First shot at building a computer

T

Teoh

n00b
Joined
Apr 3, 2005
Messages
17
Need input on if you think this is a good setup. I'm new here but my friend said you guys could help me out. I'm on a pretty limited budget but I tried to get what looked the best and was rated highly on newegg. My friend helped me work out some kinks with what I had at the time, and this is what we came up with.

Case: Thermaltake VA3000 Dream Tower Black VA3000BWA ATX Case with Transparent X type side panel window -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=11-133-132&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE

CD/DVD Burner:NEC 16X Double Layer DVD±RW Drive, Black, Model ND-3520A BK, OEM
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=27-152-035&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE

Floppy drive (yes I do use them):SONY Black 1.44MB 3.5inch Floppy Disk Drive, Model MPF920, OEM
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=21-103-116&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE

Hard drive:Seagate 80 GB Barracuda 7200RPM SATA with NCQ Hard Drive, Model ST380817AS, OEM
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProdu...ufactory=BROWSE

Memory:Mushkin Dual Pack 184-Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200 - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-299&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE

Monitor:SAMSUNG 710N-Black 17" LCD Monitor -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=24-001-171&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE

Motherboard:ASUS "P4P800-E Deluxe" i865PE Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=13-131-492&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE

Network adapter (I have a linksys router):LINKSYS Wireless-G PCI Ethernet Adapter w/ Speed Boost, Model WMP54GS
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=33-124-139&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE

Power supply (case doesn't come with one):Antec 430W Power Supply, Model "TRUE430" - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=17-103-908&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE

Processor:Intel Pentium 4/ 3.0E GHz 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache, Hyper Threading Technology - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=19-116-171&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE

Speakers:Logitech X-230 2.1 Black Speaker System -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=36-121-119&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE

Video card:eVGA nVIDIA GeForce 6800GT Video Card, 256MB GDDR3, 256-Bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "256-A8-N344-AX" -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProdu...ufactory=BROWSE

Product total:! $1,428.47

If you guys could give your input if you think this is a decent build, I'd greatly appreciate it. As I said I'm kind of on a tight budget, and my current computer is about to explode, so I really need a new one.

I'm mainly going to be using it for gaming, I don't expect absolutely spectacular performance, but at least pretty good.

If you see anything wrong with this setup, let me know. Thanks a lot.

Shane
 
#1:

If gaming is your bag, Athlon 64 is what you want. They beat Intel up in gaming benchmarks, but suck at multitasking, so if you are going to be using this for single-tasks, or gaming, then you definitely want to consider an AMD cpu. Tomorrow, the Venice core is rumoured to be released, which will likely drive down prices on Winchester-core processors, essentially meaning: wait a week and you might be able to save $20 bucks, or get a Venice core, which will likely be a great overclocker. I don't know much about Winchesters, so someone else will probably come in here and recommend some motherboards.

#2:

You can save big money and get a way bigger hard drive if you look for rebate sales, or check outpost.com for deals on seagate/western digital drives. They often (once every couple weeks or so) have deals on a 160gb hard drive for $50 after rebate.

#3:

From everything I read (no personal experience here, so take with a canister of salt), LCD's are horrible for gaming. They cost way more than bigger CRT's, have a longer access-rate, and worse picture quality. Take this statement for what it's worth: two clicks of a horse's mouth. :rolleyes:

#4:

I don't know what kind of "tight budget" this is, but that video card seems overkill for any tight budget I've ever heard of.

EDIT:
\/ \/ \/ What ashmedai said! \/ \/ \/
 
Well honestly, I do a lot of stuff while I'm gaming, so multitasking is kind of a big thing as well.

My friend told me that I should look for a better deal on hard drive as well, but I'm looking for a reliable and quiet one, the reviews say that the one I picked is just that. And I'm not really that big on mail in rebates, waiting 6 months for $20 isn't really worth it to me. I'm considering those other places, but the amount I save on shipping getting it all from newegg seems worth it to me.

I'm kind of deadset on LCD.

And by "tight budget" I mean I don't want to be spending $3000 just to get 5% better performance than spending $1500. However, I'm not going to buy total garbage just to save a few hundred bucks.
 
Don't like Thermaltake much but if that's the case you like the look of, go with it.

NEC's good enough.

Get the cheapest floppy you can, they're all basically the same anyway.

You should get a HD with 8MB cache, they're easy to find and having been out for years don't cost much more if any.

Mushkin's okay, G.Skill or Corsair are great if you can get them at a comparable price.

If you can, use a CRT instead of an LCD. You can EASILY get a 21" refurb Trinitron for that if not less. If space or power consumption is a major concern for some reason, fine, go LCD. A cheap CRT will probably have a better picture than an LCD over 3 times its price.

Good motherboard if you're going 478.

You might want to find a wireless NIC that supports WPA, unless I'm getting my anacronyms mixed up it's alot stronger than WEP.

