Valhalla Legends Archive

I'll input my opinion (too bad I just noticed this topic now).

Don't get a 9600, they are the bottom end of top of the line, get atleast a 9700 or 9800, or get the 9200 and save up for the next generation cards or wait for 9700 or 9800 to go down.

About the monitor, don't get 15inch, if you REALLY want a flatscreen (which I have heard is bad for gaming, I have yet to try it) then splurge and get a 17inch, or just get a good old fashioned CRT which work well.

I recommend finding a chinese computer store that has been around a couple of years, and getting a system from there. I got my system for $998 tax-in (excluding video card, I got a 9700 pro for my birthday during the summer). I have 2 years warranty for any hardware problems at his store, which is just a few minutes away.

My 3.141592654 cents.

Quote from: j0k3r on December 10, 2003, 05:52 PM
I'll input my opinion (too bad I just noticed this topic now).

Don't get a 9600, they are the bottom end of top of the line, get atleast a 9700 or 9800, or get the 9200 and save up for the next generation cards or wait for 9700 or 9800 to go down.

About the monitor, don't get 15inch, if you REALLY want a flatscreen (which I have heard is bad for gaming, I have yet to try it) then splurge and get a 17inch, or just get a good old fashioned CRT which work well.

I recommend finding a chinese computer store that has been around a couple of years, and getting a system from there. I got my system for $998 tax-in (excluding video card, I got a 9700 pro for my birthday during the summer). I have 2 years warranty for any hardware problems at his store, which is just a few minutes away.

My 3.141592654 cents.

Ok, considering I just convinced Grok to buy a Radeon 9600 XT I'm going to highly disagree with you, considering that card alone can barely be challenged by nearly all games currently out and will be able to play almost all games for years to come, its also only a little bit more then those lame Radeon 9200 cards or Geforce FX 5200 cards. It provides any resolution/refresh rate that any monitor can currently do and is all around the best buy for your buck deal. With the flat panel as I mention before, I wouldnt get a cheap one either, the cheap ones are terrible and it took me a serious improvment to finally get mine, and even then because it was not only 16ms but also held very close in truth to its 16ms rating. Considering your price limit, the single best thing for gamers without as much money as i forked out, would be a Flat-Screen CRT monitor, and -atleast- 17" so you can comfortably display 1024x768, though I recommend 19" Flat-Screen CRT monitors.

Yes, you're gonna need better than a 9200. I have a 9200 ATM (of course I don't do any hardcore gaming..it's fine for Rogue Spear, America's Army, and Call of Duty) but if you plan on doing anything more than that than you'll probably need a better graphics card as said above. I plan on upgrading mine as well, somewhere in the forums theres a post with a link to the 9600 for ~183 or so dollars.

My opinion stems from my 9700, it's just me but I find that it's already on the fast decline for video cards, maybe it was the texture loss in SWG, slow FPS on generally all games, or even the super-low FPS (still above normal, but low) on Diablo2 that I get.

I might have to configure everything, but if I don't know what I'm doing I could do more harm than good. I also expect that it run amazingly before configuring for $400.

I know one person who has overlcocked the 9500 to 9800, so they do have potential but if you're an idiot like me you don't even know where to start.

Quote from: St0rm.iD on December 10, 2003, 04:14 PM
You want a CRT if you want to do gaming. You also want XP Pro.

Games look fine on my 15.4" LCD display (laptop).  I've yet to see justification (except perhaps price) about why CRTs are better than LCDs for gaming that applies to this system.

A 15" monitor is fairly small, especially when you look at the actual viewable area (for most desktop displays, that is).  I think you'll probably be better off with a 17" or larger.

Quote from: Hostile on December 10, 2003, 05:48 PM
Ok, First YaBB sucks, i tried responding and my session timed out??!

You can set how long your session lasts when you log in.

QuoteSecond: Stealth you're forgetting one thing, that Mitosis is a newbie in every which way someone is categorized as a newbie. Mitosis despite the fact you're canadian and that system probably only costs about $1200 here, thats still way too expensive. Your system sucks and on top of it you sound like you're going to build it yourself (which you obviously aren't and should not do so, its stupid for you to do this. Your parents are stupid as well if they think its a better thing to buy offline, you'll get a better system from one of those providers like I said assuming they will sell to you and offer service in your area.

Quote from: Grok on December 10, 2003, 05:19 PM
You're going to get generic junky parts with that system unless you make them list the components by brand and model.

Ya, and to top it off Intel doesn't even make a 865GA chipset :p and their 865GV has integrated graphics and is a peice of shit.

Hostile, you have a good point, although I don't agree with you about WinXP Home -- I think, especially for the average user, Home works perfectly fine -- and $180 vs $91? No-brainer.

