Custom Computers

BadaBing · Post by **BadaBing** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 4:15 am

I'm currently in the market for a new desktop pc. My last one was custom built for me at a small computer shop about 5 years ago and it still out ran alot of newer machines up until it was stolen bout 6 months ago

. Unfortunately, I dont know anything about computers.. the guy that built it traded me for a mattress (i owned a mattress store at the time) and I learned everything I know about computers thru the deal.. if it's built right, it's a screamin machine. I've been researching motherboards/cpus/memory etc and it's all way above my head. I just want a machine that can run the latest 1st person shooters out there. If anyone could post a link or maybe a crash course for what I should look for in a custom gaming computer I'd really appreciate it. I'm looking to spend 600-800 bucks so try to keep that in mind. The only thing I did learn about my old comp was it was the intel RAMBUS motherboard with 800mhz bus speed between the ram and cpu that made it run so fast, but that tech was disco'd and replaced with SDRAM 2. Any help/advice is greatly appreciated....

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 4:22 am

Ya rembus is all but dead. Currently its DDR2 thats used now.

800 bucks is pretty tough to run the latest games. The new and modern graphics cards are 400+ alone.

As for purchasing a prebuilt system you'll need to look at budget systems that have a PCIe x16 slot and add a video card to it. Probably Look at Dell and HP.

Systems labeled custom gaming rigs are pretty pricey.

Massa · Post by **Massa** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 5:43 am

You definitely won't run the newest FPS games well with 800 dollars, you could run them passably, but 1200 is probably a more realistic budget.

BadaBing · Post by **BadaBing** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 12:33 pm

After reading some other threads and considering my budget

this is what I've come up with...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 813131564R
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115005
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820161067
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130017
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822144417
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827106041
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811164060

The total price is a little over 700 and I think this is a total system that will work together. My goal with this rig is to stop using my roommates computer, be able to upgrade in the near future w/o starting all over, be able to play current games, and stay within my current budget. Any suggestions/comments is again greatly appreciated.

BTW.. the last time I built a machine on my own it was an 8088 with sipps chips and a 40mb hd, can't be too much different now, huh?

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 1:14 pm

Now theres a lot more power connectors lol

Wintec ram, thats pretty crappy, if you plan to upgrade down the road I would consider getting 2GB, for some games like oblivion and BF2 as well as others coming out they will use about 2 gigs if you have it. but at least get a decnet brand, crucial, corsair, ocz, micron, gskill, patriot.

BadaBing · Post by **BadaBing** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 2:26 pm

Thanks for the suggestion.. I decided to switch to this G.Skill 1gb stick for now and can add a 2nd later on...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231099

The biggest concern I have now is with the hd, it's the one thing I DONT want to have to upgrade in the future. 70 bucks for a 250gb hd just seems way too cheap. Will this HD significantly reduce the overall performance of the computer? If so how?.. I can deal with slower load times but not a negative impact on in-game play. Here's link to the HD

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822144417

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 2:45 pm

Well its an older model, its not bad, a stepup would be this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822148140

jeremyboycool · Post by **jeremyboycool** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 9:13 pm

Cheaper hard drive does not necessarily mean less performance. But it could mean lower quality build. All hard drives fail the higher quality ones just last longer.

BadaBing · Post by **BadaBing** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 3:49 pm

Thanks for the responses and advice. I went ahead and ordered all the compnents this am.. guess I'll find out in a few days if I can put together a computer. After reading alot of the posts in these forums I think I just might have a chance... great site, great forums, great peeps

But if anyone's in the houston area and wants to put it together for me... I'm buyin the beer!

BadaBing · Post by **BadaBing** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 9:49 pm

Got all my parts and stuff, put it all together and here I am on my new custom built computer! Everything seems to be great, it's fast so far but haven't done much other then windows updates (XP Pro x64) and attempted to update to the latest bios. The motherboard I went with is the intel DP965LT. When I try to update the bios to the latest version, I get a window titled 'SEVERE' with the message 'This program is unable to continue. Internal system error. There is a programming or internal problem.' I have no idea what that means if anything. The message makes me a little nervous as it's been a long time since I've done anything like this. Any ideas as to what might be causing that? Other specs: Pentium D 915 2.8ghz, 1g gskill ddr2 800, evga geforce 7600gt, liteon dvd burner, western digital 250g hd. I thought this was kinda funny... on a sheet that comes in the box of the mobo Intel 'recommends you download and update the latest drivers and bios revision' at http://downloadfinder.intel.com. Then at that website if you read the suggestions they recomend you don't install new bios versions unless the current bios is causing problems.

Thanks again for the help!

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 10:57 pm

Ya, dont fix what aint broken

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