Buying A New Computer

[Billfo]

Hi everyone. I will be returning to Chiang Mai in just over a week and I've decided I want to get a computer for my room with the internet. I have been researching into the cost of computers, I will be using it for work and also for gaming. I am looking for a good gaming machine, not top range but a computer around the 20,000 baht mark. I have been looking on www.thanni.com in the view to build my own PC, here is what I got.

Case: DGET LC321-313 with 450w PSU 1,290baht

Motherboard: ASROCK 4 core dual - VTSA VIA PT880 for Intel CPU. 2,040baht

CPU: Intel core2 duo E6550 2.33GHz 1333FSB 4mb Cache. 5,960baht

CPU Fan: Coolermaster Hyper TX2 AMD&Intel. 1,280baht

DVD: Lite-on LH-20A4P - duel DVD and CD writer. 1,010baht

Hard Drive: SATA Seagate 160Gb. 1,870baht

RAM: 1gb Corsair Value DDR2 533 PC 4200. 760baht

Graphics Card: XFX Geforce 8600GT 512MB DDR2 PCI-Express or Powercolor Radeon HD2600XT 256MB DDR4 . Around 5,000baht.

Monitor: LG CRT 17" Flatron 3,050 baht. LCD screen on thanni.com start at 6,000, there must be cheaper LCDs than that?

I've not added the mouse and keyboard on yet as they'll be cheap and not hard to choose from. What does everyone think? I always struggle choosing a graphics card as there are so many of them. I would like to play the latest games such as Bioschock etc.

Any input, suggestions or criticisms would be appreciated!!

cheers.

Edited February 6, 2008 by Billfo

[youngkiwi]

I would recommend you at least get a second hard drive and motherboard with on-board RAID, and implement a RAID 1 mirror as part of your plan. Also for gaming you'll need a decent graphics card (the more RAM the better) and your base system memory of 1GB is a bit lean in todays terms. Go for 2GB especially if you want to run Vista smoothly.

Edited February 6, 2008 by youngkiwi

[Billfo]

I would recommend you at least get a second hard drive and motherboard with on-board RAID, and implement a RAID 1 mirror as part of your plan. Also for gaming you'll need a decent graphics card (the more RAM the better) and your base system memory of 1GB is a bit lean in todays terms. Go for 2GB especially if you want to run Vista smoothly.

Sorry, forgot to say, the motherboard does have RAID. Do you have any suggestions as to what graphics card to get? I only want to spend around 5,000baht as I'm on a tight budget

[freitag1]

You can also look for an online backup service and forget about raid. Or just do backups to an external harddrive if you are concerned about data loss. I use both and it keeps me pretty save.

The specs are alright. For 2000 THB more you get the Radeon 3850 which is much better than the GT 8600 and also supports Direct X10. The rest looks decent and if you go for 2 gigs Ram Bioshock will run great.

[nikster]

get more RAM, cheapest way to improve performance.

thanni.com is overpriced for some stuff and cheap on other things, you need to get a second source of prices, like hardware house international... example I bought a WiFi router at thanni for 2000 baht that cost 2500 elsewhere. I was looking for notebook HDs and thanni was 1500 baht more expensive than hw house for the very same model (WD 250GB).

[Billfo]

Thanks for the input gus, appreciate the advice. I'll also shop around Chiang Mai for components, I think building is the way to go but I will look at some pre-built PCs just to make sure. I might go for the Radeon 3850, I'll give it a look.

Cheers again, much appreciated

[DragonQuest]

Where's the blue-ray player or Blu-Ray burner? clearly its the next generation . Its a must have if i was building it.

[youngkiwi]

Online backup is only viable for relatively small amounts of data (2-10GB), especially with the unreliable internet often experienced in Thailand. While online backup is a great concept for keeping a copy of valuable data off-site, it is not viable when you have a lot of data.

[jeffer]

Where's the blue-ray player or Blu-Ray burner? clearly its the next generation . Its a must have if i was building it.

are blu-ray burners that cheap in Thailand now to be able to fit into a 20,000 baht budget? last one I saw, okay it was at least a year ago, cost more back then than Bill wants to spend on his entire setup.

[TopDogger]

You can also look for an online backup service and forget about raid. Or just do backups to an external harddrive if you are concerned about data loss.

