The thread that is now the unofficial PC builds thread :P

Pardon me for a small hijack, but this talk of monitors woke me up. Just got my PC and **** a while ago but my monitor is quite old and I thought of upgrading it a little. There's a bunch of them at this site I get most of my stuff from, perhaps someone could just let me know if any of them seem reasonable over my Acer V203H or if I even need to upgrade (I'm fairly certain I do, I do recall a small conversation about this when I got my GPU). I've never had to deal with anything related to monitors thus I have no knowledge, at all. It'd be for gaming and wasting my life staring at it.



I'll probably see if I can get the monitors elsewhere since Jimm's is fairly expensive. If you have some site you prefer to buy stuff from, I'm a Finn if you also happen to know whether they ship here or not.

Thanks again in advance, I know I kinda ask about everything here but hey, you've always helped 

@Trevty: The current "monitor" that I am using now is an HP Pavilion dv7 17" laptop. A very nice computer, but it has heat and noise problems, and of course isn't all that great for gaming due to its Intel integrated graphics. I'm looking to spend ~$100 to ~$150 on a monitor, and I do use Newegg on occasion.


@Untitled: When I was younger, the only computer I ever paid much attention to was my mom's old Gateway 2000, and I was too young at the time to really understand how it worked anyway, so I only paid it a bit of attention. Both that computer and the HP that my mom got when she upgraded have regular mice (simple, wired, two-buttons-and-a-wheel-in-the-middle run-of-the-mill mice). I started using computers myself (and therefore paying more attention to computers) a few years ago, when my dad bought a laptop for us all to experiment with. That thing came with a standard wireless mouse. Even when I was shopping for my own computer (the dv7 that I'm using now) I don't ever remember seeing trackball mice anywhere, so I think the first time I'd ever seen one was yesterday, when one was just sitting there on the shelf with the (rather cheap looking) "gaming" mice and the wireless touchpads. It looked interesting, but it also looks like you could get a very sore thumb from using it for extended periods of time.

SkyTime said:

I've never had to deal with anything related to monitors thus I have no knowledge, at all. It'd be for gaming and wasting my life staring at it.

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Hmm, that applies to me as well. 


edit:
More shopping has brought these two 21.5" 1080p monitors to my attention:
http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/model-datasheet/ET.WS0HP.A01
http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/model-datasheet/UM.WH6AA.002

The second one sounds neat because it's an IPS (I've read that IPS screens look great).

That Acer is basically exactly what I have. A great monitor.

Which one?

Oh, the first one sorry 

What about the 'TN versus IPS' question? Which is better?

IPS.

TN panels are cheaper and may have higher refresh rates I believe but look nowhere as good.




Here is some article that further explains it :

http://reviews.cnet.com/monitor-buying-guide/

Twisted nematic (TN)
The main advantages of TN panels are their fast -- usually 2ms (or less) -- response time and their low price. Their major disadvantages are narrow viewing angles, relatively low brightness, and inaccurate color reproduction.

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In-plane switching (IPS)
IPS-based monitors are usually the most expensive; however, monitors using e-IPS panels can cost as little as $150 (for a 22-inch monitor). They also tie with PLS for the best viewing angles of all the technologies and produce the most accurate colors; however, their blacks are not as deep as VA panels'. IPS monitors are the slowest of the bunch in both response time and input lag.

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Did a bit of tinkering and decided that the H226HQL would be fine enough for me (too). I sent an email to a local PC store and asked how much one would cost if it was ordered to their store. They also have an ASUS VS239HR 23inch TFT LED IPS 1920x1080 VGA DVI-D HDMI 1.3 5ms for 160e and from a quick glance they look pretty similar, except that the VS239HR is a big larger, which doesn't really matter since no matter which one I get, I'll have to modify/get a new desk to fit either of them 


Depending on the price they ask for the H226HQL, either one of them is a decent choice, right? I checked literally every possible Finn site for the two monitors Arvenski mentioned in the last page and looks like it doesn't exist here.

Okay, so further research has led to another monitor-related question: I was looking at the Acer H226HQL again, and I discovered that some sites have the H226HQL, while other sites have the "H226HQL bid". Can someone tell me what the difference is, or is it just the same monitor with three extra letters at the end of its name? 

Also: keyboards: Do you recommend any good ones?

