PC Newbie needs a littel veteran advice

[Confuscious]

I am building my first PC, I am familiar with the windows operating system from using it in Virtual PC through a MAc. But now I want a fully working PC, for mainly some gaming, internet, I'll be using it for watching streaming video through a calbe intenet connection.
My resources are somewhat on a budget, so I am gonna go with an Athlon CPU. My main delema is what type of chips set to choose for my mother board config.
There is the nvidia2 nforce ultra400 chipset the M7NCD pro mobo by biostar I could get, or should I go with a different chipset, such as KT400 or another chipset I am not mentioning. What do you think with what i wanna use the system for would be a good choice for:
1, Ease of set up
2, best kind for what i need
3, price

If there is anything I left out, let me know.
I thank everyone for any help & your patience in a newbie. :)

[ZURKE]

Welcome Confuscious,

I have the KT400 it is alright no problems.
But As I understand it from talking with a lot of gamers the nforce chipset is a bit better.
There are a number of great MoBo manufacturers out there, ASUS, BIOSTAR, GigaByte to name a few, which may carry a nforce chipset.

You will also want to look into getting an on board LAN if you are into alot of gaming and want to network or have high speed internet.

I understand alot people use the Athlon 1800xp and are farely happy with it, if you are on a tight budget.

You can check out a number of online retailers for prices.

[saphalline]

Ok, we've got a lot of ground to cover here! :p

If you are going to be using this new PC (yay! a new Mac convert!) for any type of 3D gaming, then yes get the NForce2 Ultra400 chipset. As for budget motherboard manufacturers, I'm partial to MSI personally. The MSI K7N2 Delta-L runs about $100 and includes onboard LAN (pretty standard these days) and onboard audio (saves money on getting a separate sound card).

For cheapness, I agree with ZURKE on getting a low-speed AthlonXP. The 1700+ is currently on "Blow Out" on Newegg for a mere $42! :eek: If you want to go higher, the all-powerful AthlonXP "Barton" 2500+ is on sale for $96! I love these prices! :D

These are just suggestions, however, and will entirely depend on what else you want to do with your new PC. What kind of games will you playing? What is your exact budget? Do you have anything PC-related that won't need to be bought? ie - do you have a Windows OS, optical drive, hard drive, even a cable?

Once we know things like this, we can give more guidance. Just keep in mind that this planning stage takes awhile (about 2 weeks) but is the most important for avoiding common PC design pitfalls. The last thing you need is to build a new car and forget the tires! Computers are the same way. :p

[Confuscious]

Well I can get the Biostar mobo with an onboard LAN and the nforce ultra 40 chipset for $85.00, is that a good price? Here is the link for the board I'm talking about. It has USB2 on it also.
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?description=13-138-227&DEPA=1

What I like about this board is that they give you free Norton utils with it, they give you 3 different norton , antivirus, utilities, intenet protection. Plus it has a nice website for updates & such.
And I think I can get an Athlon 2500 for around 80 bucks.

[ZURKE]

It looks like a decent board.
Very upgradeable.

Does it fit your budget?

[Confuscious]

Ok I missed the last post... I do have 2 hard drives in my Mac, I can take one out. I have Windows 98 SE, I have a small speaker setup I can use. I know I can get a cDRW drive for cheap. As for use, I will really need it to play some quake, Unreal Torney, & probably some more games now that I'll have a PC & can get good games for it. I like to use Real player to get streaming video, sports & stuff. Internet surfing. Maybe some email.
Thats really all I will need it for for now anyway. I was reading customer responses to the NVidia ultra force 2, some were reporting problems with memory. Now that may mean they did sometihng wrong them selves, or there is an issue, but I have also heard that it is a good chipset for gaming and such. So I think I will start by deciding the chipset & work from there no?? I realize what is confusing to me now probalby won't be in a few months of giving it a go. :)

[saphalline]

Mostly it's tweakers that are overclocking something or using extreme parts. Since the NForce2 chipset is a gamer's dream, some are going to try and mess with it and are bound to have problems. ;) My friend has an NForce2-based mobo and is running everything at regular settings, and he hasn't had one problem. And that's on the Asus A7N8X Deluxe, a mobo that is supposed to have so many "problems"! :rolleyes: I just want to know how badly you have to mess with things in order to have stability problems...

