I want a new computer but I'm so lost

[Phantasee]

My DVD burner crapped out on me. I was looking at replacements, and saw a Samsung on for $20. I was astonished at the price, considering I paid $70ish a few years ago for mine.

So I've been thinking it's probably time to get a new computer.

And that's when I realized I have no idea what kind of specs I would need. For perspective: My PC is from 2003ish. I've got a P4 1.5GHz with 1GB of RAM (originally 512MB), integrated graphics, and I had to install a USB 2.0 card to use USB 2.0 (all the stock ports were 1.1). It originally came with a DVD reader and CD burner, but I swapped the CD drive with a DVD burner. It came with 120 GB HDD, and I added a 320 GB HDD for $80ish a few years ago.

Everything is IDE.


SO I don't really play video games although being able to play Audiosurf type games would be nice (or even hi-def video at 1080p), so I could use recommendations on graphics cards. My HDDs are mostly full and I know disk space is cheap these days but I don't know what size I should shoot for. My last computer had a 20GB HDD, and I thought 120GB was an amazing amount. I also don't know what kind of processor to look for, but I am lead to believe Intel is the shiznit? And I have no clue how much RAM I would need.

I imagine with a more powerful computer I'd like to try some things I couldn't really do before, but I don't know what the requirements of these things is. Running something like Celestia with the bells on would be nice. Ripping hi-def video would be one of the most resource-intensive tasks, I imagine, but I could be completely wrong here.

And I'm tempted to get it custom built, so things like power supply etc would be nice to know.

[Mr Bean]

Few quick facts for you

1. Two Terabyte hard drives can be had for 100$ on sale or 130$ if not. 1 TB can be had for 80$ on sale or 100$ if not. Hard drive space is cheap. 640 gig hard drives are around 50$ if you want to go ultra cheap.

2. Four gigs of ram is 100$ for the cheapo ram. Two gigs is also 100$ for the cheap ram Sometimes you can find it on sale for cheaper, much more rare than hard drives

3. If you want cheap you can pick up one of the all in one type motherboards from AMD. This lets you have a decent inter-graded video card from the ATI or Nvidia lines. And AMD processors are cheap as hell as well

Here's a quick 300 dollar (Almost) computer


ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM
$19.99


Western Digital Caviar Green WD8000AARS 800GB 5400 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
$59.99



GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
$69.99


G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK
$89.99


AMD Athlon II X2 245 Regor 2.9GHz Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor ADX245OCGQBOX
$57.99

Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Antec EarthWatts Green EA-380D Green 380W Continuous power ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Suppl

Antec EarthWatts Green EA-380D Green 380W Continuous power ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power ...

$84.94

Subtotal: $382.89


This computer is just missing an operating system, mouse, keyboard, monitor and a case to put the parts into to be ready. Needless to say if you have an old computer all you likely need is an OS and a case. You will need a new case for this computer.


*Edit
Case and power supply added

[Phantasee]

Is it cheaper to buy parts separately or get a prebuilt unit? I imagine the labour-cost saving would be worth something, but then there's the retail mark-up on each individual component.

I want to pay less than a thousand CAD, but I'm also hoping it'll see me through at least four to five years without being hopelessly outdated. Right now, Google Image Search is noticeably slower since they changed it, and regular Google search is also doing some weird search-as-you-type thing that slows me down. That took 7 years for my computer to be slow on a simple web search.

Would I be better off with Win 7 Pro? Running XP programs seems like something I'd like the ability to do in the future, but I don't know how much it would actually be needed these days. Is there anything you know of that you can't run on Home?

[Mr Bean]

Is it cheaper to buy parts separately or get a prebuilt unit? I imagine the labour-cost saving would be worth something, but then there's the retail mark-up on each individual component.

There's a mark up and a mark down, for example the OS is normally "free" unless you pay for an upgrade as is the monitor. IE take a typical 500$ HP computer and a typical 500$ build your own. The HP will win every time as long as you have to pay for the OS and a monitor since that's normally 200$ right there for a halfway decent monitor + OS. I can build a computer that's identical or better for 400$ but not if I have to throw a monitor and OS in there as well. The more expensive the computer the cheaper the build your own becomes. At 1000$ I can bet the pants of any HP or Dell computer for an equivalent price. At 300$ or 600$? Not so much

Would I be better off with Win 7 Pro? Running XP programs seems like something I'd like the ability to do in the future, but I don't know how much it would actually be needed these days. Is there anything you know of that you can't run on Home?

I recommend Pro over Home Premium because of the ability to run in XP compatibility mode. But that's for my own personal needs. You might be just fine with Home. But I recommend against Ultra unless your getting it for free. Pro is the way to go in my opinion because it has lots of nice power user features and comparability mode is a huge advantage from time to time. Most of the time it's nice but useless but other times it's a godsend to getting a program to work.

[starslayer]

I recommend Pro over Home Premium because of the ability to run in XP compatibility mode. But that's for my own personal needs. You might be just fine with Home. But I recommend against Ultra unless your getting it for free. Pro is the way to go in my opinion because it has lots of nice power user features and comparability mode is a huge advantage from time to time. Most of the time it's nice but useless but other times it's a godsend to getting a program to work.

