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Hey people, to put it bluntly my computer is getting old and is plain annoying, could be that the Hard drive is getting old. Anyhow, i recently built a list of new computer specs, which i plan to buy online and build it myself, and have a cpu that will stay modern for the next year or whatever. Except when trying to buy it, it proved to be hell, and i wasn't sure whther it would all work together, like the no. of pins on the processor and stuff. I was hoping someone could give me some directions on the hardware that would function properly together, and my problem would be solved. Im looking to spend £1200 maximum, cause the list i compiled with an AMD Athlon 3000, with 512 ram, Geforce 4 ti, 80 gig hard drive etc cost around £1150. So any suggestions on how to go about ordering this lot seperatly? I live in Buckinghamshire, England, so if theres any nice shops around i can buy from, it would be cool (I've heard of little bush, got my prices from there!)
Anyhow, any help would be great!
Anyhow, any help would be great!
The nForce2 chipset is good, although I'm not really maximising it's potential. However, it's not possible to use an AGP graphics card with one TV out socket and dual displays at the same time, unless you disable it and use the onboard GeForce4 MX.
It isnt 2 sound "cards" it is 1 sound "card" and 1 sound device on board, most motherboards now come with sound on board, just means it need disabling, the nforce 2 chipset is a good chipset, i would go for an nvidia card instead of a ATI card as the chipset is made by nvidia (not that it would make much differance) and before you ask the Geforce 4 cards are great and there dual monitor capabilies are very good to along with a good tv out quality (as long as it does not have the Phillips tv chip that gainward tend to have).
c.b.
c.b.
Miserableman wrote:
> Miserableman wrote:
> Whoever is building that PC has failed to notice the laughably
> obvious
> fact that it has two graphics cards.
>
> *sound cards*
Oops! ignore last post, only just read this one... Again, this was my choice, but switching it for a decent Midi Controller instead
> Miserableman wrote:
> Whoever is building that PC has failed to notice the laughably
> obvious
> fact that it has two graphics cards.
>
> *sound cards*
Oops! ignore last post, only just read this one... Again, this was my choice, but switching it for a decent Midi Controller instead
Miserableman wrote:
> Tyla -you are getting absolutely had. Whoever is building that PC has
> failed to notice the laughably obvious fact that it has two graphics
> cards. Not only that, but two extremely decent and expensive ones as
> well. Stick to the onboard sound, it is at least as good as the Audigy
> 2.
The secondary Sound card was my option, but not confirmed as I'm hunting for a decent Midi Card instead now. As for the Graphics, indeed nForce2 is in there, but as I understood it's part of the Mobo and has no DVI output or Dual monitor support... hence the ati-r9500
BTW: the makers are Evesham Technology [http://www.evesham.com] and I'm looking at the Axis 2400+ MK with a few mods
> Tyla -you are getting absolutely had. Whoever is building that PC has
> failed to notice the laughably obvious fact that it has two graphics
> cards. Not only that, but two extremely decent and expensive ones as
> well. Stick to the onboard sound, it is at least as good as the Audigy
> 2.
The secondary Sound card was my option, but not confirmed as I'm hunting for a decent Midi Card instead now. As for the Graphics, indeed nForce2 is in there, but as I understood it's part of the Mobo and has no DVI output or Dual monitor support... hence the ati-r9500
BTW: the makers are Evesham Technology [http://www.evesham.com] and I'm looking at the Axis 2400+ MK with a few mods
You'll find the best prices online, rather than going to a shop.
PROCESSOR
=========
First thing to decide is which processor vendor you're going to choose, i.e. AMD or Intel. Intel chips tend to be more reliable, and run cooler, but AMD absolutely kick Intels backside on bang for buck. The choice of processor dictates what motherboards you can buy - some do AMD, some do Intel, none do both.
I'm going to assume you're persisting with an AMD system like you said (and I would recommend). You need to choose a processor speed - I always go for whatever is cheap at the time, rather than the fastest or the slowest or whatever. If you look at a graph of processor speed vs cost on any given day, you will usually find that, starting from a slow speed and working up, the price increase is negligible up to a certain point, at which speed improvements get progressively more expensive until you're dishing out ludicrous £££ at the high end just for an extra 100Mhz. It's that point at which I usually buy - I find that improvements in processor speed make no difference in actual performance, the processor just spends slightly more time waiting for other components (like the hard disk) to catch up.
