Many Questions on a new PC

[ChetDesmond]

Hey everyone, another clueless consumer that needs to ask a bunch of questions to people that know more than I do. Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

I'm looking to buy a new PC that can run new games well and won't have to be upgraded for a little while (AKA: I want to play Oblivion while drooling). No matter how much I try to read and research, I still just don't know anything. So how does this look for a system:

CASE: TURBO X-DREAMER CASE 350 WATT W/ WINDOW & LCD Temperature Display (I chose this because I am upgrading to a 500W power supply anyway, does this work?)

CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6300 CPU @ 1.86GHz 1066FSB 2x1MB L2 Cache

MOTHERBOARD: MSI P965 Neo-F P965 Chipset LGA775 Supports Core 2 Duo CPU FSB1066 DDR2/800 Mainboard w/GbLAN, USB2.0, &7.1Audio

MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)1GB (2x512MB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory

VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA Geforce 7900 GT 256MB 16X PCI Express Video Card

LCD Monitor: ViewSonic Q9B 19" COLOR TFT Active Matrix SXGA LCD Display Monitor

HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive (160GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 8MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)

Optical Drive: 16X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER

SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO

It comes to about $1200. Now for questions:

1) Is building it myself REALLY cheaper/worth it if I've never done it before?

2) Is any of this stuff not compatible or just plain bad?

3) Where can I cut corners? / Is this overkill?

4) This is basically copied from cyberpowerpc.com, is there a better place to buy?

5) How will this system look in a few years?

6) Do I need things like an IEEE 1394 card? Or can I salvage this and other things from the computer I own now?

Well thats all I can think of for now, again thanks to all of you who will soon be running the world.

 

[ProSlayer]

1. If you are spending over $1,000, then building a computer is worth it. The reason for this is that you have to buy an OS, where Win XP Home costs around $200. Do you have a copy of Windows? If not, then you will have to spend money on that as well.

2. You shouldn't get a case with a power supply, it usually means poor quality.

3. That is probably the bare minimum, unless you have an old monitor which you can use instead of buying a new one.

4. YES, buy your computer parts from www.newegg.com.

5. Depends, if you are constantly looking to play new games, then it won't last too long, but it will last you a while.

6. Not sure.

You have the parts down, but you will need to find the brand of the parts. There can be an enermous difference between buying a high quality brand vs a low quality one. Also, do you plan on overclocking?

 

[ChetDesmond]

Ok, I DO already have XP, so that saves some money.

Can you recommend a good case? Not too expensive?

I don't plan on overclocking just because I never have before, but I guess it's possible sometime down the line.

Thanks for the input.

 

[ProSlayer]

Do you have an actual Win. XP CD? Make sure it isn't something like a CD that is from a specific company. Dell and a few other companies have their own Win. XP CD for their computers.

Here is a good, cheap case:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811119068

It doesn't seem like you want to OC too much, so just stick with mid-quality items that are overall average.

Edit: Look around for a decent PSU (Power Supply) as well since that case doesn't come with one. You should be fine at over 500W and ATV12. If any one time, get a brand name PSU because it is extremely important. Here is the guide for choosing parts, including the PSU: http://www.techist.com/showthread.php?threadid=77323

 

[lancec2c30]

since when in the h3ll did win. xp home cost 200 dollars???? I got pro over 9 months ago for 120 bucks.

 

[ProSlayer]

since when in the h3ll did win. xp home cost 200 dollars???? I got pro over 9 months ago for 120 bucks.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16837116193

Edit: Well, thats the retail version, I would guess OEM would be much cheaper, haven't checked yet though.

 

[Inziladun]

It comes to about $1200. Now for questions:

1) Is building it myself REALLY cheaper/worth it if I've never done it before?

2) Is any of this stuff not compatible or just plain bad?

3) Where can I cut corners? / Is this overkill?

4) This is basically copied from cyberpowerpc.com, is there a better place to buy?

5) How will this system look in a few years?

6) Do I need things like an IEEE 1394 card? Or can I salvage this and other things from the computer I own now?

Well thats all I can think of for now, again thanks to all of you who will soon be running the world. [/B]

1) Well, i'll admit Cyberpowerpc Has some great prices, but you'd be able to shed off a couple hundred, depending on who you buy from. But honestly, Just build it yourself, man. I thought about going Cyberpower PC, but then I decided not to due to some shady reports about their business Ethics and built myself a PC for the first time. Now I feel silly I ever thought about buying Cyberpower, the experiance of building a PC yourself is worth it alone. It's actually not that hard, really(like putting together lego pieces). But people seem to think so and it makes you feel smart .

2) Everything should be compatible.

3) It's not overkill enough in my opinion . A very nice Budget build though and probably a smart thing to do(other than just waiting, of course) with DX10 right around the corner. I'll say this now, though, ATI cards play Oblivion much better than NVIDIA cards, they're built with Shaders in mind.

4) Yes, much better places.

5) Bleak. You'd have to go all out (around 2,000$) for a system that will look OK(Gaming-wise) in a few years. DirectX 10 certainly doesn't help things at all.

6) Don't even know what that is.

 

[ChetDesmond]

Ok, so I've been looking around a bit more and have upgraded to:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600

Maybe the ATI1900XT (Better, Worse?)

and the same Motherboard.

And I'm figuring that I will build it myself at least for the experience.

So my question now is, how much an impact will DX10 really have and should I just wait?

 

[ProSlayer]

DX10 is only compatible with Windows Vista. So that is a $400 + $400 video card. I highly recommend you buy the 7900 GTO asap. These things are the same as 7900GTX at half the price. They will probably run out of stock before the new cards come out.

 

[ChetDesmond]

Is it better to just ultimately wait for Vista? I hate waiting on Microsoft but I dont want to to spend a bunch of money just to get shafted in 3 months.