OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

If you were going to build a new PC what components would you choose?

What KIND of the following would you use?:
Example: CPU - Intel 2.3 Bad Boy or AMD Xp9000 Uber?


CPU what type and manufacture
Memmory what type and how much?
Mother Board what type and manufacture
Video Card
Hard Drive
CASE & Power supply wattage
DVD/CD
DVDRW/CDRW
COOLING
Sound Card
Floppy
etc.

And Why did you choose the components you chose or the case you chose?

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

That looks like a good list, though I would add a second Hard Drive for obvious safety/segregation reasons. (Or are they not "obvious"...)

In-as-far-as choosing: I go with what I know, or what other people are recommending or having success with. I build my own machines and hand-pick the components. I chose the case on the basis of looks (why build a spanky-new blazing-fast machine if you can't show it off?) and the capacity for expansion. Also, having plenty of space in the machine for circulation is important. Spend some extra dollars on upgraded IDE cables for that reason (the slim, round ones) and zip-tie all your extra, dangling power-supply cables up out of the way too.

[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Dagger.gif[/img]Turin[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon42.gif[/img]

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

High end

FX 53
NForce 3pro chipset
1 gig of ram (reg DDR400)
Pair of Raptor drives in a stripe set.
Large SATA single drive for storage
Best ATI card that I can buy for 300 bucks. (Costs too much to stay on the top edge)

Or Mid range

Pentium M
Asus board
1gig DDR 266
Single SATA drive
Best Vid card for less than $200

Or Low range

Fastest AMD chip that $125 will buy
Nforce 2 chipset W/onboard Vid.
512megs of DDr that matches the CPUfront side buss.
Single SATA drive

If I had another grand to dump, I'd put a SCSI UW320 raid 5/3 in the top end system.

The rest of the stuff is just what ever turns the user on. If you don't hot rod it, then 350 watts will do you just fine and a $25 case with $10 worth of fans will cool as well as a $400 one. Sound, I can't hear very well anymore, so no opinion. All of my stuff is onboard or none at all. I tend to use what ever CD reader matches the case color and is on sale. Burners are usually ASUS. Plextor is nice but costs a lot.

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

If you had virtually unlimited funds available.....

I'm not that much knowing about the bowels of computers, but I do know I would place the "best" comps in them - like, say, a set of several directly linked CPUs with as many Gigahertzes as is currently available on the market for something smaller than the average US defense budget, if possible several gigs of memory, highest-end video card etc. etc. etc.

Oh and let's not forget the most important thing:

Make it look and work EXACTLY like a Star Trek bridge console. I mean, what's the fun of playing SFC with a mouse and keyboard if you can play it on a bridge tactical console?

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

I'd make it out of Legos. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

Did this just turn into a wishlist? I thought AT was sort of asking for advice....

[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Dagger.gif[/img]Turin

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

It would depend on how much I have to spent

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

At least 1 GB of ram, most probably 2x512 mb. For Graphics, a Geforce 6600 GT. Im using one and it works pretty fking nice, i was even able to tune it up by 20% !
HD -> 160 GB, Seagate Baracuda.

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

http://usa.asus.com/index.htm

Check these goodies out if you have bucks to burn

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

Limit your funds to say $500.00

I want to build a nice Intel P4 system, 3.0ghz but I don't know what type of CPU to get other than I know that I do not want a celeron. What type of memory to buy for the cpu type and why. What is the best motherboard to get for a P4 3.0 ghz CPU and the memory that best works with that CPU.

I want to rebuild my blue box, and that does mean getting a new case. I want a case that is 450 watts, and has superb cooling.

I already have the HD and the drives that I am going to use along with the Sound Card.

I also was wondering... my old PII 400 died and I recently picked up a working P2 400 HP... and I want to put my old HD into the working p2 but I cannot find my 98 disk. So I guess I will have to swap out Power supplies to see if that was what killed the old P2. I don't know... I should just take all of the old parts and put them into the blue box and toss the old tower. Then keep the new p2 and use it as a server or something..... Choices.

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

My suggestion is to use a Athlon XP cpu, no Pentium. The one Gig ram i mentioned costs about 100 €, which is about 120 US if im right. HD costs about 140 US...oh well...500 bucks isnt that much..

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

Why do you need the CD to put your old drive in?

Wouldn't you already have at least one HD with the OS on it?

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

$500 will get you this. Reliable name brand board, gig of ram, reuse your disk readers/burners-case-PSU-. New PSU, add $30. Very mid level, but good foundation and decent 8X vid card. Add 2 new case fans to make it $500.



Qty Product Description Unit Price Extended Price
Hard Drives

Hitachi 80GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model HDS728080PLA380, OEM Drive Only
Item# N82E16822145082
Status: In Stock

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$63.00

$63.00

Memory (System Memory)

BUFFALO B-Line 184-Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200, Model MS4002-512MB - OEM
Item# N82E16820150619
Status: In Stock

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$39.49

$78.98

Motherboards - Intel

ASUS "P4P800 SE" i865PE Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU -RETAIL
Item# N82E16813131484
Status: In Stock

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$97.00

$97.00

**This item is warranted through the product manufacturer only. what's this?
Processors

One Day Sale, Ends 4/5/2005 5:30 PM PST
Intel Pentium 4/ 3.0E GHz 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache, Hyper Threading Technology - Retail
Item# N82E16819116171
Status: In Stock

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$180.99

$180.99

**This item is warranted through the product manufacturer only. what's this?
Video Cards

Sapphire ATI RADEON 9250 Video Card, 256MB DDR, 64-Bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "579" -OEM
Item# N82E16814102392
Status: In Stock

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$59.00

$59.00

Product total: $478.97

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

Not bad Thermodyne. That Radeon 9250 though, they didn't have anything better? The 9250's rather old. Then again.. video cards are a helluva racket..

