Your favourite shop

[MassacreAL]

ok, i believe many of you can give me good answer, so im asking here. what e-shops do you use for buying computers? im looking for something as cheap as possible. my brother is right now in america and in september/october he is going to return back to czech rep. i want him to buy me some computer, becouse there in america its really cheap. ive got 350$ i can spare, and everything i need is CPU/mobo/memory/graphics. well, it dont have to be necessarily e-shop, normal shop could be enough but he(my bro) lives in Baltimore and he would be happy if i ask him for going to chigaco for cumputer.
thanx

[FUS1ON]

http://www.newegg.com/

[BobtheCkroach]

newegg.com is hands down teh best, overall.

However, other sites can occasionally beat a particular price. Another good site to check is tigerdirect.com

I've used mwave.com once as well and had no issues with them at all.

[MassacreAL]

tnx for newegg, its very good shop. ive already chosen my new comp there, its with conroe 6300. wow, its 5 time faster than my current cpu. btw is there a huge difference in performance between DDR and DDR2? or not?

[BobtheCkroach]

tnx for newegg, its very good shop. ive already chosen my new comp there, its with conroe 6300. wow, its 5 time faster than my current cpu. btw is there a huge difference in performance between DDR and DDR2? or not?

DDR2 is better technology. However, it's kind of an irrelevant question considering that you cannot choice which type you use with a given CPU - you have to go with what the CPU supports. In the case of the conroe chip, you can only use DDR2 - DDR is not supported. And I wouldn't think that anyone would purchase a computer system based on which RAM it uses rather than which CPU they want...

If you're going with the Conroe chipset, you'll need DDR2.

If you've got some time on your hands, here's an article that actually answers your question rather than answering by not answering, like I just did :P

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/ddr2-ddr.html

[MassacreAL]

tnx, before i though i`ll buy hybrid mobo that can support both ddr/ddr2 agp/pci-e and i`ll replace old components when i have money, but i see its not possible. uh hard life. now i even found that hybrid mobos cant support conroe, lol. it would be funny if ordered this mobo with conroe and then found out that it wont work, lol.

[NastyDawg]

Ditto what Bob said

[Mad Fox]

I believe that Newegg is the absolute best.

[Caged Anger]

newegg, no challenge

gotten a few things from bestbuy.com too, but certainly not because of the price :rolleyes: (gift cards)

[Oolong]

For comparison the price-list in Russia. You price above?
http://price.sunrise.ru/

[ME BIGGD01]

Nice system specs you got Oolong. Almost the same system as I have for my gaming unit.


I think Newegg is by far the best for anyone looking to buy online in america. I also think that no matter what you should keep an eye on top 5 rated best and watch for deals.

[MassacreAL]

uh guys ive just been on newegg, and 2 of 3 mobos supporting conroe are sold out :eek: (two days ago all 3 of them was in stock, not now) someone here have ever experienced that? how fastly do they ressuply?

[FUS1ON]

On each out of stock item's page there should be a "ETA" (Estimated Time of Arrival) for the item to be restocked or least in the past i've seen one on there when I was buying my video capture card and the one I wanted was out of stock.

[MassacreAL]

yes you are right, i overlooked it. thnx for that, its important.

ok, probably last question, now a bit technical:
ive already chosen computer, but i still have free 50 bucks. now here are three options, and i want to ask you which one is best. i cant decide.

1)Geforce 7600GT instead of 7600GS
2)Conroe 6400 instead of 6300
3)2gb of memory instead of one.

which option would you choose?

[ME BIGGD01]

If you want the truth I would suggest getting a Athlon64 and save your money instead of wasting it on a conroe system. This will allow you to get a better video card which will then give you more fps in your games. Kind of a waste of money that many people do thinking the cpu is the god of the system. Not sure if you listed it but what are all the specs you are getting? I think both of those cards suck considering whats out there. You will not be too happy when you are gaming.

[Death Engineer]

I would recommend the extra ram. 1GB doesn't go as far as it used to.

[BobtheCkroach]

If you want the truth I would suggest getting a Athlon64 and save your money instead of wasting it on a conroe system. This will allow you to get a better video card which will then give you more fps in your games. Kind of a waste of money that many people do thinking the cpu is the god of the system. Not sure if you listed it but what are all the specs you are getting? I think both of those cards suck considering whats out there. You will not be too happy when you are gaming.

