Rebuild or new PC from cyberpowerinc.com

[WooHoo2You]

*Check earlier thread*

Maybe I should just go with this setup

CASE : ALUMINUM X-Navigator Server 420W W/ Window & Temp Dis,Fan
Control+ 3 Swapable Face (BLACK w/ Blue, Black, & Silver Face Plate)
CPU : (939-pin) AMD ATHLON64 X2 3800 CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology
MOTHERBOARD : (Sckt939)ASUS A8N-SLI Premium nForce4 SLI Chipset SATA
RAID Dual PCIE MB w/Gb-LAN,USB2.0,IEEE-1394,&7.1Audio
MEMORY : 1024 MB (512MBx2) PC3200 400MHz Dual Channel DDR MEMORY
(Corsair Value Select)
VIDEO CARD : NVIDIA Geforce 6600 256MB 16X PCI EXPRESS VIDEO CARD
VIDEO CARD 2 : NONE
MONITOR & LCD : NONE
HARD DRIVE : 80GB Hard Drive (SATA150 - Seagate 80GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache
Hard Drive)
Hard Drive 2 : NONE
Optical Drive : (Special Price) LG GWA-4161 16X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW
DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BEIGE COLOR)
Optical Drive 2 : NONE
SOUND : HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
Price: $1004.00


I guesstmated on the price it would take me to upgrade. I will need to buy
a new case, two or three fans, a new video card (due to the fact mine is
APG), the mobo, and two sticks of identical ram if I want to utilize
dual-channel.

Lets go with low-ball figures:
Mobo 162.00
Fans 20.00
Video Card 130.00
Case 60.00
CPU 349.00
Ram 100.00
-----------
821.00

For a 180.00 dollars more I could have the whole setup, just take one of my
DVD drives from my HP, my nice-ish sound card, and the modem and have a full
fledged PC. What do you think guys? Do you have a recommendation for a
different website with lower prices?

 

[VanShania]

You may want a bigger power supply, say 480 watts minimum for what you have
there, just to be safe. I did read an article in one of the mentioned
magazines that the most their top of the line computers used was 410 watts
but usually they only used 300. And thats with 2 hard drives and 2 optical
drives, sli hooked up and using a 4800 X2. Also, the 3800 X2 uses 89 watts
while the 4800 X2 uses 110 watts. Also, make sure the processor is E6
stepping. Means its the newest revision of that series

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

You may want a bigger power supply, say 480 watts minimum for what you have
there, just to be safe. I did read an article in one of the mentioned
magazines that the most their top of the line computers used was 410 watts
but usually they only used 300. And thats with 2 hard drives and 2 optical
drives, sli hooked up and using a 4800 X2. Also, the 3800 X2 uses 89 watts
while the 4800 X2 uses 110 watts. Also, make sure the processor is E6
stepping. Means its the newest revision of that series

For SLI I'd go even bigger on the power supply, at least 550W. I'd also
put in a bigger disk, 80 is really puny these days and it's certainly not
a state of the art drive. Get at least a 200G, that's the bottom of the
line of the current Seagate 7200.8 family.

 

[WooHoo2You]

For SLI I'd go even bigger on the power supply, at least 550W. I'd also
put in a bigger disk, 80 is really puny these days and it's certainly not
a state of the art drive. Get at least a 200G, that's the bottom of the
line of the current Seagate 7200.8 family.

I have a 200 gig in my HP, I plan on moving it too the new PC (if I go that
route) and using it as a secondary drive. I prefer to run Windows on a
smaller HD by itself, and my games and apps on the larger drive. In a month
or so buy a another HD to put back in my HP, using the restore DVD to get it
back to factory defaults. Either selling it or save it for when I move into
a house (in a few months) and using it as a DVR for a semi-crappy security
camera system.

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

I have a 200 gig in my HP, I plan on moving it too the new PC (if I go that
route) and using it as a secondary drive. I prefer to run Windows on a
smaller HD by itself, and my games and apps on the larger drive. In a month
or so buy a another HD to put back in my HP, using the restore DVD to get it
back to factory defaults. Either selling it or save it for when I move into
a house (in a few months) and using it as a DVR for a semi-crappy security
camera system.

Just make sure that you get an SATA-II drive not an SATA-I. Also the price
difference between an 80G Seagate 7200.9 and a 160G Seagate 7200.9 drive
is only $25 (Newegg prices).

 

[Cherokee]

*Check earlier thread*

Maybe I should just go with this setup

CASE : ALUMINUM X-Navigator Server 420W W/ Window & Temp Dis,Fan
Control+ 3 Swapable Face (BLACK w/ Blue, Black, & Silver Face Plate)
CPU : (939-pin) AMD ATHLON64 X2 3800 CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology
MOTHERBOARD : (Sckt939)ASUS A8N-SLI Premium nForce4 SLI Chipset SATA
RAID Dual PCIE MB w/Gb-LAN,USB2.0,IEEE-1394,&7.1Audio
MEMORY : 1024 MB (512MBx2) PC3200 400MHz Dual Channel DDR MEMORY
(Corsair Value Select)
VIDEO CARD : NVIDIA Geforce 6600 256MB 16X PCI EXPRESS VIDEO CARD
VIDEO CARD 2 : NONE
MONITOR & LCD : NONE
HARD DRIVE : 80GB Hard Drive (SATA150 - Seagate 80GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache
Hard Drive)
Hard Drive 2 : NONE
Optical Drive : (Special Price) LG GWA-4161 16X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW
DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BEIGE COLOR)
Optical Drive 2 : NONE
SOUND : HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
Price: $1004.00


I guesstmated on the price it would take me to upgrade. I will need to buy
a new case, two or three fans, a new video card (due to the fact mine is
APG), the mobo, and two sticks of identical ram if I want to utilize
dual-channel.

