PC Building - Totally Lost

[tilindel]

This may be a kind of long winded post, so please bear with me. Also, please forgive any questions that seem really stupid, because I'm not very knowledgeable about computer hardware. My biggest accomplishment so far has been putting in a network card in the family PC so I know basically nothing. Also, I'm very paranoid when it comes to instructions, system requirements, etc. In addition, I'm an organizational/neat freak, so this post will be as ordered as possible for convienience.

I'm looking at purchasing a new computer in the very near future (by the end of July at the latest). I've saved up a lot of money to put towards it, and I don't want to waste it, so I'm being very cautious. For the longest time, while saving, I was looking at a Dell, but I've become more interested in building it myself for maximum customizability, and perhaps to save some money (although I may not be saving, explanation in a bit). While the Dell is still an option (I know computer manufacturers get a bad reputation around here, as I've been browsing around for the past couple of weeks researching, but the components I am interested in with the Dell PC are basically what I want), I'd like to explore all options before making a decision. Putting together the computer shouldn't be a problem, since I know a few people who can help me out with that. I'm mostly concerned about what components to add.

The Purpose of the PC: Mainly entertainment. I don't do any sort of video encoding, or big jobs like that. I'd like to be able to watch DVDs, listen to MP3s, and watch AVI files. Also, I would be playing games on it. I don't play the big shooters like UT, Halflife, Doom, etc. I'd mostly be playing games like Final Fantasy 11, Diablo 2, Warcraft 3, and the Total War series. Possibly Age of Empires/Mythology as well. I'd also like to add Microsoft Office on to the computer for my university assignments.

Here's the Dell system for comparison purposes:

P4 3.0GHz, 800 FSB, 1MB, w/ Hyper Threading
512MB Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400MHz (2x256MB)
*Note with the memory: I made a post some time back asking about this fact, and I was told 512 would be fine for now until I can upgrade to 1GB sometime in October
160GB Serial ATA HD (7200 RPM)
Floppy
48x CD-RW and 16x DVD-ROM
128MB Radeon 9800 Pro
SB Audigy 2
19" CRT Monitor
Surround Sound Speaker system
Various other software (stuff I likely wouldn't use, but it's included anyway)
Windows XP Home
Office 2003 Basic

This system would run me $2,017 Canadian dollars. I can upgrade to a DVD-RW for an extra $180, but since I likely wouldn't be burning any DVD type files, only audio CDs, I figure that's a waste.

I've been hearing nothing but praise for AMD processors, however. Since I'm in Canada, Newegg.com is out, so I checked what seems to be the Canadian equivalent at ncix.com, and I did a bit of price comparisons. Here's the first two questions, and I feel silly for asking them amongst computer experts, so please be kind.

1. When I purchase a game, the system requirements section always says "Intel Pentium X" processors at "XXX MHz". Yet there's no mention of AMD processors anywhere. The answer seems obvious, that these games will run on AMD systems as well, but I'm uptight about this stuff and thought I would ask to be completely sure. As a follow up, the processor I'm looking at, an Athlon 64 2800+, has 1.8GHz. Is the GHz speed of a computer really important, especially with the size and technology of today's games? I've been using Intel all my life so I might be brainwashed by the "the more Hz the better" mentality, but again, to be safe.....

2. Retail comes with the heatsink/fan already included, correct? So if I went with the 2800+, which isn't in stock as retail at this site and available as OEM, what are some good heatsinks or fans to look at purchasing? There are bundles available (this one looks the most attractive), and they come with the motherboard.

Assuming the first two answers are "Yes, they work fine" and "[insert good heatsink/fan]", I'll continue with motherboards:

3. Is this ASUS or this MSI a better motherboard choice?

After this, I'm pretty much lost on components. I know I'd like at least 512MB of RAM, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, floppy, I like the look of a Seagate 120GB HD on this site, also a RADEON 9800 Pro and Audigy 2 ZS for video and sound, respectively.

My other problem is: If I build my own system, I'll need to buy a number of other things, like a monitor, speakers, network card, Windows XP, and Office 2003. And I know I'm probably forgetting some other things too. If building my own system means exceeding the amount of money I'd be spending on the Dell system, I just won't bother. This means shipping and taxes as well (the Dell is ~$2,300 Canadian after wonderful Canadian taxes (14%)). Just remembered, I'd also need a case, and I have no clue on what kind of power supply I'd need. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: Another problem I'd be running into is installing drivers, etc, afterwards. I'd be pretty clueless on doing that.

