I would have ordered all this stuff on the weekend, now that you lovley people have guided me along to a good choice - however I'm going to be out of town next week on christmas vacation in Texas, my home state, Go Shiner Bock!, and if I order now, all the crap will come in next week while I'm not here. :P

the LED Monitor I'm still flakey on, I know I want an LED monitor, as I love my 55" LED Samsung TV, so I want a monitor to match with millions of contrast ratio. I just through out the Samsung as a quicky choice for now. When I buy the actual monitor, it will end up being something along the lines of LG or Dell I'm predicting. I just want that 1920 x 1200 resolution max though.

What specifically will you be doing with this (monitor question)?
~Gaming
~Movies
~Do you care about response time?
~Do you want accurate color?

Going to through another angle out at you:
TFT Technology Breakdown and Model/Panel Index - [H]ard|Forum
Great thread about current technology on monitors, soon to be out of date almost, but not to much has changed really.

Well I went ahead and bought my computer parts and put majority of it together this weekend. All except my OS hard drive. I visited my family for Christmas, in Texas, and they have a Fry's Electronics nearby. I was able to find all my parts at a price matched level as online stuff, and I only had to pay taxes for the convenience. Here's what I ended up buying.

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

HD: Intel X25-M 80GB SSD (in mail), Velociraptor WD 300GB 10,000RPM

PSU: Corsair TX850W Power Supply

MOBO: Asus Rampage Extreme II Motherboard

CPU: Intel i7 920 Processor

GPU: Diamond Radeon HD 5850 w/ HDMI

Heatsink: Coolermaster V8

Peripheral Cooling: (6) Cooler Master 80mm fans

Case: Lian Li Aluminum Full Tower (Salvaged from 6 year old build, will replace)

Monitor: 24" LG Flatron W2486L LCD/LED Backlit

The monitor I immediately regret as I know I wanted that samsung, but I didn't wait to get it, as I could only find it in Best Buy stores that are nowhere near by, the LG monitor, Fry's had in their store, and the 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio is what was the most important to me, and the LED backlit making it 1" thick. I already found a dead pixel on the bottom left though. :(

I'll take pictures once the Intel SSD comes in, then I can install windows 7 on it.

I like it. I have an Alienware desktop, quad core etc, and I have the raptor setup, very smooth. I didn't go SSD because it was overpriced in the configurator (this is 6 months ago) but I read they are generally fast. Looks like a solid system.

Sucks to hear about the Samsung. I have 3 Samsung monitors (as old as 2, 4 and 6 years) and a Samsung LCD TV (1 mo old) and all are fabulous. I swear by them.

I've never had an issue with a Samsung product, even their first generation DLPs back in the day. (worked at the DFW a/v distributor for the line at the time.) I currently own a 24" LCD for the PC and a 55" LED TV, both Samsung, both F-L-A-W-L-E-S-S. (:stirthepot:)

LG makes a good product, and their panels are perfect (they are also a panel mfg.). I've heard reviews from my A/V customers that the processing is lacking somewhat. We're talking about comparing $5k top-of-the-line TVs though. On a smaller scale I doubt it's noticeable at all.

You say the monitor has a 2mil:1 dynamic contrast, but do you know the actual contrast, brightness, or latency? Contrast is nice, and with the technology going around gigantic dynamic numbers are all around, but brightness will also play a big factor.

I do not care for alien ware now that they are owed by dell.

:iagree:

Also I think that the i7's from intel are sort of overkill on no need for them. I have been with amd for a long time now and still prefer them over intel. They are cheaper and they can be overclocked if wanted or need be.

I also think that computer parts and peoples opinions on them are crazy. Meaning that there are millions of opinions but you should get what you want. My also recommendation is ati but a lot of people say that nvidia has faster ones. Me I know that but I choose to stick with a company that I trust. Not saying that nvidia is bad but I just prefer ati.

Well and the fact that every rich kids in middle school/high school had an Alienware. :D

alienware wasn't really around when i was in HS. and i'm young. lol. all the geeks and such had self-built PCs and everyone else just had their parent's comp.

Alienware has been around for years, but pre-Dell ownership it was considered a luxury PC. Similar brands
~VoodooPC
~Falcon NW
~Maingear (more modern name)
Basically they built computers and made them actually look good, instead of your generic beige case or crappy plastic POS.

i like Falcon, but they are SOOOOO overpriced. Sabre makes good lappys if you wanna "build" them [online]

founded in 96, purchased by dell in 06. didn't catch on until 00-02. i graduated may 00.

