Building a comp

[Mushlafa]

Yeah.. im gonna build a comp.. i just wanna know what sorta parts to get...

I know im getting something in the AMD xp series cause i wanna go the cheaper route and i also wanna get a Ti4200... the one that SdtPikachu got...

I wanna know what sorta mother board would be good and what kinda ram i should get... RD, DDR? or SD ...?

I wanna try to get a good comp like... sorta high end.. but i dont wanna spend like an extra 100$ for just a lil bit improved performance.. so any advice. I already have a moniter BTW.

I wanna know what sorta stuff is compatible with what and stuff....

So.. umm.. yeah help me out .. Manasecret.. Queit mike? Sdtpika?

[Blade Runner]

You could just get everything I posted in the what do you think of her thread. That stuff is all good. I just recently changed which video card I'm getting to the MSI gf 4 ti4200 TD instead of the 4400. This one overclocks more than what sdtPickachu got, if I read the articles correctly. Its also cheaper and goes with the motherboard. The whole system I posted will be around $1000 depending where you get the parts.

Athlon XP's (the newest is 2200+) use DDR, so thats what you should use.

I'd get an aluminum case and you probably want SBL 5.1. Um....the rest depends on a lot of things.

[manasecret]

All I was going to say was that you should get DDR RAM, but Blade Runner already said so.

So I'll say some more... :p Make sure you get a case you like, and if since you're getting an AMD make sure to get many many fans. Also make sure you get a quality power supply, as those can often lead to problems down the road. I know Tom's Hardware had an article that recommended two or three brands for power supplies, Antec being the only one I remember.

The only other thing I may recommend is researching quite about about all the parts you pick and try to make sure they are all compatible. Something you may overlook is the RAM, which I don't know too much about how the quality varies from brand to brand, but buying from a namebrand such as Samsung may be worth it just so you know it works and is compatible.

More importantly I think is choosing the right motherboard that's compatible with everything. You might want to look at the parts of an Alienware AMD computer and see what motherboard they use, because they seem to make very quality computers.

Well, buzz buzz... I've said enough. :)

db

[-apu-]

i completely agree to get DDR ram and get a mother board with nothing built in and preferable from asus, intel or amd, nothing from a no name company/generic motherboard, or the the nforce motherboards are nice 2, they have a built in nvidea GF4 Ti4400 and are considerably cheaper than buying a vid card and motherboard...thats just my advice:D

[sdtPikachu]

CPU - stick with AMD. Anything above the 1800 XP will do you proud.

Mobo - damned tricky, and it depends alot on what you want. For my tastes, I'd go for one of the Gigabyte or Soyo's (since they are the best ones that support more than two IDE channels - and if you have as many devices as we have, you'll want more than two IDE channels - unless you do an sdtPikachu and go for SCSI that is :D)

You'll definitely want a mobo that supports DDR RAM if you're going in for gaming. SD RAM is becoming increasingly obsolete.

Crucial (http://www.crucial.com), as well as making fscking good RAM, have a nifty utility to give you the types of RAM available for the mobo you've chosen.

Don't buy a board with lots of inbuilt stuff (and what's more stuff that can't be removed). IMO building your own comp is about upgradability, and buying an "all-in-one" mobo is kinda a bit stupid. My flatmates mobo has inbuilt sound and ethernet

Case - you don't need an aluminium case, they just look sexy. If you want to spend as little money as possible but still have a good case at the end of it, I'd suggest one of the Chieftec models.

Don't go with any OEM stuff, even ALienware - you shoudl plan your comp from the ground up. OEM boards are often crap, and you can get much better performance and reliability if you stick to one that works best for the comp you want to build.

Although many will tell you otherwise, compatibility issues aren't much of an issue any more. The main problem is figuring out the right RAM (for instance, the dual processor board my flatmatenis panning will only take ECC registered bufferred RAM, since it's designed for mission critical applicactions); so long as you buy quality components from well known brands, you shouldn't have any problems.

