What processor and motherboard should I base my future PC on? (1st self built)

[quiet mike]

Well I am starting to research what to stick in my computer and I need some good advice.

I am going to pay top cash for the processor and no slacking on the motherboard either, and the rest comes conected with that and a few components I already own (PCI and USB stuff)

Anyways I am wondering if I should go for AMD AthlonXP 1900+ or higher, or the newer P4?

Also I know that processors come with recomended motherboards, but what brand names you guys know to be very stable (not interested in overcloking yet). Also I haven't found a board yet with USB 2.0 integrated. They all are the older USB and need to use a PCI slot for the 2.0

Anyways help is greatly apreciated. Consider chips and motherboards that are still to come since I won't start to make the PC until late summer-autum.

[Happydude]

my advice is get an AMD XP, they're more stable then the pentiums.

and GIGABYTE(sp) mother boards are one of the best...so yeah...be ready to spend alot of ca$h!!!

[Cyrax9]

Get the Athlon if you don't plan on playing any older games, if you're installing WinXP, just get the Athlon, if you're going for Win2K, get the athlon if you're not playing old games, if you're playing old games, get the P4.

[sdtPikachu]

Bah, almost finished a huge reply when I load some ****ty site full of bad java which crashes my browser. Arse. So the following is a quick resumé of what you might want to look out for.

Processor: First rule is, don't buy the top of the range model. The slight increase in performance isn't worth the much larger extra cost. Whatever you choice, go Athlon (Socket-A mobos) - they tend to be much faster and more stable than Pentiums, but can run slightly hotter, so buy a good heat sink (and remember to attach it with thermal grease!).
Personally, if I were to build myself a new computer now I'd run an Athlon 1.4 GHz, but if you want to stay future proof for games, you will want a faster one.


Mobo: this is the core of your system, and the thing you should pay the most attention to, as if you buy a good mobo it will make upgrading much easier and cheaper. Machines are upgradable; it's just pre-made computers have built in redundancy so you'll keep buying another computer whenever you need to upgrade. Abit and Asus tend to be good. Some mobo features you may want to look out for:

Dual processor support: expensive, but dual 1 GHz Athlons will give you blistering number crunching (typically much faster than a single processor with twice the power), and more reliable to boot, especially if you're runnig a tried and tested design. Responds like a beaut to overclocking.

SCSI support: again, expensive (very in fact - a 36 GB 10,000 rpm Seagate Cheetah will cost me over £300) but it means you'll have access to the fastest HDD's, CD's and DVD's on the market. If you're planning on running Linux or any other *nix clone, you'll get an even higher performance increase.

RAID support: if you're running standard EIDE drives, RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Discs - running two or more identical discs in tandem) will either give you increased protection against data loss (good for long term large scale storage; essential for running a server) or a large increase in access times.

EIDE support: if you're runnig standard EIDE HDD's, get a mobo which supports at least 6 EIDE/ATAPI devices. This will let you install two hard drives, a DVD, a CDRW and a zip drive and still have space left over.
If you want to save money on HDD's, buy a small yet fast 5 GB 7,200 with a big RAM cache to install your OS and progs on and a slower 60 GB 4,200 rpm slave to store all your files on.
Make sure your mobo supports UDMA - this will speed up your hardware no end.

USB support: as it's ubiquitous these days, get a mobo with at least four USB sockets (some hardware doesn't allow you to daisy chain). USB 2 support is good too, but it's not a patch on firewire.

Firewire support: essential if you're thinking of doing any digivid editing, or external storage over 1 GB (say, an external hard drive) - one socket should suffice.

RAM: get a board which has at least four slots and is expandable to at least 1 GB. You'll want to start with as much RAM as you can afford (preferably 512 MB) as the speed increase you get is phenomenal, due to the system writing to the hard drive less. It doesn't matter a whole lot what type of RAM you get, since the speed is limited by the system bus - which should be at least 133 MHz, pref much higher.

Ethernet: If you're planning on runnig a home network of any kind, then an ethernet is an absolute must, and it it's mounted on the mobo you've saved yourself a valuable PCI slot.

Slots: a board with lots of free PCI (and maybe AGP if you plan on running two monitors and looking dead cool :D) slots (at least 4) will anable you to install a truckload of new hardware. If the mobo supports all of the stuff you need (like firewire) you'll still want at least two free slots. It's likely that the mobo you buy won't have all the features you want, so the more slots you have the more future proof you will be.

