Time To Build My First Super PC... Need Some Ideas :)

[Tamacracker]

This is what I'm lookin forward too, I dont want to spend anythin over $750-$800... so check this out and give me ideas of better prices or products:

V133-1400
Vision Black 16x40 DVD Rom Drive $69.99



B452-1020
Just4PC ATX Mid Tower Case w/350W PS Black

$39.99

THD-40M3 P
Maxtor 40GB EIDE HD 7200/2MB/8.0/ATA-133
$179.98


T925-1048
ThermalTake Golden Hardcano5 HDD Cooling Enclosure
$29.99


A450-1012B
Windows Multifunction Black Kybrd w/123 Keys PS/2

$14.99



A261-1014
ALBATRON PX845E Pro II Motherboard w/ P4 2.4Ghz

$129.99


S457-1003
Speeze P4 (478) Cooling Fan up to 3.0 GHz

$19.99


S59-1520
Sky Electronics 256MB Non-ECC PC100 SDRAM 168 Pin DIMM
$44.99 x 3 = $134.97




T925-1022
ThermalTake - Blue Aluminum VGA and DDR/SDRAM DIMM Memory Heat Spreader
with Heat Sink

$8.99


P450-6105 D
250MB ZIP Drive Internal

$79.99



TC1-8300
5.25" to 3.5" Drive Bay Conversion Kit Floppy/Zip

$4.99



Actiontec 56k PCI Internal Modem Pro
$29.99


Total Amount: $753.56

[Budfred]

Welcome to http://www.pcguide.com/ubb/pcgubb.gif

Lots of places I could begin, but I'll try to go in roughly the same order you did:

You can get a DVD ROM for quite a bit less and probably better quality. A Liteon, which is a really good brand, can be had at www.newegg.com for about $40.

If you get that case, expect to get another power supply. A decent power supply will cost more than you are paying for the case, so guess how good that PS will be???

You can get a faster and bigger hard drive for less. If you watch the sales, you can get drives for $1/gig or less after rebates. I would go for an 8MB cache to get more speed.

The motherboard you note is apparently not real good quality. I would check reviews carefully before buying it. One clue, I paid almost that much for a 1.3Ghz P4 just a few months ago and you are talking about getting the board and CPU for that price.

Unless you are really dedicated to Zip drives, I would pass on that and get a CDRW instead. You can get a really nice (like Cendyne) CDRW for as little as $20 after rebates. They are faster and the storage media hold more.

I am not seeing why you need the bay conversion kit.

If you are using a dialup modem make sure it is a hardware modem or get an external which are almost always hardware modem...

You have to make your own decisions, but I suspect you can get more computer for less if you look around a bit....

[Tamacracker]

damn this sounds great, see the prices I got were from a friend, and these prices are bout 3 months old (not that it may make a difference) may I PM you about a good quality motherboard and Processor? Ever heard of the processor ... I believe Anthlon XP? I heard it was a pretty good processor. But then again I heard it from only one person's opinion.

[Budfred]

No need to send a PM, if you keep the discussion public, you will get more ideas.

I recently built a system with an Athlon XP and an ECS board that totalled to about $500 with WinXP Home included. It had a CDRW and DVD drive, a 40gig hard drive, floppy, round cables, aluminum case with window, several fans, and a 450watt decent power supply. I got most of the parts from newegg. They have upgraded the board I used, but it is still a good deal and an adequate board. There are better, but others will need to tell you more about that.

I would urge you to do some more investigating and experimenting before you start spending big bucks. It sounds like you are new to building computers and it would be a good idea to know what you are doing before you waste some $$$$. Reading some of the forums here is one way to learn more quickly, but you may want to see if you can scrounge up some old clunker computers and play around with them before jumping in feet first.

Edit:

I forgot to mention that I really like AMD Athlon CPUs, but you will find people on both sides of the fence. I have an HP Athlon 700Mhz that I am using now and an Intel P4 that I am still building to move into the dominant computer position eventually. I will probably eventually build myself a really hot AMD based system, but I am waiting for the new 64 bit CPUs to get old enough to come down in price. AMD is generally cheaper than Intel, so you can generally get more computer for your money with them.

[saphalline]

You could also get a combo CD-RW & DVD drive. The LiteOn version is only $65 on Newegg. You'd get better performance from separate DVD and CD-RW drives, but it's still cool! :D

A good case with a side window ;) is about $60-80. Add in about $60 for a good quality 350-400W power supply. Not as cheap as the case you were looking at, but I guarantee you'll be more satisfied if you spend the extra money here.

