Ok, seriously, computer help

[Gafgarionn]

I've started at least one of these topics before, and I'm pretty sure I prefaced the previous topic with "I've started one of these topics before" so I potentially have like, 3 of these topics out. But, I'm super serious about it this time. I'm starting college soon, and I'd like to have my desktop up and running well before hand. I'm gonna custom build a PC for myself. The actual building of it is no problem, as I've done it before and in the odd chance that I do run into problems, I can get ample help. The problem I have is with what parts I should buy. I don't know shit about computer parts. So, my fellow Blue Gartr junkies, with an $1500 budget maximum, what parts would you buy? This does not include monitor, keyboard, etc. Only the stuff in the tower. I'll be ordering all of my parts off of newegg.com.

[Correction]

If you have an absolute budget and are (presumably) building a gaming rig, I've never gone wrong using the guides at sharkyextreme:

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/MVG ... hp/3607756

Of course, it's been about 3 years since I used their guides so I don't know if the editorial staff or anything of that sort has changed but a quick glance shows they haven't lost their commitment to providing trustworthy 'value' guides.

[Epical]

Won't your "ample" help be able to assist you here too? =P

[Gafgarionn]

Won't your "ample" help be able to assist you here too? =P

I was just talking about the actual building of the computer. I'm building a gaming computer, so I figured this would be a good place to ask.

[Bwelch]

Case

Power Supply

Hard Drive

Graphics Card

Motherboard

CD/DVD/RW Drive

Processor

Liquid Cooling

$1,468.93

Edit... Forogt memory ('-'*) Anything Corsair

Edit#2... 2GB

Without shipping.............

[Bebopaloo]

Take off the liquid cooling on that list and get a decent flat screen monitor imo. Unless you plan on doing some *serious* overclocking, the minor help form liquid cooling wont be as worth it as a nice flat screen monitor. Unless you already have a monitor then GG Liquid Cooling.

[Bwelch]

Yeah could probably do without the liquid cooling.

[Epical]

I know, I just thought that if your help was so knowledgable, they could give you a list of items np.

Anyways, in terms of video cards, what do you prefer: ATI or nVidia? If ATI, then anything from the X850XT PE to the X1900XTX. For nVidia, anything from the 6600 to the 7900 GT. If you can, try to get a card that's PCI-E enabled. If you're going for a dual-monitor setup or some HDTV thing, disregard what I just said.

For sound card, a good Audigy 3 or 4 should do it. Do you have surround sound speakers or just 2.1? This really isn't super necessary unless you pride yourself on your sound. If you wanted to, you can just use the on-board sound card your mobo comes with.

If you're building for the future and want to be able to still use your PC in 3-4 years without being totally raped by the games you play and things you'll be doing, you're probably going to be buying a dual core processor. Again, brand preference is up to you (AMD vs Intel). I'm an Intel guy myself, so I'm currently looking at the Pentium D 9XX's to replace my current juice-draining P4. I don't have experience with AMDs (despite working as a computer part salesman >_>), so my advice would probably steer you in the wrong direction.

RAM, anything 1G+ should be fine, and if you're looking for a brand, Kingston is always reliable (and cheap).

Motherboards... again, I'm not a super guru with model names and product numbers for these, but I do know this: whatever one you get, make sure it passes two "tests". One, make sure your RAM is compatible with your mobo, or else you're pretty fucked. Two, have a PCI-E slot available on it for your video card... most mobos that are manufactured in the last year come with them on it.

Floppy/CD/DVD drives, something cheap is all you need. If it reads the damn discs, it'll do you fine. If you want to burn shit, guess what you need to look for.

Hard drive, just get something that has enough space for all your stuff. If you need a gauge, check how much disk space you have now, and how much you're using, then add another 50 to 100 to be safe (well, you don't have to, but you'll undoubtedly be downloading/installing new things, so it's always good to have extra space). If you do run out, you can always get external HDDs, although they'll run you a bit more.

Take what you want from that... just a general guideline.

EDIT: Oh you posted some stuff before I posted this... I'll read those links in a bit. =\

EDIT2: Read them, everything looks pretty solid. I forgot about the power supply, so good job picking that up. I also agree with the others in that water cooling might be a bit unnecessary, fans should do just fine. Just make sure your tower isn't against a wall or on the carpet. =P However, since your tower has the open side, you might want the pretties of the watercooling LEDs or something. =P

[Bebopaloo]

Listen to epical, tryin to make everything all fancy with pretty lights. Sissy man I say >:O! Put some barbed wire in that mofo.

[Epical]

Hey, who told you to talk! Get him back in the cages.

