Building new pc

[disonant]

Hey gang, I am new to building a home PC. I have installed vid cards, changed ram, installed sound card and am very familiar with computers. I just have never put one all together. I am willing to spend some decent money but of course want the best deals.

I def. want at least 512 of DDR and a nice vid card. I will be using the system for perhaps a PVR, def. for BF1942 and Medal Of Honor and other games. I do have alot of different ideas but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or free time to post their opinions on a complete system. I have never used fans or rheobus or anything but am def. interested in all of that for this project. Thank you for your time

 

[Novgrod]

Hi,

let's see here . . . it's hard for somebody to tell you exactly what you need unless that person is a fanboy of one or another company.

I'm going to be upgrading soon, and here's how i'll do it:

ASUS' nforce-2 based mobo.

AMD xp 2100 cpu

Alpha heatsink/fan

nvidia gf 4 4200 video card with DVI

Antec case, with 300 watt power supply.

If I wanted to pinch pennies, I could save circa $60 with an nvidia geforce 3 video card, and maybe $50 with the ASUS nforce microatx mobo. Never cheap out on a heatsink. a good one will make your life much easier when you're installing it. Get a quality case, but don't feel obligated to spend $70 for a power supply.

My prices are bound to be a little bit off, but these specs will run just about any game on the market now at a very good resolution. I haven't built many systems--they've all been AMD, and AMD has worked for my budget-conscious ass, so I stick with it.

and (as always speaking personally) i buy everything from newegg because i trust 'em and they have good prices, except i buy ram from Crucial. If you have any more specific questions, i'll do what i can to answer them. I'd check prices but i don't want to know how much money i'm going to lose when i do upgrade.

 

[Duvie]

Intel or AMD who gives a crap each can be had with a great price and each could handle it with ease...

My suggestions...

Do not skimp of the vid card and definitely do not jump back a step in technology to a GF3 card...Get direct x 8.1 compliant now. More and more games will start to need this. DX 9.0 for the most point is a scam as games are not even starting to take advantage of it.

I would go for the ti4200 as well but look at a card like a gainward or some card with the fast 3.3ns ddr and maybe the 128mb ddr. I don't know if I am sold on the agp 8x yet being beneficial....

I would also get quality ram...never skimp here...

Look at getting a nice sound card to enhance the game playing sound

I would also not skimp on the power supply...I think 300watts is a little low for any athlon and power hungry vid card like above...Gives no room to grow and we really don't have a clue about how many ide devices, usb devices and other pci cards you may be using...Then there is overclocking...Gonna be doing any???

I would look at 350watt and above...

 

[cmdrdredd]

if you want the absolute best you can get now you'd do well to find a Granite Bay mobo and 2 sticks of Samsung original or Corsair/Mushkin PC2700. Get an Antec case with True Power 350Watt PSU and a P4 3.06 for Hyperthreading.

Now you can go cheaper and get the Asus P4Pe or Epox if you prefer saving some dough even albatron is great. Just get a PE chipset and a stick of PC2700/3200 and overclock a bit with a P4 2.4 or similar.

I don't personally like AMD so I will not mention any solutions.

 

[Novgrod]

i guess quite a bit depends on what sort of extras you'll have for your computer. Nvidia's integrated sound works just fine on my klipsch speakers, but my current geforce 2 is a wreck for my beautiful LCD monitor.

 

[imported_Mike]

I play MOH all the time, just put this set up together:

P4 2.53

Ti4200 128 DDR

512 PC 2700

Antec 835II w/350 PS

Intagrated Sound

Logitech z560s(Havnt got these to work yet...3 speakers)


it is working well for me so far

 

[majewski9]

AthlonXP 2100+ TBred <~~~OC to 2ghz 93$

Asus A7N8X deluxe 145$

Sapphire Radeon 9500 <~~~Mod to 9700 150$

Two sticks of 256meg PC 2700/3200 130$

19 inch monitor 150$

Maxtor 7200rpm 60 gig HD 90$

Clear case 100$

Pal 8045 + Glowing fan 47$

350watt psu 35$

940$

 

[disonant]

i am going to buy some stuff after this check but I will get the main components. I will get a rheobus and stuff later but how many fans will I need now? and the heatsink? I think I will go with a ASUS Deluxe MOBO, and a 1.47 AMD Athlon XP+ (OC) for now with the 9500 Pro and 2 sticks of 512 Samsung DDR 2700

 

[Novgrod]

All sounds good.