Ok, hard drive, here's where you can save all that money! 40GB for $180? :eek: Maybe 3 years ago, but not these days. Now you can get a high quality 180GB hard drive for that price! Note that you'll probably only need 80-120GB, tho. ;)

I don't know why you have a hard drive cooler bay listed. You won't need it, especially since most new cases have the front fan blowing over the hard drive area anyway. Besides, they're very loud.

This may be out of line since keyboards are so personal, but with a new PC, I'd recommend spending more and at least getting a USB keyboard. They often provide extra functions such as music controls and internet keys and will give you slightly better response.

As for the motherboard and P4 processor, the P4 alone is worth more than $130 right now. Is this a used set? In any case, that mobo is most likely a piece of cr*p! The 845E chipset is really old. I mean, it uses PC100 SDRAM for a P4! That's not a good thing...

As for your RAM, you'll want at least DDR RAM if not RDRAM for a P4 system. The new chipsets - 865PE & 875P - from Intel support dual-DDR RAM for even better performance. And DDR is a lot cheaper than regular SDRAM these days. As little as $60 for a 512MB stick of PC2700. Likewise, there seems to be a rumor going around that RAM gets incredibly hot. It doesn't. Not unless you overclock it, and even then it's one of the coolest components of a PC. You won't need any fancy cooling for the RAM.

As for the Zip drive, I wholeheartedly agree with Budfred - unless you have Zip disks with data that you still want, don't waste your money on a new Zip drive. They're mostly worthless and Zip disks are way overpriced considering that CD-R's are much bigger, cheaper, and faster.

Drive Bay Converter. Your call. Do you have many 3.5" drives that you want to mount in a 5.25" bay? I have one, but it came with a drive bay converter, so...

Modems are pretty basic. You'll need one if you still have a dial-up connection. Hey, most people do! :p Otherwise, most new motherboards have onboard LAN for a DSL or cable internet connection, so you won't have to spend extra for that.

One thing I didn't see in your list was a video card! :eek: Do you already have one? You'll need some kind of video capability if you want anything to show up on the monitor. Heck, you'll need one just to hook a monitor up to your PC! :p Options abound in this area, from basic onboard video (dependent on what motherboard you get) to $400 top-of-the-line video cards for playing the latest games! :D

[Tamacracker]

oh wow, actually you're right I wont bother with the PMs... but I like this information right now Im checkin out some info on some mother boards. Some one told me it's only good to use dual capacity mother boards when it comes to networkin/server But I wouldnt mind spendin extra cash if it actually improves the hell outta the performance!
Newegg seems to be a very good site, are they safe to order from, I mean these prices are almost a steal.

[Tamacracker]

Is this a good mix:

Processor
*AMD ATHLON XP 2500 "Barton" 333 FSB PROCESSOR CPU
1.83 GHz

RAM
*CRUCIAL MICRON 512MB 64x64 PC 2700 DDR RAM - OEM
184-Pin, CL=2.5-Unbuffered Non Parity 2.5v

Motherboard
*Asus Motherboard for AMD Athlon/XP/Duron Processors,
Socket A AMD Athlon/XP/Duron

This was in the ad in newegg's site. I just read up on it, and I wasnted to know if that's good enough to claim a "Super PC"
I'm still lookin up info and makin sure I know what I need, It's just I have the money now and I'm soo eager to spend it lol. Then again I want to do things the right way the first time.

The PC I want to build must be able to hold plenty of music, movies, and withstand a lot of multimedia programs such as Cool Edit Pro, many Adobe, Macromedia, etc.. without havin my PC lag not once... ever! :)

I deal with alot of music editing, movie editing, and especially graphix and web designing. The PC I have now can only take soo much punishment. I would listen to music and work on a program, and then I'd click somethin on my desktop and everythin slows down and takes about an additional 5-10 seconds of my time everytime.

:(

[Budfred]

No matter what computer you get, you are always going to run into bottlenecks and slowdowns... If you are into downloading a lot of music, you are also likely to run into a lot of crapware (virus, trojan, worm, spyware, etc...), so you need to be very careful about how you set up your software or you will REALLY slow down.

Asus is generally a good board, the Barton looks good and Crucial RAM is some of the best around. Saphalline or others can tell you about that particular board, but it seems like you are on the right track to a nice system. As you said, don't let your eagerness get in the way of your judgement...:)

[Tamacracker]

Okay soo far soo good, just one question, saphalline? Where do I look for a case that has a fan in the front, there's this one:

CHIEFTEC Server Chasis (Aluminum Workstation Tower with Plastic Front Cover) BLACK COLOR w/ 450W Power Supply, Side acrylic window and a Case Fan on Side Window **Now with 2 x Front USB2.0 and 1 x Firewire IEEE1394 ports** Model AX-01BLD Retail Weights Only 18LBs!
Specifications:
Material:Aluminum
Form Factor:ATX
Side See Through Window w/ Fan
Bays:4 x 5.25", 2 x 3.5", Internal: 4 x 3.5".
Expansion Slots:7
Fans:2rear Mounted Fan and 1 side panel Fan

