You get an i5 with 4 gigs of RAM. Simple as that. There's no reason to get less because prices are so low, and no reason to get more, because it won't make a difference.
I was thinking i5 Quad with 8GB of ram for future proofing. But Adam said he knew what he wanted so I wanna know what he wants and/or needs.
Specifically, you probably want the quad-core i5-750. If you want to spend less on the CPU, you should probably get a triple- or quad- core Athlon II. 4GB of RAM is essentially set in stone, yes. The graphics card will be your most important consideration if gaming is at all important, because that's where the differences in performance will be most noticeable.
Scott's build looks great. If you really want to save, the best place to compromise is the CPU and motherboard (i.e. a cheaper AMD system).
I was thinking i5 Quad with 8GB of ram for future proofing. But Adam said he knew what he wanted so I wanna know what he wants and/or needs.
8GB of RAM is future proofing against what exactly? Nothing you use TODAY uses even 4GB, so 8GB is just stupid, like SLi stupid.
I've maxxed out 4GB with SC2 at max settings and having video encoding running in the background. It's possible to use 4GB of ram, just hard. Going from 4 to 8 is less than $100.
I'm a fucking unemployed college student, Scott. An Ultrasharp, even though I want one, would easily render me broke as shit.
I didn't have one until I got out of college either.
Instead, I bought the Samsung 172x for $550 when it was brand new. It was the first and only LCD at the time with 12ms response and 1280x1024 resolution. Thus, it was the only LCD that could play games without ghosting artifacts. I later bought a second one for way cheap. I'm still using that one as my secondary monitor. Emily is using the first one. Got my fucking money's worth. My 20" Ultrasharp I got after graduation cost less than that.
Only job I had was working in an office on campus for $7-8 an hour. Or maybe I bought the monitor with summer camp or co-op money. I forget. Point is, I had jobs in college and got moneys from it.
I just used a CRT cause they were still better at the time.
Yeah, that's why that Samsung was so much money. The first LCD that was good enough. Even to this day the design of it still beats almost anything. The bezel is almost non-existent, it's incredibly thin, and it folds flat.
They're cheaper and the performance difference in most tests is slight. It will of course depend on the specific pricing at the time, so I can't say that the Athlons are better value 100% of the time, though. Looking at Newegg's current prices, the OEM Phenom II X4 940 is a great deal at $95, but most other Phenoms are too expensive compared to the Athlons, such as the Athlon II X3 445 at $75 and the Athlon II X4 630 at $89.
Personally, I'm in college and I've had a 24" Dell UltraSharp for a few years now. It cost me quite a lot, but when I bought it you pretty much couldn't get a 24" screen, and even now my resolution of 1920x1200 (fuck yeah!) is still very rare. It was definitely worth it, but I wouldn't say that an UltraSharp is a "must-have".
I didn't have one until I got out of college either.
Instead, I bought the Samsung 172x for $550 when it was brand new. It was the first and only LCD at the time with 12ms response and 1280x1024 resolution. Thus, it was the only LCD that could play games without ghosting artifacts. I later bought a second one for way cheap. I'm still using that one as my secondary monitor. Emily is using the first one. Got my fucking money's worth. My 20" Ultrasharp I got after graduation cost less than that.
Only job I had was working in an office on campus for $7-8 an hour. Or maybe I bought the monitor with summer camp or co-op money. I forget. Point is, I had jobs in college and got moneys from it.
Yeah. I'm working on getting a job during the night shift at the library (I'm an insomniac, might as well get paid for it), but otherwise my schedule is too packed with the learnings and learnings-related activities right now.
My present monitor is this guy from Asus, and it's an excellent monitor for the time being. However, I'm planning on getting a 30" Ultrasharp as my main display for grad school (proteomics needs moar rez), and using the Asus as a secondary display.
However, I'm planning on getting a 30" Ultrasharp as my main display for grad school (proteomics needs moar rez), and using the Asus as a secondary display.
I'm really interested in knowing more about proteomics now that I know it needs an insane 30" screen. 24" is really enough for almost everything.
I'm really interested in knowing more about proteomics now that I know it needs an insane 30" screen.