[Sonomaa]

the new intels smoke everything AMD has to offer, if you build anything, have the new 6400 intel chip (cant remember exact name)
they are just monsters of rock

[Epical]

Yeah, after reading up on a few things, back when things were single-core, AMD usually came out on top, but now that things are dual core, the Intels are owning ass. >_> E6600 Core 2 Duo >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>> Athlon 64 X2 5000+.

[Bwelch]

A 4.1 GHz Dual Core at $130 - Can it be True?

Pretty interesting read.

[Epical]

I normally don't do this, but there's no way I'm going to read 45 pages right now...

Is what they were talking about was OCing the hell out of a D805 to 4.1? Pretty cool (no pun intended, seeing as you'd probably need some serious cooling for the voltage increase, but they probably covered this already on the pages I didn't read =D)!

[Gafgarionn]

I know, I just thought that if your help was so knowledgable, they could give you a list of items np.

Anyways, in terms of video cards, what do you prefer: ATI or nVidia? If ATI, then anything from the X850XT PE to the X1900XTX. For nVidia, anything from the 6600 to the 7900 GT. If you can, try to get a card that's PCI-E enabled. If you're going for a dual-monitor setup or some HDTV thing, disregard what I just said.

For sound card, a good Audigy 3 or 4 should do it. Do you have surround sound speakers or just 2.1? This really isn't super necessary unless you pride yourself on your sound. If you wanted to, you can just use the on-board sound card your mobo comes with.

If you're building for the future and want to be able to still use your PC in 3-4 years without being totally raped by the games you play and things you'll be doing, you're probably going to be buying a dual core processor. Again, brand preference is up to you (AMD vs Intel). I'm an Intel guy myself, so I'm currently looking at the Pentium D 9XX's to replace my current juice-draining P4. I don't have experience with AMDs (despite working as a computer part salesman >_>), so my advice would probably steer you in the wrong direction.

RAM, anything 1G+ should be fine, and if you're looking for a brand, Kingston is always reliable (and cheap).

Motherboards... again, I'm not a super guru with model names and product numbers for these, but I do know this: whatever one you get, make sure it passes two "tests". One, make sure your RAM is compatible with your mobo, or else you're pretty fucked. Two, have a PCI-E slot available on it for your video card... most mobos that are manufactured in the last year come with them on it.

Floppy/CD/DVD drives, something cheap is all you need. If it reads the damn discs, it'll do you fine. If you want to burn shit, guess what you need to look for.

Hard drive, just get something that has enough space for all your stuff. If you need a gauge, check how much disk space you have now, and how much you're using, then add another 50 to 100 to be safe (well, you don't have to, but you'll undoubtedly be downloading/installing new things, so it's always good to have extra space). If you do run out, you can always get external HDDs, although they'll run you a bit more.

Take what you want from that... just a general guideline.

EDIT: Oh you posted some stuff before I posted this... I'll read those links in a bit. =\

EDIT2: Read them, everything looks pretty solid. I forgot about the power supply, so good job picking that up. I also agree with the others in that water cooling might be a bit unnecessary, fans should do just fine. Just make sure your tower isn't against a wall or on the carpet. =P However, since your tower has the open side, you might want the pretties of the watercooling LEDs or something. =P

I appreciate everyone's help, sorry I'm just getting back to this.

Traditionally I've always had ATI cards and I've always heard about 50/50 for which brand is better. ATI has its fanboys, and NVIDIA has its own too. Honestly, I don't really care. If I hear a non-bias argument for one of them, I'll probably pick that one.

Sound? On-board is fine with me.

As for the processor, I've heard Intel is ahead now a days and that also seems to be the general concensus in this thread. This is a gaming computer, so the processor is very important. And yes, I'll be upgrading this computer from time to time in the future rather than tossing it out the window and buying a new one.

I'm going to buy 2 gig sticks of ram. Corsair or Kingston work fine; I'll see what's cheapest.

Is the motherboard even that important? I'll be careful to make sure it supports my ram, my processor, and a PCI-E video card. Other than that, I'll probably go for anything with a solid rating and a cheap price tag.

Floppy/DVD/CD, I'm not really concerned. I may end up making a run to Best Buy for these things.

For hard drives I'm completely in the dark. I've heard people tell me that hard drive speed is the most important aspect of the hard drive. Honestly, 80 gigs of space will be plenty for me, so I'm mostly concerned with the speed. Does the hard drive speed make any real difference? I realize the difference between an old hard drive and a new one would be noticeable, but what about between modern ones? Once again I'm kind of in the dark about all this, but it isn't really one of my concerns.

[Raineer]

I appreciate everyone's help, sorry I'm just getting back to this.

Traditionally I've always had ATI cards and I've always heard about 50/50 for which brand is better. ATI has its fanboys, and NVIDIA has its own too. Honestly, I don't really care. If I hear a non-bias argument for one of them, I'll probably pick that one.