Which would be a complete waste of time, he could get the 2nd 160gb disk for less than B2'000 & then maybe use a external disk for daily backups.

[Billfo]

Where's the blue-ray player or Blu-Ray burner? clearly its the next generation . Its a must have if i was building it.

I'd love a Blue-Ray player and burner but my wallet wouldn't love it too much! I'm trying to keep it as close to 20,000 as I can.

As regards to the data back-up, I think I'll just use a DVD burner and also my iriver mp3 player which doubles as a hard-drive.

What do people think in regards to ventilation? Do I need tons of fans being in a hot climate? Or will the standard case & CPU fans be ok?

[pattyboy]

I would recommend you at least get a second hard drive and motherboard with on-board RAID, and implement a RAID 1 mirror as part of your plan. Also for gaming you'll need a decent graphics card (the more RAM the better) and your base system memory of 1GB is a bit lean in todays terms. Go for 2GB especially if you want to run Vista smoothly.

I definitely agree with the advice to increase your RAM to 2 GB.

As far as a graphics card goes, the amount of memory (RAM) on it has some influence on its performance, but there are other factors that are more important. Go to a web site like "Tom's Hardware" and read about the most important criteria when choosing a high performance video/graphics card. Tom's is a good site where there are lots of lab test results and benchmarks you can see to learn which cards give the most gaming bang for your buck (er...baht).

[nikster]

Where's the blue-ray player or Blu-Ray burner? clearly its the next generation . Its a must have if i was building it.

Do you have any bluray disks? Seen any on sale here? If not... why not wait until it's taken off and media is available cheaply?

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello.

I know quite everybody falls for marketing and the hype and power of hearsay - but i advise you, with years of experience building computers, ditch the Intel CPU. Go for an AMD Athlon XP64 x2 (dual core), you get a more powerful variant of those (3800+ or higher) for less than half the price of the Intel. The appropriate mainboard costs the same as the one for the Intel.

Then use the saved money to double your RAM to 2x 1 GB, or get a second, identical, hard drive and do the RAID setup as already mentioned. Are you sure 160 GB is enough??

Mind you (and others) i have nothing against Intel, they make good CPU's. It is just the fact that AMD delivers the same "bang" for much less "buck", and specially for builders on a budget the cheaper AMD makes for more RAM or other system improvements at the same final price. I didn't have a problem with any of the two dozen machines i've built the last 7 years, all of which had AMD chips. None ever overheated even tough some were overclocked, none died (except mine own and that wasn't the CPU that died but the mainboard) and none of the people i've built machines for ever complained about too slow or otherwise weak systems.

Best regards......

Thanh

[Billfo]

Hello.

I know quite everybody falls for marketing and the hype and power of hearsay - but i advise you, with years of experience building computers, ditch the Intel CPU. Go for an AMD Athlon XP64 x2 (dual core), you get a more powerful variant of those (3800+ or higher) for less than half the price of the Intel. The appropriate mainboard costs the same as the one for the Intel.

Then use the saved money to double your RAM to 2x 1 GB, or get a second, identical, hard drive and do the RAID setup as already mentioned. Are you sure 160 GB is enough??

Mind you (and others) i have nothing against Intel, they make good CPU's. It is just the fact that AMD delivers the same "bang" for much less "buck", and specially for builders on a budget the cheaper AMD makes for more RAM or other system improvements at the same final price. I didn't have a problem with any of the two dozen machines i've built the last 7 years, all of which had AMD chips. None ever overheated even tough some were overclocked, none died (except mine own and that wasn't the CPU that died but the mainboard) and none of the people i've built machines for ever complained about too slow or otherwise weak systems.

Best regards......

Thanh

Thanh, thank you for the very interesting input. I guess the only reason I chose Intel is bias. I've always had Intel so its more loyalty (stupidly enough!). I might just use the AMD then, I'll look into the price and as you say I can upgrade my RAM with the saved money. So you say the AMD dual core is pretty much the same as the Intel dual core? The only thing that worries me is why is it so much cheaper? Because of the brand name or performance?

Thanks again!

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi.

I'll be perfectly honest with you - i have no idea at all why they are so much cheaper. I can only tell you that i have been AMD exclusively for years and had only the best of results...... probably one reason for the price difference is all those television advertisements that you see for Intel... i can't recall having EVER seen one for AMD.

