Desktop Pc

[ChrisCross]

I'm currently looking at buying or building a desktop PC which is used mainly for games, but also as a bit of a Media Centre...maybe.

I saw this on MSY.com.au and though I'd see what you guys think of it and if the price sounds good..

or if you have a better option/suggestion:

AMD x2 Dual Core 240 2.80Ghz

MSY AMD "Gamer 3" DDR3 Package

Asus M4A78T-E DDR3

Genuine AMD Boxed Cooling Fan

AMD 790GX/SB750 Chipset – Support Hybrid CrossFire

4xDDR2, 2xPCI-E, 2xPCI, 1xIDE, Upto 12xUSB, 5xSATA Raid Support, 1xFDD, Upto 2x1394a

Nvidia GF 1GB 9500GT

4GB DDR3 1333 Memory (Intel Approved)

Hitachi 1TB 7200rpm SATA Hard Disk

SHAW Titan G9 Tower Case

23" Asus VH 2232T WS 5ms

Microsoft Wireless 1000 Desktop (Keyboard + Mouse)

High Definition Audio CODEC 6 Channel Sound (Integrated)

10/100/Gigabit Fast Network Card (Integrated)

LG 22x Dual Layer DVD RW

A-Power 5.1 Speakers System

Microsoft Vista Home Basic or XP Home

ANTI-VIRUS-Trail Version, Full Set of User Manuals,

Fully Performance and Burning Testing

1 year Return To Base Parts, 5 Year Labour

This is on sale for $1270

Discuss.

[BigDirtyJase]

It's not a bad PC

The things I don't like:

SHAW Titan G9 Tower Case - Very cheap quality case and the PSU that is in the box is very flaky at best (people on whirlpool forums will have similar views)

A-Power 5.1 Speakers System - I'm just picky when it comes to speakers. Will definitely lack clarity and the punch (mate brought these as cheapie replacements)...I would spend a little bit more and get better quality (or known brand name) speakers.

Also for a machine running 4GB RAM to only offer Vista Basic or XP Home (guessing it's 32bit) is crap...need 64bit OS to fully utilise the 4GB RAM.

Other than that...it's not a bad machine

[DivHunter]

Anything SHAW should be avoided like it has super AIDS and the plague and gay-flu.

A-Power are terribad.

Get at least a 9600GT they are only a few dollars more.

P5P43TD 119

E8400 207

DDR3 4GB G.Skill-NT 103

1GB 9800GT 119

RC690 146

Hitachi 1TB 97

Pioneer218 49

MS 1000 Desktop 35

VH232T 219

That'd work, no speakers in there though.

Edited October 21, 2009 by DivHunter

[ChrisCross]

ok so I should go with this instead?

9600GT instead of the 9500GT (+$50)

Hyundai Z-5100 5.1 instead of the A-Power one? (+$30)

As for XP or Vista...I wanted to upgrade to Windows 7 anyways, ...i think.

oh and I forgot to add Office pack (+$125)

Total is now $1455 excluding Win7 and an upgrade to the PSU (they dont offer any upgrades for the case or PSU so that will have to come seperate to this)...

[DivHunter]

Win 7 is good.

The cheap speakers will work but you get what you pay for.

You can tell them what to build and they will put it together for ~$70

Edited October 21, 2009 by DivHunter

[ChrisCross]

You can tell them what to build and they will put it together for ~$70

oh didnt know that

What would you guys suggest for a sub $1.5k system then?

[DivHunter]

oh didnt know that

What would you guys suggest for a sub $1.5k system then?

That's essentially what I listed thought I don't really like any of the 775 motherboards that are left, all the good ones went EOL.

Anything SHAW should be avoided like it has super AIDS and the plague and gay-flu.

A-Power are terribad.

Get at least a 9600GT they are only a few dollars more.

P5P43TD 119

E8400 207

DDR3 4GB G.Skill-NT 103

1GB 9800GT 119

RC690 146

Hitachi 1TB 97

Pioneer218 49

MS 1000 Desktop 35

VH232T 219

That'd work, no speakers in there though.

[ChrisCross]

P5P43TD 119

E8400 207

DDR3 4GB G.Skill-NT 103

1GB 9800GT 119

RC690 146

Hitachi 1TB 97

Pioneer218 49

MS 1000 Desktop 35

VH232T 219

Based on that, plus Vist with Win7 upgrade($110), plus Office Pack ($99), plus MSY to build it ($70)

As for Speakers I still have some speakers here and Could upgrade further down the track anyways.

I end up at at Total of $1373 which sounds pretty good for a ready to go system right?

or should I save $70 and put it together myself? Do you know if I still get the warranty that way?

