel is the current performance champ and that matters when you're building a machine like this. That said, if you could save a few hundred bucks (I don't know what they run right now) by dropping down to an Athlon 2800 and Socket-A mobo, I'd jump on that in a second.

[superadaquabat]

If you plan on adding all that stuff on your own, then you migth as well build your own system. As mr. neo pointed out, he's saving a thousand bucks about. Mind you if your not the kind of guy who likes to deal with plroblems you may want the warranty stuff. Also, please correct me if i'm wrong, but HP is not very good for uprading on your own. I don't know if their cheap all in one integrated boards can be upgraded, and from what i've heard only caus problems. Lastly i'de just get one 512 stick rather than 2, i've found it cheaper that way and there's more room for upgrading in the future.

On a side note, I built a pretty decent system last year for around 800, 2400 athlon xp, 512 memory, 80 gig harddrive, geforce 4 ti 4400 128mb card and all. To my dismay i saw an add for a day after tahnksgiving sale for a 2.4 gig p4, 80 gig harddrive and 512 memory for 200 bucks. Sigh* You can never win I sapose.

[Daedarus]

Was that the E-Machines at Best Buy? That was a 2.8 GHz, 128MB video card, I can't remember what kind. We went to Best Buy at 6 in the morning to get that (there were only 20 in the store, it was only $250) and the line was all the way to the back on the store. Now, I am thinking of getting a Sony Vaio. Are those good computers? I have heard they have reliability problems.

[Ice Nine]

Meh, you may not want to read this post. Not that I think I think that an original computer like Neo's is bad (Quite the contrary, it's awesome-ly built.), but I think Macs are almost the perfect machines. If the entire point of all these computers was to make a gaming machine, ignore me. Macs have so much functionality, great applications (i.e. iTunes, Safari, iChat AV.), and the design is so great. If you really want something like...an AMD 64, go out and buy a freakin' dual 2.2 gig G5 and Virtual PC to run your games.
...
But then you lose the sense of customation. Err...

[superadaquabat]

Whats so good about Safari? I saw only one feature i really liked with was all the tabs so you can see many websites in one window. That was pretty cool, but not worth the premium cost of macs. iTunes works on IBM, and who uses iChat? I mean it could be good, but can you really think of anyone. Besides there are many programs that do the same exact thing on IBM. Lastly i do belive these games are ostly for games. I don't believe dual 2.2 gig cpu's can compete with AMD 64 while running bug-infested virtual-pc. I would recomend getting one of those huge screens though. That would be so aweome. I'de rather buy a projecter though and save 1,000.

I'm not sure if it was that one daedarus. The one i was talking about was 199 without screen, 300 with. Thats a shame you didn't get it though. It seemed like the 200 dollar one would have been awesome with some of my parts added in, for that price at least.

Edited by superadaquabat, 06 December 2003 - 12:44 PM.

[neonerfer]

That is one expensive machine... looks like it's worth it though. Honestly, I would go for AMD CPUs, Intel never really did it for me. I'm getting a AMD Athelon 2800XP, which is the equivilent of your Pentium 4 3.0 I believe. Anyone seen the price on the AMD Athelon 64 CPU?!?! HOLY CRAP! One expensive little box, but it does wonders...

If you go by clock speed, the Athelon 2800XP be less than the P4 3.0

I have a Geforce4 Ti4400, and I have to disagree with NeoNerfer. The card is much much more than able to keep up with the latest games, I just installed Max Payne 2 and I can run it on the highest possible graphics settings. If you believe that a 6-month old card is inable to compete with new graphics technology, you're just falling into the marketing scheme that they use. The Geforce4 series will be able to run the newest best games until at the earliest a year from now, and I'd be willing to bet it can run them at the highest settings until middle of next year.

Yeah, you're right. I was thinking this machine had a Geforce 4, but it actually has a Geforce 2 64MB. My card can't keep up with the latest games, the Geforce 4 probably will be able to keep up for a while. The true test is will the Geforce 4 run Half-Life 2? I don't even think my computer will be good enough to run that game...

Edited by neonerfer, 06 December 2003 - 12:55 PM.

[Ice Nine]

Whats so good about Safari?

Well, at least on my computer, it's a hell of a lot faster than IE. The tabs, like you said, are really great and functional.

...and who uses iChat?

I do. It's compadible with AIM, so I can chat with anyone I want to. Simple. Have you seen AV though? Much much MUCH better.

I would recomend getting one of those huge screens though.

*Sniff...* So true...I love the 23" HD Cinema Display...

...bug-infested virtual-pc.

Oh, come on. It's not THAT bad.

Edited by Ice Nine, 06 December 2003 - 01:05 PM.

[superadaquabat]

If it wasn't that bad, then games would not be an issue.

Edited by superadaquabat, 06 December 2003 - 01:55 PM.

[Ice Nine]

Granted, it's not bug-free. But what is? I find Virutal PC just fine for running the games I like, like Worms World Party and Age Of Empires 2.

[Spaztic 75]

I think Macs are almost the perfect machines.

You think MACS are the greatest. Wtf is wrong with you. If they were more compatible with other systems I might agree but when it comes to building a computer from parts you got from a store that didn't want them, macs are a real road block: they won't comply with the other non-mac parts. They're the racists of the computer relm.

[Daedarus]

Calm down, everyone has their own opinions. Anyways, I like how Macs looks, how its just that one moniter thing.

[merlinski]

NeoNerfer, I think HL-2 was designed so NO computer could run it.

There are a few reasons I almost universally prefer PC's to macs. First, the price. I mean cmon, its not even close in that category. Second is the customization. If I have a processor bottleneck in my PC, I just buy a new one and swap it out. You can't do that in a mac. Nor can you buy all of your parts seperately and build a completely kickass system for under $1000. The third is that people always flaunt the mac's performance, like "look at its dual processors" or "look at its 64 bit bla bla bla". It's not backed up with numbers! The entire mac commercial premise that their faster than PC's due to their chip architecture is bullshit. Take for example the dual G5 type of systems that everyone always flaunts. For the same price, I could build 2 dual AMD or dual Intel systems with faster processors, and a helluva lot better graphics card, and I could throw in a cooler looking case and flatscreen monitor. Not to mention the software isn't that great. Ice Nine mentioned iTunes, iChat, and Safari. I personally have no problem with internet explorer, I never have. And AIM is fine for me. If I really wanted a more expansive service, I'd get Trillian. As for iTunes, this is the program that every mac junkie always mentions. It's not that great!! I mean, as a mp3 player it's nothing extraordinary, and the music store isn't unique. I much prefer musicmatch, I think it's internet radio is the best out there.