Building My Very Own Personal Computer.Pls help

[Zempten]

Hi guys

heheheh this will be my second time posting here and the first time people were very friendly, I hope you can continue this friendly atmosphere to me. hehehe I'm somewhat of a computer dimwit

Well I konw this will be hard to understand but could you guys please give me a few name brands that you guys feel are reliabe and good so that I may find the parts from the compnay and get them so that they may suit my computering needs?

Currently I havethese figure out

Case: ?
Processor: Intel
Motherboard: ?
Sound Card: Creative Lab
Video Card: PNY
CD Drive: ?
Hard Drive: Western Digital
Floppy Drive: Not sure if I want one
Fan- Antec

So, could you guys please help out? Thanks I would really really appreciate all the help possible. Thanks again

[Ryan2318]

give them a price range and they'll be sure to help you out. you could also look at peoples signatures to see what many people have

[mattg2k4]

Case: Go to a computer fair if you have one local (or semi local) and find a case that looks good and is in your price range.

Motherboard: I like Asus motherboards pretty well, and you can't beat an intel processor in an intel motherboard. Get a motherboard that supporst the 800mhz fsb, dual channel ddr, and S-ATA and it won't need to be upgraded for a long time.

CD drive: A liteon is always a good value for the money.

Floppy drive: it's $10, you may as well buy one unless you don't like the look of it, or don't want more cables in your case than necesary. I took mine out since I never used it and I don't need any extra cables in my case.

[sdkfz]

couple of questions

What do you want in the pc - stability or the ability to modify/over clock

What do want the pc to be good at? gaming? art work/imaging?, just regular internet surfing and some games every once and a while?

How much can you spend? Does no good to spec out a Ferrari on a Yugo budget.

[piasabird]

Case: AOPEN, ANTEC, CHIEFTEC ALUM DRAGON
Like the cheap AOpen Q series of cases from A-Open Small, but nice.
Antec are good quality and come with high quality power supply.
Chiftec makes good Aluminum cases with plexiglass side panel, but I do not like the Server door that covers the drives. They have lots of pretty colors.
Enlight has some nice cases where the mounting plate for the
motherboard comes off - but very plain looking.

Processor: AMD XP2500+, XP2800+
P4 2.4C Gig 800 Mhz
Intel is fine if you want to spend more money. Nothing wrong with intel; you just have to pay a premium.

Motherboard: Asus A7N8X REV 2 (AMD), Asus P4P800(P4 800MHZ)

Sound Card: Integrated, Creative, ?, some people like Audigy2, some like turtle beach.

Video Card: ATI Radeon 9000 (Sapphire), ATI 9700, ATI 9800

CD Drive: CD-Asus, CDR/w- Liteon

Hard Drive: Maxtor ATA133 wast of time getting anything with an 8 Meg Cache. The results are unnoticeable.

Floppy Drive: Not sure if I want one, dont need one for XP
May try a Flash Drive??

Fan- Antec, Enermax, ?Look for DBA or the sound the fan makes and the Cubic Volume per minute. Ball Bearings are good. Speed Adjustment?

MEMORY: www.crucial.com Crucial Memory Selector guarantees compatibility.

Ya i love my asus motherboard so i would go that way.....and i am not sure how important to you but i would spend my money where it is needed, in proformance....i found a nice case for 25, and that was with shipping

oh ya hi guys....i am new

[Cricket]

Originally posted by Zempten Case: ?

Antec, Enlight, Chenbro, Lian-Li, Lite-On, CompuCase, AOpen all make good cases...but the most important part of the case is the power supply. Get a good quality one from Antec, AOpen, Astec, Enermax, Enlight, Fortron Source, HEC, NSpire, PowerMan, Sparkle Power or PC Power & Cooling.

Originally posted by Zempten Motherboard: ?

Intel or ASUS.

Originally posted by Zempten CD Drive: ?

Sony or ASUS.

Originally posted by Zempten Hard Drive: Western Digital

Get the 8MB cache model.

Originally posted by Zempten Floppy Drive: Not sure if I want one.

Get one, they come in handy when troubleshooting. And they're cheap, so why not?

Originally posted by Zempten Fan- Antec

Make sure you get ball bearing fans. Some of the Antec's are sleeve bearing (these don't last as long). Other brands to consider are Sunon, Panaflo, NMB, Pabst, TopMotor and YST.

