i have a plan for a cheap but good pc

[rebert]

for many people over the centuries (well years actually) building a good pc that is cheap been a problem. many tried buying it from the factory (like my friend) or only buying the essential components, or just getting cheaper/used parts.

i have a plan.
since i want a good PC to begin with i'll just get a very good motherboard, case, CPU and memory. then, ill put my 80 gig HD in the new build.
the key is that ill only buy the essentials and then "expand". Ill get the crapiest vid card, speakers, and just put my old modem and optical drives in the new one.

so the basic idea is that i cut to the essentials and then add the whistls and bells. so ill get a better mobo, case, CPU and memory by getting a 7 buch keyboard. and then ill get better items. because if u buy a cheaper base, you cant upgrade the base, youll have to replace the CPU and mobo.

this is the build


intel 75P mobo
northwood 2800 800MHZ HD CPU
400 MHZ memory (crosair or kingston)
segate HD (from the old comp)
PNY vid card
other componets are not listed bacause they not part of the case


so what do you guys think. feel free to modify the list if you have better ideas

[rebert]

i could give the exact component model names. i already decided that i want a intel-made mobo with 75P chipset, 2800 mhz 800 FSB CPU, and 400 mhz memory, so what do u guyz think i should be considering on the additional stuff? feel free to comment, because im really a semi-nub in this area. (i biult one, but that was three years ago, and it was not the model i truly wanted). came out a bit slow.

[RJ]

I guess you mean 875P (it's the only Intel Chipset with 75P as the last three letters).
A CPU with 800 MHz FSB and DDR400 RAM will match, so your base looks good to me. Get a good PSU and you are all set. You can then buy new hard drive, opticals, graphics card and sound card later.
You should be able to get the new stuff, at least hard drive and graphics card, within the next couple of months, though, so that you won't have to use a great base with crappy components too long.

RJ

[rebert]

Originally Posted by RJ I guess you mean 875P (it's the only Intel Chipset with 75P as the last three letters). A CPU with 800 MHz FSB and DDR400 RAM will match, so your base looks good to me. Get a good PSU and you are all set. You can then buy new hard drive, opticals, graphics card and sound card later. You should be able to get the new stuff, at least hard drive and graphics card, within the next couple of months, though, so that you won't have to use a great base with crappy components too long. RJ

thanx for the "emotional support". and yes i was too lazy to type the 8, donno why.
let me think and formulate the questions that i wanted to ask.
right now, 80 gigs are enough for me and the drive is pretty fast. next time ill get a SATA with 8 MB cache.

[mb26]

i'd suggest considering getting a motherboard which has onboard graphics, aswell as an AGP slot (or PCI-E).. i'd also suggest getting and AMD athlon XP-M 2500+ for a better-value processor but that is up to you if course if you have a preferance. look towards an ~350w sparkle or fortron PSU for good value.

[ric449]

It would probably be cheaper if you went LGA 775. You could get a 915G chipset, with onboard graphics. Also it would have a PCI Express slot, so you can upgrade to the best graphics cards later on. Also, since LGA 775 is new for Intel, you should see a fair amount of new CPU's appear on the platform. I am against mb26's idea, the 2.8GHz P4 is shown to outperform the Athlon XP series in every situation, and even if you did want Athlon XP there would be no need in getting a 2500 XP-M unless you want to overclock. Also, as far as AMD is concerned, socket A is dead. LGA 775 isn't.

[rebert]

i can here a month before and people said that it was unworthy to consider LGA775. As much as i understand it is quickly becoming the new standart. So it is not something in the "far future"?
BTW, besides onboard graphics what other stuff do i get. i heard that the memory and CPUs are more expansive for LGA775, well are they?

[ric449]

CPU's are in fact cheaper for LGA 775. As for memory, it depends. All the chipsets for LGA 775 (except the 925 chipsets) support both DDR and DDR2. So that means if you use DDR then memory will be just the same price as any other system.

[rebert]

wow, wait a minute
LGAs could be northwood and prescot or only prescot?
usually the older is cheaper
but this good news will bring smile to even the most pesimistic loser.

