Curse

SleepeR · Jun 17, 2005, 09:42 PM // 21:42

Can anyone provide me a link to a cheap reliable site that sells individual parts?

BrandonIT · Jun 17, 2005, 10:02 PM // 22:02

www.newegg.com - generic parts
www.crucial.com - memory

Or, if you're feeling adventurous:
PriceWatch - search engine for low prices

Talesin Darkbriar · Jun 17, 2005, 11:19 PM // 23:19

*Sigh*

All hands to battle stations! Thar be a fat-headed BrandonIT off'n the port bow!
Alienware for crow eaters
Alienware for $599...
Wait.. there's more...
Dell for the masses...
That's spending 3 minutes doing a search.
I'm thrilled you still enjoy building your own systems. Thrilled. Honestly.
So if you build your own, power to you.
If you don't, you probably don't want to begin unless you have someone who can show you how to properly do it.

Talesin

Borealis · Jun 18, 2005, 01:14 AM // 01:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talesin Darkbriar

Curses!
Well, I'm a bit peeved at rapidly losing the popularity contest...

A few shots across the bow, courtesy o' Capt. Tal!

Myth #1: Building your own PC saves time and money.
This was completely correct in 1995; My first dozen PCs were all handbuilt monstrosities running hardware and software unheard of at the time.
This is now (in 2005) patently false.
Inconceivable you say?
No; lets take apples and oranges:
As some have claimed, "They can go out and spend a grand total of $500 on system components and put together a "complete system", and then load up the software":

a.) A $500 system performs like a $500 system. In my first response I was referring to a "performance system" for high end graphics - not an EMachine that is barely capable of accessing email. It ain't the same animal folks.

b.) And you load it up with what pirated copy of O/S?
I wasn't aware Microsoft was giving out copies of Windows XP in cereal boxes these days. The O/S alone will run you $300 - unless you are going to put Windows 3.11 on it? maybe Linux will run GW? Uh. Don't think so. Yet.

c.) And if your hardware fails because your motherboard is made from cardboard and your mozarella cheese intergrated video chip shorts out...you will call Taiwan for support and service?
There is a reason why certain components are called "Industry Standard."
I invite the $500 crowd to discover why.

Myth #2: Developers HATE brand X...
Years ago when some of you were still single digit age,

Computer Manufacturers made all their components in house.
Apple did everything including the O/S.

Open up any computer box now - even a new Mac.
Gadzooks! What are all these name brands inside here?
Even the "EMachine gigaflops computer" uses components from all over.

A "quality" system uses industry spec components. Your Dell shares some of the same common components as my Alienware system.
Designers design for industry standard - not Daiyoung's backalley hard-drives.

Myth #3: Brand X is BETTER than Brand Y!
Only this week.
Computers (and their components) go obsolete faster than you can change your socks. That brand new Dell system you just bought today will be tomorrows over the hill system. Literally.
Industry standards dictate any current PC is typically obsolete within 18 months. (Check ZDNet if you wish to debate.) When you get ready to buy, read reviews; Tom's Hardware is a great one for you chip heads. Then look for systems that offer the components rated as superior this week.

I love to argue the merits of graphics cards - thats where the eye candy comes in. I'm a personal fan of all things ATI, even though I have used NVidia cards from time to time. (MY Nvidia's always overheated and melted down..)
It doesn't mean ATI is better (Although they may be today) It means I've had better luck and more stable performance with their products.

Which brings me to the most important point:

Unless you are a professional in the computer hardware field, you don't want the latest and greatest components anyway; there's a solid reason why that is referred to as the "Bleeding edge" and it's not a compliment.
You want stability.
Dells are fine systems, as are the other brands mentioned here. The trick is to find the brand and components that best suit what it is YOU want to do.

Don't deceive yourself and by a nice business system if all you will do is play games on it! Bite the bullet and pay the extra $100+ for a true gaming system - you'll never regret your decision.

Last shot for the "I only make my own PC's crowd":
Do you want to spend all your waking hours building your PCs - and constantly repairig them (yeah yeah tell me all about your 20 years of stability and no patches...jeez) or actually using the thing for its intended purpose?

There is absolutely nothing wrong if you are a shade-tree mechanic that enjoys puddling on your PC hardware 24/7; but I am addressing everyone else who actually wants to play Guild Wars - not repair and modify their PCs all day long.

Avast thar matey!
Cap'n Tal

Last I remember weren't Dell power supplies built by them and built differently the 99% of the worlds power supplies, meaning you're either dealing with shipping your whole machine back to dell if you're clueless, or you're waiting for a new power supply from them which will take how long to get?

To set the record straight about custom built computers, I've spent less then 2 days time with all the assembling, modding and repairing(not that I've needed to do any) on my machine I built myself. Which is hardly 24/7.

