buying New pc

[academicfailure]

I was woundering if theres anything that i should ask to be changed on this pc,


CONFIGURATION DETAILS:

ATX Case: CWORLD Miditower 350W with front ports 303M Black Price: $75.00

Processors :AMD Athlon XP 2700+ Price: $165.00

Mainboard: ASUS A7V8X-X Price: $106.00

Memory: 512M DDR PC3200 400Mhz Generic Price: $134.00

Hard Drive: Seagate 80G 7200RPM ATA-100 Price: $99.00

CD / DVD Rewriter: LiteOn 52xCD/ 32xCDRW/ 52xCDREAD Retail (LTR52327S) Price:
$50.00

Video Card: Albatron 128MB FX5200 AB-FX5200EP Price: $100.00

CRT Monitors: 17" Samsung 785MB Price: $215.00

Warranty: Standard manufacturer warranties (minimum 1 year) Price: $0

Final Price: $944

GST Included: $85.82

[WTerbo3]

Your Building or Buying a PC?

You should build a PC and get stuff cheaperrr... but more effiecient

[unvi$ible]

hi there,
assuming that you are an aussie if i was you i would take that list and go on computer swap which is happening every sunday on certan location if in melbourne or sydney take that list with you and have a look if prices are too high for all product. According to Green guide which you can find every thursday in The Age from today you can save few dollars here and ther which can maybe help you to opt for little bit better component.
it is always better to build your own system as you get more familiar wit pc and components and how they work as suggested above and is much cheaper not mentioning personal satisfaction
which computer you will buy or build is really down to personal choice and for what you will you use it for.
For all components iif you already pick them you can always search on google about their reviews.
personally from that list if you prefer athlon xp buy good fan for it-have vulcano 9 which has 3 speeds so you can ajust it depend of conditions(in australia can be extremelly hot)
i dont like the fan which comes with them in a box and didnt hear anything good about them

i just change my motherboard as i upgraded pc little bit and i have same one you picked. i am very happy with ASUS mobos and this particular ones as it has cpu overheating protections which can save you some money if your fans stop working or it gets to hot and it has automatically regulator which regulate speed of all your fans(impressed)
make sure if you go with xp to have very good cooling system good case with heaps of fans.
if you need any particular help or you want to build it and you need help contact me on im
good luck

[chsh]

Originally posted here by academicfailure
GST Included: $85.82

Those prices look canadian, and the GST is a canadian tax, although I am unaware if other countries have a GST.
That being said, the system looks good, although if I were to make a recommendation, it would be to switch up your mainboard to the Asus A7N8X-X. The nForce based boards have a dual channel memory controller, while the Via based boards do not. The price difference should be minimal, and the performance difference is fairly large.

I would also ditch the Albatron FX5200 card and switch it to another based on your needs:
If you are primarily a 2D user who wants multiple monitor capability and okay gaming performance, get a Matrox card.
If you want to game fairly frequently, get an ~equally priced Radeon 9600SE, which is the lowest end Radeon 9600 but outperforms all of the budget cards.

If you ARE in canada, you can check PriceNetwork.ca for all your parts to see if you are getting a decent deal.

EDIT: At the very least, you could get a better deal on your processor by switching it up to a Barton 3000+ (the difference between the Barton and the Thoroughbred being the Barton has 256kb more L2 cache), at the same price you're paying for that 2700+.
http://www.pricenetwork.ca/search.ph...16&order=price

[nihil]

All good comments so far.................so let me spoil it for you

I do not like "generic" memory..........get Crucial or Kingston, or another reputable brand, and check on the MoBo site to see if it is compatible with the card.

Cheers

[VictorKaum]

Originally posted here by chsh
Those prices look canadian, and the GST is a canadian tax, although I am unaware if other countries have a GST.
That being said, the system looks good, although if I were to make a recommendation, it would be to switch up your mainboard to the Asus A7N8X-X. The nForce based boards have a dual channel memory controller, while the Via based boards do not. The price difference should be minimal, and the performance difference is fairly large.

EDIT: At the very least, you could get a better deal on your processor by switching it up to a Barton 3000+ (the difference between the Barton and the Thoroughbred being the Barton has 256kb more L2 cache), at the same price you're paying for that 2700+.
http://www.pricenetwork.ca/search.ph...16&order=price

This is not entirly correct.

