Lets build a computer!

[Y2kGoofball]

Ok guys

well ive decided why the heck not. Over the next few weeks I plan on sussing out hardware and building a PC. Its been a year since I last looked at prices of parts so I thought I'd ask here

Now lets not go nuts, remember its easy to sit their saying buy this and that but I want to be able to afford it! I plan on putting 50 bucks a week into it (the rest is being saved) which is why im a few weeks off it yet!

the suppliers : http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/non-PARTS.pdf and www.arc.com.au

At the moment I have ARC head office across the road from work, and I pass MSY every day heading home! Although our work is moving, yeah thats right, at the moment I'd be able to stop in during lunch or after work but when i get money work will be no where near these stores!

the aim : build a decent gaming PC.

Anyway ive decided NO AMD whatsoever!

No I wont buy parts from ebay except maybe the monitor and keyboard / mouse but thats about it!

I want suggestions / comments on things like motherboards, graphics and sound cards mainly.

Just quickly looking I'm thinking something like Pentium 4 3000 (800 FSB), 256 MB ATI graphics card, 200 GIG HDD (gees I didnt know that size existed lmao the last time I brought a HDD the biggest for under $200 was 80 gig and 200 gig only existed on servers!) god knows what motherboard

As I said start throwing products at me from those 2 places, I hoinestly dont know too much about whats decent for gaming and whats not but please DONT go nuts like "buy a $700 graphics card because its better" I'm sure for 700 bucks it is better but I dont want to spend that much!

[TMiller]

Honestly you can build a pretty stout gaming machine for under 600 dollars (US) but thats with an AMD Athalon. I would tack on about 175 more US dollars for the Pentium. Onboard sound can save you money but there are some crappy on board sounds out there, I think mine has the Realtek AC97 and its pretty good for onboard sound. I think a 9600 Pro would be good for you for gaming and its cheap price makes it a good buy. 512mb stick of ram and the 200GB hard drive would make your computer very good

[chris]

Yeah, it seems like the Intel's do run cooler.

For graphics cards, stick with Nvidia, and try to get one with a digital output on it too (as most Nvidias do have, along with the normal port).

If you get the right one, such as some Leadtek models, they come with an adaptor allowing you to effectively run two normal CRT screens, and use NView to have 2 desktops, or one wide desktop. It is surprising how useful that can be. Even if it isn't going to do that right at the moment, it might be handy later on.

HDD's I'd go for one of the big Western Digital ones with the 8mb buffer or whatever they call it. I've found they work well.

Mainboards, well, I think Gigabyte does excellent mainboards. If you can find one very similar to the GA7-NNXP (look on Gigabyte.com.tw site for info) at a good price, then go for it. Standard firewire, dual-lan, decent on board sound, and dual power system are handy. The DPS doesn't need to be used, but could be a useful thing in a worst event scenario..

I don't recommend Asus mainboards. I had an awful experience with one and never wish to see that repeated again.

[heinrick]

My two cents:

1) I'd go Intel over AMD. I know there are a number of AMD fans out there, but these puppies run way too hot for me. To keep 'em cool you need extra fans which means extra noise, etc. Plus, the cost difference doesn't seem to be that much these days. Don't get the latest/greatest CPU. There's a $240 (CDN) difference between the 3.6 GHz CPU vs the 3.4 GHz, and a $300 difference between the 3.6 and the 3.2 (almost half price). I'd go LGA775. (800 Mhz FSB + Hyperthreading).

2) Mobo. I've had really good experience with Asus motherboards (for Intel). I like the bundled features and the price. If I was starting from scratch at this point I'd go for PCI-E architecture.

3) video card: I'm torn here. I like the ATI products and have seen too many reported issues with Nvidia drivers. However, Nvidia do seem to be cheaper and seem to be on top of the performance wars, at the moment. Note: if you go PCI-E, you'll need to get one of the latest video cards that support this.

Good luck.
:)

[TMiller]

What temps are you guys geting with your pentiums? I always thought AMD ran cool because of their aluminum design. I get around 105 degrees resting and about 114 at working.

