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Building a new system - input wanted

B

beornling

Member
I'm somewhat new to building my own machine, but I try to keep moderately up to date with hardware issues and such. Seeing as this is my first machine to build from scratch, I thought I'd throw out my specs and see what you guys recommend. Feel free to give ideas on specific hardware, places to purchase this hardware, and any other tidbits you think might be helpful. Keep in mind, I'll be putting all this together in about 5-6 weeks (late February, early March). Also, know that I don't plan any overclocking out of the gate and wouldn't do that for 6-12 months at least.

CPU: AMD (1800+ or above)
motherboard: undecided (at least KT266A)
RAM: 512
fan/heatsink: (should I go OEM + purchase this or just go Retail?)
HD: 40+ GB (heard good things about Maxtor DiamondMax Plus)
DVD-ROM: (just want something with front loading, non tray setup - like Pioneer 106S)
video: GF3 Ti200 (undecided as to which branch)
audio: don't care as long as it's acceptable
speakers: (not a clue - any suggestions?)
monitor: 17" or 19" (again, not a clue - looking for nice resolution at a good price)
case: (undecided, but I used to like the Fong Kai - any recommendations?)

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
 
Welcome to the forums!

It's hard to predict what you should use to build a system in late February or March. Keep in mind that in March or early April, AMD is rumoured to be releasing their Thoroughbred core which relies on a 130 nm process. You might want to hold out for those as they will run cooler and probably overclock better than the Athlon XP's out right now.

If you were building a system right now that would be a different story though...

-Ice
 


<< It's hard to predict what you should use to build a system in late February or March. Keep in mind that in March or early April, AMD is rumoured to be releasing their Thoroughbred core which relies on a 130 nm process. You might want to hold out for those as they will run cooler and probably overclock better than the Athlon XP's out right now. >>

Yea that pretty much sums it up. T-Bred will overclock very well, plus we have the GeForce4, R300, VIA's KT333 and nForce 415-D coming as well. I'd ask again when it's closer to when you're actually gonna be building it.
 
As far as the current products out, your system looks pretty good. But like the others said, ask in about 5-6 weeks. The market changes so rapidly. The best suggestion now might not be the best suggestion tomorrow.
 
Definately best to ask when you are ready to build like the others said, except for case. ANTEC sx series with 400W is way to go for sure. AWESOME cases!!!!!
 
mboy has the right idea there are some things that you can start to pick upnoew, like the case the cdrom, the dvdrom, burner, floppy drive, and hard drive. this gives you the option to shop around for good deals on these things. then when you are ready to build ask about motherboard and processor and ram. this is the way i would go about it and then it is not one big hit on your bank account.

you can also look around for monitors. find good deals on these things. you have some time.
 
Heres my thoughts on all of this...all in all that is a nice system. Of course, a few months down the road there will be bigger and better. So on the CPU, buy the best you can afford when you build the system. 512MB RAM, well thats good, of course. Motherboard, well there are a few KT266A boards out there, i got the Epox and Im very happy with it. But Asus makes great boards and MSI has one out with USB2.0 on it. Hard drives, I have an IBM 75GXP and a Western Digital and I am happy with both. I think IBM makes great drives. I have another older IBM drive that just keeps going...so IBM is my recomendation on that. DVD-ROM, what can I say, Pioneer makes great stuff. Video card...I have a Visiontek Ti200 and it overclocks very well, cant go wrong there either. Audio...sound blaster Live or Audigy if you wanna get a good card. Speakers, i think the best way there is to get something like a mini-system(boom box on steroids type thing) and just use the Aux input on that. Monitor...Viewsonic, KDS, Samsung, Sony...all are good, get something that is .25 or .24 dot pitch. Case, thats a personal thing. Depends what you wanna spend. I have used Enlight 7237s on the last 5 computers Ive built and they are nice cases. Oh yeah, the heatsink issue. If this is your first system I would say retail. Im probably gonna get yelled at for that. But using a stock retail heatsink makes for one less thing to worry about the first time you push that button to fire that thing up. If you have any questions feel free to Private Message or Email me(dmw16@home.com). And i almost forgot...places to shop online for parts:
www.mwave.com
www.newegg.com
www.directron.com
good luck,
-doug
 
Since it seems to be the concensus that I wait on CPU, RAM, motherboard, and possibly graphics (only for the sake of hoping for a price drop on the GF3 line when the GF4 line is announced), what are some recommendations on the other components. I heard one recommendation on case, but that's it. Any more ideas/suggestions?

Thanks again for the responses.
 
there are a number of different ways to go with everything.

sound: audigy or gametheater ( personally have the gametheater and love it)
video: ati 8500 or geforce 3 ( personally have ati 8500 and love it)
case: go antex sx1030. this is an awesome case
ram: crucial or mushkin (atleast 256)
dvd:i have the lite-on 16x and i love it. very quiet

hope this is helpful
 
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