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Sharky Extreme makes good system recommendations:

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/

The PC Parts picking guide has excellent price/performance explanations... But they haven't updated things in a while (a real shame).

http://shsc.info/PCPartsPickingGuide

(note: I haven't built a system in a while)

Nothing new here, Sharky Extreme has been doing this for years and is more featureful.

I'm reminded of Sharky Extreme's Value and High-end Gaming Buyers' Guides. If you're buying, it would probably be interesting to compare them.

I'm sure I have seen other similar guides, but can't find them now.

I'm reminded of Sharky Extreme's Value and High-end Gaming Buyers' Guides. If you're buying, it would probably be interesting to compare them.

I'm sure I have seen other similar guides, but can't find them now.

10 years ago? Boy, you sure are NOT a hardware guru (read the date of the review... http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/cpu/article. php/991011 ). I don't care how many friends you have helped, except for a brief period just before Intel came out with its new line (C2Ds), AMD HAVE ALWAYS BEEN BEHIND, ADMIT IT, WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? Also, I had an old IBM mini-tower that came with a stock K6-II 350, I dropped a brand new K6-II 500 in it and abused the hell out of that little machine but of course it had a decent heatsink and fan on it, so it's not like I have never had a good AMD, you are just not listening, IN THEIR QUEST TO KEEP UP WITH INTEL, THEY PRODUCED HOT RUNNING, UNSTABLE CPUs. I can remember building many junkers to sell in my yardsales and NEVER had a problem with Intel CPUs, NEVER. They were on ocasion, way slower than there AMD equivalents but they always finished their tasks, RIGHT THROUGH TO THE END, where as an AMD would lock up. Look, I hate monopolies as much as the next person, in an ideal world I would own a quad AMD running some shiny Linux distro but unfortunately, that world isn't here yet. >:-/ I know it's hard to admit but Intel leap-frogged over AMD with the C2D line, lets just thank all the Gods of all the religions that AMD exists and Intel has some formidable competition to keep it in check. Whatever happened to AMD's anti-competition lawsuit against Intel anyway? BTW, my prediction is Europe will be mostly made up of AMD machines running Linux in 10 or 20 years, which is not such a bad thing. >:-/

Anandtech not enough for you, huh? How about. . .

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/cpu/article. php/3261_3660771__12

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?id=2 193&cid=2&pg=12

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-e nergy-efficient_8.html ... but I'm sure you'll just stick your fingers in your ears , complain about a massive conspiracy to pay-off hardware sites, and continue to claim that "Intel's got nothing on AMD as far as Performance-per-watt goes" . . .

If the historical pattern repeats, three years after 64-bit hardware arrives, the market will adopt a new standard operating system. This places the obsolescence of the Win-32 API in 2008, because after 2008 even low-end systems will come standard with more than 4 gigabytes of memory, ruling out 32-bit processors with 32-bit operating systems for new purchases.

I don't want to be the next "640MB ought to be enough for everybody" guy, but I have a really hard time seeing more than 4GB in low-end systems in just 2-3 years.

That much RAM costs a fair bit today, and it feels to me like RAM prices are not declining fast. I found a lovely history of RAM prices at Sharky Extreme that seems to support that feeling. In December 2004, 2005, and 2006, the cheapest way to get 1GB of PCxx00 RAM is always close to $100.

I think the masses aren't going to be running on much more than $100's worth of memory in 3 years, or ever. So until prices drop to $25/GB, they don't need a 64bit OS. They might as well continue running a 32 bit OS on their 64 bit hardware, just like I do now.

...or maybe I'm just cheap.

If I'm right, that doesn't necessarily detract from ESR's point. It's natural that once some threshold is crossed, everyone switches to a 64 bit OS even though most don't need to -- they just get dragged along with those who do. I just thought this statement about 4GB low-end systems was a bit suspicious.

The 160 GB drive is the Hitachi Travelstar 5k160. This disk uses perpendicular recording technology which claims to produce 30% improved performance over older technology. According to one source, this technology increases both storage capacity (data density per unit area on a platter) and subsequent performance because more data can be moved within a given area no the platter. So, a 30% boost to a 5400 rpm system, all else being equal, would be about like having a 7020 rpm drive. This is pretty close to 7200 rpm if this logic holds.