[chris]

My two cents:

1) I'd go Intel over AMD. I know there are a number of AMD fans out there, but these puppies run way to hot for me. To keep 'em cool you need extra fans which means extra noise, etc. Plus, the cost difference doesn't seem to be that much these days. Don't get the latest/greatest CPU. There's a $240 (CDN) difference between the 3.6 GHz CPU vs the 3.4 GHz, and a $300 difference between the 3.6 and the 3.2 (almost half price). I'd go LGA775. (800 Mhz FSB + Hyperthreading).

2) Mobo. I've had really good experience with Asus motherboards (for Intel). I like the bundled features and the price. If I was starting from scratch at this point I'd go for PCI-E architecture.

3) video card: I'm torn here. I like the ATI products but have seen too many reported issues with Nvidia drivers. However, Nvidia do seem to be cheaper and seem to be on top of the performance wars, at the moment. Note: if you go PCI-E, you'll need to get one of the latest video cards that support this.

Good luck.
:)

I can tell TMiller that they don't run cool.. My Athlon XP 1800+ today in 32°C heat in the room was hitting 53°C, and that was with a noisy cooling fan, and with a floor-standing fan pointed towards the case (always helps cooling).

Admittedly we've had stinking hot weather in Sydney over the last two days, but still, I think AMD runs warmer.

[Chaul]

Some say they have less problems with ATI than NVidia but you can't make much of a difference in performance between them at the high end cards anyways. You can't always believe the benchmarks either because both sides have been running application specific optimizations in the past.

For gaming you'll need a fast graphics card and a processor to match the performance level. Fast card has to be accompanied with a fast processor to let it live up to its potential. High-end video with a low-end processor won't do much good... When I upgraded my system a year ago I put limits on components what I'm ready to pay, say less than 300 euros on a video card, and got the fastest I could with the money at the time. In general price/perfomance ratio is the best somewhere just below the highest end models. But you know they are changing the graphics bus again away from AGP. Something to consider..

12 years ago I swore I would never buy Seagate hard drives but what do you know.. now I have one in the system because it's quiet. IBM (now Hitachi?) and Western Digital also make good hard drives.

If you are not into overclocking that much there are many choices for the motherboard. Get two identical memory modules if you want to use the dual channel memory bus feature on a motherboard.

In my watercooled system the Pentium 2.8GHz CPU does not go much higher than 40 or so celsius under usage. Idling at about 30C when ambient is around 25C. I have no problems with an ASUS-P4P800 motherboard. Temperatures were taken using the onboard sensors.

[Justin Martin]

My Athlon 2200 runs about 120'F/49'C while playing games with a room temperature around 83'F/28'C. At idle with the same room temp, it runs about 112'F/44'C. Right now, my room temperature is about 75'F, and my CPU temp is 104'F. I don't think that's really hot. Hotter than a comperable P4, probably, but not a issue.

I have a 92mm fan mounted in the front of the case, and a Evercool CUD-725 CPU cooler. Both are reasonably quiet, similar to most manufacturer built computers. (though nowhere near as quiet as a Mac ;))

The thing to watch out for is which model of Athlon you buy, some are hotter than others. My dad's old 1.4ghz Athlon "Thunderbird" puts about about 72 watts of heat, versus about 65 watts for my XP 2200 "Throughbred B".

A 2.26ghz P4 would be cooler, around 56 watts, but considerably more expensive, currently $111 for the P4 versus $65 for the Athlon on newegg.com. Given the availability of cheap cpu coolers that can easily cool a non-overclocked Athlon with minimal noise, i'd go AMD. If we're talking more of a high-end computer, I think the price difference between P4's and Athlon's becomes much smaller, so it's a toss-up there.

I'm attaching an image file, I think it came from Tom's Hardware, it's the best list i've found so far of cpu heat output.

BTW, this is the CPU fan i'd buy if I was building my computer again, a number of people have recommended it to me, and it's not much more expensive than my Evercool: http://jab-tech.com/customer/product.php?productid=2097&cat=47&page=1

[Y2kGoofball]

whoa I wasnt expecting such a response

ok ...

