I Want to Build a Computer

Debaser · Post by **Debaser** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 4:32 pm

The topic just about says it all. My hard drive is informing me every day when I turn it on that it just can't take the pressure of my hectic lifestyle anymore and is about to collapse. So I just bought another hard drive and it got me to thinking how much the rest of my computer is obsolete and/or broken and or whatever. So I want a new one. But I want a good one as cheap as possible.

I've never built an entire computer before. I've swapped pieces in and out, but replacing my hard drive is just about the extent of my ability. I'm not even sure what all pieces I'd need.

I mean, I've got a good monitor and some usable disk drives and a case and a hard drive... and a CPU fan and some memory. I guess I'd need a CPU and a motherboard and a new video card and... um... more memory? Is there a good online resource for this somewhere? Is this really gonna save me any signifgant amount of money for my time? Any words of wisdom?

Worm · Post by **Worm** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 4:41 pm

Pay more than 19.99 for your motherboard. That's my advice.

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 9:17 pm

There might be a better source, but every issue of PC Gamer has a page with low-end (systems that should run modern games just fine but just barely), mid-range (which will last you a little bit longer), and high-end (top-of-the-line stuff that will last you that much longer), with prices all pulled from pricewatch.com. That's what I used to build my computer a couple years ago and I was pretty happy with the results, although I'm just about due for some major upgrading.

brooksy · Post by **brooksy** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 10:44 pm

The key is in the cooling.

I have a 486, but I have taken my ceiling-fan down, and hooked it up to the case and I am getting some amazing framerates while running Far Cry at 1600x1200.

Also, I do acid before playing. Also, I am on my second labotomy. The first one kinda took, but not quite. My doctor says I should not be able to spell labotttame. Oh, there. It took.

Brooksy

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 11:17 pm

Hey, I make computers! I made one this week.

I am also making two others, as Sailer and Davis have ruined theirs. I put ME on Sailer's. Hahahaha! But it had driver support for his stuff and I am sick of scanning the web for it (he is a porn monger).

How much you lookin' to spend, Debaser? Under $500? Less than that? I can recommend PLENTY.

I think you'd save a lot of time for your money. And money for your time.

Let me know what hundred dollar range is good ($0 - $100, $300-$400) and I'll put together what I'd do if I had that budget.

Debaser · Post by **Debaser** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 8:18 am

If I could get something midrange and workable circa $500, that'd be peachy. I honestly have no idea how much you can get for that much, but yeah, that'd be ideal.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 8:42 am

OK, the following components make up a PC. Let's advance ever onwards!

o CPU
o Motherboard
o RAM
o Video card
<strike>o Hard drive</strike>
o Power Supply
o Case
<strike>o Sound card</strike>
<strike>o Floppy Drive</strike>
<strike>o Network card</strike>
o CD-ROM or DVD-ROM or a burner
o Speakers
<strike>o Monitor</strike>

Most motherboards have integrated sound on themselves, and a network jack to boot. So let's knock them off the list.

Floppy drives haven't changed in 10 years, so your current one will be good for that.

Speakers, likely, the same, but I'll wait to confirm. The monitor you said was good. And you recently got a hard drive, right?

So that leaves us with:

o CPU
o Motherboard
o RAM
o Video card
o Power Supply
o Case
o CD-ROM or DVD-ROM or a burner
o Speakers

You can usually get more bang for your buck with an AMD processor. Plus, as I work for them, it would be horrible of me to suggest an Intel chip. I guess I'm biased. But still, budget is a concern here.

Here are some quick links for the rest of the items:

AMD 64 3000 Processor with fan: $175

Asus SK8V Motherboard: $176

Hmm... lots of little qualifiers about that one. I don't like the comment in the comments regarding the need for registered DDR memory. Well, I mean, it's cool and all, it's not going to start shooting people, it's just sitting there sipping its drink... but I think it could go off at any time.

Let me do some more checking to see if it's possible to build an AMD 64 system for under $500. It may be. And that system would certainly be around the longest time, as it's the latest processor to make it to market. I'd get one myself (and I think AMD has three rebates we can give to people if they get a chip, so if that is the case I can help you out that way).

Gotta polish off some work here at work real quick. I'll return to this thread in a bit.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 8:43 am

Roody_Yogurt wrote:There might be a better source, but every issue of PC Gamer has a page with low-end (systems that should run modern games just fine but just barely), mid-range (which will last you a little bit longer), and high-end (top-of-the-line stuff that will last you that much longer), with prices all pulled from pricewatch.com. That's what I used to build my computer a couple years ago and I was pretty happy with the results, although I'm just about due for some major upgrading.

