Need help choosing a computer

Ashok_2

Okay changed mind again, decided to stick with the P5K Wifi Deluxe mobo.. it has HD sound and the wifi..

If I went with the MSI, I'd end up paying same to get Wifi and a sound card.

GoofyGAT

The majority of users won't see a visible difference between 667Mhz & 800Mhz RAM (so your builder is correct). You seem to have been to too many geeky websites where everyone is trying to get the best spec together for the budget without actually paying attention to the budget! The real question is whether you want to spend the extra (£18 or whatever) for the 'faster' RAM - so it comes down to personal choice & budget-permitting in the end.

No, it doesn't matter whether you go for Corsair/OCZ/similar good brand - look more at the specs. Just avoid 'generic' memory (like eBuyer's own) as it's not worth it for just a few pounds difference over the branded memory. Even if this was a low-end budget system, I'd still go for the branded stuff - if anything, there's too little in it not to.

I reckon quality motherboards these days (& especially the Asus you've chosen) come with very good sound, so negates the need for a dedicated soundcard. The simplest thing to do is: see how you get on with onboard sound. If you're not particularly happy, this can always be upgraded to the X-Fi in the future. Problem solved . G

P.S. Concerning Dell & PayPal. I wish you shared your sentiments about Dell when I mentioned them the first time! As I said, there's a way around paying by PayPal, but I suppose you don't know anyone who'll be willing to do what I said.

"With this I get long warranties with parts so protected for a while" - Are you entirely sure about this? You said the eBay seller offered a 1-year warranty on the system - is he really going to honour individual manufacturer's warranties as well? I suppose it wouldn't be a problem if the goods were ordered from eBuyer/Scan/similar & you were given the original receipts, but what if he's a 'trade' customer & ordering your parts from trade-only websites*? If this is the case, he may not be prepared to honour this. (*This will net him a much bigger profit, but that's a different story.)

Cerro

Yes a £30 soundcard would make a difference - it is a Creative X-FI, the only difference between the basic model and the expensive ones is the output (power wise) and the connection options (like a digital output). A good onboard soundcard will probably do - some boards come with an X-FI built in. But then I personally don't want to burden the CPU with anything extra, I'd rather have my NIC and Soundcards separately. So £30 would make a difference both audio wise and processor load wise - although the gain in the latter is pretty small, the former is more important to you. But as Goofy has pointed out, you can always upgrade it yourself with great ease.

The guys statement about ram is true in your case - 667/800 isn't a huge gap but on a P35 board, i wouldn't go less than 800Mhz. Yes the timings tend to be higher (he is refering to CAS latencies) but between 667 and 800? They are both usually CAS4 (he could claim the individual timings are better but that wouldn't make any difference in your case). I personally use Corsair 1066Mhz ram which is CAS5 rated and I can tell you for certain it outperforms any 667/800Mhz ram. However its high end ram designed for performance and is expensive and you don't need it. I just needed to make my point... I resent the comment about geeky websites Goofy! If it wasn't for me here, Ashok would be stuck with your ramblings and probably end up with a PC that runs of steam power!

As Goofy has already said, branded ram is much better than the generic stuff. Stick with trusted brands, OCZ, Corsair, Patriot, Kingston and Crucial
(ok so nothing great about Kingston/Crucial but at least they work). The quality of the work on branded modules is much better and the components used it their manufacture is also of a much higher quality. Warranties also tend to be longer and the only time i've ever had Corsair stuff replaced, they did it - no questions asked. The one and only time I've had to return stuff to ebuyer they made a dogs dinner of it and lost me as a customer forever.

Edit: Forgot to mention, if you want to upgrade to 4Gb ram in the future make sure the ram your builder is using is 2x1Gb sticks not 4x512Mb sticks, since a motherboard only has room for 4 sticks of ram!

Ashok_2

Soundcard - well I'm going for an Asus P5K Deluxe/WiFi-AP so hopefully the onboard soundcard will do, I'm not sure which one it is.

RAM - It's a bit over £20 more than the Corsair 667MHz at £51.99 but I'm going to go for this , if that's okay? It's probably overkill, but at least it has the platinum warranty, and I'll go with Cerro's advice and stick with 800MHz.

When you say 1066MHz is for performance, what kind of things do you do out of interest?

Also, on the eBuyer forums I posted spec as it is, and they also recommended better RAM (as we said) and they also mentioned it's better to get a SATA DVD_RW because I'm buying 2 of them? Just wondering what the benefits of this would be , and is it really worth it?

