I think I'm finally ready to take on the task of building my first computer. I just need some help from some more experienced computer people on selecting the parts.

I found a motherboard/processor/ram combo that i think I'm going to buy
P4 1.4Ghz, ABIT BW7 motherboard and 512mb PC133 SDRAM for $346 (anyone know if thats a reasonble price?)

What i really need help on is sound and video cards. What brands are good, and which should i stay away from? And also, when buying a monitor whats the most important thing to look for? DPI, resolution, etc?

any help would be appreciated

get a soundblaster Live! for sound,
Get an NVidia GeForce video card (get a 3 if you can afford it, a GeForce 2 Ultra is a little cheaper.both should have 64MB on em)

.26 or less for dot pitch, a 19" is supposedly the defacto standard these days. in my opinion Sony monitors are about the best (I have 3 myself)

if u do online shopping check out www.pricewatch.com (http://www.pricewatch.com) as yer gonna find the best deals there.

I have the Soundblaster Live Platinum 5.1 and it sounds great!! Highly recommended.

What do yo uwant to do with the video card? For general graphic and business needs with occasional gaming ATI makes great cards. Nvidea is the best for strictly gaming though. The GeForce Ultra can be bought for great prices.

Sound Blaster Live! is the way to go. My main system is running one with a set of Cambridge Soundworks 5.1 speakers (4 speakers + 1 sub) and the sound is incredible. Everything form MP3's to Need for Speed sound great on this setup.

What are you planning to run for a hard drive? Lot of good prices out there, but a lot of crap too. I always use IBM drives; SCSI for my servers, Deskstar 7200 RPM for all others, never had a problem.

Building your first PC is fun, but plan to spend more than you budget. Good luck!!

here's what i've found so far, someone tell me if these prices are rip-offs....

the 1.4Ghz P4/motherboard/ram mentioned before for $346

12x10x32 CDRW - $80
Toshiba 16x DVD drive- $57
1.44mb floppy - $15
Jaton 3DForce2 MX-400-64mb NVidia Geforce2 $80

Soundblaster live mp3 +5.1 PCI w/ Mic $64

IMB 40GB Deskstar 7200rpm 60gxp ultra ATA/100 $109 (or $149 for 60 gig)

Zeus Compenents 17" (16" viewable) .25mm dot pitch $131

any recommendations for modems? I just need a cheap 56k to last most of a year when i go to college @ Iowa State they have T3 in all the dorms

Also, wheres a good place to get a tower/powersupply combo? and how would i make sure its the right voltage/wattage for the motherboard?

Originally posted by JGarrett98:
here's what i've found so far, someone tell me if these prices are rip-offs....

the 1.4Ghz P4/motherboard/ram mentioned before for $346

This price for the P4, mb, and RAM is decent.

12x10x32 CDRW - $80

Make sure that your CDR/W has "Burn-Proof" technology onboard. If it does, this is a solid price. If not, don't bother. "Burn-Proof" reduces coasters.

Toshiba 16x DVD drive- $57

Good price.

1.44mb floppy - $15

These can be found for less, but only by $5 at most. Not worth the hassle of finding a lower price unless you have a ton of computer stores nearby.

Jaton 3DForce2 MX-400-64mb NVidia Geforce2 $80

If the Jaton is a GeForce2MX the price is average. If it is not an MX then the price is solid. The MX is basically their cheapo version...not bad by any means, but not as good as a non-MX. Realistic performance difference is 5-15% depending on the app.

Soundblaster live mp3 +5.1 PCI w/ Mic $64

You may want to look into Creative Labs' new card - Audigy. It smokes all consumer grade cards on the market and is made by the same company that makes the Live!. If you're not an audiophile, stick with the Live! as it was the best card available until the Audigy was release a couple of weeks ago.

IMB 40GB Deskstar 7200rpm 60gxp ultra ATA/100 $109 (or $149 for 60 gig)

These again are good prices. Make sure that you stick with a 7200RPM dive. IBM makes solid gear.