Do they post that on-line, by chance?

I've got the latest issue from them, IIRC, so maybe I'll just check that out... want to see what people think are good motherboards for the AMD 64.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 8:46 am

Also, my brother recently got a PC from www.cyberpowerpc.com . For less than $500 they fitted him out with what I thought was a terrific system. So if things get to be too expensive, there is always that option.

Debaser · Post by **Debaser** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 9:13 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Speakers, likely, the same, but I'll wait to confirm. The monitor you said was good. And you recently got a hard drive, right?

The speakers are probably the best bit on the computer as I spent entirely too much money for them at the time, so that's fine. Thanks. Are these newegg people who you suggest buying from, then?

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 9:37 am

Debaser wrote:
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Speakers, likely, the same, but I'll wait to confirm. The monitor you said was good. And you recently got a hard drive, right?
The speakers are probably the best bit on the computer as I spent entirely too much money for them at the time, so that's fine. Thanks. Are these newegg people who you suggest buying from, then?

Newegg is a good resource as they have low prices, oftentimes get free shipping going on certain items and do not seem to censor the reviews for the various products they have. Their RMA policy is also pretty good.

They may not have the lowest price on every particular item, but in my experience they have the lowest total (I generally hate buying components from more than one distributor when getting parts for a PC -- getting down to UPS has always been a collosal hassle). But yeah, if someone like TigerDirect.com is kicking their ass, going with them would be solid.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 12:00 pm

Liking this more and more as the possible motherboard for this system. $152.

EDIT: whoops, wrong socket

Jethro Q. Walrustitty · Wed Jul 28, 2004 12:36 pm

AnandTech - despite having gotten on my bad side lately - does buyer's guides every month with recommended components.

As jazzy (and as fast - the one I've built so far was a real rocket) as Athlon64s are, I'm not convinced that they're worth the money, if you're trying to watch your sheckels.

My basic recommendation for low-to-midrange systems:
Motherboard with nForce2 chipset - I've been using Epox lately, but I did get two bad ones from them recently. However, the third was a new revision with more heatsinks onboard, so that may be not an issue. MSI, Abit, Asus are also fairly decent names. They're like hard drives - some people swear by one brand, others hate them.

Processor: Athlon XP 2600+ for basic system, faster if you've got extra money.

Memory: dual 256m DDR400 sticks - 512m is a good starting point. Two matched sticks means that the motherboard will work a bit faster - check the manual to make sure you're using the proper slots to enable this. If you want more, drop a 512m stick in addition - chances are you won't need more than a gig for the foreseeable future.

Video: Athlon 9200 for a basic system. If you want to do gaming, a 9600 Pro or XT, or a 9800 if you've got deeper pockets. If you're really serious, an X800 - but you can blow your whole $500 right there.

Hard drive: I've been using the Western Digital 80g "special edition" drives. Most everything you can buy in a store - supposedly even the retail-box "SE" drives - has only a one-year warranty, but the OEM "SE" drives have 3-year. However, Seagate just upped the warranty to five years on all their drives. Crafty! They also make quieter drives. I'd have to lean towards them for my next purchase. I avoid Maxtor like the plague after horrible problems with reliability in the past. Ditto IBM/Hitachi, which was tops for a while there.

Case: I usually use a dull Enlight 72x0 case - boring but nice and functional. NewEgg has countless cases for cheap, pick your favorite color/style and make sure it's got at least a 300w power supply - probably worth getting a 350-400 just in case.

CD/DVD: I've used exclusively Lite-On for a while now. In fact, just yesterday I ordered a dual-layer 8x DVD burner for a mere $82 from New Egg to replace my Toshiba 2x burner. (At the time, Lite-On wasn't making DVD burners.) Great drives, low prices.

Oh, and dump the floppy. You don't need one in the modern world.

Sound/network, like Jonsey says, are onboard and are plenty good enough unless you're a gaming fiend or studio musician. Some nForce2 motherboards even have Dolby Digital encorders, really only useful for media system - my home theater PC uses this so that everything - including games as well as DVDs - is sent across the digital audio output (single wire) to my receiver, where it's decoded and sent to the big speakers. There is no way to get DD encoding in hardware at the moment unless you get one of these motherboards. nVidia is claiming that a later revision of the nForce 3 chipset will have it, so you'll be able to use an Athlon64 and get DD encoding, but at the moment you're limited to Athlon XP.

New Egg has the best website by far, but total price is sometimes cheaper at mwave.com - but NE's been getting cheaper lately.

