Buying Vs. Building

[imported_Tango]

Ok, after years of laptop-only life, it's time for me to get a desktop again.

Problem one: build one or just configure one on some of the online vendors wesites?
I know most of you tech-heads and computer geniuses have a short answer for this already: building is cheaper, gets you exactly what you want inside your rig, and is actually more fun and rewarding. I agree. I would love to build a system.
Point is: I've never done it before. I don't have a lot of time. I cannot afford to spend months trying to have my PC up and working. How hard is it? And I mean how gard is it for someone without an PhD in Information Technology... I know how a PC works and what parts should be inside it, but I never tryed to build one before...

Problem two: I f I am going with the "Just buy one online" then what website should I use? I know Ibuypower, Monarch... any other one? Fast and reliable, otherwise it's not worth it...

Problem three: if I build it, then what should I get?

Use will be basic internet and office jobs, lots of photoshop and other photography-related stuff (PhaseOne, Corel Painter, Adobe and Macromedia suites), some finance applications for market analysis and online trading, some statistics applications (STATA mainly), Videoediting with both Premiere and Avid. Plus, the PC will be my Media hub: all my music will be stored in it and television cable will come in via a TV tuner, and I will watch DVDs on it as well (don't have a TV and never will, but I need to have television connection for my job). The Pc will be linked to a receiver for music. It will be on 24/7...

What I have in mind now:

Processor:
Amd x2 3800+ or 4200+, or Opteron 170
probably some overclock, if I can understand how to do it....

Motherboard:
No idea... Asus premium? the new Asus32? eVGA deal? MSI? Epox?
I need a motherboard with Firewire ports...

Memory:
2Gigas.. no clue about the brand... as soon as you guys start talking about latency and all those smart numbers you lose me...

Video:
Looks like Nvidia 7800GT is a good deal right now... alternatives?

Storage:
DVD DL burner... any difference among different brands?
A couple of 250giga Hard drives... I have seen pretty cheap SATAII WD 16mb cache ones, are they any good?
I already have a couple of external har drives for a total of 500giga

Audio:
Creative Xfi? M-Audio? X-mystique?

Case:
Currently looking at Antec P180 and Lian-Li 1000... any other one?
An HT case like silverstone's ones would be cool, but only if they would be fine considered the heat my rig could generate, and the possibility to add more Hard drives in the future... Also is it true that cases with inverted motherboards cannot be used with Asus motherboards with passive cooling?

Keyboard:
Any laptop-like keyboard around? I kinda got used to this feeling... I also will be using a Wacom intuos tablet and a logitech MX1000 mouse I already have.

I also need a media card reader....

I don't really have a budget, but obviously don't like to throw money away if not necessary... I already have a monitor for it, and it's a Dell 24" LCD...

So... sorry for the looooong post, but I am very confused and need some serious help...

 

[stevty2889]

For the motherboard I can recomend the DFI lanparty Ultra-D, it's what I have, and it has firewire, plus it's a great board for overclocking. I have the X2 4200+ running at 2.618ghz with the stock AMD cooler(the one that comes with 4200+ and higher has heatpipes, the 3800+ has a differant heatsink).

I recomend OCZ platinum for the DFI board, it's what I am using, I have 2x1gb sticks.

I have the EVGA 7800GT and it works great for me.

NEC and BenQ are good brands for DVD burners, I have both, and they both work great, and are the most reasonably priced that are still good quality.

I have a Western Digital SATA II drive, and I'm happy with it, it's about as fast as my 36gb raptors in raid-0 were.

I have the Antec Sonata II for my case, and it comes with a 450w Antec PSU. You didn't mention a PSU, make sure to get a quality PSU, it's very important and often overlooked, don't look at wattage alone, a quality 350w is better than a generic 450w.

 

[imported_Tango]

Originally posted by: stevty2889
For the motherboard I can recomend the DFI lanparty Ultra-D, it's what I have, and it has firewire, plus it's a great board for overclocking. I have the X2 4200+ running at 2.618ghz with the stock AMD cooler(the one that comes with 4200+ and higher has heatpipes, the 3800+ has a differant heatsink).

