Need system critique before purchase

[Bam Bam]

I am going to be building my first computer since I put together an old
486 year and years ago. This is for a general purpose home office PC
that will be used for just about everything: financial number
crunching/graphing, photo editing, audio recording/editing, some gaming
(perhaps more with new system), video recording/editing, etc. Needs to
be a good all-round performer.

I would be very appreciative if some of you more experienced folks
would suggest possible improvements or note any red flags. The system
needs to come in under $1600.

(Newegg List)

1 COOLER MASTER Praetorian PAC-T01-EK Black All Aluminium Alloy ATX
Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811119035
$108.50

1 ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD
Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131540
$154.99

1 XFX PV-T73G-UDD3 Geforce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video
Card
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814150140
$199.00

1 Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817103931
$89.99

1 AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core
Processor Model ADA4400CDBOX
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819103546
$460.00

1 CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model TWINX2048-3200
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820145486
$164.00

1 NEC Black 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Drive
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16821152001
$6.99

2 Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard
Drive
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822144417
$167.98

2 LITE-ON 16X DVD±R DVD Burner W/ LightScribe and 5X DVD-RAM Write
Black ATAPI/E-IDE Model SHM-165H6S
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16827106019
$87.98

1 Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16835100007
$5.99

1 ZALMAN CNPS9500 LED 92mm 2 Ball Blue LED Light Cooling Fan with
Heatsink
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16835118223
$59.99

Subtotal: $1,505.41

 

[John Doe]

I am going to be building my first computer since I put together
an old 486 year and years ago. This is for a general purpose home
office PC...

The system needs to come in under $1600.

That would be easy.

(Newegg List)

1 COOLER MASTER Praetorian PAC-T01-EK Black All Aluminium Alloy
ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811119035
$108.50

For a general purpose home/office PC?

1 ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD
Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131540
$154.99

Yup. I think spending on the mainboard is a good idea.

1 XFX PV-T73G-UDD3 Geforce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16
Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814150140
$199.00

Umm, yeah, for a gamer.

1 Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817103931
$89.99

For a general purpose home/office PC?

1 AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core
Processor Model ADA4400CDBOX
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819103546
$460.00

For a general purpose home/office PC?

1 CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model TWINX2048-3200
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820145486
$164.00

1 NEC Black 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Drive
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16821152001
$6.99

Floppy drives are obsolete, in my opinion.

Remove some of the pork and you can buy a good 1/2/4 GB memory stick
(USB flash drive) or two. If you don't already have some, it's a
very good idea IMO to put in your budget. Always keep a backup of
important files.

1 ZALMAN CNPS9500 LED 92mm 2 Ball Blue LED Light Cooling Fan
with Heatsink
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16835118223
$59.99

No strobe light?

Have fun.

 

[Bob Day]

I am going to be building my first computer since I put together an old
486 year and years ago. This is for a general purpose home office PC
that will be used for just about everything: financial number
crunching/graphing,

In that case, consider getting ECC memory and a mainboard that
will support ECC.

-- Bob Day
http://bobday.vze.com

 

[John Doe]

In that case, consider getting ECC memory and a mainboard that
will support ECC.

After doing a little research, I have a feeling that if you take the
ECC versus regular memory question to a numbercrunching group,
you're going to either get no reply or get unenthusiastic replies.

A personal computer is probably subject to hardware failure and/or
power fluctuations, among other things, that make ECC memory an
insignificant benefit.

I'm curious. I've never heard anyone else in a technical support
group praise ECC memory.

 

[Man-wai Chang]

I'm curious. I've never heard anyone else in a technical support

group praise ECC memory.

Depends on your project. Does it call for a 100% reliability? IN the
extreme, you build a cluster to vote on the right computation result
(something like the computer systems aboard the space shuttle).


--
.~. Might, Courage, Vision, SINCERITY. http://www.linux-sxs.org
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty! May the Force and Farce be with you!
/( _ )\ (Ubuntu 5.10) Linux 2.6.16.16
^ ^ 19:11:01 up 1 day 3:38 0 users load average: 1.00 1.01 1.06
news://news.3home.net news://news.hkpcug.org news://news.newsgroup.com.hk

 

[Mike T.]

I am going to be building my first computer since I put together an old
486 year and years ago. This is for a general purpose home office PC
that will be used for just about everything: financial number
crunching/graphing, photo editing, audio recording/editing, some gaming
(perhaps more with new system), video recording/editing, etc. Needs to
be a good all-round performer.