Cricket

[RayH]

Form follows function. Hardware follows software. You get the hardware necessary to drive the software. How much money do you have to spend?

Understand what software you need to run your new computer. Sometimes you plan your hardware purchases based on your software needs.

Windows is expensive if you go down the block and purchase the full retail version. It's a lot less expensive if you purchase an OEM version that comes bundled with hardware.

Many devices, such as DVD ROMs and CD RW drives, need software to make it function. DVD ROMs need DVD playback software. CD RW drives need CD burning software. Retail versions come with such software. OEM versions are just bare drives.

Sometimes the software that comes bundled is worth more than the device if purchased separately!

[Zempten]

My price range is around 500 to 700 dollars

They way I'm thinking about the computer is 70% gaming, 20% entertainment ( DVDs and Music ), and 10% websurfing.

About the S-ATA, I'm not too sure it's a good idea to mess with that on my first built computer, but I'm willing to give it a shop if I can learn more about it. Also, I'm not going to mess with overcloaking either. I don't even know what it means but I'll try to reasearch it out.

I was thinking of probably getting a old OS so it would be cheaper. Probably Win 98 SE?

I was looking things over and I find that AMD is cheaper then Intel so I'm thinking of heading that way.

Thanks for your help guys, I'm going to do some more reasearching and I'll come back later to see what other great adive I can find. Thanks once more!

~Zempten

[Zempten]

Okay, here is what I have pieced together so far. Tell me how you feel pls and more importantly PLS tell me if it will work out

CASE
ANTEC PERFORMANCE II BLACK Model# SX635BII (BLACK) ATX MINI TOWER CASE w/ Antec 350W POWER SUPPLY - RETAIL
Special features include the Smart Power ATX12V P4 compliant power supply that runs cooler and quieter, front USB/Firewire ports, washable air filter on the front, & quick-release drive bays with release lever.
Specifications:
Material: 1.0mm SECC
Drive Bays: External 3 X 5.25" - 2 X 3.5" Internal 3 X 3.5"
System Board: Fits standard ATX / Pentium 4 Up to 12" (W) x 9.6" (L)
Expansion Slot: 7 Slots
USB/IO: 2 Front USB port, 1 Front IEEE 1394 (Firewire) port
Standard Fan(s): 1 X 80mm (rear)
Dimensions: 18.6" (L) X 8.1" (W) X 17.25" (H)

MOTHERBOARD
Asus Motherboard for AMD Athlon XP Processors, Model# A7N8X-X Retail
Specifications:
Supported CPU:AMD® Athlon™XP/ Athlon™/ Duron™ 600MHz ~ 3000+
Chipset:Nvidia nForce2 400 + nForce2 MCP
FSB:400 / 333 / 266 / 200 MHz
RAM:3 x 184-pin DDR 400 PC3200,2700,2100,1600 up to 3GB
IDE:2 x UltraDMA 133/100/66/33 Up to 4 Devices
Slots:1 x AGP 8X (1.5V only) 5 x PCI
Ports:2xPS2,1xLPT,1xCOM,4xUSB,1xLAN, and Audio Ports
Onboard LAN:Realtek® 8201BL PHY 10/100
Onboard Audio:ALC650 6CH w/built in HP amplifier

CD-Rom
Lite On 52x24x52 CDRW Model LTR-52246S OEM Buffer underrun error free & automatically adjust writing strategy plus running OPC to meet various burning condition.
Specifications:
Speed : Recording 52Xmax CAV Re-writing 24X High-Speed CLV Reading 52Xmax CAV
Interface : ATAPI-E/IDE, support up to Ultra-DMA Mode2 33.3MB/sec
Supported Media:CD-DA,CD-ROM,CD-Extra,CD-ROM/XA,Photo CD,CD-I Ready,Video CD,CD-R,CD-RW
Access Time : 80ms
Buffer Memory Size: 2MB
Operating System : Windows 95/98/NT/XP/2000/ME
Full OEM Pack: w/ Full Software

VIDEO CARD
ATI RADEON 9600 PRO 128MB 8X AGP DVI/TV RETAIL
Specifications:
Chipset:ATI RADEON 9600 PRO
Memory:128MB of double data rate SDRAM
Bus:AGP 4X (1.5V), 8X (0.8v) or Universal AGP 3.0 bus configuration (4X/8X).
Operating Systems Support: Windows® XP Windows® 2000 Windows® Me
4 parallel rendering pipelines
2 parallel geometry engines
Technology Features: SMARTSHADER™ 2.0, SMOOTHVISION™ 2.1, HYPER Z™ III+ TRUFORM™ 2.0 and VIDEOSHADER™
Max Res: 2048x1536 60HZ at 16.7M Colors
Ports:VGA + DVI + S-Video