Additionally, these drives consume less energy and run cooler. These are two other, very important to consider with a laptop. It will be interesting to see how the performance figures (including thermal performance and battery life) compare between these drive options on otherwise identical machines.

There are quite a few of them out there. Here's one for CPU:

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/WCPG/article.p hp/3607116

And here's one for RAM:

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/WMPG/article.p hp/3607991

There are quite a few of them out there. Here's one for CPU:

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/WCPG/article.p hp/3607116

And here's one for RAM:

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/WMPG/article.p hp/3607991

Here is the Half-Life 2 benchmark: http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/cpu/article. php/3261_3484631__7 FX-55 is about 20% faster, also here: http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=fx5 7&page=6&cookie_test=1 you can find that FX-57 is about 10% faster than FX-55, which gives at least 30% lead ahead of P4 965 EE.

Thats my biggest gripe about this new version:

Graphics and Video Support

* Intel GMA950 graphics processor with 64MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory.

Shared memory? Yuck! If you could only get a 128mb or a 256mb I'd get one.

Intel Developer Macs Outperform G5s

Sure, GMA 950 is not a good solution for playing DOOM 3 or Halo 2, but Quake 3 and UT 2003 will fly. Sharky Extreme got over 100 fps in Q3/UT 2003 using GMA 950. But who the heck is going to buy the Mac mini for playing the latest 3D graphics-heavy games?

For about $1000 you can build one of SharkyExtreme's Value Gaming PCs.

Not a bad rig for the price.

there are similar types of high-end/midrange/low-end example systems with component descriptions at www.sharkyextreme.com (and doubtless lots of other sites too).

These sites might be of assistance:

www.anandtech.com

www.sharkyextreme.com

www.lostcircuits.com

Value Gaming System Buyer's Guide ($1000 budget)

High-end System Buyer's Guide ($2,500 budget)

Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide ($4,000 budget)

Value Gaming System Buyer's Guide ($1000 budget)

High-end System Buyer's Guide ($2,500 budget)

Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide ($4,000 budget)

Value Gaming System Buyer's Guide ($1000 budget)

High-end System Buyer's Guide ($2,500 budget)

Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide ($4,000 budget)

I usually check out www.sharkyextreme.com for some information on systems built to a certain price. It has a few different options like low-end, gaming, high end. (Don't exactly remember.) Helps a bit even if they aren't one of the top hardware sites. I've always found their guides to be very useful.

Sharky Extreme has created guides like this for several years. They used to update each one monthly, but have since switched to updating each one every four months (staggering the extreme, mid-range, and value).

They also give options between AMD and Intel and among video card manufacturers, as well as advice when shopping (e.g. check the dead pixel policy for LCDs).

I don't always agree with them (for intstance, I would spend the extra $10-$20 to get CAS 2.5 memory instead of the CAS 3 value select memory, even if it only runs at CAS-3 until/unless you have 2 chips) but in general they give pretty good buying guides.

No, it's not. It's not even the same from a semantic definition. If you have a bundle of 4 oranges and 4 apples, and a bundle of 8 oranges and 8 apples, the second bundle isn't 4X more fruit because it's got 2X the oranges and 2X the apples. It's twice more fruit

According to you, the GeForce 6800 Ultra is only about 4x more powerfull than a Voodoo 5-5500 and only 25% faster than the onboard video of the 925 chipset because the 6800 Ultra can only run Quake 3 at 400fps VS the Voodoo 5's 100fps and the 925's 300fps? Actually, it's not even that because this is only 4x the framerate, not 4x the polygons, 4x the texture resolution, 4x the whatever else you decide to ignore as a factor. Oh and I've completely ignored the fact the 6800 Ultra is running at 1280x1024 and not 1024x768 because that's not a factor either.

BTW, "a whole of it's parts" would be having a fruit basket with 8 fruit because you have 4 apples and 4 oranges (and a basket). "A sum of it's parts" would be having 4 apples and 4 oranges and adding them to get 8 fruit. The real term you are looking for is "The median of it's parts," or "it's only as strong as it's weakest link."

