Help

[clusoe]

Help please. I need to build a new system to replace my old and decrepit one but apart from being out of touch Iam totally confused by the range of mother boards and processors. Do I go for something like PCI express or SLI, what is that? What about CPU's Intel or AMD and if AMD which one.

My requirements are for ability to use all the usual office type programs and some drawing programs, downloading of photographs from camera and occasional manipulation of same piccies. This machine will not be internet connected but will be networked. It will not be used for gaming. Do I need to use seperate graphics and audio cards. How do I cover all the differing formats of DVD.

Can anyone advise please. Many thanks.

 

[SunSamurai]

I don't mean to be rude, but don't you think its kind of silly to ask these things when you have buttons with catagories such as "Motherboards", "CPU/Chipsets" "Systems" and "Guides" on the very site your posting this in plain sight?

Anyway... SLI has to do with grafix. SLI uses two PCIe slots for two grafix cards, well, basically if I need to explain it, you don't really need it. Its like RAID0 for video.
You'll want an AMD. You'll want one you can afford. You'll also want to simply read the catagories I mentioned! Thats what they are there for.

 

[fuzzynavel]

You'll want an AMD

Why would he want an AMD???? P4 will be more than sufficient...even a celeron would be very capable for doing office tasks....

If there is one thing that you can applaud the P4 for it is office productivity and video editing....


What sort of budget do you have Clusoe???

If I were you I would head straight over to Dell....www.dell.com...they offer good rebates for US customers and their computers are fantastic value and you would be hard pressed to build one for the same price...

From the questions you asked it seems like you are not too clued up on computers(hardware) I would steer you away from a self-build....

Basically any reasonable PC that you buy will be capable of doing the tasks that you specified as they aren't exactly computationaly intensive tasks...

Pentium4 and AMD64 will be best but you coupld always look out for AMD Athlon XP or even Intel Celeron... look for at least 512MB RAM.... more if you get a PC with integrated graphics....as the graphics will share the system memory....If you want to write DVD's you will need a DVD+/- RW...

Graphics and audio cards are always separate.....but you will be able to get them both integrated on the motherboard if you want to cut costs......

Hope this helps.....

 

[clusoe]

Thanks to both Aeternitas and Fuzzynavel

I appreciate your comments re viewing the categories for cpu's and mother boards but take a look yourself it's impossible to sort the wood from the trees, I am not a computer greek but I am an electronics engineer albeit a bit outdated and not in the computer world, I do have experience of self build. All I wanted was some clear guidance as to what seems to be the most popular bits to go for.

Thanks for trying

 

[clusoe]

Thanks to both Aeternitas and Fuzzynavel

I appreciate your comments re viewing the categories for cpu's and mother boards but take a look yourself it's impossible to sort the wood from the trees, I am not a computer greek but I am an electronics engineer albeit a bit outdated and not in the computer world, I do have experience of self build. All I wanted was some clear guidance as to what seems to be the most popular bits to go for.

Thanks for trying

 

[clusoe]

Thanks to both Aeternitas and Fuzzynavel

I appreciate your comments re viewing the categories for cpu's and mother boards but take a look yourself it's impossible to sort the wood from the trees, I am not a computer greek but I am an electronics engineer albeit a bit outdated and not in the computer world, I do have experience of self build. All I wanted was some clear guidance as to what seems to be the most popular bits to go for.

Thanks for trying