Another I need help with buying a comp thread

[Sinkhan]

Like the name says, I'm another one of those people who needs help buying a new computer. I've saved up $1000, but could probably go about $100-300 over that at the very very most.

Hopefully with clearance sales here and there, I'll be able to save a few dollars.

I'll be using my computer for a few mid-ranged games like Medal of Honour, Battlefield 1942, and I'll probably be getting games like Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142 in the near future.[System specs in the links]  [Right now, I can't play MoH: AA or BF1942 since my comp is a 533Mhz Celeron, but I bought them both brand new for 5 dollars at a discount store and couldn't resist]

I'll want to play those games VERY well and possibly still be able to play a few games in the near future. So using these games as a guideline on basing my computer on, I've looked around for some parts.

Right now I'm looking at specs like these:

Core 2 Duo E6300 [Possibly 6400 or 6600 depends on pricing]
1 GB DDRII RAM (maybe 1.5)
At least 160GB SATAII HD
ATI X1600 Pro [GT maybe, pricing dependant]
A decent Motherboard I guess
Not too concerned with soundcard
16X DVD +/- RW writer [Quick question. Can these things run and burn DVDs and CDs?]
1.44 Floppy
At least a 19" LCD
Keyboard, Mouse
Win XP Pro

So what I need help with is:
How much would this set up cost? Separate parts bought? Packaged?
Should I replace any of the hardware I mentioned with something better/cheaper?
Anything else I'm forgetting?

I'm currently quite reluctant to buy parts separate off the internet and have it assembled since I live in Canada and NewEgg is American. That would mean slightly long wait times, higher than listed prices, and inconviences if I have to return.

So what does everyone say?

[GX1_Man]

So you are wanting a Canadian source for this? Maybe we have a Canadian around who can jump in and advise you on that.

[dl65]

LOL ......... How about Tiger Direct ....... located in Markham .....

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/indexca.asp?SRCCODE=TIGERUS&CMP=IL22454


dl65  

[GX1_Man]

Just the Canadian I was looking for!  

[Track]

Right now I'm looking at specs like these:

Core 2 Duo E6300 [Possibly 6400 or 6600 depends on pricing]
1 GB DDRII RAM (maybe 1.5)
At least 160GB SATAII HD
ATI X1600 Pro [GT maybe, pricing dependant]
A decent Motherboard I guess
Not too concerned with soundcard
16X DVD +/- RW writer [Quick question. Can these things run and burn DVDs and CDs?]
1.44 Floppy
At least a 19" LCD
Keyboard, Mouse
Win XP Pro

So what I need help with is:
How much would this set up cost? Separate parts bought? Packaged?
Should I replace any of the hardware I mentioned with something better/cheaper?
Anything else I'm forgetting?

Ok, let me just start off by saying that choosing the parts urself and having the PC constructed by a company or an individual is a very good idea. If u buy an already pre-built PC u will not be able to choose the parts, and that is crucial to my guide. Also, by choosing the parts, im going to save u a lot of money, so its best in any case.

CPU - E6400 (200$)
The Core 2 Duo family gives u the best performance available in the world, for only a few hundred dollars. The E6300 costs 25$ less, so its not a great idea to buy it because the whole goal is to overclock and it would be somewhat easier with the E6400 because of the added multipliers. The E6600 costs 100$ more and dosent give u even 25$ of extra performance.

RAM - 1GB DDR2-667 (85$)
1GB will do u for now. Do not buy a stick of 512MB, only 1024MB. When u feel like u want to, buy another 1GB of the same exact RAM. 667Mhz is important for the overclocking.

HDD - 250GB 16MB cache (75$)
250GB is currently the best value. You will be paying much less for every GB if u buy 250GB. Above 250GB the prices get higher for evey single GB, and the same for below. You can find the 250GB for only around 15$ more, and its worth every penny.