I started freshmen year in HS at 2001. :D

My Compy specs validated

http://valid.canardpc.com/cache/banner/914099.png

Here's my computer validated by CPU-Z, I went ahead and overclocked the i7 920 (2.66GHz) up to 3.81GHz, as it shows. I'm currently testing the stability of the system, so we'll see in a few hours as I run my torture tests (prime95)

The Intel X25-m SSD hasn't arrived yet, it will get here Jan4, Monday, so I went ahead and installed Windows 7 64bit on the WD Velociraptor 300GB drive until it does. I also went ahead and ordered 2 more storage drives. WD 7200RPM 1TB each, puts my total storage to 2,380GB, or 2.38 Terabytes. Woot. I remember in 98 I believe, being on Napster, and the total amount of music being shared by people was 2 TB. lol.

Who knows. I sure don't, lol.

W2486L Monitors Computer+Products

2,000,000:1 Digital Fine Contrast Ratio. Sounds like a marketing phrase Proper Noun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Fine_Contrast

reminds me of this video, i keep the CD on my iphone always lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvhsJyecpLc

haha
Optical Zoom x 3, DIGITAL ZOOM x 1000

http://www.the370z.com/members/equin...ed-monitor.jpg
http://www.the370z.com/members/equin...ng-re-used.jpg
http://www.the370z.com/members/equin...c-heatsink.jpg
http://www.the370z.com/members/equin...rampage-ii.jpg

If you really want a nice screen the apple 24" is nice and it comes with a camera and speakers but I don't know how well it will connect to a PC

the 30" is massive and ridiculousely expensive

So if you have and extra 1500 dollars go get a apple monitor

by the way yes I'm a huge mac person but. I wish OS X 10.6 could run games

Can't wait to build another system sometime this year. So many new toys out since my last build such as SSD, DDR3, new gen of CPU/GFX, etc.

I just bought some parts last night for my winter upgrade.

Newegg.com - Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops
Newegg.com - ASUS P6X58D Premium LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards
Newegg.com - OCZ 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model OCZ3X1600R2LV6GK - Desktop Memory
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive x2, going to be a Raid1 setup.

I already have plenty of other goodies like a water-cooled case, but Im going to need an adapter to get my heatsink to work w/ the new Proc, me thinks :(

Funny, I just bought another monitor arm/mount for my desk. My 26" has had an arm since the day I bought it but my 20" I have always used the stock stand. Monitor arms are so cheap but I always put it off, but finally bought it and can clean up some clutter on my desk.

Core 2 Duo E6600
eVga 680i A1
Antec 900 Case + Corsair 620W PSU
eVga 8800GTS 640MB x2 SLI
4GB (2GBx2) G.Skill PC-8500 1066MHz
150GB WD Raptor + 500GB WD + 1TB WD

I'm looking into buying a ATI 5850, good idea? I can use it for a future system and I think my graphic cards are extremely bottlenecking my system running HL2 at 16x12.

i would try to avoid an Nvidia based motherboard. they're getting out of the chipset business and support may start to fade. it also seems that you have spec'd DDR, not DDR2 (unless your p/n is wrong). make sure your mobo choice incorporates PCI Express 2.0 x16. I'm running a non 2.0 board right now and even with a 2.0 card I have issues running maxxed 1920x1200. my single core proc isn't helping either.

A GPU upgrade will help in some games, not in others.
The issue with upgrading X component is that some games benefit as they are GPU dependent and others are CPU. So the best thing to do is look at what you do/play and see if the upgrade is worthwhile.

Vipor, get off that ancient single core POS and move on.

hhah it's a P4HT 3.6GHz 800Mhz FSB. it's so 1337! was $630 when I bought it lol.

I forget what I am running now, it is quad core and I believe the first round of 45nm CPUs but that is all I remember.
My boss still argues with me that a single core can out perform a dual core if the application specifically utilizes only one core.

problem with that thought is that they don't make single core procs that aren't for netbooks anymore. mine is the last of them, and trust me a 2.0 dual runs probably 4x as good as my 3.6 single.

i set up a web hosting box at my old work that was sick... dual quad core xeon 2.4s with 8gb ddr2 and a 1.3TB (usable) raid 5 array. running suse 10.

Not bad, sounds like my home system for everyday work. ;)
My old laptop (not my current netbook) had the last AMD single core CPU made for laptops. It was quick for a laptop and beat most early dual core CPUs, but damn it is slow by today standards.

All this talk is making me want to build a website, new hardware, new server, etc., hmmm...I wonder what it could be about.

make a site for my new work. i'll get you paid. i could do it but i don't feel like it. i'd really like to just gank the site i made for my old work but i got paid for it so it's really not mine anymore. plus whoever is working on it now knows nothing about CSS and XHTML standards so it's slowly getting effed up.

My mobo supports both PCI-E 2.0 and DDR2. I'm thinking of just OC'ing this badboy since I left it on stock settings when I got it back in 2007. :tup:

ook i thought you were about to buy that stuff lol

And a 1-legged man may be able to out run a 2-legged man if his legs are tied together.....

Yes, his statement is retarded :-p lol

He does it to mess with me, he likes to grind my gears.

Neds all of you! lol. Good stuff

nerds?

Nerd!!!

NEHDS! Nasaly nerds perhaps

:(