What computer do you use?

[TheCerealKillee]

Just wondering what kind of computer you guys are on at the moment

Would have no clue whether you are into the high-end gaming desktops to the weak little netbook.

Personally, I'm on a pretty old desktop, but will be upgrading to a $3000 Sager NP8120 soon

 

[buzzbuzz]

I'm on a 2-year old Macbook. Have a little 2.1 logitech speaker system and 60GB of music on iTunes so it's mostly a work/internet/music machine, and watch movies and game on my PS3/TV.

 

[TRAWP]

Custom PC i built myself

HAF 932 Case
Intel i7 930
Dominator 6gb DDR3 Ram
ATI Radeon HD5870
Seagate Barracudda XT SATA III 2TB HDD
ETC ETC

Cost me 2k to build

 

[alfy!]

Yeah I'm using a computer I built myself, around a AMD X6 1055t, cost about $1k.

 

[Xtreme]

P4 2.4ghz that i purchased 6 years ago. Upgraded the ram (256 - 1gb), video card (64mb - 128mb), swapped hard drives around (originally started off with a single 60gb, added a second 120gb, swapped my main 60gb with an 80gb, recently swapped the 120gb for a 500gb) and have been through a number of dvd burners.

I havn't been able to play "current" games for the last 3, nearly 4 years. So when i get my new computer in the next few months, i'll be playing catch up.

 

[Hawkamania!]

Custom PC and Toshiba laptop. Both running Ubuntu OS.

 

[dylan123]

Custom PC i built myself

HAF 932 Case
Intel i7 930
Dominator 6gb DDR3 Ram
ATI Radeon HD5870
Seagate Barracudda XT SATA III 2TB HDD
ETC ETC

Cost me 2k to build

Nice case (along with a nice system), almost got one myself.

I have a custom built pc which I made about 1-2 years ago and have done a few upgrades.

cosmos s Case
Q6600
4gig DDR2 800mhz
8400gt (had a 9800GX2 until it died not too long ago so now I am waiting until after the exams before I upgrade)
I have 5 HDD in my case ranging from 320gig-1.5TB

 

[lewigie]

Custom PC i built myself

HAF 932 Case
Intel i7 930
Dominator 6gb DDR3 Ram
ATI Radeon HD5870
Seagate Barracudda XT SATA III 2TB HDD
ETC ETC

Cost me 2k to build

I almost have the same thing.

I have a Hd4870x2 though.

 

[Zarrix]

Desktop, 2 years old, 2GB ram 450GB, NVIDIA 8800GT graphics, Intel Quad Core 2.4ghz processor.

Don't have any intention of upgrading anytime soon, don't play any games on there anymore.

Also have a laptop for uni purposes, can't remember its specs right now.

 

[TRAWP]

Yeh I have no plans on upgrading here anytime soon, plays all games fine with the GPU no point for me to really go dual. Though loving the SATA III, smick

 

[dylan123]

Yeh I have no plans on upgrading here anytime soon, plays all games fine with the GPU no point for me to really go dual. Though loving the SATA III, smick

What transfer speeds do you get on sata III? I have not looked into it but would be interested to see the improvement from sata II.

 

[TRAWP]

Double the speed of SATA II.
6GBPS, No BS!

Still waiting to test out the USB3 as well.

 

[Ron The Bear]

motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7
CPU: Intel i7-930
memory: 12GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600MHz (3 x 4GB)
graphics card: XFX 5770
hard drives: 2 x 150GB VelociRaptor in RAID 0 (OS drive); 1 x VelociRaptor 150GB; 2 x 1TB Caviar Black SATA3; 2 x 1TB Caviar Black SATA2; 1 x 2TB Caviar Green
PSU: Zalman ZM850-HP
sound card: ASUS Xonar Essence STX
case: Lian Li PC-A77B
monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 2693HM; Philips 190B
keyboard: Logitech DiNovo Edge
mouse: Logitech Performance Mouse MX

 

[TRAWP]

Nice Ron.... Same Mobo and CPu as me, though overkill RAM lol

 

[Ron The Bear]

Nice Ron.... Same Mobo and CPu as me, though overkill RAM lol

Overkill and future-proofing are good, they give a sense of security. For a while, anyway.

It's a great board. Do you have the rev 1.0 model? They scaled rev 2.0 back to 16-phase power to provide a point of difference with the flagship UD9. Rev 1.0 has 24-phase power and is essentially the same as the UD9 except the UD9 has an extra PCIe slot and can run 4-way CrossFire instead of 3. Now that's overkill.

Re SATA III: it's a little disappointing IMO. With the SATA3 WD Caviars, I get a 7% average and 15% peak improvement in read speeds over the single SATA2 VelociRaptor. The Marvell SATA controller on the UD7 isn't part of the X58 specs and has been tacked on - will no doubt be improved upon in future.

Thinking seriously of going to an OCZ Vertex 2 SSD in the next month. The new RevoDrive X2, an affordable PCIe drive, produces insane speeds but lacks TRIM functionality, which means its performance might halve after about 12 months of use. Unfortunately I can't justify the cost of a Z-Drive - I'm an enthusiast, but not that enthusiastic.

 

[TRAWP]

Overkill and future-proofing are good, they give a sense of security. For a while, anyway.

It's a great board. Do you have the rev 1.0 model? They scaled rev 2.0 back to 16-phase power to provide a point of difference with the flagship UD9. Rev 1.0 has 24-phase power and is essentially the same as the UD9 except the UD9 has an extra PCIe slot and can run 4-way CrossFire instead of 3. Now that's overkill.

