17 replies to this topic

[Chiyeung DjChi Lau]

Who can make a gaming computer from 1500-2000? post your builds here.

Mod Note: Title edited because of shouting.

Edited by z2z007, 09 July 2006 - 10:41 PM.

[z2z007]

Please don't shout (type in ALL CAPS) unnecessarily.

[teknite]

dude just go to a computer store that'll make a you a custom machine, and in that price range you can get a fairly good one. With a store you always have a place to turn to if you're havin problems with it, and they'll usually give you at a 1 year warranty for no charge

[Dart]

I know a custom computer maker in Flushing, but forgot where. The computer they give you comes with like 2 firewalls and 2 antivirus programs, and nVidia already installed. Very well protected and really cheap price. Um, if you know korean, you can go here: www.nyjc.com Everything is in Korean, but if you dont know the language, you can get a korean friend to help translate. Ask in the forum where the store is located (the computer store owner is the website owner) and check the prices. All customized computers, brand new, real good, and low prices. O yea, if you're having problems, they can fix your computer that you bought from them for free. Ask for their phone numbers in the forums and call them and they'll come to your house to fix it.

[Transparent Reality]

Here's the build that I have almost all the parts for (waiting on the CPU and GFX card).

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (Aiming for a 3.6Ghz overclock-50%)
(with a Freezer Pro 7 HSF)
Asus P5W DH Deluxe = Intel 975x chipset/ICH7R Southbridge
2x1GB OCZ Platinum PC2-6400 DDR2-800
Ati Radeon x1800XT 256MB
1x 74GB WD Raptor 10k RPM, 16ms cache SATA150
3x 250GB Seagate Baracuda 7200.9 SATA300 on RAID5
+A IDE drive from my old machine (300GB)
+An external HD from my other 250GB drive (bought a $30 enclosure)
+My optical drives (NEC-2550A and Samsung DVD-ROM)
Creative Sound Blaster Live! (Old and running on PCI) or I could just do the on-board HD audio
580W HIPER Type-R PSU

All of this in a Cooler Master Centurion 5 case with side window and a obligatory blue LED fan in the back. I'll be modding my mobo by replacing the northbridge and southbridge heatsink's thermal paste.

Disregarding the parts I have already, this'll run you $1600-1800, depending on how good you are at finding deals.

I'll be using my usual Dell Ultrasharp 19" and cheapo V7 19" LCDs on dual-monitor, so if you're looking at a new LCD, I'd probably forego the RAID-5 array and the raptor and get the new Seagate 7200.10 750GB as a single drive. $400 should be enough for one sweet LCD display.

If you're looking for be future-proof, I'd wait another year for the DirectX10 cards to come out. Since this is an all-round performance machine mainly for huge image processing, and games as a secondary thing, I chose the x1800.

If all else fails, just get a Dell when Vista comes out (I'd format it and load it with XP Pro). Dells are great on a budget, and the availability of coupons is great. You'll get a pretty 'sweet' XPS system for under $2000 easy.

[teknite]

Why do you need so much hard disk space?

[Transparent Reality]

The raptor is for the OS, and the rest is for storage.

I need lots of storage for what I do. I mean, 50MB PSDs need some place to go. I also have tons of disc images which I keep on a drive for faster access for my frequent stuff.

The rest of the space goes to anime and music. The anime I burn periodically (turnaround is around 10GB a week for me) and the music I keep on drive. I have a big collection.

[z2z007]

I knew anime had to be one of the reasons. They take up hard drive space very easily.

[Transparent Reality]

z2z007, on Jul 17 2006, 03:11 PM, said:

I knew anime had to be one of the reasons. They take up hard drive space very easily.

Shush, you. ;P You don't know the torment of having only 70GB allocated for anime! The horror! </sarcasm>

I wonder how many TB I've gone this year for anime...

[teknite]

wow, cool but WOW lol

[z2z007]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/20/technolo...&ei=5087%0A

I consider this a necessity for any anime lover but at a price.

[Transparent Reality]

NAS has been getting pretty popular lately. It's very gimmicky though; it's basically a computer running either RAID0 or RAID5 (probably the latter) with a network card. Pretty pointless unless you share files across a network.

Just your typical workplace technology rebadged for the masses, really. Build one yourself for fun. I'll cost ya around $250+drives.

[Transparent Reality]

Okay, so now I'm done building my machine, and pretty much at a overclock limit. Turns out I don't have the drive bays for 6 drives though. Boo. I'll have to pick up some 5.25 to 3.5 bay adapters.

The final rundown:
Core 2 Duo e6600 OEM 2.4Ghz @ 3Ghz (A retail chip may have a better OC experience; I'm fairly disappointed)
ASUS P5W DH Deluxe
Radeon All in Wonder x1900 (Got it for $200)
2x1GB OCZ Platinum XTC PC2-6400 DDR2-800
Creative Xi-Fi Xtreme Music
3x Seagate 7200.9 250GB SATAII: RAID-0
1x 74GB Western Digital Raptor SATAII
Centurion 5 Case with replaced fans
HIPER Type-R 580W PSU

I'll probably be able to push it another 100Mhz, but I don't really think it's worth it. Hell, I can run Oblivion at full specs (no AA; that's insanity). That's scary enough as it is, coming from a P4.

[Chiyeung DjChi Lau]

haha thanks transparent... i havent replied on this board but i finally bought most of the same parts as you.. though mine was 2100 from a custom builder

[Transparent Reality]

Ouch, you really got burned on the price. And and as for my machine, I got the clock speed up to 3.24Ghz stable, but I've just returned that chip and I'm expecting a brand new week 27 (L627) retail e6600 tomorrow. I'm hoping for 3.6Ghz on the same vCore.

I also got my extra two IDE drives mounted and my memory timings up to 4-4-4-12.

[Efrum The Retarded Rabbit]

www.ibuypower.com

thats where i got mine for fairly cheap
plus, you dont have to worry about accidentally zapping your cards while youre putting them in

[Yakov]

Yeah I was thinking about buying my computer off that site.

[Efrum The Retarded Rabbit]

so my comp came in

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+
2.00 GB of RAM
2.02GHz
GeForce 7600GT
Asus A8N
250GB hard drive
= 1,032$(minus monitor and keyboard + mouse)

It's running Battlefield 2 and Half-Life 2 at full spec at 100+ FPS
well worth the price imo