Okay, so my parents don't trust any custom PC builders, and they sure as hell won't let me mod one myself, so we always buy Dell. (Don't hate me, I just need some help selecting components.) - - - - - - - First Question: Should I have it shipped with Vista or XP? I'm going to have the software to run Vista smoothly, so I was wondering if it was worth having just for the good-looking GUI. EDIT: WOW, DELLS DON'T EVEN GIVE AN OPTION FOR VISTA ANYMORE, NEVERMIND. Second Question: I have a choice of an Intel Core 2 Duo Quad Core at 2.4 Ghz, and a like processor that's Dual Core at 3.0 Ghz. Should I go with the faster, more expensive Dual Core or the Quad Core? Third Question: Is buying an odd number of RAM okay, such as 3 gigs? Or, should I just add $100 or so to the price and make it 4 gigs? Fourth Question: Is it wise to shell out $350 extra for a 768mb nVidia 8800 GTX over a 512mb GT? - - - - - - - Any help is appreciated.
uhh WOW WOWOWOW I can buy 2Gb faster RAM(the stuff they use is DDR2-667 5-5-5,) for $30 with a lifetime warranty... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820146567 (FYI the timings are best LOWER, and that kit uses the same kind of chips used in the DDR2-1066 5-5-5 kits FYI) my advice, get the sucker with the least RAM possible, then tell your parents it's not enough after the fact and FORCE them to let you do it. Dell has no right to charge $200 for 2GB RAM when the market price is around $35 for the same stuff(or better because Dell uses the cheapest stuff on the market, LITERALLY. they basically get venders in and have them bid on who gets to supply the parts, whoever bids the lowest gets a few million units sold and those who don't don't. That's part of why Dell has the highest failure rate in the industry, at least according to Pc magazine in early 2007) and no, the 8800GTX is NOT worth the $350 it's not even 10% faster in most cases(post overclocking) If I had a choice of getting a free 8800GT or GTX I'd got for the GT, it's newer cheaper cooler and has more potential(it's built on the 65nm process vs. the old 90nm process used in the GTX) go for the quad. If you ever feel you need more speed(single threaded), there is such a thing as doing Bsel mods. That will change the CPU strapping from 266 to 333. The q6600 has a 9x multiplier, just like the e6850. (9*333.333=3000) (9*266.666=2400) also wait a week for the NEW core 2 quads to become availabel, the e8000 and q9000 chips.
Thanks much for the advice, I just wish my parents would let me or an experienced friend upgrade our old one, but they're pretty adamant about getting it factory made. They don't really seem concerned about the cash needed to order a new computer every 2 or 3 years, so it's no skin off of my nose. Its good to know that I don't have to shell out $350 more for that video card... the 512mb seemed like more than enough anyways. EDIT: Oh, is Vista really as craptacular as everyone claims or is it just a big change?
vista - ---- drivers, good everything else that's my take on it atleast. not bad and the moment nVidia and ATi start phasing out driver development on XP everyone will mass migrate because vista IS nicer assuming you've got the RAM. here is a good comaprison of the 8800GT/GTS 512 and 256 and the 8800ultra(the ultra is faster than the GTX FYI)http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3175&p=3 http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3175&p=3 also you can voerclock the GT farther
Sorry, but I'm a total corporate sellout when it comes to PC's, as I've never learned how to do anything to my PC beyond updating drivers and C++ coding... Overclocking doesn't mean much to me, as I don't have any idea how to do it. Guides would be appreciated. (Don't kill me for being a techno-noob) EDIT: Also, I understand that there are reliable companies or websites that will custom build PC's for fairly cheap and ship them to your address. I've googled these, but I'm not so sure which ones are legitimate and which ones aren't.
for overclocking a card, download rivatuner and/or ATitool, and bump up the core clocks in 10mhz increments. It's horrendously easy. Just fin a balance between stability and performance. I tend to find the highest non-crashing/artifacting setting and then I back down a fair bit. I like stability.
isorm.com might be cheaper i haven't been there in a while also i would just build my own due to it being so much cheaper the owner of isorm is a old student of my past teacher. FYI dell has the worse customer support of them all.
M'kay. Any other suggestions on trusted PC builders or sellers? I just don't know which ones are legitimate.
Go with what xlink told you, i read it and it was good. I wouldn't buy Vista because it costs more than XP, but XP runs smoother and for games i believe it is better even though you get directX 10 i would still recommend XP since Vista is coming in with bugs.
