Building a Computer Over the Summer and Definitely Open to Suggestions!

[mjs1217]

w00t, it's summer time, and i'm building a new computer! However I have a few boundries. The computer that I intend to build is going to be a gaming computer, so it needs to be fast and have an awesome video card. However, it also needs to be 700 dollars or less all-together, since thats all the cash I can spare.
I've heard of a few good places to buy parts at, and, although I intend to buy most of the parts at a computer show, I have decided to use www.pcimicro.com and www.tigerdirect.com for the parts that I cannot find at computer shows.
I have already spent alot of time on this, and assembled everything that I intend to buy, plus the maximum estimated price, in a list.(I have attached this list to my post.)
I am still open to any and all suggestions from you guys! Also, I have never bought from www.pcimicro.com before, so if any of you have, please share your experience.

Pease Note The New List With Suggestions!

[Crimson_Turkey]

Looks good. Pe4rsonally I suggest an Asus A7V333 mobo. Has onboard sound too.

[Mr.Minus]

well...my experience with on board sound is if you want even slightly louder for dvd's and stuff the sound is gonna suck, but if your going for cheap its definately the way to go!

[pbcustom98]

Check out www.newegg.com for comp stuff..from what my friend tells me the prices are pretty good.

Daniel

[joeyjoe367]

You might want to take the hit and spend a bit more on your video card...

Remember, Doom3 and Half-Life 2 are comming out soon, and you probably want to have the best video card you can afford to get good framerates.

I'd also recommend an NVidia chipset Graphics card. Their Driver support is MUCH better than ATI. Sucks when loading up 3d games makes your computer crash, even tho when it's running you get 2 bajillion frames/sec.

[MarkM]

Ok I may have missed this but why the EXTERNAL harddrive, surely you will create a bottle neck by forcing the data through the firewire card.....and on that why a firewire card, plenty of MB's have a firewire socket, so at least for the short term you can have connectivity.

On board sound is a no no especially with a machine that you will be gaming on as you want as much power being processed by the right components...admittedly it is getting more and more difficult to find a decent bare MB AND still have it a reasonable price. The processor you quote is ok but Athlon 2400XP are around at real good prices....you have gone for that particular ATI card to overclock it ;), and then you choke up the rest of the system...for the sound card the older Audigy are plenty good enough (if you can find one) and as long as you are prepared to do a little bit of searching for the correct drivers the SB "Live 5.1" is a steal
A floppy drive isn't needed anymore so there a "small" saving to be had...you also haven't allowed in your budget for cooling as you are going to be using this for games I know you are gonna be fiddling with the clockspeeds so the temperatures are gonna rise...the heatsink and cooling fans in the packages are the first thing to dump. to be honest I belive that you are realy not ready to buy a system to do what you want to do because even though "some" of your PC parts are cheaper to buy where you are compared to me, we have stores here selling machines way way more powerful than you have quoted and they are mid priced units for me but they are twice the price you have got in your pocket. Just my thoughts you understand but then you did ask for thoughts :)

[-Carnifex-]

Give it legs, and missle launchers.

[mjs1217]

Mark, youve brought up some very good points:
First off, IEEE (Firewire) harddrives are only made external, and I was told that Firewire can go anywhere between 40% and 100% faster than IDE's. However, I hadn't considered your bottleneck theory.
Also, the case I intend to buy has 2 fans already installed, so cooling is pretty well taken care off since I have been told that the system I quoted won't need more than 2 fans (I will also have the sides of the case off, and on humid days, which are frequent here in Florida, the computer should cool even faster).
Then there is the issue of the processor. I have chosen this processor because it is extremely cheap in the combo with the motherboard. Perhaps I will upgrade it eventually, but I don't have the ash for it right now, nor will I for at least 4 months.
and finally we have the issue of the sound card, which I have opted not to buy just yet due to my lack of funds.

