Building a computer.

T

Tibido

New Member
Ok so iam selling my old comp and going without until i build my own.  I want the best computer i can get and i dont want to spend 3000.00 on it.  Iam looking for advice on parts.  You have brand name parts whether it be a motherboard, proccesor, cases, etc that you stand by, Let me know.  I looking to build a computer for under $1700.00  hopefully one that dell would sell for 3 thousand.  Does anyone have a better site to buy parts then tigerdirect.com?  Do you have any advice, do's and don'ts.  thoughts on the subject.  express them to me, iam listening.  Even if your opinion is just "buy one from dell you will be better off", because it cost the same or something, i want to hear from you guys.  Iam looking to go intel on the processor and motherboard because i trust the name.  Unless you guys Know better and let me know.  So ill be reading replys after sunday when i dont have a comp from my wifes comp and ordering parts from the same computer.  So if you want to help me out trying to peice together a sweet comp in a budget of seventeen hundred, start posting.  Can i make a good computer for $1,700.00
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specs i want to get close to
250gb harddrive
1Gb ram,   is ddr2 worth springing for? what brand?
3.4 intel 4 is what ill probly get for processor
I look forward to hearing from all of you



p.s.   iam fairly excited by all of this, i feel like a surgeon when i do things to my computer.  
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Check out some benchmarks on ddr2, also you can save quite a bit of money by going down just one notch from the bleeding edge, thats how I've always seen it. 250gb hard disks are fairly cheap these days though, you might want to go Serial ATA with that hard disk if you want real speed. Have you thought about getting a processor with 64bit support?

Heres the best piece of advice you can get:

Don't get excited about getting a new computer and buy stuff hastily, instead just take your sweet time. The more thought you give to it, the less chance you'll be disappointed with your choice.
 
The MB- http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_....p4c800e
It's a good one has 800mhz FSB
Sata Hard drive capable.
zipzoomfly.com is the best place I've found to order from. They have 2nd day shipping- freeeeee.
http://www.pricegrabber.com or http://www.pricewatch.com are two good comparison shopping places.
Use Corsair memory. fast stuff. Use pricegrabber to check out prices. don't forget to add the shipping if it's not listed and also watch out for backordered items.
Do buy a high quality case with an Antec 550 watt True power supply (or buy seperately), you'll need it for your 8xAGP video card. Trust me on this one. 350 watts isn't enough especially if your planning on running a Radeon 9800XT or faster. They are power hungry and produce extreme graphics.
Choose a SATA Hard drive if you can find one large enough for your needs. Mine is WD 74G but it has 5.2ms access time.
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 - surround sound - wooot
If you buy a MB and processor together it would be safer. You crack a cpu and it's yours.
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchan....ode=COM
Check out the intel combos. you can choose different mb and cpu and memory combos and price. I ordered one from here once and got the 3 year warranty. they have the newest bios and they do a pretest before you get it.
CS.
 
Do not use peanut butter as thermal grease.

Do not open your PSU and stick your hand in it.

Do not try and use your pci slots to make waffles in.

Do not stick your computer in that little thingy. (Any little thingy.)
 
Yeah I would say always stay one step back. DOnt worry about ddr2 because ddr is fine as it is and dont aorry wbout pci x ans AGP or even PCI is good enough. Definitly go for DDR and AGP though and dont mess with anything thats 64 bit because that will just get everything all confused. And for a card I would reccomend whichever Nvidia GeForce FX you can afford, they are all very awsome.
 
Here's my suggestions.
1. Get an AMD Athlon 64. When the switch to 64 bit comes, you'll be glad you've got it.
2. SATA hard drives are REALLY fast.
3. Don't get a VIA chipset. I recommend the new one from nVidia.
4. Don't go all out on the case. Buy something cheap. Won't look great, but you'll save quite a bit.
5. Traditionally I steal parts from my old comp. Usually I don't intend to buy a new DVD-ROM, sound card or floppy drive. So I just use the old ones.
6. Look for packaged deals. For example, when I was building my current system, I was originally going to get Creative's Audigy 2 ZS Platinum. However the MB I bought had on board 7.1 and a load of sound features. So while I spent more on the MB than I intended to, I didn't need to buy the $200 sound card that I thought I would.
7. Prioritize. What's most important to you. Do you really want to spend $200 on a top of the line sound card? Is $150 too much for a video card? Keep in mind where you are now, what you can spend, how long you plan to go until your next major comp. overhaul, and what upgrades can wait (i.e. buying that sound card if you can deal with MB integrated sound for a while).
8. (and the most important piece I can give) RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH! The last thing you need is to buy parts that are great, but don't work well together. Find out what RAM works well and has been tested with your MB. Make sure the CPU you're buying is the same socket as the one on your MB. Research what kind of connections are on the sound card so you know if it'll work with the speaker system you've got. The more you know, the better to comp will be and run.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ([toj.cc]hescominsoon @ Oct. 08 2004,8:47)]no byblos pci for gaming is not good enough. grpahics saturate the pci bus due to pci having limited bandwidth that is shared with all pci devices. AGP at hte minimum..pci-e is not that important...
Click to expand...
Is not geed enough? Who are you kidding I am using PCI and its excellent. I reccomended that he uses AGP but if he can save a good emount of money or get a bargain then its not really that bad of an Idea. My PCI can handle anything, sure AGP is better but it isnt mandatory like you make it out to be.
 
