not sure cause im not very smart when it comes to computers
http://www.halocomputers.com/ninjagamer.html
here is the link...thanx for the help
http://www.halocomputers.com/ninjagamer.html
here is the link...thanx for the help
is this a good gaming pc?
- Thread starter Auto-Fire
- Start date
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2008
- Messages
- 616
I build my machines myself and recommend that others that want a good gaming machine do the same; however, I know that most people don't have the knowledge, patience, or desire to put in the effort required to make a good build. That said, I do have some advice.
Overall, that Ninja Gamer machine isn't bad. My main beef with it is the memory. 1) Having DDR2 800 memory would improve the overall performance of the machine. 2) Having 2GB rather than just 1GB would help ensure that the machine has some additional longevity and could also allow you to get an additional RAM speed increase if you get two sticks of 1GB each in order to make use of dual channel mode.
I know nothing about Halo Computers, but searching google for "halo comptuers sucks" didn't produce any results. So, either they produce good stuff or haven't developed a very large customer base yet.
If you want some more detailed information, just let me know.
Overall, that Ninja Gamer machine isn't bad. My main beef with it is the memory. 1) Having DDR2 800 memory would improve the overall performance of the machine. 2) Having 2GB rather than just 1GB would help ensure that the machine has some additional longevity and could also allow you to get an additional RAM speed increase if you get two sticks of 1GB each in order to make use of dual channel mode.
I know nothing about Halo Computers, but searching google for "halo comptuers sucks" didn't produce any results. So, either they produce good stuff or haven't developed a very large customer base yet.
If you want some more detailed information, just let me know.
well the only problem is..well in the first place, i made this thread for my older brother =(eGO)= A-team, and he doesnt have a lot of money to build a computer so this one looked pretty decent...any more advice would be great and highly appreciated
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2008
- Messages
- 616
Well, I don't ever shop around retail PC sellers, so I can't really help you find a better deal. However, I can show you some samples of what I would get. Hopefully that can help you know what to look for.
First, a couple pieces of information that will help you understand the basics of how I start with a base to build from. I never build Intel systems. Technically, they are ahead of AMD in performance (for the moment), but they are only slightly ahead in terms of price for performance, so I prefer to build an AMD system that I know is stable, fast, and a good price rather than an Intel system that I have no experience with. In addition to that, I never build "high-end" gaming rigs. What I do build are systems that are extremely stable and are just slightly behind the top-of-line products in order to give me a great boost in speed compared with what I have while still being remarkably affordable. In other words, I never buy the newest hardware; rather, I buy hardware that just passed into the "last gen" viewpoint (this is where you will find the best value on hardware). As far as graphics go, I always stick with nVidia. In my experience, ATI has always had instabilities that were not present with nVidia chipsets. This may have changed now that AMD owns ATI, but it's just like my AMD/Intel decision, I'll stick with what I know. As for the motherboard, I need lots of SATA connections, so I always choose a higher-end chipset that has a lot of SATA connections.
Okay. Now that you understand why I've chosen some vendors over others, I'll share some basic PC building fundamentals with you.
The most important piece of hardware in your case is the power supply. Sure, every component is necessary to have a functioning PC, but the power supply is the only hardware item that is mission critical 24/7 yet has more junk on the market than quality products (CPUs have two major vendors that are both high-quality, graphical chipsets have three that are all highquality, etc). Without getting too detailed on what to look for in a power supply, I'll just say that I won't buy anything but PC Power & Cooling power supplies. They are more expensive than your typical PSUs, but they are rock solid, will run 24/7 without a hiccup, and won't cause your system to have random reboots or lockups due to bad power (the difference over the past couple years after switching to them has really made an impression on me about the importance of the power supply).
