Ars Technica gives their recommendations for those who want to get the most bang for a lot, some, and a little money Check out their recommendations for the God Box ($10k ), the HotRod ($1.5k), and the budget setup ($700). Great reading even if you only wanna dream

http://arstechnica.com/guide/system/index.html

Oh my! Reminds me of alienware. *drools* I would take that god box anyday. Most of the chunk of that is coming from the dual 20' lcd's and scsi's. But what do ya expect?

I could use the god box to play the solitaire

Updated 10/5/2003, just in time for Christmas shopping

http://arstechnica.com/guide/system/index.html

Updated today 12-1-2003:

http://arstechnica.com/guide/system/index.html



I was looking at the old guide this weekend, good thing I didn't buy any pieces, some recommendations have changed

Does anyone know of another site that does this? I need to build/buy a computer for home use and ars is a little slow updating their recommendations

I have people all the time asking me for recommendations... I should probably actually spec out some boxes and post them on my website, but I'm lazy/busy

We're in the process of building a new computer for my wife... Specs:

Clear case with blue tint (4 5 1/4 bays, 2 3 1/2 bays, 5 internal hard drive bays).
450wat power supply.
DVD Drive, CDRW Drive, Zip100 Internal drive, 120gb HD
5 LED case fan's, 5 grill covers for them all.
3GB ram (when we have the cash to buy it, DDR333).
AMD Athlon 3200+

We're going with an ASUS motherboard, out only pre-requisite is that it has onboard RAID (the one we got our first trip didn't so we have to go back and exchange mobo's).

Total cost of this beast will be about $1500 give or take.. We had a few parts on hand but so far we've only spent $300... We're most likely going to spend $500 on just a few more hard drives...

Sharky Extreme has an monthly/bi-monthly computer purchasing guide, as does Anandtech . Anandtech covers all the bases, but Shrky is nice and streamlined info. It will make buying a 1k, 2.5k or 4k computer very easy.

I prefer to build my PC's, gives one more experiance with things and you can customize just about every aspect of your computer... Plus if something doesn't work it's your own fault :x...

Hey, thanks

/me wishes that PCI-Express motherboards and graphics cards were on the market already!

When do you think we'll start seeing them? Might be a good idea for me to wait if they're coming in the next 6 months or so

If you don't already know about it, one of the best objective websites out there for recommendations and reviews of products is http://www.tomshardware.com.

They have all the charts, graphs, and comparisons you need to make informed computer purchasing decisions. Not to mention they also do some pretty cool hardware tricks and show you how to do them too.

Well worth bookmarking that one for future reference.

PCI Express boards and graphics cards should be on the market in time for christmas. There are already a few motherboards here and there but I would stay away from them as they don't follow the full standard and won't perform as well.

hmm.. ok. I probably need to purchase one this fall, but I guess I could wait to get it as a Christmas gift Thanks

Thanks for the toms hardware link gator, much appreciated

The 3 main categories were finally updated

http://arstechnica.com/guide/system/index.html

They've updated their site to add suggestions for the "Ultimate Gaming Box"

http://arstechnica.com/guide/system/gaming-ultimate.html

nav, he specified a computer

haha, Dave, he said "Ultimate Gaming Box", not "Ugliest PC in the world that will probably overheat playing pong, as if pong would be released on Macs"

Upated... and we need one now, bad

I don't know about you but I know I'd have a hard time being in the same room with that god box for long. Those SCSI drives are LOUD.

Yeah, and the reason I need a new computer here. My current home computer is an old Dell Server from about '96 or so, maybe '98. It's a Dell 2200 with a p2 233 and scsi HD's - pretty loud even with just the fans running.

Time for something nicer for my wife and her school work, at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it

As long as you don't have to use a fire extinguisher My dell notebook hasn't flamed up on me yet

links to the system guides are updated to:

http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer.ars

Nice use of divs_n_peas

Updated today

http://arstechnica.com/guides.ars

I was using a 233 mmx for almost 6 years, but now upgraded to a p4 3.0 ghz Now I need a 200 gb HDD (currently 15+2 GB)

Yes, the computers I'm upgrading are in that range, most are around p2 233-400mhz They should be happy with the improvement in speed

I think my next desktop will have a pentium M in it. Much more silent, and as good as a P4

After i build my AMD Athlon XP 3200 machine, my next PC will be an AMD64 :nod:

Getting the pieces. I am tracking a nice monitor via fedex

Since news of the wifey being pregnent it'll be a while before I finish my new machine

Priorities are cool

They're holding my monitor in Houston over the weekend

I don't like responsibility daddy, take it away

UD is giving this 'puter from Dell a score of 172

Ars System Guide: HTPC edition

"With last fall's release of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, do-it-yourselfers were for the first time able to legally buy a copy of MCE. Previous versions had been reserved solely for OEMs, so if you wanted a home theater PC for your living room, you had to buy a complete, off-the-shelf system from a major manufacturer. What fun is that?

Now that MCE 2005 is widely available, we thought it was time to merge the worlds of system building and digital video recorders. To that end, we present the HTPC System Guide. Two systems: one for the budget minded, and another for those who want all the bells and whistles — two tuners, high definition TV, dual hard drives. Both of them come with small, stylish cases that won't look out of place in your home entertainment center."

Sweet... we need a cute pc in the living room

Mmmm, looks truely interesting.... time to bust the shelvs down another notch...

I'm late, the hardware guide was updated 2 weeks ago :

http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/system-guide-200504.ars

The current price is ~$13k, but with it you get 5 screaming hard drives, 8gb of ram, multiple multi-core processors, and a couple 24" LCD monitors... just to start

http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/system-guide-200612.ars/4

*Finally* updated again - we need a new computer and I think I might build this one

http://arstechnica.com/guides.ars

'eh dual core is yesturdays news... You can publicly buy quad core processors right now; which means by the end of 2008 you'll likely be able to buy 6-8 core processors, with 4 core being reasonable priced... I think I'll hold out

Hold out nearly 2 years? You sure you weren't in charge of threads 7 dev time frame?

My notebook is dead, I am working on a borrowed one, so I need to do something soon, this year preferrably

Who said two years? I can buy a quad core processor right now (publicly, check newegg), they'll have 6-8 core processors by the end of the year (2007)...

And I have no clue who did the timeline for Threads7

I need to run Windows and M$ Office, so it will need to be something that can run those

'eh get Linux and run windows in a vmware session when you need it ... Not to mention that OpenOffice is free and runs on it just fine...

You shouldn't penalize your system because Mickeysoft decided that they don't want to support multi-core processors...

Forgive me for mentioning wrong if so, but wasn't there a multi-core update for xp?

I don't need to futz with it (I already spend too much time on the computer) - trying to run linux and then running windows on top of that - it just needs to run windows and office for 99% of what I and my wife do, and it does that well

Overclocking, getting that last 3% of performance out of it, it's mostly just a waste of time and burns your computer out faster

i concourr that overclocking is a complete waste of time

I object You may get some extra performance with cheap hardware & overclocking. Bu that cheap hardware must have overclocking capabilities.

Btw, I've just upgraded my PSU to Enermax Infiniti 650W & I'm planning to buy either a normal Chakra or Uber version

Btw, since ATI did not release a R600 card yet, it is not a good idea to upgrade system IMHO