I guess you could do it on 24". However, more screen real estate means more space to view protein-protein interactions or protein structures at high resolution. It would at the least make my work a lot easier.
I have that monitor's baby brother and I have a tech job. I'm still unconvinced that the value-added by the IPS display is worth the price.
Even if that doesn't convince you, the other features should. It has an insane number of inputs, and it can do picture-in-picture among other insane things that no other monitor can touch. USB hub, memory card reader, the list goes on.
Scott: That build looks pretty nice, and switching out the Vid Card would save around a hundred bucks. I didn't see a DVD or CD writable drive in there, but I'm assuming it'd be easy enough to add them in. Everyone else: I have two LCD's. They're not godly ultrasharp, and I don't think they're HDMI compatible, but that's not as important to me as the 'guts' are right now.
Switching out the video card? What would the replacement be? As I said earlier, you'd be better off switching the CPU to save the hundred bucks than the video card.
As far as I can tell, ASRock has a shady warranty policy. The website says to ask the retailer, the retailer says to ask ASRock. Also, the demo video on their site is good for some laughs. Try this motherboard instead. Finally, the i5-750 has mostly been replaced by the 760, which is only $10 more.
As far as I can tell, ASRock has a shady warranty policy. The website says to ask the retailer, the retailer says to ask ASRock. Also, the demo video on their site is good for some laughs. Finally, the i5-750 has mostly been replaced by the 760, which is only $10 more.
That's fine. I just picked the first motherboard I saw. There are hundreds to choose from, so it's not a big issue. If the 760 is $10 more than 750, then it's a no brainer.
I've had this one for a year or two and I'm pretty happy with it. I Use the DVI port for my pc and the VGA for my xbox. I'm sure an Ultrasharp is better but for now this one serves me just fine.
Thinking of getting this GPU: GT240 512GDDR3. It may seem a bit slow but I play most games a few years late anyway, it's cheap enough, and I'm probably going to be using my 1268x1024 VGA monitor for a while to come.
Just need to be able to play NS2 with a decent frame rate (High graphics would be nice but I'm not that bothered.). For comparison, reviews on the site say it plays Fallout 3 and Burnout Paradise on full graphics fine.
So I need another hard drive and I'm researching what kind to buy. Does anyone know if there's an advantage to using a single platter drive as opposed to a multi-platter drive? Or if two heads a platter is better than one?
Comments
The graphics card will be your most important consideration if gaming is at all important, because that's where the differences in performance will be most noticeable.
Scott's build looks great. If you really want to save, the best place to compromise is the CPU and motherboard (i.e. a cheaper AMD system).
Instead, I bought the Samsung 172x for $550 when it was brand new. It was the first and only LCD at the time with 12ms response and 1280x1024 resolution. Thus, it was the only LCD that could play games without ghosting artifacts. I later bought a second one for way cheap. I'm still using that one as my secondary monitor. Emily is using the first one. Got my fucking money's worth. My 20" Ultrasharp I got after graduation cost less than that.
Only job I had was working in an office on campus for $7-8 an hour. Or maybe I bought the monitor with summer camp or co-op money. I forget. Point is, I had jobs in college and got moneys from it.
Personally, I'm in college and I've had a 24" Dell UltraSharp for a few years now. It cost me quite a lot, but when I bought it you pretty much couldn't get a 24" screen, and even now my resolution of 1920x1200 (fuck yeah!) is still very rare. It was definitely worth it, but I wouldn't say that an UltraSharp is a "must-have".
My present monitor is this guy from Asus, and it's an excellent monitor for the time being. However, I'm planning on getting a 30" Ultrasharp as my main display for grad school (proteomics needs moar rez), and using the Asus as a secondary display.
Everyone else: I have two LCD's. They're not godly ultrasharp, and I don't think they're HDMI compatible, but that's not as important to me as the 'guts' are right now.
As I said earlier, you'd be better off switching the CPU to save the hundred bucks than the video card.
Try this motherboard instead. Finally, the i5-750 has mostly been replaced by the 760, which is only $10 more.
Just need to be able to play NS2 with a decent frame rate (High graphics would be nice but I'm not that bothered.). For comparison, reviews on the site say it plays Fallout 3 and Burnout Paradise on full graphics fine.