The only difference between a low- and mid-range system is a slightly faster processor and more memory, maybe a bigger hard drive. A bigger video card is only necessary if you're playing games. But really, a low-end PC is still a huge system nowadays.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 1:29 pm

Jethro Q. Walrustitty wrote:Oh, and dump the floppy. You don't need one in the modern world.

BIOS upgrades demand otherwise. Debaser probably doesn't have access to a ROM programmer if they hilariously do not mention that you had better try upgrading the BIOS in DOS 6.22. Together with Bootdisk.com, they make a one-two unbeatable punch.

Debaser · Post by **Debaser** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 1:47 pm

Jethro Q. Walrustitty wrote:The only difference between a low- and mid-range system is a slightly faster processor and more memory, maybe a bigger hard drive. A bigger video card is only necessary if you're playing games. But really, a low-end PC is still a huge system nowadays.

Well, I will be playing games. I don't need to be able to play the latest FPS video hog at the highest resolution for the next three years, but I'll definitely need something that can at least run most modern wares at some level of acceptable performance.

Jethro Q. Walrustitty · Thu Jul 29, 2004 8:23 am

Jonsey: Hogwash! Many modern BIOSs can be flashed from inside Windows. If you need otherwise, you can make a boot CD-RW, or (better yet) get a USB flash drive for $20 or so and boot off that when you need to flash a BIOS.

Take that 3.5" bay and put something useful in there - memory card reader or whatever.

But then, I'm talking to a guy who keeps a 5.25" drive in his system.

Debaser: 9600 Pro is probably the card for you. You'll be much better off with an Athlon XP with 9600 rather than an Athlon64 with a 9200. For comparison, an Epox nForce2 mb with Athlon XP 2600+, 2x256meg DDR400, and fan bundle goes for $235 at Mwave, whereas the slowest Athlon64 (2800+) with basically the same components (Epox mb) goes for $320. You'd be much better off putting that extra $85 into a faster video card rather than a slightly faster CPU. Though you do get Far Cry free with Athlon64s right now - and Far Cry kicks ass. The 9600 Pro is plenty capable (supports DirectX 9) and easily fast enough to run most any current game at a decent resolution.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 8:59 am

Jethro Q. Walrustitty wrote:Jonsey: Hogwash! Many modern BIOSs can be flashed from inside Windows.

Much like Flavor Flav's attitude towards the white man, I don't truss it. Jesus, what if you just want to bring a file home from work? I don't agree that we should Mac-out our PCs and remove the floppy disk. I can not recommend that.

But then, I'm talking to a guy who keeps a 5.25" drive in his system.

Ah ha... I don't have that hooked up right now. I ran out of power connectors on my power supply. If I decide to drop more than twenty bucks on a power supply in the future I would hook it back up. I still got my 5.25" disks, ho ho ho.

Debaser: 9600 Pro is probably the card for you. You'll be much better off with an Athlon XP with 9600 rather than an Athlon64 with a 9200.

I get the sense that Debaser isn't going to want to upgrade his components as regularly as we do. I go very piecemeal, but the Athlon 64 is the best CPU for someone who wants to do this once every three years and no sooner.

It's sixty-four bits, baby!

Debaser, I'll provide my final recommendation before the end of the day. Though Walrustitty and I are mortal enemies, I'll probably end up siding with him on the video card thing because I love them so much, so I'll put together two packages for you, a Athlon 64 system and non-Athlon 64 system.

Flava Flav · Post by **Flava Flav** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 4:00 pm

Flava Flav new yorks my thing
from the east coast to my west coast thing
kicking it live from 165
from the grand concourse to rod-e-o drive
try to say a nigga like Flav is vexed
flavas in full effex
I know lex
I eat chinese food
you eat rice checks
I'm living right now watching you die next
I got six kids
I'll break your necks...

Flava Flav · Post by **Flava Flav** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 4:03 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Much like Flavor Flav's attitude towards the white man, I don't truss it.

And yet I'm making money. Hell if you can't wash my hands doesn't mean I'm not trying to wash yours. But just coz I wash your hands doesn't mean you have to wash mine. Anything I did is because I wanted to do it. It was from the heart. It wasn't for something. Coming out here to do shows I gotta do this for money. I have to cause I have kids. It's all about survival, B. But honestly if I could I would perform for people for free......you see, everybody else ain't like me. And that's what makes me one of a kind. Innovative, B. And that's what makes me a legend man [laughs]. Do you think I'm a legend?

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 4:32 pm

Floppy drives are obsolete and unnecessary, unless you have a large archive of data on floppy, in which case they are only necessary for the 30 minutes it will take to get the data off of the floppys and onto a more "together", "hip", "with-it" medium. What are you talking about?