Which, by the way, isn't found by looking at the bandwidth and seeing that the 360 only has 3.5 times as much. The two systems use bandwidth completely differently and we really won't know for a couple of years if that's really the weak point of the system or not. Especially since 4xMSAA uses 0% of the main system bandwidth and the 10MB of EDRAM is on a seperate bus (caching texture, z-buffers, frame buffers and fragment programs).

Abit: http://techreport.com/etc/2004q2/abit-tour/index.x ?pg=1 ECS/PC-Chips: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1891&p= 1 AOpen & Asus: http://www.digit-life.com/articles/mobofactories/ Chaintech: http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/articles/cha intech_taiwan/

For an inexpensive box, Sharky Extreme does a decent job with their Value PC Guides.
$1000 isn't super-cheap, but it's a good guide to start with.

The price difference really doesn't exist anymore. At any particular price point above the bare minimum, Intel and AMD costs about the same. I just bought a $220 Intel processor from NewEgg, a 3.2 GHz P4. For the same price, I could have gotten a retail AMD 3400+. The P4 is faster in some tasks (such as video editing), but the 3400+ is faster in others (such as gaming). It's pretty much a toss-up.

Also see this comparison of CPU prices.

And no, I'm not referring to SLI, which was specifically designed to pair two Voodoo 2s together. I'm talking about technology that can bridge any two cards together. This is nothing more than the complex bridging involved in say Metabyte's TNT 'SLI' solution that consisted of a PCI bridge and software to split the framebuffers. It was never released for two reasons

1. GeForce 256 released shortly after this was announced.
2. PCI bridge required both the AGP and the PCI card to operate in PCI DMA mode. Unfortunately, there never was such a thing as an "AGP bridge".

In any case, other companies have now successfully implemented a simple framebuffer splitting concept on-card, where the bandwidth is more plentiful. The ATI Rage Fury MAXX and the 3dfx VSA-100 come to mind, these chips simply split the framebuffer rendering according to complexity. Beyond that, NOTHING was shared - triangle and texture data were replicated for each chip.

The key to this: on the software side in 3D mode their software automatically splits two framebuffers between the two cards. As for the "special" chipset, whatever scene data is sent to one video card, the same data is sent to the other video card. I can't imagine it being any more complex than this.

Another good source for suggestions on best hardware for your price range is the buyer's guides at Sharky Extreme. Monthly (approximately) they put together the best gamer box they can for $1,000, $2,500, and $4,000.

Another good source for suggestions on best hardware for your price range is the buyer's guides at Sharky Extreme. Monthly (approximately) they put together the best gamer box they can for $1,000, $2,500, and $4,000.

Another good source for suggestions on best hardware for your price range is the buyer's guides at Sharky Extreme. Monthly (approximately) they put together the best gamer box they can for $1,000, $2,500, and $4,000.

Another good source for suggestions on best hardware for your price range is the buyer's guides at Sharky Extreme. Monthly (approximately) they put together the best gamer box they can for $1,000, $2,500, and $4,000.

$4000? In 1997?

You're on crack.

Though I hasten to admit that I didn't buy any 9 gig SCSI drives in 1997, per se, I did buy two 9-gigabyte IBM 9ES ultrawides in 1998 for something less than $500 each (Non-anecdotal evidence here).

(Oh, and yes. They're still working justfine, thanks.)

Even hard core gaming sites like Sharky Extreme are now recommending optical mice exclusively in all their hardware guides.

Dude, my cell phone has more processing power than that. Get yourself a new, shiny Athlon XP2000+. It will set you back all of about 50 bucks. The time you save compiling your kernel alone is worth the price.

Is anyone else having trouble with the Samurai Jack page rendering properly in Firebird 0.7? I've had this same problem off and on with Sharky Extreme as well.

That's one of my favorite cartoons of all time. I hope they keep it true to the cartoon. "Samurai Jack! Watchout!"

All of the screen shots seem a little washed out, even more so than the cartoon. That's a little disappointing, even if it's for some bright dramatic light effects when you whack something with your sword. Would an iris effect help out with the limited range of brightnesses?

