Need advice in choosing components

S

speedy

Disciple
Hello Everyone. I am new here and posting for the first time on techenclave

I am buying a new PC. The configuration I am thinking of is below. I went to CTC Hyderabad and got estimations . Which I feel are a bit higher than what they should be.

Budget:40k+-

Primary Use Semi Pro Gaming and lots and lots of movie watching

Present System P4 based and I am not going to use any components from the present system

Intel Core i5 2400- Rs.9040

ASUS P8H67-M- Rs.7000

( This one was available at deltapage.com for Rs.6750, which is TN price which is consistently higher due to higher VAT there ). And I am open to suggestions here. I want a H67 chipset based mobo with 4 RAM slots and ATi crossfire support, preferably MSi,Gigabyte or ASUS. ASUS was the only one whose price I could find out so I settled for it. Further the price difference seemed to be less when I compared it with Intel mobo with similar features which does not have all solid capacitor design or crossfire support.

Corsair XMS3 4GB Ram

The quoted price is 2300. This is too high. I have seen that its price hovers around Rs.1500 by going through various sites.

NZXT Gamma Rs.2250

I saw that its price is 2050 on theitdepot.com which is again a TN site and also the prices in that site are generally higher compared even to other online store. The price sales person first quoted was Rs.2600, when I told him that I can get it from theitdepot.com for Rs.2050+250 shipping then he reduced the price.

Corsair GS 600 600 Watt PSU Rs.4000

I went to the dealer to find out the price of this item. He quoted this price when I asked for the PSU alone. This is the price on most of the online stores. I feel that this is a little bit high as it was same for a very long time. I am going for this PSU as I might go for crossfire later.

Monitor

This is something that I am confused about. I wanted to buy a 23-24 inch LED monitor and narrowed on Samsung PX2370, after reading pretty good reviews about it ,which seems to be an EOL(End Of Life) product and I couldn't find it anywhere. But I am still trying and the sales person says that he might get me the monitor but is not giving a price. The other monitors that I short listed are

LG E2360V

(Really sleek and looks great, but the reviews are very much varied. Some say the it is a good cheap alternative to PX2370, while others say the the colors are a bit washed out. But at the same time the ones giving it credit say that fiddling with the settings yielded them pretty good results. I liked this monitor a lot almost decided to buy it but second thoughts jumped in the moment I read about the 'colors being bland' on CNET, where they reviewed E2260, can a different panel be used on different sized monitor? meaning that a better panel is used in E2360? I even read 'a few', really few bad reviews on newegg.com about this monitor.

This monitor was readily available for Rs.9550 in almost all shops.And Ithink it can be brought down to Rs.9000)

DELL U2311

(But this is costly as I have an upper limit of 40-41K)

DELL ST2320,ST2420

(They seem to be costly for the performance which is similar to LG E2360V)

HP2311

(this monitor was also quoted for Rs.13000 a bit high of my budget)

Samsung A300 series are available. But are about Rs.1000 higher than LG monitors. Their performance I don't think is comparable to PX2370.

Samsung PS2370 LCD monitor TV. Though this would be my last choice.

I don't have any prejudice against LCD's but ...I fell that the LED monitors ones are more refined compared to LCD as the LED ones are more recently released. Though this might not be the true in all the cases.

MSI ATi Radeon HD 6850 OC 1GB Rs.9350

This price was quoted by a different vendor. The sales person who gave the quotation for the whole system gave a price of Rs.11000 for this card. But he said that the price would be reduced before sealing the deal.I found out the prices from Tirupathi Enterprises who quoted the prices as MSI6790 2GB-Rs8000+taxes,MSI 6850 1GB Rs.9000+taxes. So I think I should be getting the card for Rs.9000 including taxes. Even Sapphire card is fine with me. But this MSi card is factory OC.

