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**KickAshMan** · 07-09-2002, 09:50 AM

Try http://newegg.com they have A++ service and everything is cheap. Also shipping is cheap to. Only restrictions are you must build it yourself and you must live in the United States for them to ship it to you. Check it out you wont be unhappy

.

-KickAshMan

**JohnCho** · 07-09-2002, 06:47 PM

Thanke

Thanke kam

**Epinephrine** · 07-09-2002, 07:17 PM

If you want to save money I'd suggest building your own. All computer parts come with instructions (be it a manual or a piece of paper telling you what stuff you're supposed to connect to what). As long as you're not SCARED of it, it should be quite easy to build. Actually many computer stores will build your computer or at least screw in the vital components for free if you beg them enough

Go to a real computer store, not a retail store like Best Buy or something. Retail stores rip you off. Generally stuff that comes in a box will cost you around $20 more per component, at real computer stores you can get almost everything (except motherboard and video card) by itself and not in a box. They are the same parts, but don't have fancy packaging or bundled crappy software

Look at local newspapers for computer stores and find the best prices. Or you can alternatively go to www.pricewatch.com or www.ubid.com and find your own hardware on the internet for good prices.

If you want a good mid/high-end system for school and some games for a good price I would recommend:

-CPU : AMD Athlon 1700+ XP (or pay a bit more and go to 1800 or 1900 or even 2100)
-Motherboard: MSI Motherboard (get their AMD motherboard not the Intel one! www.msi.com for more info) They have one with integrated 5.1 Dolby sound for cheap.. I have this MB it's nice and cheaper than other brands.
-RAM: 512 Megs DDR RAM
-Video Card: GeForce3 Ti600 64 Megs (yes a GeForce 4 is faster, but GeForce3 is 1/2 the price roughly). Or ATI Radeon 8500 64 meg which is slightly slower. If you want to shell out more, ATI All-in-wonder 8500 is cool too as it has a TV Tuner. Warning: ATI cards suck with Windows XP.
-Network: Ethernet Card (any brand will do, this is for your university internet connnection

-Modem: Do people use these anymore?
-Hard Drive: 40 GB (any brand)
-MS Optical Mouse ($30?)
-Keyboard ($10?)
-10x DVD Drive (any brand)
-Optional: EXTRA CD-RW Drive (any brand, 12x write speed should be more than enough for ya)
-Monitor: 19" Samsung (they make absolutely the best monitors for low prices... people usually cheap out on monitors but they really are the most important part of your computer)
-Speakers: Altec Lansing (whatever you want, check their website)

BTW if you are only using the TV Tuner for a PS2 (and not actually for watching TV, as you'd probably only get a few channels anyway unless you want to pay for cable TV), I would suggest against getting a TV tuner. Get a GeForce3 Ti600 TIVO card (tivo = tv in and out). I believe the ATI Radeon 8500 also comes in TIVO. This would be a cheaper alternative.

This system should keep you on top of things for 4 years or so for sure.

-Epi

**KickAshMan** · 07-09-2002, 08:06 PM

Yes also at newegg.com they have brandnames that comes with insturctions and all the stuff you need just dont come in the fancy box

. And it is way cheaper -KickAshMan

I built my computer from there and got a couple of thing including 2100xp geforce 3 128mb and everthing else. Just only cost 900 dollars and I got what I want for like 600 dollars less then in stores or assembled pc's. Also if considering building a PC you must make sure that your motherboard will support all the stuff you want to add to it. As a type of CPU I would recommend AMD because there chips are better performence and cost less.
-KickAshMan

**Dantax** · 07-09-2002, 08:16 PM

Good choice on the CPU. I do always recommend retail boxed though, since it'll include a 3 year warranty. With OEM you need to buy your own heatsink/fan and usually only get 30 days to 1 year.

MSI should be fine for the motherboard, though I'd recommend Epox myself as I've had very good results with them. If you go with an AMD CPU, you'll want a board with the KT266A, KT333, or KT333a chipset if it's on the market yet.

I don't know that I'd shell out the extra money for 512MB ram, 256MB should do fine. I would recommend that you not get cheap on this, and buy some quality stuff from http://www.crucial.com. Also, you'll want PC2700 if you go with one of the KT333 boards.

For your video I'd recommend a Geforce4 TI4200 VIVO(video in/video out, not TIVO). You can get a retail boxed one from http://www.newegg.com for around $170. If you don't want/need VIVO, you can get a TI4200 for around $150. A retail Geforce3 Ti500 will run around $140. It's worth it over the Geforce3.

A seperate TV Tuner card can cost from $50 to over $100 depending on what you want. I have the ATI TV Wonder PCI, and it's pretty nice. Be warned that the VE doesn't support stereo sound. As Epi mentioned, if you don't actually intend to watch TV on it, just play games, you can get a VIVO videocard and plug your console into it. And if you did decide you wanted to watch TV on it, you could hook a VCR up to it, and use that as the tuner. An ATI AIW Radeon 8500 might be a good choice if you want to watch tv, play your console, and play video games. It performs right about the level of a GF3 Ti500.

