Specifications for a friend..! vs mega corporation

[KPeh]

I haven't been keeping tabs with all the latest advancements, but at the moment a friend of mine is looking to spend slightly over 2k on a Dell with a 3ghz dual core p4, a 7800gtx and 2gb of ram. I'm sure this is overpriced. So I'm considering building one for him, but have no idea about what's good and what's not!

The requirements:
To run Oblivion easily
Fast CPU, fast graphics, probably 2gb of ram.
Logitech wireless mouse & keyboard (or equivilant)
19" TFT.
Need everything really, including case.

Oh, another reason to why the dell was expensive, he had selected 2 raid 0 hard drives, and a backup. Capacity not a concern. To be fair, there were extensive load times in Morrowind so it was probably quite a good pick.

Can anyone help? Thanks .

 

[KPeh]

Wow, you are all fantastic .

Just messing around with a mix of some of the above at the moment, but how do the graphics cards compare, the Radeon X1900 and the Geforce 7900? Would two WD 10k rpm drives be a lot louder than say two Seagate or Maxtor 7,200rpms?

 

[KPeh]

The 1900 is currently in a league of its own. The 7900 series isn't out yet, so we have no idea how it will line up against the 1900 cards. None of the 7800 series can even touch the 1900 series.

I would adivse getting one raptor for installing the OS, games, software etc because it has the benefit of being 10K rpm, which will really boost boot times, loading times etc. Then I would add a second drive designed for storage only. That seems to be the best solution for balancing speed, quietness and storage space.

The seagates are great drives, as are Hitachi and WD. But maxtor has gone downhill recently so I would be cautious if buying them.

Yep, a single raptor sounds like the best idea, didn't know about the Maxtors though - thanks for that - they're the drives I usually purchase too.

Apparently the 7900 is out on Thursday, so I guess I'll see how it compares then.

 

[KPeh]

The rigs already listed above are all great specifications but are you going to build it for him? For free? Will you then support it for him? For free? What about a legal OS? What about some applications?

Having worked on and built PC's for a number of friends and family I would advise discussing the level of support they are expecting and agreeing what you would be willing to give. Being phoned up 2 or 3 times a day by someone who can't be bothered to RTFM will put a strain on any friendship. My father in law despite knowing I was ill in bed with the flu phoned me up at 10pm and said "my computer is saying it has a virus, it says "to safely remove the virus, click here", I don't know what to do" .....

Heh, have done. Specified I don't want to be tech support for life, and when there's something he can google to solve, he knows to do it . Also he assures me that he will regularly format, and is anyway a very good friend of mine. So no problems there! I have learnt from past experience & mistakes .

Is the OEM windows ok? Seem to remember some problems about updating OEM versions, or somesuch. That was ages ago and refering to win2k I think.

And is Nod32 a good virus scanner? I was just going to stick AVG on it!

 

[KPeh]

Just sorting out the final spec at the moment, with my last question I hope ! Is PC3200 the normal speed ram for the X2 4400+? So PC4000 would only be useful if it were overclocked..?

 

[KPeh]

Right, finally got it sorted, based it heavily on Explict's model.. I guess I want to know if there are any conflicts etc. I'm assuming PCI cards are backwards compatible with PCI-Express slots. Or do the motherboards also have PCI slots (really out of date with this stuff, as I said!).

Anyway:
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CPU/motherboard/ram/graphics:
-------
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM)
£284.95 (£334.82)
Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-131-AS)
£119.95 (£140.94)
Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-079-CS)
£124.95 (£146.82)
Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (3055) (GX-046-CO)
£294.95 (£346.57)

£824.80 (£969.15)
------
Power supply/Sound card/Primary Hard Drive/Secondary Hard Drive
------
Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-009-TG)
Price: £77.95 (£91.59) [Out of stock at the moment, change it to a FSB one if they don't get any in]
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music - Retail (SC-034-CL)
Price: £69.95 (£82.19)
Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD)
£93.95 (£110.39)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 NCQ 300GB ST3300831AS SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-021-SE)
£67.95 (£79.84)

£309.80 (£364.01)
-----
Case/monitor/Fans
-----
Akasa Eclipse-62 Aluminum Case (CA-005-AK)
£66.95 (£78.67)
Samsung SM-940B 19" LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-032-SA)
£204.95 (£240.82)
Vantec SF12025L Stealth 120mm fan - Retail (FG-005-VT) x2
£7.95 (£9.34) x2 = £15.90 (£18.68)

£287.80 (£338.17)
------
Peripheral bits: Keyboard&Mouse/Mouse mat/DVD-RW drive/DVD drive/Artic Silver/Semi UPS/DVI cable/Windows/TV Tuner/Wireless network card
------
Logitech diNovo Laser Media Desktop - Retail (KB-076-LG)
£104.95 (£123.32)
Everglide Ricochet 2.52 - Black (GS-016-EV)
£23.95 (£28.14)
NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE)
£24.95 (£29.32)
Sony DDU-1615 DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM (CD-020-SO)
£10.95 (£12.87)
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) (AC-000-AC)
£5.50 (£6.46)
Belkin 500VA Superior Series Emergency Battery Backup (F6H500UKUNV) (UP-010-BE)
£17.95 (£21.09 Including VAT at 17.5%)
Belkin Pro Series DVI Cable 3M (F2E4141EA10-DD) (CB-127-BE)
£19.95 (£23.44 Including VAT at 17.5%)
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM (OS-001-MS)
£50.95 (£59.87)
Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1100 Freeview TV Tuner (GX-025-HA)
£42.95 (£50.47)
Belkin F5D7000UK 802.11g Wireless PCI Adapter (NW-007-BE)
£16.95 (£19.92)

£319.05 (£374.88)
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Total (without VAT): £1741.45
Total (with VAT): £2046.20

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Thanks very much people, you've been a fantastic help .