Here are some processor prices I dug up from Ebuyer.com:
XP2000------------53.12
XP2100------------60.71
XP2200------------68.82
XP2400------------89.65
XP2600-----------153.88
XP2700-----------172.66
XP2800-----------256.45
Now granted, the XP2600 has a 333Mhz bus, but is 200Mhz really worth £60? I would go for an XP2400 - it's a fairly cool chip (as in temperature, not street cred :O) and will demolish any game or app you could throw at it in the forseeable future. Plus I believe it will overclock nicely - talk to AMD_MAN or Turbonutter for advice with that though.
Adding VAT takes the XP2400 to £105.34.
MOTHERBOARD
===========
Must be compatible with your processor. For an Athlon, this means socket A (technical name is 462 as AMD_MAN says). Now, all motherboards have the same basic architecture - PCI slots, AGP slots, memory slots, etc. and these are all managed by two chips built into the motherboard, called the north and south bridges. The north and south bridge make up what is known as the chipset, and who designed the chipset on a motherboard is very important to know when making a choice, as well as how fast that chipset is. General rule of thumb - Nvidia chipsets (nforce2 being the latest) are the best and most stable; VIA (KT400) are cheaper, but I've had problems with VIA in the past and I'm not the only one. Intel make very good chipsets, but only for Intel processors, and anything else is an unknown quantity. So I'd go for (and indeed own) a board based on Nvidia nforce2 technology. Another bonus is you always get a wicked nforce sound card built in - these compare favourably with even high end Soundblasters.
Motherboard manufacturer is also quite important, as they can build around and add to the features of the chipset. I own an ABIT NF7-S, which is a very very good board for overclocking (and a very good board generally), which cost me £100 from overclockers.co.uk. Not bad when you consider the ace onboard soundcard, and it comes with a network port and a Serial ATA controller (the next big thing in Hard Disk technology - they are mega) also. Other good Nforce2 boards are the EpoX 8RDA+ and ASUS A7N8X - although the EpoX doesn't have Serial ATA and the ASUS is more expensive. ABIT, ASUS and EpoX are all very good board manufacturers, I can also recommend Gigabyte from personal experience.
Memory
======
Once you've chosen your board, you can choose your memory. The best place to get RAM imo is www.crucial.com/uk - they have an excellent chart where you can look up your exact motherboard, and it will give you a list of all known compatible RAM. For some reason they don't sell 512MB PC2700, so I would get two 256MB sticks, for £25.99 each. Bargain, considering I paid £80 about six months ago.
PROCESSOR COOLING
=================
If you're buying an expensive computer, you don't want some crappo whiney heatsink/fan on the processor - it will make a lot of noise and not do a lot of cooling. I would recommend a copper heatsink with a high quality fan - something like the Coolermaster HHC-L61 for £25-odd (Ebuyer). Whatever, just spend at least an extra tenner on a decent heatsink/fan, it's worth it.
GRAPHICS CARD
=============
Graphics cards are effing expensive if you want something high end. Luckily Geforce4 TI's are no longer top of the range, and as such are moving down in price. However ATI's are still cheaper, and though I've heard of a few incompatibility gremlins between ATI cards and nforce chipsets, you should be okay - I run a Radeon 8500 on my NF7-S. Choosing ATI vs Nvidia is a bit like choosing AMD versus Intel - you get more bang per buck with ATI (especially on their mid-range cards), but more compatibility with Nvidia. Personally I'm a cheapskate, so I'll take a Radeon 9500 for £136, but you may choose a similarly fast Geforce4 TI4800 for £190.
HARD DISK
=========
80GB seems to be the in-vogue capacity these days, and there are a number of decent hard disks around that price. Do not - I repeat - do not touch any Hard Disk bearing an IBM logo. The two brands I'd personally recommend are the Seagate Barracuda with fluid bearings (virtually silent), or the Western Digital Caviar SE with an 8MB cache (outrageously fast transfer rates). I would have gone for the Western Digital, but I have a (admittedly probably faulty) WD drive downstairs which makes an unbelievable racket, so I went with the silent Seagate. The fast WD is probably pretty quiet as well, but I wasn't in a mood to take chances. The Barracuda weights in at £70.49, the Caviar at £82.77. Maxtor also make rock solid disks, but they had nothing that particularly caught my eye at the time.
POWER SUPPLY
============
Much more important than most people realise - do not skimp on this, or you will regret it. At the worst case it can cause system crashes or fry components, in the best case a cheap PSU will just make a racket. Get AT LEAST a dual fan, with AT LEAST a 400W throughput, and spend an ABSOLUTE MINIMUM of £30 on it. I use a 420W Hiperpower, which will set you back about £42. Get something equivalent - Ebuyer are out of stock at time of writing.
