[ARCHIVED THREAD] - What Computer are you Using? (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 1/19/2005 7:57:29 AM EDT
| I've been thinking about computers a lot lately, thinking its about that time to buy another one. I bought my "latest" desktop about 3 years ago. At the time it was a bargain basement PC...so now I would assume it is laughable. It is a Compaq desktop with a 1.3 GHz Intel Celeron, 512 MB Ram (they had some rebates on Ram when I bought it, it came with the stock 128), 40 GB HD, no DVD, and I'm using dialup. What do you have? If you've got a system like mine, and are thinking about moving up, what do you think you'll buy? |
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I have NEVER purchased a new "store bought" desktop IBM PC clone except for my first 8088 that was built by a local shop. Every new machine since that first one I've spec'ed and bulit my own. If you don't have the skills to do it yourself, find a clone shop in your area that's been around for a while and get one built to spec. You'll have local support and service and the parts will be standard. In otherwords you'll be able to swap, fix, and upgrade anything you want without being locked into a particular vendor like HP, Dell, etc... You'll also get FAR more bang for your buck this way. |
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If you think yours is laughable... I have an old Gateway 400 MHz (that's right, MEGA, not giga hz) and I still get along (dialup connection). I only have 128 meg of ram and I run XP without any problems. Like someone already said, you can build one yourself to get the best value. That's what I plan to do when I move up. Personally, I would weight RAM heavier than processor speed. Extra RAM is more noticable (IMHO) than extra processing power. Good luck! catch |
Funny that you mention it...I had one of the first eMachines that came out (the model with 300MHz)...the power supply blew up one night and that is why I bought the Compaq that I have. It did work pretty much trouble free for about 3 years though... |
I believe that...I ran my current system with the 128 for a short time, before I added the 512, and it made a world of difference. I'll have to look into the build your own/local shop route... |
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2800+ xp on Chaintech MoB, 512 MB Kingston Value RAM, Nvidia GeForce 5700le graphics card, Sound blaster LIve! 5.1 sound card, Lg combo drive, cheapo 40GB HD. total cost: around $500 8 months ago. Works for me, I can play all the newsest games, I am on cable so, it's pretty fast, but I really want to build a new machine if I can ever stopo buying AR parts for a week or 2. |
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YankeeDiver: Yep, you can build your own if you have any reasonable type mechanical ability. It is not all that difficult. My high school age children and my wife built the machine I'm using now. The big problem is that once that you determine to build your own, you need to find the exact pieces that you need rather than let computer mfg'rs tell you what you to get. You won't save a lot money, but you will definetly get a bigger bang for your buck as in tailoring the machine to more or less the purpose you intend to use it for. As an example, you can get an AMD processor with a super quiet fan, more and faster memory, a better display/video card etc. All of this depends on what you want to do with your machine. If you're a gamer, you would definitely want the better quality display card, and a little less CPU, or if you recalc often a huge Excel spreadsheets, then a faster CPU and less display card. The choices are yours. |
Mine didn't last much more than two years. Got a high-end sony vaio laptop and never looked back. |
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I built one using a Shuttle XPC barebones system. It's almost 2 years old, so it will be time to build a new one this summer. I'm thinking about sticking with the XPC chassis format, but might go with liquid cooling. I love the small form factor, and since I never really add much to PCs, I don't need a ton of expandability... Just a couple RAM slots for upgrades, a video card slot, a CDROM drive bay and that's it. |
dropped some $$$ on that sucker didn't you.  i'm just envious.. that would make a hell of a gaming box. |
That looks like it would give my old Mac 512 a run for the money... |
Actually he must have built a time machine to travel to the future since 3.2ghz Athlon 64s do not exist in our present time. Top of the line Athlon 64 FX55 is only 2.6ghz |
 it's a 3200+. Sorry for not being exacting enough in my description.SS, total price was about $1200 back in October. Of course, that doesn't include 2 monitors. I was able to find some REALLY good deals to get that price. |
LOL, there is a HUGE difference between a 3200+ Athlon 64 (which runs at 2.0ghz) and a 3.2ghz Athlon 64 (which does not exist) but I guess y'all aren't computer people and hence don't care about those things. |