I'm going P4 over AMD. The last PC I built (the one I'm using now) is an Athlon XP and even with added and proper cooling (which I asked you guys about earlier) it still heats up quite badly during gaming and slows down or even locks up. I never had problems with Intels in the past overheating to the point they lockup.

I was once told AMD is perfect for business, it can withstand the heat (I have seen one which had the CPU fan die, the PC had registered 99 degrees celcius but it was hotter then this as the sensor cuts out at 99 as no CPU should reach 99 before it dies, yet it continued to work just slower ...), P4 is your gaming as it runs cooler under load and Celeron is for the best of both worlds. I dunno if this is true or not but I thought i'd mention it

We're using an Asus on it A.T.M. which ive had no problems with except their temperature monitor software, but I've heard good things about Gigabyte Mobos so I might look into them

Sound well if the mobo has decent onboard sound I'm happy to accept. I'm not a sound 'nut' its only going to have standard pc speakers hooked up so its doesnt worry me if it offers 6.1 cinema quality surround or not because I highly doubt I'll ever have the speaker hardware to take advantage of it!

I'll sit down and have a good read thru all your posts ... ive gotta go to work now lol I'm running late )=)

[Chaul]

I was once told AMD is perfect for business, it can withstand the heat (I have seen one which had the CPU fan die, the PC had registered 99 degrees celcius but it was hotter then this as the sensor cuts out at 99 as no CPU should reach 99 before it dies, yet it continued to work just slower ...), P4 is your gaming as it runs cooler under load and Celeron is for the best of both worlds. I dunno if this is true or not but I thought i'd mention it


A P4 also throttles back if overheating. This can be set in the BIOS and then the processor would just run at a lower and lower frequency until the temperature sensor reading is under the limit again. You could in theory run the processor without a fan at the expense of performance and it still shouldn't burn.

[Y2kGoofball]

yea thats what I want

this pc will be purely for gaming, and although I'll have adequate cooling in the way of fans etc I'd still like the processor running as cool as possible. Plus I spose this time Ive got the money (sorta) to spend, so unlike last time where alot of the decision making with AMD was the cost difference, this time I'm happy to pay extra if its worth it.

Lets start piecing it together:

Processor : Pentium 4. I'd go for the P4 3000 w/ 800 FSB. Its only $21 more then the 2800 which is only 533 FSB! Why not spend 20 bucks more

Motherboard : I'm going to go through them so once again any suggestions. It'll more then likely be an Asus or Gigabyte (duhg) but any suggestions on a board from MSY or ARC that have decent onboard Sound for gaming is appreciated! I'm not too fussed with network etc etc, temperature monitoring and that stuff would be nice tho I think most new ones come with it

HDD : 200 GB 7200 RPM IDE definately. Why I need all that space I'll never know but still ... question is whats better, Western Digital or Seagate? Their only $1 difference! I'm using a Seagate 60 gig now and ive never had trooubles, but anyone want to suggest a brand ...

Graphics .. still undecided. Some say an ATI based, some say a Nvidia based. Ive had ATI before, one of their very originals which gave me no end of problems, but they seemed to have sorted themselves out. On the other hand ive heard Nvidia to be a great choice.

I might sit down and research these, I want to spend no more then roughly $250 on the graphics card and would prefer 256 MB. But I dont know if these are decent or am I best spending the money on a 'decent' 128 MB graphics card? I honestly dont know much about graphics cards so please help me out! But going off that quick fact the ones that appeal to me are

under the heading AGP Slot - NVIDIA Chipset : 256M Giga-Byte GF FX5700 VIVO W/TV

Under the heading AGP Slot - ATI Raedeon Chipset : 256M Giga-Byte ATI 9600XT VIVO DVI W/TV

can anyone please let me know which would be the best of the 2, the NVIDIA FX5700 or the ATI Raedeon 9600 because I honestly dont know!

