I'm back from pricing on newegg.

[Woolong]

After a bit of procrastination (read: 3 weeks), I've finally decided to price the computer I'd consider building. He's what I ended up with:

My final pricings

Since I couldn't fit it on the screen when I took that picture, here's my total price: 1,221.96

Yeah. Pretty high, but hell, it's a new computer. Anyway, I really didn't know what I was looking for. I basically just went through each section and took the most expensive thing with the highest rating and moved on. Mind you that my motherboard and CPU do go together, I'm not that stupid.

I probably could drop the HD size from 100 to 80 or even 60, because I intend on keeping my current hard drive for music storage. It's 60 gigs.

But my main questions to help me understand these things are the little ones, like:

Why do video cards have mb measurements? is that how much space they use for rendering visuals?
How fast of an RPM do usual hard drives have?
What's the best kind of RAM? DDR?
What 's with the socket... Things? Like, socket A? What is that?
Why arte some things 32 and others 64? What does this have to do with a timestamp? I heard about this before, and it being bad, but.... Erm, why does it matter?
Why haven't I heard of a heatsink until just now?

The list goes on and on... If I remember more questions, I'll either post them here or search. I didn't do it this time.... But that's only because I wanted to ask of you how you think I did pricing parts for a computer, so I just threw them in here.

 

[SrGuapo]

Originally posted by: Woolong
1. Why do video cards have mb measurements? is that how much space they use for rendering visuals?
2. How fast of an RPM do usual hard drives have?
3. What's the best kind of RAM? DDR?
4. What 's with the socket... Things? Like, socket A? What is that?
5. Why arte some things 32 and others 64? What does this have to do with a timestamp? I heard about this before, and it being bad, but.... Erm, why does it matter?
6. Why haven't I heard of a heatsink until just now?

1. Video cards have their own RAM for textures and 3D models. Generally, the more RAM the better. 256 is plenty for all current games (minus doom3).

2. 7200 is pretty common and usually sufficient for sesktops. Many laptop drives are 5400 ad the higher end drives can be 10,000 to 15,000 RPMs.

3. DDR is required for that CPU/motherboard. DDR2 is purely an intel thing and SDRAM is a thing of the past. The RAM you have lited is pretty good and it seems relatively cheap.

4. Different types of sockets have a different number of pins. The newer AMd chips are 939 for A64 and 754 for the semprons. Socket A was what the original semprons and older athlon XPs used.

5. Not sure what you mean...

6. It looks like a good quiet heatsink. However, newegg only claims it is compatibe with socket 754, 478 and 940. I don't see why not 939, but you may want to make sure... Are you looking for cooling performance or silence? The xp-90 is an excellent heatsink and with a decent fan will cool much better than that.


Excellent PC all around. My only complaint is the case, but that is a personal thing. Are you getting a seperate, higher quality PSU? I have no idea who manufacturers the one with that case, so it might be good to look into. If it is pretty shady looking, you wanty to get a nice quality PSU. You don;t want to underpower or worse, blow up your whole PC because you could fork out another $70 for a quality PSU.

 

[Woolong]

Originally posted by: SrGuapo
1. Video cards have their own RAM for textures and D models. Generally, the more RAM the better.

2. 7200 is pretty common and usually sufficient for sesktops. Many laptop drives are 5400 ad the higher end drives can be 10,000 to 15,000 RPMs.

3. DDR is required for that CPU/motherboard. DDR2 is purely an intel thing and SDRAM is a thing of the past. The RAM you have lited is pretty good and it seems relatively cheap.

4. Different types of sockets have a different number of pins. The newer AMd chips are 939 for A64 and 754 for the semprons. Socket A was what the original semprons and older athlon XPs used.

5. Not sure what you mean...

6. It looks like a good quiet heatsink. However, newegg only claims it is compatibe with socket 754, 478 and 940. I don't see why not 939, but you may want to make sure... Are you looking for cooling performance or silence? The xp-90 is an excellent heatsink and with a decent fan will cool much better than that.

1 - 4: Thanks. But could you elaborate a bit more on number 4?

5: The word finally came to me. 32 bit and 64 bit. Something about unix timestamp running out, 32 dying, things happening like what stupid people thought was supposed to happen on Y2K.... Or something like that.

