Building my Own COMPUTER(hehe), need some recommendations

[johnjohn320]

OK, I have several hundred dollars, and I decided to start building my own computer, seeing as I'm tired of using this one (the family computer, which has become outdated etc). Basically, I wanna start with the bare bones, just a motherboard, case, sound card, video card, some RAM and a CD-RW drive, and then add onto it as time goes along (and I get more $$$). Basically I want this machine to be really powerful and really good for gaming, and easy to add on new junk to later on. So, go forth!

 

[dman]

Start w/ Case. Get a nice one w/ 300w supply. Look in hot deals, usually some between 50-70 shipped.

Motherboard and CPU combos, go with Duron for best bang for buck w/o overclocking hassles. Celeron 566 oc's to 900 for most people. Eitherway, you are looking at ~$210 for a nice board and 650+ Mhz cpu. Get a good heatsink & fan if you want to overclock. Figure another $20 for that.

Video: Get a geforce MX for $89+ depending on brand and vendor. Best card for the $$$ in my opinion. Also doesn't use as much power as the Full version GeForce and is nearly as fast (won't be aproblem for today's games and most of tomorrows).

Sound: Onboard sound should be fine to get you going. Figure another $50-60 down the road for a SBLive. Keep your eyes on hotdeals forum.

CDROM: Steal the one you already are using. Or spend $40.

HardDrive: Hot deals forum. Maxtor 30GB 7200 ATA100 was the most recent for ~$79 after rebates and price matches.

Memory: 128MB is the way to go. Could get 64 and upgrade later but it will impact speed in some games. Price is always changing, check hotdeals for CAS 2 at great prices.

 

[johnjohn320]

How can I be sure that everything I get will work together (ie the GeForce will work with the Duron you suggested?). I've never built a computer before, so...

Looks like according to your recommendations, I'm looking at about $600.

 

[Gunbuster]

Building my Own CPU recommendations: get verrrry small twezers

Sorry I just cant stand when someone has a computer problem and they point to the system and say the "CPU" or the "hard drive" is bad.

 

[BigSmooth]

jj - compatibility should really not be a problem if you use all-new parts. For video cards, make sure if you get an AGP card that the motherboard has an AGP port.

Just about any motherboard that supports Socket-A (which is what you need for a Duron) will have all the ports you need for the components you listed above. Of course, if you have any specific compatibility questions, you can always ask them here,

 

[TravisBickle]

you're not building a CPU with one of those RadioShack electronic teaching kits are you? see you in 3001 when you have finished and have a few stadiums filled with wires and circuit boards.

 

[MCS]

Gunbuster - I hear you!!

johnjohn320 - What kind of budget are you on here?

 

[jagr10]

Words of advice, buy parts that don't change in price often, first. In other words, don't get the cpu and motherboard first. Get those last. Get things like the case, speakers, keyboard, mouse dvd drives first. Those don't drop that fast in price.

Sound Card - Creative Platinum 5.1
Video Card - Creative Annihilator 2 Ultra
Burner - Plextor 16/12/40 (comes out in april/may)
Hard Drive - Maxtor or IBM (7200 rpm)
Speakers - Cambridge (owned by Creative) Desktop Theatre 3500
DVD - Anyone that has dolby digital hook ups.
cpu - AMD Thunderbird 1.2 GHz

And if you're like me and love your electronics black, build an all black system (that's what i'm doing).

 

[pm]

And here I thought that this was going to be a thread on VLSI IC design.

Are you going to strip the Gateway, or are you going to sell it? Because the Gateway may be able to take a faster Pentium III cpu which is the cheapest solution.

 

[dman]

Get things like the case, speakers, keyboard, mouse dvd drives first. Those don't drop that fast in price.
Except they won't buy him much if he doesn't have a system to use them with... they just gather dust anyway. I get your point, but, you should have enough money to get all the required components or wait until you do. (Unless you follow the hot deals forum -- then this is a great strategy).

Sorry I just cant stand when someone has a computer problem and they point to the system and say the "CPU" or the "hard drive" is bad.
I can relate. I was going to make a joke about it myself but the info was rather clear in his message text. Besides, It's just as annoying (if not more so) to make fun of those who don't understand the technology and are asking for help.

How can I be sure that everything I get will work together (ie the GeForce will work with the Duron you suggested?). I've never built a computer before, so...
Price out the parts you want to buy. Search here for those parts and see what people have to say (or vice versa). If in doubt, post the list in a thread and ask if it's a good deal and a good system. People will respond if you aren't pushy and you show you've been doing your homework.

 

[Noriaki]

Damn it GunBuster...you beat me to it *pouts*
Hehehe


Check out AnandTech's buyers guides. That's where I usually point people in threads like this.

 

[johnjohn320]

<< Building my Own CPU recommendations: get verrrry small twezers >>




Uh-oh. As I've said, I've never built my own computer before, how hard is this gonna be?

 

[Whitedog]

Hard? hehe

You say you have a computer now? Take it apart and put it back together... That should give you an idea what it's about.

 

[Neo_Geo]

hehehe...

that remark about small tweezers is just being silly.... You see your thread title is &quot;Building my own CPU....&quot;

You are bulding a computer, not a CPU. A CPU is the Central Processing Unit. You buy a CPU such as a Pentium or Athlon to put into the computer you are building. You do not build a CPU!!! (unless you have lots of time, money, and smarts)

 

[johnjohn320]

Oh I gotcha, Yeah I knew what CPU is, I guess it just didn't register. Hehe.

