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General discussion

Which one to choose

May 21, 2005 3:48PM PDT

I have few questions I'd like to discuss before scratching my wallet for those hard-earned pennies.

1. Which series to go for? Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon 64?
2. Which brand is known to design the most reliable motherboards? (Did I hear Intel)?
3. Finally, should I integrate my own PC or buy one from those Big Brothers (IBM, Dell, HP, Gateway etc)

I would also appreciate if someone could please clear a few doubts/myths regarding the follwing:

1. That branded machines ALWAYS outperform custom-built white boxes. True or False?

2. That no matter which components I choose to buy from the open/retail market, they always lag in quality as compared to their identical OEM versions.

My requirements are:
1. I occassionally play games.

2. I do work with some graphic intensive software?

3. I would like to have a really cool & whispering quiet but powerful machine. And by the way, I am not in the mood to upgrade my PC for another two years kepping in view all that BTX, 64-bit OS stuff swirling around now-a-days.

Discussion is locked

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AMD 64
May 21, 2005 4:03PM PDT

upgradable to dual-core in future. 64-bit around the corner. Cool and quiet technology on AMD. Pentium 4s run hot and are fast, but not as fast for games, but faster in everything else.
ROger

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But
May 21, 2005 4:31PM PDT

But what if I am not a serious gamer? Ok what configuration would you recommend (mention components with brand names). What about the rest of my questions please?

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RE2:
May 21, 2005 4:39PM PDT

Asus, gigabyte, dfi has the best motherboards. If you're buying from an oem, go for eMachines. Their t6212 packs a punch and cost $600. Custom-built will ALWAYS outperform branded machines... No you've got it in reverse, the open/retail will ALWAYS GUARANTEED MOST OF THE TIME DEPENDING ON THE COMPANY,BUT THE ONES MOST POPULAR are usually good for the price and will out do any oem. Either go for the eMachines or build your own.

{PARTS LIST} THis is what i usually recommend, i just tweak it for ppl, the price is also listed. I would leave it up to you to make changes and add parts...

ASPIRE X-Dreamer II ATXB4KLW-AL Silver Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 350W Power Supply-56

Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP-400 ATX12V 400W Power Supply 115/230 V UL, TUV, CB, FCC CLASS B, CUL-59

ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard-175

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Deigo Integrated into Chip FSB 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor-339

2x THERMALTAKE A2016 80mm 1 Ball 1 Sleeve Blue LED Light Cooling Fan-28

CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory-129

Maxtor 250GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model 7Y250M0, OEM Drive Only + Thermaltake SATA Cable-142

Rosewill RB-321 White IDE Combo Drive-28

Microsoft Windows XP Home w/Service Pack 2-93

eVGA 6600 GT 128MB DDR3/PCI-E/TV-Out/Dual-DVI-159

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS-89

Mitsumi USB2.0 Digital Card Reader/Writer W/FD INTERNAL, Model FA404A/404M-24

PCI Fan-10

SyncMaster 730b 17-inch LCD Monitor, Black-280

Logitech X-230-30

Logitech Logitech Cordless Desktop EX100 Black 102
Normal Keys 7 Function Keys PS/2 Wireless Type Standard Keyboard Mouse Included-38

COOLER MASTER KHC-L91-U1 92mm Ball Cooling Fan/Heatsink-50

Arctic SIlver Premium Photosynthetic Silver Thermal Compound Arctic Silver 5-8

Creative Blaster Modem-19

Cooler Master Blue Ultra Aurora Cold Cathode (Dual Kit) "SFL-U12-UB"-12
Roger

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wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
May 21, 2005 4:49PM PDT

Thats some machine I would say or rather dream of. Actually here in Pakistan, people follow a certain trend and will accept no change thats why you and I may appreciate an AMD Athlon 64FX but people would prefer to buy a P4 2.4GHz overpriced than an AMD. ANyways coming over to the point, right now I have the follwing to choose from:

1. AMD Processor (complete range)
2. ASUS m/board with nforce 4 chipset.
3. 120GB Seagate or WD (SATA)?
4. Kingston RAM (512+512)

SO whats our position on the score card now?

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RE:
May 21, 2005 5:04PM PDT

Go for an emachines t6212, comes with a socket 939 Athlon 64 3200+, with 512MB, 160GB, and lots other features. Upgrade the processor, graphics card, and ram, and you've got your computer. The t6212 is a good buy if you're looking for a budget gaming machines. Just upgrading the ram and gfx card and you've got the equivalent the previous machine, you won't notice much difference. The t6212 has great reviews here on cnet. Wow, cnet has such wide range of people...
ROger

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(NT) (NT) Is it avilable in Pakistan?
May 21, 2005 5:04PM PDT
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Available? I doubt if someone ever heard of it
May 21, 2005 5:10PM PDT

Only HP, Acer and IBM. Thats all........Now what? Sounds like a real challenge han?

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fwiw
May 23, 2005 4:55PM PDT

for what it's worth i'm running an MSI nforce 4 ultra board. from what i saw looking around at my particular board it was listed as pretty stable for OC but nothing special. solid but unspectacular. so MSI's another motherboard brand to at least consider/compare others agaisnt.

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RE
May 23, 2005 9:25AM PDT

AMD is tied with intel on photo editing, but is ahead in graphics and music. Having 2 6600gts in sli mode does not give you a big performance boost in many games, since sli methods currently do not work very well. So if you take away the sli motherboard and add in an ATI x800xl card(i'm not dissing nVidia but ati has the cheaper card this time). I have heard that many people have had problems with gigabyte, it's a brand i usually avoid.

P.S. Custom-built machines are cheaper which usually means you can get better parts. Most big companies overcharge for parts and building costs.