try running UT2k4 then Wc3, then some cs server, and CS source. you dont really knowtice it till the BUS gets full and you start getting lag because you have about 2-4 other devices in the PCI slots, while AGP was designed almost soley for the Vedio card.
 
Well yeah thats true loj. But you can just reboot to clean it up. Trying to explain why AGP is better isnt going to change how much better it is. I know what the difference is between AGP and PCI and I know AGP is better.... but PCI is still fine.
 
Let me make a small suggestion.

Do NOT underestimate the little mom and pop shop down the road.

These small computer places are often goldmines for prices and high quality. If you have any of these places around you, go check them out, you might be pleasantly suprised.

A friend of mine in the IT field has nothing but good things to say about newegg.com, so if you're going to go that route, look them up.
 
PCI is fine if you don't have an AGP slot! If you have both slots, definitely go with an AGP card. You're talking about data throughput and speed. AGP 4X is 4 times faster than PCI. AGP 2X is 2 times faster than PCI.

PCI Express will eventually replace AGP, but you'll need a mobo that supports PCI-E...
 
Yeha Elite is 100% Correct! But if your like me and you can get a bargain for a PCI PC then I would go for it. My Whole system costed me only 900$ and the only thing wrong with it is no AGP, boo hoo! And thats only because I bought it 2 years ago
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exo-slayer has a really nice CPU for 900, and he has AGP :P lol


Exo i am going to come borrow your system next time i am down
 
If i had $1700 this is what i would buy and build in my tastes.
1.  case $100 with power supply and sata power adapters and fans http://www.xoxide.com/xopacl1.html
2.  MB $140 http://www.newegg.com/app....&depa=0
3.  RAM $135 http://www.newegg.com/app....&depa=1
4.  HD  $182 and $150http://www.newegg.com/app....&depa=1 and http://www.newegg.com/app....&depa=1
5.  optical drives $44 and $75 http://www.newegg.com/app....&DEPA=1
6.  graphics $220 http://www.newegg.com/app....&depa=1
7.  CPU  $290 http://www.newegg.com/app....&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app....&DEPA=1
8.  Then windows XP home edition for $200
9.  And if you want microsoft office 2003 or something, for like $130-180.

there, thats what i would build, comes to about $1350, then calculate shipping and tax, should be about $1450 max without OS or extra software.  Again, thats what i would personally build.

Talon
 
Pretty good Specs Talon but just a few things to keep in mind.
That ram, I bought a stick of the Value Select 512mb DDR1 and within a year it went bad, keep in mind I was running it at the timmings they claim it should have been. They did take it back without any problems but the RMA took about a week.

Personally I think your better off buying 2 sticks of Value Select 3200 DDR for around $80 a piece and running it duel mode.
Also the ram you have listed there has a CAS latency of 4 (higher is bad) the 3200 I have is 2.5 for almost half the price.

Also on the video card that is a bit expensive for what you're getting , I personally would go for either a 6800 or 6800 GT for $50ish more, but that is really just personal prefrence.

The hard drives you have listed there are nice but how are you going to set that up? I know the 10,000 RPM is pretty nice but I think its overrated you lose maybe .50ms in seek time with the faster drive for much more expense.

You may be better off just getting two 7200 RPM Drives and raiding them together.

The motherboard you picked has onboard video that is generally bad if you're going to use another card, In the end it usualy just causes more problems having to disable it and hope it works. Also I personally prefer ASUS motherboard just cause I know them and their bios but they are all pretty similar.

The case as was stated above is just a case, used simply to hold your PC, you can buy a nice fancy one but in the end it's just a lunchbox its the lunch that matters. What you do want to make sure is if it has good air way, the fans are quiet yet effective (I count six on that beast, on mine with five its pretty loud) and that your components will fit.

Thats about all I can think of good luck Tibido.
 
and its defintly not worth the price diffrence for extreame edition, i couldnt bring myself to bear to pay $1000 for a cpu with an level 3 cache of 2mbs, not worth it.  The set of websites i posted were just to get an idea, if i was serously going to buy the parts i would have spent more time researching, sorry, guess i kinda didnt mention that.  That was more of just an estimate of prices and performance wise comparison i guess, lol.
 
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