Help with building a general usage computer... any input welcome!

[maddmaxx]

I want to build a computer that will be mostly used for office programs and web-surfing. I don't know if I should go with P4/Celeron or AMD. And not sure which mobo either. Those two things are the real undecided bits of the box. Once I figure out what I want to do there, I can figure out the rest .

Oh yeah..... whenever I have purchased equipment in the past it's been from New Egg.... is there another online store that I sould consider, or is New Egg just as good as any other. I have never had a prob with New Egg, just curious what else is out there!

Any input would be much appreciated. Thanks!

peace

 

[markjs]

AMD is the cheap way to go if that's a concern. I'd just go over and peruse the stock at Newegg and see what you can come up with. Newegg is uaully right in there with low price and they can't be beat for service and RMA if that happens.

Sorry if you already know about Newegg but on the off chance you don't you'll be glad you do now.

 

[Farmer]

AMD: Cheap and, at least right now, better (The A64 at least).

By general usage, you mean good at everything?

Well, lets see:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ or 3400+ (no sense in going with the 3200+)
Brand name motherboard with VIA K8T800 chipset (ASUS is good, MSI is ok, if you don't want a functional floppy drive )
512MB-1024MB of Brand name PC3200 or better, get RAM rated for the fastest timings available
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro/9800 Pro/9800XT (go with AIW flavors if you need the features)
Vanilla audigy (if audio is important to you, if not, onboard audio)
DVD burner from a respectable company (or a deal) TDK, Plextor, HP
CD-RW or DVD-ROM (avoid the $100 Plextor Premium, its completely unecessary)
WD 2nd gen 10K RPM Raptor in RAID (haha, or a single 7.2K RPM WD/Hitachi/Seagate HDD with 8mg cache)
Aluminum case from respectable company
Keyboard and mouse (if you want to go wireless mouse-wise, the Logitech MX700/900 is by far the best).
Big AG Trinitron CRT or a good LCD panel
Speakers
Use your current OS until WinXP-64 comes out

I'd say that'd be a decent computer under $3000.

 

[Ionizer86]

For office stuff and web surfing, it doesn't matter too much, but Athlon XP should give you the most performance for the least $. People usually buy either a ~$50 Tbred chip and overclock from ~1700+ to 2400+ or higher, or they get the ~$85 2500+ and overclock to 3200+.

Good boards include the following with some brief description:
Asus A7N8X Deluxe: kind of expensive ($120) but it has all the goodies: digital sound, double lan, serial ATA, firewire etc.
Abit NF7-S: one of the best AMD boards, about $100. It has all the goodies the Asus has except for only one network port. IT comes with an SATA converter, which the Asus doesn't have.

You can also get good cheaper nforce 2 boards but they won't have the MCP-T, losing out on a good sound solution and the firewire.

 

[Farmer]

Ooops, my bad.

The original post was blank when I replied. If its just for websurfing and word, you probably don't need the crap I listed above. Ionizer summed it up pretty well.

 

[markjs]

For cheap and feature rich I reccomend an Epox Nforce 2 board like this EP-8RDA3+ This board not only sports excellent 6 channel onboard sound but it also is overclockable should you like to do that later. I have built 3 Epox machines around variants of this board and have been 100% satisfied and good prices too.

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: Farmer
Ooops, my bad.

The original post was blank when I replied. If its just for websurfing and word, you probably don't need the crap I listed above. Ionizer summed it up pretty well.

You can get a DAMN fine OEM rig for a lot less than 3k if all you want to do is light to medium workstation stuff, AND you won't have to sweat the building process.

 

[Farmer]

Note that I had not clearly understood the meaning of 'general use', as 'the original post was blank when I replied.'

 

[sharq]

my 2 cents

AMD. Why? Simple, you can get a cpu with manufacturer supplied hsf for a fraction of the price that you would get a P4 for. Plus, for your purpose of just basic use (aka web, office, chat, email, and so on) the absolute cheapest AMD cpu with hsf is xp 2000+ for $67 with free shipping (newegg).
Motherboard I believe one should spend extra on, and for that the best place to look is the reviews. ASUS and ABIT are good overclockers, the EPOX mentioned above is also a popular choice. Tons of options, just pick the combination of features you like best. I have an older board (MSI KT3 Ultra 2), I'm happy with it.

 

[maddmaxx]

In Farmer's defense, it was originally blank. I messed up and hit the enter button before I put anything in it..... then I went back to edit and add all the stuff that you see now. I was probably typing it while farmer was typing his message.
In any case, thanks for the help everyone!

peace

 

[markjs]

If you want a good OEM box I have heard good things about E Machines lately.....They haven't always been good but I think the newest models are sound and you could easily be into a whole system for around 5 bills.

 

[NokiaDude]

RAM and CPU Cache are always a big win!

 

[MDE]

I'd go with:
XP 2500+
Abit NF7-S
512-1024MB RAM
80GB+ 7200RPM 8MB cache hard drive (Maxtor, Western Digital, Seagate are all good)
17"+ monitor (CRT or LCD, depending on budget)
DVD+\-RW or CD-RW drive (again depending on budget)
Depending on use, Radeon 7500 (for web\email use) Radeon 9700 Pro\9800 Pro or GeForce FX 5900 (non-ultra or SE) for gaming

 

[polloloco]

I agree with monkey drive but swap out the abit (fan issues) and reach for the asus A7N8X-E Deluxe

 

[KnightPalatine]

There's an AMD price drop coming on the 15th of this month.

If I understand correctly, we can expect some vendors to cut their prices about a week before the official cut.

I'm holding off until then.