Ranting about Microsoft and Tech Support in India

I'm planning on building a desktop for about $800 Us in the next year or so, and I wouldn't think of buying a prebuilt by alienware or others. too expensive for me for one thing, and for another, you dont have as much control over the parts, and you dont really get to have the fun of putting it together. Im also building a $3k US build for a friend, and same again. yes more hassle, but it can be a better built system, as you can choose what they may not offer.

First, I would recommend Windows 7 (64 bit Professional or Ultimate). If built for gaming, buy plenty of Ram. For video, at least 1 to 2 video cards 2 gig ddr5 ram Graphic cards. 100 Meg SSD for the hard drive and 1 TB secondary hard drive. For enclosure, I would buy a box that used water cooling. The cpu and motherboard, I would have to research since I have not built any in least year. Now, if you want speed buy chips that allow overclocking. For most people a regular enclosure is fine. As well as nice motherboard and cpu (4 cores at least probably 8 cores to 10 cores).

Treat this as test. Do a little research on the internet and plan a build. I love to build systems. A SSD drive is a must. That will allow fast booting. For a second hard drive....an internal hard drive is fine with huge storage capabilities or buy an external HD. Blu Ray DVD is a must. Probably a Blu Ray Burner would be greater for future use.

1. Ram 8 gigs (make sure it fits the motherboard)
2. SSD (saw a SSD on tigerdirect.com for 100 meg SSD on Sata 3 connection for about $69 to $100 on sale)
3. Blu Ray Burner
4. 64 bit operating system Professional or Ultimate Windows 7
5. Motherboard & CPU need to research for budget purposes.
6. The enclosure or box can be used but prefer to buy new with a large power supply over 600 watts
7. Microsoft office or Open office (it's free)

I hope this gives you some ideas.

Spacekiwi wrote:I'm planning on building a desktop for about $800 Us in the next year or so, and I wouldn't think of buying a prebuilt by alienware or others. too expensive for me for one thing, and for another, you dont have as much control over the parts, and you dont really get to have the fun of putting it together. Im also building a $3k US build for a friend, and same again. yes more hassle, but it can be a better built system, as you can choose what they may not offer.

I build my own desktop. Because I get a better feel for the system. I used to build custom set ups, about twelve or fourteen years ago, for a living. Companies like CyberPower, iBuyPower, etc, have pushed the small builders out of the market. They can build a great system for far cheaper.

But for the enthusiast, it's best to do it yourself. You always like it more. When my current rig gets too bogged down, I'll pass it to my wife. Her computer (my last old one) will go to the oldest kid. And his will buck down the line as well.

I have bought store computers a few times, though. Three years ago, for Christmas, I got the two youngest kids a tower out of a box. Came with 2 GhZ CPU, 8 GB Ram, 1GB video card, 500GB hard drive, DVD burner and wireless built in. Both computers were about $200. For what I wanted for the kids, it was an amazing deal.

But for my machine... Well,I just buy the parts myself, usually. Two video cards (these change out at least once, sometimes twice, before I build a whole new machine) 64GB Ram, water cooled CPU/Memory/MB/Video/hard drives, blu-ray player and a DVD player. I've only got a 64GB SSD, but 4TB internal storage, plus I've got 10TB NAS.

I tend to skimp a bit on the CPU. Two or three grades below the best I can get. Mainly because the CPU speed doesn't gain me as much. I'll put the money saved into video cards. You're only as fast as your slowest components, so having the 4GhZ O.C.-ed 12 core CPU won't do you nearly as much good as having faster RAM, or better video cards. But you'll pay a whole lot for the top end CPU.

You'll still get a boost from the better CPU, don't get me wrong, but the small boost there just isn't worth it, IMO.

I also buy higher end when I do my builds, to make sure my machine will last. My wife is an avid WoW-aholic and runs it at the maximum settings, and she is using my previous build. I gave that to her three, almost four years ago. It was three or four years old then. So she's playing on a system that's at least six years old and running just fine. I've changed out the battery on the MB, replaced her video cards, and I dust it out every other week.

