Help me pick a computer for College

[Jay C]

I want a desktop that can run current gen PC games such as HL2 and Fear and will be easily upgraded that will also work well, not give me any bs, and will function properly for College. If anyone has any suggestions let me know.

[kaioshade]

Custom build one. you will never be completely happy with a oem build. well maybe you would, but its always better to build one.

Or grab a mac, definitely nice systems.

[Teowulf]

Well, my circuit city has a great deal going on now. You get a monitor,printer and sweet computer for around $750, with the mail inrebate already included.

[NEvolution]

This is what I was looking at for a new desktop fit for school and casual gaming for September.

• Aspire X-Discovery Black ATX Mid-Tower Case with Clear Side, Temperature Display, Front USB and FireWire Ports
• Enermax / 600-Watt / ATX / Dual 80mm Fan / 24-Pin / Dual PCI-Express / SATA-Ready / Power Supply / SLI Ready
• Asus A8N-SLI NVIDIA Socket 939 ATX Motherboard and an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.20GHz Processor with Fan
• Corsair Value Select 1024MB PC3200 DDR 400MHz Memory
• XFX GeForce 6800 Xtreme / 256MB GDDR3 / SLI / PCI Express / Dual DVI / HDTV / Video Card
• Maxtor / DiamondMax 10 / 160GB / 7200 / 8MB / SATA-300 / RoHS / OEM / Hard Drive

There's no cd/dvd because I already have those on my current desktop.
I haven't looked at monitors yet either.

[PopeOfDope]

Originally Posted by Jay C

I want a desktop that can run current gen PC games such as HL2 and Fear and will be easily upgraded that will also work well, not give me any bs, and will function properly for College. If anyone has any suggestions let me know.

Whats your budget?

Originally Posted by NEvolution

* Aspire X-Discovery Black ATX Mid-Tower Case with Clear Side, Temperature Display, Front USB and FireWire Ports
* Enermax / 600-Watt / ATX / Dual 80mm Fan / 24-Pin / Dual PCI-Express / SATA-Ready / Power Supply / SLI Ready
* Asus A8N-SLI NVIDIA Socket 939 ATX Motherboard and an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.20GHz Processor with Fan
* Corsair Value Select 1024MB PC3200 DDR 400MHz Memory
* XFX GeForce 6800 Xtreme / 256MB GDDR3 / SLI / PCI Express / Dual DVI / HDTV / Video Card
* Maxtor / DiamondMax 10 / 160GB / 7200 / 8MB / SATA-300 / RoHS / OEM / Hard Drive

That looks OK so far.
Powersupply looks like overkill, 600W would be hard to use up.
You have an ALI motherboard but only 1 graphics card, might as well switch to the Asus A8N-E instead and save money.
RAM is good choice, so is processor.
I don't really know your budget so I can't comment on the graphics card, at least its better than a 6600GT which is the bare minimum nowadays for a gaming PC.
Maxtor is a great choice of HD, fast quiet and 5 year warranty

[kaioshade]

Originally Posted by NEvolution

This is what I was looking at for a new desktop fit for school and casual gaming for September.

• Aspire X-Discovery Black ATX Mid-Tower Case with Clear Side, Temperature Display, Front USB and FireWire Ports
• Enermax / 600-Watt / ATX / Dual 80mm Fan / 24-Pin / Dual PCI-Express / SATA-Ready / Power Supply / SLI Ready
• Asus A8N-SLI NVIDIA Socket 939 ATX Motherboard and an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.20GHz Processor with Fan
• Corsair Value Select 1024MB PC3200 DDR 400MHz Memory
• XFX GeForce 6800 Xtreme / 256MB GDDR3 / SLI / PCI Express / Dual DVI / HDTV / Video Card
• Maxtor / DiamondMax 10 / 160GB / 7200 / 8MB / SATA-300 / RoHS / OEM / Hard Drive

There's no cd/dvd because I already have those on my current desktop.
I haven't looked at monitors yet either.

If you are doing casual gaming, why the sli motherboard?

[NEvolution]

Originally Posted by kaioshade

If you are doing casual gaming, why the sli motherboard?