 

[mechBgon]

Let me start by recommending WinXP Professional if you might ever need to join a domain with it. School usage... could be a possibility.

Other comments:

GHz only matters relative to other processors in the same family. Beyond that, you have to do a small amount of research to find out what's good at what. Athlon64 is my choice for work, AthlonXP for home. So far.

Retail processors come with a fan & heatsink, yep.

1GB of RAM is a good idea.

If you're looking for the least number of potential setup hassles, then an ATA/100 or ATA/133 drive is potentially a headache-saver versus SATA. The connectors aren't fragile and you don't need to find/make driver floppies to get Windows to install on them.

Whatever you do, don't buy a cheesy-quality power supply, make it a quality brand like Antec, Enermax or Fortron, preferably in the 350W-400W+ range if you want my crazy opinion

If you get a 128MB Radeon 9800 Pro, make sure it has the 256-bit memory bus and not 128-bit, unless you want cut-rate performance from it :frown:

I made a guide to the physical assembly of a computer and you'll find a link to that in my signature, if that helps.

 

[tilindel]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Let me start by recommending WinXP Professional if you might ever need to join a domain with it. School usage... could be a possibility.

This likely won't be necessary. The university I go to is close enough that I can stay at home and commute to school every day.

GHz only matters relative to other processors in the same family. Beyond that, you have to do a small amount of research to find out what's good at what. Athlon64 is my choice for work, AthlonXP for home. So far.

So would you say that XP is a better choice? Will that be able to tide me over for a good amount of time, say, 3 years?

If you're looking for the least number of potential setup hassles, then an ATA/100 or ATA/133 drive is potentially a headache-saver versus SATA. The connectors aren't fragile and you don't need to find/make driver floppies to get Windows to install on them.

What are some good examples of these hard drives?

If you get a 128MB Radeon 9800 Pro, make sure it has the 256-bit memory bus and not 128-bit, unless you want cut-rate performance from it :frown:

How would I be able to check this?

I made a guide to the physical assembly of a computer and you'll find a link to that in my signature, if that helps.

I've already read your guide and found it very helpful, thanks for providing it.

Also, I've just finished looking through the Anandtech Guides at the mid-range system, and it looks very similar to what I'm thinking of setting up. Is that a decent guide to go by?

 

[mechBgon]

AthlonXP is generally slower than a Northwood-core Pentium4 with 800MHz FSB and dual-channel DDR, but is extremely affordable and lets you spend more on the rest of the system (more RAM, better video card, software, snacks... ). They're strong performers in office-type stuff, judging by the benchmarks and from my real-world experience. If you were looking for a nice multimedia/gaming AthlonXP rig, I'd tend to say an AthlonXP 2500+ Mobile with 1GB of RAM on an Abit NF7-S, which eliminates the need for the Audigy 2. It has Firewire, USB 2.0, nVidia Soundstorm audio, and the mobile model also happens to overclock really well, if you lean that way

I think Athlon64 will end up making good use of its 64-bit capabilities if you own it long enough. Even in straight 32-bit mode, they're good performers, and particularly for gaming. For RTS games where CPU muscle matters a lot, I'd certainly be aiming for the A64 even in the 32-bit scene, although I haven't done tons of research. I'll try to dredge up some RTS benchmarks for you, I think Ace's Hardware did some.

At any rate, Dell doesn't want you to have either of these options. They don't sell AMD (duh) and I don't see that changing.

For a 160GB drive, how about this Hitachi with 8MB cache, fluid bearings, and a 3-year warranty (not sure where you would buy it in Canada, NCIX isn't listing the ATA/100 model). I just got my little sister the 120GB version of this. Personally I thought it was kinda lethargic-feeling, but I'm just hard to please anyway :evil:

Anyway, the current fastest SATA drives, the 74GB Raptors, are actually an IDE drive with a bridge chip on them, so there's not an inherent advantage to the SATA interface in my eyes. And I'm seeing lots of newbies struggling with SATA, because many motherboards don't support it "natively" in the way that they do for PATA. If you want SATA anyway, I'm here to help, but please, PLEASE don't buy an Abit IS-series or IC-series motherboard in that case!

On the R9800 Pro 128MB, here is the 256-bit model at NCIX: link Sapphire makes a version that costs a bit less, perhaps $50-80CA less, but uses a 128-bit memory bus. I don't know if Dell specifies which their rigs use or not.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: tilindel

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Let me start by recommending WinXP Professional if you might ever need to join a domain with it. School usage... could be a possibility.

