StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Alrighty, here's the deal. I got a pledge for up to $1000 toward a computer for Christmas, and I've got a nice chuck of change that, while it isn't burning a whole in my pocket, I'm willing to part with. As a result, we're looking at a budget of perhaps 1000 to 1700 US dollars.
In my dorm, presently I have an ancient Compaq with a small monitor, cheap stereo speakers, a fairly decent joystick, a 10 Mb conn (right into a backbone, bitches!), and a complete inability to play several games I own, nevermind the ones I'd like to have (HL2 is a must).

I wouldn't mind a printer, scanner, or other toys, but I don't think they're really necessary just yet. A decent speaker setup would be good if I felt comfortable using them with my roommates around - AKA The Silent Ones - and that is not in fact the case. Might be good to be prepared, though.

So what it really comes down to is this - I want to have my components - or a premade comp - all bought by Jan 7th.

I don't know if I want a laptop or a desktop. Pure gaming machine is nice, though a laptop could be great, but I haven't ever had the experience of portability, so I don't know if I would like it, or if I would feel comfortable lugging thousands of dollars around with me in the snow, across busy streets, into classrooms, etc.

I probably want a Windows PC. This is just conjecture based on my gaming interests.

So, before we start getting into individual components, I guess the above needs to be resolved. Please help!

You might want to try THIS place out.

The reason not to get a portable is their portability.
Laptops are just too easy to steal.

Plus they're limited in their power and expandability.
I'd go with a desktop setup in your situation.


My recommendation from Newegg.com:

Antec Beige ATX Mini Tower PC Case with 350W Power Supply, Model "SLK1650" -RETAIL
Item# N82E16811129149

$57.50

NEC 16X Double Layer DVD±RW Drive, Beige, Model ND-3520A, OEM
Item# N82E16827152039

$69.99

NEC 1.44MB Floppy Drive, Model FD1231H, OEM Drive Only
Item# N82E16821152001

$7.00

Kingston ValueRAM 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC-3200 - Retail
Item# N82E16820141425

$37.58x2

DFI "LANPARTY UT nF3 250Gb" NVIDIA nForce3 250GB Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 754 CPU -RETAIL
Item# N82E16813136147

$109.00

Seagate 120GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model ST3120022A, OEM
Item# N82E16822148020

$85.00


AMD Athlon 64 3000+, 512KB L2 Cache 64-bit Processor - Retail
Item# N82E16819103486

$150.00

Leadtek nVIDIA GeForce 6600GT Video Card, 128MB GDDR3, 128-Bit, DVI/TV-Out, AGP 8X, Model "A6600 GT TDH" -RETAIL
Item# N82E16814122206

$219.00

Product total: $772.65
Shipping and Handling: $38.63
Total: $811.28

I have the exact same board/processor combo and it's stable as a rock overclocked to 2.4 Ghz (3400+ performance levels) while running my memory at its stock speed. If you go this route and want to know how to overclock the processor while leaving the memory at stock speed, let me know. The A64's are a little different when OC'ing due to the hypertransport bus. Once I managed to understand how it worked, it was simple.

This doesn't include an OS or software as you can probably get them cheaper through your university than you can buying them from an outside vendor.

I would also buy the monitor locally (or from Dell w/their 'no questions asked' return policy) as its simply easier to return if you decide you don't like it once you get it home.

OTOH if you aren't comfortable building your own, it's hard to beat Dell's pricing. If you go Dell, be sure to hit up gotapex.com and the rest of the coupon sites for discount codes.

I'd build my own or go Dell.

Forgot to add:

Since you're in school, you probably need a decent B&W printer over a color one. This is spelled 'personal laser printer'. Unless you need color and can afford the ink costs, forget inkjets for any kind of volume printing.

A low end HP (I've had a HP LJ1200 for years) or Brother laser printer should do you fine.
For a scanner, I like the cheap little USB bus powered Canons.