Er, assuming you mean "Hardware Texture & Lighting Transform Engine" and I believe you do, then a GeForce1 will not run it, nor will some of the earlier ATI cards (not sure where the HT&L line is drawn in the ATI series, but it's there).

BF1942 requires hardware T&L, and it will not even try to run on a GeForce1.

The whole webpage is a "recommendation", so it is defined as an opinion. It is MY opinion, but still just an opinion. I am glad you enjoyed it.

--- Operating System ---
I was an avid gamer. (I have not had the time for a couple of years, since I am trying to launch several software products.) Windows98SE is still the best gaming platform. The PCs I build are for single-user, so the multi-user abilities of the NT line are more of an annoyance than a benefit.

A friend uses Win2K, and had problems with many games. We tried to troubleshoot them, but he eventually just gave them to me. We also had a few hardware issues. (He returned that stuff.)

I do not like WindowsXP. I do not like the interface, and even after changing everything back to "normal", it still performs differently in ways I do not like. (I also use several Linuxes, so just different would not bother me.) I also seem to have the ability to crash XP often. I know people who are using it, but I cannot recommend it.

My recommendations have not stopped several of my friends and family from running XP. It does mean they have to listen to me say "I told you so" every time they call me for software support, which is much more often than the Windows98SE users.

--- AMD vs. Intel ---
I did start that recommendation with "I do not understand".

The savings is less than $100. According to SharkeyExtreme's DEC 31 CPU Price Guide, the P4 2.6Ghz 800Mhz bus is $162. The "equivalent" Athlon XP 2600+ (2.08GHz) 333Mhz bus is $90. So you save $72.
- The P4-2.4 800bus is $153. Athlon XP 2400+ (2GHz) 200bus is $75, so the savings is $78, but the AMD bus is one fourth the Intel.
- You are running a slower chip and get less than half the bus speed. Does the higher latency more than halve the speed of the bus? Is the equivalency valid when comparing to the 800Mhz bus?
- AMD's fastest CPU is 2.2Ghz, but even the Athlon XP 3000+ (2.16GHz) costs more than the P4-2.6, so you cannot compare at the same CPU speed. According to AMD's chip speeds, every 80Mhz increase for AMD is equal to a 200Mhz increase for Intel. Can this be true?
- Apple has been selling better quality but slower speed CPUs for years, so the "equivalency" system has tradition. It feels like AMDs equivalency system is a marketing ploy from when AMD had the faster bus and could prove the numbers, but it is still used because AMD fell behind in the 32-bit CPU technology and needs to appear better.
- $72 is not much when the system still costs over $1000. If buying the Intel makes the system usable for a few more months, and gives better performance during its life, than it is worth it. My whole recommendation is about spending the money where it makes a difference.

If using an AMD gives a true perfomance increase, then please give me details. If it is to save a few bucks at the cost of any perfomance, then I would prefer to stay with Intel.

I'm also a fan of the SharkyExtreme monthly Value and High-End gaming system guides. You get both ends of the spectrum every month.

Try Sharky's Extreme.
They do a monthly guide to building a value gaming rig.

If you've got more cash to blow, they also do a high-end guide.

Try Sharky's Extreme.
They do a monthly guide to building a value gaming rig.

If you've got more cash to blow, they also do a high-end guide.

Do your part for Internet Free Speech. Boycott Toms Hardware Guide.

And if you don't give a rat's ass about Internet Free Speech, boycott Tom's Hardware because they suck. Articles are spread across too many pages simply to create ad revenue, articles are poorly written and researched, the editors often seem to take a cue from Slashdot, and to top it all off THG is hardly impartial. If you want good hardware coverage, get it somewhere else.

All I did is point out that the Apple rep didn't mention the Quake benchmark which is *way* off for the P4.

Here are some regular PC scores that bear no resemblance to what Apple quoted

Anandtech

SharkyExtreme

Now this has been widely reported. So I *know* you don't think me a troll just because I was curious why the Apple rep didn't mention these stats.