Now I want to know whether the prices quoted are good or if not what are the prices that I should buy the components for. I also need suggestions about to proceed(bargain) further with these people. Even though most of them are pretty ignorant of what they sell the are very shrewd when it comes prices. I am not that good at bargaining. And also whenever I quote an online store like theitdepot,primeabgb,smcinternational etc they say that they are all fake sites and that the products they sell might be damaged pieces etc etc never ending list of excuses, and berating them severely to prove their point(To what extent these people can go to push their deal:(). A person a little bit ignorant can be easily taken for a ride by these people.

How should I bargain and proceed with this buy?
 
^^ Here are prices from Bangalore, S.P. Road [inclusive taxes] --

Intel Core i5 2400 ~ 8800/-

Intel DH67-BL ~ 5500/- [doesn't support CrossFire but a board that should suit you fine] OR ASUS P8H67-M EVO ~ 7000/- [ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - Motherboards- ASUS P8H67-M EVO not the shitty P8H67-M LE OR LX, fine mATX motherboard with a decent layout and all the latest features]

Corsair XMS3 1600MHz CL-9 single 4GB module ~ 1550/-

NZXT Gamma ~ 2200/- [only available at this price from Golccha computers here, rest the price is as high as 3500/- at some places]

Corsair VX 550W ~ 4400/- [aim for this SMPS over the Corsair GS line-up, and when will you CrossFire your components Review - Corsair VX550W PSU | bit-tech.net / Corsair VX550W Power Supply Review Review]

Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM 1TB / 500GB ~ 2750/- OR 1850/-

Dell ST2220M OR Dell U2311H Ultrasharp OR BenQ G2420HD ~ 8800/- OR 13800/- OR 11750/-, now you are obviously confused on this topic, there are no LED monitors only LED back-lit LCD monitors, the game-changers are the monitor's panels themselves, broadly they are of three types TN [Twisted Nemantics], IPS [In Plane Switching] and PVA -- for more on how these affect the image / color quality, here are the links -- LCD Panel Technology Explained - S-IPS, H-IPS, S-PVA, MVA and TN / TFT LCD - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia / Backlight - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -- conclusion is that an LED back-lit panel will be brighter but the best color output will be on an IPS panel based monitor, in this case the Dell Ultrasharp and this also why it is more expensive than the standard crop of TN based panels.

MSi / Sapphire HD 6850 ~ 8800/- OR 9500/-

Hope this helps, Sire.

IT Wares, The IT Depot, SMC International and Prime ABGB are reliable online resellers and they have reps here on TE, so they are safe to say the least and highly reputable sources for computer peripherals. Cheers!
 
Thank you for your reply.

I know that the only true LED panels are OLED and AMOLED panels and rest are just back lit(either edge or backlit), but what I was trying to say was that all the newer panel are LED backlit, and not that they are better because of that, but they are better because they are more matured designs compared to previous LCD panels.

I wanted to know more about this LG E2360V monitor which costs around Rs.9000 but there are a few bad reviews. On CNET the displaymate score was 92 it seems compared to 96 of PX2370.Dell U2311H costs 5000 more

and Dell ST2410 got a similar review as LGE2360V,and it looks a lot better(appealing looks). So I wanted to know more about it.And also is it an edge lit or backlit,how can I know about it?

I have a 1TB harddisk SATA 2.0 even though it is not enough for me right now I have to be satisfied with it for no as my buget wont allow me to buy a 2TB one.

And any ideas about how to bargain with them?(I am poor at bargaining)

And also I feel that the vendors might have formed as a group and when I get a quotation from one and if I go to another will he give me a good deal?

I was being sarcastic when I said that those vendors were fake, my bad didn't frame it correctly.
 
hey.. sorry to hijack this thread but is the Msi cyclone HD6850 priced at 8800 or 9500 ?? n can u tell me the difference between the cyclone n the sapphire version in terms of performace after oc ? thanks in advance
 
speedy said:
Thank you for your reply.