AMD chips tend to run hotter than Intels, that is a fact. Yet the heatsink/fan combos that AMD puts in the package along with their CPU's regularly beat certain aftermarket "super coolers" in tests - also a fact. And in the end both of them, AMD and Intel, carry an identical three-year warranty so what gives? Let the price decide the race.

As to directly comparing them, AMD's naming scheme comes from the Intel ones - for example an AMD "2000+" is equal in computing power to an Intel with 2.000 MHz, even tough that AMD runs at a slower speed. For example mine, i use an AMD Sempron 2800+, equals an Intel Celeron at 2,800 MHz even tough mine runs at 1,600 MHz stock.

And of course, just like the single-core ones you can compare the dual-core ones. I have just recently built a system with such a CPU (AMD Athlon 64 x2 3.800+), 2 GB Kingston DDR 800 RAM, 320 GB Seagate HDD, 512 MB ATI-Graphic, Asus mainboard, DVD burner, separate DVD drive, internal memory card reader and high-quality Enermax power supply (the ones in the cheap cases are usually quite crappy) for 25,000 Baht, of which 3,000 were my profit. That was without monitor, but including an original Logitech keyboard/optical mouse set and a pair of loudspeakers, so you can say 22,000 Baht for the machine. The guy i built that system for can't stop telling me how fast that thing works (he's got Vista on it) and how he impresses visitors with the performance! Of course i could have built him a similar powerful machine based on an Intel CPU but that would have been 3,000 or so Baht more expensive (and still cheap compared with ready-made PC's, specially brand-name ones).

Best regards......

Thanh

[Thanh-BKK]

Oh and i forgot this one......... The last Intel chip i used in a computer that was my own was back in the stone age, the Pentium 200. That machine replaced an Intel (!) 486 DX 4/100, which was FASTER and more powerful than the Pentium! So i replaced that Pentium with an AMD K6-2/350 and had a rocket. From then on i used the following chips in own systems:

K6-2/500 socket 7

Duron 800 socket A

Duron 1000 socket A(later overclocked to 1,200)

Athlon 2600 socket A

Sempron 2800 64bit socket 754 (stock 1,600 MHz core speed, currently overclocked to 2,000) my current machine

Built systems for others:

K6-2/400 socket 7

K6-2/500 socket 7

K6-3/550 socket 7

Duron 900 slot 1 (?)

Duron 1000 socket A (my favourite CPU, built several based on it)

Athlon 1200 socket A

Athlon XP 1600 socket A (built several)

Athlon XP64 3500+ socket AM2 (built 3 so far)

Athlon XP64 x2 3800+ socket AM2

Sempron 3000+ socket 754

Sempron 3400+ socket AM2

Best regards.....

Thanh

[Billfo]

Hi Thanh, I've done some quick research and one website says AMD is the best while the other Intel. I'm now leaning towards the AMD, with the money saved, I'm trying to keep it as close to 20,000 as I can while getting good(not brilliant) performance on games.

Where do you buy your components?? 22,000 for that PC is pretty dam_n good!! Do you shop online or buy from shops? I need a monitor too (preferably LCD, but depends on price) but that price range is exactly what I'm looking for.

[LivinLOS]

Hello.

I know quite everybody falls for marketing and the hype and power of hearsay - but i advise you, with years of experience building computers, ditch the Intel CPU. Go for an AMD Athlon XP64 x2 (dual core), you get a more powerful variant of those (3800+ or higher) for less than half the price of the Intel. The appropriate mainboard costs the same as the one for the Intel.

Then use the saved money to double your RAM to 2x 1 GB, or get a second, identical, hard drive and do the RAID setup as already mentioned. Are you sure 160 GB is enough??

Mind you (and others) i have nothing against Intel, they make good CPU's. It is just the fact that AMD delivers the same "bang" for much less "buck", and specially for builders on a budget the cheaper AMD makes for more RAM or other system improvements at the same final price. I didn't have a problem with any of the two dozen machines i've built the last 7 years, all of which had AMD chips. None ever overheated even tough some were overclocked, none died (except mine own and that wasn't the CPU that died but the mainboard) and none of the people i've built machines for ever complained about too slow or otherwise weak systems.

Best regards......

