[Chuplayer]

[SplashBeats]

[Kappuru]

there's simply no way you got pings less than 8ms, as well.
_________________

[Toptube]

Have fun with your TN panels Chuplayer.

[internisus]

[Felix]

toptube is wildly exaggerating. the 350w would be fine, the 500w is about eight times more fine. as you can see there's... something of an ideological divide between those who BUILD COMPUTERS and those who cannot abide the idea of a "tower" just by virtue of how big and bulky and unnecessarily-having-space-for-eight-optical-drives they are.

vista is not past its "growing pains;" SP1 is on the immediate horizon, but XP certainly took until SP2 to become the mature, really-unbelievably-decent OS that it is. if you want to go vista, more power to you, but in that case you're going to want the 4gb of memory, and.. you'll be doing it for virtually no reason, at this stage.

a mobo can be upgraded, it's just that.. that's the "computer," man! it's hardly an upgrade at that point! (although, in these days of uATX and c2d's, they are that much more modular, and that doesn't look to change in the immediate future...)

[internisus]

Okay, then. I just saw some power consumption charts and I'm very, very not worried about having enough juice. Enough with that.

And forget Vista.

I get the impression that a motherboard is sort of the heart of the computer, but surely they improve over time just like any other component and should be swapped out for better parts eventually as you change your machine gradually over time, right?

Felix, I'm not going to have any space problems with an X-QPACK2, am I? I know it requires a microATX mobo, but there won't be an issue with a video card, will there?

As long as I choose a motherboard whose max is 4MB RAM, I don't see any rationale for having a larger case than that. Under what realistic circumstances would I find a strong need to change to a larger case or have a non-micro motherboard? The only thing I can imagine is if my cooling options in the small case become insufficient.

[internisus]

Oh, shit! We need to talk about game pad things and joysticks!

[internisus]

Here's another stupid question. I looked around at reviews and options and I guess that the Turtle Beach sound card looks good. Only thing I want to be sure of is that it has direct output for stereo rather than 5.1. Either mini or 1/4 is fine. I just can't tell from looking through the specs.

I'd also really like to know whether this card will give me options to somehow simulate the surround qualities of 5.1 channels within stereo headphones. I kind of figure that sort of thing would be standard, but I'd like to make sure. I have many DVDs that lack stereo sound options, and I... have no idea what sound output options are like in PC games these days.

I wonder whether 5.1 converted to stereo would be better than sound originally mixed for stereo. Probably not.

Oh, and will this sound card fit in a SFF case? Will it be possible to have the audio jacks on the front of the X-QPACK2 go to the sound card and not to the straight mobo out?

[internisus]

Here's a great deal on RAM--2GB for $26.50 after rebate.

"Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400 2GB Kit DDR2-800 XMS2-6400 Xtreme Performance Memory"

There's no reason not to go with this, right?

[Felix]

[internisus]

I need somebody to tell me why there are so many different versions of the same video card (Geforce 9600GT) and pick the one I should buy from this list, please.

X-QPACK2 with 500W PSU -- $90
ASUS P5K-VM LGA 775 Intel G33 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard -- $110
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Conroe 2.33GHz 4M shared L2 Cache -- $170
Geforce 9600GT video card -- ~$175 (haven't picked which one yet)
Seagate Barracuda 500MB hard drive -- $120
Samsung DVD-RW drive -- $30
Corsair 2x1MB DDR2 RAM -- $26.50 (after rebate)
Turtle Beach RIVIERA sound card -- $30
Grado SR60 headphones -- $50 after shipping
LG L246WP 24" LCD -- $295 after tax (if I can find it at Circuit City)
Logitech keyboard -- $27
Logitech G5 mouse -- $50

Total -- $1173.50 (plus shipping on some items)




That didn't work right. I'm not sure I can live with spending more than $1000 on this. Well, that was the ideal version; now to make cuts.

[Felix]

you can go cheaper on the motherboard and the mouse. otherwise, i approve 100%.

(and, for that matter, the keyboard; your idiot someone-or-other (this does not exclude yourself) is going to spill something on it and you're going to wonder why you didn't just steal a black dell from someone's office closet)

also, i think you're getting a little overzealous with the hard drive, but hell, who doesn't.

[internisus]

Yeah, I'm thinking I'll go with this motherboard instead. If someone could compare the two for me, that would be very helpful.

I can also take off $40 by going with the 320GB hard drive.

Any suggestions for a quality gaming mouse that doesn't cost $50?

Honestly, I do have a mouse and keyboard from that 7-year-old machine, but they're really pieces of crap. Actually, I think I'll go dust them off and prod them a bit; if I can take both the keyboard and mouse off that list and go with the cheaper motherboard (without regret), I should be pretty happy.