I wanted to know more about this LG E2360V monitor which costs around Rs.9000 but there are a few bad reviews. On CNET the displaymate score was 92 it seems compared to 96 of PX2370.Dell U2311H costs 5000 more

and Dell ST2410 got a similar review as LGE2360V,and it looks a lot better(appealing looks). So I wanted to know more about it.And also is it an edge lit or backlit,how can I know about it?

And any ideas about how to bargain with them?(I am poor at bargaining)

And also I feel that the vendors might have formed as a group and when I get a quotation from one and if I go to another will he give me a good deal?

I was being sarcastic when I said that those vendors were fake, my bad didn't frame it correctly.
Click to expand...

I haven't the faintest idea about the LG monitor or its availability here in India so I will not judge it, the Dell Ultrasharp monitor is one of the best sub-15000/- deals you can grab so I strongly recommend it as it has got a good response here at TE as well availability is a non-issue, SMC International --> 14000/- [FREE SHIPPING] Dell UltraSharp U2311H.

Dude bargaining is an acquired skill I can't guide you on this one as I'm not a great hand it either, but I got my SMPS from Arun Computers while all other components were from Shweta Peripherals [nobody had the Cooler Master Real Power Pro series apart from Arun].

I doubt they'll play around with quotations, as at that time they'll like to give you the best sounding deal to bag you as customer.

Hayabusa said:
hey.. sorry to hijack this thread but is the Msi cyclone HD6850 priced at 8800 or 9500 ?? n can u tell me the difference between the cyclone n the sapphire version in terms of performace after oc ? thanks in advance
Click to expand...

The MSi card has a lower retail price ~9000/- [inclusive taxes] while Sapphire has a higher cost ~9500/-, MSi is a tier-two peripheral fabricator while Sapphire is on AMD's board of trusted card makers, if you want to compare the over-clocking potential of the two cards the MSi Cyclone is the way to go, while if you want to take the Sapphire path aim for Sapphire Vapor-X OR Toxik edition cards.

Hope this helps, Sire(s). Cheers!
 
The Dell U2311 is costing Rs.13750 and is increasing the overall cost to 47k.

So I want to go for the LG E2360V( LG E2360V | 23" Full HD LED LCD Monitor - LG Electronics India LG E60 LCD Monitor Review – Opinion 1 | TechXplosion.net

LG 23"SuperSlim Monitor- Model E2360V)

The review for this monitor series is available on CNET(LG Flatron E2260 22" Monitor Review - Watch CNET's Video Review)

CENT people say that it is not that good for that price. The price when they reviewed was $300(Rs.14000). But now it is available for Rs.9300 in the local market. The profile is pretty thin.Even though they say that the colors seem a bit bland they also say that it got a good score on displaymate test.

So I feel that they must have rated the monitor a bit low because of high price which is not a problem anymore.

So would it be a good monitor for me considering that most of the time we generally tone down the contrast for general and prolonged use, which I do mostly?
 
The ASUS P8H67-M doesn't have USB 3.0. Even though it has 4 RAM slots, they cannot be overclocked and the processor also cannot be overclocked. Even though I intent to go for an upgrade for crossfire it will not be any time soon. Right now I am going for only one 4GB RAM stick, so I will still have one slot empty, and by the time I go for upgrade 8GB sticks might become the norm. So I can upgrade up to 12 GB with my old stick in it or sell my old one and buy two 8GB sticks.

In that case will ASUS motherboard be worth the premium that I am paying. Its cost is Rs.7000

Instead if I go for the MSi H67MA-E35 I will get USB3.0(though it is a trivial thing considering the whole mother board), an all solidstate capacitor mobo and also I will get it for Rs.4500(MSI H67MA-E35)

And in-case I go for crossfire later then I can simply buy a new mobo (old by then)for a cheaper price after selling my existing board and then crossfire.

How is MSi mobo compared to ASUS mobo , quality wise and performance wise?

