Building new computer have a sorted number of questions.

[NakaNaka]

Ok. I am building a new computer from scratch. My price limit is $3000 dollars. I have a number of questions.

What parts should I buy? Dont say Mother Board say i815e motherboard etc.
When is the Pentium 4 coming out? Will it be worth buying over a P3 1.13 ghz when its brought back on the market.
RAM? How much is too much? 256 SDRAM enough? Is RDRam worth it?
Dual Processers?? Good or Bad? Say I run 2 P3 650 mhz will it be running at 1300 mhz? Is it worth it?

COuld you list like brands I should get for each part? I don't need a modem and I don't need a monitor and I don't need a Video Card ... Or scanner, printer etc.

Thanks a lot. Also, I'm not great with the inside of my comp but a friend of mine owns a computer company and he installed my RAM and Video Card with me so that will be good. How long will it take to install all of the HARDWARE??

 

[Ulysses]

Go to AnandTech's home page and find the latest High-End Buyer's Guide and check out their recommendations. Also see Ars Technica or similar sites. Good luck.

 

[troubledshooter]

As stupid as this may sound, I am very much a proponent of independent learning. Research everything you can on your own (example just fish around reading about what your options are) THEN compare it to Anand's recomendations or list what you have come up with here for everyone to comment on. People aren't really going to repeat everything that is posted everywhere else.

I just put my sys together, first time doing it, 1 recomendation on Burner from a friend. 1 week later Anand's high end guide comes out and I check it over. We differed on one component. If you do all the reading ahead of time, however, you will be MUCH better prepared to piece it all together.

gl

 

[Doomsday]

That P 4 does look really good, but I'd also like to see what AMD's next chip is going to be, odds are that the next AMD chip will be better, and a cheaper price. As for the RDRam, that's only for the Pentium machines, but from what I've heard it doesn't make much of a difference if any. If you want an AMD processor right now, which is what I recomend, go with ABIT's K7T-RAID, just for it's extras. For the price range you're looking at, I'd go with at least a 1 GHz T-Bird. If you want dual processors, you can't keep with Windows 98 SE, it doesn't support dual processors. I know 2000, does and I think Millenium does, but I could be wrong on that. You can never have too much RAM, unless with some of the older Mobo's that was an issue, but not with the new ones. I would recomend AMD over Intel any day. Especially with current processors.

 

[Maverick2002]

geez.......you are really asking someone to dedicate LOTS of time to this....mebbe i will (tommorow 🙂 but in the meantime check the Anandtech articles

also, RDRAM is crap
are you gonna wait or do you have to get it now?
if now, then, well, look at my signature, i got it all for $1000, you can also add a t-bird 1Ghz, 256mb RAM, 45-75GB HDD, ZIP, Sony G400, GeForce DDR, etc. you can get a HELL OF A SYSTEM FOR $3000.........

if you wanna wait, then wait til the DDR mammaboards come out......... 🙂

 

[Buddha Bart]

Here's a quick blurb..

rdram = no
Pentium4 = not worth the wait, it'll be a while and be expensive
ram = 256 is overkill for win9x, but just right for win2k.
dual = no, two 650's do not equal 1300. Win9x will ignore one chip. Overall not worth it.
time = with patience, and few "whoops, forgot to do that first" type errors, I can built a system stem-to-stern in about 3 hours.

everything else = for your own sake, find it out yourself. When I first came to anandtech is was because I had a $1300 budget for my PC, and knew I had to make every penny last. I researched each part intensively to make sure I was getting the most bang for the buck, and the performance I wanted.
Even though I finished my system, and have bought very few new parts since, I'm still addicted to learning all this stuff 🙂

bart