6: I'm kinda going for... In the middle. I like quiet, though.

 

[Umberger]

1) video cards have onboard ram, a lot like your computer has ram, but this is dedicated to graphics rendering. The MB measurement is how much ram that video card has.

2) most desktop hard drives are 7200 RPM, with the exception of a few that are higher (usually 10,000 RPM)

3) DDR (dual data rate) RAM is what you want.

4) "Socket" refers to the place on the motherboard where the processor fits. A socket 939 motherboard will only accept a socket 939 processor. A socket A motherboard will only accept a socket A processor, etc...

5) i'm not sure what you're asking. are you referring to 32 and 64 bit processors?

6) computer components, especially processors and other chips generate an amazing amount of heat. a processor without a heatsink attached will reach boiling temperature in only a few seconds. after that, bad things happen. a heatsink and fan is needed to keep components in a safe operating temperature range.

One comment. The motherboard you have listed is a SLI capable motherboard. SLI stands for "Scalable Link Interface" what this means is that you can put 2 graphics cards in the computer, link them together, and effectively double your graphics performance. SLI ONLY WORKS WITH NVIDIA CARDS. You have an ATI graphics card listed in your price lineup. There is no reason to buy this motherboard if you are getting an ATI card. The SLI motherboard is more expensive. So, if you are thinking about wanting to expand in the future, then you might want to consider an NVidia graphics card. Otherwise, don't pay extra for a SLI motherboard if you're not going to be able to use its features.

edit: beat me to it SrGuapo

 

[Lovehandles]

Originally posted by: SrGuapo
4. Socket A was what the original semprons and older athlon XPs used.

Good post. Except for the part in #4).

The AMD Athlon was the 1st CPU that used socket A.

And just to muddy up the waters a bit, if you are looking for the fastest RAM; Rambus RAM (RD RAM) is faster than DDR2 SDRAM. HOWEVER - it's very expensive due to it's proprietary technology. For the most part - i think home users will find DDR or DD2 ram plenty fast and should stick with that given the cost savings advantage. However, if money is no object for you - go with rambus.

 

[stickybytes]

as mentioned before, the ram you listed is sdram. your system requires ddr so that memory would be useless.

apart from that, the configuration looks like a killer.

 

[shoRunner]

the ram he has is fine,it is ddr, though overpriced. from what i gather of your computer experience you will not be overclocking your system so a cheaper value ram would be better, there is no reason to spend extra money on ram made for overclocking that you'll never use. two options:
good cheap value ram, Corsair $88
low latency value ram, G.Skill $99 (cas2)

you chose a great video card but it can be had for cheaper, check out monarch $254

the board you are using is SLI (using 2 nvidia cards as one to increase performace) ati does not use this technology so most of the price premium you are paying is for that SLI technology. here is one option of a good board that is $40 less.

you'd definately want to check out the NEC 3520A dvd burner its half as much as the one you chose and it is a great performer, by far the best value for the money.

there is really no reason to get the RAM heatsinks unless you're gonna be giving your ram 3+ volts (which your not), unless you just think its pretty. also i'd stick with the heatsink included in the retail box with the Athlon 64 its quite good, the only reason to change would be because you think its too loud (its pretty dang quiet).

with the money you saved (about $250) you should definately get a good powersupply. this is almost if not the most important component of your system. using the generic one's include with a case (unless its an antec case) is almost like asking for trouble. they usually or of low quality and cannot output consistent current. seasonic is a brand know for their well made, quiet power supplies. the one I linked to will give you plenty of power for you system.

 

[Woolong]

So, I want to change the RAM, huh?

Well then, they're all listed as DDR SDRAM. I chose one with DDR.... I think. I changed it to one I know has DDR in it, but... You know, I don't know. I don't know what DDR stands for, or why it's much better... And Rambus? Money is an object; the 1200 dollar price tag is much more than I have at the moment.

Anyway, with that SLI thing.... Should I change my motherboard or my video card? What would you recommend?

So then, I should change my RAM and Video/motherboard. Andthing else you think could be tweaked to better suit my gaming needs?

And on a completely separate subject, when I build this computer and get it up and running, Firefox will be put on it. I don't use it now, but that's only because I cannot, for the life of me, find a few things. I need the tabs in firefox to be smaller, and on the top of the browser itself. Secondly, I need it to dock in the system tray - I like it better there. I don't see it in the start bar. Ever. It's out of the way. Whenever I need it, it's right there.

