Preserved Topic: Buying a new computer (Page 1 of 1)

My laptop is just about two years old now, and I'll be buying a new computer in a short time. I was wondering if anyone here had any suggestions about what companies to look at, or anything to watch out for to make sure I get a good deal.

I'm definitely planning on using Windows XP, so don't bother giving me advice related to macintoshes or whatever else.

I'll be doing my own research, naturally, but before I began I just wanted to ask for your opinions (stuff like "don't bother with Dell, the customer service is horrible and the machine doesn't last long," or "I strongly recommend looking at Gateway because their boxes look like cows and cows are the sign of quality"). Any advice anyone has would be appreciated.

You getting another laptop, or a desktop?

If you're getting a laptop, and you've already decided on windoze, I suggest going for a Centrino (weird name I know). Centrino is just intel's name for a combination of a Pentium-M processor, a special chipset, and onboard wireless. Even if you don't need the chipset and the wireless, you might want the processor. From what I've heard (intel claim), the P-M is the first cpu specifically designed for laptops, and as such it's supposedly much more efficient than just a modified desktop chip. The reviews of some of these new laptops are actually pretty good, and there have been reports that the batteries last over 6 hours with the new optimized P-Ms.

Edit: If you ever see a laptop that seems like an outrageously good deal (with a fast cpu), chances are the manufacturer's just crammed a desktop chip into a laptop chassis. Avoid these like the plague. Not only does the performance suffer because of incorrectly paired components and such, these machines tend to run into problems like overheating later on in their life.

If you're getting a desktop, then, er... I suppose it would depend on what you're mainly using it for.


[ - ozphactor - ]

[This message has been edited by ozphactor (edited 07-19-2003).]

Oh, yes, I should clarify. I'm looking for a desktop. I'll be using it primarily for video games, partially for graphic work (2D and 3D), and a little bit for coding/programming/web designing.

I'm also looking for video card recommendations. Sound card recommendations wouldn't hurt either, but then again sound quality has never been all that important to me.

Oh, a desktop.

Well, if you're going to be playing games and doing 3D work, you really can't settle for less than a GeForce4 (of Radeon 9700, if ATI is your thing). I think they came out with even higher end ones, like the GeForceFX, but those may be overkill, unless you have money to burn (say $500). For video RAM, you'll need at least 64mb, or 128mb if you're working with really intensive stuff.

As for brand names, I don't really favor or disfavor any of them, but...

quote:

---

I'll be using it primarily for video games...

---

I'm tempted to recommend Alienware, but we all knew that already, didn't we...

By the way, what's the price range about? Or does that matter?


[ - ozphactor - ]

Weren't you running Debian for a little while Slime?

I have a few Dells here in my house and I find they have a nasty little habit of not wanting to shut down. When I go to shut them down the shut down menu just stays at the screen till I manually hold down the button. On the other hand I've never had a problem with my personal Sony Vaio.

Jestah

I have an old Vaio too (laptop, not desktop), and it still runs pretty nicely.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but in the (so-called) design community, Vaios are second only to Macs.


[ - ozphactor - ]

[This message has been edited by ozphactor (edited 07-19-2003).]

If you pick up a local PC gamer Magazine you'll probably find several companies that tailor to the gamer performance market. Their usually your best bet for getting the best bang for your buck in terms of gaming unless you build it from scratch yourself. If your looking for 24/7 on call support, then definatly look into some of the bigger name companies like Dell, HP or Gateway.


For a video card, it all depends on your needs and your wallet. Most of what I'm about to rant on about can be found by reading through magazine and tech site reviews, so I?ll try and keep it concise but to put it bluntly, the naming schemes and version labeling systems are an utter confusing mess.

DirectX 9 is out, but nothing uses it bar a few synthetic benchmarks, but it?s always nice to have the support there if a game comes along featuring it. Getting a card with DirectX 9 support in hardware is more a question of how often you upgrade more than how fast a machine you want. If you upgrade fairly often (every six months) then I?d got for a good affordable DirectX 8 card, but if your not likely to upgrade for a year or two, then a DirectX 9 card is probably a better choice.