CASE
====
Entirely subjective, a decent case won't make a difference to how fast your PC runs, but I'd still recommend spending at least £40 on something to be proud of. It's your new baby, innit, and you have to build it, and a nice case will make it easier for you. Just make sure it's ATX. And don't get one with a window, I think they're poncey. And of course, my opinion is more important than yours when it comes to your PC.
MONITOR
=======
Easily, utterly and absolutely the most important component of any PC. I recommend www.letsbuyit.com - there's a trader on there that keeps selling monstrous Sony monitors outrageously cheaply - £220 will get you a 21" Trinitron delivered to your door. They may be "liquidated stock and/or returns, clearances & ex-demo", but mine was good as new when it arrived, has worked flawlessly for 6 months, and is almost certainly the best £200 I ever spent. 3 years warranty = goodness.
I put this together, sorry if the formatting is all over the place:
XP2400--------------105.34-------------Ebuyer.com
ABIT NF7-S----------100.00-----Overclockers.co.uk
2*256MB RAM----------51.98---------Crucial.com/uk
HHC-L61 HS/F---------23.61-------------Ebuyer.com
Radeon 9500---------136.03-------------Ebuyer.com
Seagate HD-----------70.49-------------Ebuyer.com
420W PSU-------------41.54-------------Ebuyer.com
Cyber Fusion Case----35.20-------------Ebuyer.com
21" Sony Monitor----220.00----------Letsbuyit.com
MS Intellimouse------23.39-------------Ebuyer.com
MS Internet K/B------14.67-------------Ebuyer.com
Liteon CDRW----------39.05-------------Ebuyer.com
Sony DVD-------------27.21-------------Ebuyer.com
ALPS FDD--------------5.15-------------Ebuyer.com
That comes to 893.66. Delivery is going to be about another tenner, and no doubt I've forgotten something (heatsink paste?). Call it £910. That gives you £340 in which to buy a copy of Windows XP (hint: Ebay) and upgrade any of those bits you don't like, or iron out anything I've missed (that's a black case with white drives, for instance).
Now I'm going to bed.
PROCESSOR
=========
First thing to decide is which processor vendor you're going to choose, i.e. AMD or Intel. Intel chips tend to be more reliable, and run cooler, but AMD absolutely kick Intels backside on bang for buck. The choice of processor dictates what motherboards you can buy - some do AMD, some do Intel, none do both.
I'm going to assume you're persisting with an AMD system like you said (and I would recommend). You need to choose a processor speed - I always go for whatever is cheap at the time, rather than the fastest or the slowest or whatever. If you look at a graph of processor speed vs cost on any given day, you will usually find that, starting from a slow speed and working up, the price increase is negligible up to a certain point, at which speed improvements get progressively more expensive until you're dishing out ludicrous £££ at the high end just for an extra 100Mhz. It's that point at which I usually buy - I find that improvements in processor speed make no difference in actual performance, the processor just spends slightly more time waiting for other components (like the hard disk) to catch up.
Here are some processor prices I dug up from Ebuyer.com:
XP2000------------53.12
XP2100------------60.71
XP2200------------68.82
XP2400------------89.65
XP2600-----------153.88
XP2700-----------172.66
XP2800-----------256.45
Now granted, the XP2600 has a 333Mhz bus, but is 200Mhz really worth £60? I would go for an XP2400 - it's a fairly cool chip (as in temperature, not street cred :O) and will demolish any game or app you could throw at it in the forseeable future. Plus I believe it will overclock nicely - talk to AMD_MAN or Turbonutter for advice with that though.
Adding VAT takes the XP2400 to £105.34.
MOTHERBOARD
===========
Must be compatible with your processor. For an Athlon, this means socket A (technical name is 462 as AMD_MAN says). Now, all motherboards have the same basic architecture - PCI slots, AGP slots, memory slots, etc. and these are all managed by two chips built into the motherboard, called the north and south bridges. The north and south bridge make up what is known as the chipset, and who designed the chipset on a motherboard is very important to know when making a choice, as well as how fast that chipset is. General rule of thumb - Nvidia chipsets (nforce2 being the latest) are the best and most stable; VIA (KT400) are cheaper, but I've had problems with VIA in the past and I'm not the only one. Intel make very good chipsets, but only for Intel processors, and anything else is an unknown quantity. So I'd go for (and indeed own) a board based on Nvidia nforce2 technology. Another bonus is you always get a wicked nforce sound card built in - these compare favourably with even high end Soundblasters.