The next important component to get right is the motherboard. In my experience, most of the major manufacturers do a great job. I have experience with MSI, Asus, and Gigabyte. All the boards I've received from them have worked without a hitch. I also understand that Biostar, Foxconn, and DFI make good boards, but I have not personally owned a board from any of them yet. Ensure that the board you are selecting supports all the features you want. These features are things like processor support, number of PATA or SATA connections, support for gigabit ethernet, PCI-E x16 or PCI-E x32 (2.0), speed of RAM supported, maximum RAM capacity, onboard sound or video, form factor (ATX, MATX, etc), number of USB connections, firewire support, SLI or Crossfire support, and on and on. After selecting the rest of your components, review your board selection again. Many people miss this step which causes most build failures, and technically is why PC manufacturers exist. This review process should ensure that every component you will add to the board is not only compatible with it but also will not be hindered by any of the hardware selections. Important things that people forget about that need to be considered are: will the motherboard I selected fit in the case I selected, does the case I selected provide adequate ventilation for the type of cooling provided to the board chipsets, does the RAM speed of the RAM module(s) I selected match the RAM speed support of the board, etc.
After picking your motherboard, find a power supply, processor, memory modules(s), video card, sound card, and case that will match up to the board and review your selections. This forms your basic working machine and only requires a few components to be complete: hard drive, optical drive (CD, DVD, etc), monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse, and any other needed peripherals (printer, scanner, etc).
You might notice that I haven't said very much about what people typically focus on: the processor and video card. That's because it's really not that important until you build a base of a motherboard. The entire speed capability of the machine is completely dependent upon what motherboard you select. The next most important component for ensuring reliable speed for the machine is which memory you select. On AMD systems, the processor is directly linked to memory since the processor is the memory controller (Intel machines have a memory controller on the motherboard, thus motherboard selection there is also critical). Bad/slow memory can kill your entire PC's performance and good/fast memory can make your PC scream. After getting the fundamentals of the motherboard, memory, and processor, picking which graphics card you want to use is a simple matter of finding one that will work on your motherboard that fits your price range. Video card selection is typically the last thing I do.
Okay. Now that I've most likely bored you to death with stuff that you probably didn't need but hopefully learned from, I'll show you a couple quick builds I was toying around with yesterday as I consider my next system. The first one is the "ideal" system that matches up performance while still staying economical. The second one is one that I tried to reduce cost on by sacrificing some speed.
Build 1
Build 2
Note that these prices do not include case ($50-200), hard drive ($50-300), optical drive ($30-50), speakers ($30-200), or monitor ($150-$1000+). The first three could easily be around $150-200 for good-quality stuff. The speakers and monitor are basically how much you are willing to spend.
Also notice how the only thing that changed between the two systems is the graphics card. Changing just that component allowed me to keep my excellent system stability and speed, save more than $150, and only sacrifice top-end gaming performance (the card in the second build is much better than what I have now and I already get good framerates in all the games I play).
The interesting thing to me on the motherboard is how I can upgrade to a high-end quad-core AMD processor after they get rid of some of their initial build flaws.
Now, this system was built with me and my needs in mind. I summarized my needs above, so the selections shouldn't be surprising. I believe that your (or more accurately, your old brother's) needs are different and could probably be summarized as, "a decent gaming machine that doesn't far exceed $500." I certainly hope that Volcom is kidding when he recommends a XPS 700. Not that the system is bad, but the starting price is $1500 without a monitor. I'm certain that's outside the range of what you are looking for. Since I'm sure that my build doesn't exactly meet your needs either, I'll take a crack at something that does. This what I built:
This build does not include an operating system, keyboard, mouse, speakers, or monitor, which I assume he already has. If he doesn't have an OS, you can get Windows XP SP2 Home for $90 or Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit for $110.
All in all, that price is more than the $500, but it kicks the crap out of both of the systems that you posted and would be rock solid. The boiled down specs are as follows: Dual Core AMD 2.5GHz system with 2GB of 800MHz Dual Channel memory, a fast XFX 8600GT graphics card with 256MB of high-speed GDDR3 video memory, Seagate 250GB SATA II hard drive, Samsung high-speed DVD burner with support for Lightscribe, support for up to 8 channels of audio with optical and coaxial S/PDIF outputs, dual gigabit Ethernet connections, firewire, 6x USB 2.0, and e.SATA support in a stylish black case.
The hard drive, optical drive, and case run $150 together. Added onto my build 2, that would be ~$780. If you went with that option, you would have a system with blazing fast DDR2 1066 RAM with the ability to run the next gen AMD processors (AM2+/quad-cores) and next gen graphics cards (PCI-E 2.0 x32). That means that the roughly $800 computer could be upgraded in one or two years with a new AM2+ chip and a new video card for around $200-300 to make it into an entirely new machine.
