I will have 4gb ram and a terrabyte hd. I will have a high end graphics card and I will watch youtube and post images and surf the net at speeds which most men only dream of.
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
The I5 isn't as fast as the I7, and the I7 920 is the same price as the I5 comparable processor. A 500W supply is barely adequate for a medium end graphics card, for a high end you'd need at least 700W if not 1000.
Sorry, just didn't want you to end up with something you'd be disappointed with.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
Try checking out NewEgg, they have some really good deals at times.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
Mind you it comes with a lot more of course. The barebones packages are the most affordable. I imagine the I5 will do everything I need, but thank you just the same FL. By the way, how much faster will the I7 be than the I5?
Okay, maybe I don't need a high end graphics card.
By the way, how much faster will the I7 be than the I5?
But the only I7 starts at about twice the price.
The CPUS themselves costs about the same, around $289 (goes up and down each day practically). It's the motherboard for the I7 that costs more, it does more things and is more capable than the I5 motherboard. It also uses triple channel memory rather than dual channel.
As far as speed, it depends on what sorts of applications you plan on running. The I7 not only has 4 physical cores, but also has hyperthreading, allowing the operating system to treat each physical core as two logical processors, where your system runs as if it had 8 CPUS.
The I5 doesn't have hyperthreading, so only runs as 4 CPUS.
In certain applications, such as video encoding (if you want to edit and produce videos from a camcorder for instance), the more CPUS the faster everything runs.
In terms of upgrade paths, the I5 uses a socket which will not be supported by the newer processors coming out, whereas the I7 uses a socket which will be used by the newer processors.
As far as graphics the 8400 is practically obsolete. I'd get at least a 8800 GT, or a 9800 GT, which is a newer card and a tad bit faster.
Depends what you want the graphics card for as well. If you want to do some serious gaming with the newest games maxed out on a wide screen high def 24 inch or larger monitor, you need something like a GTX 295 or something similar (the GTX 280, 285, and 275 cards were almost as good but a LOT cheaper, but are now largely discontinued), then you're talking over $500 for the card.
If you want to play the newer games at acceptable settings on a 22 inch widescreen or smaller monitor, then the 8800GT would be fine, the 9800GT a bit better.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
For standard computing and watching movies, I'd get that PC you were looking at along with the 8800GT. It has Nvidea Pure Video built in which accelerates video, and you might find a used one for around the same price as the one you were looking at.
If you aren't going to be upgrading to the I9 in the near future (8 physical cores), the I5 socket shouldn't make a difference, and for the price, the PC you were looking at seems pretty good.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
I want the graphics card for such things as compiz fusion, watching movies etc.
I never do any gaming.
Then you don't need a discrete graphics card, and you certainly don't need an i5 or i7. The i5 retails for $199...
You can get a quad core AMD cpu for $99 here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103706
It's not an i5, but if you don't game or spend all day processing images or video it's more than enough.
A good motherboard for $90 here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128397
This board has integrated graphics that can playback HD video and run compiz fusion very well.
A case and power supply for $110 here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129024&CMP=OTC-TechReport&ATT=11-129-024&nm_mc=OTC-TechReport&cm_mmc=OTC-TechReport-_-NA-_-NA-_-NA
The quality of this case and power supply are far superior to the system on ebay.
DDR3 memory prices have gone up recently, so 4 GB will cost you about $100: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134718
A very good 500 GB HD for $55: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181
And another good Samsung product in thins DVD burner for $31: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151175
And you're pretty much done for about $500. The quality will be much better than the ebay system and you'll have the satisfaction of putting it together yourself. There are numerous guides on the net for building your own PC. It's easier than it looks.
If you aren't going to be upgrading to the I9 in the near future (8 physical cores), the I5 socket shouldn't make a difference, and for the price, the PC you were looking at seems pretty good.
Thank you for your thoughtful and knowledgeable responses, FL.
I guess I will probably settle for the cheaper one until I can afford the more expensive. Then maybe later I can get the I9.
