Best medium-priced hardware

hey again. well hopefully i won't have to get anything new (other than maybe a power supply), but in case i am going to be in the market for a new mobo, cpu, and ram in the very near future, what is the best medium-priced hardware out there right now? i know that this deals a lot with personal preferences, but gimme your most fair view.

i've heard that biostar, MSI and asrock are all crap. i've always heard great things about asus, but never had the money for any of their things. do they have any good stuff for more moderate prices? like maybe a motherboard for somewhere between $75 and $150? i don't care what socket it is, but it would have to have at least one PCI slot (not PCI express). don't tell me PCI is completely gone now - please!

the cpu i have right now is an old dell p3 850mhz, so pretty much *anything* is gonna be a step up there! lol! are semprons crap? i was thinking about an athlon 2800. what's the speed on those? 1800+? that's more than double my current speed. lol.

what's a decent brand of ram? i would just want DDR - not DDR 2 or anything.

well, any input is much appreciated! thanks, guys! :bouncy

 

well i wasn't looking for cheap - i was looking for middle-of-the-road pricing. i don't want a peice of crap, but i don't need some top-of-the-line $2000 computer that'll do everything include launch spaceships. i just wanted something relatively inexpensive that also has pretty good quality.

 

What do you use your computer for, or what would you like to use your computer for?

If you want a solid machine that's stable and will last, I'd go with an Intel board. Let us know what you're looking for though and I'll post some ideas.

 

well i don't do a whole lot - email, surfing the web, watching tv (tv tuner card), watching movies, etc. but i do use photoshop and dreamweaver a fair bit and i do some personal web design. i have been using photoshop (and all the other above-mentioned stuff) on my current pc (old celeron 850mhz, 512mb sdram, 12gb hdd) for a couple years and it works pretty good. i'd probably be absolutely thrilled with a 1ghz cpu. lol!

i'm kind of looking for something middle-of-the-road in an asus board (always heard great things about asus) that has at least 1 pci slot. how does intel compare with asus? i like amd - maybe an athlon 2800 or something (socket 754 or 939 - doesn't matter). whats the clock speed on the athlon 2800? 1800ghz?

also, what's a good brand of ram (DDR)?

looking forward to your reply! thanks!

 

Intel boards are very solid boards, meaning they don't lock up, overheat, have bugs, etc. Asus is more for people who want to overclock their systems as t he BIOS has more options to do so... you cannot OC with an Intel board.

I'm not an AMD fan, never was happy with the performance. If you were to go with Intel I'd suggest (since you said middle of the road) an Intel board with either the 775 chipset or the 945 chipset. Crucial is personally my favorite type of memory, if you're looking for cheaper memory you can go with Kingston.

If you don't want to build a computer, we use HP business computers at my company, mainly the DC7100 and DC5100 systems in the small form factor and mini towers. http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/e...811-447280-3228379.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

 

yeah i definately don't have the need/want to overclock.

my first computer was an amd k-6 500 mhz! lol! i think i still have the board and processor downstairs. lol. bet i could get a whopping $5 for them on ebay!

i've usually gone cheap and gotten kingston ram - never had any problems, although i may take a look at crucial. i've known people who have had problems with kingston but have nevr heard anything bad about crucial. plus i hate to keep getting just the cheapest stuff around. lol.

the next pc i get will be built. i hate the idea of computers-in-a-box (like compaq and hp). you end up paying so much more b/c it's a brand name AND you usually end up getting parts you don't want/need (a friend of mine in college had an hp pavilion for 3 years and one day i went to her dorm room to reload windows and she had a dvd burner and i commented on how cool that was and she was like "dvd burner? what dvd burner? like, i can make dvd's? oh my parents just got me this computer for college and i don't know anything about it. i just use it to type homework". i was cringing. lol. what a waste of money for her parents. that comp was twice the speed of the one i had/have and i did twice the crap she ever did. okay off my soapbox.

all i would be getting would be a motherboard, cpu, and ram. i've got a case, a cd burner, tv tuner card (hence the need for a pci slot), etc.

ok well i'll start looking at intel stuff. i heard that celeron's have gotten significantly better than they used to be (like back when MY processor [celeron socket 370 850mhz]). is this true?

thanks bunches!

 

Celeron CPUs are still low end. The benefit of buying a business class HP system, one that I linked to is that the hardware in that system is very reliable and comes with what you request... The business models are much different than the consumer models you buy instore.

 

oh okay - that's awesome. i'll check them out . . .

 

I wouldnt recommend a celeron processor at all.... I am now stuck with 2 celeron procs that I dont even use that are still decent(2.7ghz and 2.2ghz) I will put them to use adventually...

Recently I bought a fairly cheap computer off parts I felt where best suited for me. Here are some parts I would recommend:

Intel Pentium 4 3.0ghz proc with HT technology off newegg for $100.It is socket 478. It was OEM but it runs really well. Only complaint is the shipping it was sent in didnt seem very safe but it did come in one peice. Here is the link to the proc I bought which I love :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116175
Price went up a bit to $119

I also saw you mentioned youve heard Biostar is crap. I have had one board from them and it was very inexpensive but have had no probloms. I also got it from newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138262
It has 3 PCI slots and an AGP slot if you ever want to upgrade your video in the future and also has onboard.

Now for RAM I only recommend one brand, Crucial. After going through sticks by companies like Kingston and PYI (some bestbuy brand) I couldnt be happier with Crucial. I got a gig(2x512) of PC 3200 RAM again from newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820148007

For your PSU I would recommend anything above 420watts. 500 would be really nice if you can afford it. I got this PSU from Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817153006
I really like the dual fans. Helps quite a bit.

I am not sure what many people think about Socket 478 if they are outdated but if you are looking to make a nice, decent, well priced computer I would go torwards Socket 478 and the Pentium 4. When I had my celerons it just like bottlenecked everything. Have fun building a knew computer if you choose so...

 

cool, thanks. yeah i've heard good things about newegg. how's tigerdirect? do both these places have pretty good shipping and prices and good products?

i don't hear a lot about the socket 478 - are the processors hard to find at all? i know that the vast majority of cpu's at our local built-it-yourself pc stores are 754 or 939. and how cool are those socket lga 755 where the pins are on the *board* and the chip is completely smooth! totally cool. don't know how good they are, though.

before i buy anything (which, in all honesty, will probably be in the distant future ) i will definately pick out a couple different bundles from a couple different places and post them here for opinions.

 

Correct, the 478 is "old" only by about 2-3 years... they will be cheaper. I would of recommended the 478 but decided to go with the 755 or 945 due to the support of PCI express.

I agree. I've had good experience with them in the past.