Building your own computer?

[HISSMAN]

I will always build my own. Well, I am now using a laptop though. I just bought the E-machines M6805 notebook, and it is the closest i have ever seen a notebook run with a desktop. I build a DT last year, and used the Athlon XP 2100 processor from AMD, and a lot of other goodies, and the ATI 9500 non-pro video card (overclocked to 9600 pro -wich runs right with a friends 9800 pro) and the thing screams. With everything envolved in building it, and 512mb of pc3200ram, I had under $1000.00 in it, and I benchmarked against my fathers Dell that he just go that had the intel 3.2ghz HT processor and 1 gig of ram, and I busted his ass. Nothing beats homebuilt. Dell/gateway/compaq, all use crap in their machines, and charge you twice as much. With the monito and everythin my dad's dell was close to $3,000.00 .. Howver I am in love with my new laptop. It has the AMD 64 bit athlon processor in it, and it is very overclock friendly. I took it from 1800mhz to 2.0 mhz np, and upped the ATI radeon 9600 card that comes in it quite a bit. my 3dmark01 benchmark score went from 9128 non-modded to 11437....that kicks ass. My dads 3dmark01 score on his dell was 8100 ahe hahaha.

P.S. Newegg.com is the only way to go. Take a look @ my laptop on e4me.com it is the M6805.

 

[HISSMAN]

If you must buy a machine from a company, and you have totally ruled out building one, the only machine I would buy would be one custome built for me from the guys @ ALIENWARE.com. they kick major but.

 

[CalcVictim]

Alienware is a good company but they are expensive. If you are going with an expensive machine which good Alienwares are then there are others like Falcon Northwest or Voodoo pc. Also your 9500 Radeon cannot touch a 9800 especially since you have such limitted option in terms of cooling in a laptop. Just as an example here is a benchmark

 

[Venomous98Cobra]

Another good computer company is "L". http://www.go-l.com

 

[HISSMAN]

Originally posted by CalcVictim
Alienware is a good company but they are expensive. If you are going with an expensive machine which good Alienwares are then there are others like Falcon Northwest or Voodoo pc. Also your 9500 Radeon cannot touch a 9800 especially since you have such limitted option in terms of cooling in a laptop. Just as an example here is a benchmark

It was my 9500 radeon that was in my desktop that was running very close to a friend of mines 9800. not my laptop. But I overclocked my laptop via ATITOOL, and the FSB, and the fan is thermally switched to come on, and the thing never hardly comes on, the case never gets more than slightly warm, and when the fan is on the air coming out is cool.. Next I will up the voltages and see what happens. without upping the voltages I can run @ 2.2ghz wich is equal to an AMD Athlon 64 3400+, but it is not as stable. with the voltages upped I am sure that it would stableize, but more than likely I will leave it where it is. The only bad thing about the video card is that it is only a 64meg version of the 128meg 9600. But scores just as good as a 9600 with 128meg after i used ATITOOL on it.