Thucydides wrote:You can replace MS Office with freeware called OpenOffice. Will run under Windows, Mac or LINUX

You can replace Windows on any PC with LINUX, which can be had for a nominal fee or for free, depending on what distribution you choose.

Problem solved

You can send me a small fee of $98 if you wish

Yup, no reason to bother with MS Office any more. OpenOffice works better most of the time anyway.

I've found the reviews on newegg.com to be pretty reliable and accurate when you're doing research. Their pricing is on par with most places and Amazon is the only other place that I've have a similar high level of customer service (a part that was bad out of the box, they over-nighted a replacement free of charge).

smr wrote:First, I would recommend Windows 7 (64 bit Professional or Ultimate). If built for gaming, buy plenty of Ram. For video, at least 1 to 2 video cards 2 gig ddr5 ram Graphic cards. 100 Meg SSD for the hard drive and 1 TB secondary hard drive. For enclosure, I would buy a box that used water cooling. The cpu and motherboard, I would have to research since I have not built any in least year. Now, if you want speed buy chips that allow overclocking. For most people a regular enclosure is fine. As well as nice motherboard and cpu (4 cores at least probably 8 cores to 10 cores).

Treat this as test. Do a little research on the internet and plan a build. I love to build systems. A SSD drive is a must. That will allow fast booting. For a second hard drive....an internal hard drive is fine with huge storage capabilities or buy an external HD. Blu Ray DVD is a must. Probably a Blu Ray Burner would be greater for future use.

1. Ram 8 gigs (make sure it fits the motherboard)
2. SSD (saw a SSD on tigerdirect.com for 100 meg SSD on Sata 3 connection for about $69 to $100 on sale)
3. Blu Ray Burner
4. 64 bit operating system Professional or Ultimate Windows 7
5. Motherboard & CPU need to research for budget purposes.
6. The enclosure or box can be used but prefer to buy new with a large power supply over 600 watts
7. Microsoft office or Open office (it's free)

I hope this gives you some ideas.

Spacekiwi wrote:I'm planning on building a desktop for about $800 Us in the next year or so, and I wouldn't think of buying a prebuilt by alienware or others. too expensive for me for one thing, and for another, you dont have as much control over the parts, and you dont really get to have the fun of putting it together. Im also building a $3k US build for a friend, and same again. yes more hassle, but it can be a better built system, as you can choose what they may not offer.

smr wrote:First, I would recommend Windows 7 (64 bit Professional or Ultimate). If built for gaming, buy plenty of Ram. For video, at least 1 to 2 video cards 2 gig ddr5 ram Graphic cards. 100 Meg SSD for the hard drive and 1 TB secondary hard drive.

8 or 16GB RAM is a good range to aim for today. Currently preferably DDR3 1600.

Avoid using 2 videocards. It can be very tricky to avoid so called "micro-stuttering" that can cause.
Also, gfx cards RAM size isn´t a useful measure of their performance. It´s usually just a limit on how much and/or how detailed textures a game can store directly on the gfx card. For example, best possible textures on Starcraft 2 uses 512MB gfx RAM.

Also note that GDDR5 is NOT the same as DDR5(which doesn´t even exist(DDR4 is just about to get into production now)), as graphics memory and main system memory rarely have the same requirements and have therefore generally not been using the same technology most of the time. As an example, GDDR3 and DDR3 are not using comparable chips at all.

I do agree about using a SSD for system drive, just don´t go for the cheapest possible, this is mostly a case of "you get what you pay for" and if you go one step above the lowend, you can get much better performance.

For a data drive, no use buying a 1TB, go for a 2TB drive right away. A WD Red is a good choice here unless you want max performance, then a WD Black.

smr wrote: For enclosure, I would buy a box that used water cooling.

While it´s much easier to find reliable watercooling nowadays, it still has downsides. And current heatsink/fan can be found of so good quality without needing to bother with water that i personally no longer feel any inclination to go with water cooling.