Extras: Don't bother paying extra for mobos with on-board sound and graphics; you'll be buying a video and sound card anyway.
Make sure you buy a case speaker, so your computer can beep in case you need it to - this will come in very handy if things start going wrong.
Make sure you buy the right cables and connectors!
Remember to attach the CD audio cable to the mobo, else CD audio will be played down the EIDE/ATAPI cable, which is a total waste of resources.
Make sure your mobo still has support for serial, parallel and PS/2 ports; if they don't, you'll lose access to alot of hardware (and remember the parallel port is f**king fast). USB keyboards and mice are overpriced, and the mice tend to be rater choppy to boot. Go PS/2.

Case: Sadly overlooked by most people, the case is very important. Buy an ATX case - for best access, upgrade and air flow buy a tower, and if you want to keep cool buy an aluminium one, which can be picked up relatively cheaply. Remember if you buy an aluminium case, not only will it come with zillions of expansion ports, but it will last you for your next two computers too. Case fans are good for keeping your overclocked Athlons and 10,000 rpm SCSI's in tip top temperature.

PSU: This has got to be the most overlooked part of a PC ever. For most people, a 300 W power supply is a good bet, but if you're running a dual processor (modern processors can easily draw 100 W), lots of devices or lots of cooling fans (naughty overclocker you!), then a 450 W PSU will be better. Nothing would be worse than setting up your computer and then finding out you only had enough power to run 80% of it - in fact this will often cause write erroors to the HDD's, resulting in goodbye computer, and a whole new reinstall neccesary.
Once you've got ALL your hardware assembled, tot up the total power consumption of them all - then add another 50 W to this, and you should have a good starting point over how powerful yours needs to be.

Modem: Right, now this is really important: DO NOT BUY A SOFTWARE MODEM! BUY AN EXTERNAL HARDWARE MODEM! Most modems these days are cheap software winmodems; they emulate what modem chips should be doing in the software instead. This is an uneccesary and large drain on your processor, and some of the poorer winmodems out there will crash your whole OS if the CPU goes over a 50% load for any amount of time. If you're using dialup, but an external hardware modem. They're considerably more expensive, but a) you will get a sligtly faster connection (depending on your phone line) and b) you don't run the risk of software crashes killing you computer and c) you free up alot of processor resources; winmodems have atendency to have horrible drivers. You can get internal PCI proper modems, but these are quite expensive.

Right, that's all I can think of so here are a few links:

Eclipse - good UK hardware site (http://www.eclipse-computers.com/). Will give you a good selection of what's out there, as will www.pcindex.co.uk

Tweak3D's guide to making a computer (http://www.tweak3d.net/articles/howtobuildapc1/)

A very comprehensive BYO guide (http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/)

Some more techy data on BYO (http://www.acme.com/build_a_pc/)

Hope this is handy. Rmember, if you want to make your computer totally future proof - start using Linux! I'm going to make myself a local server/firewall with an old pentium 2 machine and that's way more power than I actually need. Huzzah, huzzah, go OSS!

[Cyrax9]

Personally the only thig I disagree with in Pika's post is SCSI drives, they're faster, but still not as good as EIDE drives in terms of not overheating, and a good EIDE drive is almostas good as a SCSI drive in tems of speed, and costs much less. An external Modem is great, but make sure you have room for i on a desk, I had to make room for my cable modem, and it's beter than any 56K modem I've used in every possible sense.

Alsao if you're installing Dual HDD's, and maybe more, try to instal them in every OTHER bay, this keeps the Machine from Overheating.

USB i8s a nessaeccisty, but Firewire is pretty bad as of now, I know some people who have it, my aunt works in the IT buisness, and even she hates firewireports. I'd make sure you have ample USB ports, and if you can Daisychain something, do so, otherwise those 4 USB ports will be full in no trime weith stuff that could be dasiychained, when stuff that Can't be needs to fill those ports. Case and Point. Keep your USB Ports as free as possible.

Also if you do decide to dasiychain USB stuff, USe the Gold-plated Cables to increase transfer speed, I reccomend Belkin Cables, and I'm looking at USB hubs myself, nbecause I was too stupid to get 4 USB ports last year, and now I have none free. If you have a USB Modem DO NOT Daisychain it, or you'll lose speed, printers,scanners, cameras and that kind of stuff ae better suited for dasiychaining.

If you're thinking about turning some anolong VHS tapes into good DVD's, buy a DVD-R+RW CDR-/RW combo drive, and make sure it's good model, otherwise you might be wasting alot of Recordable Media.

Finally Remember, Always use thermal Grease, or you'll be throwqing away ALOT of MONEY due to an overheated proccessor!!!

