@Patience: Both of those stores are web stores. Newegg is http://Newegg.com and I’m not sure of the complete address of eCollege PC. Newegg has been a good place to buy parts, equipment, and other things in general. It’s where our son got everything for the computer he assembled for us. And it hums. Of course we had him build us a system not just for now but for several years down the road.
Research is a very wise decision, especially into what you’ll be doing on the computer and with what programs. Look at every program needs closely. RAM, video, sound, etc. that’s recommended. Also ask about the capabilities of whatever motherboard someone will use. Don’t hem yourself in with a motherboard that doesn’t allow for memory and other daughter boards expansions.
As GussNemo mentioned. The size of the power supply is also important to consider. This is often forgotten. Problem is if the PS mostly runs at 90 to 100% of its rating, capacitors get hot and the electrolyte dries out resulting in an ever lower capacity until the PS gives out.
As GussNemo mentioned. The size of the power supply is also important to consider. This is often forgotten. Problem is if the PS mostly runs at 90 to 100% of its rating, capacitors get hot and the electrolyte dries out resulting in an ever lower capacity until the PS gives out.
To add to what has been said already, with today’s systems, especially if it’s maxed out with DDR memory and running multicore processors you want a pretty powerful power supply. 500W would be the minimum I would suggest preferably something in the 750W range. Another thing about power supplies is that if you run them near max load then the voltages they put out can become flaky. This can mean serious performance issues because the devices in your computer require specific voltages to be present where they connect to the power supply. If those voltages aren’t there the devices can behave oddly or even not work at all.
Just popping in to say that I know that Patience is not resident in the US, so any reccomendations about good stores to buy from, even Web based stores, may not be helpful.
Having said that, I would reccomend Patience that you do investigate if there are any web based companies in your Country that do build to your own specs.
I use a company in the UK which supplies PCs built to order, either from their own specs, or customised according to what you require, They are well recoomended and the last PC they built for me is still going strong more than 6 years, although obviously a little dated now.
Once you find domething like this there are plenty of people around who can then advise you about the specs you should design into the PC.
ANother good thing about this sort of company is that often you are only going to buy just what you need, so can specify that you only need the “box” Probably with the OS pre installed, and do not need to buy uneccessary peripherals like monitor, keyboard, mouse etc, or any of that preinstalled software and demos that you do not need.
That’s right Chohole. And shipping costs are the big downer for making purchases from the States into Canada. Price can easily double ... and then there’s Customs. Depending upon product, price can again double. So yes, like to find local store. Actually one should be open in a couple of hours and I can call them.
About the laptop or desktop issue though, well hopefully the true computer shop does this better, but the desktops tend to look more like overgrown laptops anyway. ‘All in one’ items with a separate keyboard and mouse. And the laptop the salesman was trying to sell me is more powerful than the desktops they sell! So I don’t know ... figure it’s just one huge bottomless pit for the money. For the price of the powerhouse item, gee ... I could buy several ‘normal’ laptop/computers and when they burn out, they burn out. Anyway, I really appreciate all the specs people have talked about so at least I can pose the correct requests to the people who build the computers and see what happens.
That’s right Chohole. And shipping costs are the big downer for making purchases from the States into Canada. Price can easily double ... and then there’s Customs. Depending upon product, price can again double. So yes, like to find local store. Actually one should be open in a couple of hours and I can call them.
About the laptop or desktop issue though, well hopefully the true computer shop does this better, but the desktops tend to look more like overgrown laptops anyway. ‘All in one’ items with a separate keyboard and mouse. And the laptop the salesman was trying to sell me is more powerful than the desktops they sell! So I don’t know ... figure it’s just one huge bottomless pit for the money. For the price of the powerhouse item, gee ... I could buy several ‘normal’ laptop/computers and when they burn out, they burn out. Anyway, I really appreciate all the specs people have talked about so at least I can pose the correct requests to the people who build the computers and see what happens.
Well whether a laptop is more powerful then a desktop is kind of a seperate thing, if they have equal processors and memory then the laptop isn’t going to be more powerful but like I said it’ll run hotter because it has less room for cooling and when it comes to computers and electronics heat kills. It’s a shame you don’t know how to build them yourself because if you do you can put together maybe not the world’s most powerful computer, but one powerful enough for your needs, for under $1000. If you don’t need a monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer, or any other external devices then you can do it for around $600.
The specs I would go with are an 8 core processor and at least 8GB of memory, preferably 16GB. a couple of 1TB hard drives and a decent DVD/Blue Ray Burner. Sound and networking usually comes built into the motherboard and are fine but some other motherboards have built in video, avoid those. Now on the processors some people are very loyal to the two brands Intel and AMD meaning Intel folks usually won’t touch an AMD and vice versa but to go with Intel is going to cost you alot more. To give you an example, the top of the line Intel i7 with 6 cores at newegg is going to cost you over $1000 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116491
Conversely the top of the line AMD has 8 cores and only costs just under $200 and you get two more cores. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103960
So why does anyone buy Intel? Well in some applications even though it might not be as powerful spec wise, Intels perform better. The difference though is kind of like which is better a big flat screen TV costing over $1000 or a fairly good size picture tube TV costing just a few hundred? Both will give you a decent enough picture so unless you have the need to be able to count the number of pores on your favorite actor’s face the picture tube tv is still the smarter buy.
With the external video card housing the heat isn’t being generated in the notebook so that isn’t an issue.
While this link was posted tounge-in-cheek, it isn’t totally off base for the future. These housings are ridiculously over priced because of the market they are targeting. Eventually they will cost a fraction of their cost now and will be a viable option. Not within this purchasing time frame however
Perhaps having a look at the CPU Benchmarks http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html will give you an idea. The best is usually just not affordable. What I usually do is dividing the price by the performance and look at the lowest buck per performance unit.
With the external video card housing the heat isn’t being generated in the notebook so that isn’t an issue.
While this link was posted tounge-in-cheek, it isn’t totally off base for the future. These housings are ridiculously over priced because of the market they are targeting. Eventually they will cost a fraction of their cost now and will be a viable option. Not within this purchasing time frame however
Oops I must have been working on my last post when you posted that because that wasn’t there when I started that last post. Well yeah if you can have your heat generating componants outside of the laptop then that dramatically changes things, including the things like portability that are thought to be a laptop’s strong point.
... including the things like portability that are thought to be a laptop’s strong point.
One only loses portability when doing specific functions that rely on said hardware, ie rendering… so during the day, portable.. at night render… hmm, sounds like what a lot do now
Again, this is all hypothetical atm (assumes a GPU based rendering engine,) and just for fun
Found “the” computer store here in the city. Had a nice chat with a knowledgeable salesperson who’ll be emailing some specs over.
Sounds like he can put together exactly whatever one wants.
i7
4 core
Motherboard can take 32G with W7Pro
openGL NVIDIA card of somekind with lots of memory [I also make home movies so need a good vid card with memory for that program]
2Tb harddrive.
fans
750W
Battery BackUp tower
If it’s being built and you plan on doing GPU rendering in the future, see about a system board (motherboard) that supports dual video cards for future expansion capabilities.
Also, have the salesperson list the parts they plan on putting into it and go to newegg and amazon and look up the parts, read the reviews to make sure those are the parts you want. All manufacturers have good and bad models of anything they make so the only way to know is to look up each specific model. Look at the # of reviews, the # of bad reviews, and what the people who are giving bad reviews are complaining about. No item will be perfect but it will help avoid lemons.