I don't entirely agree. Sure, the card isn't the ideal card and money can buy better, but what he's looking at could be a decent card for the money. The 7600gt that caged just got is darned good (580 mhz gpu, 1500 mhz mem, 256 meg), at least in my opinion. My 6600 isn't the top of the line, but I see excellent performance on games. The thing is, most people argue that if you buy a card that doesn't run new games at full power, then you're buying something that's too weak. But the fact of the matter is, almost all games look fine on Medium settings. Sure, I can't run oblivion on Full blown settings, but I also cannot tell what AA and AF does at all. If you take something, turn AA off, then all the way on...I can't tell the difference. I buy a card based on it's ability to make a game look decent, but more importantly, to make the game run smooth. I don't mind if it runs smooth on medium.

Now there are a lot of 7600gt cards taht you can buy for under $100 that really are weak, due to a loss of gpu speed, mem speed etc, but if he's buying one in the 150 range, I think he's getting a darn good card.

Just my 2cents. I love your advice bigg, but occasionally you're unwilling to compromise a little bit of power to save some cash when you make advice, when in reality some of us just can't do that.

As bigg said, though, Mass - post links to those 2 vid cards. If you're looking at a huge difference in gpu speed or mem speed, I'd say go for the card.

[MassacreAL]

If you want the truth I would suggest getting a Athlon64 and save your money instead of wasting it on a conroe system. This will allow you to get a better video card which will then give you more fps in your games. Kind of a waste of money that many people do thinking the cpu is the god of the system. Not sure if you listed it but what are all the specs you are getting? I think both of those cards suck considering whats out there. You will not be too happy when you are gaming.
i didnt posted my future system specs here before, indeed. those are basic specs:

cpu: Conroe E6300
mobo: Gygabyte GA-945GM-S2(i dont doubt about this one)
memory: 512mb, DDR2 533mhz
video: Asus EN7600GS with 256mbs of ram

everything else i already have got/will upgrade it later. i saw a lot of benchmarks(at least two), and everywhere conroe was on top. anyhow, i believe if i bought best proccessor(AMD or Intel, doesnt matter) for 170 bucks and bought graphic card for 170 bucks(one ive chosen costs 120), its worse than cpu for 220 and graphics for 120. if you think something else, im all open for better solutions you can tell

[MassacreAL]

links to cards are here:
cheaper 7600GS (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121008)
more expensice 7600GT(look at memory clock, its running at 1400mhz) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814143064)

[ME BIGGD01]

I was not actually directing the post toward a video card but the entire system design makes no sense. So I guess that is what I was trying to say. It's like buying a race car and putting bald tires on it. This is what I always try to explain here that if you are going to put something together reference to what you are using this machine for. Is it a gaming box, a office machine, and editing station, what? This is what people need to base their system specs on. I am sure with these specs you can get from any OEM vendor and most likely get a better deal. Take HP and look what you can get a xw4400 system for. The conroe platform is too expensive for what it is worth but what ever ya like. It is not the most important part.

I suggest reference to one of my articles I typed a couple of years ago. I know I have not been around much these days because of you know and work. I really would like to put an update together but never get to find the time. I have been testing and putting together a bunch of new designs and seeing what all of this latest and greatest offers. So much to say but so little time to say it. Hopefully soon but for now I would say go for budget because it is all obsolete in a year.

[MassacreAL]

guys pls what means if item is "open box"? cant find it in faqs or in help

[FUS1ON]

It means that it is open, but that could mean several things from a previous customer returned it to the store to the store pulled some parts out to give to someone else and they are willing to sell it at a reduced price. If you are going to buy one, make sure they will honor the warranty. If you are pressed for time, I wouldn't do it. It would be wiser to spend a few $$$ more and get a unopened item.

[MassacreAL]

yep yep, tnx for explanation, its not good idea buy open box in order to save twenty bucks.

[MassacreAL]

one little more thing(but very important). can conroe run with DDR memory? if so, it would be great. here is one mobo that has DDR and at same time DDR2 memory, and i have 768mb of DDR so if i could use it with conroe it would rock. (but i have doubts about that, thats why im asking here you guys)

[BobtheCkroach]

one little more thing(but very important). can conroe run with DDR memory? if so, it would be great. here is one mobo that has DDR and at same time DDR2 memory, and i have 768mb of DDR so if i could use it with conroe it would rock. (but i have doubts about that, thats why im asking here you guys)

Can you post a link to this mobo? I've never heard such a thing.

In either case, though, no, Conroe can only do DDR2. Previous iterations of Pentium may have been able to use this board, as the Mem. Controller was on the mobo, but Intel finally caught up to AMD and put the Memory Controller on the CPU this time,so I'm sure that it cannot, even if the mobo would allow it.

[MassacreAL]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813135023

this mobo. user reviews seems pretty good, and for that price...