First the mobo and Dual channel:
switching from the Asus A7V8X-X to the A7N8X-X with the Nvidia chipset instead of Via is a good idea cause of the several futures and performance gain with the new nforce chipsets according to the via, without a big price difference. However pay attention: the A7N8X-X has no Dual Channel memory ability. It does not use the dual memory controller. It can only run memory in signle channel mode. The A7N8X-X is the budget version of the Asus A7N8X and therefor does not have this dual channel performance boost. The A7N8X (without the -X) has dual channel.
So if you want the dual channel then go for a normal A7N8X and not the A7N8X-X, however a dual channel mobo will be more expensive. Still the advice to buy a A7N8X-X is a good advice, it's a wonderfull mobo, but don't expect it to run dual channel out of the box. i recently build a pc around an ASUS A7N8X-X and it's fast, silent, powerfull, stable but does not run in dual channel.

Next if you go for dual channel with an Asus A7N8X or an Abit NF-7S rev2.0 (equivalents to each other) never forget to buy your memory in pairs, otherwise your dual channel will not work. So getting 1 stick of 512 MB Ram and hoping on dual channel speeds is absurd. You will have to get two identical sticks of ram, it's your choice to buy 2 times 512, or 2 x 256. Depending on the upgrade in the future, cause such mobo's only have three slots. In order to keep dual channel mode with three slots you will have to double your ram with the one left. Meaning buying 2x256 now will only leave the possibility to buy 1x512 and go to 1GB total. If you don't want to sell or throw away your old memory in the future.

the cpu:
don't go for a thoroughbred, except you know that it will overclock very high. The newer Barton core is far more efficient. If you can't afford a 3000+ go for a Barton 2500+ those cpu's cost almost nothing and are very performant. Most of them are even capable to overclock to a 3200+ !!!! even if you don't want to overclock, go for a Barton core, cause of the cache. This makes a difference!

[apage]

You might think me wrong, but I don't recommend an AMD processor in the first place. Request a Pentium-4 for it. I have an AMD Athlon 2400+ on my desktop computer and I just don't seem to get the power I need for games and graphics applications of any kind.

[nihil]

apage

I just don't seem to get the power I need for games and graphics applications of any kind.

That sounds more like a "components specification balance" issue than a processor one. In my experience an Athlon 2400+ should be quite adequate for games and graphics. The videocard and RAM are more likely to be limiting factors.

Just out of interest, what have you got in your machine?

Cheers

[apage]

256mb RAM, Trident Video Graphics Accelerator. 40gb HDD.

I am buying a new graphics Card. I did always figure that could be the problem.

[Tim_axe]

You should checkout The Egg. (NewEgg - http://www.newegg.com/ ) To me your prices sound high, but it could be due to some currency conversions I'm not thinking about...

BTW, the prices are what I found them at, they could have changed... I also priced a CD&DVD burner instead of a CD burner. Other than that, pretty much everything is the same as what you selected. I'm not good at giving purchasing advice, so that is why I just selected what you put down.

Athlon 2700+ (Retail, with HSF) -> $107 -> http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...103-342&depa=1

ASUS A7V8X-X (Retail) -> $64 -> http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...131-451&depa=1

Kingston 512MB (Many to select from) -> $92 and above -> http://www.newegg.com/app/Viewproduc...n=&srchFor=512

Seagate 80GB 7200RPM HDD, 2MD Cache -> $68.75 -> http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...148-015&depa=1

Lite-On CD-R/RW & DVD +/- RW (Write Speed: 4X DVD+R, 4X DVD-R, 4X DVD+RW, 2X DVD-RW, 40X CD-R, 24X CD-RW; Read Speed: 12X DVD-ROM, 40X CD-ROM) (Retail with Some Software) -> $72 -> http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...106-927&depa=1

Albatron FX5200EP video card (Retail) -> $60 -> http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...170-027&depa=1

Samsung CRT Monitors (no 785MB) -> $139 - $235 -> http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...tby=14&order=1

Final Price ~ $603 + Shipping (I don't know shipping costs)

-Tim_axe