A 3GHZ P4 (which has been out for a while) scored 385.6 fps. According to Apple's website it is 275. That is a *huge* difference.

Apple Bench

Now since you so clearly know me a troll quoting stats on an unreleased box, please inform me where Apple got their stats here. I wanted to hear it from the Apple rep because I thought he gave a fairly good response to the Spec issue. I still think it somewhat misleading, but nowhere near as bad as what PC zealots were claiming.

For the record I think OSX a vastly superior OSX to either Linux or WinXP. If they improve the Finder as much as it appears I'll be a very happy camper.

But troll? Come on. Asking very reasonably questions is not trolling.

Worse than that, THG can't even get their facts straight. For example, when discussing fsutil.exe on page 4, the caption of the picture calls it a DOS app (it's not) and say it's from Sysinternals (perhaps they meant ntfsinfo, like the picture shows), yet the article text properly calls fsutil a "command line utility" (which it is) from Microsoft (which it is). While they do mention that it works on XP and not Windows 2000, they don't bother to mention that it's also available on Windows Server 2003, and that it's a system utility that's installed with the OS (c:\win[dows|nt]\system32\fsutil.exe). And just to add insult to injury, the "fsutil fsinfo" command they suggest you run is not quite correct. You need something more like "fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo c:". "fsutil fsinfo" by itself just gives you another help screen, and not "scads of fascinating statistical information on the file system, volume and MFT."

All this article does is reinforce my dislike for Tom's Hardware Guide, and gives me ammunition I can use to convince others that THG is crap, too. If you want good hardware reviews, go somewhere good like AnandTech or Sharky Extreme. Hell, you could even go to Blue's News for the daily Hardware Reviews and still get better info. (I've not once seen Blue's link to THG from the Hardware Reviews ... I wonder why?)

A poster above asked, "Why don't you just put all that RAM in his/her system, or, if the RAM is maxed out, buy a better motherboard."

Problem is, there's only so much RAM a "normal" motherboard can refer to, before you have to start doing ugly (and expensive, slower) hacks. 2^32 = 4294967296 bytes, or precisely 4 gigabytes.

After that, you're on your own.

So, my question is: Why don't we have "RAM banks" that interface over SCSI, firewire, or even IDE?

If it's firewire, it could even be external.

A RAM chip isn't that large. Why isn't there a slick "drive" about the size of an iBook that holds 40-60 modules.

The RAM itself, according to this week's memory prices is $80 for 512 MB PCC133 ECC, which means 5 gigabytes (more than enough probably for whatever work you want to do -- remember, this is volatile memory, so you can't store anything permanent on it!) is only $800 for the chips themselves.

I'm not sure I understand why PC800 is about the same price for 256 MB modules, but an order of magnitude more for 512 MB, while PC3200 (apparently the fastest of the lot?) is almost the same price as what I quoted for PC133.

Anyone?

I really don't like their guides. I find the best one is the sharky gamers guide to system building (at different budgets.) Check it out @ www.sharkyextreme.com

Heres a new review of the 3.06 HT at Sharky Extreme

.. and hook up the video card.

I have a 1800 Althon system with the GeForce 4200 card that runs like a top with XP.

Although Intel would have you believe that the P4 is what makes the net "come alive", it's really your graphics card and internet connection.

As a previous poster stated, get a good case from newegg.com

I recently built my system, spending ~700 bucks and had no problems with any of the parts I purchased from them. As always, check the guides at tom's hardware, sharkyextreme, anandtech.com

Good luck and remmeber not to run on the carpet before you build it together. Personally, I never had a problem with static electricity except for one time I touched the bottom of HD and fried it. Good thing it was a work computer though :-P

This was posted just a couple of days ago. Looks like a nice piece of hardware. It's a shame they're dying.

A quick web search shows Itanium is x86 compatible.

Admittedly, the Itanium does this using emulation, whereas the Opteron is supposed to handle 32-bit instructions natively, however the statement that 32-bit code will not work on Itanium is quite misleading.