Quote from: Mitosis on December 10, 2003, 05:28 PM
K Grok Im going back there this weekend so Ill get them to print it all out for me (hopefully they can). Hostile, yes I am Canadian thats why its so expensive to you guys I guess. My friend Mike and I have been searching the company sites to see there prices on the stuff and if its cheaper we go to Future shop and tell them and they drop the price down and give us a 10 percent difference.

Mitosis, I would HIGHLY recommend hitting up Dell's Canada website at http://www.dell.ca. They will be able to build you a system using quality parts, and they'll support it thoroughly for at least a few years. Plus, if you call them up or use the site, you can configure it yourself as well. I've never seen a Future Shop, so I don't know their reputation; but if they're claiming to sell a motherboard with an Intel chipset on it that doesn't exist, I wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole.

[Edit: Rearranged stuff.]

Quote from: Stealth on December 10, 2003, 06:56 PM
Hostile, you have a good point, although I don't agree with you about WinXP Home -- I think, especially for the average user, Home works perfectly fine -- and $180 vs $91? No-brainer.

Eww @ winxp.

Yeah, for rather unexperienced users I suppose XP Pro is well not necessary. I thought I included that guess not since YaBB ate my first post hehe. As I said Dell/gateway/compaq is ideal for you Mitosis, except you want to buy it online. Compaq may have better deals at a local store but dell and gateway have their best deals online, I'd be happy to price a system for you if in your price range if you want the best system for the money.

As for the Radeon 9200, This is a good graphics card. It will play any game out on the market right now, you may not be able to crank all the settings on them and for how long this will be more then enough, is unknown but at the moment this graphics card will handle just about any game so its not correct to say that it cant.

Edit: I priced a pritty good system for you, its about the same without the cheapness of those components and is gaurenteed to last you 3 years.

Dimension 8300
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor at 2.80GHz with 800MHz FSB (fr), Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition - French  
Qty.:  1  
Unit Price:  $1,716.00  
Date:  10/12/2003 9:20:18 PM  

Dimension 8300 Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor at 2.80GHz with 800MHz FSB (fr)

SP288F-[221-2507] 1
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition - French

WHXPFR-[420-1923] 11
Memory 512MB DDR SDRAM at 400MHz

512M4-[311-3001] 3
Keyboard Dell ® Quietkey ® Keyboard - French

QKF-[310-1533] 4
Monitors Dell 17" M782 (16.0" V.I.S.) Monitor

M782-[320-0177] 5
Video Card New 128MB GeForce FX 5200 Graphics Card with TV-Out

128FX52-[320-0735] 6
Hard Drive 120GB Serial ATA 7200RPM Hard Drive

120S-[340-9600] 8
Floppy Drive and Additional Storage Devices 3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Drive

FD-[340-8628] 10
Mouse Dell™ Optical USB Mouse

OM-[310-4037] 12
Network Interface Card Integrated Intel® PRO 10/100 Ethernet

IN-[430-0412] 13
Modem 56K PCI Data/Fax Modem

DFAX-[313-1313] 14
Primary CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive FREE UPGRADE! 4x DVD+R+RW Drive CD-RW including Sonic RecordNow and MyDVD L

4DVW951-[430-0594][462-6170] 16
Sound Card Integrated Audio

IS-[313-2758] 17
Speakers Dell A425 Speakers w/Subwoofer

A425-[313-2134] 18
Productivity Software Microsoft Office 2003 Basic Edition,French

BASICFR-[412-0454][412-0424] 22
Security Software Norton Antivirus 2002,OEM,FR,W/Media (412-0343)

NAV03FR-[412-0343] 25
Warranty 3 Year Limited Warranty plus 3 Year On-site Service and CompleteCare

W3CC-[950-2920][950-2922] 29
Dell Media Experience™ Dell Media Experience™

DMX-[412-0519] 115


This is before taxes but after shipping, and of course you could probably make it cheaper/better depending on how much money you're able to get. Also make sure you point out that if it is slightly more expensive that if you get the 3 Year CompleteCare Warrenty its gaurenteed to last you that long.

$1, 700 before tax? USD? Why all this french stuff?

I'd recommend going with your orignal set up over the one Hostile recommended.

Dell's parts, however, are top-of-the-line -- although that FX card is looking pretty crappy. I'm assuming the French edition stuff is because of Quebec..?

Also, you can shear some money off the price if you call the order in -- I've successfully lowered the price of a Dell about $150 by calling with the online order in front of me. I removed the EducateU online training package and Microsoft Works, which turned out to be $150 of useless garbage. If you remove the "productivity" suites -- office, etc -- you should also take the price down into your price range. You can pick up OpenOffice or use an existing copy of Office for free.