This likely won't be necessary. The university I go to is close enough that I can stay at home and commute to school every day.

GHz only matters relative to other processors in the same family. Beyond that, you have to do a small amount of research to find out what's good at what. Athlon64 is my choice for work, AthlonXP for home. So far.

So would you say that XP is a better choice? Will that be able to tide me over for a good amount of time, say, 3 years?

Personally, I don't think I'll be buying anything but AMD64 for the forsee able future (atleast not for desktop machines). But an XP should last you for a while. Chances are you could do a quick upgrade if it really seems to be a problem. The biggest problem I'd see would be some of the games that will come out next year or the year after. Maybe.

If you're looking for the least number of potential setup hassles, then an ATA/100 or ATA/133 drive is potentially a headache-saver versus SATA. The connectors aren't fragile and you don't need to find/make driver floppies to get Windows to install on them.

What are some good examples of these hard drives?

ATA/100 drives are easy to find. Unless it specifies SATA, it's probably ATA/100.

If you get a 128MB Radeon 9800 Pro, make sure it has the 256-bit memory bus and not 128-bit, unless you want cut-rate performance from it :frown:

How would I be able to check this?

ncix.com does seem to differentiate between the two. I did a quick spot check and I saw a 256BIT card and a 128BIT card in the video cards section. Read the title/description carefully, and if you aren't positive, feel free to link to something and ask.

I made a guide to the physical assembly of a computer and you'll find a link to that in my signature, if that helps.

I've already read your guide and found it very helpful, thanks for providing it.

Also, I've just finished looking through the Anandtech Guides at the mid-range system, and it looks very similar to what I'm thinking of setting up. Is that a decent guide to go by?

I think they're decent guides. I don't just copy them myself because they aren't geared to me, but over all I take a look at them before buying something if I'm trying to decide between parts.

 

[mechBgon]

Ace's hardware did a Civilization III benchmark with some Athlon64's, an AthlonXP and the Prescott-core and Northwood-core Pentium4 3.2's: link Hopefully that draws near the mark

 

[tilindel]

Well, with your advice so far, and using the guide, I've been browsing NCIX and come up with the following base components so far. I'll still have to add on opticals, but upon learning the motherboard has networking capabilities already, it's saved some worry.

AMD Athlon 64 2800+
MSI K8N Neo Platinum Motherboard (nForce3 250GB)
OCZ 512MB PC3200 DDR400 or this slightly more expensive one What are the differences?
Radeon 9800 Pro (It's 256-bit )
Audigy 2 ZS (I love audio)

I'm stuck on hard drive now, mostly. I'm confident I can suss out a decent case (nice one with 380W supply on here), etc., but keeping in mind what you've said about hard drives, I'm at a loss. 160GB isn't necessary, that's just the lowest Dell offered for that model. The Dell 9800 Pro offered is 256-bit. The prices are similar so far to the Dell, since I've tried with various monitors, opticals, and hard drives, but if the performance is better.....

 

[mechBgon]

I don't like OCZ as a company, so I'm not going to endorse either option there Give me some Corsair XMS 3200C2!

As for performance... Dell XPS takes on the Athlon64FX, Athlon64 and AthlonXP See what conclusions you draw.

 

[mechBgon]

Oh, and for the hard drive... at this time, if it were for me, I'd pick one of these! Someone will be along shortly to claim that the 74GB Raptor is better, on the basis of StorageReview trace-replay benchmarks WhatEVER. Granted, you need a SCSI controller and cable/terminator to use this... but I have that covered.

If you want a quiet-running higher-capacity drive, Seagate's 7200.7's are easy to find and have quiet idle and seek noise, but I found mine to be annoyingly lethargic. The Hitachi with 8MB of cache would probably be my pick of the ATA drives, with seek noise about on par with my Cheetah 15k.3, maybe a touch quieter.

 

[tilindel]

Well, as an update, there's some good news and bad news.

The good news is, I learned enough to be able to piece together a system I thought was similar to the Dell I originally looked at. I'll post it at the bottom for critiques, etc.

The unfortunate news is, that it's pretty expensive. After the taxes, it's about $30 cheaper than the Dell, but I have no monitor for the system I pieced together. $30 isn't enough to get a good monitor by a long, long shot, and since I'm running at the edge of my budget, it would put me over the top. Thanks for all your help, though, learned a great deal about computers.