The video cards toting Direct X 9 performance are the GeforceFX range and the Radeon 9xxx series above the 9500 mark. Any Radeon card below 9500 only supports up to DirectX 8 on hardware.

The Geforce FX5800 (NV30 core) isn't too crash hot -- loads of driver issues and it?s plauged with heat problems, not to mention the noise from it's fan-wanna-be-vacuum-cleaner, which takes up the PCI slot next to the AGP slot! The Geforce FX5600 and FX5200 Ultra's (also running on the NV30 core) aren't much better, they did solve some of the heat issues but the performance isn't anything to write home about.

On the other hand, the Geforce FX 5900 Ultra (NV35 core) is much better. Gone are the heat issues but alas, from what I've read it sounds like there are still a lot of driver issues slowing this beast down. It costs a packet and won't out perform the cheaper Radeon 9800 Pro but on paper, this thing should really clean house, which means that over time, Nvidia will probably be able to ramp up the performance with new driver releases. If you've got money to burn, then maybe one of these is a good choice as a lot of people are predicting this card to really fly once Nividia get the kinks worked out in the drivers.

If you're on a bit of a budget but still a generous one, then the Radeon 9500+ series would be your best bet IMHO. The 9800 Pro (R350 Core) is ATI's current flagship and it kicks around toe to toe with the FX5900 Pro and is usually a little cheaper.

Most ATI cars, including the 9800's come in a Pro and err.. non-pro versions. Sometimes the difference between the two is just the clock rate of the core/memory and if your lucky, you can overclock it to the same as the Pro version without any extra cooling required, repeat -- if your lucky. Although, most of the time the non-pro cards use cheaper hence slower memory, and since the main bottleneck on video cards is memory throughput, overclocking the core alone won't really improve performance.

As for the other ATI cards (9500, 9600, 9700), the 9600 Pro looks to be the best price performer of all the cards on offer, but if you want bottom basement DirectX 9 hardware that still performs on cue, the 9500 can?t be beat. Avoid the GeforceFX 5600 and 5200?s like the plague.

If you don't care about DirectX 9 features (no one uses them yet anyways, and I don't even think Doom 3 will use many of them) then you'd best look at the Geforce4ti range or the Radeon 9000 to 9200's or even the Radeon 8500's if you can find any left. The Radeon 9000/9200 cards are basically the same as the old Radeon 8500?s, which used to get trounced by Geforce3 cards but over time, ATI has streamlined the drivers and these cards now finally perform how they should have on paper.

Stay away from the Geforce4 MX cards, they don't even support DirectX 8 pixel and Vertex shaders, and I think a card needs them to survive with today?s games. The geforce4ti 4200's are probably the best price performers here, but the Radeon 9200's are good to. Avoid the Radeon 9000 Pro's, their cheap and solid (this is what I'm currently using) but performance in multi-texture heavy 3D environments isn't the best (like most games running the Unreal Warfare engine) as it can't apply as many texture layers per clock cycle as the others in it's league, but it's still a solid performer in every other aspect and I get from 30-50 fps in most games running on the Unreal Warfare engine at 1024x768 (Athlon 2000+, 512MB PC133 SDR RAM). But a 9200 (basically the same card without this problem) would average 10 fps higher in most scenes.

Anyways, if I get any more technical or in depth you may as well have read all the reviews yourself, but at the end of the day, if you can?t afford a Direct X 9 card, get a Good Direct X 8 card but no matter what, stay away from the Geforce4MX cards, their little more than a Geforce2 in wolves clothing.

Oh and completely disregard any Doom3 ?benchmarks? setup by Nvidia. Several hardware sites have so called ?exclusives? (how they all have the same exclusive is beyond me) for a Doom3 benchmark setup by Nvidia, who had access to the Doom3 code prior to the benchmark and hence used custom drivers for their card whilst running it. This particular benchmark/article/exclusive/pile-of-bullshit says absolutely nothing about the predicted performance of either Nvidia or ATI hardware running Doom3 beyond Nvidia?s ability to pick up a pile of marketing (read poo) and fling it at their competition in a very childish way. Ok, just wanted to get that out of my system. I think I?ll shut up now.

