Wish List Puter equipment purchases...

[AEmer]

I mounted a handle on top of my case, got extra long cables, and put together a board lined with oiled whool and put it under it. Result: I can slide it out from its spot with a single finger, even though it ways 40 pounds and its standing on silicon feet. No need to recable, either.

I want to be able to quickly get in and fix stuff if something breaks, or I need to clean it, or I want to take it with me. It's part of the whole "well, it'll break eventually" mentality I've adopted, and how you can deal with it without breaking down crying and sobbing and feeling the world is cruel.

[Jane_Denton]

I mounted a handle on top of my case, got extra long cables, and put together a board lined with oiled whool and put it under it. Result: I can slide it out from its spot with a single finger, even though it ways 40 pounds and its standing on silicon feet. No need to recable, either.

I want to be able to quickly get in and fix stuff if something breaks, or I need to clean it, or I want to take it with me. It's part of the whole "well, it'll break eventually" mentality I've adopted, and how you can deal with it without breaking down crying and sobbing and feeling the world is cruel.

I have a fantasy of having a tray built equiped with those high end cabinet drawer slides (because they take a lot of weight) and just like slide it out when I need to do any work on it.

My case has rubber feet on the bottom now, but there is an 1 1/2" drop from the cubby hold to the floor and the edge of the desk where puter meets wood as I take it out has done some damage. As the mid part of the case is on it's way out it's metal hitting wood...drag...... It's unavoidable... nothing closing my puter cubby hole door won't hide. But still the easy of having it sit on a board with those European drawer slides... sooooo much easier!

[AEmer]

I love those slides...my desk drawers are made with them. Dual slide action and the drawer can slide about 3 feet out.

I considered getting some of those heavy-duty metal wheels, but in the end a slidy board was much, much simpler, and far cheaper.

I'm not sure a pair of cabinet slides could hold a heavy computer though...the metal would be fine if it was thick and hard enough, but it could tear the table apart if it wasn't solid enough, or maybe even tip it....

[Jane_Denton]

I love those slides...my desk drawers are made with them. Dual slide action and the drawer can slide about 3 feet out.

I considered getting some of those heavy-duty metal wheels, but in the end a slidy board was much, much simpler, and far cheaper.

I'm not sure a pair of cabinet slides could hold a heavy computer though...the metal would be fine if it was thick and hard enough, but it could tear the table apart if it wasn't solid enough, or maybe even tip it....

I priced the drawer slides... $25 a piece and each will hold 50lbs... however here in lies the problem... my desk itself is made out of particle board with thin laminate over it so I don't think it would hold the weight too well. Unless I had some support on the end that pulls out the farthest.

[bobby 55]

I want something like this when I'm solvent again: http://www.techbuy.com.au/p/124585/SYST ... 124585.asp

It's customizable but I'd stick with the processor and GPU.

[AEmer]

I really want a mac so I can develop for iphone...sadly, they're expensive and I have no other use for one.

Also, bobby, that looks like a place that resells mostly entusiast parts. I can't say I agree that big of an investment is necessary if you just want a cheap gaming pc, and I'd probably get different parts myself, but the machine looks good otherwise and 3 years of warranty for the whole machine? That's awesome.

[bobby 55]

I really want a mac so I can develop for iphone...sadly, they're expensive and I have no other use for one.

Also, bobby, that looks like a place that resells mostly entusiast parts. I can't say I agree that big of an investment is necessary if you just want a cheap gaming pc, and I'd probably get different parts myself, but the machine looks good otherwise and 3 years of warranty for the whole machine? That's awesome.

Yeah, it would be more econmical getting the parts and building it myself, but I'm the worlds biggest klutz, and I'd be mortified if I fucked something up.

[gamer0004]

It's rather expensive... Building your own PC is typically cheaper and you know exactly which hardware is in it, which means that if one picks the right stuff a custom built PC is quieter and more durable than a standard PC.

[AEmer]

Now that I look at it again, it's really expensive. I don't know how much extra a computer is in australia, but here's what I would recommend:

Fractal Design R3 80 dollars
AMD Deneb Phenom II 3,7ghz 170 dollars
8gb kingston ddr3 1333mhz 40 dollars
Corsair TX650w psu 85 dollars
Sapphire Radeon 6950 2gb 260 dollars
asrock fx990 am3+ motherboard 130 dollars

For a grand total of about 700 US dollars or so on newegg.

It's not amazing in everywhich way, but it can potentially run very quietly if you decide to get a 3rd party cpu cooler and some quiet case fans.

It does have an astonishing amount of performance for a 700 dollar machine.

I do understand why you don't want to put it together yourself...which makes me sad, because I could get it running for you in less than an hour. If you have the time, I can hit you up with some youtube tutorials and how to's, and I'm sure Jane Denton or I could answer any question you may have.

