Buying A Computer In Los

[ChrisP]

Hi..

So, seems like buying a desktop in LOS is better than dragging one from the USA, although maybe more expensive..?

I've been recommended to go the "buy the bits and have it built" route.. 'coz its cheaper..?

I've always bought Dell in the USA... and am nervous about DIY... or even someone else's DIY-for-me.

Any opinions..? And should I aim for Pantip Plaza..?

ChrisP

[bino]

Buying a DIY computer is an excellent alternative- provided that you buy good quality "bits". Don't buy the cheapest configurations. always spend little extra for recognizable brand name parts.

We recently bought more DIY computers for our office (in fact all of them are DIY) and got them so reasonably that the boss agreed to buying flat screen monitors which were in themselves more expensive than the PCs.

DO buy an original / genuine copy of Windows- this will make DIY computer just as stable as branded computer. Copied Windows disks never seem to be as good as the real thing.

Pantip is as good a place as any, but you may wish to consider going to Fortune Town at the corner of Ratchadaphisek Road and Rama 9. There are fewer shops, but they are a little nicer / cleaner than Pantip. If you are driving, traffic and parking is also more convenient at Fortune Town.

Hope this helps.

[Hikage]

Rip the bits out of your current box and buy a case + monitor here, then assemble.

[udon]

Talk to K. Thaksin at Adtech...... Panthip Plaza.

Up the escalator to the Mezz floor and turn right and then left, its just there on yr right. small shop with blue and white signage.

He speaks perfect English and will quote you on anything.

Good tech staff too.

I've been dealing with him for 4 years, he is a very patient Chinese Thai and a gentleman.

[slimdog]

Buying a DIY computer is ideal when you have most or some of the peripherals. Then all your money can be spent on the computer. In your case when you are buying from scratch it will probably work out more expensive.

[aussman]

Hi..

So, seems like buying a desktop in LOS is better than dragging one from the USA, although maybe more expensive..?

I've been recommended to go the "buy the bits and have it built" route.. 'coz its cheaper..?

I've always bought Dell in the USA... and am nervous about DIY... or even someone else's DIY-for-me.

Any opinions..?  And should I aim for Pantip Plaza..?

ChrisP

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

decide your price....decide your usage...eg graphics,processing

i have just finished a diy comp in khon kaen and would be happy to give details and costs...please pm

[bkk_mike]

The advantages of going DIY (or, in Thailand, buying the bits and getting it built), is you decide on the bits, where in a pre-built PC, you can maybe pick between a couple of graphics cards, or the amount of memory, but you can't pick the motherboard you want, or the quieter CPU cooler, or the brand of hard disk, etc... (unless you're talking specialists like alienware).

The way I've always done it is by having a check of the prices at assorted stores selling bits in Pantip (or Fortune Town), working out what's the best value for money, then going into one of the stores that builds PCs with my list of bits...

It's then a matter of them telling you how much each bit is, and you saying how much cheaper it was at another store...

Only problem I've had is with things like 40-wire IDE cables being used (ATA-33) rather than 80-wire ones (ATA-100/133). But that's actually been where the DVD came with a branded 40-wire cable, so they used it...

One time they tried to sell me memory that was faster than the motherboard was specced for. But that could be simply a matter of assuming I overclock (I don't - I prefer reliability, primarily because I use my main PC for work).

Pantip is bigger and still has a slightly better selection (or at least more shops), but Fortune Town is easier to get to (next to Phra Ram 9 on the metro and easier to get parked at), and there's a lot less hassle from the "sexy movie" brigade. Pantip should understand that those people's hard sell makes customers want to avoid Pantip...

Obviously - if you have an expensive graphics card, or other small, expensive parts in your PC in the US, it's definitely worthwhile taking it out of your existing PC and taking it with you. However, the interface (i.e. AGP or PCI Express) will then restrict your choice of motherboard...

Edited April 19, 2005 by bkk_mike

[Richard-BKK]

If you always bought Dell computers in the USA, then you maybe prefer a computer from Dell and we have Dell Computers in Thailand.