I would be very appreciative if some of you more experienced folks
would suggest possible improvements or note any red flags. The system
needs to come in under $1600.

(Newegg List)

1 COOLER MASTER Praetorian PAC-T01-EK Black All Aluminium Alloy ATX
Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811119035
$108.50

1 ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD
Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131540
$154.99

1 XFX PV-T73G-UDD3 Geforce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video
Card
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814150140
$199.00

1 Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817103931
$89.99

1 AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core
Processor Model ADA4400CDBOX
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819103546
$460.00

1 CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model TWINX2048-3200
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820145486
$164.00


OK, that list looks pretty good. I'd say 'excellent', except for the choice
of mainboard. Asus has a good rep., but they also have serious quality
control issues. (they do not deserve the rep. they have) You can buy
better quality for much less money. Besides, even if that motherboard was
top-notch quality, the features are overkill for what you are building. I'd
suggest you save some money AND get a better quality mainboard by choosing
one of the following instead:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813137065
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136163
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123251 (if you
must have SLI, which you likely won't use)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138253 (another
good SLI choice, about half the price of the asus board)

And as someone else wrote, ditch the floppy and replace it with a USB memory
stick. I've seen 1Gig sticks as low as twenty bucks recently. -Dave

 

[djs0302]

Floppy drives are obsolete, in my opinion.

Remove some of the pork and you can buy a good 1/2/4 GB memory stick
(USB flash drive) or two. If you don't already have some, it's a
very good idea IMO to put in your budget. Always keep a backup of
important files.

I still use a floppy drive for backing up items such as program
settings or saved games since those files are usually only a few
kilobytes in size and are constantly being updated. I use cd's to
store the more permanent stuff.

 

[John Doe]

I still use a floppy drive for backing up items such as program
settings or saved games since those files are usually only a few
kilobytes in size and are constantly being updated. I use cd's to
store the more permanent stuff.

It's time to move up to USB flash drives. Tons more storage than a
floppy drive and way more convenient than CDs. After you try it,
it's obviously the next wave in removable storage.

Path: newssvr14.news.prodigy.com!newsdbm05.news.prodigy.com!newsmst01b.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!newscon06.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.net!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail
From: djs0302 aol.com
Newsgroups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Subject: Re: Need system critique before purchase
Date: 12 May 2006 12:57:48 -0700
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[Charlie Wilkes]

I am going to be building my first computer since I put together an old
486 year and years ago. This is for a general purpose home office PC
that will be used for just about everything: financial number
crunching/graphing, photo editing, audio recording/editing, some gaming
(perhaps more with new system), video recording/editing, etc. Needs to
be a good all-round performer.

I would be very appreciative if some of you more experienced folks
would suggest possible improvements or note any red flags. The system
needs to come in under $1600.

(Newegg List)

1 COOLER MASTER Praetorian PAC-T01-EK Black All Aluminium Alloy ATX
Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811119035
$108.50

1 ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD
Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131540
$154.99

1 XFX PV-T73G-UDD3 Geforce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video
Card
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814150140
$199.00

1 Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817103931
$89.99

1 AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core
Processor Model ADA4400CDBOX
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819103546
$460.00

1 CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model TWINX2048-3200
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820145486
$164.00

1 NEC Black 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Drive
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16821152001
$6.99

2 Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard
Drive
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822144417
$167.98

2 LITE-ON 16X DVD±R DVD Burner W/ LightScribe and 5X DVD-RAM Write
Black ATAPI/E-IDE Model SHM-165H6S
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16827106019
$87.98

1 Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16835100007
$5.99

1 ZALMAN CNPS9500 LED 92mm 2 Ball Blue LED Light Cooling Fan with
Heatsink
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16835118223
$59.99

Subtotal: $1,505.41

Looks big & tasty, pal. I think you should break the bank and go for
a second video card. And get some more lights going. Office work
should be fun.

Charlie

 

[johns]

Toss the following:

ASUS mobo. It is a kids gamer mobo, and breaks easily.
any video card by XFX .. it will be a refurb.
NEC floppy .. low quality
WD hard drive .. again low quality.
Lite-on dvd .. noisy as hades .. think hurricane Katrina.
Zalman ... the stock X2 fan is very good and quiet.

