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GRITS takes the Big Leap - GRITS - 08-06-2003
Okâ¦I have had it with the computer that was built âfor meâ from Dell. It belongs to my company so instead of continuing to upgrade it (I think it is to the point of non-up gradable anyway) I have decided to build my own. I am not building the âultimateâ PC just something more specific to what I want. And that would include:
two HD 80 GB or better. And more than 2 USB ports.
I know I could find a forum with people who were willing to helpâ¦but I started thinking.... as many computer geeks that we have on our forums..I might as well ask people I already know and trust.
Building my own computer is a great way to learn more about the way a computer works and I love learning. I thought about doing a video as I build it with all the process and problemsâ¦sort of a la âNaked Newsâ but the time hasnât come for the assembly part yet so I will put that idea on the back burner. What I am up to now is purchasing the components and I would like input into pieces you have actually had experience with or know more about than Consumerâs Digest can tell me. I am on a budget around $250 a month and I want to have it finished by Christmas. I have already ordered my processor (comes with fan and heatsink) and My case (comes with fan and 2 USB ports. 300W power supply) I wanted a case that was expandable and aesthetic with lots of âcoolingâ.
My next and I believe most important purchase will be my motherboard.
I want the ânormalâ things like an AGP and a number of PCI slots (maybe 4 or 5) no sound card integrated nor video. RAID capability is not necessary (maybe when I build my own server). I want to be able to get maximum memory and a nice size cache.
Things you need to know to give me a recommendation....case is ATX (max motherboard size 12"x10" or 25.40 x30.48 cm) and processor is Pentium 4 2.6 GHz..oh and I dont have an unlimited budget :)
thanks for any and all input I will keep you up to date on the purchasing process and the assembly when the time comes...
Wish me luck:blsh:
GRITS takes the Big Leap - PIX - 08-06-2003
Sounds like fun...I hope you can find someone to help.:P
GRITS takes the Big Leap - g-boy - 08-06-2003
Incidentally I'm also going to start building a computer... I am also going to ditch my AGP-less Dell... I want a case like that, and my budget is much less than yours. Through my searching, I was able to find a couple of good cases with the side window, although when I looked at ebay, they had awesome cases for around $50. Anyway, since I have a moniter and stuff, all I need are the essentials. After plenty of research, I was able to get it all down to about $550-600, maybe more if you include shipping costs. Best bet is to go with Fry's for the motherboard/CPU, they have the combos for $200. I found a good one, $199.99 that is an AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (that's good enough for me), has 6 possible USB 2.0 connections, 3 firewire, 6 PCI slots and 1 8x AGP. I can also get a GeForce FX 5200 128mb 8x AGP video card for around $70. Windows XP Pro for about $100. Hard drives and burner/dvd combo drives are all relatively consistent in price. I have a good wireless optical mouse, keyboard, moniter, speakers, printer, and scanner. Anyway, three good places to check out the best prices would be www.newegg.com, www.nextag.com, and of course good ol' ebay.com.
GRITS takes the Big Leap - Gwarsbane - 08-06-2003
I'll keep my mouth shut about the Pent 4, I'm not a fan of them. I like AMDs better because they are as good or better as the same speed pent 4 chip and cheaper. Since you already have the chip ordered I will go on to other suggestions.
Suggestions for other components are...
Motherboard: Not sure yet, but I'm looking into it, I don't do anything with P4s because all my local friends have AMDs:)
Soundcard: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live 5.1 PCI Sound Its $60 bucks Canaidan and plays sounds great. You really don' t need more then that unless you are making the ultimate PC.
Videocard : 128 Meg DDR GeForce 4 MX 440 8X with TV-Out $95 Canadian. Its not a powerhouse but should be great for 90% to 95% of the games.
Hard Drive: Maxtor 80 GB Hard Drive 7200RPM $135 Canadian. You're not a power user like a few of us here so 80 gigs will do you a good long time.
Ram: I would suggest nothing less then a gig of ram. It will give you lots of power and ability to play most of the games that will come out in the next future. If the motherboard supports it go with a pair of 512MB 184Pin DDRAM (PC-400) $139 Canadian
If it can't handle the 400 mhz ram then go with a pair of 512MB 184Pin DDRAM (PC-333) $119 Canadian.
The reason why I said a pair of 512s and not a single stick for the 1 ghz is because a pair of 512s are much cheaper then a single 1 ghz stick of ram. Least it is locally.