I really do appreciate your input though, and I will consider perhaps changing my harddrive as to avoid a bottleneck situation. Thanks!

[digitard]

Stay with ABIT or ASUS ...

I do tech work for Insight.com and we get Soyo calls all the time ... I get the fewest from ABIT/ASUS (Except for basic turn the FSB to 133 stuff)

But thats just my advice

Dave

[MarkM]

Ok, something else...I have heard and know of external hard drives...but to be honest never as the Primary Drive....can an external drive even be configured as such?

Even though you live in a warmer (bastard !! :mad: ;) )area, I have a "alleged" slower machine than you and my case came with 4 fans plus I have a fan on both of my hard drives plus an extra exhaust fan......and nothing on my machine is overclocked....and you don't wanna feel the heat coming out of my machine :eek:. Stock motherboard bundles are really underpowered in the cooling dept, I'm not suggesting a water cooled system or a refridgeration unit but at the very least a fan adapter and an 80mm fan for the chip, my case is an Ally Lian-Li and I have added the window and the lights (lights aren't fitted at the moment) but then that was just for show not performance, I have ram cooling fans together with heatsinks attached. All the IDE cabling is the smooth high airflow type and all the extra cables are wrapped in cable wrap. All this air flow routeing adds to the costs, although it does really help with reducing internal temps, actually the flat IDE cables are basically the same cost as these so called "trendy" parts, crazy.

I am actually considering changing the CPU fan/heatsink with a 120mm unit but time will tell, I will probably do that on the next system I build.

Your graphics card I think is a great choice....very lucky to find that model, the 9500 pro is the same board as the 9800 so it can be seriously fiddled with, and as such they have gotten very very scarce...just do a search and you will find the hacks to open the card up...but then I guess you already knew that hence your choice ;), you will however still have to consider aftermarket cooling for the card once you have fiddled.

Not that I play games on my PC, well does Solitare count :o, But you want to get the sound card 'cos how are you going to play games without sound? kinda defeats the idea of playing games, blow the big boss up and hear him go bang that sorta thing ;)

[mjs1217]

Hmm... I hadn't even considered going with a primary harddrive internally and making the IEEE a secondary...

Howeverr, most likely the computer will stay as is when I buy it and then over the next year I will begin to upgrade it, including heatsinks and water coolings if I see fit.

I'm rushing right now so sorry if this post is a lil short, but i'll be back on later.

Thanks for the help Mark.

[maximum]

This is where i order all my computer hardware from.

http://www.directron.com

[xmetal2001]

DONT go with a external harddrive as your primary, and the firewire being faster than IDE, Well, I've never heard that, and it doesn't really make sense, and in my experience it isn't true.

[SatansGun]

i would recommand
Motherboard Intel Desktop D865GLCL $133.00 $133.00
AsusTek V9560/TD 8x AGP 128MB DDR $185.00 $185.00
Box Intel Pentium 4 Celeron 2.4GHz CPU $93.00 $93.00
Hard Disk Maxtor 6E040L0 40GB IDE $63.00 $63.00
UNEEC Aluminum Tower + Side Windows, Silver $73.00 $73.00
Kingston 512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM $65.00 $130.00
Sound Blaster Live! Value! 5.1 $33.00 $33.00
8 Sub Total $710.00


if your gonna keep anything form your old computer ie: keyboard monitor speakers cd rom/ other rom and i would get round cables they are much neater than the flat ones

(these Prices are from http://www.pixelusa.com/default.asp
ive got all my comeputer stuff there for 10+ years)

[Miscue]

I prefer getting my hard drives at Costco, and motherboard/CPU in town... although it might cost a bit more. Reason being... it SUCKS when these parts break if they do... and you don't have to wait for stuff to get shipped. Costco will credit you if they don't have your drive, so you can use that money to get a bigger drive.

Most other parts don't break very often... or are cheap enough to toss and replace. Gives an excuse to upgrade.