So how do I check to make sure that everything's compatible and such?

Also, WTF, Circuit City should have opened 30 minutes ago.

[Kappuru]

theres a million different versions of the 9600 because nvidia contracts the spec and chips out to OEMs.

get the evga superclocked one, its only ten bucks more and they have a lifetime warranty.
_________________

[internisus]

Okay, none of the Circuit City stores in my area have that LG monitor anymore. The Westinghouse is reported sold out on the website, and it's too damned expensive anyway.

I'm going back to the Acer at $250 minus $50 mail-in rebate. Any last-minute efforts to sway me should be made in the next six or so hours; I'm going to buy all this stuff tonight for sure.

I'm assuming that I can get as nice a picture out of the Acer with some one-time tweaking as I would see on the Samsung. If I'm wrong, please tell me. The Acer has DVI, a higher native resolution, and 3" more screen space, so I think it's the better buy unless I'll find it difficult or impossible to match the Samsung's quality after playing with contrast and everything. I can't just demo these screens, so I'm relying on your experience, gang.

Edit: I might actually buy the Acer at NewEgg, trading the $50 rebate for $20 off immediately. I know, that's completely ridiculous, but I'm very here-and-now about money.

I also notice that it's very popular with NewEgg customers--moreso even than the Samsung.

Edit2: oh shit what does this mean

[Kappuru]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130328

You're not a designer, so you probably won't even notice the colors being shoddy on that acer. You've probably never even used a calibrated display and it's not like you're going to have to worry about Pantone matching. I say go for it.
_________________

[Felix]

at the end of this long and winding road (can't help making that ref whenever possible, lame as it is) i must say i'm glad to see you building about 80% of the machine that i'd build myself!

[Sushi K]

Both those MoBOs only have one PCIX16, but if you don't care then I don't care. If anything the second one has built in video that you don't need.

The reason you can't upgrade a MoBo is because the difference between the two (usually the wildly different chipsets) makes it so windows won't boot and a complete reinstall of windows is required.

All monitors require color adjustment for accurate results. If you plan on doing really technical print work of photo editing then it matters, but for most joe-scmoes it doesn't.
That 6-bit color worry me though since most video cards are 32-bit last time I checked.

6-bit meant that the monitor can make 2^6 different colors at the same time or 220k
while the video card wants to make 2^32 different colors
_________________

[Felix]

to be honest, i think it was a foregone conclusion that he wouldn't be bothering with SLI from the minute he decided on uATX.

granted, i might've been the one to make that decision, initially, but, uh, yeah. you put two 9600s in a qpack.

[internisus]

[Sushi K]

[Felix]

[Sushi K]

And maybe a better heat sink while you're at it. You said you plan to overclock right?
_________________

[internisus]

[internisus]

Just so you guys know, the computer that I've been using for a long time now--the computer that I used to play HL2 and Episode 1--is an emachine with the following specifications:

AMD Sempron Processor 3300+ (2.0 GHz, 1600 MHz System Bus, 128 KB L2 Cache)
DVD/CD-RW Drive: 16x Max Read/48x Max Writer
80 GB ATA Hard Drive
512 MB DDR SDRAM
nVISIA GeForce 6100

I still don't know much, but even I can make some wide-eyed comparisons to those numbers. 128 KB L2 Cache in this processor vs. a 4 MB shared L2 Cache in the C2D. I don't have more than 20 GB to myself on this fucking hard drive, and I'm a media fiend. 512 MB DDR(1) ROFL. 6100! 6100!!!

[Felix]

[SplashBeats]

you could just get a standard ATX motherboard and case, you know.

[internisus]

Another reviewer said:

[Kappuru]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826104178

this mouse is ten bucks cheaper and is awesome.

9600gt will fit in a qpack, as an 8800gt does fine.
_________________

[internisus]

[internisus]

[Felix]

[Kappuru]

Youll be fine.
_________________

[Toptube]

[Kappuru]

I do agree that the PSU is a cheap, hot, loud piece of shit, but he's already on budget.. he might be able to get away with using it for the first year or so considering the minimal requirements.

A decent PSU should cost about 50-60$ for his needs.
_________________

[Toptube]

[Sushi K]

[CubaLibre]

Intern I've had used a $9 beige taiwanese keyboard and a $20 Logitech optical mouse for seven years. They have yet to fail me in any way. Do NOT spend money on some fancy "gaming" input device.
_________________
Let's Play, starring me.

[Kappuru]

That gaming mouse is actually worth it though. Cubalibre, shades of Benoitren in this post.
_________________

[Toptube]