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Ok sorry, I'm a n00bie, here's the shorter version:
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
- Gaming - rpg/mmos/strategy, not really fps, some minor video editing of HD video, general computing
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
- $2,100 including tax/shipping
3) Where do you live?
- Honolulu (shipping
)
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
- The whole box & monitor. I want this system to be quiet, small if possible & to play blu-ray.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
- None
6) Will you be overclocking?
- Maybe a little.
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
- 22", looking at a Dell.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
- a few days to a month
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
- nothing special.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
- Win 7
If you skip the big paragraph you can read the system I have in mind on AVADirect's site.
Basically its this: Looking @ a Lanbox case w/ the Phenom II 940, 4gb 800mhz ram, super clocked EVGA GTX260 (216), 550W PSU from AVADirect.
Doesn't really need to be upgradable if it will last 3 or so years.
Original post:
Ok, this computer is to play games first and foremost, but casually. I'd say I'll put in an hour or two 3-4 days a week, and potentially most of a Saturday. I'm not a big FPS guy, I like RPGs & some strategy games (playing EVE right now, would love to find something that plays like EQ did but has nice modern graphics). Also I have an HD video camera so I'll be doing some editing, but I won't be making big regular productions. I'd also like to be able to watch the occasional movie, so blu-ray is handy. My budget is $2100 tax/shipping included. I live in Hawaii so shipping is going to be expensive, which is why I am not building it myself in case I have to ship things back & forth to RMA. I need everything, I've currently got a AMD 3700+ socket 939 w/ a 17" monitor & some cheap speakers from Korea, it's all going. I plan to get a 22" monitor, I'm currently considering the Dell UltraSharp. 1680x1050 is fine-720p is enough for movies @ 22". I'm planning to get this within the next month. (Though I've considered waiting a year until I move to TX to get free shipping on parts & build it). I don't need anything really fancy off the motherboard, what I'd really like is a small, quiet, preferably desktop rather than tower style pc. I hate lights & doors on the front of the box just get in the way. I'm going to put Win 7 RC 1 64 bit on it until it expires, when I'll go buy an OEM of Win 7 (this purchase doesn't count towards the $2100 budget). I have looked around a lot and here is what I've found that I think meets my requirements for $1400 from AVADirect (+ $150 shipping to Hawaii + ~ $200 for the dell monitor):
Socket AM2 Desktop Processors
Phenom™ II X4 940 Quad-Core 3.0GHz, AM2+, HT 3600MHz, 4x 512KB L2 + 6MB L3 cache, 125W, 45nm, Black Edition, Retail
CPU Coolers
BigTyp™ 14 Pro Cooling Fan, Socket 775/754/939/AM2+, Aluminum/Copper
Thermal Compound
MX-2 High-Performance Thermal Compound, Non-Electrical Conductive
Warranties & Service
FREE Mild Overclocking (Limited Time Offer), 10-20% Performance Increase
Socket AM2 Plus Phenom Motherboards
M3N78-VM, AM2+, GeForce 8200, DDR2-1066 8GB /4, PCIe x16, SATA 3 Gb/s RAID 5 /5, VGA+DVI, HDMI, HDA, GbLAN, mATX, Retail
DDR2-1066 and Up Non-ECC DIMM Memory
4GB (4 x 1GB) XMS2 Xtreme PC2-6400 DDR2 800MHz CL4 (4-4-4-12) SDRAM 240-pin DIMM, Non-ECC, w/ Heat Spreader
PCI Express x16 Video Cards
GeForce GTX 260 Superclocked, GTX 260 602MHz, 896MB GDDR3 2052MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, DVI /2, HDTV Out, Retail
Sound Cards
On-board sound
Warranties & Service
Overclocking, Single GPU, Optimal and Stable Performance
SATA Hard Drives
640GB WD Caviar® Black™ (WD6401AALS), SATA 3 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB Cache
No RAID, Independent HDD Drives
DVD Burner Drives
GGW-H20L Black 6x/8x/24x BD/DVD±RW/CD-RW Blu-ray Disc™ Burner w/ Lightscribe, SATA, Retail
Network Cards
Integrated Network Controller (Choose Upgrade)
MicroATX Cases
Lanbox Lite Black Compact Gaming Cube Case, mATX, No PSU, SECC Steel
Power Supplies
CMPSU-550VX VX Series Power Supply, 550W, 80 PLUS®, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, SLI Ready
Wire Management Solutions
Standard Wiring with Round Cables
Operating Systems
No Operating System (Choose OS or subject to Limited Support)
LCD Monitors
Getting the Dell maybe
Keyboards
Digital Media Keyboard 3000, Keybiard, Black, USB, Retail
Mouse
MX™518 Gaming-Grade™ Optical Mouse, USB, PS/2, Black
Speakers
No Speakers (Choose)
Warranties
Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, 3 Year Labor Warranty)
I'd like to also add a hard drive cooler, I posted on their forums to see if they could drop that in, waiting on a response from them. Any feedback would be quiet welcomed. I looked at a lot of things & while I couldn't figure out how loud the PSU would be it looked like the video card would be the loudest thing on this at about 42db. O & I'd like this to last me 3-4 years.
