I need some tips...

[ArwingCmdr]

I left the Mac OS. Don't get me wrong, I love everything about it. I just can't afford a good enough machine. I mean, G4's still can get as high as a grand and that seems a tad ridiculous to me. I have a great amount of windows experience. I was only a mac user for about the last three years. Before that I went from Windows 98 all the way up through XP before switching and put a good number of hours into all of them, so i'm no stranger. I am also no stranger with building a PC. However, every time I built something it was with used, cheap parts and it was trial and error. On to my point. I recently bought an IBM 8189 ThinkCentre tower (2.4 GHZ P4, 512 ram, 40 gig) and was wondering if someone could lead me in the right direction as far as a new hard drive, more ram and a video card. I'm just not sure what to get and I don't want to play trial and error when it comes to brand new stuff.
Thanks.

[Dylan]

Mostly what you're looking for in a hard drive is the warranty, as there's little differentiation between them on a technical level. Personally, I always go with Seagate (hard to beat that 5-year warranty). Also, Western digital is a good choice for a hard drive.

RAM is less touchy in general, just stick with companies like Corsair, Kingston, Crucial, anyone reputable. As far as RAM's concerned, you pretty much just get what you pay for.

Now, as far as video cards are concerned, what exactly are you looking for in a video card? I'd either go Nvidia or ATI (the 2 main competitors for the top of the market). 512 MB of vram is the most you should look for in a card. Other than that, the closer you get to a newer card the more fluid and capable that card will become. For a Video card, I'd just stick to what you need, because it's easy to get oversold.

[thekorean12]

Hmm, probably going to require more information than that. The motherboard is what determines what you can put on there. On an old machine like that, you're probably running DDR ram and your room for expansion in the video card area is limited to a regular PCI slot. Again, depending on your motherboard you may be limited from anywhere from 1 to 4 gb's of ram. As for a new video card, PCI only gets so good. I have a Ati Radeon x1550 that runs well... for PCI. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814161227 That has all the specs for it. I looked around and you don't get too much better without stepping up to PCI express.

I just realized that you may have just been talking about brands and know all of this stuff. If so, I apoligize. If not, hope I helped.

[Hobie-wan]

Since you're presumably on a budget, this appears to be a good cheap, yet capable card.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/07/ ... _hd_4770/1

Any company's Radeon 4770 graphics card will be pretty much the same. The prices might be a little different and some might come with more extras, but they should pretty much be the same.

[RCBH928]

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/s ... co=MTE4MTY
less than a thousand dollars

Yes, PC's are cheaper.

Any how I am looking for a hard drive too, external. Anything to look out for when buying one, I need something that is going to last.

[Hobie-wan]

Any how I am looking for a hard drive too, external. Anything to look out for when buying one, I need something that is going to last.

If you're going to leave it on all the time instead of just hooking it up when backing up or carting stuff to a friend's, I'd look for one with a metal case or a small fan to help keep the drive cool. If possible, also look for one that will spin down the drive after a set time of inactivity. Just think of the poor drive cooking in that cramped box instead of a more spacious computer case.

[Anapan]

+1 to the Seagate or Western Digital HD (I hear Seagate went 3rd world for assembly but can't back that up with any horror stories so both still perform to spec AFAIK. Most others have been known to die after 1-2 years from personal experience with pc repair jobs) and Kingston Memory. If you're buying online it's tough to beat the prices on newegg.com
I've used both ATI and Nvidia aftermarket (used) cards lots (my server still has an ATI 7500 in it) and I would prefer to use Nvidia now. I don't know what you need but if you go for a card, make sure the onboard ram suits the chip. I got cheated out of a perfect Doom 3 experience by wining an ebay auction for a 3rd party video card that had ram that performed at nearly 1/2 what the cards CPU could put out. I was very pissed off and will never buy a 3rd party video-card again.