I've got a Mionix Zibal or something, Cherry black switches. Love it even though the backlight broke a while ago so had to get a replacement.

Get a mechanical. They're absolutely amazing. I keep pushing the buttons even after I've turned my computer off. They're supposed to be able to take like 6 times or whatever the number of button presses than a normal keyboard, but you're likely to break it from something else anyway.

Using mechanical keyboards will cost you more, even if you were to use your keyboard for a really long period of time, but they're cool and comfy. I'm running brown switches at the moment. I'm thinking I might go for something more sensitive in a few years or whenever I'm going to buy a new one.

I'm just going to bump this question, because it's kinda bugging me:

Arvenski said:

Okay, so further research has led to another monitor-related question: I was looking at the Acer H226HQL again, and I discovered that some sites have the H226HQL, while other sites have the "H226HQL bid". Can someone tell me what the difference is, or is it just the same monitor with three extra letters at the end of its name? 

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Also, about keyboards: I'm probably just going to walk into a store someplace, tap a few keys on a few keyboards, and say "this one feels nice, I'll take it." I doubt I'll do much research on what model to get and so on; I'll probably just make a spur-of-the-moment choice and hope it works.

Untitled. said:

Get a mechanical. They're absolutely amazing. I keep pushing the buttons even after I've turned my computer off. They're supposed to be able to take like 6 times or whatever the number of button presses than a normal keyboard, but you're likely to break it from something else anyway.

Using mechanical keyboards will cost you more, even if you were to use your keyboard for a really long period of time, but they're cool and comfy. I'm running brown switches at the moment. I'm thinking I might go for something more sensitive in a few years or whenever I'm going to buy a new one.

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Argh . . . and they sounds OH SO GOOD to your mates listening to them through Teamspeak on the other side of the planet 

A bit of thread necromancy here, but I was fooling around on pcpartpicker.com the other night, just to see if I could assemble a computer that was similar to the prebuilt HP that I'm looking at.

I put this together: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7WMdrH, but I was winging it with a few of the parts. I'm still not sure if I'll just go with the HP, but at least this gives me more options and the ability to see everything that I'm getting. However, since I'm not sure what I should be looking for with many of those parts, I'd welcome any advice on changes to the build, etc. 

Liquid cooling is a waste if you're not going to overclock.

Go with 1600MHz RAM if you can.

Power supply is overkill.

Other than that, it'll kick some ass in anything you can throw at it.

Updated build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2LCWBm

The liquid cooling isn't there for overclocking; it's there for quiet. This laptop that I use now is real noisy when playing games, and I don't want to have to deal with that again when I get a new PC.

RAM's been updated. I chose G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2x 4GB) DDR3-1600 sticks.

I went with the 600W PSU because I wanted to give myself some room for future upgrades.


What about the case, wi-fi adapter, and mobo? I basically chose those at a whim (as in they appeared to be what I was looking for, but I didn't look overly closely at them, and if I did, I might not know what to look for, anyway). 

Also, should I get a soundcard? I've got speakers which I'll probably have plugged into this machine almost all the time, but do I need a soundcard as well if I'm to get good audio?

A desktop is nowhere near as loud as a laptop unless you have very small fans running at very high speeds.

You have a 750W selected on the above link.

Case, wi-fi adapter don't really matter all that much. Motherboard seems fine albeit a bit expensive. Mine's a Z77 with no problems, even overclocking, which is a bit cheaper.

Splintert said:

You have a 750W selected on the above link.

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I what? Hell. Okay, I'll fix that.

Updated build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/hh7bCJ

I went with a Gigabyte GA-H97-D3H mobo, just because I wanted to shave some money off the total price.

Do I need anything else, specifically in the "Accessories/Other" category, or could I just buy it as it is?

You have everything you need other than mouse, keyboard, speakers/headphones, and a high-quality video cable (as opposed to standard VGA). I would also look into case fans, depending on whether your case comes with any.

For some reason the price seems quite high, although the addition of a monitor, OS, and SSD are going to contribute to that.

One thing to consider if you want to shave more off is AMD's performance-equivalent GPUs or dropping back to the equivalent Ivy Bridge CPU, i7 3770 and motherboard.

Make sure your chosen Corsair Hydro actually fits with your case. Simple googling should do that in no time.