I'm not sure if you really wanted this much detail, but it should definitely give you an idea of what to look for. The important thing to keep in mind is that you want to find that price sweet spot. Spending $2000 will give you an awesome machine, but that machine will cost just $1000 in just a few months. Spending $500 will give you a usable machine, but spending just $200 or $300 more can give you a machine that is far superior and will last you much, much longer.
If you have any further needs or questions, just ask.
Thanks for the fun. I like putting together build ideas.
+++++ Addendum +++++
I was curious just how much difference there was between the two systems you posted and the sample build I put together. I used Tom's Hardware CPU Charts to gather the data. The Ninja GT has a Intel Pentium D 925 which gets a benchmark of 13.6 fps in Supreme Commander. The Kickass Gaming Rig's AMD Athlon 64 4000+ gets a benchmark of 8.6 fps. My build with the AMD Athlon X2 4800+ gets a benchmark of 23.8.
Keep in mind that these benchmarks were made with trying to do the best to keep everything else equal in order to benchmark the chip and not the rest of the hardware. So, the chip itself outperforms both other setups by a large margin; however, the build I set up has faster memory (DDR2 800 memory in dual channel versus dual channel DDR 400 and single channel DDR2 533) and faster graphics. The XFX 8600GT blows away the MSI 8400GS with the 8600GT nearly tripling the performance of the 8400GS in this Doom 3 Benchmark (note that the graphics card used in the benchmark has just a clockspeed of 540MHz whereas the 8600GT I picked has a clockspeed of 680MHz). The XFX 8600GT doesn't fare as well in the same benchmark against the 7800GT (which really is a great card); however, the difference of the 540 and 680 clockspeeds means that the 8600GT card I picked would just surpass the 7800GT in performance and provide support for DirectX 10 games whereas the 7800GT only supports up to DirectX 9.
So, as you can see, spending just a little bit more provides a vast improvement on performance.
First, a couple pieces of information that will help you understand the basics of how I start with a base to build from. I never build Intel systems. Technically, they are ahead of AMD in performance (for the moment), but they are only slightly ahead in terms of price for performance, so I prefer to build an AMD system that I know is stable, fast, and a good price rather than an Intel system that I have no experience with. In addition to that, I never build "high-end" gaming rigs. What I do build are systems that are extremely stable and are just slightly behind the top-of-line products in order to give me a great boost in speed compared with what I have while still being remarkably affordable. In other words, I never buy the newest hardware; rather, I buy hardware that just passed into the "last gen" viewpoint (this is where you will find the best value on hardware). As far as graphics go, I always stick with nVidia. In my experience, ATI has always had instabilities that were not present with nVidia chipsets. This may have changed now that AMD owns ATI, but it's just like my AMD/Intel decision, I'll stick with what I know. As for the motherboard, I need lots of SATA connections, so I always choose a higher-end chipset that has a lot of SATA connections.
Okay. Now that you understand why I've chosen some vendors over others, I'll share some basic PC building fundamentals with you.
The most important piece of hardware in your case is the power supply. Sure, every component is necessary to have a functioning PC, but the power supply is the only hardware item that is mission critical 24/7 yet has more junk on the market than quality products (CPUs have two major vendors that are both high-quality, graphical chipsets have three that are all highquality, etc). Without getting too detailed on what to look for in a power supply, I'll just say that I won't buy anything but PC Power & Cooling power supplies. They are more expensive than your typical PSUs, but they are rock solid, will run 24/7 without a hiccup, and won't cause your system to have random reboots or lockups due to bad power (the difference over the past couple years after switching to them has really made an impression on me about the importance of the power supply).
