I'm sick of this crap, want to order a new machine ASAP, help

[Alcohol]

<edit> If you're new to this thread, please discard everything but this:

Well anyway, this is what I've ended up putting together. Way over budget, but whatever lol.

Any changes/suggestions? I really wasn't sure about the RAM I picked (many similar but different options), or the mobo for that matter, but I think I did a pretty good job? I'm also considering just going with a e6400 instead of the 6600 and getting a new monitor because the one I'm on now sucks ***. I'd like this computer to be suitable as is though for a long time without needing upgrades so maybe I should just go with the 6600. ahhhhh idk.

CPU: Core 2 duo e6600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115003

Motherboard: ASUS P5W DH DELUXE CONROE 975X LGA775 1066FSB DDR2 PCI-EX16 ATX SUPPORT CORE 2 DUAL CPU
http://www.atacom.com/program/atacom.cgi?KEYWORDS=MB77_ASUS_75_04&USER_ID=www&SEARCH=SEARCH_ALL

RAM: OCZ Platinum Revision 2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Unbuffered DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227139

Video Card: SAPPHIRE 100150SR Radeon X1900XTX 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102672

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148140


Power Supply: BFG Tech BFGR650PSU ATX 12v 2.0 and EPS 12V 650Watts Power Supply UL, CE, FCC CLASS B - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817702003

Case: Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000SWA Silver All aluminum made Modern Dream Tower Chassis Computer Case - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811133133 $106

Mouse: Logitech MX518 931352-0403 2-Tone 8 Buttons 1x Wheel USB + PS/2 Optical Mouse - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16826104178


</edit>




Thing is I'm waaaaay behind on my research and I'm a total n00b in the first place...I've never pieced together a machine before. Typically before I buy anything I research all options, maybe ask for a bit of help here or there, then carefully come to my own conclusions.

I'm just pi$sed right now because of some recent issues and I want a new computer...like right now...or yesterday....or last week. I had been waiting for vista to come out but oh well. Speaking of which, will vista be completely compatible with the same hardware that XP is? I hope so...

Basically I'm budgeting myself for a flexible $1k for a new build discounting a vid card so I can get a better one down the road. I need everything down to a case and power supply.

I'd like to go with a cpu that's OC friendly that will run well on air cooling. I haven't read **** but my friend picked up an opteron for a couple hundred bucks, has it OC'd considerably on air cooling, it runs stable, and at least for what he's using his machine for, it's running similarly to the way his fx60 machine was running. Dunno what the benchmark differences were though.

I also hear good things about the core 2 duo?

**** guys, I really don't want to rush into **** and I don't know much about what I'm doing, but I really need to get a new machine built.

Any suggestions/links/anything is appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[aliasaid]

whats the urgency? if you don't want to rush into it then don't..
opterons are great for OCin, but AMD has not cut prices on them, so you can forget about that...

core 2 duo's are the best right now. since you don't need a video card, i believe your budget is good enough. i just have a question, do you not need a vid card at all? or do you just want a cheap one? oh ya and monitor, do you need on also?

 

[aliasaid]

anyways here's a build for $1k with a cheap-ish video card.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16827152058

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811119094

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822148140

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814102688

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16817103931

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16820231087

http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813128012

http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819115004

total: $1012.93

edit: oh ya, and $50 mail in rebate.. so, with shipping, and after rebates, it should come under $1k. (provided you don't live in cali, nj, or tenn)

 

[Alcohol]

whats the urgency? if you don't want to rush into it then don't..
opterons are great for OCin, but AMD has not cut prices on them, so you can forget about that...

core 2 duo's are the best right now. since you don't need a video card, i believe your budget is good enough. i just have a question, do you not need a vid card at all? or do you just want a cheap one? oh ya and monitor, do you need on also?

Meh. I had an emachines, switched to a similar but slightly better (or so I thought) dell. Moved my master and slave from the emachine to the dell, formatted with the dell boot disc. For some reason, the dell runs like crap. Takes me 10 minutes just to unpack a 700mb movie "backup" just to give you an idea. I don't have the boot disc for the emachines, so I can't just swap my crap back over. Sure I could "buy" windows for it, but that computer blows anyway.

I'm sick of screwing with crap machines, and I like gaming as well (which neither machine I have can do), so I'm just at the point where the aggravation of running on archaic technology surpasses my desire to both wait for vista and not drop $1k+ on a new machine right now. I can't even run azureus on either machine without it bogging down to crap and I tend to keep multiple programs running at a time. ****, neither one of these computers can do ANYTHING while I'm using craxtion without becoming extremely instable.

I also lost about 60 programs, many of which I "bought" when I formatted that drive When I go through all that crap to get them all back, I don't want it to be on a POS machine.

I'm gonna take my sound card and one or both of my hdd's over to the new machine, as well as the crap vid card from this machine.

 

[Alcohol]

anyways here's a build for $1k with a cheap-ish video card.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16827152058

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811119094

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822148140

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814102688

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16817103931

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16820231087

http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813128012

http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819115004

total: $1012.93

edit: oh ya, and $50 mail in rebate.. so, with shipping, and after rebates, it should come under $1k. (provided you don't live in cali, nj, or tenn)

I could spend some extra cash in the fact that I don't plan on buying a vid card right now and that I don't need an hdd right now. I also allready have a couple optical drives I can use. Also I'd like to go with a full tower simply because I get clausterphobic.

Where to spend the extra cash?

 

[aliasaid]

what kind of video card do you currently have? is it pci-express?

so how much money do you really have then? you said 1k build.. if you have more, tell me how much so i can tell you where to spend it..

 

[Alcohol]

what kind of video card do you currently have? is it pci-express?

so how much money do you really have then? you said 1k build.. if you have more, tell me how much so i can tell you where to spend it..

Nah it's not pci-e, but do nice mobo's have onboard graphics? My plan was to spend the cash to get the machine together now, then buy a vid card later so I can get a better one.

I said extra cash because I actually allready have a couple hdd's, optical drives, and a graphics card unless I need a pci-e compatible card.

If it would be worth it in terms of extra performance per dollar, I could definitely up the budget to $1300-$1500 and hold off on the vid card a bit longer......unless it's needed right now.

 

[aliasaid]

ah ok...

you can take off the dvdwriter, case, and hard drive i posted.. you can use your own opticals and HDDs..

as for case, you should go look yourself, a lot of it has to do with taste.. full tower tends to be more expensive.. this is one of hte cheaper ones i've found.. and its not aluminum..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811166004

now, you still have some money before you get to $1k, so the best upgrade i see is getting an e6600 instead of the e6400. they should be in stock in a couple of days...

edit: the e6600 is $60 cheaper at tigerdirect..

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...&ci_srccode=cii_5784816&cpncode=07-11609077-2

 

[Alcohol]

How overclockable is the 6600?

Is there anybody with some insight here on opteron vs. core 2 duo?

 

[FghtinIrshNvrDi]

The 6600 seems to be hitting ~ 3600ish on air cooling.

The dual core opterons usually do 2.7ghz, stock cooling. The 6600 is going to outperform it. BUT, on the flip side, I think I'd get an AM2 setup. It provides an upgrade path to AM3 and K8L chips.

Ryan