Avian Gamers Network

I may build my own PC for my wife so that she can play SWG. I have always bought mine, so I am not sure where to buy my parts.



Can someone point me in the right direction.

Well to search for parts and prices, you can start by going to http://www.pricewatch.com. You don't actually buy things from them, though. They provide links to vendors who are offering the goods for the said prices. Pricewatch just basically collects prices from all sorts of vendors in an easy to browse-and-compare format.

In the past I've bought a good deal of parts from http://www.newegg.com and http://www.googlegear.com.

Pricewatch is where I went through to buy all my parts. Also www.hardforum.com is a GREAT resource. You can find all sorts of newbie guides and such. You'll need these parts:

Motherboard
CPU
CPU Fan/Heatsink
RAM
Case
Power Supply
Hard Drive(s)
Graphics card
Sound Card
CD ROM, etc. drive
Floppy (just in case)
I/O devices (mouse, keyboard, monitor, etc.)
and an operating system

And whatever else I missed

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- Wiegraf Terrik
SWG: Human Commando/Pistoleer
WoW: Dwarvish Rogue (Herbalism/Alchemy)
EQII: Alazin, High Elf Wizard

Former Section 4 Director

"Please, if anyone were to play Obi-Wan it would be me, with the 'Luke, Luke save me' and the lightsabers going 'Vvvwiinnngg, vvwinggg, vvvWING!' -- Professor Frink

I've been building PC's for four or five years now. Not to make money or anything, just for myself, friends, and family. I've done a LOT of shopping over the net for parts, and the best place I've found, without question is:

www.newegg.com

I've placed at least 20 big-money orders with them, if not more. Every one of them was excellent. They've got a great return policy, which I've used a few times. Their shipping time is super fast. Their prices might not be the absolute lowest on pricewatch, but they're always damn close. When you take into account that they have EVERYTHING you could possibly want for a PC, then you end up saving money since you only have to buy from one place and pay one shipping fee.

Also, their listings have actual photos of the item (like 5 or 6 full size pics) and links to the item manufacturer's website. Very nice features I haven't seen anywhere else.

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Sakri Tey'vok
Creature Handler, Carbineer, Ranger

Cyrus, if you're having trouble deciding parts go with what, I can help you if you want. If you provided me with a little info like price range and general specs you're looking for, I could put together a wish list on newegg and email it to you. RAM/mobo/chip combos can get confusing

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Sakri Tey'vok
Creature Handler, Carbineer, Ranger

I usually go all out with my PCs, But Danyale is not letting up on this one, so I am trying to keep it around 1000 to 1500

P4 2.0 gig or higher processor
512 RAM or higher
Radion 8500 or better... Must have DVI
10/100 Ethernet card

No burner needed
No Monitor needed

the PC i bought to run SWg was a Hewlet Packard 754n with a 2.53 ghz cpu, 512 megs ram, dvd recorder, 80 gig harddrive, 64 meg video card ( which sucks for swg) , a seperate cd-rom drive, ethernet card, modem, usb, etc, etc.

i only bought the box and hooked my monitor,cable modem, printer back up to it when i brought it home. and everything worked without a problem.

the box cost me 949.99 from Comp USA in may. so may be cheaper now. the only thing i had to add to it was a video card. i bought an AGP GeForce FX 5200 with 128 megs ram for 99.99. I just unplugged the monitor, opened the case up. plugged the new card in. plugged the monitor back in. started it back up. and it picked it up on its own. didn't even have to install drivers. it even auto -disabled the onboard video card for me.

everything works fine. I've built computers in the past. but latelly i just haven't had the time to deal with building one for me. so this was a good alternative.

Anyways, thats just an option for you if you decide to not build one yourself.

Jarun Thaks
Section 2

Cyrus :

I would urge you to shoehorn as much RAM as you can afford into this. I increased my RAM from 512 to 1536 and the difference in framerate was jaw-dropping especially in cities.

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"Chatfield, I think there's something wrong with our bloody ships." Admiral David Beatty, upon watching the battlecruiser Queen Mary explode at the battle of Jutland.

My name is Tobias Smith and I approved this post.

512 2700 Ram
80 Gig HD
550 Watt Power Supply
Internal cables-Black light
Teac Burner-Black
5600 CD ROM-Black
Floppy Drive-Black
GeForce FX 5900 Ultra
Inspire 5 piece speakers with Sub woofer-Black
Key board/with laser mouse-Black
65.00 Allowance on ATX Case-Black


Microstar KT4 ULTRA (MS-6590) Socket A DDR MB which has...

CPU
Supports Socket A (Socket 462) for AMD® Athlon™ XP/ Athlon™/Duron™ processor
Supports 800MHz up to (Athlon™ XP 3000) processor

Chipset
VIA® KT400 chipset
FSB @200/266/333 MHz
Supports DDR200/266/333 memory
AGP 8X and PCI advanced high performance memory controller.
VIA® VT8235 chipset
Dual channel Ultra DMA 66/100/133 master mode EIDE controller.
ACPI & PC2001 compliant enhanced power management.
Integrated USB 2.0 controller.

FSB
200/266/333 MHz clocks are supported

Main Memory
Supports up to six memory banks using three 184-pin DDR SDRAMs.
Supports up to 3GB memory size.
Supports DDR200/266/333/400* memory. *DDR 400 memory support by MSI certified module only Note: DDR400 (PC3200) Max. up to 2 Memory DIMM slots with 4 memory banks only

Slots
One AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) slot.
Supports AGP 2.0 4x/8x.
Six 32-bit PCI bus slots (support 3.3v/5v PCI bus interface).
On-Board IDE
An IDE controller on the VT8235 chipset provides IDE HDD/CD-ROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA133/100/66 operation modes.

Bluetooth Ready
1 extra pinheader for Bluetooth connect connection.

On-Board Peripherals
1 floppy port supports 2 FDDs with 360K, 720K, 1.2M, 1.44M and 2.88Mbytes
2 serial ports (COM A + COM B)
1 parallel port supports SPP/EPP/ECP mode
1 IrDA connector for SIR/ASKIR/HPSIR
1 audio port
6 USB 2.0 ports (Rear * 4/ Front * 2)

Audio
C-Media 8738MX 6-channel audio + SPDIF out.

BIOS
The mainboard BIOS provides "Plug & Play" BIOS which detects the peripheral devices and expansion cards of the board automatically.
The mainboard provides a Desktop Management Interface (DMI) function which records your mainboard specifications.
ACPI, 1.0a, APM1.2, PnP 1.0a, SMBIOS 2.3, USB 2.0, WFM 2.0, Overclock, Boot from USB device.

Dimension
30.5 cm(L) x 23 cm(W) ATX Form Factor

Mounting
6 mounting holes



Thats if you go with athlon.. say a 2.7 clocked to a 3.0 ...

I can get you that for only about say... 1.2k ?

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"Just because you can`t see me, doesn`t mean I`m not there..."