Bit by the bug...

[aristotlewilde]

A few week's back, I came up with the bright idea to build my own computer so my better half could keep our laptop in the kitchen permanently.

I went online and purchased all of the components and I am in business. She works and works well.

My problem is that I tried to stay a little lower in price, since it was my first build and I didn't even know if the thing would power up when I was done. My setup is below. Like I said everything works, I just feel like maybe by changing out one option, I could be in much better shape (maybe not though).

What are your opinions?? I am a sometime gamer (prefer consoles).

Cooler Master Cavalier Case
400 Watt Power Supply
Elite Group ECS NForce-939 Motherboard
AMD 3000 Winchester CPU
Asylum GeForce™ FX 5200 (256 mb) Video Card
4 x 512 MB RAM

[saphalline]

Welcome to the PC Guide Forums!! :D

What type/manufacturer of RAM did you get? What are the latencies? RAM quality can make a difference when gaming. Or if you buy really really cheap RAM, it can cause major problems down the line. As long as you bought decent RAM you should be OK in that area.

Ditto on the PSU. It may say 400W, but the manufacturer has a big impact on quality! Once again, as long as you bought a decent one, you should be fine.

Good choice on the CPU and socket design (939). It looks like you got a mobo using the K8T800 Pro chipset, because of the AGP vid card (unless you got a PCI version of the FX 5200). Depending on the games you play, upgrading to a better vid card might benefit you. I wouldn't suggest sinking too much money into it if you play consoles mostly, but if you're up to it a nice $140 GeForce 6600 would be nice.

Or for a different sort of upgrade, get yourself a TV card/box for "TiVo" activities and for converting VHS tapes into video DVD's. Your machine is more than powerful enough for that so if you're interested, that would be a worthy upgrade.

Alongside that upgrade path, one of the nice things about computers is that you can pretty much add as many hard drives as your case can hold! 80-200GB hard drives are standard on most people's machines, but there's nothing stopping you from stuffing 1000+ GB into your system over 4 hard drives!

Other options abound, but I'd say for now you're probably covered. That system you have now is powerful enough for just about anything you can throw at it! Except for Doom 3... ;)

[aristotlewilde]

I bought two sticks of 512 MB Kingston RAM for starters and added 2 sticks of Centon pc3200 512 MB this weekend....

This may be a dumb question, bought is it possible to have two video cards??? I kind of like the idea of having a TIVO like device, because my Tivo does not have HD capability. Or do I just replace the Video Card???

Oh yeah, the mobo does not support AGP, the vid card is PCI...

[saphalline]

Oh duh! I missed the part where you said "NForce-939 Motherboard". :o Ok, PCI vid card? That's interesting... So do you have the NForce4, NForce4 Ultra, or NForce4 SLI chipset? I assume it's one of the first two if you were going for a low price. ;)

For TiVo stuff, you have a few options:

You can get one of ATI's "All-in-Wonder" series (preferably PCIe x16) which would let you input video directly through its built-in TV tuner (composite/coax support). This has the advantage of everything being on one card, and all software being included - very convenient. The downsides are that everything is on one card :rolleyes: :p (very little upgrade potential), and the quality of the TV tuner isn't the best (but adequate for most people).

You can get a PCI expansion card that's just a TV tuner card. This has the advantage of a higher quality TV tuner (vs the ATI's), being cheaper individually, and having the separate card makes upgrading the vid card independent of the TV tuner card. The possible downside is that the software may have to bought separately (do your homework on the software!).

You can get an external USB/firewire TV tuner box. This has the advantage of being the best possible quality with the most possible input options, and if you get a complete package deal you also get very good software included. The only downside to this is the cost - $80 for one of these is cheap! And they can go up to $300 no problem! :eek:

If you have the right A/V equipment, there's one last option. Just get a vid card with VIVO support (through an S-Video port). Provided your set-top system can output to S-Video, you can just import it to your PC without the need for a TV tuner (the set-top box does all the work). This has the advantage of being simple, and the basic input/editing software will be included with the vid card. The possible downsides are lack of quality of the set-top box's output, and possible lack of quality of the included software (it varies by manufacturer).

Finally, if you're serious about this TiVo-on-your-PC idea, get another hard drive! Standard input video type is AVI, which usually takes up 1.5-2GB per hour! :eek: More if you're inputing HD content. An extra 200-300GB hard drive isn't a silly idea for a video editing system, plus it lets you keep all your videos on a hard drive totally separate from your main one (which means that large videos being moved about won't upset Windows). If you go for the external box idea, these suckers can convert video on-the-fly. AVI, MPEG2, whatever. If you really get into it, you can not only be making your own home-brewed DVD's, but you can also get into MPEG4 compression (like DivX or Xvid) and customized multiplexing with your own streams. There's a whole other world out there for do-it-yourself audio/video content and the hardcore stuff isn't all ProN! ;)

[aristotlewilde]

Thanks for the advice.

It's an NForce-4 chipset.

I think I'll hold off on the PVR project for a bit. I want to wait and see what Directv's HD announcements are in June...

[i an not a nerd]

Ok, if you plan on overclocking the computer, the AMD 64 3000 is amazing for this. I have mine OCed from 1.8 ghz to 2.8 ghz.

2 gigs of RAM, that rig should be running quite well...

[saphalline]

OC'ing? No, we're talking about TiVo stuff for computers! OC'ing is only for the professionals!

[aristotlewilde]

I messed around a bit and increased the clock speed from 200 to 210. I also o/c'd the graphics card some using cool bits.

I have heard that my motherboard is horrible for overclocking.

[pentachris]

I have heard that my motherboard is horrible for overclocking.
ECS boards generally are. They make decent boards, though - I was happy with my old ECS K7S5A Pro motherboard, and recently bought an ECS KN1 Extreme (just got the new one up and running). I'm not into overclocking, so they're fine for me.