Motherboard manufacturer is also quite important, as they can build around and add to the features of the chipset. I own an ABIT NF7-S, which is a very very good board for overclocking (and a very good board generally), which cost me £100 from overclockers.co.uk. Not bad when you consider the ace onboard soundcard, and it comes with a network port and a Serial ATA controller (the next big thing in Hard Disk technology - they are mega) also. Other good Nforce2 boards are the EpoX 8RDA+ and ASUS A7N8X - although the EpoX doesn't have Serial ATA and the ASUS is more expensive. ABIT, ASUS and EpoX are all very good board manufacturers, I can also recommend Gigabyte from personal experience.
Memory
======
Once you've chosen your board, you can choose your memory. The best place to get RAM imo is www.crucial.com/uk - they have an excellent chart where you can look up your exact motherboard, and it will give you a list of all known compatible RAM. For some reason they don't sell 512MB PC2700, so I would get two 256MB sticks, for £25.99 each. Bargain, considering I paid £80 about six months ago.
PROCESSOR COOLING
=================
If you're buying an expensive computer, you don't want some crappo whiney heatsink/fan on the processor - it will make a lot of noise and not do a lot of cooling. I would recommend a copper heatsink with a high quality fan - something like the Coolermaster HHC-L61 for £25-odd (Ebuyer). Whatever, just spend at least an extra tenner on a decent heatsink/fan, it's worth it.
GRAPHICS CARD
=============
Graphics cards are effing expensive if you want something high end. Luckily Geforce4 TI's are no longer top of the range, and as such are moving down in price. However ATI's are still cheaper, and though I've heard of a few incompatibility gremlins between ATI cards and nforce chipsets, you should be okay - I run a Radeon 8500 on my NF7-S. Choosing ATI vs Nvidia is a bit like choosing AMD versus Intel - you get more bang per buck with ATI (especially on their mid-range cards), but more compatibility with Nvidia. Personally I'm a cheapskate, so I'll take a Radeon 9500 for £136, but you may choose a similarly fast Geforce4 TI4800 for £190.
HARD DISK
=========
80GB seems to be the in-vogue capacity these days, and there are a number of decent hard disks around that price. Do not - I repeat - do not touch any Hard Disk bearing an IBM logo. The two brands I'd personally recommend are the Seagate Barracuda with fluid bearings (virtually silent), or the Western Digital Caviar SE with an 8MB cache (outrageously fast transfer rates). I would have gone for the Western Digital, but I have a (admittedly probably faulty) WD drive downstairs which makes an unbelievable racket, so I went with the silent Seagate. The fast WD is probably pretty quiet as well, but I wasn't in a mood to take chances. The Barracuda weights in at £70.49, the Caviar at £82.77. Maxtor also make rock solid disks, but they had nothing that particularly caught my eye at the time.
POWER SUPPLY
============
Much more important than most people realise - do not skimp on this, or you will regret it. At the worst case it can cause system crashes or fry components, in the best case a cheap PSU will just make a racket. Get AT LEAST a dual fan, with AT LEAST a 400W throughput, and spend an ABSOLUTE MINIMUM of £30 on it. I use a 420W Hiperpower, which will set you back about £42. Get something equivalent - Ebuyer are out of stock at time of writing.
CASE
====
Entirely subjective, a decent case won't make a difference to how fast your PC runs, but I'd still recommend spending at least £40 on something to be proud of. It's your new baby, innit, and you have to build it, and a nice case will make it easier for you. Just make sure it's ATX. And don't get one with a window, I think they're poncey. And of course, my opinion is more important than yours when it comes to your PC.
MONITOR
=======
Easily, utterly and absolutely the most important component of any PC. I recommend www.letsbuyit.com - there's a trader on there that keeps selling monstrous Sony monitors outrageously cheaply - £220 will get you a 21" Trinitron delivered to your door. They may be "liquidated stock and/or returns, clearances & ex-demo", but mine was good as new when it arrived, has worked flawlessly for 6 months, and is almost certainly the best £200 I ever spent. 3 years warranty = goodness.