Lets go with low-ball figures:
Mobo 162.00
Fans 20.00
Video Card 130.00
Case 60.00
CPU 349.00
Ram 100.00
-----------
821.00

For a 180.00 dollars more I could have the whole setup, just take one of my
DVD drives from my HP, my nice-ish sound card, and the modem and have a full
fledged PC. What do you think guys? Do you have a recommendation for a
different website with lower prices?

Quite frankly,I'm not too impressed with what I've heard about CyberPower.My
suggestion is go to ResellerRatings.com and check the consumer ratings on
them,you might have second thoughts about dealing with them.Lower prices
aren't always the bargain you expect them to be.

 

[VanShania]

I found the CPU mag that compares the 3800 X2 to the 4800 X2 and a Pentium D
820. I was off the mark a bit as I did not know the 3800 was based on an
older core(Manchester), which has fewer transisters. Here they are. CPU
tested them using PCMark04(CPU).
3800 X2-PCMark04-5311 Doom 3-101fps UT2004- 90fps
4800 X2-PCMark04-6941 Doom 3-126fps UT2004-114fps
P D 820- PCMark04-6011 Doom 3- 86fps UT2004- 77fps

I went to AMD's website and looking at there Performance Comparison
charts,(which doesn't include the 3800 X2) the 4200 X2 is only 10% slower
than the 4800 X2. Considering that the 3800 X2 is not even 40 % the cost of
the 4800 X2, I was right that the 3800 X2 is a steal, and will do just fine
running games or anything else. Course, if you have an extra hundred bucks
laying around, maybe the 4200 X2 is the way to go.
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_9485_13041^
13077,00.html

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

I found the CPU mag that compares the 3800 X2 to the 4800 X2 and a Pentium D
820. I was off the mark a bit as I did not know the 3800 was based on an
older core(Manchester), which has fewer transisters. Here they are. CPU
tested them using PCMark04(CPU).
3800 X2-PCMark04-5311 Doom 3-101fps UT2004- 90fps
4800 X2-PCMark04-6941 Doom 3-126fps UT2004-114fps
P D 820- PCMark04-6011 Doom 3- 86fps UT2004- 77fps

I went to AMD's website and looking at there Performance Comparison
charts,(which doesn't include the 3800 X2) the 4200 X2 is only 10% slower
than the 4800 X2. Considering that the 3800 X2 is not even 40 % the cost of
the 4800 X2, I was right that the 3800 X2 is a steal, and will do just fine
running games or anything else. Course, if you have an extra hundred bucks
laying around, maybe the 4200 X2 is the way to go.
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_9485_13041^
13077,00.html

Don't confuse the 3800 X2 and the 3800+. The 3800+ is a single core 2.4GHz
1/2M cache chip, there have been multiple version of it released. The 3800
X2 is a dual core 1/2M cache per core chip that runs at 2GHz, there has
been only one release of the dual core chips so they are all basically
the same except for clock speed and cache size. The 1/2M cache versions
are the 3800X2, 4200X2 and 4600X2, the 1M cache versions are the 4400X2
and 4800X2 and the FX60. Cache size can make a huge difference in some
applications, the difference in performance between a 1/2M and a 1M cache
version of the A64 on NCVerilog is 2 to 1. On other applications the
effect is usually much less, more like 10%. My choice for a dual core at
the moment is the 4400X2 which is reasonably priced and has 1M caches. If
you are primarily interested in applications that aren't cache sensitive
then the 3800+ is a good choice, it's cheap and the performance is good.

 

[VanShania]

Well since there is no mention of a 3800+, I'm not the one confused. Second,
paying $100 more for a processor which is only 5% better than the 4200 X2,
which runs at the same clock speed as the 4400 X2, seems to be a little
overkill, and over priced. Also the "applications" that benifit the most
from cache are games( and maybe word processors). But at only a 5% gain, I
think I'll stick with my advice.

 

[VanShania]

oops, my mistake, your 4400 X2 is only 3% better than the 4200 X2.

 

[VanShania]

oh god, did it again hahahahahaaha, I must be sniffing glue or something,
didn't look at the decimals. What I ment to say was your 4400 X2 is only
2.5% better than the 4200 X2.

 

[VanShania]

One thing to note about the PCMark scores is the 23% performance difference
between the 3800 and the 4800. So you have to ask yourself, do want to spend
$100 to get within a 10% performance bracket of the 4800 buying a 4200
.........probably. But I wouldn't pay $100-$200 to get 2.5% performance gain
as I would buying a processor with an extra 512k of cache.