WhiteDog: a)It's different, cause it's OEM and all the parts except for RAM are built directly into the motherboard. So I can't take 'em out. The only hardware work I have done was installing additional RAM on this computer actually.
b)Yeah, I'm really gonna take my PARENT'S computer apart when as I said, don't know what I'm doing just yet.

 

[chaevans]

I was in your spot about a month ago. I would recommend doing some hardcore reading first. Anandtech, Arstechnica, and tomshardware would good starters for me. Many sites have buyers guides (recommended systems) as well as good 'how to' guides with pictures. Books always seemed out of date.

The compatibility issue was a big concern for me as well. I just found after reading a lot of sites and then using this forum to fill in the gaps I knew what to look for - slot vs socket, agp, ide, etc. While I agree that purchasing the cpu &amp; mobo last is the cost-effective way to go, I bought the mobo first because I needed to see it up close and personal to understand what I was reading online. But then again cost wasn't an issue for me, it was more a desire to understand how a computer worked.

 

[johnjohn320]

chaevans:Hey do you think you could give me some links? That would be much appreciated! Thanks!

 

[johnjohn320]

Nevermind, I think I found a goldmine site, plus one of my best friends built his current PC, so he can help me. Could you guys give me some specific, very specific parts? I wanna start buying soon. Thanks.

 

[johnjohn320]

Wow, this thread kinda died. Bunch of replies right away, then....nothing....

 

[loogie]

I don't know what you could do with a couple hundred. An 8x cdrw will run you ~100, an sblive value should run 50, a decent vid card 100. That puts you at 250. The mobo and cpu should run at least 200. ram should be ~100 for 256 megs. So, what exactly is your budget and what do you want first?

Some questions:

1) AMD or Intel
2) How much ram do you want?
3) what kinda speakers are you gonna run? 5.1? 4.1? 2.1? This will determine which sound card would best suit your needs.
4) What games do you play? If you're not playing anything too intensive right now, you can prolly stick it out with your tnt till you get more money.

Because of your budget, you have to figure out what you really want. Also, what are you doing with the gateway? If you're building from scratch, a couple hundred isn't gonna get you started on a powerful computer that will run.

 

[novice]

Here is a partial list from one vendor, MultiwaveSKU Qty. Item Unit Price Ext. Price

N054-71-07 MSI K7T PRO2A Motherboard Specs BUNDLE W/ COOLING FAN &amp; (AMD DURON 700(OEM); 16X64 128MB PC133) $224.00

A02504 ENLIGHT 7237/3 MIDDLE TOWER W/300W ATX POWER SUPPLY 4x5.25&quot; 2x3.5&quot; 1x3.5&quot;(hidden)Detail Specs $62.00

A11550 AOPEN GeFORCE2 MX 32MB AGP VGA W/SDR MEMORY VGA CARD Detail Specs $95.00

A04109 MITSUMI FX4820T 48X EIDE INTERNAL CDROM . Detail Specs $38.00

A00694 PANASONIC 1.44 FLOPPY DRIVE Detail Specs $13.90

205669 ALTEC LANSING ACS33 POWERCUBE SPEAKERS W/SUBWOOFER Detail Specs $39.00

A05060 CREATIVE LABS SOUNDBLASTER LIVE! VALUE PCI 256VOICE ENVIRONMENTAL AUDIO (OEM) Detail Specs $47.90

Sub Total $519.80

this would not include shipping, which might run $35 or 40 or so. (Cases and speakers are expensive to ship) You would still need to pick up a hard drive, a cheap 5400 rpm Maxtor 20 Gig is around $100 at local stores. And you would still need a monitor, a decent cheap 17&quot; is around $200 or so. I suggest trying to find a deal on a KDS Avitron with the Sony Trinitron tube. ordering from one place can save you a couple of bucks on shipping/handling charges. Hopefully would also minimize the possibility of &quot;out of stock or backordered&quot; items. This would be a decently powerful beginner's system and could be easily upgraded later. One of the frustrating things that can happen when you are trying to build a system, is if you can't get one of the crucial parts like the CPU. Without it, you don't even know if your other parts are working or not. And some places have a 30 day limit to return bad parts, so you need to make sure all your parts are going to work. The last two systems I put together, I used MSI motherboards and Intel processors and had zero issues with all the other components. I can't say that would be the case with a Duron/KT133 motherboard combo. But most people around here scoff at the celeron's preformance compared to what a Duron is capable of. Good Luck, whatever you decide.
Chuck

 

[Ulf Vulcan]

You wanted links:

Tom's Hardware Guide (as mentioned earlier, but without link) has several guides
http://www.tomshardware.com/

 

[Impact55]

I reccommend getting your cpu/mb combo from monarchcomputers.com simply b/c it comes preinstalled with the hs/f on and a 3 year CPU warranty, which is great unless you're O/C'ng!

 

[GoldenTiger]

go to www.zeobuzz.com

 

[johnjohn320]

I didn't say a couple hundred, I said several, big difference. As of right now, I have about 600 dollars, getting more soon. (keep in mind, I'm 15 years old, money is hard to come by for me). Here's what I'll do: Just forget this thread for awhile, I'll save up some more money for a few months and see where I'm at then. Until then, I'll survive on this gateway.

And BTW, about this gateway, no one's paying attention to my answers and they keep asking the question, what am I going to do with it. The answer:

NOTHING!It's not mine! It's my parents computer!