They have an excellent website: good selection, well laid out, good navingation tools (View by name, View By Price, include tax etc.) and good ordering system. They have good prices and very reasonable (my last order €8 on ~1½ kg) shipping charges which importantly is with DHL Express (2 days), so you can track your shipment on the DHL website (which is brilliant - I've been stuck in limbo several times not knowing when or if a shipment will arrive when buying from other retailers like dabs.com). And no I don't work for Komplett, just a happy customer.

As many others have said it will probably not be cheaper when you build your first machine but you will get higher quality parts. What this means is that when it comes time to upgrade (in 9-12 months) you only need to upgrade part of your system (say, only motherboard, processor, memory and graphics card). Also having bought quality parts any you upgrade can still continue to have a useful life as a server or SO's machine.

If you are going to build your own machine you do need to do your homework. Overview sites like http://www.arstechnica.com/, http://www.sharkyextreme.com are useful but don't always get it right. I find component/area focused wesites invaluable. Here are some good examples: http://www.motherboards.org/ , http://www.3dsoundsurge.com/ , http://storagereview.com/

Also a good idea is to lurk for a while in some of the product newsgroups / online forums.

One thing that you should not forget is that building your own PC is a lot of fun! It's interesting, satisfying and educational. So in the long run I think that it is both cheaper and more rewarding.

i'd recommend doing building your own pc at most once. it's a good way to familiarize yourself with pc hardware (i found the docs at sharkyextreme.com particularly helpful).

but when you roll your own, you're on your own, replacement-parts-wise. stuff breaks. so if the learning benefit will be small or nonexistent, i'd say go with a dell or another company that's willing to have your hardware headaches for you.

also, if i were to build my box over again, i'd try to avoid buying from bulk resellers, who send out components without documentation. sure, you can usually find the docs online, but it's convenient not to have to look.

sigh... but anyways -- the answer you seek is not short, but can be summerized: it depends on what you want.

lets have a few scenarios:

1) you want the fastest, most elaborate PC there is for whatever compensatory reasons. build you self all-the-way. pricewatch, pricegrabber, gotApex Deals, techbargains, and dealwalk are all fine sites to look for deals. flamingo world have some stuff too. pricewatch and pricegrabber gets you the goods, and the rest of them get you the "deals", for example Dell is selling a 20" flat panel (very nice, i have one) for ~1600 -- yesterday you could have gotten it ~1100. just have to check those places everyday. and oh yeah -- go to overclockers.com and find some people to sell you waterblocks, you will need it.

2) average man wanting an averagely fast computer. build can get you more customization and you can "grow into it" more... for the longest time dell would lock the MB so you can't swap processors! and then you can't tweek the MB on ram settings, blah blah either. price is similar if you go and find a good deal. a P4 2GHz can be had at dell for ~600 bux -- no way you can beat that, sorry, especially if you are in CA and have to pay tax+shipping for everybody from pricewatch.

3) your mom/dad. buy one -- in fact, buy one used -- or even better, sell them one of your old, "retired" ones.

4) laptop users -- buy -- because there is no options here. but today unless you are really into water cooling and all that, a laptop gives you the same speed / blah blah anyway. i have a UXGA on my laptop -- sure i have to squint when i look at things, but whatever. p.s. get a good vid.card if you buy a laptop: they are not upgradeable -- however if you are REALLY desperate you can get processors for laptops (micro-PGA) from ebay.

in the end -- for what we want to do (fast system, blah blah) building does not save money. but it's like hotrodding. i have gotten out of the gig a while back (o/c, etc etc) and wont turn back. it's just too much trouble. my laptop has 64M vid.mem and can run most of the games i need it to (and if it really runs bad, it's just a productivity killer anyway). i hope the sites listed in (1) helps -- they are the better ones i can come up with. and have fun -- and last thing. save the reciepts! if you build yourself you WILL, by laws of probabbility, have crap happen and you will know good and well what's an RMA *real* fast.

lastly -- to make everything work out by building -- you will be continously upgrading your hardware. which means
1) you need to recompile the kernel a lot / reinstall windows a lot
2) know ebay like the back of your hand. this is probabbly the only way you have a system that mostly works, does not cost you TOO bad, and you won't have tons of spare parts lying around.

so is it worth it?... well? what is "having a customized PC" worth to ya?