Room for upgrades and whatnot.
If I make enough money I could upgrade it so that it is better for gaming for use during the summer.

[Siouxsie]

Originally Posted by Jay C

I want a desktop that can run current gen PC games such as HL2 and Fear and will be easily upgraded that will also work well, not give me any bs, and will function properly for College. If anyone has any suggestions let me know.

Hmm...


You seem to be wanting an impossible spec. You want to play games on a PC, HL2 and F.E.A.R, but you want a PC that will not give you any BS? Windows PCs come with BS as standard...

[PopeOfDope]

Originally Posted by NEvolution

Room for upgrades and whatnot.
If I make enough money I could upgrade it so that it is better for gaming for use during the summer.

You are better off saving up for a 7900GT instead of 2 6800s
Best performance to cost ratio. SLI is always a waste unless you use 2 of the best graphics cards.

[NEvolution]

Originally Posted by PopeOfDope

You are better off saving up for a 7900GT instead of 2 6800s
Best performance to cost ratio. SLI is always a waste unless you use 2 of the best graphics cards.

Oh really?
I'll take that into consideration.

Do you have any other recommendations for the specs that I put up?

Sorry if it seems like I hijacked this thread, lol.

[Siouxsie]

Originally Posted by PopeOfDope

SLI is always a waste

Corrected you there tbh.

[iball®]

MacBook Pro 17", 120GB drive, 2 GB RAM, 256 MB Video RAM, dual-layer DVD burner, OS X (and with Boot Camp you can boot into XP). $3000.
In college, you don't want a desktop, you want a laptop (for lectures and such).
Go hard or go home.

[PopeOfDope]

Originally Posted by NEvolution

Oh really?
I'll take that into consideration.

Do you have any other recommendations for the specs that I put up?

Sorry if it seems like I hijacked this thread, lol.

Just some general guidelines I use for picking parts.
Go AMD dual core if you can afford it but only the 3800+. It may seem slower now but in future more programs and games will take advantage of 2 cores.
RAM should be corsair value select, unless you plan on overclocking. If you plan on playing BF2 you need 2 gigs, since that game seems to use an absurd amount of RAM. 2 sticks are better than one, but 3 sticks sometimes can't be handled by the motherboard, keep that in mind.
Graphics cards for Nvidia should be manufactured by eVGA, and for ATI cards you want Sapphire. The eVGA Nvidia 7600GT offers the best price to performace ratio right now.
Sound card depends on how much of an audiophile you are and how you listen to you music. A Chaintech AV-710 should be the bare minimum if you actually listen to any music on your PC. It's only $30 but beats the crap out of onboard sound.
You said you have DVD drives, but you need a floppy disk drive too, since you are going to install your OS onto a SATA drive, which requires controllers during setup.
When picking out a power supply, look at the 12V rails. You will want a PC with dual 12v rails. Look at the amount of Amps your components require (ignoring processor and motherboard). Buy a powersupply with that amount of Amps on the 12v2 rail, which you should find in the specs of the powersupply. 450W is generally enough for most people who don't use SLI.

[NEvolution]

Originally Posted by PopeOfDope

Just some general guidelines I use for picking parts.
Go AMD dual core if you can afford it but only the 3800+. It may seem slower now but in future more programs and games will take advantage of 2 cores.
RAM should be corsair value select, unless you plan on overclocking. If you plan on playing BF2 you need 2 gigs, since that game seems to use an absurd amount of RAM. 2 sticks are better than one, but 3 sticks sometimes can't be handled by the motherboard, keep that in mind.
Graphics cards for Nvidia should be manufactured by eVGA, and for ATI cards you want Sapphire. The eVGA Nvidia 7600GT offers the best price to performace ratio right now.
Sound card depends on how much of an audiophile you are and how you listen to you music. A Chaintech AV-710 should be the bare minimum if you actually listen to any music on your PC. It's only $30 but beats the crap out of onboard sound.
You said you have DVD drives, but you need a floppy disk drive too, since you are going to install your OS onto a SATA drive, which requires controllers during setup.
When picking out a power supply, look at the 12V rails. You will want a PC with dual 12v rails. Look at the amount of Amps your components require (ignoring processor and motherboard). Buy a powersupply with that amount of Amps on the 12v2 rail, which you should find in the specs of the powersupply. 450W is generally enough for most people who don't use SLI.

