New PC suggestions?

I'm building / buying a new PC very soon, as my current one has been slowly dying.

I'm looking to spend about 1 grand or less, and am looking for some advice for the upgrade.

I'll be keeping my old machine to 2-box / do work on / etc:
Athlon XP 2100+
nVidia 5700
1 gig pc3200 SDRAM

For my new PC, I definitely want:
3gig+ Intel or better
1gig+ 533 mhz speed SDRAM
SATA hard drive 80gig+
DVD burner not needed (I'm going to pull it from my old one.)
don't need a sweet sound system, just decent 2.1 speakers
optical wireless mouse
keyboard
near-high-end graphics card

Any suggestions for parts or place to buy them is appreciated. As much as I love to create my own, I'm thinking of doing a package deal just to have it over with and have the warranty at one place.

Also, I'm looking for a flat screen, possibly a widescreen-friendly format, resolution at least better than 1024x768. - priced 500 or less. I could use suggestions for this as well

Newegg is very reputable if you're in the States, I can't speak for anywhere overseas though.

3.0 GHZ P4 HT, $178 from Newegg
Asus P5P800 mobo 865 chipset $95
1 gig Corsair matched 512 mb DDR400 $102
eVGA 6600 GT $199 … OR
XFX 6800 GT w/256 MB $369
Seagate Barracuda 120gig 7200 rpm SATA w/NCQ (noise reduction) ~$100.
If you’re talking cordless mice, Logitech makes decent ones. Microsoft does too but I’m not sure the price warrants buying them.

All of the above from Newegg. You CAN get it cheaper somewhere else, long as you get a decent return policy if something's broken in shipment.

As for LCD panels, what size are you looking for? Finding a decent 17” wide LCD for under $500 is difficult but not impossible. Look for a sub-16 ms response time and decent view angle – at least 140/140 horizontal/vertical. Also, preferably one that will replace it if you have 7-8 dead pixels – most of ‘em will only replace if there are 10. And of course, a decent warranty. NEC’s always been good to me, but I hear BenQ has made great strides in quality (They used to be Acer).

Widescreen would be slightly more expensive. Iiyama makes great LCD’s, I think the E431S-W is easily within your price range and has a 3 year warranty. Last I checked it was around $350, but that’s probably gone down.

Also, what are you looking for in a case? Aluminum? Steel? Functional, or look pretty? Are you going to be inside the case much?

Power supply, I recommend Antec TruPower or SmartPower. A 380w should be more than enough for expansion.

If you are not planning on doing anything but want stability, that’s a good start up there. Of course I probably wouldn’t overclock in SL anyway

my best reccomendation for a system would be use an a64 socket 939 chip, preferably one of the 90nm process ones. They are as fast or faster than p4's in SL, and consume between 1/2 and 1/4 of the power depending on your settings (they're cheaper too)

(i get routinely 30-50 fps or more in SL, while running at a cpu temp of 87 degrees f with a 3500+ , a large but simple heatsink+fan and cool'n quiet tech turned on.

as to screens steer clear of small (below 20" widescreens, basically all you do is loose pixels... aka a 17" normal aspect is 1280x1024.. a 17" widescreen that you pay an extra $100 for, is 1280x720... whee you spent $100 to throw away 300,000 pixels, great buy (not)

newegg is a great store for us shopping... good support, generally free 3 day 'saver' shipping and great prices.

This is a little over the grand (+ $500 for monitor)you wanted to spend, but Dell has the Dimension 8400 with the following for $1746 with free shipping, 19" LCD and warranty. Use coupon code QFXMMKFKQJGB20. This expires tomorrow.

Pentium® 4 Processor 630 with HT Technology (3GHz, 800 FSB)
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
Memory 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz (2x512M)
Keyboard Dell Wireless Keyboard and Optical Mouse
19 in 1905FP Dell Ultrasharp™ Digital Flat Panel Display
Video Card 256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) nVidia GeForce 6800
Hard Drive 80GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) Floppy
Network Interface Integrated Gigabit Ethernet
Modem 56K PCI Data/Fax Modem
CD ROM/DVD ROM Dual Drives: 16x DVD + FREE UPGRADE! 16x DVD+/-RW w/dbl layer write Sound Card Integrated 5.1 Channel Audio
2Yr Ltd Warranty, 2Yr At-Home Service, and 2Yr Technical Support

The monitor is $400 of this, the warranty $99, and if you already have XP Pro, XP Home takes off $79. The 6800 card is not bad for a bundle at this price, either. If you go with the 17" LCD, it will take off another $200.

As has been said, you can build a better one cheaper, but your stress level should be a lot lower buying an already built box.

eltee,

I have to agree on the AMD assessment - low power, slightly faster, etc - but the P4 platform has it's pros. I can't think of anything to recommend it over an Athlon 64 right now, but I'm an AMD fanboi

well the big con against intel platforms in general is very very poor forewards adaptability, generally each new generation of pentium2/3/4 has required a new chipset, and each new chipset, has proven it doesn't work with prior generations either... whereas you can get a low priced socket a that takes everything from 700mhz chips through 3200+, and a new 939 mobo can be expected to remain compatable with new cpu's at least through the rest of this year and most of the next, unlike intel which needs a new mobo to upgrade to dualies, socket939 mobo's should be able to handle with just a bios flash

Eltee,

That's a very good point. Intel seem hellbent on improving platforms so frequently that it makes you upgrade...like the Northwood deal.