Screw the Celeron. AMD or P4.
Screw Intel boards. Get ASUS, MSI, or ABIT.

[-=Squid=-]

Dude, get a dell. lol. Seriously though, you SHOULD look into it because I just got a catalogue in the mail that would make for a killer gaming PC, for only $450, and thats with a flatscreen monitor, but as usual im sure there is some catch :(

[Loser]

The Dell computers are at a good price, but at $450, the catch is flatscreen NOT included. :D

[-=Squid=-]

Originally posted by Loser
The Dell computers are at a good price, but at $450, the catch is flatscreen NOT included. :D


:(

[MantisMag]

i poop on Dell. i don't care what model you get.

[mjs1217]

Okay, I have taken all of your suggestions into consideration, and with great pleasure, I present to you...
[Triumphant music] The New And Improved Computer Parts List!![/Triumpahnt Music]
Here are the parts that I am now most likely going to buy: (See Attachment)

[devildog]

change your motherboard, if you want to keep it cheap and still get the performance, go for the ABIT nf7 model boards, the nforce2 chipsets are the fastest gaming wise right now and abit is the agd of motherboards, so go that route. if you dont mind spending a bit more, they are coming out with the nforce3 chipset, so get the abit board with that chipset in it, should be out soon.

[Kellen_p8nt]

try www.pricewatch.com they list the online prices for just about every computer part imaginable. They are the first place i usually check when i buy somen new...Oh And i recommend using Linux Redhat as primary and seeing about running Windows XP professions al as the dual boot if you can spare the cash because its allways worth it and it just makes for alot more interesting setup

but as we all know Windows is the devil...XP crashes on me everyday atleast once....i need to format this POS

[bornl33t]

Originally posted by Crimson_Turkey
Looks good. Pe4rsonally I suggest an Asus A7V333 mobo. Has onboard sound too.

FREAKING AWESOME MOBO, I like mine :D

check out googlegear.com too they got free 2nd day shipping. It's asolutly splendid :D

[WickeDKlowN]

I like KDComputers.com They have flat shipping charges($8 fro 2nd day air). and usually have good prices

[ASDadam]

Wow, amazing about the heat issues. I run a 1.6 Pentium on a MSI mb. I've overclocked the ram and the 1.6. THe 1.6 is running at 1.8 at 76 degrees F, and the case usually runs in the mid to high 70s. Overclocked the Video card too. I've got 1 fan blowing from the front to the back. STOCK Proccessor Fans and Heatsinks, One PCI Fan. 1 Fan on the Video and heatsinks on the ram. Plus one fan blowing out the back. No real big cooling system but it works. BTW, i live in Eastern NC where it is HOT and HUMID. Just my two cents on the cooling issue with the AMD........

[MarkM]

Well to only have pushed it .2 gig you haven't exactly taxed it have you, when you over clock an AMD from 800 to 1.8 then you do generate heat....ram overclocking? whatever program you are using is lying to you...up the power to them and they go pop pure and simple you "can" optimise the ram with software to free up the cache figures but thats it...video card yeah I'll give you that one but the "stock" cooling fans are pretty kak anyway they spin is about all that can be said for them. Pentiums are good processors but overpriced for the performance benchmarks especially when you put them in a direct chip for chip comparison with AMD.

mjs1217, you are nearly there with your MB but as you will switch off the on-board graphics...why pay out for a board that has them?

[Star_Base_CGI]

Originally posted by Kellen_p8nt
try www.pricewatch.com they list the online prices for just about every computer part imaginable. They are the first place i usually check when i buy somen new...Oh And i recommend using Linux Redhat as primary and seeing about running Windows XP professions al as the dual boot if you can spare the cash because its allways worth it and it just makes for alot more interesting setup

but as we all know Windows is the devil...XP crashes on me everyday atleast once....i need to format this POS

All the nerds goto Pricewatch.com. I LIked Directron.com Computergeeks.com and Newegg.com.

