How much will this run me? Is this just an S-video cable. In that case I think I can just get one at best buy with my gift certificate.

Ok. I was hoping I could sell it, but I'll definitely take the better sound quality.

Yea, this was actually easier said then done. Stupid camera flash kept screwing things up. Hopefully the last two are of help.











I'll talk this over with the parents. I'd need a little more convincing argument than that. Why is 10mhz/$1 worth it?

300mhz is quite a bit nowadays, that would be a noticeable speed improvement. If it helps, think of it this way

1-(2.1/1.8 ) = 16.7% faster x 2 (for each core)

S-Video cable: best buy == expensive with cables

$8 at newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812105819

Oh, and if you are using your TV for sound, you'll need one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812149118 (it just converts the stero 3.5mm plug to the two RCA component audio plugs - and is 6 feet long)

As for the sound card, you CAN sell it, if you want. Just do a side-by-side test. Plug in some good headphones to the motherboard's on board, listen to it for a while, then swap to the audigy 2. If you can't tell a difference, then sell the audigy 2. I could tell a difference between my Asus Deluxe and my audigy 1 with both headphones and speakers - most noticeably there was a hiss at louder volumes, but you might not notice this

And your powersupply is fine. It is ATX 2.01 and has the necessary 24-pin connector (notice that little 4 pin one next to the 20 pin connector that is plugged into the motherboard? It will 'snap' onto the 20 pin, hence the reason it is called a 20+4 pin connector - it is itself an adapter )

Oh, dang. I might want to seriously do this, then.


I do have a gift card so it's no cost to me. I guess I could use the gift card towards something else, but unless the difference is huge between newegg and best buy, I might as well just use my gift card.

Hmm. I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to do for sound. I do have a pair of old crappy speakers, the speakers I currently use with this computer, and a stereo in my room. I think the best option would be to use the stereo, so do you know of anything that can convert the sound output to some sort of auxiliary input for my stereo. Let me take a picture: Oh, wait never mind. It takes the same red and white inputs that the tv would take. Oh, sweet. This means that I can switch back and forth if I want to and only buy one cable.

I am quite the audiophile, so I'll probably notice the difference, especially if I hook this up to my 300 watt stereo. I just thought that 7.1 digital surround sound implied that it was awesome.

Ok, cool.

Now, I'm going to visit relatives for the next three days and my mom doesn't want me to order this yet because she's afraid that it will come while we're gone (which is a legitimate fear because the lowest shipping I could do was guaranteed 3 day shipping). So let me list out the pretty much finalized purchase:

Motherboard: ASUS P5W Delux $230
*http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131025

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.13 Ghz $220
*http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115004

Video Card: EVGA 7600GT $140
*http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130017

TV Tuner: KWORLD ATSC-110 $70
*http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815100140

Male to Male Svideo cable $8 See if I can get at Best Buy if isn't too much more.
*http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812105819

PPA Y Audio Cable With RCA $9 See if I can get at Best Buy if isn't too much more.
*http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812149118

Total: $677 0.0 Oh, boy. Plus shipping. This is quite hefty.

So is there anything else at all that I will need? These are all the cables and accessories that I should need?

One last question. I need the audio converter cable to be at least 10ft, if not more like 20ft. The one that you linked to is only 6ft.

I know the Svideo cable is plenty long enough.

you can always get extension cables for the RCA (or the 3.5mm headphone on the soundcard).

True, but wouldn't it be cheaper to just get a longer one?

might be, might not be. Also have to look at if you could use the extension cable for something else also.

Chip, just get the S-Video cable at best buy, I just looked online, and its like $13-$14 for a 6 foot s-video cable (for the cheapest, off-brand one anyway, but who really cares?)

As for the RCA cables, as thats not something common, your best bet is to just head over to RadioShack or similar, pick up some RCA connectors and speaker wire, and make your own cables

/me is confused. I thought you found me a 25ft Male to Male S-Video cable for $8. I went to best buy and the same exact cable (actually this one was only 20ft) was going to cost me fucking $20. Screw that!

I'm sorry. I wasn't clear in my last post. I only need the cable you suggested, but longer. Do they not make them any longer? Also, I don't need speaker wire. Half-way through that post I discovered that my stereo had RCA input.