[Tin]

since youre building around a new mobo and CPU, LGA775 or AMD 64 socket 939 are the way to go. like Ric says, Socket A is dead, there are hardly any CPUs slated for future release on the socket A platform. LGA775 and Socket 939 are the future....those are your best bets. the lower end Winchester core 939s are comparably priced against the lower end 775s.

[Yuanji]

i'm kinda bummed out cuz i went socket 478 and i think my CPU might be bottlenecking my OC on my vid card cuz i can't get any higher scores in benchmarks after 380/107 wow these new gen cards really push stuff. but yeah... LGA775 is definately the way to go right now. the heatsinks are supposedly much better stock then 478 and i think LGA775 prescotts run at near northwood temps.

[rebert]

does LGA775 have only prescot, or it supports both prescot and northwood?

[Yuanji]

i think LGA775 is only prescott. northwood just doesn't clock up to the same potential speeds prescotts do

[ric449]

LGA 775 is Prescott only, it is Intel's future core after all.

[rebert]

yeah i thought so.
what about regular PCI- they have that on the newer chipsets also, right?

[Yuanji]

i think they have like 2-3 PCI slots on each of the newer MoBos

[Cricket]

Yes, PCI slots will still be available on new motherboards for a while to come.

Cricket

[ric449]

The only thing you really lose out on with LGA 775 is AGP, but since you said later on you would buy a good card this doesn't really affect you if you go the integrated graphics way. Just put up with integrated graphics until NVIDIA's PCI express 6XXX cards are availalbe in volume, they are the cards to watch. Especially the 6600's.

[rebert]

but how fast is express, how fast was AGP8x in the first place?

[Yuanji]

its not a matter of how fast it is its a matter of whether or not they will make PCIExpress cards in the future. AGP8X technically hasn't been utilized to it's full potential yet but PCIExpress X16 has been getting an extremely large push from intel and also from the graphic card companies ATI and nVidia. thus, i dont think they will make any more agp cards in around 1-2 years.

[rebert]

well but the mobo i am picking doesnt have express16. So vid cards are gonna be made for PCI express until they are made for express16?

[Yuanji]

PCI Express X1 is going to replace PCI and is going to be used for peripherals and cards are already made for PCI ExpressX16 just a bit more expensive then thier AGP counterparts.

[rebert]

teacher: any questions
student: i didnt understand it

im such a noob (sobbing)

[jimmyrules712]

Originally Posted by rebert usually the older is cheaper

not with intel, look at their cpu prices and older versions of their CPUs are the same price as newer versions aT THE same speeds, i.e. Celeron Ds compared to the old celerons, or P4 northwoods compared to prescotts.

[rebert]

so basicly new mobos will have x16, but right now conpanies are gonna make vid cards for x1?

[RJ]

I don't think so. All PCI-e video cards are vor PCI-e x16.

If you want a LGA775 board, make sure it has a PCI-e x16 slot. PCI-e x1 only won't be enough.
And yes, actually the LGA775 board is a better investment than socket 478. The CPUs are cheaper, but I didn't know about the boards.

LGA775 boards also have 4 native Serial ATA ports instead of two, and can replace parallel ATA completely.

RJ

[ric449]

RJ's right, the graphics cards will be for PCI Express x16 only. Just make sure your mobo has the slot, some motherboards with integrated graphics don't include a slot for adding a graphics card so they can cut down on costs.

[rebert]

ok now i see.
but does which intel 9xxx chipsets have PCI support, i am looking at the table and it looks like it only has PCI x1. it looks like the intel chipsets which have pci16x are:
915P, 915G, 925X
the rest have integrated vid, which i dont want.

[rebert]

so which intel chipsets would you reccomend me. the ones that have PCIx16 and are LGA775.

[Yuanji]

if you can afford it, go all out with 925X. if you can't, the 915P chipsets might be worth looking into. FYI, AGP cards will not work in PCIExpress and the 915G chipsets have integrated video but also allow you to upgrade into a card in the future