Need some help buying hardware for Pc....

Code-Red · Post by **Code-Red** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 2:16 am

I just bought a 3.0ghz pc, and need to put a high end (yet relatively cheap) video card in, with a cheap hard drive and new sound card. Any suggestions?

Disheveled DrFreeze · Post by **Disheveled DrFreeze** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 2:34 am

whatever you do, dont get an IBM/hitachi hard drive, they suck ass, the first hitachi i bought (a few weeks ago) was a DOA, and the rest of the web doesnt like em either, go with maxtor/WD/seagate, even if they cost 10 bucks more

and as for the vid card, you can either try to find a second hand 5900 or 9800 for less then 200, or you can try and find a 6800 non ultra or le (the le is around 200 euros here, and has nice unlocking/overclocking abilities)

Post by **Quzar** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 3:39 am

DrFreeze wrote:whatever you do, dont get an IBM/hitachi hard drive, they suck ass, the first hitachi i bought (a few weeks ago) was a DOA, and the rest of the web doesnt like em either, go with maxtor/WD/seagate, even if they cost 10 bucks more

and as for the vid card, you can either try to find a second hand 5900 or 9800 for less then 200, or you can try and find a 6800 non ultra or le (the le is around 200 euros here, and has nice unlocking/overclocking abilities)

hitatchi makes quality hdds. you just got a bad one. unless you have repeated experience with something, its not a good idea to make such a broad generalization. As for IBM there was a certain model that was notorious for faliure, but before that they had been relatively highly regarded for their enterprise quality drives.

for video cards, if you want to use dx 9.0c games, then a cheap 6*00 or X*00 would be good, but if you want to play dx 9.0a or lower games, then a 9*00 would be a better deal.

Disheveled DrFreeze · Wed Dec 01, 2004 10:52 am

ati's new cards arent 9.0c they are 9.0b they dont support sm 3.0 only 2.0

and keep in mind that the x600's are just 9600 with a pci-e bridge chip on them, so they arent newer or anything

and i now im generalizing with hitachi, but i dont like the idea of having a drive in my pc of wich i experienced one dieing, i dont want to have to go trough the trouble to recover my 26 gb + of music, or my precious anime collection

Tech^salvager · Post by **Tech^salvager** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 11:23 am

Geforce 6600 GT for the video card

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 2:48 pm

9800?

bizzle · Post by **bizzle** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 3:13 pm

Don't get any nVideo 5x00 cards. They are pure rubbish. I don't see what the big deal about SM 3.0 is. Everything I have seen that used it looks like there is a layer of glass over it.

Disheveled DrFreeze · Post by **Disheveled DrFreeze** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 3:25 pm

i know the difference between sm 2.0 and 3.0 is small, but since we are nitpciking about wich specific version of dx9.0 we are talking about, i just thought id mention it

Vchat20 · Post by **Vchat20** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:09 pm

quzar wrote:As for IBM there was a certain model that was notorious for faliure, but before that they had been relatively highly regarded for their enterprise quality drives.

i agree. ive read about this all over the net, but this system is living proof that IBM makes quality drives. the master (and only) drive is a 60GB IBM Deskstar Model IC35L060AVVA07-0. and it has been running just peachy for almost 2 years now. if anything, the 40gb maxtor that came with this thing didnt last as long as the ibm. it died sometime back in may.

Tech^salvager · Post by **Tech^salvager** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 6:25 pm

Code-Red wrote:I just bought a 3.0ghz pc, and need to put a high end (yet relatively cheap) video card in, with a cheap hard drive and new sound card. Any suggestions?

Whats your limit of spending on the stuff?
How much you gonna spend on the Video card, sound card, and cheap HDD?

Code-Red · Post by **Code-Red** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:16 am

This is all in Canadian btw, but:

$200 for the video card
$70 for hard drive
$100 for sound card

impetus · Post by **impetus** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:29 am

this doesn't address any of those specifically, but keep one eye on slickdeals.net at all times as they will pop up randomly.

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 4:32 am

Ebuyer.com?
120Gb Drives are about ?60 on there, so $100ish

zickfun · Post by **zickfun** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 7:36 am

Geforce 6600GT or even the Vanilla 6600 > Radeon 9800XT by 4X in most benchmarks.

Get the 6600GT...You guys should have it, but in Australia it's just shipping.

Damn I wish I lived in America hehe.

Post by **Quzar** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 7:53 am

zickfun wrote:Geforce 6600GT or even the Vanilla 6600 > Radeon 9800XT by 4X in most benchmarks.

Get the 6600GT...You guys should have it, but in Australia it's just shipping.

Damn I wish I lived in America hehe.

depends on the game you are playing. if the game uses loads of memory and can take advantage of 256mb then the 9800xt wins, if the game is of an older generation, and does not use and dx9 (expecially 9.0c) technologies, then the 9800xt usually wins.

Tech^salvager · Post by **Tech^salvager** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 10:28 am

quzar wrote:
zickfun wrote:Geforce 6600GT or even the Vanilla 6600 > Radeon 9800XT by 4X in most benchmarks.

Get the 6600GT...You guys should have it, but in Australia it's just shipping.

Damn I wish I lived in America hehe.
depends on the game you are playing. if the game uses loads of memory and can take advantage of 256mb then the 9800xt wins, if the game is of an older generation, and does not use and dx9 (expecially 9.0c) technologies, then the 9800xt usually wins.

Actually the 6600gt is kicking the 9800xt and pros butt in a lot of the reviews I've seen.

Post by **Quzar** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:02 pm

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphi ... index.html

i see the 9800 pro (non xt, AND with drivers predating the large 4.10b fixes) being not to far behind the 6600gt. Considering you could probably get a 9800 (256mb) for about the same price (or slightly cheaper than) an agp 6600gt (the agp ones ARE more expensive) i dont see where the kicking butt assertion comes from. better for 9.0c games, yes, otherwise... barely.

dreamcastninja · Post by **dreamcastninja** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 1:03 pm

get an ati radeon 9600XT

Code-Red · Post by **Code-Red** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 1:11 pm

I plan on playing Half Life (2/Source), Doom 3, Quake 3, Soldier of Fortune 2, Far Cry....may a couple racing games, but you got the gist of it.

bizzle · Post by **bizzle** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 1:45 pm

zickfun wrote:Geforce 6600GT or even the Vanilla 6600 > Radeon 9800XT by 4X in most benchmarks.

Yeah, 4x

It's faster if all you play is Doom 3(but nowhere near 4x faster), becuase everyone knows nVidia is milking that for all it's worth.

If you don't want to spend much, get a 9600XT. They are pretty cheap now and really nice cards for the price. I have one and I played Doom 3 @ 1024x768 medium, Quake 3 maxed out with 4x AA and who knows how high of a frame rate, Far Cry @ 1024x768 high with 2x AA, Half-Life 2/CS:/HL2:DM @ 1024x768 all high and 2x AA, Need for Speed Underground 1 and 2 @ 1024x768 all high 2x AA and tried Soldier of Fortune 2 a while ago at pretty high settings.

If you want better, go for the 9800 Pro. Get a Sapphire one and make sure it has a 256bit memory bus. A lot of those were made with the R360 core (the core the 9800XT uses) so they are flashable to a 9800XT with half the memory.

Need some help buying hardware for Pc....

Need some help buying hardware for Pc....

Re: Need some help buying hardware for Pc....