I need help buying a new computer

[atnich]

I am trying to buy a new computer, but I am apparently very far outside of the "new computer loop". Here is my short list of questions that I hope someone can help me with.

There must be major differences between video cards these days judging by the prices. The last time I searched for video cards the big question was how much memory is on the card. Since all of the cards seem to come with much more memory then the one I last bought (4mb) - other than memory, what is the difference between the cards? What would be a good card for moderate (to slightly heavy - but not cutting edge) gaming, a large monitor (19"), and a modest budget?

Last I knew, the "Athalon" was the best chip. Is that still true? What is the "Durron"? How does a Pentium III Compare? Is the HUGE Price difference worth the performance difference? Will a Celeron do OK? Is Celeron better than a Duron or a Pentium II? What Processor would you recommend?

Speaking of Motherboards... This is what mostly determines what types of input connections I have to the computer right? Should I get a board that has USB ports? What is Firewire? Do I want those connections? What Mother board would you recommend?

How about hard drives? I know that SCSI used to be the big thing... but I seem to remember something I read saying that IDE had pretty much caught up. Is that true? I know they are cheaper and easier to install, - How does a 7200 RPM IDE Compare to your basic SCSI? What would you recommend?

CDR - What would be sufficient? I want to burn music and data CDs and have a decent read time. I also want a DVD drive eventually. What should I look for in these? I know that the higher the number, the faster the read/write speed - but what would be sufficient?

And finally RAM -> There was SIMM, and DIMM -> now I have no idea what anything is. EDO, FPM, PC100, PC133, PC150, RDRAM, ECC, DDR... for the love of G-D help me here:-)

Is a sound blaster AWE 64 Gold still good?

What else should I know??

Thanks in advance for any and all help!! I appologize for my ignorance:-)

Signed - "Way out of touch"

[kayden azagthoth]

Lots of questions! I think I'll take a stab at responding to a question for the first time instead of asking them! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif I'm not HUGELY experienced by no means, but I thought I would tell you what I know and what I've heard. Anyone else who responds can feel free to correct me because God knows, I'm not perfect.

For starters...everything you ask could go so many routes. I would think determining what you 'want' and what you 'need' is the first thing. Also, a price range would be another important thing to set as well. It's easy to recommend a kickin' system but it's pointless if you don't have the money to back it up.

I use a 32MB TNT 2 and it's a relatively cheap card. I don't know what they go for now but I paid about $140 for it about a year ago (that's Canadian folks!) I have heard rumours that 3dfx is going down the tubes or being bought out or something, so I'm not sure how the Voodoo market is doing. Can anyone back me up on that or is it 'just a rumour'? I hear nice things about the GeForce cards by NVidia as well...but you'll pay a bit more for them I suspect.

Athlon, Thunderbird, Duron...they're all good in my book. Just depends again on what you are going to use your system for. I wouldn't pay extra for the Pentium name.

USB seems the way to go now for almost all your perephrials. I have never heard of "Firewire" to tell you the truth. Abit and Asus motherboards get rave reviews and I've never heard anyone else complain about them. Plus, I would ensure you have room on there for expansion...including the ability to upgrade your processor. 4 AGP and 5 PCI would be good, I would say.

I don't know jack about hard drives. All I know is I have an IDE and it works jes fine!

Hmmm...I don't know much about CD-R and DVD drives either since I don't own either one. I've heard good things about Plextor...but they're pricey. But I'd rather pay for a good burner than have a stack of coasters.

PC 100 Ram is the older stuff so I've been told. That's what I have in my computer. DDR and RD ram are the newer guys out there...at least, I know the DDR Ram is.

Sound Blaster pretty much dominates the entire sound card field and I don't see anything wrong with any Sound Blaster Live! cards. They're all good, it just depends on if you want surround sound and stuff like that.

I recommend reading any PC magazines you can get your hands on and surfing the 'net for a wealth of knowledge. That's where I've learned things. This forum too is the absolute best too. I couldn't say enough good things about it! I've had sooo much help here. There is tons of good reading in the links throughout this site. Just poke around. But I'm positive some of the gang like Paleo Pete, xor_chad, sleddog, scada and sea69 (to name a few http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif ) will be around to put in their two cents worth.

I hope I've helped a little. I feel pretty good about my first bit of help--albeit, a little generalized. Good luck in your quest for a new system.

Kayden

[hiredgoonz]

Video cards: best cards right now are based on the Geforce 2 GTS with DDR memory...price is accordingly high...cards based on the Geforce MX are also good (perfect for most gaming) and the ATI cards offer some neat features, depending on what you want. 3dfx is soon to be dead, so expect no driver or warranty support, but you might be able to get some great deals on their cards soon if you don't mind going solo.

CPUs: Athlon is the fastest performer out there right now. The P4 may be great once software has been optimized for it's sse2, but that's still in the future and the current generation of P4 will be phased out shortly leaving you no upgrade path. The P3 is at the end of its life, performs almost as well as the Athlon for more money.

Duron is essentially an Athlon with less cache. Great performer, very overclockable and completely crushes the celeron. DON'T BUY a celeron, unless you get some insanely good price...it's not even in the same league as the duron which performs more on par with the P3.

Motherboards: Avoid anything with built in video or sound...Tyan makes a good product, but asus and abit are better for people who like to overclock and tinker alot. Any mb you buy now will have usb ports. Firewire is alot faster, but is only just seeing the light of day in products like external hard drives. Already the standard for digital video, so if you plan on buying a dv camcorder, it's a consideration, but you can get firewire pci cards.

Hard drives: scsi=high performance=high price...they're great for video editing, but very expensive...ide is more than sufficient for almost all uses. Go with at least ata66 7200 rpm drives. Although newer mobos support ata100.

CDRW: Plextor is the big name, but anything with burn-proof is a good investment (iomega, yamaha). At 12X record you're looking at 6 minutes to burn a cd, at 4X almost 20...how long you want to wait?

Memory: almost everything now takes dimms...celeron, duron, athlon and older p3s take pc100...newer athlons, durons and p3s take pc133...pc150 is for overclockers...pretty soon ddr athlon chipsets will be out (ok they're out now, but where can you get one?)

Don't know about your sound card...Sb Live is the best right now

[sleddog]

I agree with just about everything hiredgoonz says. I'll just add a few comments.

If you really watching the budget, get a Duron 650 (~US$50, *nothing* beats its bang-for-the-buck right now) and a quality motherboard: two good ones are the Asus A7V and the Abit KT7, but there are others. *Don't* buy the cheapest board you can find -- with a good board now, you can easily upgrade the Duron to a Athlon in a year (or less!).

Invest in a good case with good cooling -- meaning provision for minimally one intake and one exhaust fan. Get a good CPU heatsink-fan combo, like Globalwin or Alpha -- you can use it on your Athlon next year. Stay away from the Orb coolers.

DIMM PC-133 should do just fine. But buy quality, not generic -- e.g., http://www.crucial.com/

The Intel PIII just isn't worth the money when compared to the chips from AMD (Duron & Athlon). I won't even look at a P4 until Intel releases a P5 http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif I have a Celeron system and I like it, the price was right, it runs beautifully, but my Duron-based system definitely out-performs it -- http://www.sleddog.f2s.com/benchmarks.html.


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sleddog
[sleddog.f2s.com] (http://www.sleddog.f2s.com)

[This message has been edited by sleddog (edited 01-19-2001).]

[This message has been edited by sleddog (edited 01-19-2001).]