Best Computer/Desktop Company
- Thread starter S7R1K3R
- Start date
Build your own.
yeah building your own comp is a great idea, Im gonna be builing my own for next semester.
i would say dell if u dont build ur own
pay me to build you one!
You know, this could actually make a sweet contest.
Give us a price limit, and we'll see who can come up with the sweetest computer for you. Sources with prices have to be included...
Granted you'll have to put it together, but that's the easy part! Cable A goes in Port B!
Give us a price limit, and we'll see who can come up with the sweetest computer for you. Sources with prices have to be included...
Granted you'll have to put it together, but that's the easy part! Cable A goes in Port B!
oh its awwn wakka!
My comp is own made...but not by me....but from those options I've had HP and in our school we Dell...I think Dell is better.
Oh man, don't buy a Dell. If you ever want to modify it, you can run into a run of problems. Their parts are custom, and often aren't interchangable with parts you can buy yourself. Granted, HP might be the same way but I don't have experience with them.
My first PCs were dell and relatives of mine who have me work on their PCs have Gateways, HPs and E machines. If you have no other choice i'd go dell.
If anything, see who has the best customer service.
If anything, see who has the best customer service.
I've been building my own systems since about 1985, and I can promise you that you'll be better off doing it yourself. The only down side is handling individual warranty stuff yourself. KEEP YOUR RECEIPTS AND BOXES.
Important considerations include:
1) Establish how much money you want to spend. Do this FIRST. Don't forget to include any tax/shipping that might be incurred.
2) Identify components you already have that can be re-used. Hard drives, DVD writers, keyboards, mice, network cards, sound cards, etc. ALL of these things can be replaced later, giving you more money for the more important parts.
3) Make sure you RESEARCH all of the components you plan to buy to ensure they're compatible, no matter how insignificant the component appears to be. If you're going to be upgrading in stages, PLAN AHEAD.
4) If you've never done it before, DO NOT over-clock your stuff unless you have extra cash to replace your parts.
MEMORY
The RAM you'll be buying will almost certainly be DDR2. RAM comes with varying amounts of bandwidth. The more bandwidth, the faster the memory will be.
CPU
Normally, I would say you have a choice between AMD and Intel CPUs, but to be brutally honest, Intel's stuff is faster (right now). If you have the money, nothing less than a E6600 will do. If you're on a budget, go with an AMD AM2 chip. They're REALLY cheap right now.
Consider that most games are CPU limited right now, so spending a little more on a faster CPU is always the best idea. This might mean spending a little less on the video card or the memory, but life is full of trade-offs.
VIDEO CARDS
I would personally go with nVidia, and if you can afford it, a 8800GTX ($550). If you can't afford that, then get a 7950GT ($230). DO NOT CHEAP OUT ON THE VIDEO CARD.
MOTHERBOARDS
All brands make at least one decent board that everyone loves. If you ask 10 people what the best motherboard is, you'll probably get 10 different answers. Good name brands are Asus, Epox, Abit, Gigabyte, and MSI. The most important thing is to examine the features of various motherboards. If you want IDE connections, your choices of acceptable boards narrows a lot. If you need more than one or two PCI slots, that will further limit your choices. So on and so forth. The importance of each feature is wholly subjective to the person spending the money.
COMPUTER CASE
Get a case that allows decent airflow. You want your system to run as cool as possible, yet be as silent as possible. I have a case from http://www.mountainmods.com - it's an 18-inch aluminum cube with room for two power supplies and a rediculous number of drives.
Make sure your case has 120mm input AND exhaust fans.
POWER SUPPLY
Get a name-brand high-wattage power supply - nothing less than 520watts, especially if you get a 8800GTX. Depending on how many devices you have connected and the kind of CPU, you may need to consider something in the range of 600 watts.
CPU COOLING
I highly recommend the ThermalTake 120 (I forget the exact name). It's HUGE, and includes a 120mm fan. When volted down, the fan is absolutely silent. This HSF continually out-performs competitors.
Do NOT bother with water cooling unless you have a lot of extra money and time on your hands. I used to water cool, and in the end it's simply not worth it.