Well, with software, we have the following issue:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 Edition Upgrade $15.00
Microsoft Office 2003 Professional $15.00

The Microsoft Campus Agreement is an annual (temporary) license for the products listed above. There is no right to perpetual use of copies of software obtained under this agreement and no right to use the software if the agreement is terminated by Carnegie Mellon University or by Microsoft. Upon termination of the agreement departments, faculty, students and staff will be notified that they must remove software obtained under this agreement from their computers.

So I'm paying that money to rent the software. Nice. And these guys at CMU don't kid around about legal agreements, so I damn well better remove it if they say I'm supposed to. I don't see much other information, and I don't see Win XP in the list of products they sell in the campus store. Office is listed at $199, I'm not entirely sure if that's any discount or not.

Right then:

Antec Beige ATX Mini Tower PC Case with 350W Power Supply, Model "SLK1650" -RETAIL
Item# N82E16811129149

$57.50

Not knowing much about these things, does that power supply offer much expandability, or would I even need much?

Kingston ValueRAM 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC-3200 - Retail
Item# N82E16820141425

$37.58x2

Did I somehow miss when 256MB suddenly became good enough? As opposed to, say, a gig?

DFI "LANPARTY UT nF3 250Gb" NVIDIA nForce3 250GB Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 754 CPU -RETAIL
Item# N82E16813136147

$109.00

Yikes, I know little about motherboards. 1x AGP, 5x PCI, huh? Should I be concerned about this newfangled PCIe thing? I don't see myself wanting to replace the motherboard any time soon.

Seagate 120GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model ST3120022A, OEM
Item# N82E16822148020

$85.00

I'm sure that's fine as a starting point, I've never had that much space to play with before. Don't know much about speed, but from reading back threads in G&C there seems to be nothing wrong here.

AMD Athlon 64 3000+, 512KB L2 Cache 64-bit Processor - Retail
Item# N82E16819103486

$150.00

No arguements here. Don't know much about 64-bit, though.

Leadtek nVIDIA GeForce 6600GT Video Card, 128MB GDDR3, 128-Bit, DVI/TV-Out, AGP 8X, Model "A6600 GT TDH" -RETAIL
Item# N82E16814122206

$219.00

Well that's a question, isn't it? Seen a lot of threads yell for pages about what video card is preferable. nVIDIA, ATI, don't get this, consider that. I guess I just need some expansion on why to get that. I know the most recent thread I glanced through soundly decided on that card, but it wasn't clear why and I stopped keeping track of the video hardware race around the time the GeForce 4s were first being replaced as top dog.

Alan Bolte wrote:Right then:

Antec Beige ATX Mini Tower PC Case with 350W Power Supply, Model "SLK1650" -RETAIL
Item# N82E16811129149

$57.50

Not knowing much about these things, does that power supply offer much expandability, or would I even need much?

Well, you might be better off with a 450W, bsince your running a 6600GT.

Kingston ValueRAM 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC-3200 - Retail
Item# N82E16820141425

$37.58x2

Did I somehow miss when 256MB suddenly became good enough? As opposed to, say, a gig?

256X2, notice that, and 512MB is good enough unless your going to start playing MMORPG's, where nice RAM size is better then anything else.

DFI "LANPARTY UT nF3 250Gb" NVIDIA nForce3 250GB Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 754 CPU -RETAIL
Item# N82E16813136147

$109.00

Yikes, I know little about motherboards. 1x AGP, 5x PCI, huh? Should I be concerned about this newfangled PCIe thing? I don't see myself wanting to replace the motherboard any time soon.

Well, the motherboard is great (even if other preform marginally faster).
On the PCI-E advance, you should ask the Kernel or someone with more long-term information in computers then me, but AGP is here for atleast another half year, with nVidia and ATi both still releasing their high end down to the AGP standerd, but soon enough AGP will die.
More worrying should be the socket, but for your budget its good enough.

AMD Athlon 64 3000+, 512KB L2 Cache 64-bit Processor - Retail
Item# N82E16819103486

$150.00

No arguements here. Don't know much about 64-bit, though.

Thats an awesome CPU, I would be worried about the socket, but moving to 939 adds another bunch of costs.

