Geek Help Wanted: Inquire Within

NYSpeed Automotive NYSpeed Off Topic
1

So I sold the 20" iMac and it’s time for something new and PC-ish.
I pretty much ruled out a laptop, because by the time I add the features I want, it’s going to be way heavy (which is sorta ok) and potentially unreliable (not ok).

in the past i’ve had lots of hard drive and RAM problems. brands I will probably avoid due to past experiences: Soyo, Western Digital, IBM HD’s, Crucial.

what i’m looking for: RELIABLE, SILENT, STYLIN’, QUICK
what it’s for: maybe a little bit of AV work, mostly counterstrike and general use.

Here is what I have in my newegg cart so far:
1 ASUS A8N-SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail $119.00

1 PLEXTOR Black IDE Dirty Slot Load DVD Burner PX-716AL/SW - Retail $148.99 (+$50 rebate)

3 Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3250824AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $330.00

1 CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered - Retail $165.00

1 AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core - Retail $313.00

1 eVGA 128-P2-N368-TX Geforce 6600GT 128MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 - Retail $135.00 ($20 rebate)

                 SubTotal:        $1,210.99

still need (i’m mostly just stumped on a case):
case: antec p180 was winning, it looks OK and very quiet, but a bit big/heavy, and apparently made of inferior materials so it comes damaged or breaks easily.
power supply: antec smartpower 2 500W?
monitor: viewsonic lcd?

2

if you have had hdd problems and you want to elimate losing data, you might want to look into a raid array

so far it looks good for what you want to acomplish

3

i would dump that value corsair ram and go with a better set from them.

other than that it looks good

Antec PS are one of the best made, i chose to buy a thermaltake PS for my needs but the antec one will be just fine.

4

or i can get you a dell PC for stupid cheap with flatpanel monitor

Dual core 3.0 P4

2GB RAM

100 GB

Mini form factor case uggghh

DVDRW

4 year warantee

some 256MB ATI card

17" flatpanel

1100 bucks ish

5

^^thats a solid deal

6

yeah i was thinking raid, hence the 3 matching drives.
i haven’t checked out dell, etc. yet. may be the best i want for quiet, nicer looking cases and value as well. i get an employee discount, but it’s usually not as good at their promotions. and i feel spoiled like i want a huge LCD after having the iMac

7

Sattelite PC.

8

Looks alright,ram is fine unless you plan on overclocking then i’d upgrade to something better.

Plextor is overpriced but you get nice quality.

Might want to consider going opteron 165,esentially the same chip but for $24 extra you’re getting twice the L2 cache.I’d definitely do that.

9

if you want something stable stick with the mac.
Seagate >* for HD’s… don’t use maxtor etc unless it’s for non critical data.

10

already sold the mac. couldn’t stand the operating system/software, but can’t beat the features/looks.