WHERE TO BUY YOUR STUFF
Whatever you do, try to get everything from the same place, and order everything at the same time. This could save you HUNDREDS of dollars on shipping.
Personally, I wouldn't go anywhere buy NewEgg. They have pretty much anything you might be looking for (and almost always in stock), their warranty return policies are reasonable, and their customer service is top-notch.
Important considerations include:
1) Establish how much money you want to spend. Do this FIRST. Don't forget to include any tax/shipping that might be incurred.
2) Identify components you already have that can be re-used. Hard drives, DVD writers, keyboards, mice, network cards, sound cards, etc. ALL of these things can be replaced later, giving you more money for the more important parts.
3) Make sure you RESEARCH all of the components you plan to buy to ensure they're compatible, no matter how insignificant the component appears to be. If you're going to be upgrading in stages, PLAN AHEAD.
4) If you've never done it before, DO NOT over-clock your stuff unless you have extra cash to replace your parts.
MEMORY
The RAM you'll be buying will almost certainly be DDR2. RAM comes with varying amounts of bandwidth. The more bandwidth, the faster the memory will be.
CPU
Normally, I would say you have a choice between AMD and Intel CPUs, but to be brutally honest, Intel's stuff is faster (right now). If you have the money, nothing less than a E6600 will do. If you're on a budget, go with an AMD AM2 chip. They're REALLY cheap right now.
Consider that most games are CPU limited right now, so spending a little more on a faster CPU is always the best idea. This might mean spending a little less on the video card or the memory, but life is full of trade-offs.
VIDEO CARDS
I would personally go with nVidia, and if you can afford it, a 8800GTX ($550). If you can't afford that, then get a 7950GT ($230). DO NOT CHEAP OUT ON THE VIDEO CARD.
MOTHERBOARDS
All brands make at least one decent board that everyone loves. If you ask 10 people what the best motherboard is, you'll probably get 10 different answers. Good name brands are Asus, Epox, Abit, Gigabyte, and MSI. The most important thing is to examine the features of various motherboards. If you want IDE connections, your choices of acceptable boards narrows a lot. If you need more than one or two PCI slots, that will further limit your choices. So on and so forth. The importance of each feature is wholly subjective to the person spending the money.
COMPUTER CASE
Get a case that allows decent airflow. You want your system to run as cool as possible, yet be as silent as possible. I have a case from http://www.mountainmods.com - it's an 18-inch aluminum cube with room for two power supplies and a rediculous number of drives.
Make sure your case has 120mm input AND exhaust fans.
POWER SUPPLY
Get a name-brand high-wattage power supply - nothing less than 520watts, especially if you get a 8800GTX. Depending on how many devices you have connected and the kind of CPU, you may need to consider something in the range of 600 watts.
CPU COOLING
I highly recommend the ThermalTake 120 (I forget the exact name). It's HUGE, and includes a 120mm fan. When volted down, the fan is absolutely silent. This HSF continually out-performs competitors.
Do NOT bother with water cooling unless you have a lot of extra money and time on your hands. I used to water cool, and in the end it's simply not worth it.
WHERE TO BUY YOUR STUFF
Whatever you do, try to get everything from the same place, and order everything at the same time. This could save you HUNDREDS of dollars on shipping.
Personally, I wouldn't go anywhere buy NewEgg. They have pretty much anything you might be looking for (and almost always in stock), their warranty return policies are reasonable, and their customer service is top-notch.
nicely put Outlaw!!
yep, copy and paste. And someone should sticky that post alone in the tech thread.
Build your own FTW
or dell
but build your own u get more experience
or dell
but build your own u get more experience
I second what Outlaw said - well put. Building systems since 85? Wow, I bet you don't miss the days of IRQ's
You definitely get the best bang for the buck by building your own system, plus you get to learn a lot in the process and have a great sense of pride in your work. Plus, in the future you can always swap out components for upgrades, whereas any BTO company is going to leave you somewhat hanging.
Stay away from Gateway at all costs. Period.
Apple - Nothing against Apple, but I wouldn't recomend it for gaming, even though you can run Windows on 'em now.
HP's Enterprise line is awesome and very reliable, but I have mixed fealings about their consumer line.
