Advice on Buying a Computer!!!

[Joeiss]

Okay... Finally my pops has said that we will definately be purchasing a new computer when my sister goes back to school in late August. Now, I need some help on which computer to get! Processors are allready at 2.4 GHz... so I think they will be around 3.0GHz in the fall. So, I need some questions to be answered. Here they are :

1) When will Pentium 5's be released?

2) What is the new "norm" for online play videogames (processor speed)

3) What is the best place to get new computers (price, Canadian or International)

4) Are pentiums good? Or sould I go with an AMD computer?


Thank you in advance!

[The_Dunadan]

i don't think the P5 will be released by the end of august. i have a P4 right now that isn't as good as the AMD XP, i think. it depends what ver P4 you get, i think. as you can see i'm not sure on the topic:unsure: there is a lot of arguing over which was is better. i think the new AMD is about to come out, not sure though:p video card would be geforce 4 ti something, personally i like the 128meg ti4200, cause you get a lot for a not so big price.

what kind of PC you thinking about getting; Dell, compaq, Emaching, etc. or build your own?

[gekko]

2.4ghz are out, but Intel has a new chipset, so don't buy one of those. They got new 533mhz FSB as well as USB2 support announced. So I'd order one of those if you're looking. I know the 2.53ghz model is set to be released any day now, and some places are taking orders for them.

And don't hold your breath for the P5. Remember, the P4 was actually worse than the P3 when it was released. Always give it time :)

[Joeiss]

Dunadon : I am definately going to purchase my own computer. I am too stupid to build my own. And is there a big differnce between the AMD and Pentium computers? Or is it all jsut personal preference?

gekko : Is USB2 that much faster than regular USB? If so, is it up to Firewire, or no?

[Mushlafa]

You can get a DUAL AMD xp but i was reading a few days ago that if you get the 2.2Ghz+ ones you might have to mod it... but they said it was easy.

Geforce5 comes out this fall doesn it?

[sdtPikachu]

Okie doke...

Firstly Jeiss, it really isn't that difficult to build your own PC. All it takes is a bit of time and effort to research what are the best components and which ones work together. Building your own computer will also give you the choice of what type it should be, and how upgradable you want it to be. In my experience a high end ready-made PC will cost less than a hand built high end PC, but the hand built one will have higher quality components, will last longer and be more upgradable.

I've just fixed a few friends computers, and I have to say the stuff I saw inside thos eboxes made me cringe. I am never going to buy a pre-made computer ever again. Build and component quality is frequently awful.

OK, so lets assume you can't be arsed anyway - what should you buy?

Firstly, what do you want your computer for? If it's mainly for games, then I'm sorry, but the graphics card is far more important than the processor - a high end P3 or Athlon (1 GHz or over) will do you well for the next two years (unless this trend of "oh look, a new game as come out this month, time to upgrade again" continues). But RTCW runs very nicely on my 1GHz P3 with my ancient TNT2 (albeit overclocked).

Athlon or Pentium? As far as old-gen goes, the Athlon beat the P3 trousers down. The newer faster P4's (2 GHz+)have a slight edge on the Athlon XP's, but the XP is better optimised for doing stuff that operating systems and games do, plus the faster P4's run even hotter than Athlon XP's. If I were you, I'd get a processor like a XP 1800.

It's not just personal preference. The Athlon architecture is better designed than the pentium families, meaning they give the same performance at lower clock speeds. However, the pentium chips are much faster, so at the moment they can just about outstrip the Athlon XP's, but like I said they run damned hot.

Don't be fooled into making a dual processor system. Yes, I want one, because my OS (Linux) and most of it's programs support dual processor architecture. Virtually no ordinary windows program I can think of has dual processot support - meaning that although your computer has 2 CPU's, it's only ever going to use one of them. Obviously, if you're a graphic designer and you demand that 3D Studio Max and PhotoShop run faster, fine, but in your case - don't bother. Dual processor architecture is made for servers and/or machines that do alot of very CPU intensive tasks (such as MPEG encoding).

As far as graphics cards go, I know sod all about them really. I don't care much for fancy visuals, and I would rather pay for a card with features I want (such as multi-monitor output, video in/out - such as this Gainward card (http://www.overclock.co.uk/moreinfo.php?id=672).

Buy lots of memory. 256 MB is too small to run Windows reliably and quickly if you tend to us elots of programs at once like I do. Go for 512 MB. Going over 700 MB is too much.