The next important component to get right is the motherboard. In my experience, most of the major manufacturers do a great job. I have experience with MSI, Asus, and Gigabyte. All the boards I've received from them have worked without a hitch. I also understand that Biostar, Foxconn, and DFI make good boards, but I have not personally owned a board from any of them yet. Ensure that the board you are selecting supports all the features you want. These features are things like processor support, number of PATA or SATA connections, support for gigabit ethernet, PCI-E x16 or PCI-E x32 (2.0), speed of RAM supported, maximum RAM capacity, onboard sound or video, form factor (ATX, MATX, etc), number of USB connections, firewire support, SLI or Crossfire support, and on and on. After selecting the rest of your components, review your board selection again. Many people miss this step which causes most build failures, and technically is why PC manufacturers exist. This review process should ensure that every component you will add to the board is not only compatible with it but also will not be hindered by any of the hardware selections. Important things that people forget about that need to be considered are: will the motherboard I selected fit in the case I selected, does the case I selected provide adequate ventilation for the type of cooling provided to the board chipsets, does the RAM speed of the RAM module(s) I selected match the RAM speed support of the board, etc.
After picking your motherboard, find a power supply, processor, memory modules(s), video card, sound card, and case that will match up to the board and review your selections. This forms your basic working machine and only requires a few components to be complete: hard drive, optical drive (CD, DVD, etc), monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse, and any other needed peripherals (printer, scanner, etc).
You might notice that I haven't said very much about what people typically focus on: the processor and video card. That's because it's really not that important until you build a base of a motherboard. The entire speed capability of the machine is completely dependent upon what motherboard you select. The next most important component for ensuring reliable speed for the machine is which memory you select. On AMD systems, the processor is directly linked to memory since the processor is the memory controller (Intel machines have a memory controller on the motherboard, thus motherboard selection there is also critical). Bad/slow memory can kill your entire PC's performance and good/fast memory can make your PC scream. After getting the fundamentals of the motherboard, memory, and processor, picking which graphics card you want to use is a simple matter of finding one that will work on your motherboard that fits your price range. Video card selection is typically the last thing I do.
Okay. Now that I've most likely bored you to death with stuff that you probably didn't need but hopefully learned from, I'll show you a couple quick builds I was toying around with yesterday as I consider my next system. The first one is the "ideal" system that matches up performance while still staying economical. The second one is one that I tried to reduce cost on by sacrificing some speed.
Build 1
- *MSI K9A2 Platinum AM2+ 790FX DDR2 1066
*AMD Athlon X2 BE-2400 Brisbane 2.3GHz AM2 45W
*Kingston HyperX 2x1GB DDR2 1066
*PC P&C Silencer 610
*XFX GeForce 8800GT Extreme 512MB PCI-E 2.0
Build 2
- *MSI K9A2 Platinum AM2+ 790FX DDR2 1066
*AMD Athlon X2 BE-2400 Brisbane 2.3GHz AM2 45W
*Kingston HyperX 2x1GB DDR2 1066
*PC P&C Silencer 610
*XFX GeForce 8600GT 256MB PCI-E
Note that these prices do not include case ($50-200), hard drive ($50-300), optical drive ($30-50), speakers ($30-200), or monitor ($150-$1000+). The first three could easily be around $150-200 for good-quality stuff. The speakers and monitor are basically how much you are willing to spend.
Also notice how the only thing that changed between the two systems is the graphics card. Changing just that component allowed me to keep my excellent system stability and speed, save more than $150, and only sacrifice top-end gaming performance (the card in the second build is much better than what I have now and I already get good framerates in all the games I play).
The interesting thing to me on the motherboard is how I can upgrade to a high-end quad-core AMD processor after they get rid of some of their initial build flaws.
Now, this system was built with me and my needs in mind. I summarized my needs above, so the selections shouldn't be surprising. I believe that your (or more accurately, your old brother's) needs are different and could probably be summarized as, "a decent gaming machine that doesn't far exceed $500." I certainly hope that Volcom is kidding when he recommends a XPS 700. Not that the system is bad, but the starting price is $1500 without a monitor. I'm certain that's outside the range of what you are looking for. Since I'm sure that my build doesn't exactly meet your needs either, I'll take a crack at something that does. This what I built:
- *ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP (has support for SLI)
*G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (I use four sticks of this RAM in my current system, good stuff)
*AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Brisbane 2.5GHz AM2 65W (This is my current build's processor)
*XFX GeForce 8600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 (support for SLI)
*PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610
*COOLER MASTER Centurion
*Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA II
*SAMSUNG 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA
This build does not include an operating system, keyboard, mouse, speakers, or monitor, which I assume he already has. If he doesn't have an OS, you can get Windows XP SP2 Home for $90 or Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit for $110.