Well that's a question, isn't it? Seen a lot of threads yell for pages about what video card is preferable. nVIDIA, ATI, don't get this, consider that. I guess I just need some expansion on why to get that. I know the most recent thread I glanced through soundly decided on that card, but it wasn't clear why and I stopped keeping track of the video hardware race around the time the GeForce 4s were first being replaced as top dog.

Okey, i'll answer this fast, since I would prefer not to get stomped on by the ATi fanboys that are even here.
In the 200$ pricepoint for the 6600GT, there is nothing better, the X600 is shit, the X700 sucks barely less.
Unless your going up to 300$ for a graphics card, its the best.

Not knowing much about these things, does that power supply offer much expandability, or would I even need much?

The 350 Antec should be enough. With PSU's, you really need to stick to a known good brand, as some companies are less than totally honest when rating their supplies.

Here's a neat little PSU calculator.

The spec'd out system would consume about 314 watts.
It doesn't list the 6600GT so I used the 6800GT, which consumes more power than the 6600GT, for purposes of calculation,

The Antec 350 should handle the system easily enough.
According to that calculator, my system* needs 344 watts and I run an Antec Truepower 380 with no problems.
However, if you're concerned you can always sell the PSU (you should get $40 easily) and buy a Sparkle or Fortron/Source 530 watt unit for $80.

Did I somehow miss when 256MB suddenly became good enough? As opposed to, say, a gig?

Like Ace said, that's 512MB.
That's my minimum recommendation.
A gig (2 sticks of 512) should run an additional $75 or so.

Yikes, I know little about motherboards. 1x AGP, 5x PCI, huh? Should I be concerned about this newfangled PCIe thing? I don't see myself wanting to replace the motherboard any time soon.

This is purely my opinion, but I'd wait a while to adopt PCIe and stick with the tried and true AGP slot. By the time the 6600GT becomes really obsolete, the rest of the system will be obsolete and ready for replacement as well.

I'm sure that's fine as a starting point, I've never had that much space to play with before. Don't know much about speed, but from reading back threads in G&C there seems to be nothing wrong here.

To me right now, 120GB is the 'sweet spot' in the price versus capacity comparison.
Seagate is one of the few HD companies that offer warranties beyond one year. I've had nothing but good luck with my Seagates.

No arguements here. Don't know much about 64-bit, though.

64bit isn't much of a concern right now as apps and the OS for it are rather thin on the ground.

It's backwards compatible w/32bit Windows to the point that a 2Ghz A64 3000+ processor is fully equal performance wise to a 3.0 or 3.2Ghz P4 processor.

Bang for buck, Intel gets its ass handed to it by AMD.

Well that's a question, isn't it? Seen a lot of threads yell for pages about what video card is preferable. nVIDIA, ATI, don't get this, consider that. I guess I just need some expansion on why to get that. I know the most recent thread I glanced through soundly decided on that card, but it wasn't clear why and I stopped keeping track of the video hardware race around the time the GeForce 4s were first being replaced as top dog.

I have no strong preference for nVidia cards over ATI.
In fact I run a Radeon 9600Pro right now.
I chose the 6600GT simply because it's in the 'sweet spot' on the price/performance comparison charts. If I had to buy a new card tomorrow, this would be the one I chose.


Final thoughts:
If you prefer an Intel based system, I'd buy a Dell for the simple reason that unless you have a lot of preexisting components you can reuse (drives, case, etc) it's damn near impossible to build a system for as cheap as Dell can sell you one already built with a legit copy of WinXP already installed.

My Dell recommendation would be a Dimension 8400 package complete with monitor and customized with a decent video card. If you do this, be sure to hit up gotapex.com or bensbargains.net for discount codes that can save you a bundle.


*My system:
Antec case w/Truepower 380 watt PSU
Athlon64 (Newcastle) 3000+@10x240 Mhz (LDT/FSB ratio:3x)
LanParty UT nF3 250Gb (9/14/04 Official BIOS)
2x256MB Corsair VS DDR400 (5:6 ratio used for 200 memory bus@ 240 FSB)
ATI Radeon 9600Pro 128MB
Seagate ST3160023AS 160 GB SATA HD
Seagate ST3120026AS 120 GB SATA HD
Pioneer DVD-120R DVD-ROM
Plextor PX-W5224TA CDRW
NEC ND-2510A DVD RW

Ace Pace wrote:Thats an awesome CPU, I would be worried about the socket, but moving to 939 adds another bunch of costs.