If you are willing to build your own PC you can get much more bang for the buck. I'll be glad to help you pick out all of the components you'll need if you are willing to build it.

For parts I'd use either Tiger Direct and Price Watch for good prices on hardware.



[This message has been edited by Rauthrin (edited 07-19-2003).]

I managed to pick up a GeForce FX 5200 a little while ago; looks like I could have done better. My current problem is that although it's obviously better than my old GeForce 2 MX, I now have a CPU bottleneck with my wimpy Athlon 1Ghz. Sigh... you just can't stay ahead of the game.

Cell 1250 :: alanmacdougall.com :: Illustrator tips

yah, build one or if you have a mate who builds em, let him build it.... I just did and got what I consider to be an awesome PC... ymmv

buy one or build one .. do tell me your going to build .. hehe

I run a G-Force MX 440, a 2.26 Ghz P4 and A gig of ram from Gateway. Hasn`t bogged or frozen yet.

~knocks on wood~

VP : Tell us about your new box. Did you upgrade your browser too ?

[This message has been edited by docilebob (edited 07-20-2003).]

Thanks for your help, everyone. I think I'm going to go with the ATI Radeon 9800 for my video card.

I don't really want to go to the trouble of building my own. One of my other friends told me to get a Dell, since he said they're generally more reliable than other companies. I checked out the Dell website last night, and it looks like I can get what I want, minus the monitor, for about $1,200 there. The memory prices there a little steep for some reason, though (the difference between 1 GB and 512 MB of RAM was about $200).

As far as the monitor goes, I'm hoping for a flat screen LCD monitor that can support a resolution of 1600x1200; however, the only one Dell has with those features is about $900 or so, and I'd rather not pay all that much for just a monitor. If anyone knows where I can get a good, preferably high-resolution, LCD flat screen monitor relatively cheap, please let me know. (What I'm really trying to avoid is getting one that's 1280x1024, since that's a 5:4 aspect ratio, and I'd have to run in 1024x768 if I wanted a standard aspect ratio.)

An LCD that supports 1600x1200? Well, that's pushing it above to 20 inch mark, so consider yourself lucky to find one for $900. (Dell lowers that price at least, when you buy a new PC, don't they?) They're usually in the thousands.

I can see that you're avoiding a 1280x1024, but unfortunately the price barrier is situated right between that and the 1600x1200

Yeah, after looking around a little more, the $900 doesn't seem so unreasonable. It's just frustrating: I want a resolution higher than 1024x768, but 1280x1024 is just absurd (why on earth would anyone design a monitor with a non-standard aspect ratio like that? Or, I should say, how did that get to be a standard?), and 1600x1200 is too expensive. Right now I'm on a laptop with a 14 inch 1400x1050 screen, and I love it.

14 inch 1400x1050 screen? My god, do you wear glasses yet :P

I'm curious though, LCD screens aren't that great a choice for gamers. Although, it depends on what kind of games you play. LCD technology is inherently bad at quickly redrawing a screen or somehitng. I can't explain it myself but I've read a lot about this and I've seen it first hand, it's not pretty. Basically, fast motion displayed on an LCD screen tends to blur somewhat, the same can be seen when scrolling a page of text really quickly, the LCD screen just can't keep up with the constant change in pixels and as such, you get a ghosting kind of effect on any quick movements. Some screen are a lot better than others, so if you do get one, make sure you test this out first. I've noticed this more often with standalong LCD screens than with Laptop screens, but maybe that's bacause I've never really played games on a laptop before.

Some of the PC's in the 3D labs at university have big LCD screens and I've tried playing a few rounds of networked UT2003 of them before but it just made me motion sick, which I've never had happen playing on a CRT monitor, but maye that's just me.