Personal favorite currently Scythe HSFs, they´re not always the coolest, but it´s very hard to find heatsinks that allows cooler AND quieter. My current cpu ( 20% overclocked ) will run perfectly fine with my (somewhat old by now) Scythe Samurai cooler, even if i remove the fan.

smr wrote: The cpu and motherboard, I would have to research since I have not built any in least year.

For motherboard, basically look at Gigabyte and Asus first, or Asrock if you need a budget board.

smr wrote: As well as nice motherboard and cpu (4 cores at least probably 8 cores to 10 cores).

That´s misleading. Number of cores only tells how many threads can be run at full performance at the same time.

Tomshardware tested a few years ago that 3 core was the most optimal for gaming. Since then, that has probably shifted upwards to 4, with a few games able to make good use of more.

There are still plenty of games and apps that rely more on performance per thread as they´re not very well multithreaded. This includes for example Starcraft 2 which was infamous for being poor at multithreading and preferring Intel cpu:s.

smr wrote: Blu Ray DVD is a must. Probably a Blu Ray Burner would be greater for future use.

Nah. In the last 2 years, i´ve actually barely used my DVD burner(since earlier, i have maybe 300 DVDs in storage), but it´s simply much easier and even cheaper to buy either an external HDD like my friend does, or add another internal HDD like i prefer.

Bluray just isn´t very interesting.

smr wrote: 6. The enclosure or box can be used but prefer to buy new with a large power supply over 600 watts

I´m doing just fine with my 450W here.

Use this site:
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psuc ... orlite.jsp
to get basic knowledge about what you will need.

I have a previous generation C2D highend cpu and a mid to slightly uppish-range gfx card and my expected max power draw at peak is about 387W.

Much more importantly, make sure you buy a quality PSU.
My Corsair VX450w in a review showed itself able to provide 600W reliably.
At the same time, a cheapskate (and usually lightweight) low quality, like a Rosewill 650W tend to break or even literally explode if you try to run them up to their rated wattage.

Corsair, Antec, Seasonic are 3 commonly available PSU brands that are good.

Also check to get PSUs marked as 80+ or better, this refers to how efficient they are(how much more they draw from your wall socket than what is delivered to the computer), and if you have a big system, it can make some difference to your electricity bill, more importantly, it is also a measure of how much of the power that is lost as waste heat, and less heat is always better.

smr wrote:5. Motherboard & CPU need to research for budget purposes.

Right now, first choice should probably be an Intel i5.

If you´re buying a cheaper system however it gets more tricky, because while AMD isn´t doing so well at the upper end right now(really sad since it allows Intel to set prices almost as it wants to), their APUs(that is, a cpu with integrated gfx) are excellent and highly competitive, EVEN if you are going to buy an additional gfx card as well.



For gfx cards, if you expect to run lots of graphically intensive games or apps, aim for a gfx card somewhere in the 200-400$.

If you run games or apps that dont need highend gfx, aim for a card in the 100-200$ range(this is what i consider optimal nowadays, my latest HD 6770 i got for about $140 and it can run all i want it to, including some mid to highend gfx games).

For those who run apps and games where gfx doesnt matter much(strategy games, flashbased games, most anything that isnt a first person shooter), you can often get away with a lowend budget card (i ran this system with a $35 HD 3450 for 2 years without really getting annoyed by it).

And as might be noticed, i currently prefer AMD graphics. Apparently, prices are a little bit kinder to NVidia if you´re in N. America, but if i look at Europe, wherever i compare same price or same performance range, an AMD card tends to win.
Also, NVidia had a bad few years in regards to drivers that are still not completely over and done with.

I agree on all these points.

For me, it will be:
win 7
4gb ram (2*2gb) min
i5 3470 or 3570k (similarish price here when on specials), or a low priced i5- 4xxx if in price range
No discrete gpu until can afford it. ( my most intensive game, borderlands, plays well on my hd3000 igpu at mid settings)
1tb hdd and 128gb ssd
dont use blu ray at the mo, as a cheap system, so claiming an old enclosure off an old comp, and an old cd drive.
keyboard and mouse claiming off an old system.