Buy two hard drives, one small, one big. This will speed up your OS no end (just so long as you set all your folders up right). I'm planning a high end desktop system, with a SCSI OS HDD, and RAIDed IDE HDD's for my documments and swap space.

Your processor IMO will easily outlive your graphics card. Don't buy an nForce. Integrated components may be cheap, but they have many, many drawbacks as far as upgrading is concerned.

PSU - Antec do make good PSU's, yes; although Enermax make great ones (and they are well renowned for being very quiet). With the kind of setup you're wanting to run, don't go below a 350W PSU.

If you gave us your proposed budget, it'd make things alot easier... :D

One more thing: I don't design my computers for games (hence why I'm still using a TNT2), I design them for long life, reliability, number crunching and upgradability - generally totally hardcore use (games are NOTHING compared to recompiling your kernel!). My advice would be to just design a computer like this, and just whop in a nice graphics card on top of it to give you your polygons.

Any more thoughts, please place below.

[Mushlafa]

hmm... well lets see.. i want this computer by august 11'th :p so.. lets see

$110 right now is what i have and im gonna be making at least $210 a week so 420 by july 26'th then $70 a day for july 29'th and 31'st .. so another $140... then from August 1'st to 10'th i gotta work every day for $70 a day... :( so thats $700

so lets add this up...

110
420
140
+700
-------------
$1370... at most :( thats not enough :(... well my dad can pay the rest... and il prolly spend about $100 of that 1370 so im gonna have like 1200 :(

So.. yeah.. just.. i wanna go cheap.. i dont wanna pay like $100 for an extra 20 Mhz... i just want like a computer that will run WC3 at really good speed... and upcomming games that i want to get also..

I might just ask my friend.. he got a wicked system for $1100 canadian... oh.. thats right im canadian so everything you guys say needs to be changed into canadian dollars :p

I want your opinion.. I saw a lot of really good stuff for REALLY cheap on ebay.. Im wonderin if i should buy off EBAY.. like i saw an AMD 2000+ for like $115 canadian with no reserve and there was only like 20 min left in the auction.. but i didnt buy it :(.. I dunno.. if I can trust ebay :p.. anyone here that uses ebay? If ther is.. can ya tell me bout any expeiriences youve had ? ;)

[Happydude]

AMD XP 1400+ is great...thats what i got...$300

umm...get the TI4200 i guess...

at least 256 DDR RAM

and any sound card would do, unless your like going to be making music or whatever...

hmm...what else...mother board...get an Asus one...for AMD presecors...

and thats about it...

[MasterMind]

Motherboard- I'd recommend an Asus only because thats what I used and thats what people recommended for me. ;)

Like someone else said, plan on getting fans if you're going AMD. Thats the only thing I hate about my comp because its loud with all those fans blowing.

And before you start building your PC, I recommend that you read the whole MOBO manual so when you start your project, you will have an idea of what to do and how to do it. Asus boards comes with real in-depth manuals compared with my old PC mobo manual.

As for ebay...I got some of my stuff off of ebay. Just make sure that you know what you are bidding for and check the sellers feedback. I think you can save some money by buying off ebay, its just if you trust the product or not because you usually won't be able to return it. I think shopping around on the net can be really beneficial if you take your time and know exactly what you want.

Just my 2 cents.

[Blade Runner]

Since newegg is one of the best sites to order parts from and they don't ship outside the US, here are some sites that are good for Canada....

http://www.bigfootcomputers.com/
http://www.e-compuvision.com/
http://www.pccanada.com/
http://www.tweakbox.com/
http://www.canadacomputers.com/

Also, no one has said a word to you about getting a Via kt333 chip motherboard.

"With the Thoroughbred just launched, many users will be upgrading to new Socket-A platforms and there's none faster than the KT333. When it comes to the Athlon XP, it's not about choosing a chipset; it's about picking a motherboard."

Here are some links to articles about/reviewing kt333 motherboards....

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1636
http://www17.tomshardware.com/mainboard/02q2/020509/index.html
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Mjcw (I think I'm getting this one)

I heard this is a pretty good guide....

