For all you tech buffs

as a note: I have a friend who is willing to assemble the whole thing for me, so you can work from parts.

Id love to help, but theres some diffrence about prices from country to country

But do you need stuff like: keyboard, mouse and widescreen?

But i can recommend atleast:
2gb of memory (so it wont need the swap file as much)
a grafic card with atleast 256mb and shader 2.0
And a duel core. Subcom loves duel/quad core.

oh and what are your specs atm?

its a seven year old computer... I dont even know if it has specs...

Intel Celeron CPU
1400 MHz
384MB RAM

my graphics card is newer. But I dont know what it is.

no, I just need the computer. the actual computer.

aah okey. Ill try and check a few uk/us sites for prices later today, if no one is before me

hey, the more consultations the better.

The pc you have should be fine... I can't wait to play against you in multiplayer!

right. mister

computer.

its already decided that I'm getting a new one. I will need a powerful one soon anyhow (I'm gonna get the max price as high as possible)

My pc is actually better than the rack systems in the picture...

I hope you get the best bang for your buck... Also are you in the USA? If so newegg has awesome prices! I'd suggest cross checking whatever you are planning to buy, on their site too!

Here, this is pretty sweet, the only things I would try and improve on if you get closer to your 800.00 dollar range is a better gfx card, and maybe a better case/power supply.

I'd stick with the 320GB hard drive, thats a lot of space for a low price!

Also you can change the case if you want, some people like flashy cases with leds and what not, i prefer mine plain and black. Make sure to at least have a 450 watt power supply, nothing less than that will cut it, as todays new graphics cards need serious power!

All from Newegg.com!

i got a machine for $873.93 and thats with a gefore 8800gts. i will be posting it very soon

yeah but he said 800 is his MAX and might not even be possible....

So ill show what i found on newegg too.

first i was looking at a quadcore but damn those are expenciv. so i found a:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6300 - Retail
$183.00
And if your friend is abit good with computers he can clock it to a 3ghz, and theres beens some tests about it on diffrent sites, that will help you.


Next it was a motherboard. I wanted to make sure, that you where able to upgrade from 2gb of memory to 3 or 4gb when you feel its time for it.
ASRock ConRoeXFire-eSATA2 LGA 775 Intel 945P ATX Intel Motherboard - OEM
$46.99


So now i wanted to find the BEST memory i could find for this motherboard, and afcourse at a reasonable price
pqi TURBO 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5400) Desktop Memory - Retail
$157.98
($78.99 each)


Next it was a case. This one had to have some VERY good air fans to make sure this beast have the power to cool down the case. ATM it has 2x80mm fans 1 at the front(got blue led hehe) and 1 on the side panel. But you are able to upgrade it with 2 more to get rid of more heat, when the cash is there.
RAIDMAX xB ATX-528B Black SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
$19.99


And a 480W power supply
Sunbeam PSU-BKS-480-US ATX12V 480W Power Supply 100 - 240 V - Retail
$15.99


So now it was time for a harddrive. Found the sameone i got a year ago. And its still the fastest one for SATA.
I wanted it to have 10.000rpm and low seek/write time. So it will run windows and games faster.
To me its more important, to have a faster drive then space. You can always upgrade with an exstra drive later
Western Digital
Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10,000 RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
$159.99


So now the price was up to about 480$ and was hoping for a 220$ graficcard. But i thought you might want one with dx10 support. So i took this nice one
EVGA 320-P2-N811-AR GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail
$289.99

cheers

Subtotal: $873.93

I skipped the dvd drive, as im guessing that you have one already.
And i know i have gone above the limit, but this was kinda nessary to get the dx10 card

thanks for all of that!

Intel Celeron CPU
1400 MHz
384MB RAM

That is not a computer.

I know *weep*

ok. now that I've looked at this I'm seeing some issues.

first of all a LOT of these things have overheating issues (esp. the vid card, power source (!!!)) and a couple of the reviews noted some other issues (cracked/missing pieces in case etc.)

also on the power source "Not for gamers - simply not enough juice for serious gaming" huh...

so my only issues is the power source really, I just dont want something that will burn (or burn other things) out in no time. not to mention I would like it to handle some decent gaming.

finally; whats "overclocking"?

So if i understand what your saying, is that you are worried about the heat within the case, and if the power supply will burnout?

Well i got an expensiv 460W power supply from termaltake. After the warrenty went out, my machine was all of a sudden restarting all the time. I found out it was because of one of the fans wings? was broken of. And then it couldnt run. I then took out the fallen of wing and started the pc again. But the case is shaking a bit.

What i mean what i have said, dont just buy a PSU (power supply) just because of its name. Any PSU will be ok. Well as long it doesnt make alot of noise and gives the power that is needed.

And about the heat within the case, well your PSU will transfer some of the heat out of the case. And the 2 fans in the case i posted will give some fresh and cold air into it. And as i said you can buy 2 more fans to transfer even more heat out.
And the GPU (grafic card) will also transfer heat out while cooling down it self.


Short its a setting you do that will make stuff run faster. That gives more volts to eg the cpu to make it run faster, but also generat more heat.

Take my p4 3ghz i have had for the last 4 years or so. And its been running at 3.57ghz all the time with no problems.
And hers an article that can explain it better then me
Newbie's Guide To Overclocking

it should be on a museum

ok. thanks multi.

oh god... I know...

Schem , you mentioned video card overheating...... I HAVE NEVER had a video card overheat. EVER!!!

Also I disagree with the no name power supply, I always get a brand name, you don't want a crappy no-name power supply accidentally sending a power spike and or drain to any one of your components.

here, I had a friend recommend these parts. (he's a computer creating addict)
Intel Pentium D 820 2.86ghz LGA 775 $97.99

Intel 945g LGA 775, DDR2 667 MicroBTX 240pin $102.99

Turbo 2GB (2x1Gb) 240pin DDR2 667 $163 (buy 2 if you can)

Evga 320mb Gforce 8800GTS pci express 16x 289.99

Raidmax apex case $49.99

any thoughts?

well, that can be discussed for ever what is best and not. Its like comparing a B&O TV with a no name TV.
Ive got a no name TV, when i was 11 years old. And im going to be 27 the 24th this month. So that will make the TV at least 16 years old. And it have never failed.

My brother told me to buy this thermal take PSU since he said it was the best. So i thought: oh cool. Since my other one failed.
But as i said above my thermal take, did break one of its wings.
So the well known PSU did break faster then my old no name PSU.

And the old one was only a 300W. And i think the only reason it did break, was that i was putting more and more stuff into my pc.

So to my experience, when a PSU it giving up. Is because of the user is putting to much stuff in, then the PSU can handle.

Its up to the user to choose what he/she will feel best about buying like any TV or what ever

The graphics card is way more powerfull than the CPU. What will happen is the CPU will be the limiting factor in your PC, also the Pentium D chip wasn't very good...