I recomend OCZ platinum for the DFI board, it's what I am using, I have 2x1gb sticks.

I have the EVGA 7800GT and it works great for me.

NEC and BenQ are good brands for DVD burners, I have both, and they both work great, and are the most reasonably priced that are still good quality.

I have a Western Digital SATA II drive, and I'm happy with it, it's about as fast as my 36gb raptors in raid-0 were.

I have the Antec Sonata II for my case, and it comes with a 450w Antec PSU. You didn't mention a PSU, make sure to get a quality PSU, it's very important and often overlooked, don't look at wattage alone, a quality 350w is better than a generic 450w.

Thanks a lot to the fastest guy who showed up to help me!

Obviously you are advising me to build instead of buying, then...

i heard DFI are very hard ones for first time builders, is that true?
Would you still go for a 4200+ over an Opteron today?

 

[halfpower]

If you get one from a vendor it can save you a lot of time. I wouldn't expect building to be cheaper unless you want a configuration that really is special.

Online suppliers include Monarch, Newegg, TigerDirect, and Amazon. I prefer Amazon because there distribution hub is closer to me than any of the other suppliers.

If you do video editing and Photoshop (or audio production) then you might be in Mac territory, though I don't know much about Macs.

For a sound card I would tend not to reccomend M-Audio unless you are involved in audio production. They do , however, have some consumer cards you might want to consider such as the 'Revolution.'

I have a mini laptop style keyboard. It does everything I need it to do. The only difference here is whether the keyboard is PS2 or USB. Either one should be fine if you are using Windows.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Tango

Video:
Looks like Nvidia 7800GT is a good deal right now... alternatives?

If you're not gaming, toss this crap out. It's of no use. Grab something basic, maybe with dual DVI support.

 

[imported_Tango]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Tango

Video:
Looks like Nvidia 7800GT is a good deal right now... alternatives?

If you're not gaming, toss this crap out. It's of no use. Grab something basic, maybe with dual DVI support.

Well, Premiere does benefit from a good video card, doesn't it?

 

[imported_Tango]

Originally posted by: halfpower
If you get one from a vendor it can save you a lot of time. I wouldn't expect building to be cheaper unless you want a configuration that really is special.

Online suppliers include Monarch, Newegg, TigerDirect, and Amazon. I prefer Amazon because there distribution hub is closer to me than any of the other suppliers.

If you do video editing and Photoshop (or audio production) then you might be in Mac territory, though I don't know much about Macs.

For a sound card I would tend not to reccomend M-Audio unless you are involved in audio production. They do , however, have some consumer cards you might want to consider such as the 'Revolution.'

I have a mini laptop style keyboard. It does everything I need it to do. The only difference here is whether the keyboard is PS2 or USB. Either one should be fine if you are using Windows.

So, if I am buying already assembled, what is a good online store? I know Monarch and Ibuypower... any other good and fast one?

I already have a Mac laptop and love it, but I need a PC desktop cause a Mac wouldn't run my financial software...

 

[alimoalem]

with the setup you described, i would go with building it. do a lot of shopping this friday. if you don't already know, it's black friday so the best deals of the year will be out. buy anything that might go into your computer and then come back and ask about those parts and return the parts you won't be using. i hear opterons are tremendously well at overclocking so i'd vote for opteron

 

[KoolDrew]

For what the computer is being used for I would highly recommend building your own. Since it is your first build this should help you out a lot.

For the CPU you definitely want a dual-core. The Opterons have more cache then the X2's and overclock better. For the motherboard I would suggest the Epox Nf4 Ultra board. I do believe it has firewire. Unless you are doing some serious overclocking I would just stick with cheap RAM from a reputable manufacurer. Corsair Value Select would be good. A 7800GT is a waste for your needs. Get a NEC 3550A burner. The WD 16mb drives are great.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Tango

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Tango

Video:
Looks like Nvidia 7800GT is a good deal right now... alternatives?

If you're not gaming, toss this crap out. It's of no use. Grab something basic, maybe with dual DVI support.

Well, Premiere does benefit from a good video card, doesn't it?