USB 2 support may well become "essential" for many people (although not for me, as the only USB device I own is a zip drive). It's data trasnfer peed is comparable with firewire, but obviously most digital video cameras don't come with USB 2 ports, so if you're looking to do lots of video editing you'll still want a firewire. If you want lots of external stuff (USB printers, scanners, hard drives etc) then I'd say USB 2 is a must.

I know sod-all about American OEM's, so I guess you'll have to take everyone elses word on it...

[quiet mike]

Well from my understanfing you are buying a factory made computer, not self built.

AMD will come in 4 months with a new Athlon based on the Hammer core which will be 32bit and 64bit compatible, wich is supposebly 20% better at equal speeds with current XP chips and cooler. I personally am waiting for them because as seen now, as son as a new technological advances are intoduces, people take use of it, so 64bit programs are going to show up pretty soon.

Pentiums have a new northbridge core which allows for 533MHz FSB compared to the 400 in previous P4 and 133 in P3 and lower. But they run much hoter then the previous P4 and cost at least 3 times more than an Athlon that can keep up with it.

At a store most computers will be Pentium based and on the old 400MHz FSB not the newer 533MHz FSB. Also most come with either crapy video card or a good video card but then everything else crappy.

If you buy from HSN or As Seen on TV, you will find a lot of excelent deals. Most of these PC's are Athlon based and have too much software of which you need almost none. But they have ususlly good video card and they are made for upgradability. The problem is that they are bundeled with monitors, scaner, printers, speacker and other stuff which you might not need since you already have from the old computer.


The way to go is self built, which I will do in spring. If you can wait and your dad will allow you, do wait to see how the ne AMD Athlons and Pentiums will do and then buy those, or get one that you can get today but at half the price because of the introduction of the newere chips.

If you do go self built comeback here since there are a few guys that know about it, and I myself I am studying, getting ready for my first built.

[gekko]

Ooo, I believe USB 2 is faster than FireWire. But FireWire has it's next format out there too. It's just neither have really become the industry standard, so we're not seeing either. From the sounds of it, Intel's new motherboard will SUPPORT USB2, not necessarily have it.

Pentiums and AMD chips have a lot of differences. First off, they require different motherboards, so keep that in mind. FSB speeds play a huge part in processor performance. Back in the day, the AMD was doing better than the P3. The P3 wasn't too much worse, but also some of the old games didn't work with the AMD processors.

Right now, from what I've been hearing, P4 is wasting AMD.

[Joeiss]

Thanks guys. I really am impressed with the knowledge that you guys have. I just thought everything had to do with the speed of the processor. I guess I was wrong.

Pika : Well, I am not sure if building my own PC would be the greatest thing to do. I am lazy, and I would much rather have a computer be delivered to my house all set up and ready to go. Dual processors? I have no need for that. "Go for 512 MB. Going over 700 MB is too much." Umm.... They have 1.o GB right now. Going over is too much? Or going over is not necassary, but will be great for later use?

quiet mike : 32 bit and 64 bit? What exactly does that mean? I got confused, lol. FSB? That is Front Side Bus, right? What exactly does this do?

[yes_yes i am]

dont try to put 1 together unless ur 100 percent positive u know wut ur doing.

[quiet mike]

32-64bit is the normal pipe size trough which code travels, so the code is made in 32bit to use the full potential. A 64 bit program will have to use to pipes for the same task, a thing that chips right now aren't really designed for so the program would be unstable. Intel was warking on a chip that was 64bit only, so old programs couldn't work. AMD instead used a 32bit core and enhanced it so it will work as a 64bit if a program would require it. Programers liked that so Intel had to drop thir ideea and is already working on a 32-64bit hibred of thir own.


If programs use a 64 bit it would be much faster

[Cyrax9]

Originally posted by Joeiss


1) When will Pentium 5's be released?

Don't Hold your breath for a P5 and NEVER, NEVER, NEVER EVER buy the first ones out.






2) What is the new "norm" for online play videogames (processor speed)




Not sure, but I'd go with a 1.8 GHZ P4




3) What is the best place to get new computers (price, Canadian or International)




Two Words: Buy Online. It's easier to "customize" a pre-built "box" this way, and you aren't as restricted on Purchases, usually only really bad "Generic" PC's are sold in electronics stores, no Offense to shooter, but these include HP's, Sony Vaio's, eMachines, etc., if you want a decent (aka not horrendous) machine, buy a Dell, Alienware, Falcon Northwest or Gateway PC, I'd personally avoid Gateway because their new systems don't look very well built and the cases are plastic.