[ChrisP]

I'm just not a DIY kind of guy... so I wouldn't know what "bits" to ask for.. or how to decide which brand or spec of part is better than another...

ChrisP

[bkk_mike]

Tell people what you want to use it for - and you'll get suggestions on suitable parts...

i.e. If you're into games like Far Cry and Doom 3, you'll be going for a pretty high-end PC and graphics card. (and an AMD processor is probably a better bet than Intel). - and you're probably better off with a high-end CRT instead of an LCD (for resolution switching if not still for refresh rates)

If you're into video editing, or converting video from DV cassettes to Mpeg4, then your graphics card is less important, but clock speed of the processor and memory is more important (and an Intel processor that's capable of Hyper-threading is better than AMD). Also, you'd want very fast, very large hard disk(s), preferably SATA (or even SATA2). or multiple hard drives, one for the O/S, and one or two for data, possibly even using a RAID array. (which would affect the choice of motherboard)

If you're going to be sitting in Windows all the time, then LCDs are better than CRTs, but you might want to get a graphics card that handles dual monitors if you're doing things like big spreadsheets, or multi-tasking.

If all you're doing is web stuff and email - pretty much any PC will cover that nowadays. But it's best to get the best monitor/mouse/keyboard in your price range, even if it means a slightly slower PC. After all, they are the parts that you'll actually use the most...

[ChrisP]

Thanks bkk mike....!

A large part of the time it will be used for downloading a processing/burning music... (legally!)...

ChrisP

[bkk_mike]

OK - If you mean simply downloading MP3s and burning them to a CD (of MP3s) - then there's no processing involved.

If you include conversion of some sort - from atrac, or CD files to MP3, or from MP3 to native CD formats (i.e. for playing in the car), then you need a fairly fast processor, although I wouldn't go bleeding edge simply because no internet connection in Thailand is going to let you download stuff faster than you can convert it.

For that reason, 3GHz P4 or AMD 3000 is probably the right sort of price point.

Burning to CD - here's a little conundrum. Although DVD writers are plentiful these days, and pretty cheap, it's only very recently that the fastest of them is getting near to the same speed as the fast CD-RW drives at burning to CDs. If you think you'll be burning to DVDs occasionally, you're obviously better off with a DVD writer (pick one that can handle all formats - DVD+/-R DVD+/-RW at least. DVD-RAM looks to be losing ground, so is less of an issue.) If you're only going to be burning to CDs, a faster CD-RW drive becomes a cost-effective the choice. (Although here, prices are so low, that going for 2 drives isn't that expensive - and makes copying a CD a lot simpler.)

i.e. a 52x Write (CD-Rs), 32x Rewrite (CD-RWs) internal drive from a good manufacturer can be picked up for just over 1,000 baht. (Samsung, Lite-On, etc.)

nearer 2.000 will get an equally fast CD-RW that will also read DVD-Roms.

DVD-Writers, on the other hand, start above 3,000 baht, although Lite-On has a DVD Writer that can burn CDs at 48x, you have to be very careful when buying not to pick up a 6month old drive that "only" burns CDs at 24x.

For DVD-Writers, it's more important to confirm that it handles +/-R and +/-RW and ideally that it can handle dual layer (even if it means downloading a firmware update), than to go for any specific manufacturer. (NEC/Samsung/Pioneer/Lite-On are probably the commonest...)

One thing to be careful of here is to ensure the use of an 80-pin IDE cable. I've had occasions where a drive wouldn't work in the faster digital mode when reading music files until I upgraded the IDE cable. It's the "Enable Digital Audio" in Device Manager if you're interested - if it doesn't work, either the drive doesn't support it (very unlikely on a new drive), or you're using a 40-pin IDE cable... Also, the 80-pin cable, should mean faster transfer speeds from computer to drive when burning...

