computer advice

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orcot

Valued Senior Member
*ASUS P5QL motherboard
*Processor: intel quad q9400 2.8GHZ
*Memory: Kingston 4GB (2X2GB)DDR2
*Hard drive: 160GB 7200rpm
*Graphic card : ATI asus radeon HD 4850 1GB HDMI
*1 DVD station
*Windows Vista ultimate SP1 64 bit

A friend of a friend offered to make me this computer for 790€ Does it look descend?
 
Depends what you're looking to do with it and how long you want it to last. It won't be particularly upgradeable, and you might prefer a 4870HD card or a 4890? Sounds expensive too but I don't know the exchange rate.
 
Seems "reasonable". There is a slightly noticeable markup - but considering his labour, it seems fair to me.
 
Well the MB's ram is fine(max 2x8gb) and the processor should be ok for a while but I'm not an intel expert, but I'd say you'd need a bigger HD and maybe go for a better ATI graphics card as with that motherbaord you won't be able to have dual cards, or dual processors.
As I say it depends what you're planning on using it for, and unless it's pretty high end 3 years is probably the max you'll get from it, it just looks expensive for what it is, I looked up a few individual prices and I'd say it's about 100euro's over what it should be so you should be able to get some improvements in, but I don't know what else your friend plans on putting in.:shrug:

Also forget vista ultimate, unless it's free it's unneccesary, go with XP 64 it's better, cheaper, and quicker.(this may be what's bumping the price up actually)
 
*ASUS P5QL motherboard- Asus is a great brand, this motherboard will give you all the power you need

*Processor: intel quad q9400 2.8GHZ- Unless you are using 64 bit apps or multithreading apps this is useless, get a core 2 duo

*Memory: Kingston 4GB (2X2GB)DDR2- what is the PC Ratio? Sure it's 4 gigs of Ram, but what kind of Ram is it?

*Hard drive: 160GB 7200rpm- What kind of hard drive is it? What is the MB Cache? Seek Time? These are things you should find out

*Graphic card : ATI asus radeon HD 4850 1GB HDMI- The 4870 would trump this card

*1 DVD station- they are all basically the same

*Windows Vista ultimate SP1 64 bit- again... unless you NEED to use 64 bit apps you are going to run into compatibility problems, stick with 32 bit vista ultimate or 32 Bit XP Pro.

Also what kind of power supply is he putting in it?

I would say the price is a little high, the hard drive, processor, and operating system are things that i would change. Get more info on the RAM

just my 2 cents
 
Get the Ultimate Vista 64.

You'll want that.

Ignore the bad advice.

XP64 is dead in the water, virtually nil support from the market now.

Getting a 32 bit OS at this point is foolish.
 
I like Vista, but with a system like this you could go XP(only 3.2GIG of the ram will be used though). Particularly if the system will never be used.

THat Vid card is DX10 at least (maybe 10.1) so in the future it WILL work better with new games under Vista(yes 64bit NEVER Vista 32bit - that is a retarded at xp64).

I have yet to not be able to run any application(including dosbox of all things..) under Vista64 ultimate. Sometimes you need to manually install the programs in the user directory or tweak permissions/access. If you like to use old programs you should go XP32 or learn how to modify Vista. This really only means you know how to read and can use google.
 
Dr Mabuse said:
Get the Ultimate Vista 64.

You'll want that.

Ignore the bad advice.

XP64 is dead in the water, virtually nil support from the market now.

Getting a 32 bit OS at this point is foolish.
Click to expand...

With Windows 7 on the way so shortly after the release of Vista, you'll find Vista is already well on it's way to being dead and an unneccesary resource hog, especially if he only has 4gig of ram. Microsoft have essentially admitted they fucked up and this is the new NT.
I'd advise he skips it completely and gets windows 7 at a later date, possibly with a new machine or definitely a ram upgrade.
Windows XP 64-Bit Edition will currently support up to 16 GB of RAM which is the max he can have, it will also use less resources.
Easy decision.
 
what 64 bit applications do you have or plan on getting that will take advantage of the 64 bit width?
 
Anti-Flag said:
With Windows 7 on the way so shortly after the release of Vista, you'll find Vista is already well on it's way to being dead and an unneccesary resource hog, especially if he only has 4gig of ram. Microsoft have essentially admitted they fucked up and this is the new NT.
I'd advise he skips it completely and gets windows 7 at a later date, possibly with a new machine or definitely a ram upgrade.
Windows XP 64-Bit Edition will currently support up to 16 GB of RAM which is the max he can have, it will also use less resources.
Easy decision.
Click to expand...

Have you even used xp 64? For a home system? There is almost no driver support.
 
Dr Mabuse said:
Get the Ultimate Vista 64.

You'll want that.

Ignore the bad advice.

XP64 is dead in the water, virtually nil support from the market now.

Getting a 32 bit OS at this point is foolish.
Click to expand...


It's not bad advice, i do this for a living. I think i know what works and what is clearly unstable.

Vista ultimate 64 is unstable, very unstable and only runs certain programs and that includes multithread apps.

The registry on vista 64 and 32 is also enormous, and in case you didn't know the more registry values to go through, the slower the computing power.
 
nietzschefan said:
Have you even used xp 64? For a home system? There is almost no driver support.
Click to expand...

Drivers for what? I'm pretty sure all the hardware he's using has support for XP 64. If he's worried about apps then like I said, we need to know what he's planning on doing with it, but generally XP is a more stable system, runs quicker, and with the money he could save he could have slightly more ram.

I pretty much agree with brokenpower, but I think he needs 64 bit because IIRC 32 bit doesn't read more than 3gb of ram, you may find it outdated VERY quickly.
 
we need to know what he's planning on doing with
Click to expand...
These days I generally use my computer to watch movies (it's abouth the only thing left in it) I like to surf while listning music (on the coputer) whilst I'm working in adobe photoshop cs3 I would also like to be able to play games like droom 3D and the sims 3.

PS thx for the tips people
 
orcot said:
These days I generally use my computer to watch movies (it's abouth the only thing left in it) I like to surf while listning music (on the coputer) whilst I'm working in adobe photoshop cs3 I would also like to be able to play games like droom 3D and the sims 3.

PS thx for the tips people
Click to expand...

Well the sims 3 and I'm fairly sure adobe cs3(and probably cs4) will run on either suggested O/S and I'm pretty sure that system hardware is fine to run both too. Doom 3d is presumably older? You may have trouble with that whichever way you go as backward compatibility is never microsofts strong point, however you tend to find that the newer the O/S the worse the backwards compatibility is. I think I'd still say save a few bucks and go with XP64 and use that money to bump up the ram a bit.

Any idea on the power supply? Never use a cheap unknown brand PSU.
 
my partner is running sims 3, spore and im running NWN2 on her new machine. though i have all the windows there ready for me im still runningnold 32bit XP and it runs beautifully
 
Ive no idea abouth the power supply sorry but it's calculated in the price, can you make any good suggestions considering the hardware
 
brokenpower said:
Vista ultimate 64 is unstable, very unstable and only runs certain programs and that includes multithread apps.
Click to expand...
In what respect is it unstable? The only time I've ever had anything hang in Vista 64 was when I had hardware failures due to overclocking my CPU.
 
orcot said:
Ive no idea abouth the power supply sorry but it's calculated in the price, can you make any good suggestions considering the hardware
Click to expand...

The power supply that i recommend is either Antec or OCZ. They are both fairly priced and have a range of different models with incredible lifespan and quiet running.
 
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