 

[Bill]

Don't confuse the 3800 X2 and the 3800+. The 3800+ is a single core 2.4GHz
1/2M cache chip, there have been multiple version of it released. The 3800
X2 is a dual core 1/2M cache per core chip that runs at 2GHz, there has
been only one release of the dual core chips so they are all basically
the same except for clock speed and cache size. The 1/2M cache versions
are the 3800X2, 4200X2 and 4600X2, the 1M cache versions are the 4400X2
and 4800X2 and the FX60. Cache size can make a huge difference in some
applications, the difference in performance between a 1/2M and a 1M cache
version of the A64 on NCVerilog is 2 to 1. On other applications the
effect is usually much less, more like 10%. My choice for a dual core at
the moment is the 4400X2 which is reasonably priced and has 1M caches. If
you are primarily interested in applications that aren't cache sensitive
then the 3800+ is a good choice, it's cheap and the performance is good.

How does one know when an application is cache sensitive before buying
it?

Bill

 

[WooHoo2You]

Quite frankly,I'm not too impressed with what I've heard about
CyberPower.My
suggestion is go to ResellerRatings.com and check the consumer ratings on
them,you might have second thoughts about dealing with them.Lower prices
aren't always the bargain you expect them to be.

I see that quite a few people are not happy with their products from Cyber
Power. I thank you for the link, it seems to be a good resource to use in
the future. Since I have already placed my order, I will let this one ride.
If they decide they want to f-up my rig. The shit will hit the fan. I have
a very bad habit of being vindictive. Working as a manager of a grocery
store, I have heard everything a customer and an employee could possibly
say. Lets just say there will be crying (not on my part) if I need a
refund. I can be a very nice and passive person, also I can be quite
unforgiving.

The reason for the change is; quite frankly I have had about enough of being
routed to India by HP.

Typical conversation with HP.

Me : I cannot get the front head phone or mic ports to work.
India : What type of speakers are you using?
Me : My speakers are plugged in to the back of my tower, and they are
working fine.
India : What is the manufacture of your speakers?
Me : The speakers are working, I would like to get the front mic and head
phone ports on my PC to work so I do not wake my wife while she is sleeping.

Ten minutes later, nothing. The samething back and forth. This
conversation really happened. (twice, one on HP chat and once over the
phone) It was amazing, like I was speaking with a computer. However, if
that were true, I am sure they would have known something about the issue.

Thanks so much.

 

[Cherokee]

I see that quite a few people are not happy with their products from Cyber
Power. I thank you for the link, it seems to be a good resource to use in
the future. Since I have already placed my order, I will let this one ride.
If they decide they want to f-up my rig. The shit will hit the fan. I have
a very bad habit of being vindictive. Working as a manager of a grocery
store, I have heard everything a customer and an employee could possibly
say. Lets just say there will be crying (not on my part) if I need a
refund. I can be a very nice and passive person, also I can be quite
unforgiving.

The reason for the change is; quite frankly I have had about enough of being
routed to India by HP.

Typical conversation with HP.

Me : I cannot get the front head phone or mic ports to work.
India : What type of speakers are you using?
Me : My speakers are plugged in to the back of my tower, and they are
working fine.
India : What is the manufacture of your speakers?
Me : The speakers are working, I would like to get the front mic and head
phone ports on my PC to work so I do not wake my wife while she is sleeping.

Ten minutes later, nothing. The samething back and forth. This
conversation really happened. (twice, one on HP chat and once over the
phone) It was amazing, like I was speaking with a computer. However, if
that were true, I am sure they would have known something about the issue.

Thanks so much.

HP,Dell,Compaq - they're all the same,I had the same type of experience with
my Presario,if I had listened to Compaq's so called support,I'd have a bunch
of useless replacement parts,they can't even tell the difference between
different models of their own PC's!Considering what sysyems cost these
days,checking the ratings of sellers can save you a lot of grief,hope you
get lucky with CyberPower.Personally I'm having a hard time finding a custom
builder I'd feel comfortable investing my hard earned money with.Monarch
seemed good at first,but they seemed to have really gone downhill lately in
customer service and dependability.

 

[WooHoo2You]

HP,Dell,Compaq - they're all the same,I had the same type of experience
with
my Presario,if I had listened to Compaq's so called support,I'd have a
bunch
of useless replacement parts,they can't even tell the difference between
different models of their own PC's!Considering what sysyems cost these
days,checking the ratings of sellers can save you a lot of grief,hope you
get lucky with CyberPower.Personally I'm having a hard time finding a
custom
builder I'd feel comfortable investing my hard earned money with.Monarch
seemed good at first,but they seemed to have really gone downhill lately
in
customer service and dependability.

The only reasons I went with a custom builder is the price (It would have
cost me much more to build it myself at retail prices) and the fact I have
never really messed with the mobo or processor. I have heard horror stories
of doing something wrong and killing the CPU before you even turn the PC on.
Or getting oil from your fingers on the connecters, and burning a processor
out the second you boot-up.