Here's what I threw together. Prices are in Canadian dollars. Not going to link anything, most of the stuff is well known.

AMD ATHLON 64 2800+ PROCESSOR S754 1.8GHZ 512KB L2 CACHE RETAIL BOX 3YR. MFR. WARRANTY $285.52
MSI K8N NEO PLATINUM NFORCE3 250GB S754 5PCI SATA 1394 SOUND 1000LAN $192.66
SAMSUNG 512MB PC3200 DDR400 184PIN OEM $123.91
ATI RADEON 9800 PRO 128MB 256BIT AGP VGA DVI-I TV OUT RETAIL BOX $338.85
SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200.7 120GB ATA100 7200RPM 8MB OEM HD 3YR $128.80
ANTEC SX1040 PERFORMANCE II TOWER BLACK 4X5.25IN 6X3.5IN 400W ATX12V P/S $135.08
LITEON 52X32X52 ATAPI IDE BLACK CD-REWRITER SMART-BURN OEM W/ SOFTWARE $44.51
SONY BLACK 1.44MB 3.5IN FLOPPY DRIVE $13.13
(2x)CD/DVD-ROM INSTALLATION KIT W/ IDE CABLE/AUDIO CABLE/MOUNTING SCREW $3.00
LITEON BLACK 16X DVD-ROM INT E-IDE OEM W/ SW DVD PLAYER $41.28
CREATIVE SOUND BLASTER AUDIGY 2 ZS 7.1 1394 PCI RETAIL BOX $126.50
MICROSOFT MULTIMEDIA KEYBOARD & OPTICAL MOUSE COMBO BLACK OEM *WITH SYSTEM ONLY* $48.75
MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION OEM (WITH SYSTEM ONLY) $126.95
MICROSOFT OFFICE 2003 BASIC EDITION OEM *WITH SYSTEM PURCHASE ONLY* $238.89
LOGITECH Z640 5.1 SPEAKERS 71W RMS BLACK ANALOG W/ SUBWOOFER $84.73

 

[mechBgon]

Did you factor shipping into both systems' prices, and what warranty length did you pick for the Dell? Just curious

 

[n0cmonkey]

You could try dropping the 16X DVD drive and the Audigy (since the motherboard has sound)...

 

[amdguy]

hello fellow Canadian. Which university are you going to btw?

you can save additional $150 if you purchase the educational verion of office XP. It only cost like $89 in University of Toronto and the edu version of windows is also very cheap.

Instead of purchasing the retail version of the ATI vid card, you can save more by buying a OEM card.

like n0cmonkey said, you can purchase a DVD+CDRW combo , which should cost a little bit less.

http://www.antec-inc.com/us/pro_details_enclosure.php?ProdID=93700 - THis case with a 350W antec PSU costs only $93 at Canadacomputers, again some savings for ya!

 

[tilindel]

Yeah, the total prices I listed are after shipping and taxes. Dell has $10 shipping, but an extra 7% provincial sales tax. NCIX uses only one 7% tax, but has $89.00 in shipping costs, so it pretty much balances out.

I'd like to keep the Audigy, I'm big into sound and would like to have a nice surround system. Onboard doesn't satisfy

I'm going to the University of Winnipeg.

I was looking for that version of Office earlier this year around campus, couldn't find it. Everywhere I've been for the past 6 months that has something to do with computers doesn't have it either. I can get the retail version for $40 less on that site, but that's only $40.

Couldn't find an OEM 9800 Pro on there.

I looked into the combo, it's $10 less than getting the dual drives.

Thanks for the case info, but would 350W be enough? I'd imagine an Athlon 64, 9800 Pro, and Audigy 2 would take up a fair amount of power.

 

[amdguy]

regarding the MS office XP for student, i am sure your school has educational version or it is just out of stock for now. Check with your bookstore and if all else fails, i am sure you have friends who goes to UofT and he/she can get you a copy at $87
http://www.campuscomputerstore.ca/utoronto/viewnews.php?item=1

I think the 350W should be enough since it is not some lame no brand PSU.
I had a enermax 350W that powered my old system fine:
XP2000
1GB DDR
CHeetah 15.3K 73GB SCSI
80GB 7200 RPM MAxtor HD
SCSI COntroller
DVD - RW
DVD ROM
AIW 9700 Pro
5 Case fans

 

[soulflyfan]

Make sure your IDE cables are rated as fast as your drives. get ata 133 rated cables to be sure your not bottlenecking your system