?s on Building a PC

oldwrench · Post by **oldwrench** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 9:44 am

There are lots of good ideas here. I think building a computer with the intent of upgrading it for several years is not a good idea. Seems every year they come with something far better. There is a change in motherboard design coming, AMD is going to a new socket, pci-x is comming, serial ata is due fo a bump in speed, ect. Best bet ia to build a fast computer with last generation components, it will be good for a few years and cost much less. try this

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... =S450-3200

Nice cheep barebones kit, add an AMD xp 3000, a gig of pc 2700 ram, a 200 gig hard drive, a dvd burner and your set to go. Onboard audio and video arent the best, but are good enough for 2d work on video editing. I used one of these kits to build an office computer, they use it to convert old vhs tapes to dvds, works fine.

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 11:52 pm

Beware a lot of barebones kits use cheap parts and actually cost more than buying decent parts individually. That one actually looks pretty good, especially if you don't mind waiting for the rebate to come in. But it's definitely not something you'd want as the basis for gaming rig. Video/2D work would probably be fine.

slackergirl · Post by **slackergirl** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 8:32 pm

I did look into a few barebones kits, but they all were missing something I wanted, so I think I'd be happier putting it together myself. In the little spare time I had this weekend (work has been INSANE), I put together a wishlist at Newegg. Might not get everything there, but any suggestions about the selections? Do I need an additional fan for the case?

I picked an Antec case mainly because a) klinky recommended their power supplies, and b) that is also the name of the diagnostic lab my practice uses (though I highly doubt they're related

).

Thanks again guys!

TaranT · Post by **TaranT** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 3:10 am

Not very fashionable - tower cases are so Nineties!

- but it'll get the job done.

I'm using this memory:
Corsair Value Select 1 GB DDR400 kit
It's the same as yours except CAS-2.5 instead of CAS-3. I'm not sure how much difference that makes, but my geek friends tell me the lower number is always better. And it only costs a dollar more than what you've listed.

If you want WinXP, you'll get the OEM price if you order at the same time you order a CPU, hard drive, or mainboard.

BTW, don't forget to click the check boxes for the freebies that NewEgg offers. And keep an eye out for free shipping deals. And...I've sometimes obtained better prices ordering the same items from ZipZoomFly.com. Odd name, they used to be called GoogleGear.com until Google.com issued threats. They've been 100% reliable for me, same as NewEgg.com.

Brolly345 · Post by **Brolly345** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 11:29 am

I'm just going to give you a good site for biulding a PC. Everyone else seems to be providing all the technical specs.

teh site

This is just a directory for sites on specific computer parts.

Wheee_It's_Me! · Post by **Wheee_It's_Me!** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 2:11 pm

Brolly345 wrote:I'm just going to give you a good site for biulding a PC. Everyone else seems to be providing all the technical specs.

teh site

This is just a directory for sites on specific computer parts.

Didn't I mention Price Watch in one of my posts? *thinks* Hrmmm...maybe I didn't. I wouldn't say it's a good site for building a computer though, but it is a good site IF you know what you're looking for, then you can usually get the best deal on it. However if you're not really sure about what you're buying you probably shouldn't be going to Price Watch.

dwchang · Post by **dwchang** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 2:38 pm

Wheee_It's_Me! wrote:
Scintilla wrote:everything is going to go 64-bit... and, um, has Intel released a 64-bit processor yet?
o_O

The Itaniums are all 64bit procesors, so are all the newest Xeons. Which was a lil stupid on their part cause that basically just killed off their Itanium processor line. *shrugs*

Uhm as Scintilla said, Xeons are generally for servers and thus not consumer level. Consumers can purchase and use them as you did, but as you also showed, you're going to pay a premium. Also consumer-level 64-bit pentiums aren't even on the roadmap for this year for Intel. I imagine they have their design done already (esp. since there are rumors they have it in Prescott already), but are just validating and such.

My advice is what you originally had slackergirl. An Athlon 64 3000+ performs extremely well and is a fraction of the cost of a P4 EE, Xeon, FX, etc. For the editing you'll be doing (and even non-amateur), it will be sufficient. Trust me. I know folks who edit on PII 350's and others on Athlon 1800+ and they edit just fine and flawlessly. However, might as well take the 64-bit jump (that inevitably will come. I can guarantee that.) now while it's fairly cheap.

You can build a good 3000+ machine for probably under $1,000 which is half the price of a xeon server. Funny that this is coming from a dual-processor person who spent around $2,000 on his editing rig :-/. I suggest going through newegg. Sure they may be more expensive on *some* things, but for the total on *all of it*, it will be comprable. Best to ship from just one place too. Saves money.

And I agree with Hatter on the memory. Don't skimp on memory. It's very important and more is better...quality too.