I've had problems with my last two AMD CPUs, both ran hot and both eventually got degraded by SL's processing hog. Also, I don't see AMD being much different from Intel regarding socket technology and upgrading... but that's a moot point, I really don't feel like upgrading CPU down the road.

Thanks for some great suggestions!

I see what you folks mean about the 17" widescreen... definitely going to avoid that... what alternatives do I have in 19"+ that are still reasonable?

Pondering this for a monitor:
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=320-4111&category_id=4009

price is right and so is the resolution... no TV but I barely watch TV so that's not a big deal

I've heard good things about it. There was, however, a small backlight bleeding issue when Dell first released these monitors, as described here:

http://forums.mikhailtech.com/showthread.php?t=4842

But as I understand it's a good monitor for the price.

Hiro,

In France, current prices for LCD flat panels 17' 1280*1024 @ 75Hz are about 200 Euros, so much cheaper than the 500$ you mention.

For graphics cards, I've seen SL side by side on an NVidia 6800 and a 6600 GT... no visible difference, so at half the price I'd go for the 6600GT.

Best,

Hiro,
I use this exact monitor with a XFX GeForce 6600GT AGP ($179 after rebates). Keep watching for Dell deals, they've been on sale for $486 after coupons with free shipping. It's a good monitor, and I am an avid CRT person, I avoided LCD for a very long time.

The backlight bleeding is definitely present, if you watch it in a completely dark room with nothing on the screen, it's easy to notice. In actual use, I definitely don't see any hint of it. It's a good contrast/brightness LCD, I actually keep the brightness down at like 20/100.

I got mine for $506 shipped or so, they charge tax about everywhere.

backlight bleeding is a symptom of LCD technology, and not that particular monitor... every lcd monitor ever made does that... its just an expression of the fact your eyes have like a dynamic range of 100,000:1 between sunlight and pitch black+30minute eye adjustment... while lcd tech only has 800:1 or so.

I would look at www.techbargains.com pretty much every day, dell can and will have random coupons people fetter up there and share.. and they often stack, so you can get x% off plus then another $50 off that plus free shipping, etc

Stephanie, si Money,

Very helpful, thanks! I think I'm sold on the monitor... and oh.... my, I saw SL for the first time in widescreen the other day... definitely how it's meant to be played. I'm wondering if 4x3 screens for PCs will be obsolete in 5 years?

as for vid card, anyone know anything about SLI? I was considering the 6600 and an SLI motherboard, with the thought that if I needed it, I could buy another 6600 cheap in a year or three.

Just ordered my system with avadirect (which had good ratings at pricewatch.com)
$1100+ shipping got me:

INTEL, Pentium 4 540 3.2 GHz, 1Mb Cache, 800MHz FSB, Socket 775
GIGABYTE, GA-8I915P-DUO-A, Intel 915-P, DDR2-533/400, RAID, 8-CH Audio, Gb LAN, SATA, Retail
DDR2-533, Qty 2 x 512Mb PC4200 DDR, 533MHz, Non-ECC (1Gb Total)
WESTERN DIGITAL, 80.0 GB, 7200-RPM, Serial ATA, 8MB Cache
ASUS, Extreme N6600, 128MB DDR, 128 Bit, DVI, TV Out , PCI-Express
OPTICAL DRIVE, 52x CD-ROM Drive, IDE, OEM
RAIDMAX, Scorpio CP868-S, Blue Tower Case, w/ Window, 420 Watt PS, Front USB
COOLER MASTER, Case Fan, 2in. x 2in.
CONVERTER, Internal 20 Pin to 24 Pin ATX Power Cable Converter
WARRANTY, Silver Warranty Package (3 Years Limited Parts, 3 Years Labor Warranty)
SYMANTEC, Norton Anti-Virus 2005
THERMALTAKE, A1836, Black-Blue Keyboard & Optical Mouse Combo, Retail
CREATIVE LABS, Inspire T-2900, Black 2.1 Subwoofer System, 3 Piece, Retail
APC, BE-500, Back-UPS, Retail

+ a DVD burner I'm going to pirate from my current machine.

I would recommend removing this as soon as you get it and replacing it with something better. Though that's more of a personal vendetta against the performance of NAV. Some people like it...

Fortunately, it's not the Suite (SUCKS). Besides, SP2 for windows has firewall and that's pretty much all I need besides virus.

I also have a personal vendetta against McAfee. I dunno.. they both are quirky.. necessary evil.

I would actually recommend AVG, if you're not afraid of free software. I run it, and it's very nice. I ditched McAfee corporate and NAV Pro both for it.

Finally ordered, received, configured, and played with the new PC.

Works terrific with SL... CPU time is down to 50% rather than 100%. I get good framerate (15-20) at max settings, up to 128 draw distance, at 1600x1050 resolution.

Recommend this setup, for sure.

Oh, and Doom 3 looks incredible.