Cerro

Ashok wrote: »

Soundcard - well I'm going for an Asus P5K Deluxe/WiFi-AP so hopefully the onboard soundcard will do, I'm not sure which one it is.

Should be fine - sounds like a generic 7.1 onboard card but its by ASUS so it shouldn't be too bad. Probably not perfect but if its not good enough, you can buy one.

Ashok wrote:

RAM - It's a bit over £20 more than the Corsair 667MHz at £51.99 but I'm going to go for this , if that's okay? It's probably overkill, but at least it has the platinum warranty, and I'll go with Cerro's advice and stick with 800MHz.

That ram isn't overkill its pretty standard. And that is what your motherboard is rated for, being a newer P35 board.

Ashok wrote:

When you say 1066MHz is for performance, what kind of things do you do out of interest?

I use my computer for just about everything - .NET Programming and alot of Games mostly, also do alot of file compression/extraction due to my large volume of downloads and it takes ages on rubbish ram. I also need the ram because I overclock the PC and overclocking on cheap ram doesn't work and it wouldn't make sense either - the ram needs to be able to handle greater stress and speeds. I even have a dedicated fan for the ram!

Ashok wrote:

Also... they also mentioned it's better to get a SATA DVD_RW because I'm buying 2 of them? Just wondering what the benefits of this would be , and is it really worth it?

Don't think there is a massive difference, although SATA data transfer speeds are much higher than the old IDE. Prices between sata and ide drives tend to be the same and you've got 6 sata ports on your motherboard, might as well make use of them! IDE is going to become less and less common, so if you want to reuse the drives in another machine (in a couple years) then sata should still be in use. Both my dvd-rw drives are sata drives, i went with them because i could reuse them - if you buy a dell machine the drives will also be sata based, its become the standard.

Ashok_2

Thanks, well I've put in this RAM for now, but yeah I also do a lot of downloading and I hate extraction times with my current RAM (even that is 2GB and on an Alienware laptop), doy ou think it's worth paying extra for 1066MHz? Or not really just for RAR extracting.

With the DVD RWs, I'm having trouble finding the equivelent in SATA of what I have currently.. I wanted something black with Lightscribe and not too expensive?

The person building said there could be compatibility issues if I go for SATA though?

Ashok_2

Guys need quick opinion before I order..

If I went for ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP instead of the P5K WIFI-AP what differences would I notice??

Thanks.

P5K-E is cheaper, and the other one is out of stock anyway?

Ashok_2

That's final spec: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260145524421

Just paid.. Hope it goes okay?

Cerro

Ashok wrote: »

That's final spec: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260145524421

Just paid.. Hope it goes okay?

Yeah looks fine - still don't understand why you bought 32bit vista? Why not 64bit - no reason not to with that system and its cheaper...

GoofyGAT

Ashok wrote: »

That's final spec: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260145524421
Just paid.. Hope it goes okay?

Looks good .

In your position, I'd stick to 32-bit Vista for now. If you were an advanced user, 64-bit may be worth trying. There are a few things to be taken into consideration when looking at 64-bit - e.g. see here - though I don't know how true some of those hold at present, or how much they're likely to adversely affect you.

You'll probably have a slightly faster, more stable system (if there are no driver issues) but some present games, software applications & peripherals may not work at all.

If you wait a while, there'll be better drivers, present games/applications updated, new ones created, etc - in short, less hassle. I'd also say that for your PC usage & under 4Gb RAM there won't be much gain - 64-bit may need 4Gb or more to hit the 'sweet spot' performance-wise.

However, if you must have 64-bit, do your research before going for it - ask on knowledgeable forums & read up on related content. There's likely to be a heated debate about this, but with your usage & knowledge in mind (please don't take this the wrong way!) my recommendation is to stick with 32-bit, but definitely consider it in a year or so.

Cerro wrote: »

I resent the comment about geeky websites Goofy!

Don't be silly Cerro - what's there to resent? Unless you were one of those people who gave advice in the other forums & resent being called a geek? I apologise if I've offended you in this way .

I was going to say something a little stronger actually - along the lines of those [supposed] geeks being obsessive*, splitting hairs, etc but it came out the wrong way about the budget, etc. If anything, I was 'having a go' at myself too - notice how many of my posts in this thread come across this way* too?

Well, in a webforum it's hard to know what a poster really means in some posts - to gauge his/her mischievous intent or catch the glint in his/her eye. In hindsight, I should've embellished my post with a few appropriate smileys to avoid any misunderstanding or cause possible offence. G