I need a date for
Friday. Do you think Anna
would like White Castle?
Posted on 12/06/2005 10:13:13 AM PST by wolfman
Was thinking of starting with this bundle. I'm not a gamer, so the Celeron should do me fine. Is this a good base to start from?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1697047&sku=MBM-PM8MV-340
MythTV. Very cool, and works like a charm.
It sort of depends on how complex and how much. If you're satisfied with the speed of your computer at work, I'm going to assume it's a couple years old, then just about any computer based on Intel's or AMD's mid market processors would probably be more than adequate.
I've been partial to Dell for years now. My main computer is due for an upgrade though (I want to do some video processing of the video I capture as per above posts). I'm really leaning towards a dual core AMD Athlon 64 bit machine which Dell does not make. (They do have dual core Intel though I'm more impressed by AMD's architecture in this area)
I'm willing to bet the FORTRAN compiler used for those programs is not multithreaded so you wouldn't necessarily benefit from a dual core machine. (OK, yes, you can run your virus detection at the same time you run your spreadsheet! Gotta love those marketing people selling those dual cores!)
Thus, I suggest a Dell Dimension E510 for about $700 (Includes flat panel monitor). I would upgrade to 512MB of RAM or more if you use the integrated graphics. If you want to do some casual gaming, I would suggest getting the ATI video card for $50. And if you intend to download PJ-Comix's DUmmie FUnnies PodCasts, you may need more hard drive space!
I am a gamer, just the thought of putting that anywhere near my keyboard makes me get all slackjawed and I start to drool.
As I've been buying computer stuff now for 15+ years, I've found most stuff from tiger to be substandard. I've not had any experience with that brand of board or chipset.
Newegg has the board for $44.95
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130519
and the CPU $96.25
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819112195
Based on that, the Combo is a pretty good deal, for what it is. Warning about that board, you can only use the SATA ports in a raid configuation. If you really want to see standard ole desktop times for opening and closing applications and such improve, you really should goto a board that will support single SATA drives. Preferably Sata 150/300 drives.
I built a new work machine recently and put one of those WD 250GB SATA 300(3G/sec) drives in it. WOW, it boots fully bloated XP in 17 seconds. It opens photoshop CS in 10. Of course, it is an Athlon 64 4000+ with 2GB of ram, but the disk is amazingly fast.
I guess it boils down to what you expect to do with this thing. Opening Word and browsing the internet, that's enough, I guess. Personally, I would spend the extra 50 bucks and get an ABIT or ASUS board that isn't a pig.
Even if you don't game with it, going with a high performance board is something you get to appreciate everyday on anything you do with it.
If you're just wanting cheapo something, Dell usually has a daily special that's $300-$400 and generally a pretty good performer.
Don't buy anything that uses a processor that sounds like it belongs in a salad... If you insist on paying the extra for an Intel product (even though AMD products consistantly outperform the current Intel offerings and cost less) then look for something with the word "Pentium®" in it...
If you're building it to save money, you won't. However, building your own is a lot of fun (in a geeky sort of way), troubleshooting will be easier, because you put it together from "scratch", and it's nice to be able to say that you built it yourself.
For a really cool case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811105118
Thank you for the response. It was very helpful.
All I've heard is that Dell will only use Intel, and the Intel dual core processor runs very hot.
You reply has been bookmarked. Thanks
Did you put one together for yourself? Was it a lot of work?
Yes, I did, and yes, it was a lot of work because it was only my second foray into Linux. The good news is that once you do get it set up and working, it's rock solid....no re-booting, no hang-ups, etc. Just make sure you research it and can get your hands on a video card with the A/V capabilities you need and it's compatible with Linux. Shouldn't be that hard to find. The last time I looked there were only 3 or 4 video cards with the A/V capabilities that were supported under Linux. The rest of the hardware should be compatible. The great thing about Linux is that you can use an older PC that you just thought was past it's prime. I do suggest using at the very least a Pentium III. Stay away from the Celeron or any other chopped processors.
btw, www.mythtv.org
Cool - very very interesting - do you have remote control capabilities?
Oh yes! It would be pretty useless without that!
I need a date for
Friday. Do you think Anna
would like White Castle?
The best site for reviews and ratings of online computer and electronics vendors is ResellerRatings.com. Whether building my own computer from components, or buying a laptop or digital camera, I go here first to find the vendors with the best service and prices.Ratings for some of the websites noted above:
I urge you to stick with online retailers that have plenty of reviews and a high rating on ResellerRatings.com. Both Newegg.com and ZipZoomFly are excellent. I would avoid the others listed above with low or few (none!) ratings.
Newegg.com 9.32 Tiger Direct 5.44 Office Depot 4.11 ZipZoomFly 8.20 BuyDirectPC none Dell 3.88
OH... and just an aside here.....there is no way in h&ll I'd pay top dollar for a high end system and Windows Media Center when this setup works absolutely flawlessly, and will run on a hand-me-down computer. If you have any technical knowledge at all, this is the way to go.
I bought a homemade computer off Ebay at a much lower price than I could have done myself. If you go this route, just check to make sure the seller is reputable (based on feedback). I've had this computer for two years and it still rocks!
I'm pretty proficient with linux - I have fedora core 2 running now and know the linux internals fairly well.
Right now my main TV has a timewarner DVR - scientific atlanta. For "Production use" I will likely stick with that for now - it might be fun to try to build mythTV for my non-main TV as a fun project - does one need digital cable as input or can it use analog? Does it need a phone line? Where does it learn its programming guide info? From the cable companies feed? Doesn't that mandate a digital cable signal coming in? Thanks.
same here, i stopped building them when the emachines with XP started coming out. i just can't build it that cheap.
I'm in th court of people who think it would
be better to buy than build. I've built a number
units myself over the years, and it's just gotten
to the point, that unless you have a custom need,
such as high end gaming, video editing, etc..it's
cheaper to just buy a configured unit.
One company that i've had good purchases from is:
http://www.ibuypower.com/mall/lobby.htm
iBUYPOWER.COM
http://www.ibuypower.com
Customer Satisfaction Six-Month Rating: 7.11
Six-Month Reviews: 45 Lifetime Reviews: 456 
Lifetime Rating: 7.50Average Store: 7.19
High Average: 9.09
Low Average: 3.50
7.39 Pricing of Products and Services 5.71 Likelihood of Future Purchases 5.51 Shipping and Packaging 5.48 Customer Service 4.44 Return or Replacement
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