Dell - I don't care what anyone says, they are still the best PC out there. They are struggling these days though and losing a lot of business to HP. I used to do some side consulting for a lot of home users with Dell's and overall I was very impressed with the quality. I only ran into a few hard drive failures, which after a few years isn't that out of the ordinary. At work we use Dell's (Optiplex, Precision and Latitude lines) and have had really good luck there as well. As with the consumer line, we get a few bad hard drives here and there and the occasional bad stick of memory, but in an organization that has thousands of Dell's scattered across the country, I consider that to be pretty dang good.
You definitely get the best bang for the buck by building your own system, plus you get to learn a lot in the process and have a great sense of pride in your work. Plus, in the future you can always swap out components for upgrades, whereas any BTO company is going to leave you somewhat hanging.
Stay away from Gateway at all costs. Period.
Apple - Nothing against Apple, but I wouldn't recomend it for gaming, even though you can run Windows on 'em now.
HP's Enterprise line is awesome and very reliable, but I have mixed fealings about their consumer line.
Dell - I don't care what anyone says, they are still the best PC out there. They are struggling these days though and losing a lot of business to HP. I used to do some side consulting for a lot of home users with Dell's and overall I was very impressed with the quality. I only ran into a few hard drive failures, which after a few years isn't that out of the ordinary. At work we use Dell's (Optiplex, Precision and Latitude lines) and have had really good luck there as well. As with the consumer line, we get a few bad hard drives here and there and the occasional bad stick of memory, but in an organization that has thousands of Dell's scattered across the country, I consider that to be pretty dang good.
DELL FTW
If you don't know how to build your own, I would suggest that you go with Dell.
Granted, some of their parts like RAM are only upgradeable if you buy it from them, but other items, such as the video card, are open to you buying them from whatever company you choose.
Most companies are like Dell in the sense that you can only buy their parts, but Dell has the best customer care I have seen out of any companies; if something goes wrong with your Dell, they will tell you how to fix it, or they will give you a new one.
As far as pricing, Dell usually seems to be the best, or one of the best. There are frequent sales, so keep your eyes open for those.
Granted, some of their parts like RAM are only upgradeable if you buy it from them, but other items, such as the video card, are open to you buying them from whatever company you choose.
Most companies are like Dell in the sense that you can only buy their parts, but Dell has the best customer care I have seen out of any companies; if something goes wrong with your Dell, they will tell you how to fix it, or they will give you a new one.
As far as pricing, Dell usually seems to be the best, or one of the best. There are frequent sales, so keep your eyes open for those.
[quote1177471512=Outlaw Programmer]
I've been building my own systems since about 1985, and I can promise you that you'll be better off doing it yourself. The only down side is handling individual warranty stuff yourself. KEEP YOUR RECEIPTS AND BOXES.
Important considerations include:
1) Establish how much money you want to spend. Do this FIRST. Don't forget to include any tax/shipping that might be incurred.
2) Identify components you already have that can be re-used. Hard drives, DVD writers, keyboards, mice, network cards, sound cards, etc. ALL of these things can be replaced later, giving you more money for the more important parts.
3) Make sure you RESEARCH all of the components you plan to buy to ensure they're compatible, no matter how insignificant the component appears to be. If you're going to be upgrading in stages, PLAN AHEAD.
4) If you've never done it before, DO NOT over-clock your stuff unless you have extra cash to replace your parts.
MEMORY
The RAM you'll be buying will almost certainly be DDR2. RAM comes with varying amounts of bandwidth. The more bandwidth, the faster the memory will be.
CPU
Normally, I would say you have a choice between AMD and Intel CPUs, but to be brutally honest, Intel's stuff is faster (right now). If you have the money, nothing less than a E6600 will do. If you're on a budget, go with an AMD AM2 chip. They're REALLY cheap right now.
Consider that most games are CPU limited right now, so spending a little more on a faster CPU is always the best idea. This might mean spending a little less on the video card or the memory, but life is full of trade-offs.
VIDEO CARDS
I would personally go with nVidia, and if you can afford it, a 8800GTX ($550). If you can't afford that, then get a 7950GT ($230). DO NOT CHEAP OUT ON THE VIDEO CARD.
