Compaq Presario s4000t which I've had for a few years. I cannibalized ram and and a hard drive from another computer at some point, but it's still mediocre.

Pentium 4 HT 2.4Ghz
4x256mb Ram
80gb + 40gb HDD
BFG Asylum GeForce FX 5950 Ultra (AGP)

Can't run much with this, . Crysis, CoD4, nope.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion at 800x600 windowed, though.

 

ThermalTake Soprano (Fuck ATX)
ASUS PL5D2
E6600@2.40
BFG 8800GT
3x1GB (I will occasionally stick an extra 1GB in there when using debain to compile )
USB Soundcard.
500GB HD

It's my perpherials that I like most

SteelSound 5H2 w/USB Sound (which is terrible fyi )
MX518
SteelSeries QCK+

 

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] •[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Intel® Core™2 Duo processor:Santa Rosa[/FONT]:PM965 Express Chipset+ ICH8M
2.4GHz(T7700) w/4M L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] • [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]15.4" WSXGA+ (1680x1050) LCD with Quickest Response Time LCD[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] • [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] nVidia GeForce 8600M GT w/ 256MB, support GDDR III type VRAM; Turbo Cache 512MB (DX10 Support) HDCP support for DVI port[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] •[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] 2x 1.0GB DDR2-667 SODIMM Memory, up to 4.0GB (2x 2.0GB), with 1.0GB Intel Turbo Memory[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] •[/FONT] 200GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Disk [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] •[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] 8x DVD-RW Dual Layer Super Multi w/ Light Scribe Optical Drive[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] • [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Intel/Pro Wireless-N 4965 802.11AGN WiFi LAN Card[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] •[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] MS Vista Home Premium Edition included[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] •[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Gigabit Ethernet build-in Adapter: 10/100/1000BaseT, FAX Modom[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] •[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] 4x USB 2.0, 1x IEEE 1394a port; 1x S-Video (TV-Out);2x Audio jacks: 1x Microphone-in / 1x S/PDIF/1x Express Card[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] •[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Intel High Definition Audio: Build in Azalia compliant audio chip[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] •[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]4-in-1 Card Reader: Secure Digital, MMC, Memory Stick & MS PRO.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] •[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] 6.8 Pounds w/8Cell Battery (2+ hrs); [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] 13.9(H)"x11.2(D)" [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] x1.5"(H).

And its a laptop, sexy beast it is. Recently switched the shitty vista back to good old XP.

Basically its Duo 2.4ghz, 3 gigs ram, 200g HD, 8600mgt, runs Crysis on medium.
[/FONT]

 

That's a very nice laptop. especially the screen and the hard drive. 1680x1050 on a 15.4" screen is very sexy indeed. Also a 7,200RPM hard drive on a laptop is rare to come by these days.

How much did it set you back?

Also, I have a feeling it is the Dell XPS M1530 customised. Dell only make two good things. XPS laptops and monitors.

Did you have any trouble with drivers downgrading from the included Home Premium to XP?

 

Eh it was $1700 US, with rebates they said around $1500, still haven't received my rebate check yet though. Ya the drivers were a bitch, luckily they have a Asus-G1S wiki page that included xp drivers. You also had to make XP compatible with the SATA hard drive. The Ethernet needed a driver, when i installed xp, so i had to use a flash drive to get it. God i hate Dell, there stuff is shit, though people have said that the LCD screen for this laptop is shit, i haven't experienced any trouble, except for fingerprint marks.

 

Ah the Asus G1S, I've heard a bit about this laptop. Great price for it's spec's.

People have said lately that Asus screens are grainy and have heaps of backlight bleed. When you go full screen with a single colour, black, for the colour change near the top and bottom? I.e. lighter like someone is shining a light behind it?

Not sure how they test for grainyness.

Did this one have a tv card and fingerprint scanner and face recognition stuff for the log on?

 

I think you mean the E8400 when there is stock.

Why would you classify the hard drive and optical drive accessories?

 

Eh don't know what they mean by grainyness, but if parts of the screen is black, without proper lighting it acts like a mirror, glossyness ftw. This doesn't have any TV cards or fingerprints. I didn't even know there was face recognition out. I personally think those security measures are a waste, you could hack into the computer easily without cracking passwords.

^Nice computer, 2 gig ram doing good for your specs?

 

9450 is already out It's just kinda expensive. The Xeon model inline with it is much cheaper if you can find it.

Read carefully, it's two lots of 2GB.

 

Case win, PSU win, keyboard win, OMFG EW ATI card!

Ti clarify, you should of gotten something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127328
And hell lets pull up a random BM, BF2142 maxed out, gets you 20 frames a sec more then the 3850!

Ati = bad drivers, decent hardware, but they fail at using it.

 

If Jon is going to use Vista, then ATI may actually be a better choice.

 

When Crossfire actually works, you get about double the FPS of a single 3870 from the benchmarks I've seen. However, on some games it ignores the Crossfire and sometimes even performs worse than the 3870 at over twice the cost. SLI seems to have a bit more reliable drivers. If I was doing it, I probably would've just bought an 9800GTX. Less performance than a 3870X2, but it works more consistently. Even so, drivers evolve, games get updated, and you probably won't even notice the difference. >_>

 

Hey, I'm looking to build a new PC. My budget is around 20-25k Rs, which translates to 500-600$, but the prices in India due to import duty and shit, are jacked up much more than its American counterparts.

Anyways, mostly I want the PC for programming and eventually, Adobe Creative studio. And a bit of gaming thrown in on the side. So no need for the top of the line shit, even if I could afford it.

Due to the budget, I'm thinking I'll buy a reasonable CPU+MotherBoard combo and a cheap Graphic card and upgrade it later to a good one when I have more cash. I have a few combinations in mind, but can you guys give some options?

 

It's pretty awkward to work out what you can get and at what prices in your particular locale. Especially when you don't have a system already in mind. I take it that you don't need a new monitor, case, psu, etc.?

On that budget your system won't likely run Vista very well. If you require it, then you should fine tune your component selection with that in mind. It will however run XP with consumate ease. No Vista = No DirectX 10, which is good because DX9 is still excellent and very well supported.

Anandtech and Tom's Hardware both have guides on budget PC's. Anandtech's is for a $1000 PC but it's from late last year, so hopefully it still has some relevance considering your $5-600 price point. Tom has a guide for a $500 gaming rig from April. This should be right up your alley.

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-graphic-game,1810.html

 

What do you guys Think about the Intel E8200 + the Asus PK5?

Going to go tomorrow to check up the prices (and see if I can find the damn things in the first place.) But if they aren't jacked up too much, I might be able to afford this. Any thoughts or comments about the combo?

If the ASus is too much, I'd try for one of the Intel ones... they should be cheaper.

If I can' find anything...then this is probably what I'd opt for: A little better than crap.

Any sort of advice or help would be greatly appreciated.