Gaming .Radiant's Buying Guide.

[Cermage]

Alright, Just thought i'd set up a little guide for buying computers, building yourself of course. i'll explain my choices as i go. will be updated when new hardware comes out.

Ithought i'd leave the case up to whatever you want, since most people seem to like flashy LED's and whatnot. though if you are stumped on what case to get, my recommendations are Antec 300, Antec 900, Coolermaster elite rc330-335, Coolermaster elite rc310. Not too flashy, cheap, does the job very well.

Same situation with RAM & Hard drives, Ram is pretty open ended with the amount out there, though i'll say what type at least. just steer clear of SLI/xFIre Ready as they do charge more. My brands of preference are Kingston, OCZ and Gskill.

Hard drives are fairly straight forward. something of the Western Digital Flavour should do it.

Just note, the Alternatives are usually more expensive.

Desktop
The power supply throughout all these builds will be the same.
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-650HX 650W
PSU is the last part you want to skimp out on in a build. this should also be able to last you another 5 or so years.

Budget Gaming Builds

Amd/Ati flavour~
CPU: Amd Phenom II X2 550 BE
Or
CPU: Amd Phenom II x3 720 BE

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3
Or
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA790GP-UD4H

GPU: Saphire HD4850 512mb


RAM: Something along the lines of 800mhz or 1066mhz should do for this build.

With this set up you should be able to get it around 500-700~. CPU choices were prety obvious, Quad Cores aren't exactly worth it in gaming, amd offer excellent price/performance ratio with both the 550 and 720. either one is fine, 720 will last you an extra year or so once games start picking up multi-threading. as for GPU, Sapphire is usually my brand of choice. You might ask why i didnt recommend ati's 5xxx series. well right now, they're pretty cheap but just not worth it just yet. maybe in a couple months time when prices drop a little more and ati optimise their drivers further. As for the motherboard, Gigabyte is loev. the 770 and the 790 both are able to unlock either CPU's and if not, they're pretty able overclockers.

Intel/Nvidia Flavour~
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3
GPU: EVGA 512-P3-1150-TR GeForce GTS 250
RAM: Something along the lines of 800mhz or 1066mhz should do for this build.

at first glance, its obvious not as much choice in this build. well thats cause intel/nvidia are geard towards higher end budget peoples. E8400 has been king for awhile and will be king of most games for awhile yet. Motherboard was an obvious pairing. EVGA = cheap, well known, dependable brand. the gts 250 is pretty much nvidia's answer to the budget market. so yeah. pretty obvious choices.

GOT MUNNEH!? Gaming Builds
Budget Workstations (wut)
Workstation Builds
coming to this thread soon.


Laptops
get a macbook, dont ask, they just work. Laptops aren't meant to be used for gaming, they're about work and portability. Why bother with the hassle of possible deadly viruses, slowdowns and such when macs simply work without the hassle (besides learning the ropes of macosx). the 13" macbookpro is pretty affordable in terms of apple prices. its a good buy.

[/end laptop section.

 

[Joe88]

Intel/Nvidia Flavour~
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3
GPU: EVGA 512-P3-1150-TR GeForce GTS 250
RAM: Something along the lines of 800mhz or 1066mhz should do for this build.

Motherboard was an obvious pairing.
actually this is not a good paring with nivida

the UD3P uses the P45 chipset and has built in crossfire support
it does not have SLI support, so at the end your just paying about $20 more for an extra PCI-e slot you can never use
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813128359
the UD3R is the one you want
QUOTE(.Radiant @ Oct 15 2009, 06:03 AM)
Laptops
get a macbook, dont ask, they just work. Laptops aren't meant to be used for gaming, they're about work and portability. Why bother with the hassle of possible deadly viruses, slowdowns and such when macs simply work without the hassle (besides learning the ropes of macosx). the 13" macbookpro is pretty affordable in terms of apple prices. its a good buy.
[/end laptop section.

