Re: OT: Help buying a new computer
 

Yep Will, the video card is a PCI card.

Re: OT: Help buying a new computer
 

1) Yes but that price is high.

2} I quote Pkoronix: "A few months ago, AMD refined their Socket 939 line of processors with the E3 and E4 revisions, codenamed Venice and San Diego, respectively, to replace the D0 Winchester. The Venice and San Diego features the improved memory controller, and most notably, AMD doubled the amount of L2 Cache for the San Diego compared to its Venice counterpart. The San Diego immediately attracted large attention among the enthusiast crowd for its enormous L2 cache; in fact, the Athlon 64 FX-57 is based upon the San Diego. While the San Diego looks great on paper, premium performance also comes at a premium price, and the cheapest San Diego, the 3700+ at 2.2GHz, runs around $330, while a Venice 3500+ running at the same clock speed is $275, and the cheaper versions of Venice 3200+ or 3000+ often overclock easily to 2.6GHz and beyond. Is the price premium justified? Does the extra 1MB L2 Cache help that much in real world performance? Just how well do these two cores compare clock-for-clock? In this review we will be running two of these CPUs at 2.0, 2.2, and 2.6GHz to see the performance difference between the two AMD cores."

3} Nope.

4} About $5-10 too much.

5} They are all ok, for a show-off case, I like this one
Kandolf

For a more reasonable case I like these
Lian Li

Re: OT: Help buying a new computer
 

Should be PCI X16.

Re: OT: Help buying a new computer
 

Personally, I think the second two look like crap. I like a more austere design, without all of the fancy baubles and shiney lights and side windows. I think Alienware, for example, makes some of the worst looking cases. But that's just me. The first one isn't bad, if you get rid of the lighted fans, but is definitely overpriced if that is just for the case. Go for cases that have sliding drive bay mounts, rather than just screws. They make life a lot easier.

I especially dislike cases that look like that Kandolf one... But again, its all personal taste and style.

If you are spending more than 60 or 70 dollars on just a case (including the fans that take a few cents to manufacture), I'd say you are buying the wrong merchandise, from the wrong places...

Re: OT: Help buying a new computer
 

LOL, you can't run them this hard in a $50 case.
Sandra CPU

Re: OT: Help buying a new computer
 

Sure you can. I spent 45 bucks on a case that easily matches those listed in performance, just without the gaudiness. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Ah, computer fairs.

Re: OT: Help buying a new computer
 

Well. Show us!

Re: OT: Help buying a new computer
 

So I guess I should ask, what is a solid mother board and cpu combination? Should a person get a PCI express video card or stick with AGP?

Cases - cooling and power are the primary factors when using in conjunction with an AMD. Cooling being the TOP priority.

And when they say PC400 - Dual -, and all you can find is 3200, WTF comes to mind. Any insights?

And thanks for the comments guys. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Enu is like 15 minutes from here so no shipping costs or sales taxes to contend with.

Re: OT: Help buying a new computer
 

Memory types can be a bit confusing at times... especially because some sellers screw it up. "PC400" probably means "DDR 400MHz" since it says it's dual channel, which is the same as "PC3200".

Re: OT: Help buying a new computer
 

1} Almost any name Asus, Abit, Intel, and DFI are the big four. Abit is best for the AMD chips unless you really know what you are doing, in which case the DFI boards have more head room. NF4 chipsets for AMD and NF4 or Intel chipsets for Intel. AGP is end of life get PCI X16.

2)Intel needs lots of cooling too.

3) Lots of pc400 or faster out there, find a better store. Also, for Intel, DDR2 is the new standard.