I imagine not. Video editing is a cpu and ram intensive task. Unless I am highly mistaken a video card like that will not do you any good for Premiere. It's a waste. You'd be better off cutting it out and beefing up cpu, ram, or even put some SCSI 15k rpm drives in a RAID config.

 

[imported_Tango]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Tango

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Tango

Video:
Looks like Nvidia 7800GT is a good deal right now... alternatives?

If you're not gaming, toss this crap out. It's of no use. Grab something basic, maybe with dual DVI support.

Well, Premiere does benefit from a good video card, doesn't it?

I imagine not. Video editing is a cpu and ram intensive task. Unless I am highly mistaken a video card like that will not do you any good for Premiere. It's a waste. You'd be better off cutting it out and beefing up cpu, ram, or even put some SCSI 15k rpm drives in a RAID config.

Cool, I guess I was wrong. You guys teach me something every day

I guess I'll go with something pretty basic like a 6800gs then...

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Tango

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Tango

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Tango

Video:
Looks like Nvidia 7800GT is a good deal right now... alternatives?

If you're not gaming, toss this crap out. It's of no use. Grab something basic, maybe with dual DVI support.

Well, Premiere does benefit from a good video card, doesn't it?

I imagine not. Video editing is a cpu and ram intensive task. Unless I am highly mistaken a video card like that will not do you any good for Premiere. It's a waste. You'd be better off cutting it out and beefing up cpu, ram, or even put some SCSI 15k rpm drives in a RAID config.

Cool, I guess I was wrong. You guys teach me something every day

I guess I'll go with something pretty basic like a 6800gs then...

Even that is overkill. Unless you plan on playing some games. Otherwise, I'd find an inexpensive card like an X300 SE with DVI output.

I would look into a dual core Opteron, 2GB or even 4GB of ram, and a couple of 15K rpm SCSI drives, with a larger SATA drive for storage. And I would build if I were you. You're looking at a more workstation-type desktop, with some added multimedia (tv tuner, etc.). That's a more specialized setup, and will be very costly pre-built. Put most of your money into CPU, ram, and hard drives, as those three things are going to be what's utilized most with the software you're running.

 

[imported_Tango]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Tango

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Tango

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Tango

Video:
Looks like Nvidia 7800GT is a good deal right now... alternatives?

If you're not gaming, toss this crap out. It's of no use. Grab something basic, maybe with dual DVI support.

Well, Premiere does benefit from a good video card, doesn't it?

I imagine not. Video editing is a cpu and ram intensive task. Unless I am highly mistaken a video card like that will not do you any good for Premiere. It's a waste. You'd be better off cutting it out and beefing up cpu, ram, or even put some SCSI 15k rpm drives in a RAID config.

Cool, I guess I was wrong. You guys teach me something every day

I guess I'll go with something pretty basic like a 6800gs then...

Even that is overkill. Unless you plan on playing some games. Otherwise, I'd find an inexpensive card like an X300 SE with DVI output.

I would look into a dual core Opteron, 2GB or even 4GB of ram, and a couple of 15K rpm SCSI drives, with a larger SATA drive for storage. And I would build if I were you. You're looking at a more workstation-type desktop, with some added multimedia (tv tuner, etc.). That's a more specialized setup, and will be very costly pre-built. Put most of your money into CPU, ram, and hard drives, as those three things are going to be what's utilized most with the software you're running.

Yeah, I guessed those were the critical areas... I don't know about SCSI, sounds like adding quite a lot of complications to the setup... needs a controller and the disks are quite small, so probably requires RAID.

This is my first attempt to build a PC! Have mercy

Any suggestion for the motherboard? CPU will be Opteron 170 (if I overclock) or X2 4400 if I stay with original clock.
Also, any suggestion for the TV tuner card?

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Tango

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Tango

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Tango

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Tango

Video:
Looks like Nvidia 7800GT is a good deal right now... alternatives?

If you're not gaming, toss this crap out. It's of no use. Grab something basic, maybe with dual DVI support.

Well, Premiere does benefit from a good video card, doesn't it?