Here's what I'd do.

Build the best Rig on the market within your budget, but make sure that the Mobo is your primary piece of equpiment. If you do this, you can upgrade alof of stuff, and stretch a 3-year PC's life to about 7 years for basic applicatiuons, and 6 years for certain Games.

Proccessor speed counts, don't skimp on your Proccessor!

AAvoid DVD_RAM if you're going to burn DVD's, and use DVD-R and DVD+RW instead, it's more likely to become the standsard, and it costs less than DVD-RAM. I didn't wait to buy my PC, and wound up with RDRAM, which is a pain, since DDR RAM is much beter, just be carefuyul with your DDR RAM, it's alot more sensitive than your old SDRAM.

MAKE SURE TO WEAR STATIC TAPE!!! is this was a simple upgrade I'd Just discharge myself on the PSU, but thjis is the whole machine, so Static tape is a nessecity.

[sdtPikachu]

I just did a bit of totting up and I can get this:

Dual 1 GHz Athlons running on an Asus 266 MHz mobo with 2 USB ports, one paralell, two serial, two PS/2
10 GB 15,000 rpm SCSI hard drive
80 GB 7,200 rpm IDE/DMA Seagate Barracuda hard drive
512 MB DDR RAM
GeForce 2 GTS
Soundblaster 128 PCI
SCSI CDRW
IDE DVD-ROM
10/100 base-T Intel ethernet card
SCSI-Wide adapter (supports up to 15 devices, ha!)
Aluminium tower case with two case fans
450 W PSU

The price doesn't include a monitor, keyboard, modem, mouse, cables or speakers - I either already have them already or can pick them up cheaply second hand - all for £1250, which is what this computer cost me. I don't need things like floppies; I've not used my floppy since I bought this computer. In the age of zip drives and bootable CD's they're virtually obsolete. Besides, a floppy drive will cost me, what, £10 these days? Pfah.

Oh yeah - software cost = ZERO. Bless Linux.

Not a bad spec really. Do I hear the words "sh*t off a stick"?

This would also leave with with an extra perfectly functional computer too (which, by way f comparison, would have cost me about £900 if I'd built it myself, compared to the £1200 I paid for it).

Now all I need it a spare £1400....

[quiet mike]

Well thanks guys, I also did some research myself, and I'll update you in my choices soon.

I hope I can burn around $1500 which means a lot since I already have:

Printer
USB scaner
Creative Audigy Platinum PCI sound card
Inspire 5.1 speakers
GeForce2 Mx/Mx 400 64 MB AGP
AOC Spectrum 7Vir

My dad uses a Pentium 200 right now from which I will take the flopy, CD and HD and stick them in this one, and get the components of this one:
Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-R1002 which is also a CD-RW
Flopy drive
20 Gig Quantum Fireball Ict 15 HD

This way I can spend a lot on the mobo, processor, cooling, power supply and case and get the upgrades of the rest in the future (I already have top of the line sound ;) )

Anyways once I reduce the list of the mobo, cases and power supllies I'll give an update.

I will get Athlons between 1600+ and upwords (but I'll keep in mind the dual processor posibility)

Have you guys heard of the new dual on board BIOS memory on the new Gigabyte mobo's?

[MasterMind]

If you have about $1500 to spend, then I wouldn't worry much about it. I only spent around $600 to build my own PC and I got basically everything that I really needed. I could have bought better sound cards and video cards though, but I don't really need the high end stuff right now.

Anyways, I would recommend Asus mobos. Thats what I was recommended, and thats what I bought. They are also good for overclocking if you ever decide to get into it.

One tip, take your time, because you will always find a good deal out there. I saved over $150 dollars on a very nice Asus mobo, AMD 1.4 processor and an IBM hard drive. Thats a lot of money for me. ....Wait, you have plenty to be worrying about that. :)

[sdtPikachu]

If you've got big $$$$$ to spend on a mobo, I would recommend a Tyan (www.tyan.com). They're bloody expensive, but if you get one of these you'll be able to keep your computer upgradeable for yonks - the Thunder series (for high spec desktops of servers) will give you trhe longest life, and will be damned fast to boot.

Their cards support all sorts of funky goodness, like AGP Pro, SCSI, etc...

• Supports up to two AMD Athlon™ MP processors
• Four DIMM sockets for up to 4GB of PC2100 DDR RAM
• AGP Pro slot, also supports 4x mode
• Two 64-bit 66MHz and three 32-bit 33MHz PCI expansion slots
• Extended ATX footprint (13" x 12", 330.2mm x 304.8mm)

Yum... :D

[quiet mike]

I have a question. If I buy a dual processor board, can use only one processor until I get money for a second one? THe Athlon MP combination looks very tasty, so I'm wondering if I can get the board, and one chip now, and later a second one.

