Making the ultimate Doom 3 PC

[Alientank]

Well after looking at statistics online and seeing that AMD is so much cheaper for parts then Intel is, I might just go the AMD way with the 3000+ processor (or whatever is out next year) and the Asus nforce2 board.

[Raziel]

I'm getting a new PC in September 2004 when Windows Leghorn comes out. It'll have a country theme, and the boot-up sound will be a banjo playing.

[Fredrik]

Dubh said:

The only real trouble with a machine is the price of a decent sized monitor. Any suggestions on screens?

19" monitors go for less than $200 now.

[Lord FlatHead]

A local supermarket store here in Belgium (the same one I bought my pc from two years ago) is selling this for 1250 € : (I think that works out to between 1100 and 1200 $)

Pentium IV 2.6Ghz titanium MD 8008
512MB DDR 333Mhz RAM
ATI Radeon 9600TX 128MB DDR SDRAM 540Mhz
TV-in and out
DVD/CD writer 4xDVD-R 2X DVD-RW
Some crappy sound card
Two crappy speakers
Microsoft Intellimouse & Office keyboard
120GB ATA100 7200rpm HD
3x Firewire
5x USB
Slots for flash memory cards
10/100 Mbit Fast Ethernet card

All this plus some other stuff, WinXP professional edition and a bunch of software. The only thing missing is the monitor - though the store is selling a nice 19" screen at € 189 as well.

I'm sure you pc geeks will laugh at all this because, y'know, you can assemble this pc for 1/10th the price and make it run 25,000 percent faster through TEH POWAR OF OVERCLOAKIGN. But still, if I had the money right now I'd buy it. Too bad the GBA SP is coming out next week... there goes my hard-earned cold, merciless cash.

Anyway. Just wanted you to know.

[NailGunner]

Lord FlatHead said:

Too bad the GBA SP is coming out next week... there goes my hard-earned cold, merciless cash.

Ah, the GameBoy Advance SP. I too lust after this little guilty pleasure. Childish, yes, but it helps the night shift go buy just a little easier.

[sniperfrommars1]

Personally I think your overdoing the processors, 2.4 gigs should be sufficient and a nice top end video card. Hell people are running the alpha right now on less. Im gonna be using an Asus P4Pe motherboard ,and a p4 2.8 with radeon 9800. The motherboard supports hyperthreading, (*although doom wont*) and half a gig of ram should be sufficient. ANd alienware sucks for the money. Buy yourself an antec case and call it a day. lol

[NailGunner]

As for me, I'm thinking along the lines of the Nvidia NForce 2 chipset coupled with an AMD 2800+, or even a 3000+. (This setup will let the 9700 Pro really shine, and the 333 Mhz processor bus won't hurt either.) These are the plans thus far, although I am waiting for the new 64 bit AMD processors to make an appearance. With their release, the prices of the before mentioned hardware should be knocked down a bit. (I play Pricewatch.com like the stock market...) Patience is a virtue.

[Alientank]

Nailgunner pricewatch is full of bad vendors. I suggest newegg.com they have wicked service and they aren't a pain to get a hold of about problems, they also have the cheapest prices anywhere but pricewatch. But like I said, pricewatch is terrible for vendors. A lot will sell you defective stuff and calling them about problems is a hassle because most act like they don't know you. Happened to a friend of mine.

[NailGunner]

Thanks for the warning Alientank. All the same, I use Pricewatch.com as (more or less,) a medium for the online hardware market as whole. As a search engine, they seldom lead you wrong. Yes, Newegg.com has yet to steer me wrong as well, but there are many other reputable options floating around out there.

[sniperfrommars1]

Alientank said:

Nailgunner pricewatch is full of bad vendors. I suggest newegg.com they have wicked service and they aren't a pain to get a hold of about problems, they also have the cheapest prices anywhere but pricewatch. But like I said, pricewatch is terrible for vendors. A lot will sell you defective stuff and calling them about problems is a hassle because most act like they don't know you. Happened to a friend of mine.

LOL newegg is listed on pricewatch. Good prices though Ill agree

[Goat]

i built my pc from newegg, it is the best way to go. very cheap, and very reliable.

[Rotting Corpse]

OK hte best thing ot do is...Build your own!Get the spects for the area 51.Go to comp usa and get parts. When you buy form aline ware they are chageing you for building it. Pluse of you build your own it easyer ot fix if it crashes.

[NailGunner]

Um, that's what this whole exchange was about; building your own PC. As far as CompUSA goes, I'll go there for cables and fans, but their hardware prices are not even close to what you can get them for from your average online vendor.

[Rotting Corpse]

NailGunner said:

Um, that's what this whole exchange was about; building your own PC. As far as CompUSA goes, I'll go there for cables and fans, but their hardware prices are not even close to what you can get them for from your average online vendor.

Well if I had the net and a credit card then that would be true.I have seen alot of custom pc's with horrable cooling.Poeple dont seem to under stand how Iportant cooling is.

[NailGunner]

Too true. Airflow is a must.

[sniperfrommars1]

Rotting Corpse said:

Well if I had the net and a credit card then that would be true.I have seen alot of custom pc's with horrable cooling.Poeple dont seem to under stand how Iportant cooling is.

ANd just as many make really noisy pc's. A rheobus is worth every damned penny or at least a good motherboard with decent fan monitoring. Antec makes some nice smart fans in the five to ten dollar range

[Alientank]

Smart fans are good but not that good. If you want true cooling get an SLK-900 heatsink and put a Tornado 92mm on there. Moves 114 CFM

[sniperfrommars1]

Alientank said:

Smart fans are good but not that good. If you want true cooling get an SLK-900 heatsink and put a Tornado 92mm on there. Moves 114 CFM

Im talking about case fans not heatsinks. Im using a thermaltake dragon orb 478s right now. Move plenty keeps my rig nice in cold (in fact its kind of chilly in there right now)