CD Burner: LG 52x16x52 CDRW IDE with Software $89 Canadian. Its the same make as mine (thou mine is a 48x24x48) Strange how the re-write speed dropped, but then again I don't know too many people that really need the re-writing ability, most just get burn once disks which are cheaper.
DVD Reader: I don't think you are a power user so I won't suggest a DVD burner unless you would really like one. They have dropped in price by quite a lot. Anyway I would stuggest a LG 16X DVD ROM $69 Canaidan, or Benq 16X DVD ROM $69 Canadian or Pioneer 16X DVD ROM oem $69 Canadian.
LG so far as I have seen have been good. Benq took over Acer products (all the products I think) and I never hand any problem with Acer products, and Pioneer is just one of the top brans you can get.
Speakers: Creative Inspire 5300 Speakers and Subwoofer 5.1 $159 Canadian. This will give you the full suround sound experience, you will be ducking as you hear a disc come in from behind you ;)
Monitor: 17" .20 Samsung 753 DF Digital Monitor $245 Canadian, it looks good thou I don't know. I'll get more info on this later. I would also like to suggest maybe a larger monitor, but thats upto you. If money was no object I would suggest a 22" Samsung 1200 Natural Flat Digital Monitor $999. I do graphics stuff so a large monitor like that would be great thou I don't think my current videocard could handle it.
Keyboard: Microsoft multimedia Keyboard $50 Canadian. I have the internet keyboard version. It allows you to control a bunch of stuff. I want the multimedia one so that I can control winamp when I am in games. :) here is some info on it https://www.microsoft.com/hardware/keyboard...rd/mmk_info.asp
Mouse: Most of the optical mice out there are good, my friend loves the Microsoft one because he says it don't feel fragile. I say goto a store where they have mice on display (not the pet store kind) and mess around with them for a few minutes and get a feeling for the one that you might like. The mouse that I would like to try for a few days is the Logitech MX500 High Performance Optical Mouse. Its $80 Canaidan. It has 7 buttons 8 if you include the scroll wheel. :D
Network Card: Not sure if you need a netowrk card or not because you have high speed net connection already and most likely got a NIC when you got your net connection, so if you did ignore then, if you didn't read on. The motherboard you pick might come with a NIC built on, but I would like to suggest a 3-COM 10/100 905C Network Card $59 Canadian. This card has been around a long time basically because its a kick butt card. But you can pick up an Acer 10/100 PCI Ethernet Card $19 Canadian.
Thats all I can think of for the moment.
GRITS takes the Big Leap - Gwarsbane - 08-06-2003
Oh ya and I suggest getting a Volcano 9 heatsink and fan. It will be much better then the heat sink and fan that comes with the chip.
I'm pretty sure that the volcano 9 will fit on a Pent 4 chip.
GRITS takes the Big Leap - g-boy - 08-06-2003
I should get up to date on the exchange rate, that all looks very expensive compared to what I've found.
GRITS takes the Big Leap - Gwarsbane - 08-06-2003
The total for all that up there is $1330 Canadian. That don't include the price of the motherboard.
1,330.00 CAD Canada Dollars = 946.953 USD United States Dollars
I got this conversion price off of http://www.xe.com/ucc Its one of the more accurate currency exchange places around.
GRITS takes the Big Leap - kermit - 08-06-2003
i'm building my own computer too...but i haven't ordered the parts yet, but i'm getting ready to do so. i do think the comparable pentium4's would win a benchmark contest against the athlons considering their 800FBS and hyper-threading architecture. laughably, you can buy a p4 2.8 for almost half the price of an athlon xp 3200 and it would perform as well or better at modern gaming than the amd.
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030513/index.html
GRITS takes the Big Leap - GRITS - 08-06-2003
Thanks GB guess we can figure out what you want for Christmas:blsh: I will keep this handy...right now working just on the motherboard purchase and I am not real sure if PIX is volunteering or razzin me
Anyone want to give me just a little clue on the motherboard they prefer? this is like the most important part....I have two in mind but I was looking for some other options:huh:
GRITS takes the Big Leap - Guest - 08-06-2003
I think you should call in a brit specialist ... fly him over with a luxury stay in your big and lovely home... before setting him to work for 3 months on your machine ;-)
GRITS takes the Big Leap - Gwarsbane - 08-06-2003
I my friend suggesteda board MSI 6728. Problem is there is 4 versions of the board and he don't know which is which.