GPU - X1950XT/X1950Pro  7950GT/7900GS (250$/175$)
The Graphics card is the MOST important part of ur PC by FAR. Spend as much money on it as u possibly can. If u have to, save 25$ off of the E6400 and buy a GPU for 25$ more!
The X1600 costs 100$ or more, and its abt 1/5 of even the 7900 GS. Not to mention ur going to need a better card for a 19"+ monitor, but u should spend as much as POSSIBLE on the graphics card in any case.

Now the cards ive lined up for u are ATI on the left side and nVidia on the right. Why is this important? You have to choose beetween the 2 companies so that i can get u a motherboard that fits.

Motherboard - ECS PA1 MVP/ECS NFORCE 570 SLIT-A (75$/85$)
The former is for ATI and the latter is for nVidia. Choose the card u want and then the motherboard upon the card.

SoundCard - onboard (0$)
You dont have to worry abt the sound card as all current motherboards have an onboard soundcard that takes from performance, but not with a Core 2 Duo.

Optical Drive - DVD-RW (25$)
Any DVD-RW will do. DVD burners are both DVD and CD burners, and at 25$ today its a great value to buy even 2 of these. Yes, they can play DVDs (DVD-R, as in READ), and burn DVDs (DVD-W, as in write). Together u have DVD-RW, wich is also CD-RW.

PSU - Thermaltake Toughpower 550w/600w (125$/175$)
If u buy the toughpower 550w, u will only be able to power a single graphics card, and u will need the ability to power 2 at some point. If u buy the 650w u will be set for 2 cards. So ur choices are like this - buy the 550w right now for 125$ and then buy an extra PSU just for the extra graphics card for another 50$, or just buy the 600w for 175$ combined right now. And yes, the difference beetween the 2 is huge, despite it being only 50w on the surface.

Monitor - SAMSUNG 225BW Black 22" 5 ms (380$)
Youre going to want a larger than 19" monitor. 20.1 is nice, but the prices for 22" are not very much higher and the prices for 24" are a lot higher. My pick is the Samsung because of it's beautiful design and brand name. There are however more 22" monitors for as low as 300$, if u want to save 50-80$.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=ENE&N=2010190020+131061713+1309822582&Subcategory=20&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=

Operating System - Windows XP Pro (0-200$)
You can download it for free, or pay 200$ for it. Your choice.


Price of the PC u built - 675$ + monitor (not including Windows)
Price of the PC I built - 850$ + monitor

The PC I built for u is 25% more expensive, with the worth of a PC over 100% more expensive.

Its not going to cost very much to have it constructed for u, once u have picked the parts.

If u have any furthur questions, or want me to elaborate on any part, please say so.  

Enjoy!

[Sinkhan]

Wow, that was a pretty elaborate explanation. Thanks. However, there are still a few things I'm concerned with:

First of all, are these prices in CDN of American dollars?

CPU: I'm going to try and avoid getting the E6300 or 6400 mainly because I could double my cache and get a nice boost in clock speed with the 6600. Also, I'm not that good with overclocking, but then again, I could try.

GPU: Again, is that CDN or American? Anyways, now that I've looked at some benchmarks and some other details on the cards, and really, I think that the X1800 or even the X1600 will still suffice for what I'll be doing for the time being I'm sticking to about 19", perhaps 20". The monitor size isn't a huge factor for me. But the main thing is that by mid-next year, new games and Vista will be based off of DX10, and as of now, not even the X1950 XT will do me any good at that point as it won't support it. I'd rather wait awhile, get an ok card like the X1600 (or the X800 if I really need to) and then upgrade later.

Monitor: Like I said above, a 19" will be just fine for me, but if I find a good deal, I might go for 20" or 22" like you said. But, I did find a few 19" LCDs from Samsung that had an 8ms refresh rate and were only about $240 and another one from Acer with a 5ms refresh rate, 700:1 contrast, for only $230

Power Source: I don't think I'll be getting two cards any time soon, if at all.