And you're pretty much done for about $500. The quality will be much better than the ebay system and you'll have the satisfaction of putting it together yourself. There are numerous guides on the net for building your own PC. It's easier than it looks.
I've had trouble with this Radeon 9600 card I got second hand for $20 and getting a driver with linux so I can get the compiz fusion to work. I've been told it's because the 3d accelerator isn't working and I'm thinking of getting a NVIDIA card instead. Would a NVIDIA card work with the AMD desktop?
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
I would be hesitant in buying something like that, not because it won't meet your computing needs, but because the power supply you get with it will be extremely inefficient. You'll be throwing away 40% of the watts it sucks out of the socket. And it's probably not very reliable either. Don't be surprised if it fails within a few months. The quality of the case looks very suspect also.
The case and power supply are the foundation of a good system, and in my opinion it's worth paying a little extra for quality.
nVidia has a reputation for better driver support for linux, but AMD is improving in that regard, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Yes, you can plug an nVidia card on an AMD motherboard.
If you feel building your own isn't for you, go here once a day: http://dealnews.com/ and look for desktop deals from HP or Dell. I wouldn't buy one of them either for the reasons stated above, but in the next couple of weeks you're liable to run into a good deal for an HP or Dell for under $500.
You should shop for a better quality motherboard and get a better power supply too. Buying computers on eBay generally doesn't save you any money. Usually, you're much better off watching the discount sites for a special on the machine you want. For $900, you can get the 17.5" laptops with quad core I7 and all the goodies.
You should shop for a better quality motherboard and get a better power supply too.
Actually, the listed motherboard seems pretty good, it's one of the latest generation Gigabyte motherboards, although a low-end version. What makes it low- end is that is doesn't have all of the features of the higher-end models, such as SLI (running multiple Nvidea graphics cards), although it does appear to support Crossfire (running multiple ATI graphics cards).
Gigabyte is a well established company, and their motherboards are highly overclockable, there's people who've overclocked their I5 processors to 4Ghz with that particular motherboard on air cooling alone.
As far as the power supply, that would be my one main concern, where you have no idea what type they've used in there. For the money their asking for, it most probably isn't a high quality supply. You COULD ask them to put a particular brand in if they customize their builds. Let me know if you need advice on that.
One other thing, the standard Intel cooling fan sucks. You can ask them to put in a better fan, or put one on yourself. It's not that hard to do, but it requires a bit of skill as well as a knowledge of how it's done. Let me know if you need info there as well.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
From what I've seen Intel processors have consistantly blown AMD out of the water.
My old E6850 dual core outperforms the latest AMD quad cores in actual performance. Ok, I've overclocked it to 3.6GHz and have some high performance memory, but still...
Running the SETI software, and comparing the actual computing times for Astropulse (which takes a LONG time to run), my times beat any AMD processor out there.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
Besides being faster, Intel is generally more compatable, at least is has been that way for various specialized Windows based software.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
wudidiz, yep, you'd DEFINITELY need a better power supply, that supply seems to be an older supply designed for the Pentium 4, and doesn't have any SATA power cables or PCI-E power plugs for new graphics cards such as any card that you were considering putting in there.
You definitely want a SATA HD in your PC.
I'd look into the following power supply and see how much they'd charge to put it in..
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
From what I've seen Intel processors have consistantly blown AMD out of the water.
I know. The i5 will beat AMD's best processor handily, and I wasn't even suggesting he get AMD's best.
He's shopping on ebay because he wants to meet his needs on a budget, and from what he said he doesn't need a system based on Intel's top shelf processors. I'd like a Maserati, but I make do with a Corola cause, you know, I'm poor.
Buying a system like that on ebay is just asking for trouble from a reliability and future expandability standpoint. He's much better off slapping together components himself, or, failing that, buying a budget system from HP or Dell.
Thing is, the I5 is pretty cheap, and the motherboards are cheaper than those for the I7. That's why the one he was looking at on Ebay was dirt cheap, although it has an obsolete power supply that would need to be replaced with something more modern.