If you have a Store-PC it's pre-built and usually is thrown together sloppily.

"Generic Machines" are the worst, my Alienware PC was put together in a much better fashion than my two Gateway's were and had high-quality parts, but it runs USB 1.5 and I avoided Firewire because it was still too new and it cause people problems. If you're getting a PCV now make sure you get a good Graphics Card and Firewire, I do MPEG Capture on a single 1.7 GHZ P4, an early model, but obvoiusly not the first, because it's more stable than my P3 and unlike the AMD's I used it runs all games, these proccessors played "The Tortise and the Hare" With AMD as the Hare, it started great, and now Intel, the Tortise, whcihc started slow is pounding them.




4) Are pentiums good? Or sould I go with an AMD computer?





Like I said above, you want a P4 if you're gaming, and you want the new model that's coming out, but unless you like being a gueinea pig for a computer company, wait awhile and make sure the chips aren't liek the first P4's and the first DDR RAM chipsets for AMD which fried after about two days of use from low EMR.

Hope this helps.

[manasecret]

Almost everyone I know with Gateways or Dells or whatever have horrible problems. One of my friends bought a relatively good Gateway, and it has never worked right. And everytime he asks Gateway for help they tell him to format the hard drive and reinstall Windows from scratch. Well he's done that numerous times and it still crashes for no reason, and Gateway offers absolutely no helpful support.

It's not that bad for everyone, but I'm pretty sure everyone I know have horror stories with their manufactured PC's.

What I recommend is looking through the Yellow Pages or ads or something for a store near you who will allow you to pick the exact parts you want and then put it together for you.

I did that for mine, and it worked out well. My dad has done the same thing with a different store than where I bought mine since the early Macs came out (before DOS), and he's been very happy.

Cyrax mentioned Alienware, of which all I hear is good things, but if you have a problem you still have to send it away which will no doubt leave you kind of worried.

Obviously with a local store if you have a problem you just drive to them. Which brings me to some precautions -- if and when you find a store that will build one for you, firstly look to see if they look pretty reliable. Maybe ask others around the store for their opinion. Something. These aren't major chain stores like Comp USA, so just make sure. I was recommended the store I went to, so I knew I could trust them.

Secondly, make sure you get a full parts/labor warranty for at least six months, and make sure that they will really try to fix it and replace the parts if necessary absolutely free of charge (though they aren't responsible for software problems, so don't expect that, of course, unless the hardware causes the software problems :)). My PC came free with a year of parts/labor warranty and it was definitely a godsend.

And I guess thirdly, make sure you don't get ripped off, both on the parts going into the PC and the price of putting it together. I paid $50 for them to put it together and the parts prices were good. You may want to see if they will allow you to bring in parts instead of buying from them if you can find better prices somewhere else -- at my place they allow it but they charge $25 extra (which is their standard Upgrade price).

Actually, I thought I saw something about CompUSA putting PC's together for you. I'm not sure about that, I'd have to look into it.

Hope that helps.

db

[sdtPikachu]

Originally posted by Joeiss

Pika : Well, I am not sure if building my own PC would be the greatest thing to do. I am lazy, and I would much rather have a computer be delivered to my house all set up and ready to go. Dual processors? I have no need for that. "Go for 512 MB. Going over 700 MB is too much." Umm.... They have 1.o GB right now. Going over is too much? Or going over is not necassary, but will be great for later use?

Yeah, you can get huge amounts of RAM if you want: the problem is as follows: your RAM controller (part of the northbridge). Lets face it, more RAM tends to make your computer faster cos it spends less time swapping to the hard disk (which slows you down immensely). However, after a certain point, your RAM controller slows the system down because the more and more RAM you get, the more and more time it spends searching through it.

With any half decent northbridge these days, using more than 700-1024 MB of RAM will slow your computer down.

And yeah, best way to get a good deal is to buy online from a vendor who will let you choose your own components. There's a company in the UK called Eclipse Computing (http://www.eclipse-computers.com) who basically let you choose your own components form their very comprehensive list, and they'll put the computer together for you. True, you'll have to do a bit of reasearch to see which is the best combination of components, but the tricky parts (like fitting the heatsink, argh!) will be done for you by someone else.