And also the ASUS P8H67-M EVO is costing Rs.8500.And ASUS P8H67-V is costing Rs.7500 that too after a lot of bargain.

All the ASUS mobos here in the local market are more costly compared to online prices on different sites,especially these ones as they are not being sold in bulk I guess.
 
^^ Sire you said you'll not over-clock, get any H67 based motherboard, MSi is a tier-2 fabricator, so slightly lower build quality, go for ASUS, Gigabyte, Intel over MSi. But they have a good after sales support in India, better than ASUS.

Motherboards I'll recommend you --

ASUS P8H67-V ~ 7500/-

Intel DH67-BL ~ 5500/-

MSi H67MA-E35 ~ 5000/- [it lacks the quad-memory modules unlike the other motherboards]

Do not, skimp on the mother-board now as it defines the purpose of your PC, rather than some cheap motherboard which sacrifices features [USB 3.0 / SATA III / MOSFET heatsink / build quality / components used].

Also do not think about CrossFire later, if you want to CrossFire, do it immediately OR as soon as possible as doing it a year later makes no sense. Better in your case is Sire, do not buy a graphics card right now and wait for the AMD HD 7*** series [Southern islands] to release then grab them.

A real advantage of this wait is due to the refined architecture [28nm fabrication] you'll get better performance for lower thermals + lower power eating. Also if the jump doesn't see a great performance, the good news will be that the prices will be slashed on all HD 6*** cards which will have to phased out, whilst nVidia will follow suit to stay competitive as their own architecture Kepler has got delayed till Q1 2012. For more information --

AnandTech - AMD's Graphics Core Next Preview: AMD's New GPU, Architected For Compute / AnandTech - 28nm Radeon Chips This Year? AMD Says Yes / AnandTech - Update: Kepler GPUs Shipping This Year? NVIDIA Says No.

Hope this helped Sire. Cheers!!!
 
The MSi one seems to have all solid caps as opposed to Intel one.

And I feel that the MSi one is of better quality compared to Gigabyte mobo. Otherwise even in Gigabyte there is a mobo which has CF support(additional), 2 RAM slots and all solid cap build(Gigabyte GA-H67M-D2-B3 Gigabyte GA-H67M-D2-B3 (rev. 1.1) Socket 1155 ).

MSi one seems to be better one,but looks can be deceiving. I don't think I will be upgrading my RAM so soon.

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---
ALPHA17 said:
Also do not think about CrossFire later, if you want to CrossFire, do it immediately OR as soon as possible as doing it a year later makes no sense. Better in your case is Sire, do not buy a graphics card right now and wait for the AMD HD 7*** series [Southern islands] to release then grab them.

A real advantage of this wait is due to the refined architecture [28nm fabrication] you'll get better performance for lower thermals + lower power eating. Also if the jump doesn't see a great performance, the good news will be that the prices will be slashed on all HD 6*** cards which will have to phased out, whilst nVidia will follow suit to stay competitive as their own architecture Kepler has got delayed till Q1 2012. For more information --

AnandTech - AMD's Graphics Core Next Preview: AMD's New GPU, Architected For Compute / AnandTech - 28nm Radeon Chips This Year? AMD Says Yes / AnandTech - Update: Kepler GPUs Shipping This Year? NVIDIA Says No.
Click to expand...

But some people are saying that it might be 6 months. Right now I have 8600gt. So would it be better to manage with it for now and buy it whenever 7*** series comes out?
 
What about the motherboard MSI or Gigabyte.

Which one would be better.

And also the monitor, can someone tell whether it is a good buy?
 
Thank you everyone for your advice, especially Alpha17.
I got my PC.
Motherboard MSI H67 E35
i5 2400
Corsair Vengeance 4 GB 1600
Corsair GS 600
NZXT Gamma(Excellent cable management options but really to hard to do)
LG E2360 (couldn't find any other 23" monitor in the price range from Samsung or Dell).
Waiting for graphic card HD7*** series.
 
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