^^*saves into text file*

Wow, thanks for the help. I guess I'll be doing some more research.
I haven't looked into hardware for a looong time.

[Jay C]

Originally Posted by PopeOfDope

Whats your budget?

Probably somewhere under 1000, but hey, lets make it 2000 for fun.
I have no concept of money, but I have a load saved up, so its really no object, I just dont want to get rediculous.

Originally Posted by Siouxsie

Hmm...
You seem to be wanting an impossible spec. You want to play games on a PC, HL2 and F.E.A.R, but you want a PC that will not give you any BS? Windows PCs come with BS as standard...

Good point. Its just, my friend got a Dell XPS, basically a cheap Alienware. It bugs up a lot. Whenever I plug up my PSP to it, it crashes.

And to the guy who suggested a mac, while that eliminates the BS, it also means I have a selection of like two games.

[mannymix03]

Originally Posted by iball

MacBook Pro 17", 120GB drive, 2 GB RAM, 256 MB Video RAM, dual-layer DVD burner, OS X (and with Boot Camp you can boot into XP). $3000.
In college, you don't want a desktop, you want a laptop (for lectures and such).
Go hard or go home.

agreed.... you dont have to worry about all the bull**** that windows gives you... more productive,

you could always get the 15" with only 1 gb (which is fine) and then it will be cheaper...

[mannymix03]

Originally Posted by Jay C

And to the guy who suggested a mac, while that eliminates the BS, it also means I have a selection of like two games.

#1. you can boot into windows XP using the new macbook pro (therefore you have all the games you want)

#2. Your going to college to learn and get drunk. no time for games...

[PopeOfDope]

Originally Posted by mannymix03

#1. you can boot into windows XP using the new macbook pro (therefore you have all the games you want)

#2. Your going to college to learn and get drunk. no time for games...

I have a question, would a macbook pro be able to run games like Oblivion with a decent detail level and resolution? I am not too familiar with MACs, do they use the same graphics cards as PCs or do they have their own system? God that sounds really noobish...

EDIT: reading my statement it seems as if I am trying to belittle the macbook, I am not, I just want to know its capabilities.

Oh and for Jay C, I configured this which is a bit over your $1000 budget but it seems good enough http://www.chode.org/c4/c4.php?config=JayC%20PC
The power supply is included with the case, thats why I left that field blank

[Siouxsie]

Nah mate, Macs use simliar-ish graphics things. Only problem is they're dead expensive and not as good.

[iball®]

Originally Posted by Siouxsie

Nah mate, Macs use simliar-ish graphics things. Only problem is they're dead expensive and not as good.

Wrong, they're better. Not only due to OS X but Windows XP runs BETTER on the new Intel-based Macs than 90% of all PCs out there.

Originally Posted by PopeOfDope

I have a question, would a macbook pro be able to run games like Oblivion with a decent detail level and resolution? I am not too familiar with MACs, do they use the same graphics cards as PCs or do they have their own system? God that sounds really noobish...

Yes, it's n00bish since a simple Google search or visit to www.apple.com would have shown you that it contains an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB of GDDR3 memory.

Here's what Oblivion looks like on a Mac....but this shot isn't from a MacBook pro, it's from an iMac:

[kaioshade]

Gotta admit, that is impressive.

[Jay C]

I also failed to mention that I'm not going to build a computer from scratch, despite all the really helpful advice for that sort of situation. I'm looking for a computer I can buy and not worry about unless I want to keep it for several years and it cant play Half-Life 3, then I'll open her up and maybe learn how to upgrade it. Until then however, I dont know anything about processors, motherboards, graphics cards, or anything like that, except the ones I have now are CRAP. I have a very new looking laptop with very crappy internal organs apparently, because no new games run on it and it has very odd bugs.
I dont want any more of that with my new computer.