you say affordable and I say expensive, which it is in all truth starting at $1200
compared to various windows based notbooks at like the half the price

your acting a bit like a mac fanboy and basically saying mac>everything else
just skipping everything including cons compared to other laptops


no offense or anything, I just thought these things should be pointed out to improve the thread

 

[Raki]

Laptops [/size]
get a macbook, dont ask, they just work. Laptops aren't meant to be used for gaming, they're about work and portability. Why bother with the hassle of possible deadly viruses, slowdowns and such when macs simply work without the hassle (besides learning the ropes of macosx). the 13" macbookpro is pretty affordable in terms of apple prices. its a good buy.

[/end laptop section.

Not everyone wants to use/can use a mac on the go....
for windows users I would recommend something like a thinkpad X200, which is below 2 kg with a 9 cell battery, which will last you long

 

[Cermage]

actually this is not a good paring with nivida

the UD3P uses the P45 chipset and has built in crossfire support
it does not have SLI support, so at the end your just paying about $20 more for an extra PCI-e slot you can never use
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813128359
the UD3R is the one you want

my bad. i usually use that pairing with an ati card such as 4770 not an nvidia card, it was the first motherboard that came to mind when i chose the 8400.

you say affordable and I say expensive, which it is in all truth starting at $1200
compared to various windows based notbooks at like the half the price

your acting a bit like a mac fanboy and basically saying mac>everything else
just skipping everything including cons compared to other laptops


no offense or anything, I just thought these things should be pointed out to improve the thread
i think you missed the bit about "in terms of apple pricing". 13" is very affordable for what it is, a mac. and i find apple's customer service excellent, i've had horrible experiences with dell, lenovo and hp. okay service with toshiba and asus. nothing compared to what apple give you though, my brother's macbook motherboard died, he had extended apple care, i called up for him, they told me to bring it into the uni apple store. they took it for about 1/2 hour and then gave me a new one (the new unibody/aluminium) with all his old data on it and a free upgrade to snow lepoard. and they said sorry for the trouble. Dell, i've had 3 month waiting periods for even a claim on warranty to go through. HP just off you after the first year, and lenovo about the same story with dell. Asus and toshiba aren't too bad, usually about 2-3 weeks of waiting.

QUOTE(Raki @ Oct 16 2009, 06:18 AM)

Not everyone wants to use/can use a mac on the go....
for windows users I would recommend something like a thinkpad X200, which is below 2 kg with a 9 cell battery, which will last you long

For the most part, the macosx is fairly easy to use unless you are pretty bad at picking up things. if all you are doing is web browsing, watching movies, listening to music, doing work e.t.c (which is what you should be doing on a laptop) macs are pretty hassle free, i'd definitely pay the extra money instead of going through the hassle of slowdowns, viruses e.t.c the removal process of them and poor (majority of brands) customer service. either way, i'll add a netbook catergory when i have more time.

 

[Elritha]

Of course you could always turn a more affordable compatible laptop into a hackintosh, if you really wanted to use the Mac OS.
Personally I think Macs are over priced for the hardware you get, the OS isn't too bad.

 

[Raki]

Not everyone wants to use/can use a mac on the go....
for windows users I would recommend something like a thinkpad X200, which is below 2 kg with a 9 cell battery, which will last you long

For the most part, the macosx is fairly easy to use unless you are pretty bad at picking up things. if all you are doing is web browsing, watching movies, listening to music, doing work e.t.c (which is what you should be doing on a laptop) macs are pretty hassle free, i'd definitely pay the extra money instead of going through the hassle of slowdowns, viruses e.t.c the removal process of them and poor (majority of brands) customer service. either way, i'll add a netbook catergory when i have more time.

Now imagine you need to develop something in visual studio....
or do some vba for windows using customers...

I don't want to say that OS X is bad, but some people just can't use it for their work without using VMs or booting into windows again...and if you use it to boot into windows you could get something different, which will suit the job of a portable notebook better