Thanh

Thanh, thank you for the very interesting input. I guess the only reason I chose Intel is bias. I've always had Intel so its more loyalty (stupidly enough!). I might just use the AMD then, I'll look into the price and as you say I can upgrade my RAM with the saved money. So you say the AMD dual core is pretty much the same as the Intel dual core? The only thing that worries me is why is it so much cheaper? Because of the brand name or performance?

Thanks again!

Depends on what your looking at..

For high end audio and video work AMD have always been a royal pain in the arse for me.. AMD on VIA chipsets used to be a guaranteed combo for hellish clock timing and stutter issues.. In the last 7 years or so I have twice succumbed to the AMD temptation and both times the system had to be sold off as junk as it was simply impossible to fix timing problems for videophile uses. I read the same things for those dealing with high end PC audio.

Fool me once shame on you.. Fool me twice shame on me.. Never again for a HTPC with AMD.

For a general use machine OK sure.. But in that niche I would warn against it.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi

I have so far never bought something online in my life...... all parts i buy at Panthip Plaza, bring 'em home and assemble the machine(s) in my room.

To get from that 22,000 Baht machine down to 20,000 isn't too difficult - leave the separate DVD drive and the internal card reader (most people don't need those, but that guy did and i do too) and you saved 1.200, then cut the "Logitech" set and go for a cheapo keyboard and mouse - another 390 saved..... let's see...... the power supply, instead of the 500 watts unit you can go for 460 watts and save another 500 Baht (Enermax are rather expensive but they are well worth it!!) and voila, you're there

If you build a system and plan on using it longer, always put a good quality power supply in there, i can really only recommend that. If you build yourself, you'll obviously have a very wide choice of casaes, and almost all of them come with a power supply. Now you find impressive numbers there - "800 watts", "950 watts" etc. Let me tell you (and you can verify that on the internet) that those figures are pure fantasy. The PSU's in such cases have been tested and it was found out that they start fluctuating in their voltages already under little load, and that they can under bad circumstances damage the connected hardware, specially optical drives!

Now there is a reason why a computer case WITH a "800 watts" PSU cost 1.000 Baht and a "Enermax" 500 watts PSU alone costs 3,990 Baht. The cheapo may turn out a genuine 300 watts and start dropping voltages if you use your DVD burner - if 12V drops to 10.2 that's no good for such a device and the motors inside can burn out. The opposite can also happen - if the load drops (i.e. DVD drive stops or similar), voltages can spike - and let the CPU receive 4.5 instead of 3.3 Volts and you have another item that doesn't love you anymore.

Therefor go for a good PSU regardless of it's price - your hardware will thank you with long life. I have had no problems with Enermax PSU's in four years so far and in that same time have fixed numerous computers where a cheap PSU during burning out took the mainboard, CPU's or optical drives with it. I myself lost an Enermax too - along with the UPS it was connected to, a TV set and a home stereo set! Why? Well, massive power spike in the mains due to some obscure welding apparatus on a neighbouring construction site....... my Enermax was gone but the rest of the computer was fine! So i can again only recommend those (plus, they have TWO fans.... recommended by AMD as well).

As for the monitors i can't say much - i only build computers, i.e. the actual box. I let the buyer chose his own monitor, speakers, keyboard etc and OS. Of course i do install those items and make the machine ready to use.... i think you can find LCD monitors 17" for around 5.900 Baht in Panthip (no "big name" brand tough)... i myself have a 19" Acer that i got from my boyfriend for birthday last year If you plan on playing fast games make sure you get an LCD that can cope with fast action, some cheapo LCD's may lack a bit (the only game on my computer is "Need For Speed", i'm not a gamer at all.... my main use is video editing/converting and internet, plus the computer is my entertainment center - it plays the music and the movies, i have it hooked up to the TV set and the home stereo as well). CRT monitors should be a lot cheaper but i can't tell you about that - i only know some second-hand prices as i've never really looked at monitors Why don't you have a look at Panthip? I guarantee you that you'll find a monitor you'll like.