Replace with:

MSI or Gigabyte mobo bundle assembled and tested
BFG or eVGA video card ... good warranty and no refurb scam.
Sony floppy ... long lasting good quality
Sony dvd/rw ... very quiet and up to date BIOS .. no conflicts.
Hitachi hard drive .. SATA300

I prefer:

Kingston ram. I've gotten flakes from Crucial in the past.
Antec SLK1650B case because it is small and easy to
place around / near the desk, and because of the side
port air vent.
Any of the Viewsonic 19" LCD monitors 8msec or better.

Comment:

What is it with you guys and those suck-ass ASUS mobos?
I can't believe anybody would be that stupid, and keep
buying those rip-off kid toys. They are HUGE. You can't
push data around something that big. They won't even fit
in most modern cases. I can kick their butts with a Gigabyte
mobo at half the price ... and save a fortune on RMAs.

johns

 

[johns]

Recovery floppies are still the main way to get back in
and reimage a crashed drive. The USB sticks sort of
work on the newer recovery programs and mobo
BIOSs, but not yet. Same with the boot CDs. And
even the WinXP install disks go looking for the A-drive
for SATA drivers and everything. I got stupid and left
out the floppies in my labs ... so I have a USB floppy
drive.

johns

 

[Mike T.]

Toss the following:

ASUS mobo. It is a kids gamer mobo, and breaks easily.

Don't know about it being a kids gamer board, but Asus does have a problem
with quality control

any video card by XFX .. it will be a refurb.

Shouldn't it be labelled as such, if it is?

NEC floppy .. low quality

Considering how often it will be used (like almost never), is this really a
problem?

WD hard drive .. again low quality.

Wow, I don't know where that came from. WD had some quality control issues
a while back. But over all, they are a better bet than many other brands,
most specifically including Hitachi, which you recommend instead of WD.

Lite-on dvd .. noisy as hades .. think hurricane Katrina.

Well, you can get better than Lite-on, but a DVD player is only noisy when
it's in use. Most people who are concerned about a noisy system shouldn't
have to choose a DVD drive based on how loud it isn't.

Zalman ... the stock X2 fan is very good and quiet.

That's been my experience with stock CPU fans, also. They aren't too bad.

Replace with:

MSI or Gigabyte mobo bundle assembled and tested
BFG or eVGA video card ... good warranty and no refurb scam.
Sony floppy ... long lasting good quality
Sony dvd/rw ... very quiet and up to date BIOS .. no conflicts.
Hitachi hard drive .. SATA300

I prefer:

Kingston ram. I've gotten flakes from Crucial in the past.
Antec SLK1650B case because it is small and easy to
place around / near the desk, and because of the side
port air vent.
Any of the Viewsonic 19" LCD monitors 8msec or better.

Well, you do have good taste on some components, at least.

Comment:

What is it with you guys and those suck-ass ASUS mobos?
I can't believe anybody would be that stupid, and keep
buying those rip-off kid toys.

The problem with Asus is, all the experts love them. You know, the experts
who bench-test the things for a couple of days or maybe a week or two. What
the experts don't see is that the Asus boards have an incredibly high
failure rate within the first year, but that they USUALLY will survive a
couple weeks of bench-testing with flying colors. So the less-experienced
builders read the reviews and wrongfully conclude that Asus is really high
quality. Well, if you drive a Kia automobile, you might like Asus. But . .
.. -Dave

 

[Bam Bam]

Thanks for the critique Johns.... more research is obviously needed on
my part.

 

[KC Computers]

What is it with you guys and those suck-ass ASUS mobos?

The problem with Asus is, all the experts love them. You know, the
experts who bench-test the things for a couple of days or maybe a week or
two. What the experts don't see is that the Asus boards have an
incredibly high failure rate within the first year, but that they USUALLY
will survive a couple weeks of bench-testing with flying colors. So the
less-experienced builders read the reviews and wrongfully conclude that
Asus is really high quality. Well, if you drive a Kia automobile, you
might like Asus. But . . . -Dave

What exactly are your qualifications? We are a computer builder who sells
around 20
motherboards a month and most are ASUS. They have given us and our
customers
relatively few issues over the years. We offer a one year advanced
replacement
warranty on them (it addition to the manufacturer's 3 year warranty) and it
would really hurt our
business selling something which had more problems than normal.

 

[Mike T.]

What exactly are your qualifications? We are a computer builder who sells
around 20
motherboards a month and most are ASUS. They have given us and our
customers
relatively few issues over the years. We offer a one year advanced
replacement
warranty on them (it addition to the manufacturer's 3 year warranty) and
it would really hurt our
business selling something which had more problems than normal.

