PCs-What to buy (CD, DVD, RAM, hard drive)

[Roo50]

I build and design PCs for multimedia applications, mainly recording studios.
No, I am NOT looking for business.

Most of the computers in large retail stores (except Macs) are crap.
They are fine for everyday use, like browsing online, office work and such but for gamers and people into editing video or music, forget it!
Generally the motherboards are cheap, as well as the other components, apart from the Hard drive.

Many of the cheap computers use what's called a Celeron processor.
Although an Intel product it is entry level and buggy.
For a little more get a Pentium 4, Pentium D, or Intel Duo

The 2 leading processors are Intel and AMD.

AMD is usually less expensive and a good choice for gamers.
Intel however is better for multimedia and business applications.

If you want a computer for the best price go to your local independant computer store and ask them to build you one.
It will be better and cheaper.

If you need help just ask away.........

[Magnum Mike]

Roo, I build computers also and when people ask me on what to buy, I also tell them to stay away from computers with the Celeron processor.

I built a gaming computer 3 years ago, it has a Pentium 4 3.2 GHZ HT processor, 3 gigs of RAM, 256 meg AGP GeForce GS 7800-OC Nvidia video card, 2 Western Digital 10,000 RPM drives (total of 79 gigs) set up in a RAID array, 650-watt power supply, DVD and CD burners, with the Windows XP Home SP2, Sound Blaster 5.1, and a bunch of other goodies. It's a very fast computer.. BUT.. with the PCI-E video card technology that's becoming more prominent, I have to dump the motherboard, the processor and everything else and replace it with one that can accept an Intel Duo Core, DDR2 RAM chips, and PCI-E video card, which means spending over $1,400 on the components!

I paid over $2,400 to build the computer 3 years ago and before I go spend another chunk of money, how do you like the PCI-Express technology and how does it compare to AGP? Would it be worth the upgrade? I have Flight Simulators on the computer and it has very fast frame rates (50 FPS) with FS 2004, however, when I installed FS 10 last November, I was lucky to get an average of 16 FPS, and significantly slower in dense areas. Before I gamble $1,400 to upgrade the hardware to go with Duo-Core and PCI-E, I thought I'd check with you.

Thanks in advance.

[southernlady5464]

I've built computers too. Prefer to build my own so I don't have all the junk trial software added that buying one adds and I KNOW what is actually in mine.

The intel we built was a PITA compared to the AMD's we built. They've ROCKED!!!

Have y'all tried the dual AGP/PCI motherboards? I did but putting it together was a nightmare til I figured out the jumper settings.

I build mine for heavy duty graphics...so I use the same setup as most gamers. Liz

[Roo50]

Originally Posted by Magnum Mike

Roo, I build computers also and when people ask me on what to buy, I also tell them to stay away from computers with the Celeron processor.

I built a gaming computer 3 years ago, it has a Pentium 4 3.2 GHZ HT processor, 3 gigs of RAM, 256 meg AGP GeForce GS 7800-OC Nvidia video card, 2 Western Digital 10,000 RPM drives (total of 79 gigs) set up in a RAID array, 650-watt power supply, DVD and CD burners, with the Windows XP Home SP2, Sound Blaster 5.1, and a bunch of other goodies. It's a very fast computer.. BUT.. with the PCI-E video card technology that's becoming more prominent, I have to dump the motherboard, the processor and everything else and replace it with one that can accept an Intel Duo Core, DDR2 RAM chips, and PCI-E video card, which means spending over $1,400 on the components!

I paid over $2,400 to build the computer 3 years ago and before I go spend another chunk of money, how do you like the PCI-Express technology and how does it compare to AGP? Would it be worth the upgrade? I have Flight Simulators on the computer and it has very fast frame rates (50 FPS) with FS 2004, however, when I installed FS 10 last November, I was lucky to get an average of 16 FPS, and significantly slower in dense areas. Before I gamble $1,400 to upgrade the hardware to go with Duo-Core and PCI-E, I thought I'd check with you.

Thanks in advance.

What raid type are you using?
Unsure about your drives too. They may be slow models and way too small.
I do not think the upgrade would warrant it.
Firstly, I am not thrilled with PCI-Xpress, yet. For many applications it has proven problematical, especially for high end video and music production that require as much horsepower as gaming.

I would first look at how your computer runs, how many processes are running in the background and so on. Game playing requires the absolute min of things running but I guess you probably know all this.

Also, again, look at your raid setup, differnt types have different effects.

Again, the drives are suspicious. Which models?
Some of the newer drives are super fast!

Go to tomshardware and check out your drives for performance comparisons too. Tom's Hardware - Computer Hardware News, Tests, Ratings and Reviews

There are many factors that will give you less than desired results.
Your setup should be fine though.....

Let me know.

[Roo50]

Originally Posted by Magnum Mike

Roo, I build computers also and when people ask me on what to buy, I also tell them to stay away from computers with the Celeron processor.

I built a gaming computer 3 years ago, it has a Pentium 4 3.2 GHZ HT processor, 3 gigs of RAM, 256 meg AGP GeForce GS 7800-OC Nvidia video card, 2 Western Digital 10,000 RPM drives (total of 79 gigs) set up in a RAID array, 650-watt power supply, DVD and CD burners, with the Windows XP Home SP2, Sound Blaster 5.1, and a bunch of other goodies. It's a very fast computer.. BUT.. with the PCI-E video card technology that's becoming more prominent, I have to dump the motherboard, the processor and everything else and replace it with one that can accept an Intel Duo Core, DDR2 RAM chips, and PCI-E video card, which means spending over $1,400 on the components!

I paid over $2,400 to build the computer 3 years ago and before I go spend another chunk of money, how do you like the PCI-Express technology and how does it compare to AGP? Would it be worth the upgrade? I have Flight Simulators on the computer and it has very fast frame rates (50 FPS) with FS 2004, however, when I installed FS 10 last November, I was lucky to get an average of 16 FPS, and significantly slower in dense areas. Before I gamble $1,400 to upgrade the hardware to go with Duo-Core and PCI-E, I thought I'd check with you.

Thanks in advance.

I forgot the most important thing, duh!

What Motherboard is it?

[Magnum Mike]

Roo50 - I don't have a problem with the drives, they're set up in a RAID 0 configuration and like I mentioned, they are 2 Western Digital drives, I don't have the model number, but they spin at 10,000 RPM, and I believe they have an 8 MB buffer.. I don't have any problems with any of the games that I have on the computer, all of which have a very fast framing rate, even though the display quality is set to very high. The only problem I had was when I installed Flight Simulator X/10. I think it's designed for the newer generation video cards and/or processors.

The motherboard is a FoxConn. I originally wanted to get an Asus motherboard, but they didn't have the one I wanted, and they told me the FoxConn motherboard is identical in just about every aspect to the Asus I wanted.

[Roo50]

Originally Posted by Magnum Mike

Roo50 - I don't have a problem with the drives, they're set up in a RAID 0 configuration and like I mentioned, they are 2 Western Digital drives, I don't have the model number, but they spin at 10,000 RPM, and I believe they have an 8 MB buffer.. I don't have any problems with any of the games that I have on the computer, all of which have a very fast framing rate, even though the display quality is set to very high. The only problem I had was when I installed Flight Simulator X/10. I think it's designed for the newer generation video cards and/or processors.

The motherboard is a FoxConn. I originally wanted to get an Asus motherboard, but they didn't have the one I wanted, and they told me the FoxConn motherboard is identical in just about every aspect to the Asus I wanted.

I'm not sure about that motherboard comment, may be right though.
I ONLY buy Asus boards and usually topend.

Still don't think it's worth upgrading though.