The perils of a multi-function PC

[Newc]

I know some guys have a "gaming" PC or a "work" PC (audio/video editing, etc - single-function stuff), but I always wanted to build one that did both equally well.

And so I did, many years ago.

Fast-forward to the present, and the installed games sit in their quiet dusty corner of a 1TB hard drive, along with the old email archives and internet-based asshattery from the past 15+ years.

And then you run a virus scan on reboot, and you watch, helpless, as it displays the names of the files on your hard drive one at a time.


It's waaaaay different than a scan whil the system is actually running, because you can always go and do other things and deal with alerts when they pop up.
But this is a DOS-level scan. I come back every so often to see if it's asking me if I want to delete or ignore an item. Not "I found all these problems, what do you want to do?" but "Hey, I found this ONE THING. BEFORE I move on to the next item, what should I do with this?"

Even more tragic, it's not even touched the 2TB drive. And it has 2 out of 3 500GB drives left. It just started on one of them as I was typing this - took a day and a half to scan the 500GB system drive and the 1TB drive.

At least with a "single-function" PC for either games or music, I could be doing something. As it is, I'm stuck with the "email-and-surf" laptop.

Better look up Alienware's number I guess

[Vass]

Cyberpowerpc.com and ibuypower.com ftw

[Newc]

Hmmm. It seems my first priority should be replacing the 2TB drive. About 10 minutes ago, the scan completed and Windows booted. I don't think it scanned that drive, and when it came up, I had a string-table error on that drive, and half the contents were missing :eek

It's been clicking a lot lately, though, and slowing down my system, so I guess it's past due.

Do Cyber and iBuy offer system configurators where you can select the components?

[Rsmacker]

And then you run a virus scan on reboot, and you watch, helpless, as it displays the names of the files on your hard drive one at a time.

Are we talking file names like "Bukkake-Nun-Buttfucked.wmv" and "65-minutes-of-anal-gaping-on-beach.wmv" ?

(If you happen to see "StabbedPoo.jpg" appear, it's time that picture was actually posted for all to see)

[Vass]

Hmmm. It seems my first priority should be replacing the 2TB drive. About 10 minutes ago, the scan completed and Windows booted. I don't think it scanned that drive, and when it came up, I had a string-table error on that drive, and half the contents were missing :eek

It's been clicking a lot lately, though, and slowing down my system, so I guess it's past due.

Do Cyber and iBuy offer system configurators where you can select the components?

Yep, and they run specials all the time. Check em out. They are I believe the same company with different deals.

[LouSiffer]

Both of those sites offer great PC's Newc. -Lou

[DonP]

I built a recent i5 for my son. We upgraded to dual video cards and a little more RAM. Gigabyte stuff. I guess it runs descent, he plays on a 40" TV with full settings at 1080p.

The bad - about $1000 to build. That would have bought a nice guitar or too, but my son sits in front of the computer more than I sit in front of guitars

[RacerX]

more than I sit in front of guitars

Hopefully you sit *behind* your guitars

[Newc]

$1000 to build isn't too bad, depending on what you get. My first computer I built cost about $1700 total, but it was 5 years before any game's "recommended system specs" exceeded what I had

The one I have now is still running a dual-core processor, so I don't know what the i3 i5 i7 stuff is. I casually looked at them a couple of weeks ago, but not seriously. The last place I bought from that had an online configurator shut down

The big money will come when I start upgrading all the software. I know XP won't utilize more than 4GB of RAM, and I already know Win7 won't run a lot of my most-used apps, much less the "once in a while" apps, and each one's upgrade option starts at $250. I could order a Custom Shop Jackson for what it would take

[Newc]

Hmmmm. Cyber/iBuy seem to be focused more on gaming than I am

Who makes good A/V editing systems? My 360 does all the games I can stand, and I'd rather restrict the desktop to music recording/editing, video editing (HD video at full-res preferably), and 3D/CAD-type stuff (high-res 3D porn that renders quickly )

I know the motherboard and processor and RAM really don't care what passes through them (to an extent), and the audio interface will do most of the grunt work for that, and I know there's a lot out there.
I looked at video cards and sorted by price - I had no idea they made a $5000 video card!
While I'm sure that would allow me to render full-res animated 3D porn, I just can't bring myself to spend that much on one component, even if I was making money at it

I know Apple has dominated the audio and video scenes forever (since you couldn't play more than Pong on one until about 1995). Does that still apply today? How are they with 3D rendering? If I go with a Mac, should I get Apple's OS or Win?

[DonP]

i5 is a quad core. We overclocked it to double the stock speed (I think it's at 3.2GHz now? been a year since we built it).

Yep, had a pay Bill Gates for the first time since DOS 5 and bought Win 7 64 bit. That was an extra $100. Haven't had any O/S issues wit apps not running, but then again, I'm not using the same apps as you.

I agreee, an XBox 360 is a hell of a lot cheaper than a custom PC. Just the video cards will pay for the XBox.

Don't know about A/V editing.

Rendering? Last time I looked into that was the Video Toaster and Amiga's

[Newc]

I remember seeing ads for Video Toaster back in Ye Olden Days. Rendered a 30 minute video in about 4 days, right?

Better start hanging out with A/V Nazis, I guess, and see what they suggest

[Cliff]

Regarding video cards (at least those from Nividia), the $1k+ (Quadro) ones are aimed at the professional market. Other than some video outputs you may or may not need, and certification that they work with things like Maya, there's little difference between them and the cheaperconsumer cards (GeForce). The best bang-for-the-buck card on the market now is the GeForce Titan, for around $1000. 50% faster than it's predecessor and 50% more memory.

[LouSiffer]

Newc, compared to what was out years ago when you built yours, everything is so far ahead. You could run a decent i5 or step up to an i7 just to blow some extra money with 12 GB of DDR3 RAM and run dual 1 GB video cards.....or just a single for that matter, and probably have more machine that you will ever need. I am running an AMD quad core with 8GB of RAM and two 1 GB video cards on a Gigabyte MB that I built 5-6 years ago. I still havent found anything that makes it grunt.

When it comes to OS's, I really love that I went to a 64-bit system. However, some older software just doesnt respond well to 64 bit.....even though the 64-bit is supposed to "dumb" down to 32-bit. Windows 7 is really nice and smooth. It is really nothing more than Vista with all the BS removed.

You would have to intentionally try to screw it up in order to not be able to build a system that do everything you need/want.-Lou

[The Guitar]

I have a multi-purpose PC that I built. Got an Asus pq5 Turbo pro with an *Intel core2 duo q6600* with a v8 off Craigslist for 150. Then snagged a xfx5750 video card for 100 shipped off e-bay. Got a cooler master storm scout case, 67ish shipped from new egg along with g.skill 2x2gb ddr2 800 ram for 40 something from them. Moved the soundblaster platinum audigy from the old PC to the new one and got 2 more gs.skill ddr2 sticks. Finally got around to dumping what I had on 2 ide hdd's to a fresh 500gb sata drive with windows 7 ultimate x64. Switching from ide to sata is a nice step up. I'm waiting for ssd's to price drop before I get one. I run some games like terraria, minecraft, emulators, and doom3 maxed out. On top with recording stuff like fruity loops(ez/superior drummer), cool edit pro, and podfarm, and it handles it like a champ. The only hang ups were getting win7 x64 drivers for the XP programs.