I haven't worried about the socket becoming obsolete for CPU upgrades since the time I got screwed over by Intel in the S370/Coppermine fiasco that rendered my BM6 instantly obsolete.

That's what I got for listening to Leo Laporte's advice on motherboards.

Since then a CPU upgrade for me has always meant a motherboard replacement.
Look at how many sockets the P4 has gone through (S423, S478, LGA775)since its introduction.
If the pattern holds true, by the time I'm ready to upgrade in 18 months or so S939 will be obsolete, much less S754.

Here is a comprehensive guide to selecting the appropriate power supply.

Power supply guide

This is purely my opinion, but I'd wait a while to adopt PCIe and stick with the tried and true AGP slot. By the time the 6600GT becomes really obsolete, the rest of the system will be obsolete and ready for replacement as well.

I disagree. I would bet that a good Nforce4 board with Socket 939 and PCIe would endure for at least one major upgrade of the CPU and vid card. Maybe it won't... but that's still better than Socket 754 and AGP/PCI, where you know you can't really upgrade much further.

Look at how many sockets the P4 has gone through (S423, S478, LGA775)since its introduction.
If the pattern holds true, by the time I'm ready to upgrade in 18 months or so S939 will be obsolete, much less S754.

Look at how many sockets the Athlon XP went through.

Uraniun235 wrote:Here is a comprehensive guide to selecting the appropriate power supply.

Power supply guide

This is purely my opinion, but I'd wait a while to adopt PCIe and stick with the tried and true AGP slot. By the time the 6600GT becomes really obsolete, the rest of the system will be obsolete and ready for replacement as well.

I disagree. I would bet that a good Nforce4 board with Socket 939 and PCIe would endure for at least one major upgrade of the CPU and vid card. Maybe it won't... but that's still better than Socket 754 and AGP/PCI, where you know you can't really upgrade much further.

That all depends upon your upgrade cycle. If you upgrade every 6 months or have to have the latest and greatest video card, then a S939/PCIe setup makes sense. If you don't upgrade that often, then it becomes more problematic.

My major upgrade cycle is about once every 18 months or so.


AGP is nearing the end of its life cycle on new mobos, but the video card makers will still offer AGP cards for a while yet due to the existing base of AGP mobos still out there.

Look at how many sockets the Athlon XP went through.

Not just sockets, but spec changes within the Socket A itself.

Ask the early nForce2 adopters just what they think of nVidia's 400FSB support in the early revisions of the chipset. My revision of the A7N8X wouldn't support 400 FSB Athlons, so my upgrade options over the existing OC'd (12x166 for 2400+ performance) 2200+ were rather limited indeed.

My experience has taught me that given the fairly long interlude I have between processor upgrades, buying a board with a CPU upgrade in mind is pretty meaningless as the socket or specs for the socket will almost certainly have changed by the time the next upgrade rolls around.

Glocksman wrote:*snip processor upgrade screw over speech*

Yes but considering how long PCI has stuck around might it be prudent for him to have PCIe incase he wants some type of expansion device that uses it, no?

Uraniun235 wrote:Look at how many sockets the Athlon XP went through.

One socket, yes, but that didn't really mean much. My Socket A motherboard will not support newer processors because it has a KT266A chipset. Tough luck putting a Barton on it.

darthdavid wrote:

Glocksman wrote:*snip processor upgrade screw over speech*

Yes but considering how long PCI has stuck around might it be prudent for him to have PCIe incase he wants some type of expansion device that uses it, no?

Pray tell just what kind of expansion card would require PCIe in order to be more effective than plain old vanilla PCI?

Gigabit LAN and video are the only two things in consumer level PC's that require bandwidth beyond that of PCI. Even the latest sound cards don't come close to saturating the PCI bus.

The nForce board I posted has Gigabit LAN linked to the hypertransport bus, not on PCI. AGP handles the video. SATA and PATA IDE aren't on the PCI bridge.