Been reading overclockers.net, anandtech, tomshardware, techpowerup, and pcpartpicker a lot to decide on all my parts and to build a system, and use a price checker website and a local ebay equivalent for parts pricing. will probably go 2nd hand parts as cheaper, so I can upgrade later.

Sound good?

smr wrote:First, I would recommend Windows 7 (64 bit Professional or Ultimate). If built for gaming, buy plenty of Ram. For video, at least 1 to 2 video cards 2 gig ddr5 ram Graphic cards. 100 Meg SSD for the hard drive and 1 TB secondary hard drive. For enclosure, I would buy a box that used water cooling. The cpu and motherboard, I would have to research since I have not built any in least year. Now, if you want speed buy chips that allow overclocking. For most people a regular enclosure is fine. As well as nice motherboard and cpu (4 cores at least probably 8 cores to 10 cores).

Treat this as test. Do a little research on the internet and plan a build. I love to build systems. A SSD drive is a must. That will allow fast booting. For a second hard drive....an internal hard drive is fine with huge storage capabilities or buy an external HD. Blu Ray DVD is a must. Probably a Blu Ray Burner would be greater for future use.

1. Ram 8 gigs (make sure it fits the motherboard)
2. SSD (saw a SSD on tigerdirect.com for 100 meg SSD on Sata 3 connection for about $69 to $100 on sale)
3. Blu Ray Burner
4. 64 bit operating system Professional or Ultimate Windows 7
5. Motherboard & CPU need to research for budget purposes.
6. The enclosure or box can be used but prefer to buy new with a large power supply over 600 watts
7. Microsoft office or Open office (it's free)

I hope this gives you some ideas.

What gets me is, if you're a big company in the usa your tech support is too!!

A useful approach is the "sweet spot" in development. Opinions vary but buy top level gear about 9 months to a year after they are first released. By then about two upgrades to the cutting edge have been released gaining about 10% performance, but costing several times the money.
I don't run complex games but do some video work along with CAD and other demanding tasks. My PC has aged about a year since I did the last rebuild and is Intel i5, two 2T internal drives with a 2T external, ASUS motherboard, 450w power, 24 inch monitor, 8Gb memory. Next mid life upgrade is a SSD, and later on a newer nVidea video card. My needs are storage and fast crunching rather than ultimate graphics. It is actually massive overkill, but as Carroll Shelby once said "Ain't no such thing as too much horsepower".
I remember an IBM 286 clone running 5 inch floppy drives on 256kb ram that was a very effective word processor, so do appreciate what I've got now.

Daryl wrote:A useful approach is the "sweet spot" in development. Opinions vary but buy top level gear about 9 months to a year after they are first released. By then about two upgrades to the cutting edge have been released gaining about 10% performance, but costing several times the money.
I don't run complex games but do some video work along with CAD and other demanding tasks. My PC has aged about a year since I did the last rebuild and is Intel i5, two 2T internal drives with a 2T external, ASUS motherboard, 450w power, 24 inch monitor, 8Gb memory. Next mid life upgrade is a SSD, and later on a newer nVidea video card. My needs are storage and fast crunching rather than ultimate graphics. It is actually massive overkill, but as Carroll Shelby once said "Ain't no such thing as too much horsepower".
I remember an IBM 286 clone running 5 inch floppy drives on 256kb ram that was a very effective word processor, so do appreciate what I've got now.

You remember? Well...

I HAVE a 10Mhz(when you run it in turbo mode, otherwise it´s 8Mhz of course) 286 with a 20MB HDD stuffed away a few meters from me here.
(i use it the rare few times i need to access 5.25 discs in general or oddly formatted 3.5 or 5.25 discs)

With your demands, if you need lots of fast storage, consider setting up a RAID 0 or RAID 0+1 for safety.
If you need speed rather than size of storage, get a few SSD and set THOSE in RAID.
(you can actually max out SATA3 bandwidth like that, with ease(you can even get special drives/controller cards that you connect to a PCIe-16x port instead, allowing ridiculously high speeds))

Might want to take a look at an i7 or Xeon with more L3 cache as well. Price to performance ratio sucks, but depending on the job you need it for, it MIGHT just still be worth it.