I imagine not. Video editing is a cpu and ram intensive task. Unless I am highly mistaken a video card like that will not do you any good for Premiere. It's a waste. You'd be better off cutting it out and beefing up cpu, ram, or even put some SCSI 15k rpm drives in a RAID config.

Cool, I guess I was wrong. You guys teach me something every day

I guess I'll go with something pretty basic like a 6800gs then...

Even that is overkill. Unless you plan on playing some games. Otherwise, I'd find an inexpensive card like an X300 SE with DVI output.

I would look into a dual core Opteron, 2GB or even 4GB of ram, and a couple of 15K rpm SCSI drives, with a larger SATA drive for storage. And I would build if I were you. You're looking at a more workstation-type desktop, with some added multimedia (tv tuner, etc.). That's a more specialized setup, and will be very costly pre-built. Put most of your money into CPU, ram, and hard drives, as those three things are going to be what's utilized most with the software you're running.

Yeah, I guessed those were the critical areas... I don't know about SCSI, sounds like adding quite a lot of complications to the setup... needs a controller and the disks are quite small, so probably requires RAID.

This is my first attempt to build a PC! Have mercy

Any suggestion for the motherboard? CPU will be Opteron 170 (if I overclock) or X2 4400 if I stay with original clock.
Also, any suggestion for the TV tuner card?

Ok, don't worry. It's really not that difficult, and asking questions is a great first step. I'd recommend creating a new topic for your search on the TV tuner card, I really don't know enough about them. This motherboard should do you well, also has 2 firewire ports. You may need to confirm that it will work with the X2 4400. I wouldn't get your hands dirty with overclocking yet.

 

[stevty2889]

I still recomend the DFI board, it's got more options available, but it's not more complicated to set up, you just have more options available if you want to use them is all. Not sure what you are looking for in the TV tuner card, but Haupage has a very good reputation. Or you could just get an ATI All-in-wonder card, and combine your video card/tv tuner in to one, I use a AIW 9600 for my HTPC, and it works great. Definatly don't need a 7800GT for video encoding or photoshop, like others pointed out those are CPU/ram intensive tasks, so something like an AIW x600 would work great for you.

 

[imported_Tango]

You guys ROCK! thanks a lot for the help...

TV tuner will just be used to have Reuters and Bloomberg financial channels on a second monitor... apart from that I just don't watch TV. I know, it's weird.

So basically right now we have:

Lian-Li 1000
DFI motherboard (wich one?)
AMD Opternon 170 or 4200+/4400+
2 Giga of value Ram
A couple of good serial ATA 250gigas HD
A basic videocard like NV6600 or ATIx600 or x700

What about the sound card? Need something that can be connected to a receiver....

 

[imported_Tango]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Tango

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Tango

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Tango

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Tango

Video:
Looks like Nvidia 7800GT is a good deal right now... alternatives?

If you're not gaming, toss this crap out. It's of no use. Grab something basic, maybe with dual DVI support.

Well, Premiere does benefit from a good video card, doesn't it?

I imagine not. Video editing is a cpu and ram intensive task. Unless I am highly mistaken a video card like that will not do you any good for Premiere. It's a waste. You'd be better off cutting it out and beefing up cpu, ram, or even put some SCSI 15k rpm drives in a RAID config.

Cool, I guess I was wrong. You guys teach me something every day

I guess I'll go with something pretty basic like a 6800gs then...

Even that is overkill. Unless you plan on playing some games. Otherwise, I'd find an inexpensive card like an X300 SE with DVI output.

I would look into a dual core Opteron, 2GB or even 4GB of ram, and a couple of 15K rpm SCSI drives, with a larger SATA drive for storage. And I would build if I were you. You're looking at a more workstation-type desktop, with some added multimedia (tv tuner, etc.). That's a more specialized setup, and will be very costly pre-built. Put most of your money into CPU, ram, and hard drives, as those three things are going to be what's utilized most with the software you're running.

Yeah, I guessed those were the critical areas... I don't know about SCSI, sounds like adding quite a lot of complications to the setup... needs a controller and the disks are quite small, so probably requires RAID.