Although, if you want a crisp high-res display for a desktop, and you can live with the bulky nature of CRT's, you could get a 21" Sony Trinitron for around the price you're look at there, and you don't have to worry about native resolution sizes as you do with LCD's.

Yeah, I've heard about that blurring problem you described, but never experienced it with this monitor.

My main reasons for wanting an LCD are sub-pixel text anti-aliasing, near lack of gamma problems, and space saving. But I might just get a CRT, since obviously I'm not very happy with the current flat-screen options.

quote:

---

14 inch 1400x1050 screen?

---

I'm not surprised. Damn laptop makers try to cram as many pixels as they can into those tiny screens, all while touting the fact that "an SXGA+ LCD can contain 39.5% more information than a standard XGA screen!" I think Dell has some laptops with 14" screens running at 1600x1200. Contrary to popular belief, people don't just stare at 3 megapixel photos all day, sometimes they actually read from those screens.


And yeah, CRTs work better than LCDs when it comes to gaming. And you never have to worry about those screen artifacts left behind when games try to rescale to fit your resolution...

Slime .. I know someone who is selling a brand new 9800 for 70 bucks .. he has used it twice but no longer needs it .. let me know so I can get ahold of him

Slime - Dell is a good choice if your not up for building your own PC. If you do end up going with a flat panel display look for one with as low a refresh rate as possible ( be careful some companies advertise refresh rates like 25ns but thats only the rise and does not include the fall ) and also look for a contrast ratio of 400:1 or better ( thats the contrast ratio between white and black and the higher the number the better i.e. 400:1 is better than 350:1 ) Check places like www.newegg.com ( my personal favorite, very good service ), www.googlegear.com and www.pricewatch.com for prices on monitors and RAM. You can order a Dell with as little RAM as possible then buy RAM from one of the afore meantioned companies to install yourself at a great savings.

RammStein - If you're serious about that card and know it's in good working order and Slime does not want it I am interested. Why does he not need it anymore after only 2 uses?



[This message has been edited by dmstiner (edited 07-20-2003).]

Low refresh for flat screen?

That would be opposite to CTR's which need fast refresh rates or they screw yer eyes.

So why low on a flat?

dms .. he no longer has a computer that's why he is selling it

http://www.totallyawesome.com/
Ratting of site.

A smaller company that advertises itself as being better then Dell. I havn't heard anything bad about this compnay and have heard some good things.
I would highly reocomend comparing the prices of the Dell Pc and Totally Awesome PC. They say if they will beat any price better then theirs by $100 for the same system and warrenty.
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030210/barton-15.html
Tom's Hardware gives a fairly comprhensive comparision of AMD vs Intel in various applications. It seems 3d apps like the higher FSB and SSE2 of the Intel chips.

__________________________
"Show me a sane person and I will cure him for you."-Carl Jung
Eagles may fly high, but beavers don't get sucked into get engines.

[This message has been edited by tj333 (edited 07-21-2003).]

I am partial to Dell's. I have two at home and 4 at work. I haven't had any problems and their support has always been there to asnwer my stupid questions. As a matter of fact. I haven't had to use support for any of these machines yet, in two+ years. Told you they were dumb questions.

Dell's current deal is a free DVD-burner upgrade with a free 200 GB HD upgrae if you orde ronline. Ends by tomorrow. This is the Dimension XPS... their current top end system for home users. You can customize as well.

[EDIT]This system also has the ATI Radeon you wanted in either standard or PRO versions.[/EDIT]



[This message has been edited by GrythusDraconis (edited 07-21-2003).]

I'd have to chime in for Dell as well. They do have their share of problems, but they're really pretty reliable. And I've managed to get pretty good performance out of them (even with the Geforce4 MX).

We run about 30 Dell workstations here at the office, mostly Dimensions and a few optiplexes with 3 or 4 laptops and it's been a pretty good experience. The systems are of good quality, and the support is pretty good, although we rarely use support since the first thing I did on receiving them was exorcise WinXP and install Win2k Pro and they usually don't take too kindly to things like that.

