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Any knowledgeable PC builders out there?

EchoWars said:
You MUST have a legitimate and activated version of Windows XP or Windows Vista installed on the system before the Windows 7 upgrade disk will proceed with an installation, thus if you have a new computer build, we're talking about going to all the trouble to load XP or Vista, just so you can pop in the Win7 disk and blow it all away.
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Not entirely accurate, I installed Win 7 Home Prem Upgrade (legit from Newegg) on my new machine with a blank HD, it loaded fine but it wouldn't accept the activation code.

I had to call MS and they walked me through the steps to make it work, registry change and a couple other things, it only took about 15 minutes total.

I was expecting it to ask for an XP disk at some point to verify that I qualified for the upgrade, like they used to do in versions past, but that isn't the way it works anymore.
 
I'd say I was totally accurate. It would not activate because you had no operating system on it. ;) Officially, Microsoft is not bound to assist with helping you load an upgrade version on a blank HDD on a new system. I have heard if it happening, and I've also heard people being told that they'll have to load Vista or XP and activate it before they can load Win7 Upgrade. Can't say I blame them...the only reason to buy the upgrade version is to pay less, and M$ is in biz to sell you a specific product for a specific requirement. If you have a new computer with no op-system on it, then that product would be a full version of Win7, either OEM or retail.

Yep...back in the past, all you had to do was insert a qualifying disk. But seeing as how things have changed so much WRT licensing in the 9 years that WinXP had been around, it would be way too easy to get around this type of confirmation.
 
I work on PC's on a weekly basis and they will accept the reg change everytime. It is the same process you went through on XP and Vista. I bet I call every week for some reason or another.

You put in your 9 sets of 6 numbers. It does not activate. They send you to India, where you talk to some one you can barely understand. They ask if this is the copy for this PC, you say yes and he gives you numbers to put in. Then click finish. I just did this again a couple of days ago.
 
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I work on PCs for a living too, but working at a university with a site license I never see the activation issues.
 
A nice video card is a waste of money unless you specifically hope to game, same with 8GB of memory -- 4 is plenty for day to day use and you can always buy more. A $50 video card, like a ATI 4650, will do fine for HD video usage and very light games.

I'd prefer Echowars' build, personally. AMD has been playing catch up for the last couple years, but the latest generation is solid, and they are the bang for the buck kings.

If you want a really fast machine, think about a SSD for a primary hard drive combined with a budget 2TB hard drive for storage. An SSD boot drive was the single best upgrade I have ever done, 20% increase across the board, no lie. The biggest bottleneck in modern PCs continues to be hard drive access times.

dew.
 
Fisherdude said:
You can use an SSD as a boot drive?? Wow, that's really intriguing.
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I use a 60GB SSD (middle of the road performer) as just my boot disk. It gives me enough room, about half full with Windows 7 and plenty of programs installed. I remap all the Documents folders to another 1.5TB drive using Windows 7.



dew.
 
jimfet said:
I work on PC's on a weekly basis and they will accept the reg change everytime. It is the same process you went through on XP and Vista. I bet I call every week for some reason or another.

You put in your 9 sets of 6 numbers. It does not activate. They send you to India, where you talk to some one you can barely understand. They ask if this is the copy for this PC, you say yes and he gives you numbers to put in. Then click finish. I just did this again a couple of days ago.
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I didn't know that they were pretty much 'fast-tracking' upgrade installs now. Guess M$ got tired of the screaming when callers were given a hard time.
dew042 said:
A nice video card is a waste of money unless you specifically hope to game
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I agree, but since someone had originally picked a near TOTL nVidia card, I assumed that gaming was a priority. The motherboard I picked, the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3, has built-in video, which will do the job fine if gaming is not a goal...and a hot-sh*t vid card can be added later.

I love my current i7 build, but I'd not have minded saving a few $$ for an AMD setup that is slower only in benchmark tests. Consider that AMD's top desktop processor, the Phenom II 3.3GHz 6-core, sells for $270 (12/27/10), and Intel's top, the 3.33GHz i7-975 Bloomfield quad core is $1050, and the six-core i7-980 Gulftown is $1000. If I rebuilt my system today, AMD would get my money.
 
Great recommendations here. I like EW's build as well. Buy the most performance you can afford now and you will get more than your moneys worth. I bought as high as I could 2 years ago and can still play the top games on high. It works hard now, but still hangs in there.

AMD Phenom 1 9850 Black 2.4 with a Nvidia 9800GT card. It still holds it's own. It doesn't benchmark as well as it performs, but I didn't build it for benchmarking. Am I thinking about my next build, of course, but this one will be fine for another year or two. I can still overclock if I need some more speed.

I will stick with AMD as well. They seem to keep the same sockets a bit longer. I can still get a Phenom 2 that fits in my existing board.

The only thing I would change on their build besides going AMD though is the processor. Up the processor and lower the video card and you will have a better balanced system in the same price range. Also, they are going to want all SATA drives. It makes life soooo much easier.
 
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I can't argue with EW's recommendations at all, especially on the importance of good RAM & PSU. I think the boys were probably really shooting for a gaming rig though, even if it does a lot of multimedia on the side. ;) If they talk you into a good video card, I highly recommend going with the slightly newer GTX570, rather than the GTX470. It's essentially the same card, but with better cooling, and some reworking on the PCB, to make it run cooler. The 470 & 480 are hot-running cards, & really needed that "refresh". :yes:
 
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