[iseekool]

Based on that, plus Vist with Win7 upgrade($110), plus Office Pack ($99), plus MSY to build it ($70)

As for Speakers I still have some speakers here and Could upgrade further down the track anyways.

I end up at at Total of $1373 which sounds pretty good for a ready to go system right?

or should I save $70 and put it together myself? Do you know if I still get the warranty that way?

Building a PC is the FUN part and save you some coin...

However.... If you are not feeling confident - best let them build it, and if anything does goes wrong with the PC (hardware wise) you will have the "upper hand" in complaints.

End of the day it's up to you

[R31Nismoid]

IMO a bit expensive for $1200!

And ye, not a fan of the case/power supply setup either. Quality power supplies are where it is at. One thing you really need to spend money on.

[stolen-gtr]

totally agree with the above posts...

at least 9600gt if you want to game with semi decent frames, and stay well clear from case+psu (especially shaw ) they are way more trouble than the few dollars you'll save.

Also not sure if you've considered it but you might want to think about getting an aftermarket cpu cooler if you are concerned about overclocking/fan noise but its up to you.

If you get a cheap case and/or psu then they will be noisy. Zalman make some decent cpu coolers and are good value.

again with the speakers, logitech is the winna but if its not that important to you then anything will do really.

LOL @ Fully Performance and Burning Testing

also with the build it yourself, youll still be under warranty for any parts that are faulty, but if you happen to damage something while putting it together then you are in trouble...so its up to you. Personally i think there's not much you can do wrong and like iseekool said, building it is the fun/satisfying part.

sorry if i repeated what the others said but that's my 2c...hope that helps and good luck.

[25GTT]

So would we all still go the e8400 dual core over a quad core is the question??? My e8400 still is fine with games, but does it matter yet if you have a quad or do we still feel that a dual will still cut the mustard for games?

[stolen-gtr]

Personally if i was purely gaming, i would go dual core over quad core, there are minimal or no games that would utilise all 4 cores. If you want to multitask however, then that is a different story. i believe multitasking and mainly video processing/encoding is where quad core is being used properly. dual cores like the e8400 you usually have more opportunity for overclocking resulting in a higher clock speed which will help for games. Having 2 more cores just for gaming is pointless imo.

hope that answers your question

So would we all still go the e8400 dual core over a quad core is the question??? My e8400 still is fine with games, but does it matter yet if you have a quad or do we still feel that a dual will still cut the mustard for games?

[DivHunter]

So would we all still go the e8400 dual core over a quad core is the question??? My e8400 still is fine with games, but does it matter yet if you have a quad or do we still feel that a dual will still cut the mustard for games?

You can count on one hand the number of games that fully utilise more than two cores and off the top of my head only one ever did it really well - Supreme Commander.

[25GTT]

Sweet, will kep the 8400 OC'd at 3.3 ghz for a bit longer then until some more high end games utilise it.

Not really much of a Supreme Commander fan to be honest so no big loss.

makes me wonder then why anyone with gaming in mind would even touch the i7?!

[R31Nismoid]

You can count on one hand the number of games that fully utilise more than two cores and off the top of my head only one ever did it really well - Supreme Commander.

Ye exactly - and every other desktop app is still single threaded etc.

It'll be at LEAST 18-24months IMO before we see PC's fully using anything near what the current CPU's offer in terms of performance.

[Mayuri Krab]

You can count on one hand the number of games that fully utilise more than two cores and off the top of my head only one ever did it really well - Supreme Commander.

There is another game called Strangle Hold that I found (by accident) that utilized all avaliable cores (task manager was showing all a ~35% utilization on all 4 cores on my Q6600).

If you are deciding between Duo or Quad for gaming, get a Duo & use the $ difference to up the video card IMO.

[DivHunter]

Sweet, will kep the 8400 OC'd at 3.3 ghz for a bit longer then until some more high end games utilise it.

Not really much of a Supreme Commander fan to be honest so no big loss.

makes me wonder then why anyone with gaming in mind would even touch the i7?!

Because it's shiny and new and goes to 4GHz pretty easy. Which would be 4 cores, 8 threads at 4GHz, my E8400/3110 ran at 4GHz watercooled too though.

[stolen-gtr]

amen.

There is another game called Strangle Hold that I found (by accident) that utilized all avaliable cores (task manager was showing all a ~35% utilization on all 4 cores on my Q6600).

If you are deciding between Duo or Quad for gaming, get a Duo & use the $ difference to up the video card IMO.

[bozodos]

why not get an ATI 4870 video card?