Tech Question
 

I really don't know much about anything, and computer parts Im totally clueless... I want to upgrade my pc and I have a buddy who works at alienware so he can build it, now the question is or rather the questions are:

Best motherboard for $150 or less

Best graphics card for $300 or less

Best harddrives regarless of price.

I can find out about the RAM and other things, but these things I have no clue as to which one to pick!

thanks!

AMD or Intel?

Needs to match the motherboard so decide on AGP or PCI-Express. With this price range I would stick to AGP since you can get a cheaper, more powerful motherboard for the price.

Seagate

don't worry, you're not alone ;)

Yes, Im sorry for not clearing that up.. Intel =)

The only people buying into Intel-based systems now are those who don't know any better. A year ago, I would've told someone to go with AMD for gaming or Intel for multi-tasking/multimedia, but that's all changed. Both companies are moving to dual core now, but the difference is that AMD planned for this a long time ago and designed their chips accordingly; Intels answer is a far less elegant afterthought forced upon them too soon by the failure of their current architecture to reach the raw speeds they'd initially hoped for (due to temperature problems). Dual-core completely erases the last advantage Intel had (hyperthreading). So don't be afraid of change, and don't be blindly loyal to a brand name when they're delivering inferior products at higher prices.

Get yourself a nforce4 PCI-E socket 939 motherboard with a cheap Venice core Athlon 64 CPU and you'll have the best possible combo today and also be as future-proof as you could ever hope to be in this ever evolving market. Socket 939 does support the new dual-core CPUs and soon they'll be an affordable upgrade.

As for video cards, for <$300 there is nothing even close to matching the X800XL.

See all i hear about AMD is that they overheat and that they are unstable and suck...etc.. =\

Intel always been good to me, AMD on the other hand can be used in toasters.

why not just ask him then?

Various reasons.. but i do have his opinion...

or just have him bring some stuff home in his lunchbox, hehehe


Wuz up Dax?

whoever is telling you is a fucking idiot and stuck in the past, plus ive never had a problem with overheating.

Well.. i have gotten just one answer.. and thanks for that.. any more imput on the question? :)

what up bv?

Price range usually vary among pc shops. You can always look for cheap ones.
You better ask your friend to accompany you when buying those items.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh
Far from truth...after many years of loyalty to Intel, I decided to try AMD a few years ago. I'll never go back.

It does require a serious commitment just to keep up with PC technology, so such an out of date attitude is forgiveable. Today the opposite is true. AMD's chips run cool and Intel has major heat problems (the cooling they've started to require is comical). Intel had to give up on reaching 4GHz and adopt dual-core sooner than planned - and in a somwhat gimped kind of way. The days of just ramping up gigahertz is over; there's much more to CPUs than that and AMDs shorter pipelines proved the smarter design. $200 Athlons are outperforming $800 Intel offerings. There's no doubt among geeks that AMD will dominate the performance wars for at least the next couple of years. I'm no fanboy; I'm just painting a picture of the way things are right now. Hopefully Intel will come back with something competative because it's not good for consumers and actually slows progress when one company can afford to just rest easy knowing the other can't (yet) catch up.

AMD based system is the practical choice nowadays. I have an Athlon XP 2000+ at my house with no air-con. Been using it for a year now and got no hardware related problems so far :)

Amen. I did exactly that last week! AMD 3000+ for $147, top of the line asus mobo for $175, 2GB ram, under $500, and newegg sent me a free 128MB memory stick :) In july when amd FINALLY releases the dual core, I'll be sittin pretty and ebay will have another auction.