Even though it reads, "Fans: 2 rear mounted fan, and 1 side panel fan."
Does that mean that the case comes with two in the rear and one on the side, or there's an option for me to buy two extra fans and install them there? BTW that's the best case I see so far on the newegg's website. Is there another case you believe is better in your opinion? The price for the case is $90

And is that case big enough to hold the motherboard and other accessories? Im plannin on puttin in a floppy drive, cd-rw drive, and 2 hard drives, I have a DVD player (PS2) in my room :)

And also I thought the keyboard I was goin to purchase was USB, atleast my laser mouse is USB and it only cost me $14.50.. haven't had any probs with it or anythin all 5 buttons work well! :)

[killercow]

yay computer building ... my specialty. I made the computer I am using now from help I got here.(thank you again 2 everyone)

First off:
HD-40M3 P
Maxtor 40GB EIDE HD 7200/2MB/8.0/ATA-133
$179.98
For a 40 gb HD you are overpaying by about $100.
One of the top rules of buying parts:
Shop around and be patient ... Look for better prices and sales!!
Some sites that are good for shopping and pricewatching are:
bensbargains.net (this link may take you to amazon.com if so just hit back on the browser)
pricewatch.com
Shop NewEgg (Newegg.com)
Shop GoogleGear (http://www.googlegear.com/jsp/Home.jsp)
These are some suggestions.
I agree with most all of the posts above. My system:
Case(I forgot the company:confused: )
ECS K7S5A Mobo
DVD rom drive with DVD @ 16x
SONY CDRW drive 48x/24x/48x
Floppy
768MB ram (512+256 Sticks)
AMD athalon XP 1800+ 1.533GHz
Nvidia GeForce 3 Ti200 64mb ddr tv-out
WD-Caviar 40GB HD
(power supply and fans came with $40 case)
_______________________________________________
A couple bucks less that $300
I did get a free monitor & keyboard from my dads work and my aunt bought me a nice optical mouse...My dad bought me WinXP so add about $150 to $200 bucks to my config and final price and you got around how much I Would have paid for it.

Tamacracker
Your config for parts however looks pretty good

The PC I want to build must be able to hold plenty of music, movies, and withstand a lot of multimedia programs such as Cool Edit Pro, many Adobe, Macromedia, etc.. without havin my PC lag not once... ever!
I deal with alot of music editing, movie editing, and especially graphix and web designing. The PC I have now can only take soo much punishment. I would listen to music and work on a program, and then I'd click somethin on my desktop and everythin slows down and takes about an additional 5-10 seconds of my time everytime
TO hold plenty of music and media I would go with a 60 or 80 gig HD. Also for your computer to not go slow while opening other programs get a good bit of ram. That should do the trick. Also on your Hard Drive try and find 8Mb of cache.
PLEASE believe me do not jump to a purchase .... you should shop around for several weeks to, in some cases, several months until you think you have a good price. You may end up paying less than what you were expecting

[saphalline]

Ok, I had a really long reply going but when I went to post it, I got some error and lost all of it!! :mad: Arg!

So, now I'm doing the short version of what I wrote before. And this time I'll save the text just in case...

Yes, the Barton versions of the AthlonXP are the latest and greatest, but I won't go into details. Suffice to say that's a whole lotta processing power for a small price tag. Ditto to what Budfred said about the Crucial/Micron RAM, good stuff.

But what about the mobo? You're so silly! You listed the manfucturer but not the model! :eek: Doesn't really matter, tho, since there's only one chipset that you should be looking to buy for an Athlon PC - the NForce2. Now here's the real question: do you want SATA on your mobo for "Super PC" status or can you get by without it for cheaper? This one's your call. If you want a cheaper mobo without SATA, I would suggest MSI's K7N2 Delta-L (http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=&submit=Go&description=K7N2+Delta%2DL) for only $99. If you want SATA, go for Asus' A7N8X Deluxe (http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=&submit=Go&description=A7N8X+Deluxe+Retail) for a slightly more expensive $132, which is still cheaper than buying a separate mobo & SATA expansion card.