Maximum PC (http://www.maximumpc.com/reprints/reprint_2002-03-13.html)

EDIT: I was looking at that guide and its kind of outdated. I'll see if I can find some better, updated ones for you.

DOUBLE EDIT: DDR Ram prices just went up almost $20 here:(

[sdtPikachu]

What kind of storage space do you need?

Do you plan to do anything else other than play games and fiddle on the internet?

Is having a sexy case important? (If it is, knock $200 off your hardware budget now - but remember you can always do what I did, which was move my OEM mobo into my nice Lian Li case)

Do you already have floppy/CD/DVD/RW drives?

Do you have any spare cards for the PCI slots (NIC, sound card, etc)?

[Mushlafa]

Originally posted by sdtPikachu
What kind of storage space do you need?

Do you plan to do anything else other than play games and fiddle on the internet?

Is having a sexy case important? (If it is, knock $200 off your hardware budget now - but remember you can always do what I did, which was move my OEM mobo into my nice Lian Li case)

Do you already have floppy/CD/DVD/RW drives?

Do you have any spare cards for the PCI slots (NIC, sound card, etc)?

All i really want in my comp is a CD drive.. and im gonna need a new one.. how much are they? Cause the one i have in my comp right now is 4x or 8x im not sure bout the speed.. but i know thats hella slow ;).

[sdtPikachu]

You can pick up CD drives dirt cheap these days; a good 40x shouldn't cost you whatever the equivalent of 40 quid is.

You will need a floppy. Despite them being totally obsolete and utterly utterly crap, there's still a lot of essential system stuff that needs floppies (boot disks, drivers, that kinda bollocks).

Go with an Athlon XP, but there is little point in buying the top of the range model - it's best to buy one down from that. Games don't se much CPU power these days, they are just very demanding of the graphics card.

Shell out on a good mobo, and upgrading will be a cinch (namely make sure it has enough PCI slots, IDE channels, USB ports, etc).

If you're planning on buying an expensive case, don't do it yet - just buy a cheap crappy one. If you're planning on getting a so-so case, buy a decent steel one. If you can, have a fiddle with it to see how easy it is to remove/replace things. Also it's a good idea to find a case with a hard drive cage that has fans blowing over it; keeping your hard drives cool substanially improves their lifetime and reliability.

MAKE SURE YOU READ UP ON HOW TO FIT A HEATSINK BEFORE YOU EVEN ATTEMP TO DO SO! This is the hardest part of making a comp - botch it up, and you could fry or even crush your CPU - a very expensive mistake.

Buy a heatsink that is overspecced for your comp - that is, if your processor runs at 1.8 GHz, buy a heatisnk that's certified for at least 2 GHz and so on. This will run your chip cooler, and improve it's life and performance.

If you want, I could have a shufty throuigh the online resellers up there and put together a trial compuetr for you to peruse.

[Mushlafa]

What about operating system :(... XP seems to slow everything down.. and.. well.. im using 98 right now :( and i dont have the disk or however it comes.. so what operating system should i get?

[Jonbo298]

I'm using XP and I haven't had any major problems. But if you want to try something new, go with XP. At least they have it so that if any games or whatnot that you have on '98, etc... won't run on XP, you can turn on Compatibility mode with it. But I've only had one game not run unless I turned on Compatibility. But overall, its pretty good.(At least for me)

[Blade Runner]

Yeh, XP is fine with me. I was having some problems but then I found out about compatibility mode and everything is fine. I hear XP pro is better than home but I wouldn't know........

Anyways...XP or 2000 is what I would get.

[sdtPikachu]

Go with Win2k.

It's got the same stability as XP (plus it's much more tweakable), without the IMO horrible GUI (I've been using XP at work, and have hated every second of it - yesterday I reformatted and installed 2k instead) and all the rest of the cruft (including "product activation" - argh!)

It costs more than XP home, but less than XP pro in the UK at least.

Win2k will be the last M$ OS I ever buy.