Your idea of the fastest gaming/office PC?

I just wanted to know if we have any computer builders here at BTS/ATS/PTS? I was just wondering what your idea of a fast and good affordable PC you might want to build.

Ill start off with the computer I plan/want to build.

Motherboard: ASUS with 800MhZ FSB w/ a 945P chipset.
- LGA SOCKET T (775)
- 4 DIMM Dual Channel DDR2 Capability
- PCI, PCI-e X16
Processor: 3.8 Ghz Pentium4 EE with HT Technology

Memory: At least 1 GB x2 (Dual Channel) DDR2

Sound Card: Sound Blaster Audigy2

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX w/ Dual SLi


Whats in your box?

Nice hardware, may I suggest some changes for gaming purposes.

Use 955 chipset board insted of 945-better chips-faster board.

You could also go the FX chip/ultra 4 chipset motherboard.

For sound-look at the new xfx soundcard from creative-much better card with true on card processing of 3-d sound effects.

I like your vid card choice, but that requires-imo- abig powersupply-I would suggest at least 600 W quality unit or if monwy allows-a pc power and cooling 800 W unit-now thats power.

You will need a good case with lots of cooling.

If you're looking at boutique-style, probably something by Voodoo PC. Each one is custom built, but it's nothing you couldn't do yourself if you had the ability. Well..other than their patented liquid coolant system which is pretty nifty.

If hyperexpensive...

I just posted this in computer specs, as my current project. I stand here:

AMD FX-57, currently stock speed.
A8N-SLI Premium
4GB OCZ Titanium 1GB
Dual 7800Gtx
2 300GB Sata WD drives.
1 74Gb Raptor WD
Pioneer DVD-R
Lite on 52x
X-navigator w 500w X-power PSU (the plug in only what you need PSU drool).


But I need to get a bigger PSU. And I was thinking about getting the X-Fi Fatality FPS sound card, I've had good luck with creative in the past.

dang,,nice specs, sounds like a server? yeah I forgot to add that I wanted my HD to be a WD 200 gb SATA...nice to know im not the only geek on ATS..we should start an ATS Geek Squad lol. I would love to hear more posts

Pffft, that's my next gaming PC in progress.

I have 2 colo server right now. Both are intel mehs. a P4 2.8 1GB DDR, and a P4 3.0 1GB DDR. NY and VA respectively. Well, 2 more, but they're not doing anything right now.

As for home servers for LAN parties and what not, I do have a Dual Xeon 3.06 from Dell, part of their rackmount dealies. 2 74 GB Ultra 320 scsi Seagates. 2 GB DDR each (I forget what speed, but they're on the 800 bus).

Other server I'm building is a Dual Dual Core Opteron (Quad proc sweetness) I've got at least 3 GB DDR400 ECC lined up for it, plus a 147GB Ultra320 Scsi. Not sure what mobo or even which procs I want to get, I mean the 270s are beauties.

So that's it for computers of notice, besides the AMD 1800 I posted on earlier, and this P4 1.4 mobile I'm on (crappy old but working gateway laptop).

Broadband everywhere, can't live without it.

Originally posted by Tinkleflower
If you're looking at boutique-style, probably something by Voodoo PC. Each one is custom built, but it's nothing you couldn't do yourself if you had the ability. Well..other than their patented liquid coolant system which is pretty nifty.

If hyperexpensive...

WTF I MEAN WTF VoodooPC?

HAHAHA thats THE scumiest company on the earth, the owner is a douche! He charged my friend twice, then kept charging his card, and talking # on his board about him, however he get a lawyer it all fixed.

Also I dunno if it still this way but when you use to google voodoopc one of the paid ads to the right was from kimball this guy who lost like 15k to voodoopc lol took you to a link to his forum about it.


Too many horrorstories, i can't believe someone would actually reccomend voodoopc lol

I mean if you're going to paid retarded out the ass money why not get a REAL gaming system from like Falcon North-West, or if you want a fancy name Alienware.

oh and for refference here be the thread

Hey man, chill out, it was just an opinion, I've yet to have a bad experience with voodoo. Of course I've only had 2 PC's built by them, and they weren't even for me. I've only ordered one PC from alienware, there wasn't anything special about it.

