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gurusan · 01-30-2006, 12:13 AM

Hey all...I'm new to the site, I used to be into computers but then my obsession moved to cars....and now I'm back to computers since it's too cold to work on my car.

I have an old POS dell T800.. (512mb ram, tnt2 m64, 20gb quantum fireball, and a p3 800mhz).

My main computer was a dell inspiron 5150, a great little laptop...but it lacked video power (geforce go 5200 32mb)...a great card, but no memory!!! ...anyway...I spilled beer on it and now I'm using the old desktop.

I can't stand the slowness of this, I reformatted and installed windows 2000 but it's still really slow.

So I decided to get back into the puter scene and build a new puter with a budget of 500-600.

So far I have:

-AMD 64 3200 socket 939
-DFI nForce4 Infinity mobo
-2 x 512 mushkin pc3200
-using my old 20gb quantum fireball + whatever new HD i get

This summer I'll be swapping the CPU out for a dual core.

My question is: what is the BEST vid card I can get under 100 bucks? I was looking at some geForce 6600s 256 mb with active cooling....maybe I can overclock them to GT speeds?

and...where can I get a budget PC case+reliable PSU(400-500 watt continuous) for under 70 bucks or so.

Also...is it worth it having a RAID 0 setup? Will it work with my current IDE 20gb HD and a new WD raptor or something? Or do they both have to be SATA? and WTF is SATA and how does it differ from IDE?

Like I said, I used to be into computers but now that I'm back into them I am a bit lost. I can tell you anything about Hondas/Acuras/turbo setups though!

Thanks!

01-30-2006, 12:13 AM	#1 (permalink)
gurusan Moderator Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Oxford, UK Posts: 5,786	HEY! New to Site...wasabi and a lil help Hey all...I'm new to the site, I used to be into computers but then my obsession moved to cars....and now I'm back to computers since it's too cold to work on my car. I have an old POS dell T800.. (512mb ram, tnt2 m64, 20gb quantum fireball, and a p3 800mhz). My main computer was a dell inspiron 5150, a great little laptop...but it lacked video power (geforce go 5200 32mb)...a great card, but no memory!!! ...anyway...I spilled beer on it and now I'm using the old desktop. I can't stand the slowness of this, I reformatted and installed windows 2000 but it's still really slow. So I decided to get back into the puter scene and build a new puter with a budget of 500-600. So far I have: -AMD 64 3200 socket 939 -DFI nForce4 Infinity mobo -2 x 512 mushkin pc3200 -using my old 20gb quantum fireball + whatever new HD i get This summer I'll be swapping the CPU out for a dual core. My question is: what is the BEST vid card I can get under 100 bucks? I was looking at some geForce 6600s 256 mb with active cooling....maybe I can overclock them to GT speeds? and...where can I get a budget PC case+reliable PSU(400-500 watt continuous) for under 70 bucks or so. Also...is it worth it having a RAID 0 setup? Will it work with my current IDE 20gb HD and a new WD raptor or something? Or do they both have to be SATA? and WTF is SATA and how does it differ from IDE? Like I said, I used to be into computers but now that I'm back into them I am a bit lost. I can tell you anything about Hondas/Acuras/turbo setups though! Thanks!