MOTHERBOARDS
All brands make at least one decent board that everyone loves. If you ask 10 people what the best motherboard is, you'll probably get 10 different answers. Good name brands are Asus, Epox, Abit, Gigabyte, and MSI. The most important thing is to examine the features of various motherboards. If you want IDE connections, your choices of acceptable boards narrows a lot. If you need more than one or two PCI slots, that will further limit your choices. So on and so forth. The importance of each feature is wholly subjective to the person spending the money.
COMPUTER CASE
Get a case that allows decent airflow. You want your system to run as cool as possible, yet be as silent as possible. I have a case from http://www.mountainmods.com - it's an 18-inch aluminum cube with room for two power supplies and a rediculous number of drives.
Make sure your case has 120mm input AND exhaust fans.
POWER SUPPLY
Get a name-brand high-wattage power supply - nothing less than 520watts, especially if you get a 8800GTX. Depending on how many devices you have connected and the kind of CPU, you may need to consider something in the range of 600 watts.
CPU COOLING
I highly recommend the ThermalTake 120 (I forget the exact name). It's HUGE, and includes a 120mm fan. When volted down, the fan is absolutely silent. This HSF continually out-performs competitors.
Do NOT bother with water cooling unless you have a lot of extra money and time on your hands. I used to water cool, and in the end it's simply not worth it.
WHERE TO BUY YOUR STUFF
Whatever you do, try to get everything from the same place, and order everything at the same time. This could save you HUNDREDS of dollars on shipping.
Personally, I wouldn't go anywhere buy NewEgg. They have pretty much anything you might be looking for (and almost always in stock), their warranty return policies are reasonable, and their customer service is top-notch.
[/quote1177471512]
like to add a little more if thats okay (long post)
-----
OPTICAL DRIVE: atleast a dvd writer/reader that can do all types even f you only use 2 or 3 types better to be safe than sorry
HARD DRIVE: ummm 120 GB or more SATA 300 with 16mb or more cache is good
MEMORY: you should get atleast 2 GB DDR2 800mhz nowa days 3 better (4 or more needs XP64 bit or vista to utilitize it)
MOBO: Get something that supports PCI E, DDR2 - 800mhz ram, SATA 300, and a Gigabit LAN interface for hi-speed
POWER SUPPLY: i have a 650 Watt from thermaltake (really silent) but yeah 8400,8500,8600,8800 need 800 watts
GRAPHICS CARDS: right now for a good price is the 8600(GTS i think) from XFX for $240, 256 mb, 730mhz gpu clock and 2.26ghz mem clock great for gaming (im getting it when i can)
CPU: get dual core , AMD - anything 5600+ great mostly cause now 2mb lvl2 cache , INTEL- idk go with outlaws choice
------
some of these products that i mentioned in my area areof my opinion (do not base wat you buy on what i say [ i take no liability if you buy something that i mentioned with something else and it doesnt work])
but yeah make sure you get want you want and what everything can do, thats why dell and hlp are best way to go if you're really new and just want a good comp
where to buy, i went with "mwave.com" but i've been using it for 10 years never a problem (my opinion) buy from the right place, RESEARCH THE PARTS AND PRICE on sites like tomshardware.com and RESEARCH the place where you're buying it from
but most of all RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH!!!! ohh and READ THE MANUALS!!!
thats all i have to say
I've been building my own systems since about 1985, and I can promise you that you'll be better off doing it yourself. The only down side is handling individual warranty stuff yourself. KEEP YOUR RECEIPTS AND BOXES.
Important considerations include:
1) Establish how much money you want to spend. Do this FIRST. Don't forget to include any tax/shipping that might be incurred.
2) Identify components you already have that can be re-used. Hard drives, DVD writers, keyboards, mice, network cards, sound cards, etc. ALL of these things can be replaced later, giving you more money for the more important parts.
3) Make sure you RESEARCH all of the components you plan to buy to ensure they're compatible, no matter how insignificant the component appears to be. If you're going to be upgrading in stages, PLAN AHEAD.
4) If you've never done it before, DO NOT over-clock your stuff unless you have extra cash to replace your parts.