Anyway, yes that Biostar mobo looks like a good price. Doesn't have as many USB 2.0 ports in back as the MSI mobo I mentioned, but then again it's $15 cheaper. Besides, there are products that allow you to bring USB ports to the front of the PC where you'll actually need access to them! :eek: What a shocker!

Ok, so a Win98SE box, huh? I like XP Pro now, but it is a mite expensive, and you can always upgrade later so that's fine.

Using 98SE effectively limits you to 512MB of RAM, so you'll either need one 512MB stick or two 256MB sticks of PC2700 DDR RAM. That's about $60 or so.

Hmmm... cheap & good graphics card nowadays would be the GeForce FX 5200 for about $80 - try to fit in a 128MB card if you can. If your budget goes even beyond this, try a GF FX 5600 for $155. Either graphics card is pretty powerful.

Now all you need are things like a case, power supply, cooling fans, mouse, keyboard, monitor, the usual. :p

Cases run about $70 (w/o power supply), good quality 400W power supplies are about $60-80, fans are cheap at $6-10 each, Logitech or MS optical mice are $20 at the cheapest, keyboards are anywhere from $5 to $70 or more (depending on how many features you want), but monitors are expensive. Monitors are also very personal, so I'll leave that one for later.

[Confuscious]

Well for now I got 2 monitors hooked up to my Mac, So I will be using one of them. Until i get settled and I'm able to buy a flat screen, I will have to settle for one of my 17" CRT's. Ok I heard that a few times about the Geoforce, I thin I will go with that one with 128 mb.
I'm gonna grab the mobo today & a case with 2 fans, & a 350 W PS. I can always change the Ps for a better one when I add ahte extras right?
Here is the link to the case I'm thining about getting

http://www.newegg.com/app/Showimage.asp?image=11-150-028-01.JPG/11-150-028-02.JPG/11-150-028-03.JPG/11-150-028-04.JPG/11-150-028-05.JPG/11-150-028-06.JPG/11-150-028-07.JPG/11-150-028-08.JPG/11-150-028-09.JPG/11-150-028-10.JPG
Let me know what you think

[Budfred]

FYI, those "free" Norton utilities are probably trial versions and you will have to pay after 3 months if you still want to use them.

[red indian]

first of all do not listen to these guys ---let me get this right your on a limited budget but you want a pc that will play the games and where you can watch streaming video???Hmmm well with mac you were kind of limited in games//if your mac(giggle) is still up and running do the research--with a windows based os of your new pc you will probably want to run windows media player9 not real player(crap i thought they got rid of real player by now)plus real player makes you pay for there good player.Next make sure it will be bought from a store or shop you can go to not one you have to order online-(never know what to expect,example-you could ask for 256 mb 2100 ddr sdram and they could send you a box labeled as that but would you be able to decipher if it were ddr or just plain sdram???(for you people who do know computers-do not reply-as this is for the newbie and what he needs to think about unless you plan on hunting him down and holding his hand)as with the nforce board you are better off getting a motherboard suited for the mainstream videos you wanted,a good motherboard and pc set-up would include having 1gig to 2gigs of ram, a good hard drive, and you can always buy an add-in nvidia grahics card (32 mb nvidia card is very,very cheap now),no offense to the athlons (no difference between athlons and celerons-both good at single tasking both suck at multi tasking)go with a celeron which you could pick up a 2.0 celeron that fits a slot 478 ,so you can use a p4 m-board,and the celeron which is a true 2.0, for example a store called general nanosystems in minnesota which does a lot of trades with university of minnesota kids,i could pick up the celeron 2.2 for 99.00 or the 2.0 for 89.00 which also comes with heatsink and fan and if you already have the motherboard thell even install it for free--
-down to the money basics your going to go with the hype because a motherboard states "nforce"but what you want is a all around motherboard not one based on graphics only ---especially when your going to want a faster graphics card anyways like maybe the fx 5800 which is 256 mb instead of 128 mb but of course your going to need the mother board bios to accept this and also to accept the 8x agp only slot that it will fit in--remember reasearch first--

[pentachris]

I'm going to say this as a reminder to those who know and a pointer to those who don't.

Don't feed the trolls.

If you're not sure what I'm talking about, PM me.

[Budfred]

pentachris,

If you are referring to the rudeness of the post preceding your's, it would probably be easier just to say so....