This is what he said...
Quote:MSI 6728 - Newest D400 Chipset runs DDR400 Ram, and has an 8x AGP Bus ... Seems to be the best bang for the buck on a P4 board, $160 Canadian
Here are the 4 that are on the MSI page. I'll look into them more and see which ones are close to the price he suggested.
865PE Neo2-FIS2R
865PE Neo2-S
865PE Neo2-LS
865G Neo2-LS
GRITS takes the Big Leap - _Acid_Head_ - 08-07-2003
AMDs overheat and wear out too fast, Pentium is and has always been superior, at least in my experience with both processor types (I've had three AMDs and three Pentiums).
GRITS takes the Big Leap - Gwarsbane - 08-07-2003
All the newer processors run hot and as long as you have the proper cooling on them they should not be a problem.
This is why I suggest the volcano 9 heatsink and fan. Most of the newer systems should also use thermal gel too, it helps cool everything down more.
In my personal experience thou, I have seen at least 5 intel chips roast where I have only seen 2 AMD chips of the same speed do the same. All of them had good heatsinks and fans on them.
I clean out my computer 2 or 3 times a year. I put the vacume on reverse (plugging those hose into the exaust area) and then take it and my system outside and blow off all the dust and dirt that has built up. Works great. I have been running AMDs for the past 6 or 7 years, ever since I got my first 486 DX-2 66 system. I have never had any problems with the chips.
I'm currently running a AMD XP1800 which runs at 1.53 ghz. its working great.
GRITS takes the Big Leap - sage_4 - 08-07-2003
_Acid_Head_,Aug 6 2003, 09:10 PM Wrote:AMDs overheat and wear out too fast.uh, i find this to be completely untrue. amd's do run hotter, but they are made to handle highertemperatures. i would never think of over clocking a pentium ever because they are great at their speeds, but overheat way easily at anything else. i have a 2100 that runs at 22 degrees celsius. i once overclocked it to a 2700 and it only went to 50 degrees, which is well within the safety zone (which is around 70 degrees celsius for the xp athlons). that's pretty tough. i'd like to see a 1.8 ghz p4 go to 2.4 ghz with nothing but air cooling and not die.
the generaly rule i go by is this: Pentiums are always a faster, but AMD's still give you more bang for your buck, and can still compete. if your not a performance perfectionist, i would save some dough and go for an amd. plus, you get a wider selection of motherboards with more options.
unless you just have a defunct processor, ive never heard of one just wearing out. motherboards wear out, not cpu's. i have a 12 year old 50mhz laptop that i still use for word processing sometimes. runs like a dream.
that is my 2 cents. there are way too many nerds for us to all help out:P.
GRITS takes the Big Leap - GRITS - 08-07-2003
Ok check this out "I have the processor already" done deal :wacko:
I need input on a motherboard
GRITS takes the Big Leap - WidowMaker - 08-07-2003
GRITS,
The thing with geeks is that they always argue about what is best.
Like the Pentium / AMD argument, which to be honest is quite subdued compared to some of the arguments i've seen !
Can't help with the choice of motherboard tho, i'm an AMD fanboy:D
( oh, and the latest AMD chips heat output is barely more than the Pentium 4. And Intels latest Prescott chip (Pentium 5) is the hottest one of all
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10862 ):thumb::thumb:
GRITS takes the Big Leap - GRITS - 08-07-2003
ok ok lets try this
I will give you my "options" and we can run a poll on which one you think I should get:D
I am using the Ikon tech website...you are welcome to make suggestions on website too...I have a month until I am ready to purchase motherboard so I have time to investigate
Asus
intel
1Bit
GRITS takes the Big Leap - PIX - 08-07-2003
Ok....motherboards....the spinal cord of the PC. Everyone likes to preach processor/video card. Well....pfft. If you don't have a mobo with balls...then it means nothing. Five years ago...the best used to be from a company called SuperMicro. They have narrowed the line down to server boards so we won't go there for this venture. That's project 2. Asus made a good board and still does...but they specialize in integrated boards....the 'all in 1' stuff. So my 2 cents comes to this board by a company called DFI. It has every thing you need to push that 800 FSB chip you ordered yesterday. My Choice This package comes with everything you need. The ONLY thing i DON'T like is it does have the integrated Audio which you said you don't want. However, I showed you how to turn that off in the BIOS so you can use the sound card you want to use. It also comes with the round IDE cables for better airflow inside the case AND FrontX cables to allow front ports for your case. I wasn't gonna post here because I hate a pissing contest between PC users.