This is my first attempt to build a PC! Have mercy

Any suggestion for the motherboard? CPU will be Opteron 170 (if I overclock) or X2 4400 if I stay with original clock.
Also, any suggestion for the TV tuner card?

Ok, don't worry. It's really not that difficult, and asking questions is a great first step. I'd recommend creating a new topic for your search on the TV tuner card, I really don't know enough about them. This motherboard should do you well, also has 2 firewire ports. You may need to confirm that it will work with the X2 4400. I wouldn't get your hands dirty with overclocking yet.

How does the Epox and DFI motherboards compare to each other? What are the good points of each one? What RAM do you suggest?

 

[stevty2889]

Both are good for overclocking, not sure if the Epox has firewire or not, I know my DFI does. The DFI seems to have some issues with corsair value select, so if you go with DFI I recomend OCZ, I have the OCZ platinum myself, but the value works fine too.

 

[DefDC]

Unless you need the tip-top premium sound, an X-Fi might be overkill. Audigy2s have tumbled down in price and are still great performers. In fact, you might find a platinum set with the internal or external breakout box on clearance. That would give you a remote, and extra audio/firewire connectors in the front of the computer.

 

[imported_Tango]

Ok... I was browsing on Tigerdirect, Newegg and Monarch websites and I had this idea:

Why don't go with an hibrid approach and buy a barebone opteron system from Monarch and then finish the job myself?
This way I would have motherboard, case, Power Unit and fans/heatsink in place and probably would be easier for me to take care of the rest... what do you think?

Right now my system would be:

Opteron 170
DFI motherboard
OCZ 2 Giga memory
Lian-Li 1000 or Antec 180P case
2x250gigabyte WD hard drives 16mb serial-ataII
Xreative X-fi platinum

I have no idea about the PSU.. need help on this one...

 

[KoolDrew]

Get rid of the DFI motherboard. It will most likely take a little tweaking just to get it to work properly. I only recommend it if you plan on doing some serious overclocking. You are not so get the Epox NF4 Ultra board. You could also drop down to an Opteron 165, and get cheaper RAM. Just completel forget about RAID-0 if that is what you were planning. For the PSU, a Seasonic S12-500 would be good.

 

[imported_Tango]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew
Get rid of the DFI motherboard. It will most likely take a little tweaking just to get it to work properly. I only recommend it if you plan on doing some serious overclocking. You are not so get the Epox NF4 Ultra board. You could also drop down to an Opteron 165, and get cheaper RAM. Just completel forget about RAID-0 if that is what you were planning. For the PSU, a Seasonic S12-500 would be good.

Ok... so: the DFI board is problematic to setup? Remember I am a newbie...

The Hard drives are not in RAID.. I just need a lot of space...
The Epox board is not avaiable on Monarch barebones, so if I go this way it will not be a possibility. They do offer Asus, Abit, MSI, DFI, Gigabyte etc etc...

I was thinking of getting the Opteron 170 cause I read around the forum it easily hits 2.4-2.5 giga... and that would be pretty good considering the kind of job I will be doing with this PC...

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew
Get rid of the DFI motherboard. It will most likely take a little tweaking just to get it to work properly. I only recommend it if you plan on doing some serious overclocking. You are not so get the Epox NF4 Ultra board. You could also drop down to an Opteron 165, and get cheaper RAM. Just completel forget about RAID-0 if that is what you were planning. For the PSU, a Seasonic S12-500 would be good.

I have a DFI board, and I didn't have to do any tweaking to get it to work properly..people see all the available options in the BIOS and panic, but it's not any differant than setting up any other board, just has more tweaks available if you want to use them.

 

[cmdrdredd]

The DFI is more an enthusiast brand. Abit and Asus both have boards with similar overclockability and options, but DFI from what I've seen are made specifically for those of us who like to tweak everything. They're great boards though. In Fact I'd say every board from Epox to Abit to Asus to Gigabyte is quality. Some just have extra features that set them apart.

 

[imported_Tango]

Ok.. kinda ready to order... could somebody please link me some good value ram? I hear performance Ram is not really worth the extra cash...