Anyone have any idea where I could get those extensions?

Thank you.

 

[shoRunner]

and for your questions:

video card measurements are simply the how large they are, which could be important to somone using a small form factor case

most hard drives are 7200rpm (the drive you picked is a pretty good drive, samsung is know for making quiet drives)

best is a relative term, but most systems use DDR (minus intel LGA775) you may see ratings on the ddr like pc2100(ddr266), pc2700(ddr333), or pc3200(ddr400). those are the speed ratings of the memory like pc2100 operates at 266 mhz. all current desktop systems use ddr400. anything about that like ddr533 or pc4400 are only useful ratings if you plan on overclocking your system.

the socket is the interface the the cpu uses to plug into the motherboard (EX socket 939) its rated by the number of pins used (939 pins, 478 pins, socket A also known as socket 462) the latest sockets are AMD"s 939 and intels 775.

the 32 vs 64 bit is alittle more complicated. basically its not something that is useful now since windows xp is a 32 bit operating system. microsoft has released windows xp pro x64 but only to oems. here's alittle article

and for your last question...umm i don't know...maybe cause most processors include them in the retail box...

 

[Lovehandles]

I second that opinion to get a good quality PSU. However, i'm not sure that $99 is a good value for that Seasonic listed by Shorunner. I recently purchased a Thermaltake Pure Power 420 Watt PSU at Newegg for approx. $43.

 

[shoRunner]

Originally posted by: Lovehandles
I second that opinion to get a good quality PSU. However, i'm not sure that $99 is a good value for that Seasonic listed by Shorunner. I recently purchased a Thermaltake Pure Power 420 Watt PSU at Newegg for approx. $43.

there is nothing wrong with the thermaltake, i have built quite a few systems with it. but it does not have atx v2.0 support, it not as quiet, and it does not as strong of 12V rails.

xclio $50
the xclio is a great value, probably a better value than the seasonic. has 120mm fan atx2.0 support and decent 12v rails. though i'm sure the seasonic faithful may say something.

 

[Lovehandles]

Originally posted by: shoRunner
there is nothing wrong with the thermaltake, i have built quite a few systems with it. but it does not have atx v2.0 support

What is atx 2.0 support?? The box on mine said ATX compliant so i take it the model i have is atx 1.0?

Hey Woolong,

Check out this OCZ model at Monarch - there's a $20 rebate on it & FREE shipping.

Credit goes to ChrisRod01 for finding the deal.

 

[shoRunner]

atx v2.0 is for pci express. it also dictates things like 2 12v rails for more than 15amps or so. but i take it back the xclio doesn't have true atx2.0 support it just includes adapters

 

[wisdomtooth]

Originally posted by: shoRunner
there is nothing wrong with the thermaltake, i have built quite a few systems with it. but it does not have atx v2.0 support, it not as quiet, and it does not as strong of 12V rails.

xclio $50
the xclio is a great value, probably a better value than the seasonic. has 120mm fan atx2.0 support and decent 12v rails. though i'm sure the seasonic faithful may say something.

You betcha the Seasonic faithful will say something. :laugh:

I had a Thermaltake Not-So-"Silent Purepower" 420 that moaned like a Frankenstein because of its two high-speed fans. It drove me insane.

Sanity was restored when I wised up and purchased a Seasonic Super Tornado instead. Hallelujah and amen!

Seriously though, a Seasonic Super Tornado and S12 are worth it. They vent MUCH better than the Thermaltake because the Seasonics use a bigger fan (120mm), and they also run cooler because of 80% efficiency (less waste heat generated). Best of all, the Seasonics are THE quietest fan-cooled PSUs you can buy, at the top of the PSU quietness rankings at Silent PC Review.

 

[SVT Cobra]

M8, if you are not quite sure about these questions i would hold off and learn more before building a computer for yourself just so you do not end up damaging your hardware. But if you want to forge a head into the unknown then thats cool well be here for you every step of the way.

If you like the OCZ PSU that you posted it will serve you well, the seasonics are also very good, make sure you get a very good psu, not a low quality one becuase it really maters.