Another tip for a high quality computer is avoid bundles like the plague. I for one would never ever buy a computer bundled with a shedload of free software I'm never going to use, nor ones that come with "free" scanners, printers etc. These deals are often ludicrously cheap; the important thing to remember is that if a deal sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is. You really do get what you pay for. True, many vendors can undercut others by buying in bulk, but in most cases the cheapness of crap computers is solely due to substandard/missing components. I've used computers of the same spec as mine from "low quality" vendors, and my computer so rips them to shreds in terms of speed and liability it's not funny.

You might find the follwing two articles on the phenomenon of craputers useful:

http://www.cexx.org/craputer.htm
http://www.cexx.org/snicker/compaq.htm

You'll also save yourslef an awful lot of heartache if you actually buy the CD for your OS instead of relying on one that's preinstalled. Yes, I know it're more expensive (although I've heard you can pick up Windows 2000 for a song now), but it's far better than the crappy "recovery disks" provided by craputer vendors. It'll also mean you can be horribly illegal and install the OS on other PC's (unless you're running XP of course).

dont try to put 1 together unless ur 100 percent positive u know wut ur doing.

Well, IMO this is a bit of a misleading comment - putting a computer together isn't rocket science, it's more of a Lego kit. All you really need to know is if the components you've chosen are compatible (and it really takes quite an idiot not to notice compatability issues these days) and how they fit together - and if the components I've seen are anything to go by, the documantation included should be more than adequate. And even if it isn't, then there's plenty of online references.

Another good plus point for making your own computer is that you can recycle components from your current one (such as floppy/CD/DVD drives, or you can chuck in your old hard drive to extract the documents from it (don't use an old hard drive for anything critical, as they can break down afetr just a few years - buy a new one!). You'll also be able to use your existing monitor (unless it's fuxx0red), keyboard, mouse etc...

And words can't describe the "I made that" feeling once you've got it all put together and it boots for the first time.

[gekko]

Originally posted by yes_yes i am
dont try to put 1 together unless ur 100 percent positive u know wut ur doing.

I second this comment. The Windows world is full of compatability issues. If you get the wrong DVD drive, you may not be watching DVDs on it. It's like that with a lot of stuff. I have a turtle Beach sound card, and I get no sound when playing TacOps.

Unless you're familiar with buying heatsinks, motherboards, powersupplys, cooling systems, etc. don't build. Also, the whole build your own PC and save money is a bit misleading. Most of the people saving big time cash are the ones who use a ton of parts from their old PC, and the ones who buy cheapo P4 cards like the 1.6a which have the potential to be overclocked to 2.4ghz.

Look at my computer, if i were to build it, i'd be saving at most $200, but probably less than that. Why? I got all new parts. Now if I kept a monitor, bought a 1.6a P4 and overclocked it instead of the 2.53ghz, etc., I could've saved thousands.

Don't build unless you know what you're doing, and have a good reason to build.

[The_Dunadan]

my dell is sweet and i have no trouble with it! dells are awesome! i got the dimension 8200. if you get maximumpc they reviewed it last issue and loved it. dells are one of the better prebuilt pcs, not to be compared with compaq or gateway!

(sorry, i had to defend my pc:D)

[gekko]

I have a Dell and it sucks ass. Top of the line model, take it home and it has problems. Their customer support sucks major ass, and i spent hours on the phone each time i talked to the clueless bastards. Then they replaced every single part in my PC, but would not replace the whole thing. Ok, so not every part, only 3 sticks of RAM, the video card twice, the motherboard, the processor, the sound card, the DVD drive, and a couple other things.

Not to mention Dell has a their own motherboard, so don't expect to upgrade it, and all problems must be dealt with by Dell.

[quiet mike]

Originally posted by gekko


Also, the whole build your own PC and save money is a bit misleading. Most of the people saving big time cash are the ones who use a ton of parts from their old PC, and the ones who buy cheapo P4 cards like the 1.6a which have the potential to be overclocked to 2.4ghz.

Look at my computer, if i were to build it, i'd be saving at most $200, but probably less than that. Why? I got all new parts. Now if I kept a monitor, bought a 1.6a P4 and overclocked it instead of the 2.53ghz, etc., I could've saved thousands.



Well you are right that you don't save at the time you build it first time. The thing about self-built computers is that you can keep it up to pace by building it smartly, and then just getting a few upgrades and make it last for a very long time, as much as buying 3 prebuilt computers.