MEMORY
The RAM you'll be buying will almost certainly be DDR2. RAM comes with varying amounts of bandwidth. The more bandwidth, the faster the memory will be.
CPU
Normally, I would say you have a choice between AMD and Intel CPUs, but to be brutally honest, Intel's stuff is faster (right now). If you have the money, nothing less than a E6600 will do. If you're on a budget, go with an AMD AM2 chip. They're REALLY cheap right now.
Consider that most games are CPU limited right now, so spending a little more on a faster CPU is always the best idea. This might mean spending a little less on the video card or the memory, but life is full of trade-offs.
VIDEO CARDS
I would personally go with nVidia, and if you can afford it, a 8800GTX ($550). If you can't afford that, then get a 7950GT ($230). DO NOT CHEAP OUT ON THE VIDEO CARD.
MOTHERBOARDS
All brands make at least one decent board that everyone loves. If you ask 10 people what the best motherboard is, you'll probably get 10 different answers. Good name brands are Asus, Epox, Abit, Gigabyte, and MSI. The most important thing is to examine the features of various motherboards. If you want IDE connections, your choices of acceptable boards narrows a lot. If you need more than one or two PCI slots, that will further limit your choices. So on and so forth. The importance of each feature is wholly subjective to the person spending the money.
COMPUTER CASE
Get a case that allows decent airflow. You want your system to run as cool as possible, yet be as silent as possible. I have a case from http://www.mountainmods.com - it's an 18-inch aluminum cube with room for two power supplies and a rediculous number of drives.
Make sure your case has 120mm input AND exhaust fans.
POWER SUPPLY
Get a name-brand high-wattage power supply - nothing less than 520watts, especially if you get a 8800GTX. Depending on how many devices you have connected and the kind of CPU, you may need to consider something in the range of 600 watts.
CPU COOLING
I highly recommend the ThermalTake 120 (I forget the exact name). It's HUGE, and includes a 120mm fan. When volted down, the fan is absolutely silent. This HSF continually out-performs competitors.
Do NOT bother with water cooling unless you have a lot of extra money and time on your hands. I used to water cool, and in the end it's simply not worth it.
WHERE TO BUY YOUR STUFF
Whatever you do, try to get everything from the same place, and order everything at the same time. This could save you HUNDREDS of dollars on shipping.
Personally, I wouldn't go anywhere buy NewEgg. They have pretty much anything you might be looking for (and almost always in stock), their warranty return policies are reasonable, and their customer service is top-notch.
[/quote1177471512]
like to add a little more if thats okay (long post)
-----
OPTICAL DRIVE: atleast a dvd writer/reader that can do all types even f you only use 2 or 3 types better to be safe than sorry
HARD DRIVE: ummm 120 GB or more SATA 300 with 16mb or more cache is good
MEMORY: you should get atleast 2 GB DDR2 800mhz nowa days 3 better (4 or more needs XP64 bit or vista to utilitize it)
MOBO: Get something that supports PCI E, DDR2 - 800mhz ram, SATA 300, and a Gigabit LAN interface for hi-speed
POWER SUPPLY: i have a 650 Watt from thermaltake (really silent) but yeah 8400,8500,8600,8800 need 800 watts
GRAPHICS CARDS: right now for a good price is the 8600(GTS i think) from XFX for $240, 256 mb, 730mhz gpu clock and 2.26ghz mem clock great for gaming (im getting it when i can)
CPU: get dual core , AMD - anything 5600+ great mostly cause now 2mb lvl2 cache , INTEL- idk go with outlaws choice
------
some of these products that i mentioned in my area areof my opinion (do not base wat you buy on what i say [ i take no liability if you buy something that i mentioned with something else and it doesnt work])
but yeah make sure you get want you want and what everything can do, thats why dell and hlp are best way to go if you're really new and just want a good comp
where to buy, i went with "mwave.com" but i've been using it for 10 years never a problem (my opinion) buy from the right place, RESEARCH THE PARTS AND PRICE on sites like tomshardware.com and RESEARCH the place where you're buying it from
but most of all RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH!!!! ohh and READ THE MANUALS!!!
thats all i have to say