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

Nothing better in that budget range, unless you catch a promo. IMHO, the vid card is easy to update, so is a place to cut cost on an initial build. Also, he could get a comparable NVIDIA card if he prefers that flavor. I put most of the money in the CPU and Main board, as they are the parts that tend to stay in service the longest. One of the biggest mistakes many people make is skimping on the main board. They save $50, but end up with an unstable system. If I was going to push it a little higher, then I’d add another SATA drive and set the pair up as a stripe set. That would give him a noticeable increase in performance. The Vid card only comes into play with a few high end games, and certainly is not needed for SE. If he has concerns about rendering, then we need to have a talk about Vid cards that would break his budget twice over all by themselves.

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

I'd like to put my computer inside a refrigerator. Think of how fast I can overclock it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

The fridge can’t deal with the amount of heat that an OC’s pc puts out. Outside in the dead of winter works, just keep the hard drive warm. Liquid polypropylene pre chilled to around 0c works, and is cheap. Fan and dryer duct to winter air works too. But NO2 is the Boss http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20031230/index.html Some real serious OCing going on with these guys. My personal best is 2.9GHz out of a 2GHz Northwood chip air cooled with a Swifty. Just couldn’t get it stable at 3.0 for the coveted 50% OC/air.

I havn’t done any Oc’ing since the Fall of 03, I’m still using the system I built then. But this old box put some serious numbers up for back then. It’s cooled with the stock cooler that AMD shipped with the sample CPU. Couldn’t get anything else back then. All I did was over volt the fan.

http://groups.msn.com/ThermodynesPlace/fx51244ghz.msnw

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

Here’s a good demonstration of what a stripe set of Raptors will do for performance. Look at the storage performance number in the lower right.

http://groups.msn.com/ThermodynesPla...amp;PhotoID=28

Now that XP64 is final, I might have to move my stuff off of this box and see how it does on 64 bit. Perhaps even invest in some water cooling http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

Liquid cooling, hilarious (yet interesting) Thermodyne... I triple-dog dare you to lick the computer case. LOL

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

(A)Remove the case

(B) bend a sheete of acrylic down over it, then out across the desk for a few inches, then back up to an inch higher than the case wo that its a large blocky W shape

(C) Seal front and back of both "wings" of the W

(D) provide water, fish, and air pump

You have just created a symbiotic environment in which the computer provides heat to the fish tank, the fish tank provides cooling to the computer, and you get to see the internal workings of the computer running "inside" a fish tank.

I would make suggestions on topic with the subject but I usually just trust my local Mom & Pop computer shop to give me good desktops. I only have opinions when Im building servers (which are much simpler)

Gandalf Parker
-- WANTED: A trustworthy "wish I had ideas" project finisher to partner
in a profit sharing relationship with an excellent "got too many ideas"
project starter.

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

Well, for those with tastes for servers, we have http://home.comcast.net/~jkelly21/ws...ue-skip-0.html

It’s a homebuilt 1U with a pair of 73gig scsi mirrors. And runs SBS 2003.

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

When it comes to case cooling, how best to achieve this?

A fan front and rear, the front sucks in air, the back blows it out.
Or
Two side fans, one on the right one on the left, the left blows out while the right sucks in.

In most cases this would require some machining of the sides to fit the fans....no problem I have small machine shop with a machinest, my dad, at hand for such things.

I am going to rebuild the blue box.... Actually replace it.

New case - one set up for max cooling.
New MB - replace the msi one
New AMD XP series cpu ... cost
New SATA HD - I think the old on is toast.

This machine will be Win2k or XP if I can aford to buy XP Pro.

I would be happy to sell the old MB and 1.4 ghz CPU, but what I am thinking is using them in the blue tower and puting all of my old P2 400 stuff in it. (I would have to find a windows 98 disk as mine has been stolen or lost.)

This will leave me with spare parts for the P2 400 I just picked up. I would then have four computers....

I buy a Nvida 5700 ultra - Geforce FX card and put in the new machine and keep the Geforce 3 card in the blue box.

Should work..... right?

All I need to know now is what is the best AMD XP cpu and what Mother board and memorie works best with it.... to avoid the head ace I had with the blue box and that damn MSI mother board.

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

I have an Athlon XP and a Sempron running on ECS (ie cheapo) mobos. Gotta love them mobo/cpu combos at Fry's. Neither one is unstable, so either ECS is better than people think or I have insane luck--I'm the guy who gets month-plus uptimes out of Win98SE, after all.

Then again, I don't overclock.

Re: OT: If You Were Going To Build A New PC
 

The case should be certified for the layout of the mainboard so that air flow and fan location supplies cool air to the processor. Also, you should have a little positive pressure in the case. Usually done by pulling air in the front with larger/more fans than are used to pull hot air out the back. This keeps the disk readers clean. Also, modern hard drives need to be directly in the intake air stream to cool properly. I recommend putting them in a drive rack that is vented or better yet, has its own fan.

If you OC the system, disregard all above. Do anything you can to get room air onto the board. Put fans and heat sinks on everything.

PS: Check the slot key on the GF3, it might not fit the AGP slot on older MB's AGP slot type must match the card.