I put this together, sorry if the formatting is all over the place:
XP2400--------------105.34-------------Ebuyer.com
ABIT NF7-S----------100.00-----Overclockers.co.uk
2*256MB RAM----------51.98---------Crucial.com/uk
HHC-L61 HS/F---------23.61-------------Ebuyer.com
Radeon 9500---------136.03-------------Ebuyer.com
Seagate HD-----------70.49-------------Ebuyer.com
420W PSU-------------41.54-------------Ebuyer.com
Cyber Fusion Case----35.20-------------Ebuyer.com
21" Sony Monitor----220.00----------Letsbuyit.com
MS Intellimouse------23.39-------------Ebuyer.com
MS Internet K/B------14.67-------------Ebuyer.com
Liteon CDRW----------39.05-------------Ebuyer.com
Sony DVD-------------27.21-------------Ebuyer.com
ALPS FDD--------------5.15-------------Ebuyer.com
That comes to 893.66. Delivery is going to be about another tenner, and no doubt I've forgotten something (heatsink paste?). Call it £910. That gives you £340 in which to buy a copy of Windows XP (hint: Ebay) and upgrade any of those bits you don't like, or iron out anything I've missed (that's a black case with white drives, for instance).
Now I'm going to bed.
Miserableman wrote:
> Whoever is building that PC has failed to notice the laughably obvious
> fact that it has two graphics cards.
*sound cards*
> Whoever is building that PC has failed to notice the laughably obvious
> fact that it has two graphics cards.
*sound cards*
Tyla -> you are getting absolutely had. Whoever is building that PC has failed to notice the laughably obvious fact that it has two graphics cards. Not only that, but two extremely decent and expensive ones as well. Stick to the onboard sound, it is at least as good as the Audigy 2.
Right first of all for the AMD athlon 3000mhz (barton core i assume) you will need a motherboard with a socket 462 and a you will need it to support this cpu (manafacturers site will tell you) you will also need a minimum of ddr333 pc2700 ram due to the speed of the CPU being 166mhz as long as you get these you will be fine, also what PSU are you going to use? and will all your keyboard and mouse fit?.
c.b.
c.b.
Firstly, nice username... Evangelion Rocks!
Secondly... Why not go for an off the shelf model. I too am about to purchace a new PC and was going to build it myself but discovered it would cost nearly the same. My budget is £1500 and for that I have found:
XP2400+
512MB DDR PC2700 Ram
120GB HDD - 7200rpm (IDE 8MB Buffer)
128MB ATI Radeon 9500 Graphics (DVI/TV-OUT)
Leadtek n-Force2 Mobo
17" LG 1710B Pure Digital TFT DVI monitor
16x DVD
48x24x48 CD-RW
n-Vidia Soundstorm 6 Channel Audio (on board)
Creative SB Audigy 2 Sound Card
Creative Inspire 5.1 5300 Speakers
WinXP Pro
56K PCI
10/100 Network
Logitech Wireless Kbd/Mouse
2year on site warranty, 3rd year RTB
£1402.95
The base unit starts at £1232.58.
I tried building this myself, but couldn't getthe price any lower (maybe due to my choice of case etc)
Secondly... Why not go for an off the shelf model. I too am about to purchace a new PC and was going to build it myself but discovered it would cost nearly the same. My budget is £1500 and for that I have found:
XP2400+
512MB DDR PC2700 Ram
120GB HDD - 7200rpm (IDE 8MB Buffer)
128MB ATI Radeon 9500 Graphics (DVI/TV-OUT)
Leadtek n-Force2 Mobo
17" LG 1710B Pure Digital TFT DVI monitor
16x DVD
48x24x48 CD-RW
n-Vidia Soundstorm 6 Channel Audio (on board)
Creative SB Audigy 2 Sound Card
Creative Inspire 5.1 5300 Speakers
WinXP Pro
56K PCI
10/100 Network
Logitech Wireless Kbd/Mouse
2year on site warranty, 3rd year RTB
£1402.95
The base unit starts at £1232.58.
I tried building this myself, but couldn't getthe price any lower (maybe due to my choice of case etc)
Hey people, to put it bluntly my computer is getting old and is plain annoying, could be that the Hard drive is getting old. Anyhow, i recently built a list of new computer specs, which i plan to buy online and build it myself, and have a cpu that will stay modern for the next year or whatever. Except when trying to buy it, it proved to be hell, and i wasn't sure whther it would all work together, like the no. of pins on the processor and stuff. I was hoping someone could give me some directions on the hardware that would function properly together, and my problem would be solved. Im looking to spend £1200 maximum, cause the list i compiled with an AMD Athlon 3000, with 512 ram, Geforce 4 ti, 80 gig hard drive etc cost around £1150. So any suggestions on how to go about ordering this lot seperatly? I live in Buckinghamshire, England, so if theres any nice shops around i can buy from, it would be cool (I've heard of little bush, got my prices from there!)
Anyhow, any help would be great!
Anyhow, any help would be great!