Having gone through a great number of computer-building problems myself, i can maybe help you out if you run into trouble.

I like the Alpha heatsink; it's easy to install and it works more than well enough for me--I think there's a brand that offers minimally better temps for the same $$; it escapes my mind. I've never had any fans other than that with the heatsink and the single case fan; then again, my overclock (athlon 850@1000 [i can get it up to 1100 ]) isn't all that impressive.

you might not need a gig of ram though

 

[disonant]

And I meant two sticks of 256 Samsung 2700... I want to utilize the Asus Deluxe's dual DDR after all. I am thinking of going with the Gainward GF4 TI4200 since their problem with the classic 'pink/checkerboard' screen has been repaired they say. And I still may go with the 1.47GHZ and overclock it but not sure. I would like everyones opinions if their willing to give it, again thanks for everyones time and help

 

[mechBgon]

You might want to consider the EPoX 8RDA+ as an alternative to the Asus A7N8X-Deluxe, if you don't need two NICs, Serial ATA, or the digital-audio-out jacks. That would save you about $30: $105 The extra money would be well spent toward the Thoroughbred-B AthlonXP 2100+ that people are getting an extra 500-700MHz out of, depending on the cooling: thread.

 

[disonant]

Okay... here is my conclusion so far.

The case I was extremly picky about so i've decided to go with the Lian-Li PC7, it has all the removable trays and I heard alot of complaints about the cheaper ones I was looking at. So let me know with what you guys think of it all...

Monitor - Got a Cornea 17" LCD to use
Case - Lian Li PC7 Silver
PSU - Antec 430W TRUE430
Mobo - Asus A7N8X Deluxe
CPU - AMD Athlon XP 2100+
Memory - 2 x 256 Samsung 2700 DDR
Video - Gainward 128MB GF4 Ti4200
HD - (Already have a 30GB drive for now, will grab another larger drive soon)
CDRW - Lite on 52x...
DVDROM - Lite On 16x...

 

[MercenaryForHire]

An LCD for gaming? j00 nuts? :Q

Other than that, great rig. I noticed you mentioned PVR at the top - not going for that anymore, or you just forget? LeadTek 2000XP is a good tuner card, or you could get an All-In-Wonder ATI instead of the nVidia solution.

- M4H

 

[Ruckas]

Well, I've been watching computer prices very closely the past month or so. And what I've come up with is this. (I made this 1 week ago today.)

Newegg.com
$109.00 Case - Lian-Li PC-7B
$110.99 Motherboard - ASUS A7N8X
$179.00 CPU - AMD ATHLON XP 2400
$40.00 Cooling - http://www.anandtech.com/cooling/showdoc.html?i=1754&p=6 'not out yet'
$109.00 PowerSupply - ENERMAX EG465AX-VE
$177.00 RAM - CORSAIR 512MB PC-2700 Platinum
$101.00 HD - IBM DeskStar 180GXP 80GB
$18.00 Floppy - SONY 1.44MB OEM-BLACK
$26.00 CD-ROM - Lite On 52x Black
$51.00 CD-RW - SONY 40x12x48 Black
Sound Card - On board
$159.00 Video Card - ATI RADEON 9500 128MB
1 year warranty
$1,079.99

I've been comparing to a pimped out dell 8250. And for 1 week dell was actually able to beat this computer. With a 3 year warranty. However dell pumped it's prices back up again. So if I had the cash, I'd be buying these parts.

Hope this helps, good luck on your first home made computer.

Dave-