Who has built their own computer?

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Very sorry for the loss of your personal lives and most of your free cash.

If you want something specific, keep at it and like I said, try it on a weeknight or for a few free hours during a holiday.

529 for the 17" laptop and $399 for a decent E1505 15"er was the cheapest I've seen. Never looked for a desktop so I cant set any benchmarks there.

Script is pretty configurable once you learn the 'language'. I ended up using proxomitron for a while in a general way to filter out some ad sites and whatnot, but I "lost" it when I reloaded my desktop and never got around to reinstalling it.

Theres a 'cost' filter in the script that you can tweak, or use the cost limits on the dell search page to cut off the expensive stuff.

What I did was pick my search with the proxomitron script turned off, clicked on 'price' on the dell web site to organize price ascending, then engaged the script. It holds the sort parameter, so results come up cheapest first.

Look real close at the detail on the systems that land in your cart. Some of them have goodies like 3 years virus protection included, faster ram, a better graphics chip, faster hard drives, etc. Some, like the one I nabbed for my MIL, are really nicely loaded.

 

[thefed]

yep, i already edited the 'cost' part of the script. now i wish i new more about processors so i can discern a good deal from a bad. im leaning toward dual core AMD...are the intel dual cores AS good? i always remember amd being the cat's ass a few years back...

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

The new intel dual cores are FAR better than the AMD dual cores. Dont do a pentium-D or a celeron-D. Core Solos and Pentium-M single cores are pretty good; core duos are two pentium-M's 'glued together'. Core 2 duos are two core solos on the same slice.

AMD's lost a lot of ground to intel in the last 2 years. The core/core2 duos use less power, generate more processing speed per watt and dollar, and run cooler and more quietly.

Any core duo will be a pretty good machine unless you're doing heavy video conversion or the one or two top Shooters that want a $500-800 graphics card.

Core 2 duo is about 15-20% faster and slightly lower power draw/heat throw.

The slowest core 2 duo desktop processor runs about twice the horsepower of the very fastest single core "extreme edition" pentium-D of just a couple of years ago...

I'm running an E6300 1.8GHz core2duo on my desktop and a 2GHz core2duo in the laptop. Only thing that stresses them is video format conversion from RAW AVI format to windows media. My old 2.4GHz pentium 4 took 40 minutes to an hour to process a large video file; the E6300 takes nine minutes.

 

[thefed]

wow...i didnt know the amd lost ground. i thought intel still had a leg up in laptops, not desktops...but a quick review of the intel duo vs amd x2 shows the intels are def more expensive

example deal i just found using the script

AMD 64 x2 2.0 ghz, 2 GB RAM, 250 SATA hard drive, dvd, cd r/w, 13-1 card reader, windows vista, integrated graphics,

379...seems fair to me...but im going for better....and

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Like I said...you might pay a bit more up front, but you'll get it back in lower electric bills...

 

[whitestick]

If you're building your own, a lot of people shortchange on the power supply and motherboard. Dont do it.

Ok, CFB, I missed the real reasoning of why you led off with the discussion on the power supply, now I understand. Your description of a system happened to hit, just as I experienced a melt down on one of my core Linux boxes (mobo/hd failure not sure which failed first, but oh well), and I thought, hey now's a chance to upgrade for some "serious gas" performance, and reuse the old parts, which were good in their own right.
Bought the recommended parts (mobo, CPU, SATA drive, and was in the middle of final reassembly when I realized that my old ATX high end power supply wouldn't work. Need one with SATA drive connectors and a new 2x12 connector for the mobo. Crap! back to the store tomorrow for more stuff - turns out I also need a longer IDE cable, since the mobo put the IDE connector (for the CD and DVD drives) on the other side of the board, and now my old cable is 6 inches too short. I could have put that off, but the power supply effectively killed progress till next day. Anxious to see the performance under 64 bit Linux. Should be a screamer. May even turn virtualization on now, if it's fast enough.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Good power supplies make a huge difference, although if you get a good one, you wont notice its there.

Bad/cheap ones can give you funny glitches, hangs, peripheral problems, and although all power supplies lose peak supply capacity over time, good ones dont drop as fast. Many cheap power supplies are down to half their rated steady state supply by 3-3.5 years.

Never buy a supply thats under $30. Never seen one at that price point that was worth spit. Pc power and cooling, fotron, seasonic, silverstone, sparkle, antec and enermax are all pretty good. Most of the boutique supplies made by the various hi-po memory overclocking type companies (corsair, ocz) are overpriced and not that great.

