Lenovo Desktop w/ upgrades, opinions?

[artemenko]

Hi all,


Disclaimer: this is mostly an upgrade, not a build from the ground up -- so please don't flame me for "wasting money" -- I know I could have saved more.

I posted in some earlier threads about graphics cards and power supplies. After my research (and learning through a few mistakes), here is what I ended up with. I'll also include retailers and total cost.

$420 Lenovo Desktop (on sale, down from $599) w/ Core 2 Duo E7400 2.8 ghz and 6m ram
$ 75 Thermaltake 450w PSU. Got this at Bestbuy, I know there are better deals out there
$ 45 9800 GT. With $50 off and a $50 gift card this was priced just right. Without the gift card, the in-store price was 89.99 -- the best price I could find for 1 gig of GDDR3
$170 Asus 21.5 2ms Monitor. Can't believe the cost/size for an LCD these days.
$ 50 Windows 7 Pro 64 bit (msft friends and family discount)

TOTAL: $760

Lesson learned: now that I know how to install a PSU, I'm going to build my own computer from the ground up. Still, I feel as though I got a pretty good deal. The windows experience score went from a 3.3 to a 5.9. The graphics alone went from 3.3 to 6.8.

As far as heat/sound go... the Lenovo already ran super quiet. Adding the PSU and GPU didn't do much. I haven't done much in the way of benchmarking, the GPU is around 45-50 C.

Any recommendations on Benchmarking or Gaming that I can try with my new desktop? Opinions are welcome too.

 

[masterasia]

First of all, don't rely on the Windows rating system. It's pretty much B.S. My overclocked i7 only gets 7.6 and my 2 GTX 260 SLI is getting only 7.8. My raid-0 WD Blacks are getting 5.9. I think my SSD is getting 7.9. To me, all my components should be maxed out.

Overall, it's a decent build, but next time use that $760 to build yourself a better computer. An AMD Phenom X4 955 or i5 750 build would have put your around $750-$800.

If it were me, I would have spent the money on more current stuff. Socket 775 is dying. DDR2 memory is dying.

 

[artemenko]

Thanks masterasia

What do you think about SSDs for OS-only?

Any recommendations on Benchmarking or Gaming?

 

[masterasia]

Thanks masterasia

What do you think about SSDs for OS-only?

Any recommendations on Benchmarking or Gaming?

SSDs for OS is great. One of the best upgrades you can get. You'll actually put it to daily use rather than a high power GPU where you'll only use it during games.