For a hard drive, I'd recommend the 80GB Western Digital Special Edition drive. It's $114 at newegg right now, and performs much better than other standard 7200RPM drives.

For the DVD Drive, I recommend the Lite-on 16x DVD.

Well, that's about it from me. I'm not going to write a book right now.

**Dantax** · 07-09-2002, 08:20 PM

Oh, and if you get one of the VIA chipsets I mentioned, I'd avoid the Creative Labs soundcards. Though I did finally get my Live! working well, I've read of a lot of problems with the Audigy cards. The most popular alternatives are the Philips Acoustic Edge, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, and Hercules Game Theater XP.

**KickAshMan** · 07-09-2002, 10:08 PM

Dantax i did get the retail box for my processor, I was mostly talking about my hard drive i got wasnt retail box and it was cheaper. You also should get retail box if you get 2100xp because it comes with a heat sync also you dont have to buy thermal paste because there is a special adhesive stuff on the heat sync fan already. -KickAshMan

**k3vin** · 07-09-2002, 10:21 PM

i have a 98 somthin gateway 2000 w/ pentium 2 processor. In other words, its a very slow, very heavy paperweight

**Seize** · 07-09-2002, 11:38 PM

ewwww...

If you want a computer strictly for school and u dont want it for games I'd look on Ebay for some sort of pentium II 350+ which is fine for that sort of thing. try and get a generic 16M video crad, forget the Zip drive go for a CD-r instead.

if you wanna play games on it... listen to the fools above me

**JohnCho** · 07-09-2002, 11:49 PM

<-- works at Best Buy... haha Thats the reason Employee discount is pretty good plus no shipping and handling costs.

I would build my own computer, but I don't know how and I don't have much time to learn & assemble...

The computer I own was custom built... I trusted this guy & he built me this junk.

But seriously, what software & accessories is a must have for a college dorm?

**Jason** · 07-09-2002, 11:53 PM

P4 1.6a with either an Asus P4T533-C or an Abit TH7-II and some Kingston PC1066... take that puppy and overclock and it will blow any AMD system out of the water.

As others have said though, definitely build it yourself and definitely go with NewEgg. You can't go wrong there.

**JohnCho** · 07-09-2002, 11:55 PM

Originally posted by Epinephrine

If you want a good mid/high-end system for school and some games for a good price I would recommend:

-CPU : AMD Athlon 1700+ XP (or pay a bit more and go to 1800 or 1900 or even 2100)
-Motherboard: MSI Motherboard (get their AMD motherboard not the Intel one! www.msi.com for more info) They have one with integrated 5.1 Dolby sound for cheap.. I have this MB it's nice and cheaper than other brands.
-RAM: 512 Megs DDR RAM
-Video Card: GeForce3 Ti600 64 Megs (yes a GeForce 4 is faster, but GeForce3 is 1/2 the price roughly). Or ATI Radeon 8500 64 meg which is slightly slower. If you want to shell out more, ATI All-in-wonder 8500 is cool too as it has a TV Tuner. Warning: ATI cards suck with Windows XP.
-Network: Ethernet Card (any brand will do, this is for your university internet connnection
-Modem: Do people use these anymore?
-Hard Drive: 40 GB (any brand)
-MS Optical Mouse ($30?)
-Keyboard ($10?)
-10x DVD Drive (any brand)
-Optional: EXTRA CD-RW Drive (any brand, 12x write speed should be more than enough for ya)
-Monitor: 19" Samsung (they make absolutely the best monitors for low prices... people usually cheap out on monitors but they really are the most important part of your computer)
-Speakers: Altec Lansing (whatever you want, check their website)

-Epi

Ooh, sorry. Missed that. Thanks

I heard the GeForce4's aren't all the same. Some are crap and the Ti 4200 or something or other is what I want. But do I need something that powerful?

**DuckDuck** · 07-10-2002, 04:36 AM

Where can i get industrial comps(about same size wise) that are made by people who only want to make good ones instead of just make moneyy off it cinstead of ones for consumers ?

**Fallen Angel** · 07-10-2002, 05:27 AM

Costum baby!

Asus A7V133 Mobo
AMD Athlon 1200 Mhz @ 1200 Mhz
Danec 256Mb SDRAM @ 133 Mhz
Asus V7700 GeForce 2 GTS 64 MB DDR
Creative Soundblaster Live!
Plexwriter 16/10/40A
Aopen DVDROM 12/40
AOpen 250 Watt casing
Maxtor DiamondMax 30 Gb
Extra fan.
HD Cooling fans (set of 3)
Cambridge Soundworks speaker set (4 sat. speakers, 1 subwoofer)
Iiyama Visionmaster 406 17' monitor

Bought it 1.5 years ago.

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