Re SATA III: it's a little disappointing IMO. With the SATA3 WD Caviars, I get a 7% average and 15% peak improvement in read speeds over the single SATA2 VelociRaptor. The Marvell SATA controller on the UD7 isn't part of the X58 specs and has been tacked on - will no doubt be improved upon in future.

Thinking seriously of going to an OCZ Vertex 2 SSD in the next month. The new RevoDrive X2, an affordable PCIe drive, produces insane speeds but lacks TRIM functionality, which means its performance might halve after about 12 months of use. Unfortunately I can't justify the cost of the Z-Drive - I'm an enthusiast, but not that enthusiastic.

Hey Mate, I didnt realise yours was the UD7, Yeh I have the UD9. It is indeed overkill lol

 

[Ron The Bear]

Hey Mate, I didnt realise yours was the UD7, Yeh I have the UD9. It is indeed overkill lol

Feels good to know you've got the best board going around, though.

 

[TRAWP]

Feels good to know you've got the best board going around, though.

Yeh ill try use that in a pickup line...

"Hey Gorgeous... I have a UD9, wanna come back to my place?" lol

 

[Ron The Bear]

Yeh ill try use that in a pickup line...

"Hey Gorgeous... I have a UD9, wanna come back to my place?" lol

Well it might work if she assumes the 9 is a measurement...

 

[TRAWP]

Well it might work if she assumes the 9 is a measurement...

Will try, will give feedback.

 

[Xtreme]

motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7
CPU: Intel i7-930
memory: 12GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600MHz (3 x 4GB)
graphics card: XFX 5770
hard drives: 2 x 150GB VelociRaptor in RAID 0 (OS drive); 1 x VelociRaptor 150GB; 2 x 1TB Caviar Black SATA3; 2 x 1TB Caviar Black SATA2; 1 x 2TB Caviar Green
PSU: Zalman ZM850-HP
sound card: ASUS Xonar Essence STX
case: Lian Li PC-A77B
monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 2693HM; Philips 190B
keyboard: Logitech DiNovo Edge
mouse: Logitech Performance Mouse MX

That's a fair few gb's across all of your hdd's... the question is: are they all full yet ?

I am looking into buying a new one, my current pc as well as my previous pc were pre-packed HP Pavilion computers. The first one was purchased at an inflated price (that's what happens when you buy from a retailer, and not a proper computer shop) and it was obsolete fairly quickly.

My current pc was purchased direct from a HP dealer, lol'd at the fact that it was a machine that was a crap load better than my previous.... and yet it was more than 50% cheaper. Upgraded the guts out of it the first few years, 6 years after i purchased it... it's time for a new one.

I'm looking at a few computer places (eg: Centrecom, scorptec, pccasegear etc), i like the look of some of their custom systems. Yet they all have something that is off about them - usually a "strong" setup, let down by a weak video card. In other cases, the specs sound nice.... but the quality of the parts (bad brand names, known to not operate at performance etc) is a turn off.

 

[Ron The Bear]

I'm looking at a few computer places (eg: Centrecom, scorptec, pccasegear etc), i like the look of some of their custom systems. Yet they all have something that is off about them - usually a "strong" setup, let down by a weak video card. In other cases, the specs sound nice.... but the quality of the parts (bad brand names, known to not operate at performance etc) is a turn off.

Drives are nowhere near full, but there's peace of mind in that.

They're trying to put together a system that will sell - keep costs down, highlight the selling points, gloss over the dealbreakers - so it's understandable. Most PC users just want something that works and don't have the time or inclination to research fully.

Examinine the specs of components and you'll often see the same phenomenon there.

If you're fussy about your machine, you're better off putting a system together yourself. CPL will build a machine to your specs for $50 or $60 extra if that prospect seems daunting. That's how I got started in 2003.

 

[Xtreme]

Yeah, i've been examining all possibilities. I'd buy it and build it all myself, but i am not that confident in making it work..... i can deal with ram, hdd's, video cards, dvd drives etc. Where i am not so confident is the motherboard and power supply.

It's interesting seeing the price differences from several places, having exactly the same, or some identical (but different manufacturer brand parts) the price sky rockets.

 

[Ron The Bear]

Yeah, i've been examining all possibilities. I'd buy it and build it all myself, but i am not that confident in making it work..... i can deal with ram, hdd's, video cards, dvd drives etc. Where i am not so confident is the motherboard and power supply.

It's interesting seeing the price differences from several places, having exactly the same, or some identical (but different manufacturer brand parts) the price sky rockets.

I had the same reservations about the power supply and paid for CPL to install a new one when the first one died (after 13 months - just out of warranty ). They pretty much all have the same connectors - tinker around with your current system with the power off and examine the types of connectors and where they plug into the motherboard. Mobo's generally all have a similar layout, too. Reading the manual helps.

It pays to shop around.

One thing to consider is that these discount stores generally have very poor after-sales service. It's one of the things you're paying extra for with an off-the-shelf system at a retail store.

My thoughts on some of the dealers:
CPL - excellent range; used to lead the market on price but now being undercut by some competitors
PC Case Gear - another with excellent range; prices getting more competitive all the time and probably on a par with CPL now
MSY - very cheap, but poor range when it comes to high-end components
ScorpTec - very good range; a little more expensive but the best customer service of all of these

Be wary of dealing with online stores based in other states, or those that don't have a store/depot you can visit in person. They are prone to advertising stock they don't have and eventually admit they cannot source. Worth a phone call just to confirm they have the product and can post it as soon as they receive payment.