Sound? On-board is fine with me.

As for the processor, I've heard Intel is ahead now a days and that also seems to be the general concensus in this thread. This is a gaming computer, so the processor is very important. And yes, I'll be upgrading this computer from time to time in the future rather than tossing it out the window and buying a new one.

I'm going to buy 2 gig sticks of ram. Corsair or Kingston work fine; I'll see what's cheapest.

Is the motherboard even that important? I'll be careful to make sure it supports my ram, my processor, and a PCI-E video card. Other than that, I'll probably go for anything with a solid rating and a cheap price tag.

Floppy/DVD/CD, I'm not really concerned. I may end up making a run to Best Buy for these things.

For hard drives I'm completely in the dark. I've heard people tell me that hard drive speed is the most important aspect of the hard drive. Honestly, 80 gigs of space will be plenty for me, so I'm mostly concerned with the speed. Does the hard drive speed make any real difference? I realize the difference between an old hard drive and a new one would be noticeable, but what about between modern ones? Once again I'm kind of in the dark about all this, but it isn't really one of my concerns.

ATI vs Nvidia is your call as you know, i still stand by my statement that drivers for ATI are horrible (and I've tried both to great extent), but either card can perform fine.

Comparing onboard sound to a card like Audigy or better is like apples and oranges, it's SO different. AC97 sucks and it's what they have used in most mobo's for like 9 years. The new Nforce boards might be alot better, I can't speak to that, but even a cheap audigy makes things sound sooo much better... The main difference is the number of channels at once and how rich they play.

For processor, if you are just gaming I'd recommend AMD (and I'm the biggest Intel fanboy there is, still run one too), intel just kinda messed up with their latest release. They run warmer than they should and the performance isn't as wonderful as it should be. Still more optimized for business and graphics apps than gaming.

Motherboard can be important, because it determines alot about your system. This is also where the decision about your HDD comes in, it's not so much the speed (well, that is important), but also the interface. I'd recommend SATA (Serial-ATA) so you'll need a mobo that supports that. PCI-Express is definately the way to go, AGP is becoming the old VESA and isn't going away fast enough. I'd go with a bottom line model from a good manufacturer if you're concerned about price, don't buy from a piece of shit company even if it's "top of the line"

[Iku]

ATI is not ahead of Nvidia. It is the opposite. Really.

AMD is much better for gaming and multitasking.

Motherboard: Make sure you get the right socket and shit.

For Hard Drive: The speed of the hard drive somewhat important. It is the speed of how it retrieve datas/reg. So the faster it retrieve the faster you can do stuff and rumor said it does effect your gaming.

[Sirenia]

I'll be ordering all of my parts off of newegg.com.

Good man!

[Krylanna]

Hard drive speed helps on loading screens in games, and improves your overall system speed when all your RAM is in use. Since you're getting 2 GB of RAM, you probably won't notice until the next round of new games or later. If you get a good, fast CD burner you can offload a lot of music and movies so the size really doesn't matter at all. Size also has a small impact on speed, the larger the drive the slower it reads, but you likely can't notice the difference on home PC HDDs. I just remember it being mentioned in my operating systems class a few years back (forgot the formula for platter size / RPM / KB/sec ratio )

If speed is a really important issue to you, you might look into getting a small, fast drive for your OS installation and a larger secondary drive to install your programs and data, since your memory overflow goes on the same drive as the operating system.

And definitely have a friend who knows what they're doing put it together for you. It's easy enough to fit the parts in and make it work yourself with minimal knowledge, but among the mistakes I made on my first computer:

- Purchased a 1 GHz AMD processor from Fry's which I didn't double-check on the way out the door and ended up with a 768 MHz
- Put the floppy disk cable on backwards and thought that the drive was broken (twisty end goes into the drive, not the mobo)
- Set the "wake on LAN" jumper switch not knowing what it was and spent two weeks unable to sleep because my computer kept booting itself up whenever someone tried to access my share folder on the dorm network

Final advice, install as few programs as possible. Go through your windows installation (assuming windows for gaming) and click off any of the features you won't be using, especially messenger and email programs. Get third-party programs like Firefox, Thunderbird, and Trillian instead. They're great Also get a virus program before you connect up to the internet at all. This is just me being paranoid from when I was in college, but in my old dorm, all you had to do was plug the computer in and you'd get a virus. Windows is a little better about that now, with the built-in firewall, but if you're going to have anything running in the background a virus program is it.

[Slott]

Mobo is very important - it determines if you'll be able to upgrade in the future as well..

On my old gaming comp I blew my mobo from gaming lol...the caps on it blew and started leaking acid

Ended up buying a mobo fit for a server