building my own computer

Miscellaneous Topics
#21

I’m too poor for 512 MB. In fact I could discover some necessary repairs in my home, so MB update would change just to monitor update.

I listened that Athlons sometimes worked wrongly with low quality memory. I would be interested in a heat output comparisson as well. (Still remember how my current Celeron runned few months without cooler.)

I have over 70 CD with anime around. I’m looking forward to create hardened DVDs. (I live in remote location, and some people are overprotective. Then again nice backups…)

#22

[quote]If you keep your PC for at least 3 years, then at the end of 3 years it will probably not be sensibly upgradeable anyway. A processor upgrade will likely require a new motherboard and some new type of memory, maybe a new power supply. The hard disk capacity you already have will trivial along side a bottom of the range new drive.
[/quote]
My plan was to find the best stuff that was compatible with my current motherboard and upgrade to that when it was dirt cheap in the hope I could stretch another year or so out of the PC. It transpires that the company who built the PC used a very old motherboard and my processor was the fastest it could work with. Lame.

#23

My approach is different. I don’t have a lot of money to spend, so I’ve always been buying gear on a budget. My aim isn’t to get the newest hottest stuff that came out of the market, I simply can’t afford it. Instead, I mostly look for stuff that is 3-6 months old. That way, it’s neither so old it’s obsolete, but also cheap enough to afford.

My suggestions on parts:

  1. if you are going budget cpu, get an AMD chip. Don’t bother wasting your money on intel. The Celerons are absolutely the most worthless chips on the market. So not worth it. You can get a pretty nice chip for less then $100. Granted, it’s not gonna win any medals, but it’ll get the job done. I still work on my Athlon 1.4 Ghz, it’s chugging out a-ok.

  2. Don’t skimp out on ram. Get the most ram you can afford. at the minimum, 512. More is better. Faster is always better too, but I don’t notice. I got pc2100, and I’ve been meaning to upgrade, but I’ve been lazy cause I feel there is no real need as of now. :slight_smile:

  3. If you are looking for HD space, check the dollar/gig amount. (Only talking about IDE) I do all my shopping at newegg, and the cheapest I saw around 6-8 months ago were the 160 gig HD’s. Samsung, Hitachi, Maxtor, WD all were around the same price, so whatever is your preference. A quick search on newegg shows The WD HD for about almost 50 cents per gig.

  4. Save money by getting a smaller SATA drive. I mostly use the SATA HD for apps, and the IDE drive for my ‘files.’ You could use that money saved to get a raid card and a second IDE drive to get your geek on. :slight_smile:

  5. I used to play a lot of games, but not any as of lately (still meaning to get me a copy of KOTOR), so (to me) a video card is a video card is a video card. I usually get the card that cost me $150 today, or 6 months from now.
    :stuck_out_tongue: A video card that costs me $150 today could still run EQ fine. But then again, I also play EQ with my on-board mobo video…

So save your money. You will always be upgrading in the future anyway, it’s not that big a deal to get the newest stuff. :smiley:

As for myself, the next computer I’m getting is a G5. :wink:

Or a powerbook, I haven’t decided yet.

#24

[quote]As for myself, the next computer I’m getting is a G5. :wink:

Or a powerbook, I haven’t decided yet.
[/quote]
If you don’t have a laptop, the Powerbook is one sweet machine. I have an older 1 GHz G4 Powerbook… the newer ones are even better with built-in Bluetooth, Firewire 800, USB 2, etc… Mine is only Firewire 400, USB 1, no bluetooth…

My next desktop will be a G5 or whatever Mac machine is available at the time too. Since getting the powerbook I have decided I will never spend a cent on Wintel crap - you get what you pay for… I haven’t bought a computer, other than the Powerbook since I got my Amiga 3000 over 10 years ago. I get a PC for home supplied by my employer… (so I can “work” from home when I need to). Technically it is theirs, but I can occasionally trade up.

#25

Howdy,

Here is my criteria for buying computers. I have purchased two new ones in the past two years. Before that, it had been over 4 years since any major PC purchases.

Here are the rules I now abide by:

  1. DVD doesn’t belong on computers…yet. Unless you are burning them, and you know you will be using dvds a lot on your pc, skip it. Eventually, games will sell predominantly on DVD, but that is still a ways off.

  2. CDRW for your media drive.

  3. Unless you are playing games, or creating computer animation, use the onboard video.

  4. Unless you are an audiophile, use the onboard sound. The fact is, if you don’t have a $500 speaker set, that 150 dollar sound card is 150 dollars of junk. I use headphones and onboard sound…works just fine.

  5. Get the best video card you can afford.

  6. Get the fastest processor (usually this means AMD) you can afford.

  7. Get as much memory as you can afford.

  8. Skip the floppy. Save 20 bucks.

  9. One hard drive is enough. 100 gig is enough.

  10. Optical mouse is nice.

  11. Anything else, install it later. See how you like the system as it is.

That’s it. I do have a dvd player in mine, but that was a mistake. I watch dvds on TV with a dedicated dvd player.

Ignore all of the above if you really want cutting edge. But if you want a computer that will play well most games for the next three years, the above will do.

The second PC i bought wasa “wife wants to surf” and I got her a $300 out of the box celeron. She plays super collapse and Risk II on it. I tried installing Call of Duty, and it crashed. Go figure.

But my pc is an amd 1.5, 512 ram, Nvidia 4200 128mb agp and I can cruise the highest detail settings on CoD without a hitch. I bought it 1.5 years ago, and it still runs the fastest settings on the latest games.

Installed netbeans tho, and it turned into a piece 'o junk…

I need another 512mb memory obviously.

#26

http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1084398037.html

[quote]Video Array is an accelerated graphics processing subsystem that will allow users to add multiple, off-the-shelf video cards to their Alienware computer systems and have both cards process graphic commands in parallel…
Alienware is currently saying that they expect users to see a ~50% performance boost over single card implementations
[/quote]
Awww yeah! Note that the Video Array uses PCI Express cards. ::slight_smile:

#27

Now I have arrived into choosing my processor.
I have these on mind.
2.4 GHz Prescott 1MB L2 cache 533 (4x133)
2500 Barton 333 (2x166)
2.5 GHz Prescott - 256 533 (4x133)

Board manufacturer would be Asus. Chipset would be preffered intel xxxPE, or NForce2.
Problem with Barton is no SSE2 instructions, also it seems that avilable boards doesn’t have crash free 2 bios.
Problems with Intel processors could be obvious.

How well would Athlon board work with FX 5500?

#28

thanks for the advice guys