GRITS takes the Big Leap - Gwarsbane - 08-07-2003
We know that you already have the chip and thats intel, but the AMD vs Intel is an old argument. AMD used to be crap, I admit that, they did have problems, but then the DX-2 66 series came along and everything was basically smooth sailing. Both chips are good, both chips will run what ever you want.
The ASUS board looks very good and its a well known name. It has lot of PCI ports, lots of USB, you can put 400mhz ram into it (so I would suggest a at least a gig and no less then 512 specially if you are running windows XP)
It has a lan connection built in (helps keep a PCI slot free)
You will also be able to upgrade the chip for it too once you find the 2.6 ghz gets too slow for you ;)
The ASUS board might be the most expensive, but I feel it would be the best bang for the buck.
The intel board while I bet would work great with an intel chip don't look as good to me as the ASUS board. Its also about 50 bucks cheaper but with that cheaper price you are loosing things.
I have no comment on the 1bit board as I have never heard of it before. I don't like the page for it, its not as detailed as the ASUS one is.
So the short of it is, I vote for the ASUS Pentium-4, i875P chipset,Dual DDR, P4C800, FIREW, SATA
GRITS takes the Big Leap - evil_admin - 08-07-2003
I noticed on the motherboard that PIX recommended that it has two USB Lan ports. Are these the same as Ethernet ports? Would I want to connect my cable to a USB Lan port?
GRITS takes the Big Leap - PIX - 08-07-2003
The integrated network adapter is a Gigabit type but it supports 10/100 also.
Onboard CSA GIGABIT LAN
- Uses 82547EI Gigabit LAN CSA interface
- Integrated power management functions
- Full duplex support at both 10, 100 and 1000 Mbps
- Supports IEEE 802.3u auto-negotiation
- Supports wire for management
The USB ports are standard 2.0 so they don't necessarily have to be tied in to ethernet functionality.
GRITS takes the Big Leap - GRITS - 08-07-2003
Ok so it is integrated/internal ethernet connection I looked up the 82547EI Gigabit LAN CSA interface
omg do I need that?
I like it and I like the Asus best too GB...let me know what you guys think
ok so new three I am looking at
MSI
DFI
Asus
cool now we are talking motherboards this is going well :D
thanks guys you can argue until your hearts content now
Pentium vs AMD discuss :P
GRITS takes the Big Leap - kermit - 08-07-2003
grits, it's not "1bit", it's "Abit" and they make very good motherboards from what i hear (they rival asus in perfromance).
GRITS takes the Big Leap - _Acid_Head_ - 08-07-2003
Go for the ASUS motherboard.
GRITS takes the Big Leap - kermit - 08-07-2003
i agree w/ acid...that's the board i'm going to get for my new machine:)
GRITS takes the Big Leap - Quickening - 08-07-2003
Rather than botherin with all that..I'm just goin to get myslef a alienware..but hope you have fun with this Grits and it actually works..my friend just did this..its a badass comp..but about 5 mins after he has started it up it freezes..so his brand new home built comp doesn't work..but I doubt that will happen to ya..
GRITS takes the Big Leap - PIX - 08-07-2003
The key is she doesn't NEED a new PC. She wants to build one to LEARN how they tick. Depending on
if you don't ESD the PC boards or the pins, the majority of custom built boxes do in fact work and work
well. I personally don't want goobers like the DELL interns on TV touching something that I want to purchase.
So...onward....more mobo stuff.
GRITS takes the Big Leap - sage_4 - 08-07-2003
.asm,Aug 7 2003, 12:52 PM Wrote:grits, it's not "1bit", it's "Abit" and they make very good motherboards from what i hear (they rival asus in perfromance).i had an abit freak out on me and destroy all the hardware that was on it. granted it was a fluke thing, but now i have an asus and am very happy with its performance.
GRITS takes the Big Leap - GRITS - 08-15-2003
processor and box are in....I set them up on a card table in the library...for those of you who didnt want to check out the link this is a picture of the box....ooooh ahhhhh it is so cool looking
GRITS takes the Big Leap - [CAKE]anonymity - 08-15-2003
i love the case, i've got a crappier version of that, mine only has a small light at the front, and the window on the side to see in, isn't a window, i took the side out of the case for cooling purposes.