Ok I believe its time to do a new computer setup, advise would be welcome.

[Harkoliar]

Ok, I posted this post http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/...light=computer a couple months back wanting to upgrade my computer. However, with good advice from you guys I have decided to wait. Now I think I have waited long enough .

I have searched and noted this set of parts (asking the store to assemble it) and Ill take care of installing Windows Vista 32bit Home Premium. I am asking if this is the right parts or at least not one part will slow down the entire system bec it is too slow or if the power supply is inadequete ( I am quite out of touch at this stage).

note: Prices are on Aud so converting them to USD is just multiplying it by .9

Asus M3A32 MVP Deluxe - $227 AMD Phenom x4 9750 - $224 2GB Kit DDR2 1066 Kingston HyperX - $81 (X2) 1GB 9600GT ASUS - $189 Seagate SATA 1TB - $209 LG Retail SATA Blu-Ray Combo Player - $169 Antec Nine-Hundred - $167 Thermaltake ToughPower 600W - $148 Netgear PCI WPN311 - $53 TV Tuner Leadtek DVR3200H - $85 -------------------- Parts Assembly,Testing+overnight burning test - $70 OEM MS 32 bit Vista Home Premium - $136

Total cost would be $1,839 aud or $1655.1 USD. Would 32 bit Windows Vista be okay? Perhaps in the future I may add another 1gb 9600GT rather than going for a higher end video card at this stage(budget wise)

[Harkoliar]

Oh I forgot to ask, would the processor 9550 and 9750 amd quad core would make a huge difference? or a 512mb vs 1gb 9600gt?

[Variol (Farseer) Elmwood]

My advice is "don't do it"!

I'm so tired of the software companies writing lousy software and the consumer being forced to upgrade their hardware in order to be able to use it.

Mine is about 4-5 years old. I have put more memory and a new video card in it. I may upgrade the CPU at some point, if I see an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ for cheap.

My wife's PC is 9 years old. A P3 866Mhz. I've made a few upgrades since then: video, memory, HDD and a new power supply twice. I just put the second in last week when the former one blew. I got it for $5 on Kijiji. The guy delivered it my door!

[Harkoliar]

Sadly my own computer is just as old and lower end than yours. Mine is also just turning 5 years old upgraded my memory and video card. Added hard drives even 2 external hard drives.

Still wouldnt run even games made 3 years ago. thats how old my computer is. I am actually happy I bought this medium end computer 5 years ago and it still works great.

However for gaming, and for this computer I am building this is meant for another 3-5 years hopefully and the parts I am getting are quality parts so it would last that long. .

Imagine my own frustration to run flash swf online games and it goes to a medium crawl. 5 years waiting is good enough for me to buy a whole new set of computer. I would have bought a dual core last year and now quad has become mainstream so my patience did pay off

Thanks for the advice though, I would give it to a person buying a computer if it thier old computer was just 1.5 -2 years old or less.

edit: oh yeah its not like Im getting the ultra high end here . Just above average specs like 5 years ago plus adding alittle bonus of blue ray so I can watch dvd/blueray on it and HD tv. I am planning to put this as a media/game computer centre rather than buying a seperate dvd/blueray player.

[Variol (Farseer) Elmwood]

I see the AMD Athlon 64 3200+ CPU going for $40 on eBay. And a decent MB would run you $100-150. Video would have to be PCIe these days; AGP is getting hard to find anyway. RAM is cheap. I have a GIG, which is fine, but you can double that for cheap these days. HDD's are super huge these days. I don't know what people are storing these days.

I know the Athlon CPU is dated, but runs pretty fast. I don't know the prices of newer ones.

[Beaumanoir]

Quick note, because I doubt I can offer better advice than these guys: Avoid Vista. You've probably heard it all before, but it really is as bad and clunky as all the horror stories. Find yourself something running XP. When I bought my PC, Vista had been out for a couple of months, and ALL new machines had it pre-installed, I actively had to search for one without it.

[ElfBane]

Buy more RAM, have at least 3GB. I also recommend Vista Ultimate because that edition can do image backups of your HDD, Home Premium can't.

[Dragonshadow]

Originally Posted by Beaumanoir Quick note, because I doubt I can offer better advice than these guys: Avoid Vista. You've probably heard it all before, but it really is as bad and clunky as all the horror stories. Find yourself something running XP. When I bought my PC, Vista had been out for a couple of months, and ALL new machines had it pre-installed, I actively had to search for one without it.

I agree. I have one computer running Vista and one on XP. And much prefer the XP one.
Even though when XP fist came out I yelled how much I hated it.
*sigh*
But I don't think Vista is really so bad if you can't get XP.

[SecretMaster]

Asus M3A32 MVP Deluxe - $227 AMD Phenom x4 9750 - $224 2GB Kit DDR2 1066 Kingston HyperX - $81 (X2) 1GB 9600GT ASUS - $189 Seagate SATA 1TB - $209 LG Retail SATA Blu-Ray Combo Player - $169 Antec Nine-Hundred - $167 Thermaltake ToughPower 600W - $148 Netgear PCI WPN311 - $53 TV Tuner Leadtek DVR3200H - $85

Several things. I'd honestly recommend just making the jump to the 9850 BE. It's clocked faster and has an unlocked multiplier so if you do want to ever get into OC, you'll get the most out of your money. AMD dropped the 9850 down to $205 recently, but if you are down in Australia I don't know if those price cuts would reach you.

Secondly, I'd say ditch the 1GB 9600GT and go for a 4850 of some kind. For the same price you can get a world's difference in graphical horsepower. Also note that 1GB of video RAM does very very little for actual in game performance. The only time where you'll need 1GB of V-RAM is if your playing a game like Oblivion with all the new and improved texture mods released. That is the only case I can think of where you need 1GB. 512 should be more than enough.

Also if you are intending to build this computer without any future upgrades on it, go for a OEM version of Vista. I'd say a OEM Vista 64 bit. OEM makes it considerably cheaper, but the caveat is you can only do a limited amount of hardware upgrades before it gets locked. Also with 64 bit, you can exceed the 4GB limitations with 32bit OS's. I'd say go for Vista 64 bit and put another 2GB of RAM. DDR2 RAM is extremely cheap nowadays.

[ZFR]

What's the price difference if you get an intel processor instead?