All in all, that price is more than the $500, but it kicks the crap out of both of the systems that you posted and would be rock solid. The boiled down specs are as follows: Dual Core AMD 2.5GHz system with 2GB of 800MHz Dual Channel memory, a fast XFX 8600GT graphics card with 256MB of high-speed GDDR3 video memory, Seagate 250GB SATA II hard drive, Samsung high-speed DVD burner with support for Lightscribe, support for up to 8 channels of audio with optical and coaxial S/PDIF outputs, dual gigabit Ethernet connections, firewire, 6x USB 2.0, and e.SATA support in a stylish black case.
The hard drive, optical drive, and case run $150 together. Added onto my build 2, that would be ~$780. If you went with that option, you would have a system with blazing fast DDR2 1066 RAM with the ability to run the next gen AMD processors (AM2+/quad-cores) and next gen graphics cards (PCI-E 2.0 x32). That means that the roughly $800 computer could be upgraded in one or two years with a new AM2+ chip and a new video card for around $200-300 to make it into an entirely new machine.
I'm not sure if you really wanted this much detail, but it should definitely give you an idea of what to look for. The important thing to keep in mind is that you want to find that price sweet spot. Spending $2000 will give you an awesome machine, but that machine will cost just $1000 in just a few months. Spending $500 will give you a usable machine, but spending just $200 or $300 more can give you a machine that is far superior and will last you much, much longer.
If you have any further needs or questions, just ask.
Thanks for the fun. I like putting together build ideas.
+++++ Addendum +++++
I was curious just how much difference there was between the two systems you posted and the sample build I put together. I used Tom's Hardware CPU Charts to gather the data. The Ninja GT has a Intel Pentium D 925 which gets a benchmark of 13.6 fps in Supreme Commander. The Kickass Gaming Rig's AMD Athlon 64 4000+ gets a benchmark of 8.6 fps. My build with the AMD Athlon X2 4800+ gets a benchmark of 23.8.
Keep in mind that these benchmarks were made with trying to do the best to keep everything else equal in order to benchmark the chip and not the rest of the hardware. So, the chip itself outperforms both other setups by a large margin; however, the build I set up has faster memory (DDR2 800 memory in dual channel versus dual channel DDR 400 and single channel DDR2 533) and faster graphics. The XFX 8600GT blows away the MSI 8400GS with the 8600GT nearly tripling the performance of the 8400GS in this Doom 3 Benchmark (note that the graphics card used in the benchmark has just a clockspeed of 540MHz whereas the 8600GT I picked has a clockspeed of 680MHz). The XFX 8600GT doesn't fare as well in the same benchmark against the 7800GT (which really is a great card); however, the difference of the 540 and 680 clockspeeds means that the 8600GT card I picked would just surpass the 7800GT in performance and provide support for DirectX 10 games whereas the 7800GT only supports up to DirectX 9.
So, as you can see, spending just a little bit more provides a vast improvement on performance.
CASE: ATX MEDIUM TOWER CASE 350 WATT (BLACK COLOR)
CPU: AMD Athlon™64 X2 4000+ Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology
MOTHERBOARD: Asus M2A-VM AMD 690G Chipset DDR2/800 SATA RAID PCI-Express MBoard w/Radeon X1250 Graphic, GbLAN, IEEE1394, USB2.0, &7.1Audio
MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair Value Select or Major Brand)
VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS 512MB 16X PCI Express (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)
VIDEO CARD 2: NONE
LCD Monitor: NONE
HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive (160GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 8MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
Data Hard Drive: NONE
Optical Drive: (Special Price) 20X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)
Optical Drive 2: NONE
SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
this any good?
CPU: AMD Athlon™64 X2 4000+ Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology
MOTHERBOARD: Asus M2A-VM AMD 690G Chipset DDR2/800 SATA RAID PCI-Express MBoard w/Radeon X1250 Graphic, GbLAN, IEEE1394, USB2.0, &7.1Audio
MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair Value Select or Major Brand)
VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS 512MB 16X PCI Express (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)
VIDEO CARD 2: NONE
LCD Monitor: NONE
HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive (160GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 8MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
Data Hard Drive: NONE
Optical Drive: (Special Price) 20X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)
Optical Drive 2: NONE
SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
this any good?