What would a PCIe card do that can't be done either by the integrated hardware, a PCI card or an AGP card?
Dialup modem, perhaps?

Is it 'bleeding edge'?
Of course not. AGP and single channel memory keep it from being that.

Is it a stable AMD solution that uses proven technologies that you'll still be able to buy a video card upgrade for a year from now?
IMHO, yes.

My Socket A motherboard will not support newer processors because it has a KT266A chipset. Tough luck putting a Barton on it.

You're talking to the ex-owner of an early revision A7N8X Deluxe.

Just goes to prove my point that anymore you shouldn't even consider CPU upgrades as a factor in mobo decisions unless you're the type that changes CPU's every few months.

On memory, yes I did fail to notice the 2x, and 512 seems to be about the minimum for a decent gaming system these days. I don't plan on playing MMORPGs (unfortunately... damn was the WoW beta fun). If I was thinking about getting 512 and possibly later expanding to a gig (assuming 3 slots) would it be better to buy the 2 256s now and a 512 later, or a 512 now and whatever else at a later date? Is there any significant difference other than price? I'm not a fanatic about performance, I just want to get my money's worth.

Thanks for the power supply info.

I don't see myself upgrading anything more than once a year, if that. I don't buy many games and I don't consistently have spare cash to spend on these things, so my main concern is whether I'll be able to buy a new vid card or something of that nature maybe two years down the road.

Also, what are the chances that I'll ever need to upgrade the CPU before I need a whole new system?

Overall, I'm still a little concerned about the PCIe issue, but I suppose there's also no guarantee it'll even catch on or something won't come out to supercede it before it becomes common, and I'm not seeing any major problems with Glocksman's list that would stop me from going out and buying all of it in a few days if somehow this thread got no more replies.

Alan Bolte wrote:On memory, yes I did fail to notice the 2x, and 512 seems to be about the minimum for a decent gaming system these days. I don't plan on playing MMORPGs (unfortunately... damn was the WoW beta fun). If I was thinking about getting 512 and possibly later expanding to a gig (assuming 3 slots) would it be better to buy the 2 256s now and a 512 later, or a 512 now and whatever else at a later date? Is there any significant difference other than price? I'm not a fanatic about performance, I just want to get my money's worth.

A 512MB might be a better idea, since theres no duel channel in the 754, but the differance will be tiny, if your going to upgrade later on, your going to get another full 512MB, since by the time you'll upgrade 1GB will be a minimum.

Also, what are the chances that I'll ever need to upgrade the CPU before I need a whole new system?

Probebly nil, and by the time you upgrade, the CPU will start growing abit slower, but its still a good buy.

Overall, I'm still a little concerned about the PCIe issue, but I suppose there's also no guarantee it'll even catch on or something won't come out to supercede it before it becomes common, and I'm not seeing any major problems with Glocksman's list that would stop me from going out and buying all of it in a few days if somehow this thread got no more replies.

The PCI-E issue shouldn't bother you, since by the time you upgrade your going to get a new mobo anyway.

Uranium wrote:I disagree. I would bet that a good Nforce4 board with Socket 939 and PCIe would endure for at least one major upgrade of the CPU and vid card. Maybe it won't... but that's still better than Socket 754 and AGP/PCI, where you know you can't really upgrade much further.

Might want to hold your money back, since Duel Core is looking to maybe neccesitate a socket change. But PCI-E is here to stay, their not going to drag out the PCI like the ISA's slow death, or the AT form factor.

I, my dad, and his friend Jae went out to Microcenter today. End Result:

DFI "LANPARTY UT nF3 250Gb" NVIDIA nForce3 250GB Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 754 CPU

$99.99

2x Western Digital 120 GB 7200RPM HD

2x ~$40 (after rebates)

AMD Athlon 64 3000+, 512KB L2 Cache 64-bit Processor

Originally $159.99, rebated to like $125, I can't remember.

Additionally, a $100 rebate from Microcenter for applying for their credit card.

I'm feeling pretty good so far. Memory was way ass more expensive then the items suggested from newegg.com. I might look elsewhere, Circuit city appears to have good prices. There wasn't much in the way of vidcards at MC.