Zeus Compenents 17" (16" viewable) .25mm dot pitch $131

The price is right, but you will want to make sure that the quality is there. The monitor is the most important component of your interface to the computer and if it isn't as crisp as you'd like or is blurry, you may end up hating the whole computer or going blind. :D

any recommendations for modems? I just need a cheap 56k to last most of a year

If you can find a modem made by 3com or USRobotics (same company) for a decent price go for it. Performance isn't an issue when comparing modems as they are all slow to begin with. What you want is stability and customer support. Ask the guy you're buying the parts from what he recommends for a cheap modem.

Also, wheres a good place to get a tower/powersupply combo? and how would i make sure its the right voltage/wattage for the motherboard?

Go here (http://support.intel.com/support/processors/pentium4/p4comp.htm) for your case and power questions.


I hope this helps and have fun!

only one mistake with the components selected so far: the processor. Athlon 1.4 is faster and MUCH cheaper. makes no difference about peoples' horror stories, both companies make crappy processors every now and then. the Athlon has tested faster over and over again. if you buy a P4 then you will indeed have a fast machine but you could have faster for less $$$.

Stick with Intel!!! Gateway even just dropped AMD....

anyone else wanna get into the AMD/Pentium debate???

I can get a AMD Athlon 1.4ghz w/ 256mb DDR-SDRAM for $315

or

a p4 1.4ghz w/ 512mb pc133 SDRAM for $346

or

a p4 1.7Ghz w/ 512mb pc133 for $411

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

also, i found this tower/power supply i was thinking of. http://www.directron.com/colsertranpl.html

doesnt' say a whole lot about the power supply, but do you think it'd work w/ the P4 and/or Athlons?

Nope, no good. That case only has a 235w power supply, way to low for the machine you are building. You will need a MINIMUM of a 300W supply, more is always better.

for anything running over 1Ghz, either company, i'd want 400 watts pushing it. especially if you plan to add a lot of peripherals.

do not buy p4 with sdram buy the board that uses rimms it is much faster/p4 motherboards need special power supply with extra leads will not work with standard atx power supply.good luck ps do not buy on price alone because you always get what you pay for. buy intel it will not burn up, one reason amd prices are low they are not selling.

[ September 27, 2001: Message edited by: dodgeguy ]

randy, that's because all the big manufacturers are in bed with intel. intel is basically a big giant slut. ask any serious gamer or power user and chances are they will tell you that the system they built is powered by Athlon.

or if you ask the right one, they might tell you it's powered by a P-51 Mustang Rolls Royce Merlin liquid-cooled engine....

its funny how all the gamers have to have athalons, but they never complain about having to tweak everything to make it work and stability issues because of the via chipset and worry about overheating & blue screens, while the intel systems keep plugging away and will probably out last the amd by years

My bro has an AMD going on 6 years old and is used about 6 hours a day extensivley and is powered on 24/7, and has NEVER had a blue screen.

Gateway dropped AMD...big frickin' deal, all Gateway computers are good for is paperweights.

my 700 is overclocked and is stable and cool. i have a massive fan on it but still. it ran windows 98se and yes, it had problems. as soon as i put 2000 on it i had it on for weeks at a time without restarting it. it bluescreened twice during the 6 months that i used 2000. both of these occured because of incompetent users (other than myself). so far xp is more of the same: no instability, no excess heat, plenty of power for everything that i use it for. my roommate has a 1.4 running 2000 pro and has no problems whatsoever.

I used to think like that...pro intel, intel this, intel that..blah blah blah...

I now run a tbird 1.33 ghz and i have not any kind of heat issues (my case has 11 fans, but it's been that way from '98 when i was overclocking celerons), or blue screens due to chipset issues.