I'm a local IT manager for a global computer support company. The systems
we service use various brands of mainboards such as DFI, Epox, Chaintech,
AOpen and Asus, among many others. But the only brand we consistently have
"issues" with is Asus. Unfortunately, we don't build most of the systems
that we service, so Asus quality control (or lack thereof) keeps all of us
really busy. That could be good too, I guess (job security)

This could be related to usage patterns, also. The systems we service are
in constant use for many hours a day. Under those conditions, Asus doesn't
seem to hold up very well.

I'm glad to hear that you have had good luck selling Asus mainboards. Based
on my experience with them, I would NOT build a system for myself or anybody
else with an Asus mainboard. I CRINGE every time I read an expert review
which gives a "thumbs up" to anything made by Asus. -Dave

 

[JAD]

Toss the following:

ASUS mobo. It is a kids gamer mobo, and breaks easily.
any video card by XFX .. it will be a refurb.
NEC floppy .. low quality
WD hard drive .. again low quality.
Lite-on dvd .. noisy as hades .. think hurricane Katrina.
Zalman ... the stock X2 fan is very good and quiet.

Replace with:

MSI or Gigabyte mobo bundle assembled and tested
BFG or eVGA video card ... good warranty and no refurb scam.
Sony floppy ... long lasting good quality
Sony dvd/rw ... very quiet and up to date BIOS .. no conflicts.
Hitachi hard drive .. SATA300

I prefer:

Kingston ram. I've gotten flakes from Crucial in the past.
Antec SLK1650B case because it is small and easy to
place around / near the desk, and because of the side
port air vent.
Any of the Viewsonic 19" LCD monitors 8msec or better.

Comment:

What is it with you guys and those suck-ass ASUS mobos?
I can't believe anybody would be that stupid, and keep
buying those rip-off kid toys. They are HUGE. You can't
push data around something that big. They won't even fit
in most modern cases. I can kick their butts with a Gigabyte
mobo at half the price ... and save a fortune on RMAs.

johns

Clueless. 50+ ASUS boards installed in the last 18 months.....NOT A ONE
RMA'd. In 5 years I have had one(1) returned as it was damaged in shipping.
Thats the OTHER side of the story.

 

[JAD]

I'm a local IT manager for a global computer support company. The systems
we service use various brands of mainboards such as DFI, Epox, Chaintech,
AOpen and Asus, among many others. But the only brand we consistently have
"issues" with is Asus. Unfortunately, we don't build most of the systems
that we service, so Asus quality control (or lack thereof) keeps all of us
really busy. That could be good too, I guess (job security)

This could be related to usage patterns, also. The systems we service are
in constant use for many hours a day. Under those conditions, Asus doesn't
seem to hold up very well.

I'm glad to hear that you have had good luck selling Asus mainboards. Based
on my experience with them, I would NOT build a system for myself or anybody
else with an Asus mainboard. I CRINGE every time I read an expert review
which gives a "thumbs up" to anything made by Asus. -Dave

Sorry, there is something way out of wack here. DFI/epox is better choice
than ASUS? no freaking way!

 

[JAD]

Recovery floppies are still the main way to get back in
and reimage a crashed drive. The USB sticks sort of
work on the newer recovery programs and mobo
BIOSs, but not yet. Same with the boot CDs. And
even the WinXP install disks go looking for the A-drive
for SATA drivers and everything.

whens the last time you built a system using XP as the OS? Prior to SP1
obviously. And what 'everything' are you talking about? Stick to things you
have current experience with.



got stupid and left

 

[Mike T.]

Sorry, there is something way out of wack here. DFI/epox is better choice

than ASUS?

Well YES, unless you read the opinions of so many so-called experts who
don't support them for a living.

no freaking way!

Come work for me for a few months. It'll be a real eye-opener. If someone
told me that Asus was better quality than DFI in particular, I would laugh
my ASS off. -Dave

 

[JAD]

Well YES, unless you read the opinions of so many so-called experts who
don't support them for a living.


Come work for me for a few months. It'll be a real eye-opener. If someone
told me that Asus was better quality than DFI in particular, I would laugh
my ASS off. -Dave

ASUS is WAY better than DFI could EVER hope to be. I smile my ass off, all
the way to the bank.


\
get a new builder...I don't have to work beside you for the 'experience', I
build systems and ship all over the country, for the disabled...there is no
more reliable board than ASUS.. strickly going by the number I have used and
the problems that don't occur.