[red indian]

POINT AT THIS ---READ HIS FIRST POST --HENCE HE WILL HAVE CABLE HOOK UP-HE WILL NOT NEED TO PURCHASE A nvidia2 nforce ultra400 chipset AS THAT WILL BOTTLENECK DUE TO THE CABLE HOOK-UP PLUS HE WOULD LIKE TO PLAY GAMES HENCE HE WOULD BE ABLE TO GET BETTER PERFORMANCE A)WITH A 4X/8X AGP SLOT/THE MOTHERBOARD B)MIND OF MOUTH SKIMP ON THE PROCESSOR AND NOT THE MOTHERBOARD AND C)I MUST REWORD WHAT I SAID AND SAY DUE TO THE MANY ONLINE RETAILERS AND THE PROBLEMS THAT ASSOCIATE WITH EXCHANGES AND RETURNS IT WOULD BE ADVISABLE TO GO TO A RETAIL STORE THAT IS WITHIN THE DISTANCE THAT YOU COULD TRAVEL DUE TO THE TIME AND NATURE OF THIS COMMON ONLINE PROBLEM

as for my previous response I did not want to make it sound rude but in my OPINION i would like him (as a newbie as stated by Confuscious)to get the most for his buck and I tried to term my previous statement so that someone new to computer bulding could understand -so if you took it rude I apoligize.

[ZURKE]

Red Indian,

If you want to take the floor go right ahead we like to think we are a family here.

Who are you to tell anyone not to listen to another experienced reader?
We have allot of competent members who are here to help.

Why is it that you think you know so much more than anyone else here?
I beg to differ.
What I say comes from experience and listening to others, ALLOT of others.

If you want to step on anyone please do it elsewhere, otherwise please stay and enjoy.


Red Indian, I posted after you, apology excepted and my offer still stands.

[Confuscious]

Why would a cable internet connection cause ANY chipset to bottleneck? that don't make much sense to me.

[red indian]

oops and also the fyi that Budfred had stated about norton utilities is true it is a trial software and will require purchase,,to go along with that you could uninstall it but it stays in the registry and clutters it up unless you have a registry cleaner,so hence the software bundle accessory its better to purchase the software utility rather then upload the trial version ---ive gone thru this problem---also once the uninstall has gone thru ,if you have msn 8 it will have a conflict with the virus protection that comes with the msn 8 software just thought id let ya know

[red indian]

Confuscious-- Why would a cable internet connection cause ANY chipset to bottleneck? that don't make much sense to me.

well you did say games right? were you planning to run off the mother board chipset?an nforce 2 chipset?

go to pc magizine or go to voodoo forum the benchmarks between the chipset and the add in card or both way different from each other-you would be better off getting a add-in card with the properties that allow to run open gl directx8 at full acceleration due to the the cable speed coming thru + im basically saying that with the cable you would bottleneck the framerate due to the onboard chipset not handling what you could get out of that kind of connection it would be like --pouring oil into a funnel, if you pour it to fast the funnel can not handle it

[red indian]

Zurke im not tring to step on any toes ---what i meant was do not listen to the buy online thing.I was tring to get across was the different scams that are associated with online purchasing like for example would con. know to read the memory module serial numbers to make sure he got the most for his money,,just tring to give the guy some good advise for the first-time buyer thats all

[Confuscious]

First of all the nvidia nforce is the "chipset" not a gpu. of coarse i am going to buy a graphics card.
the motherboard I gave a link to does not have a built in gpu.
I said I'm a newbie to Pc's not to computers in general. I value everyones opinion, why would I not listen to someone else. that is why I posted to a forum so I can get input from different people who have used them. From what I heard I may be wrong but a celeron doent even come close to an Athlon cpu. Correct me if I'm wrong here. but why would i want a celeron cpu to do gaming?? Or any streming vidio for that matter.
A celeron cpu is good for database & word processing, not graphics intensive apps. And probably an intel pentium 4 would be nicer, but that would cost more than I can invest right now. Hence why I am going to get an Athlon cpu.

[Budfred]

red indian,

I have a great deal of difficulty figuring out what you are trying to say. Your posts seem to be very jumbled and confused, so your avowed intention to help a newbie doesn't seem to be followed through in practice. It would be helpful if you could slow down and express your points in a coherent fashion.