Look for a supply with an efficiency rating of 80% or higher. And dont feel like you need to go too nutty on the wattage. Unless you're running one of the very expensive 3d graphics cards that wants its own power supply connector and draws 100 watts on its own, some of the newer rigs are very light sippers on the power. Of course, if you've got an 8 drive raid array and 4GB of ram, and a Fozzaramma 98000 quad core dual SLI triple whammy video card...you oughta have a 750W supply...but then you already know that.

My E6300 core2duo desktop machine with a dual raid mirror sata setup, dvd burner, g965 chip set and the x3000 integrated graphics with a 108Mb/s wireless card pulls between 60 and 75 watts during normal operations and a little over 100 with everything going full tilt. Runs fine on a quality 300W supply.

The higher efficiency rating will usually lead to cooler operating temps, lower PS fan speeds, less noise, lower electric bills, and a quality unit will probably last you through a couple of upgrades. The Antec unit I bought 6 years ago still has more than 80% of its output and I'd still be using it if it had the connections I'd need for a modern motherboard...

AMD has some lower 'green' output boards and processors as well, but I feel the slim cost savings are outweighed by the need to buy and keep handy fire extinguishers. And I also hear they can bite unexpectedly and without provocation.

Ever notice that nobody that used to work for AMD is ER'ed?

 

[whitestick]

Hadn't heard of anyone that I know of from Intel either, though. Thought they all worked themselves to death, trying to keep up with Moore's promise.
Re power supply, yeah the one that I had already was a pretty stout one, just the connector problem. As it turns out, my friendly incompetent nearby Fry's had some adapters to provide the necessary conversions for the connectors. Hadn't shopped for that stuff in awhile, and there is apparently a lot of that same kind of problem, thus someone stepped in to fill the need. Since the new mobo (only 1 drive, and use the onboard video with the x3000 integrated graphics) I assumed that the load should be lighter then before. Don't do the heavy graphics on that box, that's why I have the Macs. I use the Linux boxes for number crunching, file serving, and data base sorting. Some experimentation as well with new software. Don't even do games, other then the occasional solitare or Reversi. So processor load and drive load should make up the bulk of my power consumption needs for that box. Come to think of it, maybe that's why the melt down occured in the first place.
Now on to finding the drivers for this 64 bit box.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Hadn't heard of anyone that I know of from Intel either, though.

Theres two posting here, that I know of

 

[FinanceDude]

Theres two posting here, that I know of

SO, on here, INTEL refers to "INTELLIGENT enough to get out before my stock options go back underwater until God knows when"?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Hell yes.

Although dissenters will say it was just coincidence or sheer luck.

I can tell you that based on what I know, that the ratio of people who had the stock weight to easily ER in late 99 or early 2000 that checked out vs those that hung in there to be very, very low. Really low.

I know dozens of people who had at least $7-12M around then, all of which knew for certain that I was a moron for selling every year and diversifying.

For 7 years they were right.

Then they were wrong. Really, really wrong.

 

[2soon2tell]

vvs,

I am in the market for an inexpensive home computer and would be interested in your pointing out any good deals on Dell's outlet site. I am trying to stay under $500.

Thanks for your imput.

2soon

 

[mickj]

Just saw this

http://www.dealhack.com/archives/2007/03/dimension_c521_amd_desktop_pc.html

 

[vvsonikvv]

Just saw this

http://www.dealhack.com/archives/2007/03/dimension_c521_amd_desktop_pc.html

This one looks pretty good. For $50 more i'd get the dual core and extra ram.

 

[2soon2tell]

Thanks vvs and mickj for your replies.

Would you have any concerns about buying a "certified refurbished" computer from Dell's outlet? They say you receive the full warranty.

2soon

 

[thefed]

i am writing you from my new DELL OUTLET purchase...and im waaay happy

319 bucks got me an amd dual core 64 2.0 ghz, 250 gb hard drive, 1 gb ram, dvd burner, firewire card, 13-1 card reader, windows vista premium, etc


start off at dellscripts.com to learn how to snag such a great deal..BUT...ive noticed dell flooding the website with these super deals

my 'scratch and dent' has a SMALL 1 inch long, .3 millimeter wide scratch on the top of the pc......so small i wouldnt even complain if i bought brand new