For anyone out there thinking of building their own machines, don't be scared to do it, if you can put together a model car/airplane or bake a cake you can built your own computer. It does NOT take a ton of time nor do you have to be even semi smart to do it. Not like these expensive computer parts don't come with a manual.

For those who might buy you're computers mass-produced, what are you going to do when you do want to upgrade something and you ARE clueless and don't want to learn, bend over again for dell?

ManadartheHealer · Jun 18, 2005, 01:27 AM // 01:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Borealis

For anyone out there thinking of building their own machines, don't be scared to do it, if you can put together a model car/airplane or bake a cake you can built your own computer. It does NOT take a ton of time nor do you have to be even semi smart to do it. Not like these expensive computer parts don't come with a manual.

Agreed. They are making it easier and easier for average people to put computers together (they make some plugs colour-coded now

). All you need (if you're not in the know

) is a manual or two, reading skills, and a shred of common sense, and you should be just fine

Ardus Shadowmane · Jun 18, 2005, 04:42 AM // 04:42

Wow, this is becoming quite the debate! Very cool.

First off, a PIV 3.2 would not outperform an Athlon 3200, pure and simple, even though the clock speed of the Athlon is lower than 3.2 GHz. Look at pretty much any benchmark and you'll see they're neck-in-neck performance-wise (I used 3.2 as an example, holds true for most of their stuff). Add that to the fact that AMD doesn't horribly overprice their processors and that you can get enough cooling on them and still save 100 dollars, I don't see how you would go any other way.

"AMD64 3200+ Processor & Motherboard
(PCI Express, DDR400, SATA, 6 Channel sound)
1 GB PC3200 Memory
160GB Seagate SATA Hard Drive (8MB Cache)
Emprex 16x Dual-Layer DVD+/-RW burner
RAIDMAX Scorpio Full Tower 500W Aluminum Case
VisionTek ATI x700 16xPCIE 256MB Video Card
Windows XP Home Edition OEM

Total cost of system: 698.94 + 8% Sales Tax = 754.85"

vs.

PIV 2.8
Alienware PCI-Express Motherboard
512 MB PC3200
Radeon X300 video card
80 GB SATA Hard Drive (don't know what brand)
Alienware Case
16X DVD-ROM Drive
Windows XP Home
Price before tax and rebate $1199, price after rebate still before tax $899
This last was taken right from Talesin's link.

Even after rebates that custom-build blows the alienware out of the water.

Eclair · Jun 18, 2005, 05:41 AM // 05:41

My fan died on my Dell Laptop and Dell shipped me a new fan the next day =P

Shipped as in it arrived the next day.

DarkAynjil · Jun 18, 2005, 06:18 AM // 06:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrandonIT

Avast thar yourself, matey. Allow me to expound on some of your points, sir, as you are in danger of exaggerating yourself to falsehood.

My dear sir, allow me to quoteth from the Fry's Electronics ad of today.

Today's (6/17/05) Dallas/Ft. Worth Fry's Ad: (and if you want to quote out a Dell, AlienWare, whatever system using whatever special offers you want, go ahead. Let's compare. But I want a verifiable quote.)

AMD64 3200+ Processor & Motherboard - $169
(PCI Express, DDR400, SATA, 6 Channel sound)
1 GB PC3200 Memory - $79.99
160GB Seagate SATA Hard Drive (8MB Cache) - $69.99
Emprex 16x Dual-Layer DVD+/-RW burner - $49.99
RAIDMAX Scorpio Full Tower 500W Aluminum Case - $99.99
VisionTek ATI x700 16xPCIE 256MB Video Card - $129.99
Windows XP Home Edition OEM - $99.99

Total cost of system: 698.94 + 8% Sales Tax = 754.85

Please find me a Dell or Alienware for that price that comes close to the specs above. And I didn't even quote from PriceWatch or other online price-grabber. This is a retail newspaper flyer that is currently sitting on my desk.

$99.99 for Windows XP Home OEM. And it's bullet-proof legitimate if you're buying a motherboard for a new system.

I have two home-built systems and a home-built server that runs 24/7. I reboot the server once a week via Scheduled Tasks. That's the limit of my "repairing" them.

I use my computer every single day, and my wife uses hers almost 10-14 hours a day.

Except for two fried power supplies because I went with cheap $25 cases and my house is not grounded, I've not had a problem once I loaded the OS, drivers, and apps.

And I work with nothing BUT Dells at my company, and have for 5 years, so I can tell you about Dell "reliability". (Ask me about Dell's GX270's and shipping faulty motherboards with exploding 'caps' to over 1,000 systems.) The only good thing about Dell, is that when your hard drive or motherboard goes bad (and it will), they'll send someone out to fix it.