I appreciate your apology and would urge you to avoid telling people that they should ignore others based strictly on opinion about what is the better approach. I suspect that you have considerable expertise to offer and would like to see that expertise presented in a way that can be appreciated.

Edit:
Confucious,

You posted while I was typing, but I wanted to respond to your comment about Athlon vs. Celeron vs. P4... I am a fan of Athlon and prefer it over the Intel chips even if there was such a price difference. I am looking at getting the new 64 bit CPU after the price comes down a bit and I am guessing that gamers are going to start writing for that chip since they usually gravitate to the fastest...

[Confuscious]

Thanks budfred,, I think redindian thought that the nvidia chipset was a built in gpu. That is not the case with this board. I have heard from a lot of gamers that rave about Athlon cpu's, only that cooling is a concern to be aware of.
I didnt intend on starting a war between intel and Athlon. I'm sure they all make good cpu's. Just that I've never heard anyone recomend a celeron for gaming. Unless things have changed that I'm not aware of. I'm not looking to get the highest frame rates on the net either. I know that will cost $. Just something that will be an upgrade from what I have now. I plan on getting one of the geoforce cards with 128 mb of video memory, preferably an 8X card, I'll see how the prices go on them. But I have to start with the mobo first. You plan on down from the mobo right?
As far as buying parts online compared to a retail store. I have been buying parts online for a long time. I stay with reputable companies and havent had any problems yet. Retail stores charge much much more than most online stores do.

[Budfred]

Well, mostly right... you start with what type of CPU (as you have done) and then plan on the mobo....

FYI, the Bartons are running cooler now, although cooling is important with any fast chip these days....

I would go with online stores too, unless you find a better local deal. There are some amazing deals of hard drives this week at several of the chain stores....

[ZURKE]

I think that was my toughest decision.

What Processor and mobo, I kept running into the chicken and egg thing:)

"I like this Mobo but I want that processor" it took awhile.

[saphalline]

First of all, let me put to rest the argument that a chipset would cause a slower internet connection. That won't happen with any type of LAN connection. 56K winmodems were another thing, but built-in LAN on a motherboard runs off a LAN controller built into the southbridge of the chipset, so it doesn't require CPU power. This is perhaps what red indian was referring to. Anything onboard that requires the CPU to do the work can slow down the whole system.

Celerons aren't necessarily bad for gaming, it's just that they're not the top choice. The Celeron is a value-designed processor so it doesn't have quite the punch of the higher-end procs. ;) Ever since CPU prices in general dropped like a rock, I haven't recommended any value proc, be it Celeron or Duron. So it's not even an Intel vs AMD argument any more, just an argument for power gaming at cheap prices! :D

The NForce2 chipset is just like any other - it's purpose is to provide a foundation for a specific combination of CPU, RAM, and external bus support. It wasn't designed for low-end graphics, it was designed for the socketA K7 CPU core and dual-channel DDR. It supports 8x AGP so I don't understand the confusion about it not being able to accept an add-in graphics card. Any modern chipset without support for an AGP slot is not going to make any sales. As for the NForce2 with the IGP northbridge, the onboard video isn't that bad if you don't play games. It's in between a GF4 MX 420 & 440 - and I'd like to remind the hardcore gamers around here that that's more than enough graphical power for the average e-mailing, internet surfing, "where's the desktop?" kind of user. :p

Try the MSI K7N2 Delta-L (http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=&submit=Go&description=msi+k7n2+delta%2DL) - uses the NForce2 Ultra400 chipset and everything that goes with it. No SATA, but it's only $99. It's $135 for the SATA version, so take your pick.

[bassman]

I have to lean with saphalline on this. The idea that a Celeron is not sufficiant for gaming is quite ridicules. I may be wrong but I have always understood it to be that Celeron CPU's were built on leftover Pentium dies.
Way back when Pentium 1.8's were driving 4 Mgb AGP cards and having wonderful game performance, folks were quite content.
I am not a gamer, but I do understand that the new games are a big part of what drives perfomance increases in computers. For the level you are talking about Confuscious, I would think that a 2.0 or higher Celeron or Duron, coupled with the 128 Mgb AGP would satisfy your needs, but not suggesting you limit your resources.
One of the key questions here was "What is your exact budget?". With that info, we can better recommend specific products.