Somebody else would have to list an intel system if that's more your thing? but AMD is really cheap right now, and you get a _ton_ of value for money. The system I list here is very similar to ones I've put together in the past, except for the FX990, which appears to be an upgrade from what I used to look at...so I can pretty much guarantee that it'll work, and it'll run games well.

Just something to keep in mind once you get a steady income =]

[bobby 55]

Holy Crap! Cheers AEmer, if I get this bloody machine serviced and back to it's original state I could nearly get the $700 needed selling it. That does indeed look like a rig with a bit of "grunt".

I think the prices are similar here, though a bit of Googling for the best price wouldn't hurt. I did observe my bro-inlaw put my previous rig together. His advice: Ït's about time you tried it own your own.
I think attatching the mobo and psu concern me the most. The cables and other stuff just take a bit of care and attention.

Added: The case and psu are way more pricey here. The rest are just a bit more, though not enough to be a concern.

[AEmer]

I hope it'll work out That configuration is solid, but I only chose it because I could do it off the top of my head.

As I said, you'll also need a harddrive to get that machine running.

I can see if I can find a cheaper case-psu combo, if it seems like the prices are much higher than similar things...but it might be tough. The case is amazing value at the american price, but also good value at as much as 150 US, because its very well made and great to work with. The PSU is only bronze certified, meaning it's not anything in particular, and it's not modular or terribly big.

The best place to cut down in price is the motherboard, where we can easily find a way to save 60 bucks, and you can also get a 3,4ghz rather than the 3,7ghz cpu, which should shave off another 40 bucks or so.

See, there's a number of features you don't really need; in particular, it doesn't seem like you'll be using two graphics cards, the last 300 mhz won't make a lick of difference for almost all current games, and you don't necessarily need a rig that's particularly quiet (which the motherboard would also be good for).

So yeah, we can almost certainly cut the price by 100 or so bucks. I'll get back to you with a compatible and cheaper motherboard if you want...and a harddisk too, if you need a suggestion.

[gamer0004]

Those Phenom II CPUs are not the fastest around but they offer excellent value for money indeed. Seems a good setup, though I would certainly not get the 2GB version of the 6950... 2GB is only needed when gaming at extremely high resolutions (like when gaming on multiple screens, but for that you'll need more than one GPU anyway).

[AEmer]

I'm used to gaming at 1920x1200...at that resolution, it could come into play, couldn't it?

If lower, then you're _obviously_ right. Either way, it seems like a decent tradeoff to get the 1gb version and save a few bucks, especially if you're on 1600x900 or a similar resolution.

And you're right, the phenoms aren't the fastest; Intel has the performance crown. But the X4's do have a nice, high clock speed, so high that current-gen games on a 6950 aren't limited by the CPU up to 60 fps, which is all gamers need to worry about.

It's not an exact science, but setting my mates up with the 6950 consistently means I can tell you it doesn't make a lick of difference to the current 3d mark score whether you get 3,4ghz or more. In that respect, getting a faster intel processor shouldn't have an impact either. I really want to know what difference the FSB clock makes, though...maybe sometime I'll give it a whirl, see how much bang you get from clocking the ram at 1600mhz vs. 1333.

Also, I suspect within 3 years, assuming graphics cards upgrades, the phenom will eventually be limiting, because that's how it usually goes, but it's very difficult to say...if gaming gets more multi-threaded, the 4 cores will keep things good, whereas single-threaded performance will be an issue at some point.

Graphics card development has also slowed down considerably; the 6950 is still the best-value proposition right now, and still has nearly identical price to it's value 10 months ago...and nothing new has come out. My GTX260 gets its ass handed to it in the latest 3dmark that runs on both cards? but it still gets 50% of the frames the 6950 gets, inspite of being nearly 3 and a half years old. Just mull that over for a second. You get a good card from a graphics adapter company, it's not the best single-gpu solution they have, it's one model down. 3 and a half years pass, and if you do the same thing, not the best single-gpu, but one model down...you double your improvement, almost to the decimal.

Moores law isn't supposed to be that slow; AMD and NVidia are batting significantly under par and have been for some time, and AMD at least appears to have switched from bi-annual to annual release schedules for the flagship model. They simply let multi-gpu solutions gobble up demand for faster things.

That'll probably be noticeable throughout the games currently under development, in so far as developers keep an eye on pc hardware at all...and if they don't, current level hardware performs extraordinarily well and should continue to, because then they'll be targeting consoles.

Anyway, it's all mighty theoretical, but I can't reach any other conclusion: We're at some kind of weird technological precipice where the barrier of entry into high performance gaming is quite low, and likely to remain so for a while.

[bobby 55]

With a 2gig card you wouldn't have to up the processor that much anyway would you? In my current position I'll drool over a core duo 2.8ghrz, though a quadcore 3.4 would be sweet.

[gamer0004]

At resolutions like 1920×1200 2GB is most certainly overkill. Just look at the benchmarks at those resolutions. It's always good to have some headroom, but even 1GB is actually a lot.
Also, I'd wait until the AMD 7 series gets released. It won't be long now.