SOUND CARD
Creative Labs Black Face Plate Kit for Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum

HARD DRIVE
WD WESTERN DIGITAL 40GB 7200RPM EIDE HARD DRIVE MODEL # WD400JB - OEM, DRIVE ONLY
Specifications:
Size: 40 Gigabytes
Interface: IDE ULTRA ATA100
Seek time: 8.9 ms
RPM:7200
Cache 8MB
OEM(Drive alone) 3 Year Manufacturer Warranty

Total ( With the 40GM HD) : 484.95

Or

WD WESTERN DIGITAL 60GB 7200RPM EIDE HARD DRIVE MODEL # WD600JB (600JB) - OEM, DRIVE ONLY
Specifications:
Size: 60 Gigabytes
Interface: IDE ULTRA ATA100
Seek time: 10.9 ms
RPM:7200
Cache 8MB
OEM(Drive alone) 3 Year Manufacturer Warranty

Total (With the 60GB HD) : 468.48

SO what do you think? Will it work out? I haven't put in the money it will take to buy the OS yet, but I'm justhoping these parts will work out. If you don't like something of it pls do tell me.

Thanks again, I really appreciate all of your help, I tell how thankful I am for your help. Thank You

~Zempten

[buletproofmiget]

The black face plate isnt a soundcard, your motherboard has onboard sound, so you dont need a sound card, and what about Ram??? I suggest Corsair Value Select, it is very reliable and inexpensive. You also need to consider the price of periphreals such as a keyboard, monitor, mouse etc. and take into consideration the price of the processor

[mattg2k4]

I'd get a soundcard anyway, I've never like onboard sound, for sound quality and their software/drivers. Plus the audigy 2 card scores you a firewire port. And yeah as buletproofmiget said, you have a faceplate there, not the soundcard.

In your first post you said you were interested in an intel processor, yet you chose an AMD motherboard. About the whole intel vs. AMD thing, here's my take: AMD is more bang for buck, but intel is easier and more reliable. Plust intel has hyperthreading and an 800mhz fsb, something AMD does not.

I dunno what kind of files you keep on your computer, but a 40 or 60 GB hard drive seems a little small to me. Plus you can get many more GB's per dollar when purchasing a larger drive. The WD 120Gb is $103, 1.16GB/dollar. The 40GB is $66.50, 0.6GB/dollar. If you aren't going to use the whole space, go with the cheaper drive, but if you might buy additional space later, it's probably cheaper just to get a bigger drive to start.

I usually buy Kingston ram, it's pretty cheap and it's always worked fine for me. Crucial is another good brand.

[Zempten]

I was thinking of just replacing the sound and video cards sicne most agree that the ones that come with aren't that nice , but perhaps I should look for a MB that doesn't contain a sound and video card? Would it be cheaper?

Yes, I'm still stuck on the processor thing. I'm not sure to go with AMD or Intel. Still being tugged in between. I was told that AMD was cheaper then Intel so that was my reason for going with a AMD MB. But if Intel isn't too overpriced then AMD I might consider it, I guess I'll go back and find out some more on these two things , MB and Processor

About the memory, I'm pulling 128 from my old comp, but I'm thinking I'm going to have to purchase some later on so I might as well do so now.

hehehe, sorry about he sound card thingy. Was a mispaste

I chose the 40GB or 60GB because I've been doing really well with 60GB so far. I don't have a lot of music , althought I download a lot but I just keep the ones that I REALLY like and I don't exactly make a lot of home movies so that's why I'm leaning toward the 60GB. It's just I don't want to have to see so much memory not used up and figured out that I never needed so much in the first place. You know what I mean?

EDIT: Oh and hte keyboard, mouse and monitor thing I have spares that I will use.

I'll come back later after I've done some more reasearching. Thanks once more for your time.

[vizun]

Is the ram that you are pulling from your old computer compatible with yoru new mobo?'

[sdkfz]

to remark on the OS and getting an older one... check out the OEM prices at newegg, 99 or xp are 93.00. Sorry bouth that but age in this case does not mean much