I'll worry about this later though because my dad has plenty of wiring and he might have exactly what I need.

Unless anyone has any last objections, I think I'll go ahead and place an order on all of the above products except the RCA wire.

Edit:

I placed an order on all of the above except the RCA wire and the tv tuner. I don't have cable in my room yet and I'd rather not waste $70 if it's not going to happen (you never know with parents, one day they buy you a tv, the next they don't give you cable).

I also made a pretty good find in terms of RCA cabling. It even has a female 3.5mm jack in it. If I were to get two of these I could hook up my stereo and tv. The only problem is that it's not from a company I've ever heard of. Does this look reputable because it's longer than what Kllrnohj found on New Egg and it's cheaper?

I looked and I couldn't find any longer cables at newegg. My suggestion was to buy 2 RCA plugs at radio shack and a 3.5mm plug, and a spool of speaker wire to create your own. The speaker wire is because its A) cheap, and B) normally comes in large amounts. Since each RCA cable has 2 wires, speaker wire works out quite well. The only trick would be to find out which of the three points on the 3.5mm plug goes to each of the 4 wires needed for the RCA, but wikipedia could have told you that.

Obviously all that work isn't needed since you found a 25-foot one

I have never heard of PROVANTAGE either, but it has a decent enough resellerrating, although there seems to be an aweful lot of "VERY DISSATISFIED"s recently.... http://www.resellerratings.com/store/PROVANTAGE_Corporation

Oh, and just to be clear, that TV tuner card would work with over-the-air channels also

As for the S-Video cable, I told you it was going to be expensive at Best Buy, but you had said that wasn't a big deal since you had a gift card

Frig, I literally ordered two of these all of twenty minutes ago. Hopefully I won't have any problems with them.

Which I lack the antenna for.

To be honest I was amazed that it would be TWICE as expensive, so I just stomped right out of there without really thinking straight. I'm sure I can find another use for that gift card.

Uh... why two?

psst, you only have one front channel output on your sound card - or are your stereo speakers behind you?

I really should consult you before I make any computer related purchases at all. I really thought I could handle this, but apparently I suck. After looking at my sound card's output it looks like I have 4 sound outputs, 1 mic (either output or input) and some sort of other output (looks a lot like a firewire port). Oh well, what's done is done.

You could rig up/buy a 3.5mm stereo jack splitter.

1 3.5mm -> front channel
1 3.5mm -> rear channel
1 3.5mm -> center+bass

thats the 5.1 part

1 3.5mm -> mic

I think the audigy 2 is a 7.1 sound card, so figure another 3.5mm for whatever extra 2 speakers 7.1 has over 5.1 (side maybe?)

but yeah, just pick up a 3.5mm splitter - bestbuy might have one

or if you want to get tricky, you could try and patch alsa to output identical sound to the rear channel as it does to the front, but that is probably a bit too complicated (as it would probably involve editing the source code)

That might just be a flag in alsa, but then again, it might not. You'd have to merge the pipes...

actually it would more be split one pipe and override another, but yeah, I don't think such an option exists, as its not really something common...

hardware splitter is the easiest option, by far

I'm not really all that sure about what you guys are talking about. However, my tv speakers and my stereo speakers are on opposite sides of my room so I might be able to get away without all this work...I hope. If the sound sucks, I'll look into doing this.

Ok, I'll admit that I was looking through Dell and Best Buy's websites and looking up comparable computers and remarking to myself how much cheaper I am getting this one, but one thing that I kept running across was the use of multiple harddrives under RAID.

Yes, I've done my homework and I know what RAID is, well at least I understand RAID 0 and 1. I was wondering if RAID 0 is really worth the extra speed. I know that harddrives are pretty cheap these days, so I was considering getting another harddrive and running RAID 0 as I have no need for the data backup that RAID 1 provides.

Just wondering if any of you run RAID and have anything to say about it. I was thinking that Kerm might know a thing or two about it because I suspect Cemetech-0 might be running some form of it.

You don't need RAID, as unless you are doing heavy harddrive work, you will never notice any difference whatsoever

But if you do get a second harddrive, run it in RAID 0+1 mode (sometimes called RAID .5 mode) - think RAID 1 safety with RAID 0 speed