Lol, a kilowatt.

 

Always wanted a stalker. Thanks for stepping up!

 

Just a short question for every recommendation made in this thread...
Do you guys miss something important, e.g. your ears?
Everything mentioned here is LOUD like crap.
i mean, ok, I'm an ultra silent freak (yee, put over 1k€ into my COOLING system) but, I mean, you can by let's say keeping a close eye on your components and maybe spend a couple of bucks more, have a system that is pretty much silent.
For example, if you buy a HDD, don't buy one with 250 or 500 GiB - buy one with 320, 640, 1TB
Why? Because the 250-ones are most times "old" ones, using 2 or more discs. The 320s are the "newer" ones, that have a lot higher date per inch rate, and so can work with only one disk- less moving parts, and with the same speed (7.2k RPM) you have a lot high read/write speed.

So, then, when buying your GPU, sure, the GTX260/216 is a very nice card, but it sound's like an airplane. Maybe go one level below it, e.g. the 9800GTX+, which offers nice performance, and keeps a "cooler" head, also, where other coolers can be bought.


Well, just my 2 cent about it, but you might consider it - a silent computer is a very nice thing, a loud one, not

So, just for tha lulz, my system.

Happy day to all of you

 

If your going to buy a gtx/48xx card that probably means your going to be gaming. And when your gaming i seriously doubt that your going to have the volume low enough on your speakers/headphones to be able to hear the damn cards. And when you aren't gaming, noise isn't a problem because according to the reviews i've read the acoustic levels of these high end cards at idle are within comfortable limits.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/force3d-hd-4870_5.html#sect0

 

Does anybody care about sound? I mean, if the fan is clanking then there's something wrong with it, but the hum of a PC is meant to be a beautiful thing

 

Like the sound of a double bladed lightsaber slicing through the brain matter of a ugly ass alien.

 

The only way to learn is by doing. First do some research. Read and get a feel for parts, manufacturers, terminology, etc.

Next go to a site like Newegg or TigerDirect and look up parts. Read the reviews. Look up benchmarks. Read some more. Track the prices of things for a while (at a site like Pricewatch)

Make a parts list for a box and then figure out where you can trade off $$/performance. Protip: graphics cards and CPUs get a LOT cheaper once the next latest-greatest is realeased. Buy more motherboard than you need [FSB, etc] and in a few years you'll be able to pick up the bleeding-edge chip that you can't afford right now in the clearance bin.

BUILD A COMPUTER.

As far as noise goes, noise comes from moving parts. Moving parts = fans and disks (although HDD noise is basically zilch compared to a fan).

Most stock CPU coolers have fans, loud ones. Buy an aftermarket cooler with a quiet fan (you weren't *really* planning on using the stock one, were you?)

Case fans cost jack shit. Buy a few quiet ones to replace your stock fans.

If your graphics card has a fan you're pretty much going to have to live with the noise. (You'll get over it).

 

Most sites I saw featuring the How-to's mention a lot about parts and everything, but what about safety? Obviously you wouldn't mess with one that's been on recently, but are there any parts you should avoid/are harmful to touch?

 

Obviously you don't want to disassemble the PSU or anything, but for the most part you need to worry about not damaging your parts more than damaging yourself (once upon a time I scratched a mobo with a screwdriver trying to get a heatsink loose. Bye-bye motherboard).

The only injury I've ever done to myself was the time I cut the everloving shit out of my finger on a sharp corner inside a case.

 

Thanks for the help/info. =)

So pretty much avoid the PSU and you're good to go?

 

That's not *exactly* what I said, but yes: you're not going to hurt yourself if you don't do anything retarded (like *disassembling* the PSU. It's just fine to handle in general).

 

Yeah, I got that...Lol

Thanks.

 

Well, seems my plans for a new computer will come quicker than I planned.

Just dowloaded Serv pack 3 for XP. Now my comp won't boot all the way. I still plan to build another comp when I move. However, I'm thinking of a decent laptop till then. Any recs?

Not looking for anything fancy. Just something pratical while I wait to build my desktop.

Thanks again once more.

 

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=D600-62B&cat=NBB

Refurbished Dell, $260

 

Maybe a tiny bit of a necro, though since it was only yesterday I can't be sure. Anyway, a friend of mine is going to build me a computer, for about $600, with these parts.

XFX MG-63Mi-7159
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 OEM
2GB Corsair TWINX PC6400
500GB SATA II
Silver ATX Mid-Tower Case
450 Watt Power Supply
EVGA GeForce 9500 GT Video Card - 1GB DDR2,
PCI Express 2.0
SLI Support (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV, VGA Support

I think I broke those up approriately. Anyway, how would rate that for a computer mostly designed for gaming? On a scale of 1-10 would be nice, but any opinions are helpful since I'm fairly clueless.

 

Gaming huh? Then i would suggest a Core 2 Duo something along the lines of an E8500 simply because the wolfdales perform much better than the Q6600 kentsfield that u have listed there. Most importantly though i would suggest that you get a more powerful graphics card like the ATi 4850 or 9800gtx if your an Nvidia fan (the 4850 generally perfroms better).
Your build as it stand though for gaming i would rate about 4.5/10
Hope this helps