Falcon is different though, had 3 PCs ordered there, nice computers too.
But nothing beats building your own PC, and doing the overclock yourself, that and you learn how to fix it yourself. (Assuming you don't know a ton about computers already )

Here is the computer I am saving up to get:

Intel 820 LGA 775 w/ P4 630 @ 3.4 GhZ

Intel D945 Socket 775 mobo w/ 800 FSB

2x Spire 512 PC4200 DDRII Memory (with coolers)

CoolerMaster Cavalier 1 case w/ 350 PSU

eVGA NVIDIA 7800 GT 256MB PCI-E GPU

Seagate 160 GB 7200 RPM SATA150 HDD

LiteOn Black 16x DVD+/-RW DVD Burner

5.1 Channel Surround Sound

Alps Black 1.44MB 3.5' Floppy Drive

Logitech X-530 5.1 Channel Subwoofer/Speaker Set

CoolerMaster 120mm Green LED Fan

Saitek Blue Backlight pcGaming Keyboard

Logitech MX510 USB Gaming Mouse

10/100 Ethernet

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

2x UV Cold Cathode Lights (neons for those who dont know)

UV Reactive cabling


total-- $1,609.00. Not bad, not bad at all

you're not goint to get the MX518?

What PSU upgrade? No way I'd stick with that 350...

and Home Edition? whaaaat?

Thats what comes with it,,,ide much rather have a 650Watt PSU. but the 350 is okay.

No it isn't lol, You need at least a 450 for a config like that. That Graphics card CRANKS. Plus the cathodes?!?! get a bigger PSU, SCHNELL!


lol, yea, anyway, bigger PSU.
Like one of those fancy X-Powers where you only plug in what you NEED.

Yeah, I learned the hard way to never trust PSU's that come with a case., not to mention that in this case the power requirements would probably warrant at least a 450-500 watt PSU. I've seen so many destroyed capacitors in cheap PSUs, it isn't worth the annoyance later.

It looks like a sweet system, but personally I'd got for a bit more hard drive space and a board with gigabit ethernet.

Man, I am out of touch with PC's these days..I'm stuck in the Brand name server zone. I buy HP's with SANs for Servers..instant service from my vendor for those...


But, my thread related question is, who do you guys recommend as a parts dealer?..I have a Gamer/Coworker that uses PC club, and NewEgg...
I need to get back into Hardware, and would like to build something for myself..
Who is a reputable parts dealer?

Thanks in advance!

I've used Newegg a lot over the past 3 years and they have never left me upset. Always fast shipping, never any damaged shipments...I'd recommend them to anyone. Their prices are very competitive as well.

I'm getting pretty out of touch myself though, so I kind of know where you're coming from. 60-70 hour work weeks have replaced the time I had in high school to research parts as long as I wanted, now it's more about getting something that will work as fast as possible with as little work as possible.

Originally posted by Shadow
I've used Newegg a lot over the past 3 years and they have never left me upset. Always fast shipping, never any damaged shipments.

Only if you specifically ask them to not ship it with UPS or as I like to call them the the www.unitedpackagesmashers.com...

Use Fedex, pay a little more but it's never late and the package arrives as it was shipped.

Really, they send it via UPS for you? I've always had packages sent via Fedex express saver shipping by default.

Newegg is great because of their RMA policies, ease of use. Cheaper parts but less reliable for service (Sometimes) would be www.zipzoomfly.com

Some people like Tigerdirect, but I've never had a good experience with them, same with monarchcomputer.

Teehee, I work 40 hour weeks, butI get to look at this stuff FOR my job /cackles.


EDIT: Shadow, the only good case PSU's are antec or coolermaster usually.

[edit on 10/6/2005 by Kalapadea]

I like Antec quite a bit, and have had some good experiences with Allied PSUs actually, even though a lot of people consider them crap. I haven't really heard much about coolermaster in terms of power supplies, so I can't really say much about them I guess...like I said I've fallen behind in the market and have even forgotten a lot of what I used to know. Still, a higher capacity psu seems like a good idea in this case

*shrug*, I really like my Antec Neopower a lot. Those removable cables are really nice and it's good to know that I have power beyond my current load in case I decide to SLI in the future. I had to learn the hard way with my old 500 watt allied that ATX connectors are bigger than they used to be on modern boards ( I have an ASUS A8n sli delux).

It sucks to jump back into a market that changes so fast.