But yeah, doing it yourself is the way to go if you can do it, and HP or Dell are certainly more reliable than anything you'd find on Ebay.
I can't believe the guy is putting an old ATX PS into a system that has an I5 on there, and with the lack of any PCI Express connectors, you can't run the newer graphics cards.
You COULD get buy with a 4 pin to SATA adapter for the hard drives, but I wouldn't trust anything that old with a newer motherboard...
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
One thing about HP though, some of their machines have inherent problems with the motherboard causing them not to recover from sleep mode. I think I'd settle for a Dell if I had to buy a prebuilt machine.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
(using the Maserati/Corolla comparison) I bought a car off this site a few months back.
A 1989 Ford Tempo with only 149,000 km on it. That's about 100,000 miles of course. Which is very good for a 20 year old car. I had to change the water pump which cost me $50. It was a bit of a chore because it's amazing how much they can cram under the hood of a front wheel drive. Anyway, I paid $450 for it. Pretty good deal. It has power windows and all that.
Hahahaha I'm willing to spend more on a computer.
;-)
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
Thing is it's used, so there probably isn't any warranty on it. For not much more, you can get a new one, probably with an Intel I5 processor.
Let's see what I can dig up for you...
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
Here's a HP with an I5, 8GB of RAM, 1TB disk, a mid range graphics card, memory card reader, DVD burner, wireless networking card builtin, and Windows 7 installed...
Newegg is one of the best online sites there is for buying anything PC related.
As far as a choice of PC, it really depends on what you're upgrading from, and what you want to be able to do with it.
If you have an old Pentium based PC, pretty much anything today will smoke it.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
Browse the sites I showed you, take your time to get a feel for what's out there.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
I now have a Pentium 4 2 ghz processor with 1 Gig ram and a 250 Gig harddrive and another 250 Gig external hard drive.
I have vector linux and it's pretty fast.
I got sick of windows xp.
I don't know if I would be spending anywhere over $500 for something new. Probably not this year.
I bought this one I have now for $120 and spent another $40 on an extra 512 mb ram and two 250 gig hd for $60 bucks each used. The graphics card I got for $30.
I think maybe if I could get something like the used HP I posted, that it would be good because it's got everything including a monitor and 3 gb ram. I dunno, I certainly don't know near as much as you do about it and do have time to think about it though. If I could, I'd just dish out a few grand and get the best, but I can't.
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
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Not sure what happened there.
Those I7 processors are state of the art, right?
And the I9s will fit the socket and I was told the I9s will have 6 cores.
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
Yep, buying a PC today is quite a decision, as you can buy something really cheap, but will you be happy with it six-months down the road, or buy a PC for a little more money but something that you can upgrade when you feel the need for more speed... :)
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
One thing to keep in mind is that not ALL I7's use the same type socket that the I9's will use. The I7 9xx series processor, such as the 920, use the 1366 socket which the I9's will also use.
The I7 8xx series processor such as the 860, on the other hand, uses the same socket as the I5, which is the 1156 socket.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
Hey wud, here's a pretty decent PC that you can choose the various components for, everything from the case to the graphics card. It's baseline price with an I7 920 is $799.
If you're considering it let me know, I can give you a few tips on what it could use in the way of options.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
If you're not going to run Windows, then you might not even need a new PC, and if you just need a bit faster video, perhaps a faster graphics card would do the trick?
Can you check your CPU usage on Linux?
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
It's quite an upgrade from what you have now in terms of processing power and ram, and the Intel integrated graphics, though crappy for gaming, will run compiz just fine.
Not too familiar with Linux and it's compatability with newer technology, but wouldn't there be a problem if he's trying to watch movies that require HDMI as it doesn't appear to be HDMI compatible?
The item isn't available BTW...
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
I know his existing motherboard wouldn't have HDMI, I was talking about the new one you were suggesting.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen