Ello ello! First time posting so let me take a moment to just say hello, and thanks for your help, suggestions, and ideas ahead of time!



Anyway! The reason I'm here. It's tax season and my laptop all but exploded...tatoos will have to wait . I'm sure the laptop can be repaired, but I'd like a desktop anyway.

I'm looking to keep the price VERY close to $1000. I'm just looking for something, obviously affordable, but will last me a few years. If you see any problems or places where I could get more bang for my buck let me know! ^_^

I'd prefer to have it prebuilt so I'm going with iBuypower. I wouldn't mind installing a few pieces of hardware, as long as the "heavy lifting" is already done. I'll just copy and paste the hardware I'm thinking about from the website.

CPU: AMD Phenom™ II X4 945 Quad-Core CPU
CPU COOLING: Liquid CPU Cooling System w/ 120mm Radiator [AMD]
MEMORY: 4 GB [2 GB X2] DDR2-800 PC6400 Memory Module - Corsair XMS2 Xtreme w/Heat Spreader
GRAPHICS: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 – 896MB Single Card
MOBO: ASUS M4A785-M -- AMD 785G Hybrid CrossFire Chipset w/8-ch HD Audio, Gb LAN, S-ATA Raid, USB 2.0, 1 PCI-E MB
PSU: 850 Watt -- Thermaltake TR2 W0319RU Power Supply SLI Ready
HDD: 500 GB HARD DRIVE -- 16M Cache, 7200 RPM, 3.0Gb/s - Single Drive
OPTICAL: 22X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

This actually comes out to $998 before shipping. If there's any "min/maxing" you think I can do, please let me know!

Is having 4gb of RAM something that can bottleneck the pc's performance?

I thought Windows 7 Home Premium had 32-bit and 64-bit options? Z

Does not look too shabby... three things I would change though.

1) Liquid cooling - you don't need this! AMD's generally run pretty cool anyway, this is just an added expense you don't need.

2) Graphics - The card you have speced at the moment is reasonable, i think you would be better of with going for an ATI card though... perhaps the Raideon 4870?

3) Power supply is massive overkill... for that system, even 650 watts would be overkill. Go for a 500, or of you want HEAPS of room for upgrades etc maybe a 550 or 600w PSU.

Google PC power useage calculator and there are heaps of tools you can find online to work out how much power your PC uses. Apart from that, sweet as

Hello Ameatypie

Welcome back..and thanks for your suggestions.

Regards,

airman24..

cheers airman.

1. Definitely reconsider the liquid cooling system, I've been researching HSF's etc. for my own upgrade project and that seems a bit unnecessary for your set-up. There's nothing wrong with it, your CPU will be as cool as a spring breeze but you could upgrade other things with the money you'd save by getting something else.

2. As everyone has said, definitely make sure you're installig Windows 7 64-bit.

3. Buy yourself 2 1GB RAM sticks at least so you can have 6GB, 2 2GB sticks if you can afford it for 8GB. Most of the time it won't matter but if you want to have a browser open and game and do a lot of different things, it will help (Also if you do any video rendering it will be a huge help).

The PSU might be overkill but think of it this way: Too big and you're just wasting a little money, too small and you could damage your parts and waste a lot of money.


Lastly, heat spreaders on DDR2 just seem like a total waste to me. I've never had any faith that they do a darn thing. I've never had DDR2 overheat in my life and generally they're not even too hot to touch after turning the computer off.