 

[Woolong]

Thanks for the help, guys. So you're saying I should change my heatsink and cpu, or telling me to get the best I can find, is all? The parts I have listed are good?

hidden bump for the morning

 

[Cobalt]

Originally posted by: stickybytes
as mentioned before, the ram you listed is sdram. your system requires ddr so that memory would be useless.

apart from that, the configuration looks like a killer.

The ram is fine... It is DDR.

 

[Woolong]

Originally posted by: cobalt

The ram is fine... It is DDR.

Ok then, anything else that's in need of changing, since the RAM isn't?

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Just because parts are called "the best" or are expensive doesn't mean they will work together. I suggest you do a little more research into modern computer systems. In addition to compatibility, you are putting money into the wrong places. You say $1200 is too much, don't get a $180 motherboard and a $285 vid card (that aren't optimal for each other, anyway).

What will the new machine be used for? Video games? Office work? Audio / video processing? Just email and internet?

Without knowing what the goal is, you cannot reach it.

CPU - AMD Athlon64 (939)
Wait a bit, new chips are coming out that will drive the prices of older ones down.
$200 tops

Motherboard - Asus or Abit A64 (939) (PCI Express)
You can't go too wrong with their products. Check the feature specs; compare apples to apples. Skip the SLI (2 video cards)
$150 tops

The RAM you selected is pretty good.
You want 1 GB (2 x 512 MB) DDR (double data rate)
That price isn't bad, either

With any decent A64 motherboard, you'll have SATA drive connectors. I like using them because they are smaller and easier to work with.
CD/DVD drives and hard drives with SATA connectors perfom, and cost, similarly to the IDE versions.

Depending on budget, the vid card you picked is pretty good.
Alternative: a card based on the Nvidia 6600GT chips
$180 to $225, depending on extras

Please spend more than $70.49 on a case and power supply. Antec and enermax make decent cases with power supplies, not terribly expensive.

The Zalman fan/heatsink should be OK for the chip, but it might be too big for the case.
Ditch the ramsinks.

On a budget, on-board sound will work OK.

The parts I described above have a total cost about equal to your list, but they make for a better system.


If this doesn't help......
Dude, you're gettin' a Dell.

 

[Woolong]

I did say before that I didn't really know what went together or not (other than my CPU and motherboard) and that I pretty much just selected the highest rated, most expensive thing I thought would do well for me. I am a gamer, and the kind of computer that can make Half Life 2 run as smoothly as Solitaire is what I'm looking for. Heh.

But that's why I'm here. I don't know exactly why or how some things go together or even how to tweak my parts so they work as a perfect symphony, so I'm asking all of you.

And with my budget.... The 1200 dollar mark was pushing it in the first place, yeah. I don't have a lot to spend, but I want a nice, beefy video card.

 

[dragonballgtz]

Originally posted by: Woolong
I did say before that I didn't really know what went together or not (other than my CPU and motherboard) and that I pretty much just selected the highest rated, most expensive thing I thought would do well for me. I am a gamer, and the kind of computer that can make Half Life 2 run as smoothly as Solitaire is what I'm looking for. Heh.

But that's why I'm here. I don't know exactly why or how some things go together or even how to tweak my parts so they work as a perfect symphony, so I'm asking all of you.

And with my budget.... The 1200 dollar mark was pushing it in the first place, yeah. I don't have a lot to spend, but I want a nice, beefy video card.

You should read more about computers before building your own. Buying the most expensive is not always a good thing. You really should read reviews on hardware before you buy it. It can save you $$ and you can learn at the same time. Also check out the Anandtech building guides.

 

[piotrgurin]

Sorry to piggy on this thread, but i didn't think my question deserved a new one.

Does anyone know if
NewEgg price matches? I bought some ram a couple days ago from them and i've noticed it just dropped 20 bucks i price.

 

[Umberger]

Originally posted by: piotrgurin
Sorry to piggy on this thread, but i didn't think my question deserved a new one.

Does anyone know if
NewEgg price matches? I bought some ram a couple days ago from them and i've noticed it just dropped 20 bucks i price.

they don't.

 

[piotrgurin]

Hmmmmm..........
Thats not right.

I mean I can still return it and then buy it again right? So why wouldn't they credit back the change?

 

[beany323]

restocking fee?