Sound: hopefully will be onboard, if not I'll bung in a SoundBlaster card of some description

Operating System : Ive got access to Windows XP Pro which CAN be used on that machine, but I dont know if maybe Home would be a better option? I personally dont really want to pay for XP Home if Pro is just as good, but ive heard possibly XP Home is better for gaming then XP Pro (then again ive also heard their both the same but Pro has more office related features which Home has removed)

Id pop in a temporary CD Rom, but eventually would put a CDRW / DVD RW drive and DVD Reader

Ram: 512 to begin (so I can get it running) but eventually 2 x 512 sticks (1024 MB ram) Kingston PC3000 DDR400.

[Chaul]

Processor : Pentium 4. I'd go for the P4 3000 w/ 800 FSB. Its only $21 more then the 2800 which is only 533 FSB! Why not spend 20 bucks more

Motherboard : I'm going to go through them so once again any suggestions. It'll more then likely be an Asus or Gigabyte (duhg) but any suggestions on a board from MSY or ARC that have decent onboard Sound for gaming is appreciated! I'm not too fussed with network etc etc, temperature monitoring and that stuff would be nice tho I think most new ones come with it

can anyone please let me know which would be the best of the 2, the NVIDIA FX5700 or the ATI Raedeon 9600 because I honestly dont know!

Id pop in a temporary CD Rom, but eventually would put a CDRW / DVD RW drive and DVD Reader

Ram: 512 to begin (so I can get it running) but eventually 2 x 512 sticks (1024 MB ram) Kingston PC3000 DDR400.

Intel is updating the CPU socket again. On the PGA478 socket the 3GHz P4 looks like the sweet spot for price/performance atm, yes. Can't tell about the LGA775 socket because the supply is still low in this country...

One curious thing about my setup is the fact that the mb chipset is running hotter than the CPU in any case. I guess that was to be expected because the chipset has no fan and the CPU has a big copper block with running water going through it. But don't trust the motherboard sensors too much... They are good for giving you an alert if a fan fails etc. Abit puts some extra small fans on everything and the motherboards have lots of features for overclockers. However, I am not up to date on motherboards now. I'm just giving options to think about but am unable tell exactly which component to take.

You might want to take a look at some general roundup review like the one at www.anandtech.com (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=1955). If you are going to play FPS games like Half Life 2 and Doom 3, then 256MB of memory on the card would be useful. I don't know which one I would go for right now - ATI or NVidia, PCI-E or AGP...

Many games are released on a DVD nowadays...

PC3200, right? That would be the standard at the moment for the bus frequency you are most likely running it on.

[chris]

Whoever says XP Home is better for gaming than Pro doesn't know what they are saying. There is virtually no difference at all between them, except for all the stuff Home version doesn't have. I run games on XP Pro and have no problems.

By the way, if you need to get XP Pro, go to this place:

http://www.computeronline.com.au/

They are a funny little place in Burwood Heights, but you get great deals from them on many things. :D Don't be put off by the look of the place when you walk in (it is always in a state of organised chaos), because they are good people to deal with. :) If they haven't got what you want in stock, my experience with them tells me they can get it in quickly if needed.

Everyone I know uses XP Pro, and not XP Home.

I also have an Nvidia graphics card and I've never experienced any troubles in any games with it. It has ran faultlessly so far.

I echo the earlier comments about onboard sound, usually it is quite good, but if you can get a Creative Live or whatever at a good price, why not spend the extra?

I'm also a supporter of onboard LAN - it saves having to put in a PCI network card, same with onboard firewire support for that matter (make sure they include the ports however - since some will make you pay extra for them!)

[Y2kGoofball]

Chaul thanks for the link and for the info

Chris ditto - thanks for the linkOne thing ive learnt is dont judge a place by its appearance.

