help kinda noob ish

[rusty shackleford]

i have 3 questions i know these will sound like noob questions but in a way i kind of am but in a quest of knowledge...


which in your opinion is better windows xp home or professional? pros and cons of each if applicable please..

what is required to run a tv as a substitue monitor? is the picture quality even close to what is delivered by a monitor without a graphics card over $100 such as the
-GIGABYTE GV-RX13256DP-RH Radeon X1300 256MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Silent Pipe II, Lead Free Video Card - Retail
for $65 from newegg?

lastly does the intel 950 vga built in chip on some motherboards have the needed components for the use of a tv as a monitor substitute? or would i be better of with an aftermarket graphics card?

[Airbozo]

I'll add my 2cents:

1. Never used the home version but I "have been told" that professional is the way to go for gamers (not sure about this though since it took a complete viral infection of my pc to finally get me to upgrade to XP)

2. Even though you can run a tv as a substitute monitor, the quality will NEVER approach that of even a ****ty monitor. The difference is in the pixel size and refresh rate. (not the exact terms but you get the idea).

3. I have never heard of an onboard svideo out connection, but it would not surprise me if one was on the market. You can however buy a little box to sit between the graphics out and your tv that would convert the scan rate/signal. ~$150 for a medium quality one.

[rusty shackleford]

ok well i run home edition and have since 2001 but havent got into since 4 months ago thats when i started my computer adventure my friend has a 17" crt that hed sell me for $40 and if i save my money for a while or bum some from my mom or if i figure out wth the newegg preffered member thing is ill be able to finally get the computer ive been planning out so i guess ill stray from the tv idea my budget has been $800 and i guess i no longer need the s-vidoe/composite/hdtv out or a combination of the three the video card selection will go up and selecction of mobos will too but i think ill wait for some more opinions before i make a decision no offense and if worst comes to worst ill use my old 15" crt monitor from the familys old win95 until i can get the monitor but i think ill have an easier time on my budget with my choices. also would a tv be a good 2nd monitor? and why havent they made wireless monitors yet?

also im not a gamer but do alot of stuff dealing with the computer and once i get it perfect ill probally turn to gaming. what and where is a good place to get a good application suite similar if not officexp? and what is the xandros os judging by prices id say crap but i dont want to jump to conclusions

[Airbozo]

A tv would be a good 2nd monitor for watching dvd's and such. It is best viewed from a distance though.

A great office suite would be Open Office (openoffice.org) large download but a great program (or set of programs), that will do just about anything officexp will do but it is FREE! Some people say it is not as good a office xp, but in my experience it is better (ok so I'm not a hardcore spreadsheet kind of guy).

Xandros is linux and if you pay for it, you paid too much. you can downlod fedora for free (or any number of other free linux packages), and it will run fine (if you want linux) There are other linux distobutions out there that are poor to great depending on what you want to use the system for. If you want ot do some gaming, you will have o go with XP for any mainstream game titles. you can even setup a dual boot if you want (a little out of the scope of this board).

BTW punctuation is your friend! :-)

[rusty shackleford]

lol everyone has a problem with my use of puncuations my birthdays on the 14th of september and depending on how much money i get ill prolly get the computer then my build so far is this although i might have to think about moving my budget up $100 or $200

case/psu
Antec LifeStyle SONATA II, Piano Black (Includes a 450W SmartPower 2.0 PSU, also includes a 120mm case fan)
price=$99.99
link=item
$18.59 3day shipping

hard drive
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6V250F0 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
price=$79.99
link=item
$5.46 3day shipping

dvd/cd burner/reader/copier
SAMSUNG Black 16X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 16X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 5X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2M Cache ATA/ATAPI DVD Burner With LightScribe - OEM
price=$34.99
link=item
$5.46 3day shipping

OS
Microsoft Windows XP Professional With SP2 - OEM
price=$137.99
link=item
$4.99 3day shipping

Wireless Mouse/Keyboard
Microsoft N90-00076 2-Tone 102 Normal Keys 17 Function Keys USB RF Wireless Standard Keyboard Mouse Included - OEM
price=$36.99
link=item
$7.70 3day shipping

Floppy Drive
NEC Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive Model FD1231H-302 - OEM Price=$6.99
Link=item
$5.46 3day shipping

Motherboard
ASUS P5ND2-SLI Socket T (LGA 775) NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Price=$87.99
Link=item
$7.70 3day shipping

Processor
Intel Pentium 4 630 Prescott 800MHz FSB 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 EM64T Processor - Retail
Price=$158.99
Link=item
$5.46 3day shipping

Memory
BUFFALO Select 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Unbuffered DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) System Memory - Retail
Price=$68.99
link=item
$4.99 3day shipping

Video Card
POWERCOLOR 1600XTBRAVO256 Radeon X1600XT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16 CrossFire Ready Video Card - Retail
Price=$139.99
link=item
$5.46 3day shipping

before tax and shipping=$852.90
shipping=$71.27
tax=?
total=?

[MitaPi]

A. Go pro. Otherwise you dont really get the essentials I think. B. I have my computer hooked up to my tv using my video card S-cable hook up thinger and then I have a speaker cable that turns into the red and white cable for tv sounds.. and yes, the picture quality defiantly goes down unless you have a Graphics card that can handle whatever your hooking up to. Out of my lil tiny bit of experience.. stay with computer monitors unless you have either A. a good gpu or B. a 42'' plasma that directly tells you that you can use it as a tv or a computer screen. lol

[.Maleficus.]

Yes, XP is the way to go for gaming, however, I do suggest a dual-boot with some sort of Linux distro. Use XP for gaming, and the Linux for everything else. I've been using Ubuntu for probably only a month and a half now, but I've already found it much nicer than XP, but that's just my opinion.

On the TV side of things, if you have an HDTV, it probably wouldn't be too bad, but viewing from a distance is a good idea. If it is in your budget, I would just buy an LCD. Prices for a lot of them are going down, and www.tigerdirect.com has large rebates too, if you want to take the time to fill out the paperwork.

[qoou]

only one problem with ur purchase. its an intel chip. ahhh! everyone take cover!