Jae tried to goad me into buying a higher-level processor of the 939 socket design, being excited about the faster memory handling, or something like that. Duel channel somethingorother. He also discouraged me from the $200 pricepoint with vidcards, feeling certain that I would be perfectly happy with a less expensive card. I dunno, I have low tolerance for jaggies and slowdown. Sometimes it makes my eyes hurt, so I'm thinking a middle-high price isn't a bad idea if I'm buying newer games.
Will probably buy the case and the rest of the components over the next two days.

One thing I hadn't really been thinking about was the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I can still use the ones I have, I guess, but they're old, dingy, and lack features. It's hard to find a CRT monitor if MC is anything to go by, I'm basically down to old stock and used. I dunno if LCD is automatically better in some way, it's not as if I have some deskspace restriction to worry about. My current 15" CRT feels small, I don't like it much. I'd probably be fine with an old 17 or 19 inch screen. Suggestions? As to the mouse, I guess I'd be fine with just upgrading to something with a center wheel for cheap, but if I'm buying one at all I'd like to get my money's worth. I like optical mice a bit better, and wireless might be nice, considering how annoying it is to have your wire snag on something in the middle of a game. Speaking of gaming, should I try for more buttons and features? What's good? As to the keyboard, I noticed some interesting options like the split/angled boards, boards that curve in a way that I guess is supposed to be ergonomic, and other nifty things. What do you all like? I've never used anything that wasn't pretty basic.

Alan Bolte wrote:He also discouraged me from the $200 pricepoint with vidcards, feeling certain that I would be perfectly happy with a less expensive card. I dunno, I have low tolerance for jaggies and slowdown. Sometimes it makes my eyes hurt, so I'm thinking a middle-high price isn't a bad idea if I'm buying newer games.

There isn't a $200 modern-chipset video card that your computer will run.
Period.
ALL of nVidia's and ATI's new lower-end graphics cards, the 6600s and the x600/700, in the $160 range, are PCIe. The only exception is the 6600GT, which does have an AGP model...for $60-80 more than the PCIe version of the same card. This is why I had to give my dad an IOU for christmas; they simply don't make a card that'll work in his system for a reasonable price. Either you'll have to wait for ATI and nVidia to come to their senses and release sub-$200 AGP cards, buy an older card, or spend $250+ on a new AGP card.

As for LCD screens...you'll pay a premium if you want a screen that can match a CRT in performance. Most lower-priced LCDs will ghost in fast-motion games

Mouse...I love my Logitech MX-500. Wired, optical, scroll wheel, two scroll buttons, and two navigation buttons, in addition to the normal right/left mouse buttons. Not much use if you're a lefty, though.
I use a MS Natural Elite keyboard, and have used it since it came out. I love it, and while I've looked for newer keyboards, none of them really fit what I want (I want all keys, including the insert key that newer MS boards remove).
I've also got a Belkin Nostromo gamepad, which I use for games. It's got 16 buttons, a scroll wheel + scroll click, and an 8-way-directional hat, and 3 shift modes. Works out to pretty much 69 different keys, which you can program any way you want.

The only exception is the 6600GT, which does have an AGP model...for $60-80 more than the PCIe version of the same card

The price difference is $22.50 between two identically spec'd Leadtek 6600GT cards at Newegg.


AGP is a fading platform, but if you choose wisely today on a vidcard you shouldn't need to replace it before you replace the mobo/cpu combination.
Unless of course you're one of those people who can afford to upgrade cards every six months.


He didn't sound like a candidate for the perpetual upgrade cycle to me.
If he had, my recommendations would have been to get a S939/PCIe system in AMD or order a Dell* if he wanted to go Intel.

As for LCD screens...you'll pay a premium if you want a screen that can match a CRT in performance. Most lower-priced LCDs will ghost in fast-motion games

Yep, you sure will.
Plus LCD's have what's called their 'native' resolution. This is simply the resolution that the panel was designed to look best at. You can run other (or 'non-native') resolutions on an LCD, but they look kind of fuzzy in comparison.