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Currently: Custom built out of spare parts P4 2.4 GHz 512 MB RAM 40 gig HD 128MB GeForceFX card Onboard Eathernet + Linksys PCI 10/100 card 16x DVD 8x CDRW WinXP Pro (It may be 2003 Server sometime next week though for a homework assignment) 15" CRT monitor, runs 1600x1200 resolution Laptop: Dell Inspiron something-or-other P4m 1.6 GHz 384 MB RAM 20 gig HD GeForce2Go 16 MB card Linksys WPC11 wifi card and some SMC 802.11b PCMCIA card (I need 2, the school limits bandwith by MAC and I'm too lazy to spoof MACs) 32x CD-ROM WinXP Pro 14" display running 1024x768 Handheld: HP Jornada 6xx (it was a store's demo model) Desktop 2 (for school breaks) Celeron 600 MHz 256 RAM 30 GB HD WinXP Pro GeForce TNT2 PCI card 15" CRT running 1024x768 I'm a college student, so I keep an extra box at home for breaks, and the good one at school. If I was going to buy something new, I'd be looking for 512-1GB ram, the best video card I could afford, built in WiFi (802.11b is fine for me), no OS (I can get one free from the school, legally), at least 40 GB HD, the ability to use two batteries at once (if I could find that, those boxes seem to be getting rarer among the newer 3 spindle notebooks) and the cheapest P4m I could find. Yeah, it would be another laptop, and I probably wouldn't go with Dell again. Oh, and I have an old Palm IIIc that's been sitting in a cradle for about 4 years now. |
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I have too many computers to list but here are the better ones: HTPC/Video Editing System 3.2 Intel (northwood) 2 gigs Corsair XMS 3200 ram 2 - 250 gig hard drives plextor dvd burner (716) Sound Blaster Audigy 2 zs X800XT PE video Gaming System 3.2e Intel (prescott) overclocked to 3.6ghz 1 gig Corsair XMS 3200 ram 2 - 74 gig raptor hard drives in RAID 1 250 gig hard drive plextor dvd burner (712a) Sound Blaster Audigy 2 zs 6800 Ultra Both of these I assembled myself, I don't buy off the shelf computers. Next system I will build will be a high end Athlon 64 (3500 or 3800) with a SLI motherboard with twin 6800gt pcie video cards, just waiting for parts to become available and prices to drop a little. |
I thought the 3200 64 was a 2.2 ghz processor, i was looking at 3400 64 the other day that was 2.4..........diferent fsb multipliers locked into chip or dif. core? |
Yeah, my bad, some 3200+ are 2.2 (newcastle core) while some are 2.0ghz (clawhammer & winchester core). |
it's cool, i wasn't real sure either. theoretically, if he got one of those super high-end sockent 939,2.6 (or2.7ghz, I'm not sure) chips on an extremely OC Mob, He MIGHT be able to get it close to 3.2..................theoretically speaking of course. |
Sure, one of my buddies has a FX55 (2.6ghz) running at 3.2ghz, but thats using a vapochill to cool the CPU, sweet setup if you don't mind shelling out an extra $1000 for the vapochill unit. |
Vapochill........wow. i guess that trancends the typical liquid/radiator cooling? I'd love to play HL2 on THAT machine! 
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I'm currently using an eMachines etower 700 ir that I picked up from Sam's Club in April 2001. It has a 700 mhz Celeron processor, 30 GB hard drive and I forget how much RAM. I must admit, it's been a pretty good PC to be an eMachines product. But the operating system that came with it (Windows ME) absolutely sux. But I am upgrading as I feel this one is on it's last legs. Next week my new Dell should arrive. It's a Dimension 3000 with Windows XP Professional, an 80 GB hard drive, an Intel Pentium 4 2.8 ghz processor, 512 MB RAM (I think) CD-RW and DVD-RW drives, a 17" flat screen monitor and a host of other goodies. I can't wait to get it here and get started using it. -CH |
3 different machines, all homebuilt. 2 p4s and an AMD 64. A p4 [email protected] is the gaming machine. 300GB maxtor to store mp3s and videos. x800 radeon 256mb, 74Gb WD raptor, audigy 2, altec 5.1s, logitech mx510 precision mouse, 1Gb Cas2 corsair memory, dual layer dvd burner and 19" trinitron CRT. You could put something quite similar together on the cheap. My best rig is already shoeing its age 
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I dunno anything about AMD overclocking but I have zero issues OCing a P4 2.6 to 3.2 on a P4P800 Deluxe.... I'd recommend getting soemthing a little more modern, however... I intend to as soon as finances permit (est. 2007)
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I agree with easy and you can learn alot. Also, you can build some cool things. Check out the Shuttle XPC. You can pick one up for about $200. Just add: Processor, memory, hard drive, OS, keyboard and mouse. Check out Slickdeals.net for sales. There is also a site that tracks all the parts prices on the net. |
A Vapochill blows away traditional water-cooling by a huge margin- much colder, check it out at http://www.frozencpu.com/cas-193.html |
Lol, sounds like you have a little more than just enough
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Puters? Got lots of them, all networked and stuff. Let's see: * Home Theater PC (very sweet!): 2500 Barton/620GB in drives/DVD+-RW/1GB/GF5200/Hauppauge PVR-250 This one doesn't have a monitor, it just connects to the TV and runs SnapStreams BeyondTV around the clock * PVR#2/Wifez0rz PC: 2400 Athlon/370GB/DVD+-RW/1GB/ATI9200 All-in-Wonder * Game box (this one): Athlon 6400 3200 (@2.2GHz)/1GB/370GB/X800 Pro/DVD+-RW DL * File Server/Dev machine: Athlon 2700/1GB/1.5TB/ATI 9600XT/CD-RW * Then some PIII's/Athlons...a Linux box, a Server 2003 box I'm playing with, another running NASLite (pretty simple, but cool), and another one that just connects to cameras for the front porch. * Oh, and a lowly 1GHz Laptop. * The newest project is a 1.79MHz Atari 130XE...I'm pretty sure I can get it hooked up to the network, not sure about surfing the web though on a text-based browser...hmmm With that much crap, management becomes a major issue, so I've slimmed things back, so no 11 keyboards and monitors. Some of the systems don't even have a keyboard, mouse, or monitor. Others are accessed via KVM switches, etc. Maintenance is way way down from before. There's another half dozen on my desk at work...hehe. |
Do you have your own power station like Henry Ford??
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