Now, It's possible that I might buy from a small retailer and then have them assemble it for me, but then again, there might be a chance that I'll buy from TigerDirect

When I looked at TigerDirect, I saw that their prices were quite high. The 6600 is $400, the 6400 is $290. The X1600 Pro is going to cost $210 and the 1950XTX is $571. I saw an ad from a computer place that sells computers where you pick parts from their catalogue and then they assemble it. I've seen this set up from them as a special package:

Core 2 Duo 6600
1GB DDR 535M RAM
320 GB 16M Seagate HD
LG 16x DVD+/- RW
ATI X1600Pro 512M
19" Samsung 8ms LCD

Keyboard Mouse, etc

$1208

However, TigerDirect says that their parts are brand new and that they don't sell "pulls" or old parts from old systems, but then again, I'm pretty sure that there aren't many used Core 2 Duos.

This has got me all confused...

[GX1_Man]

Track, probably some direct sources for those prices would be helpful, Canadian or not.

[homer]

http://www.ncix.com

canadian based company, so all prices are in CAD.

[GX1_Man]

The processor alone is $302 Canadian, $261 American at that site vs Track's quote of $200, presumably US funds.

I don't know where he is buying DVD-RW drives for $25 in any fund.

[Track]

First of all, are these prices in CDN of American dollars?

USD.

CPU: I'm going to try and avoid getting the E6300 or 6400 mainly because I could double my cache and get a nice boost in clock speed with the 6600. Also, I'm not that good with overclocking, but then again, I could try.

If u dont want to overclock then all the E6600 has over the E6400/E6300 is cache (wich does nothing).
If u DO want to overclock, then either of those will get to 3.0Ghz and anything above 3.0Ghz dosent add to performance a whole lot. If u must, buy the E6600, but its a 100$ u can put into the graphics card.
Remmember - E6420 will be out soon and it will have 4MB of cache.

GPU: Again, is that CDN or American? Anyways, now that I've looked at some benchmarks and some other details on the cards, and really, I think that the X1800 or even the X1600 will still suffice for what I'll be doing for the time being I'm sticking to about 19", perhaps 20". The monitor size isn't a huge factor for me. But the main thing is that by mid-next year, new games and Vista will be based off of DX10, and as of now, not even the X1950 XT will do me any good at that point as it won't support it. I'd rather wait awhile, get an ok card like the X1600 (or the X800 if I really need to) and then upgrade later.

If u want to buy a mid-range graphics card for now, until DX10, thats fine.
The X800GTO is my reccomendation - much better than X1600 and for only 100$.

I did not explain abt SLi/Crossfire, see PSU*

Monitor: Like I said above, a 19" will be just fine for me, but if I find a good deal, I might go for 20" or 22" like you said. But, I did find a few 19" LCDs from Samsung that had an 8ms refresh rate and were only about $240 and another one from Acer with a 5ms refresh rate, 700:1 contrast, for only $230

Once u buy the 19" u wont be able to upgrade to 22", choose wisely. 8ms is the minimum and dont worry abt contrast or brightness. It dosent really matter what company its from..

Power Source: I don't think I'll be getting two cards any time soon, if at all.

The whole point of getting a motherboard that supports a dual-card setup is so that u can now buy a single card, and then later on when the card has gotten lower in price, buy another one and hook them up together.
Buy a PSU that supports only a SINGLE card now, and another Addon PSU just for the second graphics card, once u choose to buy it.

Search for the items I listed on Canadian e-tailer sites if u want, but dosent Newegg ship to Canada?
I can give u the Newegg.com links to all the items ive listed. Would u like that?

[Track]

The processor alone is $302 Canadian, $261 American at that site vs Track's quote of $200, presumably US funds.

I don't know where he is buying DVD-RW drives for $25 in any fund.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Order=PRICE&Page=1&Category=10&N=2010100005+1036506653&Submit=ENE&Nty=1&Subcategory=5

[GX1_Man]

Well that's not $25, but it is only 20% more. On the other hand you were only off 10% on the processor.

[homer]

touchè

[Track]

Well that's not $25, but it is only 20% more. On the other hand you were only off 10% on the processor.

GX1_Man: "Life is far too short for that."

[GX1_Man]

I'm not sure what that is about. My point was in trying to show a source to go along with the prices you are mentioning when you make recommendations as budget is an issue in some cases, especially when compounded by multiple computer components.