As for RAM, well the NForce2 chipset supports dual-DDR RAM, but the AthlonXP doesn't benefit from it nearly as much as the P4. The NForce2 mobo's are so cheap, tho, that the performance increase is moot. Thus price beats out logic! :p Anyway, the best RAM configuration for all your multimedia programs would be two sticks of Crucial 512MB PC2700. This would be a bit expensive but not terribly so considering that RAM is dirt-cheap these days (for instance, I paid over $160 for a 512MB stick of Crucial RAM just 10 months ago! and that was a steal, too!). What you could do to lessen the expensive blow to your budget is to buy just one stick of 512MB now, and upgrade to another one in a few months. Your PC will work just fine with one stick of RAM installed, and when two sticks of identical RAM are installed, your mobo will automatically switch over to dual-DDR mode! Instant speed boost in addition to the extra RAM! :D

Yeah, I like Chieftec cases. I prefer to get the ones without a power supply because then I can put my own in, tho. Chieftec has a $64 version (blue instead of silver) that comes without a power supply if you want a higher quality one. Otherwise, I've found Chieftec bundled power supplies to be some of the best. I've heard horror stories about bundled power supplies, but I still have a working 300W that came with my Chieftec case and I have to say it's pretty good. The $90 case looks fine. If you're paranoid, get the $64 one and buy a separate power supply that's a bit more guaranteed.

Oh, and don't worry, there are indeed fans for that case. If you look at the pictures, you'll see that the 5th picture is a shot of the inside front of the case. There's room for 2 fans up front. It's just that it only comes with a side fan and the 2 rear fans. But on that note, I'll stop there. Cooling is a whole other subject to itself that I'll leave for another post...

Ah, good. I see you're planning on using two hard drives. That was going to be one of my suggestions because for you, I think using a smaller hard drive as your main C: drive for Windoze & programs, and then a big hard drive for all your music & movies & such would be the perfect set-up. It also gives bragging rights! :D Nothing says "Super PC" like multiple hard drives!

Well, looks like you're headed in the right direction now! The forums wins again! :cool:

[Tamacracker]

oh no, I wont go crazy and just start purchasing. Ill make sure to hunt down for some more prices, maybe if there's other products that happen to be a lil better here and there for around the same area of price then I'd go for it. But Im thinkin of doin research for about another 2-3 weeks.

Also Budfred, what do you recommend on the best anti-virus/trojan software? The PC I have now, I use Mcafee 2000. Even though it doesnt do a great job. But yeah I noticed when I go to my windows task manager, sometimes I'll see somethin new that I never seen before and the last thing I need is for it to be a trojan. Also I have Windows XP on this PC and I always get the "blue screen of death" if that's what they call it, can't remember. Maybe I have a bad copy of Windows XP Pro? I mean it sucks because I can't even see what the error is, I dont have freeze frame vision lol. But everytime it does it, I try my hardest to read the errors.

[Tamacracker]

actually that is the one that I'm lookin forward to purchasing: Asus' A7N8X Deluxe.
And yes of course I will make sure to get a set of two 512 ram cards, like you said buy one and then wait later on down the road. :)

Also I just came accross this:

Intel Pentium 4 / 2.66 GHz Northwood 512K Socket 478 Processor 533MHz Processor Bus Retail
Specifications:
CPU: 2.66 GHz
Type: Pentium 4 Northwood
Cache: 512K
BUS: 533 Mhz
Socket: 478 Retail (Box with Heatsink and fan)

If I were to get this processor, can it work with the Asus' A7N8X Deluxe mother board? Then again the other processor is a socket (A) and this is a socket (478)? It's only $193 that's bout $70 extra...

[Budfred]

Nope, you can't use a P4 on an AMD board. However, there is probably a similar board for P4s or you could simply get a P4 for that board, but it will cost you.

You mention not getting a DVD drive because you have a DVD player. The reason to get one is so that you can copy from the one drive to the CDRW and reduce the wear and tear on the CDRW (although they are so cheap now that doesn't matter so much). I always have two optical drives in my PCs.

As for antivirus and other security software, there is a lot of debate about that. A lot of people around here like and use AVG, which is free, for antivirus. I use Norton AV since I get it for free. You will also here about several others that people like if you ask around. The main thing is to have something running and to keep it updated. If you have had your McAfee on for more than a year and haven't paid an update fee, it is way out of date and you are vulnerable. I don't like McAfee because it gave me a lot of trouble and it was hell to get off the system.

You will also need a firewall. I am currently using a retail version of ZoneAlarm, but it stinks. The free version is better. I also used to use Black Ice, but it has not been well maintained. Several people have praised Kerio recently and it is free.

You probably need to run a spyware program. I believe there are a couple of automatic ones, but I just run Spybot and AdAware occasionally. If you are doing file sharing, you will want to run them a lot or automatically. They will pick up on many trojans, but you may also need to run a trojan scanner. The AV software usually ignores trojans.

The most important thing is to avoid programs like Kazaa that come with vermin and will invite more vermin in. Read some of the threads about this stuff before you go online to learn more....