For the motherboard - the main thing to look for, for what you're after, is SATA (faster hard drive interface). Other things to check are, especially on Intel, the FSB speed (i.e. 800MHz FSB means it can alternate memory requests between two banks of memory which actually run at 400MHz - means the processor doesn't wait as much, but also means that it can still only read adjacent blocks of memory at 400MHz...). It would also mean that 2 x 512K memory boards will always be faster than 1 * 1024K, because a single DIMM means you're only running at 400MHz. USB2 is standard these days. If you're thinking of ever attaching a DV video camera (or an Ipod) - you'll also want IEEE1394 (aka Firewire) connections. Better manufacturers are Asus, Gigabyte, DFI, etc.

Another thing to look for, if you genuinely do not play games that need 3D acceleration is integrated graphics and sound. i.e. Intel chipsets with a G have onboard graphics. Similarly ATi chipsets tend to have integrated graphics. Oddly, given they make graphics cards, Nvidia seems to have stopped after the Nforce2.

Note: If you're planning on taking any parts from your existing PC - check if they are AGP, PCI or PCI Express. Motherboards tend to only have PCI Express or AGP (PCI Express is newer). Most PCI Express boards still have PCI sockets though - I think PCI will still be around on most new PCs for a couple more years. Only once peripheral cards are generally available as PCI-Express, will we start getting PCI-Express only motherboards.

Specifically for music conversion, an Intel processor with HT is probably better than the Athlon 64. (although the Athlon tends to be cheaper for the same general performance).

Assuming Intel for the time being, from a decent manufacturer, you're probably talking anything between 4,000 and 8,000 baht (depending on additional things like gigabit lan, multiple lan ports, etc.)

i.e. Intel 915G - Asus P5GD1-VM is around 4,500 baht. Integrated graphics, so no need for a separate graphics card (but if you play games, integrated graphics isn't really up to it...) Even a cheap 3,000 baht graphics card will immeasurably improve any gaming experience.

Memory - 512Mb is probably sufficient for what you're doing. as 2 * 256Mb so that you're using the dual-channel capabilities. (2 * 512Mb would be better obviously, but depends how much you want to spend.) DDR400 would be the right speed for that motherboard. (although you could go slower depending on the cpu used - it would be better to go for the 400 anyway so that if you later upgrade the processor, the memory can be kept).

Floppy drive - still get one - they can be very useful for loading things before booting up. (and they're so cheap - 250 baht approx.) that there's no real need to not get one.

Hard drive - SATA obviously - Maxtor is what I tend to buy personally, and I've never had a problem with them. However, Western Digital, Hitachi/IBM, Seagate etc. are all good manufacturers. - Most SATA drives will be 10,000 rpm, so the real differences are price (lower is better), capacity (bigger is better) and cache (again bigger is better, but so long as it's a couple of Meg at least, it shouldn't be a big issue for you - since a CD is only 700K).

That just leaves the case, power supply, keyboard, mouse and screen. (and, in Thailand, I'd recommend a UPS if the PC is going to be on a lot of the time, although obviously, if you're in a high-end condo in central Bangkok, it's less of an issue than if you're in a moo baan in the outskirts, or on an island...)

On the power supply - I like Enermax personally. But normally, the power supply will be included with the case, so you could just go with one of the nicer cases in the shop you get to build your PC. The keyboard and mouse can be a personal preference. Nowadays, I always go for optical mice, and they tend to be Microsoft or Logitech. My keyboards also tend to be one or the other...

Finally - the screen. Make sure it's flat, as that cuts down on reflections - and is a size you're comfortable with.

For games - CRTs still have the advantage (assuming you've got the room for one), and in certain specialist areas like photo retouching. Other than that - if you're going to be spending all your time in Windows, an LCD is better for your health. (Flicker from CRTs can cause eyestrain / headaches, and the electromagnetic field of a CRT tube attracts +ve dust particles and repels -ve charged dust particles straight into your face - i.e. Sitting at a CRT all day does cause spots)

For the monitor - it's very much a matter of the nicest one you can find on the day in Pantip at a price you're willing to pay...