Yes, I agree that building your own PC is not the way to go for everyone. But please don't tell me that what I can put together for $500 is still comparable to Dell/AlienWare/whatever.

Thank you, drive through.

Sooooooooooooo true....
My mother was going to buy a DeLL desktop for 3800 dollars, I matched the parts at www.newegg.com as well as the software, and guess what?
1200 dollars cheaper, with an ATi 9800pro instead of dell's lame-o proprietary ati 9600xt.... none of the parts were cheap, either. (Corsair RAM, Western Digital Raptor 10k rpm hard drives, etc.)
While building a system for 500$ will not yield a high-end system, it will yield more than DeLL will give you for 500$. I also recently home-brewed a middle of the road system for a friend (no grafx card, not a gamer

) for guess what? 500$. It has an older AMD chip and Asus A7Vn series Mobo, but it rocks and rolls. Hasn't broken yet either - runs linux, and also runs WinXp Home. (Not pirated, bought as OEM with mobo and cpu for 60$)
DeLL = Computers for people who are too lazy to read a little bit about the parts in their computers.
Laptops? My opinion is that if you are really in a position where you need one, you should be able to afford a decent one, such as a new Toshiba or Asus. Alienware Laptops are teh sux. We have 3 high-end (5500$ each.)
AlienWare Laptops at work that crash, overheat, and otherwise refuse to work about every 2 months or so. Their tech support is the worst, and they don't like to honor their warranty for !!!!!!!!
Just my .02

blkbelt · Jun 18, 2005, 07:39 AM // 07:39

i just bought a laptop XPS gen 2. cant wait to bust it out. all reviews say they kick A. because alienware and falcon dont have the m processor yet. as for why dell i advertising GW. at E3 that is was they used to show off the goods. and i was impressed when i saw the game. anyhoot, i just want to play GW.

ElRey · Jun 18, 2005, 12:22 PM // 12:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Temken

Here's a detailed list of reasons why Dells, or any big name computers suck in general - problems you'll never see with custom builds:

1. Power supply - The power supply on these PCs are most often too small to run the PC itself, much less any upgrades you plan to add, causing the PC to crash shortly after startup.

2. Motherboard - the motherboard will be a cheap antique model that is simply incapable of running mid - high range cards, whether it be video, sound, modems, or even a simple memory upgrade. The slots are there but you cannot use them.

3. Graphic compatibility - The PC specs might say that the PC has "The latest graphic chipset" or whatever, and may even list it by mem size, whether it be 64, 128, or 256, but unless you are very specific about parts, then what you'll end up with is a integrated graphic card that came with the motherboard and cannot play any game under 5 years old.

4. PC case - The case that is often used for namebrand PCs is roughly the size of a cereal box, with the CD/DVD and floppy drives flipped vertically so that they'll fit. It will also be a heavy, heeeavy steel case, not one of the light aluminum/plexyglass cases that seem to be so popular now. The width of the case does not allow for upgrading or adding parts. Extra ram might fit, but a standard 56k modem or any random graphic or sound card will not. If you wish to use the PC with that case, then you have to shell out hundreds of dollars for abbreviated parts that cost 2-3x as much as the same part in its original size. The power supply is shaped to fit that case, and that case alone. If you wish to replace one or the other, then you're better off replacing both case and power supply.

5. The HD - Again, cheap parts are being used no matter what size the HD is. To be more specific, the RPMs of the HD will be so low that if you try to run memory intensive programs, they will not only load slow but they will also cause the PC to overheat from not being able to load fast enough.

6? I never used one of these POS PCs long enough to catch all of the adware that was included and I obviously didn't ask for. Since the HD was one of the many things getting replaced, I just installed the software myself later. Luckily for me, I only made the mistake of purchasing a name brand PC once.

My 5 yr old dell mobo can run my friends 6800Ultra.

My 5 yr old PC looks more like a server now then a cereal box.

I do agree they are a POS Pc, but you get what you pay for.....its just the service to make it is way overpriced

Ardus Shadowmane · Jun 18, 2005, 10:18 PM // 22:18

Heh, unless your board at the time was in an extremely high-end machine, there's no way a 5-year old mobo would run a 6800Ultra, and even if it did would only run it at 4X. And if it was extremely high-end and from Dell, it's pretty much a guarentee you overpaid for it.

SleepeR · Jun 18, 2005, 10:25 PM // 22:25

Ya i have an Alienware (awaits flames). I got it because at the time i knew nothing about computers, i could run notepad like a charm, and also knew nothing about computers. But now i'm a little more adventerous and i want to buy my own parts and over clock my own system to save some money.

PS: Enemy Territory:Quake Wars (drools)