Home Premium has compatibility mode, it just doesn't have Windows XP mode. There's a big difference between the two, namely that Windows XP mode (IIRC) does a whole virtualization of XP in case a program simply will not run on the newer architecture, though it still does not emulate any of the the DirectX (i.e., 3D graphics and such) functions. I have a feeling Phant here will never have a need for this function, so were I him, I'd just save the money.

[ShakeyJake]

I don't know if this is too late, but I thought I'd post anyway. I do a lot of PC's, mostly to sell on eBay but also for friends and the like.

A few general points:

1. Don't crap out on the case or the PSU. Either of these have the power to ruin your whole pc. A case with low airflow or otherwise bad cooling will allow everything to overheat, reducing the lifespan of the rest of the psu. A bad psu will at best be loud and annoying, and at worse will physically explode.

2. No matter how cheaply you're trying to do this, use 'new' components. I don't mean as in 'bought new from a store' I mean 'has upgrade potential'. The new CPU sockets as of now are AM3 (AMD) and 1156 and 1366 (Intel). Buying (for example) a Socket 775 cpu will mean that you've bought a dead-end pc with no upgradeability. Whilst a 775 could be a perfectly serviceable, even brilliant pc, you wouldn't have an upgrade path 2-3 years down the line. In a similar vein, DDR3 memory and a 64-bit operating system are the ways of the future.

3. Most programs only use two cores. Consider a dual a minimum and anything more an extravagance at this point.

4. Hard disk space is cheap, data is priceless. Budget for a backup solution if you don't already have one.

5. You never 'use' your pc. Really. You actually 'use' the keyboard, mouse, monitors and speakers. Think about those in the grand scheme of things too.

6. The best way to do is HD video playback is via GPU acceleration. Most any discreet video card (and even a reasonably powerful integrated chip) can do that. If you're prioritising video playback over gaming performance consider going for a passive GPU such as the inexpensive 9500GT. Any good gpu will slow the fan right down for normal desktop use, but no fan is always quieter than a quiet fan.

7. Speaking of fans, the standard heatsinks that come with retail packaging of new CPUs these days are pretty damn good and fine for most users. But if noise is an issue or you're thinking about overclocking then at least look at third-party heatsinks.

My favourite PC website has (in addition to amazing forums) a hardware buyer's guide that they update every month. Whilst it is biased towards building a gaming pc, recommendations such as PSUs and cases are still fine. Here is the most recent 'affordable all-rounder' build at the time of this post, consider swapping out the GPU for a less expensive one of your choosing if you're not really a gamer. It is by no means a definitive guide, but it's a very good place to start.

[Phantasee]

Definitely not a gamer. Might play The Sims or SimCity 4 once in a while, stuff like Audiosurf, but that's about it.

I found out my DVD drive was bought with a replacement plan, so I took it out to take in, and I discovered that I have a loose heatsink in there. The CPU has a fan and heatsink attached, with a second heatsink under it that used to be held down by springs on top and bottom that slipped into anchors mounted on the board. Two of the anchors on one side have come off so the spring is pulling the heatsink over to the other side, so no contact with the chip underneath. I imagine it's for the integrated video? How difficult is it to repair something like this?

I have a new monitor and I replace keyboards and mice as required, so I'm not concerned about those. Might get some better speakers (using the monitor's built in ones ATM because my old ones are dead).

As for power supplies and cases, I dont' really know how to budget the power supply for the components. I imagine I want more capacity than I would need if I just added up all the components, to power stuff via USB, etc. Just don't know how much?

Anyway, this isn't happening tomorrow or anything. I'm going to think about it for a little longer, see if any good deals pop up, and so on.

[SCRawl]

My DVD burner crapped out on me. I was looking at replacements, and saw a Samsung on for $20. I was astonished at the price, considering I paid $70ish a few years ago for mine.

Just for comparison, I can recall my first CD burner. In 1998 or 1999 -- I want to say it was a Sony, but I'm really not sure anymore -- for a 2x burner, it was $500. On sale.

As for the computer advice, yeah, these other people know more than I do about the state of affairs these days.

[Mr Bean]

As for power supplies and cases, I dont' really know how to budget the power supply for the components. I imagine I want more capacity than I would need if I just added up all the components, to power stuff via USB, etc. Just don't know how much?

Just give me the components and I can tell you. Rough idea however is 100 for the cpu/memory/motherboard, 100-350 for the video card, 10 for each hard drive/dvd player, 5 for each USB thing you have plugged in.

Note this will produce a number 10%-40% higher than real world usage but your power supply works best when it's working from 50%-85% of capacity. A 100% at capacity power supply does not live long and a 30% power supply uses as much energy as the 85% power supply (Roughly)

[Phantasee]

It was extra amusing because I found out I only bought the damn thing early last year! That's why it's still covered by the replacement plan. I remember our first CD burner. It was early 2000s, maybe 02? Cost us just under 200, it was a Cicero IIRC. What a piece of shit! I used to burn CDs for all my friends, they'd bring me two blanks, one for them and one for me. Worked out well enough

[ShakeyJake]

If you're not gaming and so using a low/power integrated GPU then 400W will be plenty. Try more like 500W if you think you might be moving to a more powerful GPU later on. It's not just wattage ratings though, the amperage on the 12V line is important for high-power graphics cards.

Even if you cba with gaming, you might still want to think about noise, reliability, warranty etc.

TL;DNR: Buy any OCZ StealthXStream or a Corsair (anything but a 'builder' series).