I have not experienced these geforce/soundblaster live/AMD strangeness issues.

i think it boils down to buying quality parts. plain and simple...nuff said.

if anyone cares, I have 6 systems here, 5 intel, and 1 amd, which is my 'main' machine. yes, it's a gaming rig.

and why do you need 11 fans? Is it because your athalon runs at 150-160f. that can't be it can it?Intel chips run at 100-125f working hard. Is that why asus put throtteling in their asus probe for the socket a boards, so you do not burn up the board if a fan fails? and a 6year old amd makes it a k5 oh my , if they did not have problems that chip almost put amd away,the only thing worse was the cyrix.

what difference does it make how hot it runs? if you can keep it in check then it's moot point. if it takes 11 fans to keep the temp down, so be it. a 1.33Tbird cooks any P4 except maybe the 2Ghz. i'd put my money on a 1.4TB overclocked against a 2.0Ghz P4 any day. take the money you save from buying the TBird and buy a few MASSIVE fans and you will be just fine and have a damn fast machine to boot.

but what your not considering the biggest cause of any electronic failure is heat, thus the hotter it is the more likely it is to fail.

Damn, everytime Intel or AMD comes up we always get an argument :) I guess it was my fault this time.

GM sucks :p

hey Randy with all thats been goin on in the world its a good way to vent and take your mind off all the bad stuff.

True :)

Hey Randy car looks good with tint, did you put limo on the back three or is it 20% can not tell by photo

Limo (5%)

Thanks

yeah but to counter the heat problem all you have to do as add strategically placed fans. and you don't have to worry about power draw because you get a 400w power supply. if you build an athlon right it has just as much chance of failure as a Pentium does. just like domestic vs. imports. most of it is doing the maintenance warranted by your driving habits.

Here's what I would do:

Wait for the KT266A motherboard, stay AWAY from Abit. I'd reccomend Asus. I don't know what the model number of their KT266A board will be.

Athlon MP processor, anywhere from 1.2ghz to 1.53ghz

At least 256MB of DDRSRAM

SK-6 by Thermalright CPU FAN, try to get it without a 7K Delta unless you go beyond 1.2ghz you may have too.

Case whatever you perfer, be sure it has an intank & exhaust fan. If it comes with a medicore power supply replace it with a Athlon approved 300/400 watt variety

Teac Floppy Drive

A IBM or Maxtor 7200 spin drive & don't waste your money on IDE raid setups

Video, Nvidia, either a Geforce 2 Ultra or a Geforce 3, dont consider anything less.

Sound, the Creative Audigy.

Any brand of 16X DVD will do.

CD-RW, any brand but a 24X with burn proof technology.

2 Cool PC Plus (the turbo is too noisy)

Monitor, Viewsonic, Sony, Nec, stick with a major brand name. Check out the Viewsonic VG175. 3X pixel clock. :)

Get a hardware 56 modem, 3com of course

The new wireless MS Explorer Pro mouse

The cost, HEHEHEHE

In case some of you did not see this site...Take a look.
http://www4.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q3/010917/index.html

Cyrix all the way, baby!!!!! :)

If I had to buy a processor and motherboard today I'd definitely go for the AMD. At 1.2Ghz, it smokes the 1.7Ghz P4 in every area but memory utilization...the 1.4Ghz AMD is even better. The P4's kill AMD there. As most of my computing is more processor intensive than memory intensive this suits me fine. An added bonus is that the AMDs are significantly cheaper.

For an excellent objective comparison of the AMD and the P4 at various clockspeeds, checkout this article (http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2001q2/athlon-1.4/index.x?pg=1). Don't just look at the pretty graphs, read the article to see the reasons behind the various performance levels. The long and short of it is that if you need a hardcore processor (playing games, manipulating graphics, engineering, etc.) go for the AMD. If you absolutely have to have blazing memory, go with the P4. If you're spending close to $400 for a CPU/MB/RAM combo, you owe it to yourself to take the 15 minutes to read it.