On another note, DO NOT POLLUTE YOUR MACHINE WITH ANYTHING NORTON.:mad: :mad: :eek: What an absolute waste of space and effort for a machine you are capable of building, troubleshooting and repairing yourself.
Sorry, I have this thing about utilities, especialy norton:rolleyes: ;)

I too would recommend an OS upgrade.

Good luck :cool:

[red indian]

sorry sorry sorry--I may have been a little jumpy on the wordings that i have previously written.I just remember him saying tight budget, and being able to play games and watch videos.So i figured what he could get for maybe 200.00 or less thats why i said celeron its not the top line but it works,and its cheap-,the os is going to tag another 200 for the full version(xp-my opinion just a little more friendly to new builders if going from scratch)but there are many different sources to get cheap parts thats why i referred that he look around, because looking around campuses is a good place to start ,students always like trading that stuff in around summer brake-ive personally found deals for even 150 bucks or less and that included motherboard,cpu,case,ps-and it had 1 mhz duron cpu,and thell even show you that it works before you put a penny down---and the motherboard thing i personally think worrrying about motherboard brand is at about the middle of the list,just make sure it has agp slot and at least 3 pci slots--thats at the least-and buy a good grahics card ,not an expensive one,but a good one/// a way to figure that out is look at the requirements of the games you like ,if they say requires at 32 mb video card then look around ,there pretty cheap and it will be easier to swap that rather then a new motherboard-thats if you dont like it-

hopefully with this reply i havent pissed anybody off

[Confuscious]

No one pissed me off, & like I said I do value all opinions. Maybe I shouldnt have made the statement tight budget or what ever I wrote. Only meant to mean that I couldnt afford to buy a top of the line Pentuim or GPU. I can handle going for an Athlon, & I am gearing twards getting the geoforce FX5200 GPU with 128 mb on it.
Now what is the deal with the memory, this board supports dual ddr. Can I buy seperate memory chips say in PC2700 & use them for dual use, as long as i put in 2, or do i have to buy special memory chips to get the full 128 bit on the memory, or doesnt the difference matter much. Also I'm not a hard core gamer, just that what ever I build I would like to play some Unreal Torney, & some Quake. One of the problems I have with my Mac is that I get too slow of a frame rate to even have a chance with any online gaming. I must be moving in slow motion to other people. :) I get fragged imediately, & I know I'm not that bad, because playing against the computer I do alright. The streaming video is also important, with my online connection now I am able to view steaming video but the quality of the picture leaves a lot to be desired because of the video memory I have available.

[Budfred]

Getting fragged in online gaming may have more to do with the speed of your internet connection than it does with the frame rate of your GPU...

[saphalline]

Ditto to what Budfred said. Get a better internet connection. I'm not saying your deaths aren't also attributable to the performance of the Mac :p but it's probably mostly your internet connection.

As for the video card, yes you could get a 32MB card that's about 2-years-old for around $20-40, but if you're wanting to play any type of 3D game and can double that, well... that was my point earlier in terms of the GeForce FX 5200 cards. They're only $80 for a 128MB DDR card and the 3D performance is likely to be about 10-30 times as much as you can expect from an older 32MB card! :eek: Technically, unless you get those old video cards in a cheap used PC (like red indian suggested from colleges ;) ) I really don't see why anyone would buy one. You can get the same performance from modern onboard video without the hassle of finding older display drivers.

The dual-channel RAM on the NForce2 chipset does require that you have at least 2 sticks of RAM installed. However, it's all fully auto-configured. If you have one stick, it will run in the standard 64-bit mode, 2 or more will enable 128-bit mode. It's all done at boot up, so you don't need to set anything in the BIOS or configure any weird jumpers and such. In fact, it wouldn't even matter if you shut down the computer and added or took out a stick of RAM, it will just auto-adjust the next time you turn it on. It's almost idiot-proof! :D

Hmmm... to a certain extent you can ignore mobo brand as a top priority, since most of the top mobo's manufacturer's names are unknown outside of the PC hardware world. :p However, there are a few manufacturers that are just best left alone so it never hurts to ask.

[Confuscious]

Yah but I doubt it could be my internet connection. I have a cable connection. I get a 250K donwload. Never have a problem with it. I get a log jam inside my box, this thing only has a 16 mb video card in it. So between the cpu being only 466 Mhz and the small video ram, ie. Logjam :)
I'm gonna get the GeoforceFX5200, its not that expensive.