[sdtPikachu]

Originally posted by quiet mike
I have a question. If I buy a dual processor board, can use only one processor until I get money for a second one? THe Athlon MP combination looks very tasty, so I'm wondering if I can get the board, and one chip now, and later a second one.

It's a question I've been pondering myself (it may well depend on the mobo itself) - seeing as if I went the whole hog and bought two Ath XP's (ugh... I hate those two letters) I'd be forking out nearly £600 just for my processors. 2 1GHz Athlons will set me back £140 and still give me more processing power than almost every program (apart from PhotoShop and 3DS Max) knows what to do with.

If I find an answer before you do, I'll post it here.

Besides, if you do fancy the dual processor idea you can always buy two cheap processors and then upgrade later. Main thing to remember is that most software (for windows at least) doesn't support dual processing, so for most applications you'll have a whole processor lying useless. However, high end applications (such as photoshop, 3D progs, music/video compression encoders and the like) almost always have MPS support, as well as special routines to take full advantage of parallel processing abilities, so if you do alot of high powered CPU work then a dual processor is great.

I'm pretty certain that at least Win2K has MPS support built in too. Linux has it built in and it makes (re)compiling your source code damned fast.

If you just play games however (which, contrary to popular opinion, aren't that heavy on CPU's anymore), the you're probably better off getting the fastest CPU you can find, which will hopefully last you a good while. Remember that if you buy a top of the range processor now, there's no way you'll be able to upgrade it without changing your mobo, and essentially your whole computer, with it.

Remember though that increases in processor speed have leapt far ahead of the demands of software, and short of rendering 3D images and other number crunching, most CPU cycles are never used - running Win2K along with winamp playing (as well as firewall, antivirus, chat and all the rest of it) uses a grand total of 2-5% of my processor (a lowly P3 1GHz) - I had to fight to get it there though, . The only progs I've got that can max it out for more than a second at a time are photoshop (encoding multiple 15 MB jpeg's and png's) and 3DS Max doing... well, anything really.

As far as I'm concerned, processing power is overrated. Sure, I have uses for it, but by and large the public don't. Yet they are duped into the megahertz myth so that M$ can produce even more bloated software and the computer companies make more money/force you to upgrade more. Bah.[/rant]

Though if you're going to do something seful with your spare cycles I won't mind so much... :D

[quiet mike]

I'm not going for MHz so much as I'm looking for upgradability.
THat's why I might set back a bit, maybe until wonter. I want to see how the ClawHamer works out, because if it's good, I'll buy a Mobo that will accept it's future improvements. The Hamer edition wil have much larger L2 cache and an on chip memory controller for DDR whic will give less lag and better use of bandwith. Also the mobo that will come to them seem to support as a general the ATA 133/RAID, USB 2.0 and AGP 8X. I'll look more into it and update if I'm sticking to the curent Athlons or not.

[sdtPikachu]

Hmm... well, in my experience, I'd say wait a bit before you buy a Hammer board. First generation mobos often tend to be rushed so that a company can be seen to be first out of the door. Sure the boards work, but the later ones will be much faster, as well as being cheaper and being more upgradeable.

64 bit is the way to go if you want total future proofing (especially if you insist on using windows), although there are bound to be some compatibility issues with older 32 and 16 bit programs.

Best wait 6 months after the Hammers are released before you consider using one by the way. Just to make sure that all the hardware problems inevitable with jumps like this are sorted out be people other than yourself.

[quiet mike]

That's a very logical step, and the fact that I want to build this next PC myself I wanted to start early on, but I'm not in real need as of right now to get a new PC, so maybe a wait for the next generation AMD is more worth it, unless something makes my current hardware totaly useless.

From what I have read so far, the AMD road to 64 bit is made by expanding on the 32bit X86 chip, a feature that is aproved by software producers much better than Intel's 64 bit road, which requires a total new way of writing the software, while unable to work 32bit software at all.

[sdtPikachu]

Yeah, from what I can remember, Hammer uses twin 32 bit channels as oposed to Intels single 64 bit, which makes Hammer sligtly cheaper to make and mor elikely to work without a hitch on 32 bit programs.

Though I'm worried that it might not be able to handle true 64 bit programs as well as the Itanium or whatever it's called. Hmm. Best wait and see if you're going to splash out a fortune on a nifty CPU like one of these.