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
- Gaming - rpg/mmos/strategy, not really fps, some minor video editing of HD video, general computing
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
- $2,100 including tax/shipping
3) Where do you live?
- Honolulu (shipping
)4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
- The whole box & monitor. I want this system to be quiet, small if possible & to play blu-ray.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
- None
6) Will you be overclocking?
- Maybe a little.
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
- 22", looking at a Dell.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
- a few days to a month
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
- nothing special.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
- Win 7
If you skip the big paragraph you can read the system I have in mind on AVADirect's site.
Basically its this: Looking @ a Lanbox case w/ the Phenom II 940, 4gb 800mhz ram, super clocked EVGA GTX260 (216), 550W PSU from AVADirect.
Doesn't really need to be upgradable if it will last 3 or so years.
Original post:
Ok, this computer is to play games first and foremost, but casually. I'd say I'll put in an hour or two 3-4 days a week, and potentially most of a Saturday. I'm not a big FPS guy, I like RPGs & some strategy games (playing EVE right now, would love to find something that plays like EQ did but has nice modern graphics). Also I have an HD video camera so I'll be doing some editing, but I won't be making big regular productions. I'd also like to be able to watch the occasional movie, so blu-ray is handy. My budget is $2100 tax/shipping included. I live in Hawaii so shipping is going to be expensive, which is why I am not building it myself in case I have to ship things back & forth to RMA
. I need everything, I've currently got a AMD 3700+ socket 939 w/ a 17" monitor & some cheap speakers from Korea, it's all going. I plan to get a 22" monitor, I'm currently considering the Dell UltraSharp. 1680x1050 is fine-720p is enough for movies @ 22". I'm planning to get this within the next month. (Though I've considered waiting a year until I move to TX to get free shipping on parts & build it). I don't need anything really fancy off the motherboard, what I'd really like is a small, quiet, preferably desktop rather than tower style pc. I hate lights & doors on the front of the box just get in the way. I'm going to put Win 7 RC 1 64 bit on it until it expires, when I'll go buy an OEM of Win 7 (this purchase doesn't count towards the $2100 budget). I have looked around a lot and here is what I've found that I think meets my requirements for $1400 from AVADirect (+ $150 shipping to Hawaii + ~ $200 for the dell monitor):Socket AM2 Desktop Processors
Phenom™ II X4 940 Quad-Core 3.0GHz, AM2+, HT 3600MHz, 4x 512KB L2 + 6MB L3 cache, 125W, 45nm, Black Edition, Retail
CPU Coolers
BigTyp™ 14 Pro Cooling Fan, Socket 775/754/939/AM2+, Aluminum/Copper
Thermal Compound
MX-2 High-Performance Thermal Compound, Non-Electrical Conductive
Warranties & Service
FREE Mild Overclocking (Limited Time Offer), 10-20% Performance Increase
Socket AM2 Plus Phenom Motherboards
M3N78-VM, AM2+, GeForce 8200, DDR2-1066 8GB /4, PCIe x16, SATA 3 Gb/s RAID 5 /5, VGA+DVI, HDMI, HDA, GbLAN, mATX, Retail
DDR2-1066 and Up Non-ECC DIMM Memory
4GB (4 x 1GB) XMS2 Xtreme PC2-6400 DDR2 800MHz CL4 (4-4-4-12) SDRAM 240-pin DIMM, Non-ECC, w/ Heat Spreader
PCI Express x16 Video Cards
GeForce GTX 260 Superclocked, GTX 260 602MHz, 896MB GDDR3 2052MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, DVI /2, HDTV Out, Retail
Sound Cards
On-board sound
Warranties & Service
Overclocking, Single GPU, Optimal and Stable Performance
SATA Hard Drives
640GB WD Caviar® Black™ (WD6401AALS), SATA 3 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB Cache
No RAID, Independent HDD Drives
DVD Burner Drives
GGW-H20L Black 6x/8x/24x BD/DVD±RW/CD-RW Blu-ray Disc™ Burner w/ Lightscribe, SATA, Retail
Network Cards
Integrated Network Controller (Choose Upgrade)
MicroATX Cases
Lanbox Lite Black Compact Gaming Cube Case, mATX, No PSU, SECC Steel
Power Supplies
CMPSU-550VX VX Series Power Supply, 550W, 80 PLUS®, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, SLI Ready
Wire Management Solutions
Standard Wiring with Round Cables
Operating Systems
No Operating System (Choose OS or subject to Limited Support)
LCD Monitors
Getting the Dell maybe
Keyboards
Digital Media Keyboard 3000, Keybiard, Black, USB, Retail
Mouse
MX™518 Gaming-Grade™ Optical Mouse, USB, PS/2, Black
Speakers
No Speakers (Choose)
Warranties
Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, 3 Year Labor Warranty)
I'd like to also add a hard drive cooler, I posted on their forums to see if they could drop that in, waiting on a response from them. Any feedback would be quiet welcomed. I looked at a lot of things & while I couldn't figure out how loud the PSU would be it looked like the video card would be the loudest thing on this at about 42db. O & I'd like this to last me 3-4 years.
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