Heck the place I work for has a small office with a small showroom and what appears to be a dodgey workshop, but Ive learnt the workshop acctually isnt that bad, even on the Tues / Wed / Thurs hot days it reached 40 degrees at work yet our workshop was acctually quite nice to work in (obviously the office with its ducted air cond was a better place to be but you get the idea). My first reaction when I saw the workshop / warehouse was riiight but when you look at it it looks like a warehouse and workshop full of crap machines but when you hit them with some standard all purpose cleaner they acctually sell for in excess of $3000 each!

anyways ive bookmarked their site and i'll have a look at it

Ok Windows yeah just as I thought, XP Home is just a stripped out version of Pro, so I'm happy to bung Pro on the machine

As for ATI VS Nvidia thanks guys, your really a big help lol. I'll check out them 2 cars ive mentioned above for more info

[heinrick]

You might want to take a look at some general roundup review like the one at www.anandtech.com (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=1955). If you are going to play FPS games like Half Life 2 and Doom 3, then 256MB of memory on the card would be useful. I don't know which one I would go for right now - ATI or NVidia, PCI-E or AGP...
.

I gotta agree. If it's for a gaming system then 256MB is the way to go. Either of the newest highend ATI or Nvidia cards will come with 256MB (X800 or 6800). It looks like the ATI 9600XT is available with 256, as is the 9800 PRO. I picked one of these up a few months ago on a special. It works well but the newest cards supposedly deliver twice the performance! You can't run Doom III at the highest levels with a 9800 pro (even with 256MB). You need to go X800 or 6800 to do this.

The prices on these high-end cards will come down in the next few months. I just can't see spending $700 (CDN) on a video card. &(

[Y2kGoofball]

yes looking at the prices I wouldnt be going beyond a Nvidia FX5700 or an ATI 9600XT

So basically its a much of a muchness with these 2 cards? I know im a bit repetitive but I've never been able to pick a decent grahics card, and seeing as this is a dedicated games machine :rolleyes:

[Y2kGoofball]

ok ...

looking at the Nvidia GeForce FX5700 VS ATI Raedeon 9600XT its hard to make a decision. Both are very competitive in reviews Ive read, quite often either one is just a tad better in this game but in that game the other is just that tad bit better, or there both that close its too hard to call

I'm seeming to like the ATI more, I dont know why ... it costs 20 bucks more but i'm not worried about that at the moment. Would anyone else care to reccomend the Raedeon 9600 XT??

edit> ok now the fun bit ... motherboards!

I'm looking at either the Asus P4p800-mx or the Gigabyte 8l848PG

Both tho are practically the same! I'm using an Asus now and like I said I only had dramas with the incluced software, never the board itself. Dammit why do they make it so hard to chose lol

[Justin Martin]

Would anyone else care to reccomend the Raedeon 9600 XT??

I have one, and I love it. I would recommend looking at the new X600 first though before deciding. Somewhat more expensive, since the 9600XT's are being discounted a bit, but I don't know how much faster it is.

[VQ]

DO they have the same software and all? I'd go for the ATi as I'm a fan of them, evn though I'm still using a GF2 myself.

CPU's die at 70 degrees or so, my 1.3 has gotten to 55 so far on a 30 degree day a couple days ago, and AMD's running hotter, isn't much difference, get a Jet 7 fan or the other one for the AMD if your gonna get a fan, cos they are awsome fans, I'd get one but I don't plan on o/c my system.

I've heard that AMD's ar better for gaming, especcially the new 64 bit capable ones, and their geting cheaper, they are equivilent to a intel running at 3 ghz, but actually run at 1.8.

and besides, whoc are if their a tad loud? your gonna be gaming so your stereo will be up loud over the noise of the fan! make sure you get a god box with about 4 case fans, 2 in front two in back of course and a decent 400w power supply, that's all gonna eat money in itself.

[chris]

and besides, whoc are if their a tad loud? your gonna be gaming so your stereo will be up loud over the noise of the fan! make sure you get a god box with about 4 case fans, 2 in front two in back of course and a decent 400w power supply, that's all gonna eat money in itself.

Because the scream of fans is irritating.

I find in video cards the Leadtek ones present a good value option, they tend to come with a lot of extras thrown in, and they also tend to be quite well constructed.

I like Nvidia's driver support, it seems like a new driver is available whenever I check. What I'm using is supposed to be for the newer Nvidia cards, but it works fine on my 128mb TI 4200, even despite showing in the options "Quadro 4 XGL".

[VQ]

the noise of my fan isn't really that bad, just a whirl, then again fan noises for me arent' annoying I mean we do own a hovercraft and that makes over 100 Db with the conjunction of the fan and engine!

