So, I'm hoping that I'll have just enough money left over from this years student loan to replace my currently ageing computer, and I've been keeping an eye on hardware prices and other useful bits of Data. I'm not planning to buy a new system till October, so I'm not too worried about exact pieces and their costs right yet, however I may as well start asking questions now. First question is, best places to buy online in Canada? So far I've had www.directcanada.com, www.ncix.com, and www.atic.ca suggested to me as good sources. Second question is, any suggestions on how to buy ram? I'm not too big of a fan of sorting through 200+ models of ram per site, and most sites I've seen have rather poor methods of sorting. I'm also not too sure on what latencies are actually good or bad. Third, the Core 2 Duo E6750 is about 1/5th cheaper than the E6600, but has a higher FSB and Clock speed. What am I missing? (or is it just the FSB isn't common yet?) I'm not totally sure what system specs I actually want, but I'm guessing I will likely go with a Core 2 Duo system with a gig of ram. Not sure about the graphics card, but I'm thinking of going with a NVIDIA based card for the apparently better Linux support. DX10 isn't a big factor for me, I'm more of an OGL user. Seagate's Barracuda drives look good, still looking for suggestions on the optical drives, but likely a cheap DVD and at least a CD-RW with lightscribe. (I kind of like having two drives, but I have to check on DVD writing again, I seem to recall there being 2 standards.) No clue about the motherboard, I've heard good things about ASUS's P5 lines. Case, Antec's P180 looks good, but I don't yet know what I want for a powersupply. I also want to pick up a UPS. Thoughts and suggestions for things to keep in mind while I'm shopping for the next few months? I'm going to work on a few different builds and look at prices. I'm hoping to keep the system under $1500, I'm keeping my 17inch CRT for now, and likely going to dual 19 LCDs over the summer, (after I build a new desk, or rip apart the back of this one, I'm wishing I had never taken this corner desk off a friend's hands).

Check out my thread right next to this one, the "PC building virgin" one. I'm also a Canadian buyer and I've just ordered parts very close to what you've described.

But to answer what I can here:

According to people on ncix, E6600 was discontinued and just never got a price drop. The E6750 is better (read: totally freaking awesome and at a great price too).

I've heard numerous bad stories about atic.com. I've heard nothing but good about directcanada and ncix. I find directcanada is slightly cheaper in pretty much every single case and they have a great free shipping deal going on orders > $300.

If you are willing to go up to $1500, you can grab a quad core instead of dual and a 8800GT(S/X). Personally, my limit was $1200 so I did the E6750 and a 7900GS instead. Either way, you don't need to worry about going over $1500 unless you're adding in the price of monitor(s).

Ultimately if you're not buying until October you're going to just have to keep watching. I find a trick is to look for the price point where the next best thing is $50+ more. That usually shows you where the cutoff for "too expensive" is. As soon as a new expensive item comes in, the previous one will drop a ton, so keep a look out.

Quote: Original post by Talroth
So, I'm hoping that I'll have just enough money left over from this years student loan to replace my currently ageing computer, and I've been keeping an eye on hardware prices and other useful bits of Data.

I'm not planning to buy a new system till October, so I'm not too worried about exact pieces and their costs right yet, however I may as well start asking questions now.

Mk.

Quote:
First question is, best places to buy online in Canada? So far I've had www.directcanada.com, www.ncix.com, and www.atic.ca suggested to me as good sources.

I don't live in canada, but I've heard those are good (especially directcanada). Oh, and TigerDirect ;).

Quote:
Second question is, any suggestions on how to buy ram? I'm not too big of a fan of sorting through 200+ models of ram per site, and most sites I've seen have rather poor methods of sorting. I'm also not too sure on what latencies are actually good or bad.

DDR2. Preferably >= 800MHz. The lower the CAS latency the better (first number in a series of numbers if that's how you're looking at it). The lower any latency the better, but CAS is very important as it's the time that it takes the module to read something from when it was told. Only buy from good companies, don't cheap out on ram (it will haunt you). Good companies are Corsair, OCZ, G.Skill, Kingston, Patriot, and a few others. Corsair's "value" memory is pretty much the same as its more "1337" memory, except stuck without a heatspreader and instead a "value sticker". It's good memory.

Quote:
Third, the Core 2 Duo E6750 is about 1/5th cheaper than the E6600, but has a higher FSB and Clock speed. What am I missing? (or is it just the FSB isn't common yet?)

I don't know their caches off the top of my head, so check their L2 (and L1) cache. I'm assuming that's lower... but if it's not, you're missing a great deal [wink].

Quote:
I'm not totally sure what system specs I actually want, but I'm guessing I will likely go with a Core 2 Duo system with a gig of ram.

Only 1 gig? 2 gigs is the price of what 1 gig cost about a year ago... Get 2 gigs if possible.

Quote:
Not sure about the graphics card, but I'm thinking of going with a NVIDIA based card for the apparently better Linux support. DX10 isn't a big factor for me, I'm more of an OGL user.

8800GTS 320MB is pretty much *the* SM4 card to buy now. It's 300$ (comparably cheap to some cards) and very fast - well it's a 8800GTS, just with less memory, after all [wink].

Quote:
Seagate's Barracuda drives look good, still looking for suggestions on the optical drives, but likely a cheap DVD and at least a CD-RW with lightscribe. (I kind of like having two drives, but I have to check on DVD writing again, I seem to recall there being 2 standards.)

Hm. LG's DVD-RW drives are cheap and good at the same time (the disc plate is a *bit* flimsy, but as long as you don't smash it somehow it's fine).

Quote:
No clue about the motherboard, I've heard good things about ASUS's P5 lines.

Gigabyte, don't forget gigabyte. ASUS is good, but it's not the best (many people seem to mistake ASUS as the "only and only" to every buy from). DFI is extremely 1337 (in the PC enthusiast type of way), but I'm not sure about their Core2 mobos (if any). There's always MSI, too, and EVGA. Epox can be good as well. Some others are good as well. STAY AWAY FROM ECS (ELITE-GROUP) AND PC-CHIPS. Just trust me on this one.

Quote:
Case, Antec's P180 looks good, but I don't yet know what I want for a powersupply. I also want to pick up a UPS.

Agreed; also the antec 900 gaming tower. Awesome-ness literally defined. Powersupply, check for good amps on the +12V rails and some good wattage (>= 500W for a high-end system). Good company is a must. The PSU is not a "whatever is left over in my budget"-type-of part. If it dies, it can take some or all of your system with it. Good companies are OCZ, Antec, PC Power & Cooling, Corsair, Fortron Source (FSP Group), Enermax, *some* thermaltakes aren't too shabby, and a few others.

Quote:
Thoughts and suggestions for things to keep in mind while I'm shopping for the next few months? I'm going to work on a few different builds and look at prices. I'm hoping to keep the system under $1500, I'm keeping my 17inch CRT for now, and likely going to dual 19 LCDs over the summer, (after I build a new desk, or rip apart the back of this one, I'm wishing I had never taken this corner desk off a friend's hands).

$1500? Is that canadian bucks? Regardless, with that kind of money you NEED to have some kind of 8800 card (be it the 320MB GTS, the 640MB GTS, or better yet, the GTX - probably won't fit in your budget).