God...fucking annoying parents!

[banditcom]

I bought my own computer.

On a different note, the censorship doesn't work on the homepage where it shows the latest posts on the right side. lol

[Moogy]

Yeah, the best thing to do is just build your own... but since you apparently seem to be in a situation where you can't do that, just be grateful for what you have and get a Dell or something. I wouldn't really know... I am of the belief that any and all storebought computers are pieces of crap. But that's just me.

[87x]

store bought comps never give you the best of everything... one might have a super big HD but low processor speed.. or high both of those and shit graphics card... never all good shit.. unless you special order.. but thats adifferent story

[altairian]

lol.. my step dad took a comp class for like 3 weeks and he thinks he knows everything... he's just as dumb as my bro.. i defraged my hard drive today.. and guess what.. it didn't help... NONE.. i deleted over 12 gigs of (#$% out of my personal folder.. and still nothing.. im running a disk clean up now.. and hopeing for results.. but im not going to get them.. im just doing all this so i can say i did and not be lieing about it.. but yea..

Defragging and such has never done anything but maybe help to avoid random errors while running programs that are accessing the HD a lot.
The only thing that I know of that can create a real improvement in performance is reformatting so you have to reinstall windows and such. Most people forget to clean out their registry when they do all that other stuff though... After a while, the registry gets MASSIVE, because it will still have keys for all that stuff that you deleted. I don't know, if you're really serious about improving performance, reformat or upgrade or both. Don't waste your time with mass deletion and defragging and stuff (defragging is a good thing to do, but it doesn't improve speed) cause it doesn't work.

processor speed is next to meaningless 87x. I have a great comp, and I'm using a 1.83ghz processor, which by todays standards is not high-end at all. What REALLY matters to performance is motherboard (somewhat...it has to support fast parts), HD speed, and RAM speed/quantity (that's a biggie, my comp is slow right now cause one of my RAM sticks was bad and I haven't replaced it yet... )

[Brainmaster07]

RAM is major for gaming. I went from 128 to 512 RAM, guess what? Load time when from 5-8 minutes to 11 seconds. My friend has 2k RAM and it loads in like 4 seconds.

[VxDx]

(defragging is a good thing to do, but it doesn't improve speed)

processor speed is next to meaningless 87x. I have a great comp, and I'm using a 1.83ghz processor, which by todays standards is not high-end at all. What REALLY matters to performance is motherboard (somewhat...it has to support fast parts), HD speed, and RAM speed/quantity

No. Defragging does increase relative speed of HDD access. It makes it so that the head has to do less moving across cylinders to find the requisite data, thus improving the speed at which data can be accessed.

How can you possibly say that processor speed is next to meaningless? Processor speed is the basis of the computers speed. Besides, you can't say that you have a "great" computer with only that because I know that my 2.2ghz will own any hard numbers you can produce (assuming that you have an Athalon XP 2500+).

[Anticrombie0909]

I thought I mentioned this...I can't build my own. I know I can get a much, much better deal (my friend built an Athlon 64 bit with the works for $1300) but my parents are freaked about the warrenty issue. They NEED a warrenty, because that's just what kind of people they are. Btw, here's the comp I'm thinking of getting, let me know about any suggestions...
Compaq
AMD Athlon 3000+ Quantispeed w/ 800 MHz FSB
160 gb Maxtor HD
512 DDR SDRAM (Single stick, I'm upgrading to 1024 later on)
Nvidia GeForce 4MX 440 (crappy, I know, I'm beefin it up to an ATI Radeon 9600 SE as soon as I splurge the cash).
CD-R/DVD-R 52x32x52 16X Drive
My dad says that this comp is strictly for work, he's not paying $700 so I can play games, so my GeForce will have to last me for awhile...should be able to play lower-end qual games like Morrowind, but let's just say I'm not gonna be getting Doom III anytime soon.

[Moogy]

Looks alright. Not gonna be able to get much better for 700$.

[altairian]

Vxdx wtf is an athalon? And I already said I'm short on RAM, so of course I don't have numbers to match yours. Processor speed is next to meaningless in terms of noticeable performance. Your 2.2ghz will not look any different from my 1.83ghz when running identical hardware. Yes, your processor is faster. That doesn't make a lick of difference in terms of how fast Microsoft Word opens

and how could you possibly build a 64bit system for $1300? I thought the motherboards cost at least that much alone.

Anti, DO NOT GET A COMPAQ. They suck so much dick it's not even funny. Seriously, get a dell if you're going to get anything retail.

[Anticrombie0909]

Vxdx wtf is an athalon? And I already said I'm short on RAM, so of course I don't have numbers to match yours. Processor speed is next to meaningless in terms of noticeable performance. Your 2.2ghz will not look any different from my 1.83ghz when running identical hardware. Yes, your processor is faster. That doesn't make a lick of difference in terms of how fast Microsoft Word opens

and how could you possibly build a 64bit system for $1300? I thought the motherboards cost at least that much alone.

Anti, DO NOT GET A COMPAQ. They suck so much dick it's not even funny. Seriously, get a dell if you're going to get anything retail.

First, I hope you're kidding about what Athlons are. Second, processor speed is a HUGE factor in how fast a computer runs. No, it's not the only factor, but a large one nonetheless. Also, motherboards are cheap...you can buy them from anywhere from $40 to $200, but they generally don't run any more expensive than that. Hell, the Athlon 64 processor alone is $700, there'd be no reason why motherboards would be more expensive...

And how can you say Dell is better than Compaq? I've heard some complaints about Compaq, but that's nothing to my complaints about Dell. Dell likes to appeal to the general public by saying "hey, we'll give you this state-of-the-art computer with a monitor, printer, speakers and keyboard for $500!!! Wow great deal!" when in reality you're getting nothing good. Dell likes to stick cheap Celeron processors in, they give you 256 single stick ram and 40 gig HDs, because the general public doesn't know any better. They think processor speed is everything, see '2.8 with Hyper Threading' and think 'well, it's got to be good!' Less than a snowball's chance in hell I'll buy from Dell (yes, I meant that to rhyme).

EDIT: 2300 posts, W00t.

[altairian]

Note the spelling genius. My comp is running an athlon 2500+ barton, I think I might know what they are
Processor speed doesn't matter. Really.
If you're over 1.5ghz, you're fine for like the next 2 years on any game you might want to run. Going over 2 is a pointless "my dick is bigger than yours" expense.

64-bit processors and motherboards aren't cheap. It's still a relatively new technology. I haven't priced them lately, but last I knew there was no way to put together a 64-bit system for anywhere NEAR 1300.

I can say compaq's are good because I've seen them in action and they're pathetic. They lack uh...stability?
I haven't seen many problems with dells and I know a lot of people that have them. Sure they don't use the greatest parts, but you're buying a retail computer for 700 dollars, do you honestly expect your fucking compaq to have better?

[Jello]

tell you dad to fuck off and show him this

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=94439&Sku=TC1-P4-1016%20BK

P.S. the athlon 64 IS the fastest processer on the market... but it isnt true 64 bit processing. what it does is it processes at both 32 and 64. about 95% of the time it will run at 32 bit. its name athlon 64 is more like a marketing technique then anything else. it might be faster then the p4 because it can run 64 bit applications (there are like no programs that support 64 bit right now) but its still not true 64 bit , and to me not worth buying.

oh and VxDx.. my dads g5 would blow your piece of shit outta the water so you can stfu. even if its 64 bit yet it runs at 32 bit its still way faster then your PC

[insomniakxz]

More ram. How do you expect the comp to run decent with 64 megs of ram?!