And about the AMD/Intel website reports - that's a little like "What is better, Coke or Pepsi?" They are both pretty equal technically (AMD and Intel that is), do the same job just as good as the other and here only the price will make the decision - AMD costs half of what Intel costs I never said (and will never say) that Intel are bad chips, for me (and the folks i build machines for) it is important that the job gets done and stays within budget - so AMD it is

I hope i could help you on your quest........

your Thanh

[Richard-BKK]

Personal I would keep the chipset of the motherboard to Intel, I have not that good experience with VIA chipsets, the problems where at least not worth the 1000 bht difference. For VGA keep it please on Nvidia, if you ever want to try something else, say you want to run Linux or want to try to change your PC into a Apple you would need wizz-kids know-how to get things working. Still the Nvidia 8600 GT with DDR-3 kicks ass of ATI VGA cards in the same price range. ATI sucks greatly, they just one year behind the real world, some ATI cards supposedly to support DirectX 10.1 but still suck deeply on speed.

Second thing 2 with memory, modern motherboards like the Asus P5K and his more advanced brothers support dual memory setup, which means you use 2 memory modules to great 128-bit memory access, which is a huge speed jump. I agree with Windows Vista more memory is better, if I build I will try to get my hands on a Windows XP Home and laugh big time on the gaming and general application speed advantages.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi

Have to mention somethin gabout that too Since about 2002 i have been using exclusively ATI graphic cards in all my builds too, and NEVER encountered the slightest problem.

Why?

Well, back then i had a Nvidia and could not, for the life of it, get that thing to work in.... LINUX!! Dropped in an ATI and it worked.

And ever since - ATI. No headaches. Good enough performance for me (again i am NOT a gamer!) and in my price range. But true - Nvidia has higher performing ones, yet i never used the high-end ones anyway (my own is a poor x300 with 128 MB, that's fully sufficient even tough it drops my Vista-Index to 2.1, i don't care.. it was cheap and works well).

Regards.....

Thanh

[Billfo]

Once again, thank you very much for the really imformative posts! Thats even better news that you don't shop online Thanh, I'll be sure to shop around Pantip Plaza when I return to Thailand next week. I've also seen numerous reviews regarding the ATI Radeon cards are the best for most 'bang for your bucks' so I think I'll change to Radeon X1950 Pro 256mb. Although what Richard-BKK said I'm now a little confused.... again!! lol

I have also heard the same regarding the PSUs that come with cases, my friend said exactly what you said Thanh about the voltage dips and surges. Although I've had one for the past 4 years and its been fine, maybe I just got lucky. But I think I will look at a good PSU and a surge protecting expansion plug as the the Thai electricity isn't exactly renowned for its stability!

Regarding the AMD stuttering problem with video editing highlighted by LivinLOS, I won't really be doing any video or music editing, the closest I'll get to it is 3D Modelling with the likes of 3D Studio Max & Maya. But thank you for raising the issue, the more information, the better decision I can make.

Thanks again for the great posts!

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi

Last post for today, promise.... interesting comment about the video editing, because that is essentially what i do on a daily basis on my AMD system - the only headaches i encountered were because of VISTA and it's stunning high level of incompatibility with a number of formats. As i am dual-booting Vista and XP i can clearly state that - because no headaches whatsoever in XP.

But then MY video editing is nothing high-end, so i really can't relate to that

Best regards.....

Thanh

[JSixpack]

Hi

If you build a system and plan on using it longer, always put a good quality power supply in there . . . .

Therefor go for a good PSU regardless of it's price - your hardware will thank you with long life. I have had no problems with Enermax PSU's in four years

Amen to that, very important yet often overlooked. Enermax is great, well worth the premium. I have two Enermax PSUs in different computers; one's been running cool and fine for 5 years while a friend of mine has replaced 2 cheap ones already in his computer (thinks he's saving money, doesn't even count the travel time and hassle).

As Thanh says, a faulty PSU can take out other components with it: I've seen that happen, too. Get a good PSU!

[freitag1]

You can also look for an online backup service and forget about raid. Or just do backups to an external harddrive if you are concerned about data loss.

Which would be a complete waste of time, he could get the 2nd 160gb disk for less than B2'000 & then maybe use a external disk for daily backups.

I do online backups and have currently 16gb backed up. The initial backup takes 1-2 days and you can run the client in the background no problem. After that the client scans for new or updated files and only backs those up.

This is of course not a viable option for people who work with huge 3d, animation or video files but will do the job for everyone else. I appreciate this way more than using a second hard drive (which I also do) because my work won't be lost if my computer gets completely damaged, stolen or whatever.

If my house burns down I still keep all my pictures from the last couple of years. I really like that because you can't replace them.

[freitag1]

btw I got the enermax 460 watt 3 weeks ago. was cheap and is good.