You can get a decent 19 inch Viewsonic CRT for about $250 or so.
An equivalent LCD will run about $400-$500 and suffer from the non-native resolution issue.

Mouse...I love my Logitech MX-500. Wired, optical, scroll wheel, two scroll buttons, and two navigation buttons, in addition to the normal right/left mouse buttons. Not much use if you're a lefty, though.
I use a MS Natural Elite keyboard, and have used it since it came out. I love it, and while I've looked for newer keyboards, none of them really fit what I want (I want all keys, including the insert key that newer MS boards remove).

Really any mouse you're comfortable using should do, but I'd go with optical over a ball mouse any day.
I've got a MS wireless optical that was given to me by a friend.
It died on me and MS sent me a warranty replacement after I faxed them a scan of the underside of the dead mouse.

As for a keyboard, If you're a typist, I'd haunt the used computer places and try to find an old IBM Model M keyboard.

They may not have the windows keys but they are the best feeling keyboards I've ever used. Failing that, just go to Office Depot or Staples and buy the cheapest keyboard that you like the key feel on.


*I priced it out on newegg, and I can't build a P4 system as cheaply as Dell can sell you one. Even a fairly high end one with a 6800GT vidcard and a 3.4Ghz processor. As much as it pains me to say it, if you want Intel, go Dell.

Glocksman wrote:
Pray tell just what kind of expansion card would require PCIe in order to be more effective than plain old vanilla PCI?

Gigabit LAN and video are the only two things in consumer level PC's that require bandwidth beyond that of PCI. Even the latest sound cards don't come close to saturating the PCI bus.

Having Gigabit LAN integrated into a 1x PCIe lane is much simplier than current integrated setups. And what happens when you want to put more LAN cards in?

What would a PCIe card do that can't be done either by the integrated hardware, a PCI card or an AGP card?
Dialup modem, perhaps? .

Hosting a reasonable RAID array. At the consumer level, biult in RAID arrays have limited slots (2!) and are generally software based.

GigE is indeed much more elegant when hanging off a PCIe lane than when integrated into the chipset.

Consumer RAID cards all suck, though. It'll probably be awhile until LSI and 3ware get PCIe solutions out, they just came out with PCI-X cards not too long ago.

Say, any particular reason I want a mini or mid tower case, with the exception of the fact that I'll be moving around for the next few years and won't know how much space I'll have, so small is good?

Alan Bolte wrote:Say, any particular reason I want a mini or mid tower case, with the exception of the fact that I'll be moving around for the next few years and won't know how much space I'll have, so small is good?

Depends how much crap you intend to cram into the case. A mini-tower won't be holding 5 HDDs, an 8-in-1 reader, and a pair of optical drives. A mid-tower is usually best, especially since now they've got mid-tower designs that can hold as much hardware as it took a full tower to hold a few years ago. A mini-tower isn't a whole lot smaller than a mid-tower, either. If space is a serious consideration, you should've gone with a SFF PC like the Shuttle.
Completely forget about buying a cheap case that includes a power supply: they're almost always junk. Buy a nice $60 case and spend another $50 on a good power supply. Lian-Li makes great aluminum cases that aren't terribly expensive (unless you get the PC-V1000B like I did, which ran me $200 http://www.lian-li.com/products/pcv1000.htm , but black).
If you go to a store, play around with the cases on display. Lift 'em, feel their edges (it's a dream not having to worry about cutting your hand open when a stubborn cable finally lets go and your hand swipes an edge), see how the features work and fit together, see how the cards mount (some cases have an annoying retention clip that locks all the expansion cards down, rather than screwing them each down. Sometimes this works alright...sometimes it's almost impossible to get the clip on, and sometimes they even use a cheap plastic lock!), how the drives mount (rails can be either a boon or a pain, depending on your outlook), what sort of cable management or airflow guides it might have (my case has partially enclosed boxes for the drives and power supply. My PSU -barely- fits, and it's upside down so the intake fan is essentially blocked. I'm lucky it doesn't overheat)... Never buy on style alone.

And if you go with a desktop case, watch out: some are so short that they don't accept full-height expansion cards.