I would get a AMD Socket A Athlon Motherboard. The Motherboard Manual tells you all the parts you need and the type of memory. The Athlons is very cheap. The Intell Pentium 4 Blah Blach Monopolizer is $200 the Atholon < $100. The RDRAM memory for the Intel is more. The DDRAM memory is cheaper. You want lots of memory like 512 and like a CPU around 1-2 Gigahertz. You want a big fat heatsink. SOmething big and cheap like a brick.

I would get the Case at Directron. The Owner is a cocky arogant Chinese Guy that Gets good cases from CHina. He has the older model Alien Ware Cases. The Owner is also a Nice guy has contests like Tom. Even though I called him Cocky and Arogant. Geta keyboard and a mouse from Directorn. Get a optical mouse.

For your harddrive spend $100. Get something fat like 40 or 60 Gigabytes.

FOr your video card get a Ge Force Clone Card with TV out.

Some Motherboards come with Audio and stuff. So definetly get the motherboard first and read the manual.

$100 CPU AMD Athlon XP Barton 2500+
$50 Case
$100 Hardrive
$100 Motherboard with DDRAM 333 Bus
$100 Ge Force clone with 128 megs memory
$30 Keyboard and mouse
$40 Speakers
$50 DDR MEMORY Memory
$20 NIC LAN CARD
$20 CPU cooler

$100 Case of Paintballs

Total $700

Now obviously depending on what you want you can go up or down. Its your decision. First thing you want is a rocking case and than a motherboard. Than go on from there.

directron.infopop.com has a tech forum but I left it because alot of scene whores come in and act like there all that when they dont know anything. You can still read through it. Its good.

[ASDadam]

Ram overclocking is based on its Mhz speed. You can change this and increase the flow of your ram. Anyway, Pentiums MAY be over priced, BUT, they come with a built in shutdown if the CPU gets too hot. AMD's do not do that, they just melt......done it to alot of AMD's when i was teaching CET at the highschool. I only have my PIV clocked .2 higher because thats all i need. All my programs run maxed out on graphics with no slowdown (except when smoke comes into play, still running a Geforce 2Ti, hardcore beast it is but no T&L). And i agree with you on the on board. NEVER buy a board with on board sound or video if you plan on ever upgrading. Its a waste and alot of trouble.

[MantisMag]

bah! overpriced? it's only recently that amd's prices have dropped. i've been watching prices since march because i too am going to be building a computer. up until a little over a month ago amd and intel were going for almost the same price. the top of the line 3000+ and 2800+ were actuallly selling for more than the P4 3.06 and 2.8GHz. it's only since around the end of april that amd prices have fallen. amd just posted their official price cuts down to centrino level prices last week. retailers haven't cut their prices down that low yet. they probably won't. although i do agree amd is the better buy now it wasn't not too long ago. if they still thought they could get away with it they would be charging the same as intel's prices. it's only since intel came out with the 3.0C that amd prices have come down. amd doesn't have anything comparable so they have to make cuts.

not too bad. the only thing is the harddrive. it'll be a lot cheaper if you go internal (i got my WD800JB at best buy $60 after rebates :D) and i don't really see firewire being any faster. unless that harddrive is at least going 10000 rpm. and even then you could go scsi or sata. and good luck finding that 9500 pro.

from what i hear onboard sound on the nforce2 boards is actually pretty good, although there is a small amount of overhead for your processor. i'm not familiar with soyo's model designations so i don't know if that is one. so if you're going to be sticking with onboard sound for a while and that board isn't an nforce2 look into that. your computer will be decent it's not going to be the best but you're trying to hit a price point here. if you can i'd say get a little bit more powerful processor. the 2500+ is going for under $100. the 1800+ is just a little dated. ;)

[mjs1217]

Okay, thanks for the suggestions. I think I am going to go rethink my motherboard. I will still need onboard sound, but not video, seeing as I am buying a video card immediatly, but the sound card purchase will be delayed.