And anyone that mentions Compaq/HP will be gutpunched. I mean it.

I should of said response time instead of refresh rate... a good LCD display will have a rise of 10ms or less and a fall of 20ms or less.



[This message has been edited by dmstiner (edited 07-21-2003).]

I use a Dell Inspiron 8200 with the mobility Radeon, bla bla. and I play IGI Covert Strike, Soldier of Fortune, Medal of Honour, Splinter Cell, Flight Sim 2002 Pro, American Conquest, (with up to 16,000 controllable units), Formula 1 2002 Chamionship etc. I get not lag or blur with any of them. With he earlier Dell laptops ( XP's and Lattitudes) I would get shutdown problems too on Win 98 but not with these newer XP Pro models. I am totally happy with it.

** DELL RANT **

I gots me a Dell, and in work(net cafe) there are 13.
My own has had a few problems:

:hard disk fail. *waves fist in air
:monitor stopped projecting its image in the usual square fashion.
:the modem kept the line busy while the computer was off(all christmas orders got that problem one year)
:the DVD/CDrom drive only reads a certain type of copied cds, have to tell em bout this new one before my warranty runs out.
:The speakers blew.

All the above were replaced speedily though so I cant complain about their after sale service, especially seeing as though my alright speakers were replaced with a surround system, and I preffer a black monitor.

In work:
: two hard disk fails (afaik)
: three broken sets of speakers
: one monitor has been replaced
: about 6 of the mice are the originals that came with the pcs
: dont know how many but the boss is regularly replacing network cards.
: the soft switches on 2 of them are b0rken (someone else mentioned them not shutting down)

My dad was in charge of gettin a new pc system in a company he was workin for a few years back, they went for Dell and for some reason within a week every single one had to be replaced ?? thats all the info I have on that.

So if my experiences are anything to go by Dell must buy their parts off the cheapest of the cheap or thieves or something. Or maybe just the Irish branch.

I'm building my next one, infact we only went for Dell last time because we worked out it only would have been about 100 cheaper and saved us the hassle. If anyone goes for a Dell let me tell you theres a reason they recommend a long warranty.

my 2c

[edit: My third cent: Win2k Pro is the only decent MS-OS, why do you think they stopped supporting it ? ]




[This message has been edited by Hugh (edited 07-22-2003).]

ABS Comuters Found these guys have reasonable prices and looks to be good systems as well not so cookie cutter as Dell.

Building your own isn't that much of a headache, is it Wes?

I never bought a branded system, since 1992, when I assembled my first computer (I work with them since 1986 though).

Currently, I own a non-branded Pentium III 733 MHz, and it was an upgrade from a K6-200 MHz. I have done some math and I found out that maybe it's time to upgrade motherboard/CPU/RAM again, to a Pentium IV 2.x GHz. See, 733/200 equals 3.665 and if I multiply 3.665 * 733 I get 2.7 GHz. So, probably, when I find a good deal on a Pentium 2.7 GHz, I may upgrade.

I don't like buying a whole new system because what would I do with my old one? Throw it into the trash? What about all my HDs (four), my good ATI AIW 8500DV graphics board that I can't exchange for a better one because I love its digital video capturing features? What about my cheap but good DVD player, my cheap but good CD recorder? So, what I do is always keep upgrading some pieces, specially the HDs (the graphics card is already a rather recent upgrade), and adding RAM: I have 512 MB right now, enough for my needs. My current system has two extra PCI boards, one for allowing ATA-100 and one for allowing ATA-133, since my MB is ATA 66 and my new HDs are ATA 100 and ATA 133.

I plan to spend no more than 500-600 dollars to buy MB/CPU/RAM. Unfortunately, the new MBs do not accept my current RAM (I think) so I will have to buy new ones.

Does anyone know if these new motherboards, with higher bus frequencies, accept using old PC133 RAM sticks? If so, I could buy only the MB with a CPU and upgrade the RAM later...