Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler PC Component Advice Wanted

when you order OEM versions of software it is cheaper because it doesnt come in all the fancy packaging. As far as i understand it anyway. You should have the sticker or whatever for it though somewhere unless you threw it out! Yikes. If not just look on the internet.

I haven't thrown anything out, and the booklet that the COA label should have been on was sealed in a padded envelope. I think I must have just been unlucky.

Yes, the product key is on that label which would either be on the computer (OEM is normally for install on new computers) or the back of the booklet - on top of where it says "...has been removed...". If it is not on the case you got, on the book, or the envelope/sleeve for the cd you may be SOL (for that particular product key) until newegg gets back to you.

Yeah, it wasn't on any of those. The case actually came in a separate shipment, but I still looked on that anyway. Ha ha.

I am coming in late so I think you have all the good advice you need. Curious to know if you will be over clocking or just running everything as is. Over-clocking requires a lot of additional planning, depending on how far you want to go with it.

I won't be overclocking. I'm not that daring.

Does anyone know what the best eSATA controller card to get might be? I'm looking at this one:

SIIG SC-SAE212-S2 PCI Express x1 SATA II Controller Card

I'm planning on getting a Western Digital My Book Premium ES 500GB hard drive as my external drive, and it can use eSATA or USB 2.0. I figured I may as well have eSATA capability for best performance at home, then use the USB 2.0 connection when I take the drive elsewhere. Motherboards with built-in eSATA seem to be very rare. Anyway, if anyone else knows of a better controller card, I'd love to know about it. Thanks!

Oooh, so today I got the first piece of my new computer:

Antec P182 SE Advanced Super Mid Tower Case

I know, I already mentioned having the P182, but that's part of the computer I'll be passing on to someone else. I WAS just going to get another of the same, but then my friend pointed out the SE version of the case, which uses steel instead of just aluminum and has a mirror finish. Oh, and a flexible snakelight on the interior, which I'm sure won't really come in handy.

I'm fairly excited, even though the computer will come together slowly. My friend at Intel says they're estimating it'll be around a month before he can get me the CPU, so in the meantime, I'll work on other pieces.

This is the wishlist I'm working from:

Newegg.com wishlist

Does anyone have strong opinions about these pieces? I'm still undecided on video card. 8800GT still seems like the way to go from a price/performance perspective, though the ATI HD3870 is appealing, too, in its own ways.

The HD3870, if it stays at its current price is the way to go on price/performance from what I've read. The 8800GT is the way to go on performance.

I obviously didn't look into it very deeply. I saw people throwing around a figure of $350 for the HD3870, but I didn't look to see how old that info was. I know I saw $150-$250 somewhere else.