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Making a dream PC for cheap (as possible) - help anyone?

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cmpm:
I don't think I'd count ole AMD out.
Their amd 2 quads are cheaper and faster when it's a 4400 or better.
I'd go with Asus for motherboard-3 year warranty.
One of the few that go for 3 years, and  Asus is reliable.
Nor would I underestimate the AMD2 Quads 4400 and above.
Working on building one my self here, so i' been doing some research.

a cheap one and one that will out perform most anything....

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3032387&CatId=13

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2853609&CatId=13

If money is no hindrance that is.

But more usbs hmmm.
pretty cheap these days-

Just do a search for USB Hubs at TigerDirect.

f0dder:
Humm, my own radeon experiences were back in the 9600 days, and that is quite a while ago. But BSODs is one thing, data corruption bugs is something that stings hard and leaves a scar for a long time.

My brothers both have 1950Pro cards; one of them has an occasional BSOD (though that could be related to something else, even if the crash address is in ATI drivers), the other is a bit annoyed that blender can't render properly on his primary display (could be ATI's fault, could be blender's fault, but there's buggy code somewhere). One has a zalman cooled radeon which is "probably okay" (his casefans being so loud I definitely can't hear the cooler), the other has a reference fan. And christ it's noisy.

cmpm: 4400+ would be dualcore for AMD, not quadcore. But it doesn't really matter, AMD is still stuck wiht 65nm fab process while intel has moved to 45nm, the AMD chips (even the new Phenoms) are less efficient per MHz than intel's core2 chips, and to make matters even worse, AMD can't reach as high clock frequencies as intel. The fastest Phenom quad is slower than the slowest core2 quad...

AMD does have the advantage of somewhat lower pricetag, but do keep in mind that it does also mean lower performance. If you look at performance/price ratio, I daresay intel is still better.

Keep in mind that my current main workstation is an AMD64x2 4400+ which I quite like, but I'm trying to be pragmatic about these things, instead of resorting to fanboyism. As I see it, AMD is dead in the water, and I really hope they will shape up, since they're the only real competition intel has on the desktop market.

cmpm:
Yes, I'm still investigating, fodder.
That more expensive board would have 2 dual cores which is effectively a quad.
Personally I'm wanting to stay with Intel.
But AMD is much more direct in their approach.

Intel-Pent D, Pent Dual Core, Intel Core Duo.
pffft, Annoying, what's next? P2?

AMD went from socket 939 to AMD2.
Their processors are easily discernible compared to Intel, imo.

And they both leap frog each other.
The Pent D and x2 were a test of the real thing.
Both companies could do better with real dual core socketS.

Shoot I had an old server with dual P3 sockets.
I know they can do it.

Anyways the 4 PHD guy who runs our tech dept says get a Mac. :)
Which can run osx or whatever and windows on the same machine.
Funny guy, Yes it's faster, But my income ain't that fast!!??

The Intel vs AMD war marches on and on and on..........

f0dder:
AMD (in recent times, there's been more!) had Slot-A, Socket-A, Socket-940, Socket-939, Socket-AM2, Socket-AM2+ (supposedly more or less compatible with AM2, buuuuut...). They've had names like Athlon, Thunderbird, Opteron, Athlon64, Phenom, (...). They've had various "performance numbers". I don't see how that is very much more clear than intel's naming strategy :)

I honestly don't see much advantage in having multiple sockets, unless it's because you need as many CPUs as possible into a system; using multi-core has the advantage that you don't need (slow!) bus locks when synchronizing memory access, you can have faster in-core sync mechanisms. Shared L2 cache is also very interesting, and if done right it can be much more efficient than per-core cache.

Traditionally the companies have leapfrogged, yes, and AMD had a very nice thing going with the AMD64, it smoked the Pentium4/PentiumD very well. Then intel introduced the core2 architecture, and AMD haven't been able to do anything since. Even their most recent (and post-core2!) Phenom architecture did nothing to save them. Probably spent too much money and research time buying up ATI, bad move unless they can get their act together.

These days, macs are actually just standard x86 hardware, with a fancier computer case and a heavier pricetag. With a few patches, you can run OS X on your stock x86, as long as you choose approximately the same hardware (graphics, net) as the macs have. So no, mac hardware isn't faster than PC hardware; it's been many years since macs ran on Gx CPUs and had SCSI harddrives :)

cmpm:
I appreciate the info fodder, i can use all the advice i can get.
Yeah I'm a bit aware of the different slots for amd and intel.
They just seem to be in a big hurry and they have to slow down to sell what they already did.
Instead of improving the thing further and skip some of these various things.
But they didn't ask me...lol.

You know, I still wonder what they are holding back, till the core 2s move out of production and sales.

And for the topic at hand.
I want to know why they have dropped down to two or even one pci slot on the machines now.
Yes, I know the pcie and sata stuff takes room but sheesh, 2?
It's either more USBs or another computer.

And I don't think I can do a Mac only. I'd have PC withdrawals or something. I would like one of those G5's though with windows and ox-tiger or leopard or whatever cat they are now.

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