Edit: In most American states, internet purchases are (technically) tax-free. I'm not sure how this stands in Canada.

Quote from: j0k3r on December 10, 2003, 09:28 PM
$1, 700 before tax? USD? Why all this french stuff?

I'd recommend going with your orignal set up over the one Hostile recommended.

Before I call you an idiot, how about providing significant documentation on why your opinion about the generic system is more correct than what Hostile has said?  He's done a goodly amount of work to tailor a system to Mitosis' needs, and you've done nothing but dismiss it with a 5 second sentence.  Let's see your expertise go to work and provide validation of your opinion.

Hmm...I'm not sure I like the idea of buying from something like Dell. Hostile, that system comes to ~$1700? Just running down the list...

QuoteDimension 8300 Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor at 2.80GHz with 800MHz FSB

I got an AMD Athlon XP 2200+ @ 1.81 gHz, so this P4 is probably better, but not much better.

QuoteSP288F-[221-2507] 1
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition

I got mine with Win2k Pro...this is really a matter of personal preference, of course. If he wants he could get the OS for free.

QuoteWHXPFR-[420-1923] 11
Memory 512MB DDR SDRAM at 400MHz

1024 MB DDR 333 mHz

QuoteQKF-[310-1533] 4
Monitors Dell 17" M782 (16.0" V.I.S.) Monitor

KDS Visual Sensations 19" CRT, NEC MultiSync M700 17" CRT

QuoteM782-[320-0177] 5
Video Card New 128MB GeForce FX 5200 Graphics Card with TV-Out

Hehe...nVidia GeForce FX5200 128MB

Quote128FX52-[320-0735] 6
Hard Drive 120GB Serial ATA 7200RPM Hard Drive

80 GB @ 7200 RPM

QuoteFD-[340-8628] 10
Mouse Dell? Optical USB Mouse

Logitech MX300 Optical USB

QuoteOM-[310-4037] 12
Network Interface Card Integrated Intel® PRO 10/100 Ethernet

3COM 10/100

QuoteIN-[430-0412] 13
Modem 56K PCI Data/Fax Modem

None...this isn't needed unless you expect to be using a phone line

QuoteDFAX-[313-1313] 14
Primary CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive FREE UPGRADE! 4x DVD+R+RW Drive CD-RW including Sonic RecordNow and MyDVD L

LG DVD-ROM 16x/48x
Sony CD/RW 32x/10x/40x

Quote4DVW951-[430-0594][462-6170] 16
Sound Card Integrated Audio

Creative Sound Blaster Live! 5.1

QuoteIS-[313-2758] 17
Speakers Dell A425 Speakers w/Subwoofer

Harmon Kardon Speakers w/ Subwoofer

Only software purchased was Norton Antivirus...had some sort of warranty, though I don't remember the details.

Ok...my system cost me around $1300 (that includes both monitors) - and I bought it nearly a year and a half ago. I also didn't scrounge around for the lowest possible price I could come up with, which I kind of regret now because I could use some extra cash. The systems people have shown here don't markedly improve on the one I got. C'mon, we're smart, aren't we? We should be able to knock the price of something like this down to around $1000 or less, even pre-constructed. For another $300, we should be able to take what we've got and make a couple substantial improvements.

Well for starters the system I configured was from the canadian site and there for canadian money(I assumed you would pick up on that j0k3r even though my post wasn't for you btw), I didn't know what area he was in so i didn't know how to tax it and Zakath we already covered that Mitosis is not capable of building his own computer, and thanks to his history with computers would greatly benefit off of a full coverage dell warrenty which comes with accidental damage protection and on-site labor for 3 years or however long you pay them for. I customized the computer to get the best system for the money for HIM. None the less thank you Stealth, I also agree you should both call dell and try purchasing online to get the best deal possible, Mitosis.

Ah, Canadian money. That makes a bit more sense I suppose. Nonetheless I think we can do better. If it weren't 1:30 in the morning I'd poke around. I'll do so tomorrow sometime.

Note I didn't build my computer either. I bought it preconstructed and configured, hence the comparison. I just didn't buy it from a company like Dell (who I wouldn't trust further than I could throw).

Alright guys I got my weekend schedule. On Sat I will be going to the mall (Future Shop and other stores for Christmas shopping). So I will go to the guy in there and show him the sheet that I configured from last weekend and Ill ask him to get all the makes and stuff you guys wanted for it. So around maybe 9:00 PM Sat I will post what it is.

Now the reason I havent gone Dell is because so many people have told me not to trust companies. Dark Virus said he would just barely trust them and other friends have told me so. But Hostile thanks for the computer you put together. Ill call Dell tonight or tomorrow and ask them to configure one for me similar to the one you made in your previous post.