msub

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I'm considering building my own computer. The only problem is, I don't know what I should get. I haven't built a PC since I was in highschool and I have no clue what current hardware is out on the market right now that would suit my application, so maybe some of you more tech-savvy guys could point me in a direction.

Right now I'm running an old as hell Sony Vaio. I think I got this thing my freshman or sophomore year of highschool, and I'm in my fourth year of college now. It has a state of the art 1 GHz processor and 256 megs of ram. It has served me well for all these years, but today it choked like a teenage girl swallowing for the first time and I just can't take it any more.

So here's what I need:

I need something that can crunch numbers fast and reliably. I do a lot of work in Matlab and need to be able to do lots and lots of matrix operations, possibly in real time. Today my junk choked on a measly 1000x3 matrix, and it wasn't even doing any calculations, just loading into a variable. I may also start doing cad work in the near future.

I don't play games, at least not any more. I.e. graphics are low priority, unless it will greatly enhance CAD experiences.

I have a nice monitor and peripherals already.

It can't be too loud. My current desktop's fan is audible but bearable. My roommate who just built a gaming machine sounds like a fighter jet. That's going to kill me at night because I leave my PC on 24/7.

I want to keep the price down. I don't know what's considered "typical" these days, so I'm going to naievely say that I want all this for $300 or less.

So there you have it. Now please tell me what I ought to get, as in what mobo/cpu package, graphics card, case, etc... should I be looking at?

Thanks guys.

Wabash9000

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16811119096
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16813138077
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16819103774
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16820231098
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16814127299
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16822136075
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16827118003

Grand Total: $353.93 +shipping

you will be hard pressed to get a system that costs under $300.

msub

Hey, thanks for the reply. I just checked all the links, and it all looks like it'd suite me just fine. I've heard good things about the Cooler Master case, most notably from my roomie who just got one and the fact that all the desktops in my school's computer labs use 'em.



Yeah I figured I was lowballing it with $300. I've been so out of touch with the computer hardware scene since highschool that I figured by now everything would be dirt cheap. And for the most part, everything is. I never would have imagined a DVD-R/RW for under $50 back a few years ago. Under $400 is a very fair compromise.

zo0t

Check out Ibuypower.com They put it together for you, and you get anything you want. A buddy of mine got a free 5.1 speaker system also since that was the deal of the day. They change all the time and they're pretty good stuff too.

I got my comp from here also, I highly recommend them.

CWB

i gotta say in all honesty that you aint gonna wind up with anything but a POS-1 for 300 bucks .

if you want to invest in a machine/system that will stay strung together (aka : reliable) , perform to the degree that you want it to now as in the future and be expandable/flexable you are looking at about 800 bucks (if you build it yourself) ... i shy away from those outfits that "build it for ya" .
why should i pay for "bundled" crapware that hawks the products/services of others . it's like buying a new car that has a butt-load of bumper stickers and signs on it .

the number crunching and cad work are the key points in this .
a top quality 3Dcad program is going to flex the muscle of a machine as is the video rendering quality/time ... a good video/graphics card is worth every penny as is a decent monitor .

msub

Define "POS" and "reliable". Yeah, $300 was admittedly lowballing it. Let's just say I was being optimistic.

I really don't think investing in the higher tier equipment is neccessary at all. For example, I was looking at a Foxconn mobo for $52 (before rebate), and another mobo from Foxconn that runs about $170.

The only differences I saw were more expansion slots, more usb ports, and larger memory capacity. You're just paying extra for real estate. If you absolutely MUST have 8gb of ram, as opposed to maxing out the cheaper board at 2gb, then you have no choice but to spend extra. Office applications and medium number crunching is all I really need.

I leave open the possibility that I may have to dabble in some cad work, but not by choice. If by the time I'm working in industry at a job that requires CADing stuff up from 9-5, you can bet I ain't gonna take that shit home and work on it in my free time. Otherwise I'm gonna look for another job. Either that or drink heavily.

Although I'll agree with cheap shit being shit. I bought an e-Machines PC in middle school for a very budgetline price. It struggled to last more than 2 years, compared to my current VAIO that is nearly 8 years old (it chokes when I try to watch youtube full screen though, haha). But I think the e-Machine I bought then and the PC I want to build now are cheap for entirely different reasons.