Don't forget, about a month or so after you buy it you'll see a faster combo for less money and say to yourself, "Why oh why didn't I wait?". This always happens and cannot be avoided with the rapid advancements that are made in the computing field. The key is to find a product that does what you want for a price you are comfortable paying. Otherwise you'll keep kicking yourself over and over again forever. :)

Thanks for the link to the article on the processor comparo.... kinda makes me want the AMD now, but its confusing because most of the people here are against them...????

but pretty much the only thing the P4 won over the AMD was w/ the memory (they compared a 1.4amd 256mb 266mhz ddr against 1.7p4 w/ 256mb PC800)

I was just wondering if a Athlon 1.4 with 512mb 266mhz DDR would kick the shit out of the P4 w/ 256mb pc800.
Going with the Athlon combo is about $170 cheaper, and is looking like a pretty good deal right now.

or, should i wait until the new AMD Palomino?

Originally posted by JGarrett98:
its confusing because most of the people here are against them...????

Chevy vs. Ford
They do run hotter, but there are many ways to reduce heat and most "standard" heatsink/fan combos will do the job for a non-overclocked Athlon.

but pretty much the only thing the P4 won over the AMD was w/ the memory (they compared a 1.4amd 256mb 266mhz ddr against 1.7p4 w/ 256mb PC800)

Ayup...unless the devs tweak their code for ultimate P4 compatibility (like the iD guys do for the Quake engines) the AMD smokes the Intel in nearly all processing arenas.

I was just wondering if a Athlon 1.4 with 512mb 266mhz DDR would kick the shit out of the P4 w/ 256mb pc800.

In processing, yes because the RAM upgrade would have little to do with the CPU's number crunching capabilities. In memory management and performance, no. The P4 simply has a better way to deal with memory throughput.

Going with the Athlon combo is about $170 cheaper, and is looking like a pretty good deal right now.

The Athlons are super cheap. It's how AMD has garnered massive amounts of market share from Intel - around 40%.

or, should i wait until the new AMD Palomino?

Therein lies the dilemma of every technology buyer. Do I buy now or wait. One thing to keep in mind is that the P4 platform is relatively new and, as a result, will have a better upgrade path than the current Athlon offerings. Waiting for the new AMD chips will provide an even longer upgrade path than the P4.



You simply have to ask yourself if you can/want to wait until the next major technology upgrade before you buy, or if you're willing to replace the technology you purchase today (motherboard, CPU, and potentially RAM) if you decide to buy now. Either way - Intel or AMD - you can't go wrong.

Keep Moore's Law (http://www.intel.com/research/silicon/mooreslaw.htm) in mind when you make your decision. What you buy today for $1 will be half as fast as what you can buy 18 months from now for $1.

I have 11 fans in my computer because I was overclocking an INTEL cpu. I also have 4 ultra scsi drives and 2 ide drives and i never bothered to take em out..(the fans)

4 fans around the drive bays, 3 front intake, 2 rear exhaust, 1 power supply fan, 1 cpu fan.


whenever i fire this thing up, i expect it to hover with all the whirring it makes.

my case is a supermicro SC-750a (http://www.supermicro.com/PRODUCT/Chassis/sc750.htm)

[ September 28, 2001: Message edited by: Thrasher ]

Does anyone know when the AMD Palominos will come out? Any estimated speeds or costs???

Personally, I like the P4/RDRAM combo. It's more expensive (not that much), but limiting the P4 to pc133 SDRAM is really a bottleneck. If you're going to go with a P4, get RDRAM or wait a while until Intel releases a chipset that supports DDR-SDRAM. DDR-SDRAM is the only one that can come close to providing the throughput of RDRAM.

And if you think RDRAM is expensive, check out Pricewatch.com. Yes, it's more expensive than SDRAM, but it's faster...duh! of course you'll pay a little more for that.

Applications are not optimized for the P4's architecture yet, that's why it's beaten so badly in the benchmarks.

Personally though, as someone with a 1.5GHz P4 with 512MB of RDRAM, I certainly can't complain. Would I be blown away by how much more quick and responsive my computer would be if it had an equally-clocked Athlon with 512MB of RAM? I highly doubt it.

Biggest bottleneck today is the HDD and the subsystem it runs on (IDE/UDMA, SCSI)