Should I do it

[buck52]

Hi all

As I could see the age of 50 in the near future and knowing almost nothing about computers I decieded I had better just buy one and see if I could figure out what they were about. That was about one year ago and I have had a great time playing with the puter and reading this forum. Lots to learn(under statement). I'm thinking I would like to build my own if for no other reason than the fun and challenge of it. I have a small HP Pavilion 466 Celeron, Win98SE, 8 Gig HD,192Megs Ram ( I added 128), I also added a TV card. I also have a scanner and a camera. I don't play any games or do any word processing. I just do internet stuff and photo related stuff. I thought maybe a faster processor would make the picture stuff go a little faster ?
The fun of building one would, I think ,be great and as most of you seem say you get it the way you want it.
Sorry if this is a little long winded but this is my first post any where.

Any comments or suggestions would be great.

buck 52

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just hav'n fun http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by buck52 (edited 03-05-2001).]

[bassvax]

I like to ramble so I will throw some change in the pot here.
You've probably gathered by now that 'research, research is your
mantra for the next few weeks prior to buying and building. You
say internet stuff and photo-related...unless you're gonna do
that photo stuff several times a week you won't need a monster
system, but RAM and MHz are your champions for video editing.
Again, depending on your photo load you may consider a really nice
video card as well and a nice, fast hard drive (I think I'm
contradicting myself here about the monster). I believe Win ME is
supposed to offer some nice advances in the photo field, but I really
don't believe ME is worth the hassle...stick with 98 SE. Get a
decent mobo so you can add on later when you secretly discover you
are an on-line game junkie (lol). It seems I've mimiced your original
post here...affirmation? who knows? Yes to the RAM and processor, but
the hard drive (and mobo's IDE controller) will also give you more
performance in the graphics arena. I'll stop now...let us know how
things progress http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif
As far as the research, start here (as you already know) then check out: www.anandtech.com (http://www.anandtech.com) www.tomshardware.com (http://www.tomshardware.com) www.sharkyextreme.com (http://www.sharkyextreme.com) www.dansdata.com (http://www.dansdata.com)
and of course http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/

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Jerry

[buck52]

Thanks for the response and the links

Thinking about:

P-III 700-800
7200RPM HD
ATI All in wonder
fancy sound card not a big priority
plenty of Ram
Mobo ( chipset)??
CD-RW?
case and power supply?
I would like to use my HP M70 monitor if I can
Istill need to do much research in all aspects. I would like to be able to run a good photo editing program like ( Paint Shop Pro or the like ) with out waiting to long for things to happen.
Any more input would be much appreciated

PS. Great site. Much of the small amount I have learned has come from reading here.

buck

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just hav'n fun

[Randy_tx]

You might want to look into the AMD Athalon cpu chips (800-1000) ...they are about the same price (or less) than a PIII 800 and MUCH faster.

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"As hard as a rock & dumb as a brick"...Windows CEMeNT

[kid]

THE CORRECT SPELLING IS ATHLON! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

The Athlon would save you a lot of money and performance is as good or better than Intel. Here is the motherboard of choice:
http://www.mrpcpro.com/reviews/epox8kta3-introduction.htm