[Y2kGoofball]

ive made my mind up that I'm NOT buying an AMD, the worst thing anyone ever did was suggest buying our current AMD 2500. I mean its ok for general working but even with all the added cooling Ive put in, ie case fans and a new supposidly better CPU fan it still heats up quite a bit when gaming and you notice the difference.

Once again we never had problems with Intels in the past, but that said too with talk of overclocking if your CPU is running at or close to 3 Ghz who the heck needs to overclock it? I'd still be throwing in decent fans and such, but I'm saying thered be no need to overclock

As for CPU's dieing at 75 degrees agreed, but like I said one positive for AMD is I have physically seen one have the CPU fan fail and the sensor read 99 degrees yes the acctual temp was far greater then that, as the sensors dont go beyond 99 for that reason ... they get to round 75 and die. I still remember the tech took it out and put it on the desk, the CPU was that hot it started to melt the table!

Still even for one that was overheating the system still ran, just extremely slow.

[VQ]

Well, simple have a clocking tool from windows and when the comp heats up, just reduce the CPU speed, I don't know why your 2500 would eb overheating playing games, mine won't go over 55 in intense gaming, because the GPU on the Graphics card does all the work for the game basically, you don't have a 3d card on the current one do you?

[Y2kGoofball]

no because its not sposed to be a gaming machine, I spose it would affect temperatures of the CPU tho, I never thought of it like that!

Anyway Ive still made up my mind, Pentium 4 ;)

[Chaul]

On paper, regarding theoretical performance levels, this might be an interesting chart to look at. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2195&p=5

Looking at that graph the Radeon9800 Pro model still looks good for "a last years model".. But note that this table is only based on theoretical performance and estimates on architectural design and features between the GPU's (the unweighted chart: http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/cheatsheet/DX9_Unweighted.html ).

DirectX + features are listed on pages 2 and 3 of the same article:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2195&p=2
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2195&p=3

Motherboards? Look at the features and what you think is important. Upgradability, overclocking, price, other features. There may be issues with some memory modules when running in a dual channel setup. Manufacturers usually list all motherboards tested compatible or not compatible. Simple two module setting should be easy on any motherboard though. They also sell "kits" of two tested identical modules but it only matters under extreme overclocking anyways..

Just found this crazy test of 101 video cards (October, 2004):
http://www.ixbt-labs.com/articles2/over2k4/index.html

And regarding power supplies.. Get a quality one for stability. There are some calculators on the web to estimate how big a PSU you'd need to power up all the components. 400 Watts should be quite enough to power up a P4, that Radeon9600 and several hard drives with a few watts to spare. Generally you'll need more W from a generic PSU to generate stable enough voltages. The very top-end video cards will demand more power of course.

If you are after quiet computing take a look at this website:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/

[Y2kGoofball]

cool thanks!

I think i'll need to rebudget myself somehow, once I started calculating $100 here and $250 there it ended up being in excess of $1000, minus the monitor (I'll use our original 15" for the moment till I can get a decent 17") and all that lol

But thanks for the links, I'll have a looksie shortly

[VQ]

I recomend a $200 price range LG 17' monitor, for me it's excelent and it seems that CHris likes his LG monitor too.

[chris]

I went for the LG Flatron F700P. Don't confuse it with the 700B, the are two different screens. The 700P at AUD$245 is much the better deal than the only just slightly cheaper but inferior 700B. It's not Trinitron perfect, but certainly not bad, especially for the price.

Shame they aren't available anymore, because I'd recommend the Trinitron E230 17" screen - they are excellent top quality monitors.. But instead Sony insists on selling trendy LCD's these days.. :rolleyes:

However, a better bet than the LG may well be this one:

http://www.apcmag.com/apc/v3.nsf/0/6AF91479A8896A0DCA256D9C0008D15A

It might be a better choice if you favour colour and image quality more over absolute highest resolutions and refresh rates. However, do compare them yourself if possible at shops.

[VQ]

Considering I paid $175 for my F700B, I'm fine with it.