Cases that come with power supplies generally come with shitty ones so it's just as well you're buying one. Antec is a good brand here.

Prescotts...you open to AMD? A64 on socket 939 is pretty sweet. My last CPU was a 2.4C so I'm not just Intel bashing. I don't care who makes it, I care how good it is, and A64 is pretty good.

Logitech makes pretty good low-end computer speakers, but for this price or very close you should be able to find X-530 5.1s instead.

I keep hearing dodgy things about XFX's cards. Try to go with an EVGA, Newegg had the two around the same price last I saw. You can go with a 6600GT instead if you're not after spectacular performance and want to save a fair amount of money.
 
Teoh said:
My friend told me that I should look for a better deal on hard drive as well, but I'm looking for a reliable and quiet one, the reviews say that the one I picked is just that. And I'm not really that big on mail in rebates, waiting 6 months for $20 isn't really worth it to me. I'm considering those other places, but the amount I save on shipping getting it all from newegg seems worth it to me.
Click to expand...

Alot of the ones I deal with are Seagate 7200.7s, and they've been both so far. Hitachi = also good.

Get the size now you anticpate needing later.
 
Thanks a lot for your advice, I looked into it and changed some stuff.

I switched the video card to EVGA, only $5 more:

eVGA nVIDIA GeForce 6800GT Video Card, 256MB GDDR3, 256-Bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "256-A8-N344-AX" -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=14-130-203&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE

Also changed the hard drive to

Seagate 80 GB Barracuda 7200RPM SATA with NCQ Hard Drive, Model ST380817AS, OEM
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=22-148-040&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE

I'm not really set on intel, but it looked pretty good as far as operating speeds. I had heard in the past that AMD and Intel run at different speeds but a lower AMD is equivalent to a higher intel? Something like that.. I'm not really well versed as far as processors go. If you can give me a hand with something that would work better, I'd appreciate it. I'm not too good at this kind of thing, so I need all the help I can get.

Thanks a lot.


edit: Also if you can make a suggestion as to a good CRT monitor? I've used CRT monitors for a long time, and I don't really like them. They're too big and every single time I've gotten one, they've managed to f up somehow. The one I currently have has its sides distorted because of a "brown-out" a few years back, company said warranty doesn't cover it, even though I have a surge protector.

My brother got an LCD and he says it works just fine for gaming, and when I go there it seems a lot nicer than the one I have right now, and better than any I've had before.
 
Intel's stock clock rates are higher, but all that really means is that they make more heat.

Hyperthreading can make a difference in Intel's favor if you're doing ALOT of multitasking. I had a 2.4C running over 3GHz that still lagged out over some of the crap I threw at it and my A64 Winnie is stronger (playing full screen renderless video on one monitor, transcoding some old DIV3 crap into XviD so it'd play on my girl's Celeron without puking out, downloading 4 torrents of Slackware, about 20 tabs open in Fox, Word & Excel both with a window or two open, Photoshop with a few high res wallpaper sized files open, that kind of list...well okay most of that not while transcoding). Hyperthreading isn't actual multiprocessing, it's just splitting up its processing power to fake it. Helps a little, not a lot. If you're not going to be doing that much crap at once, just get an A64, it'll go faster for cheaper. Especially if you OC a little.

If you want to do A64, I'd recommend a Winchester 3000+ (socket 939) on a DFI nF4 UT. Overclocking options like crazy and good tech support.
 
Well, I'm not really that insane with multitasking. The most I do is run AIM/MSN and some IE windows, maybe winamp and a few other things while playing, but I'd like to be able to do that at least, and minimize/maximize with little or no screenlag.

I'm not big into overclocking, I've never done it before, and I'm not really interested. I'm sure I'd screw it up somehow. Whatever would be the best for what I mentioned before is what I'm looking for.
 
Good surge protectors are inferior to a cheap UPS. You're paying loads for components, for the sake of all that's holy make sure that the power going into them doesn't turn them into so much expensive slag.

I usually point to Trinitron refurbs, they had them going in the Hotdeals forum for about $120 (plus shipping, they weigh like 70 lbs! hope you have a good desk...) for a while, and you can usually get one under 200ish if you hunt a bit if those are gone. Had one for a while now and it totally kicks ass for gaming. I have an LCD too that I use when I'm just browsing the web or whatever, but the color on LCDs just tends to suck. Bottom line, get what you think will make you happy afterwards. $300 for a monitor better make you damn happy, especially with a high powered GPU and CPU on top of that cost already behind it.
 
Athlon 64 its the only way to go. Stay on the light side. :)

Anyway they aren't that bad at multi-tasking, id even bet if you were gaming and running the same apps on a 3000+ winny vs. a 3.0e prescott the winchester would beat it out.
 
Teoh said:
Well, I'm not really that insane with multitasking. The most I do is run AIM/MSN and some IE windows, maybe winamp and a few other things while playing, but I'd like to be able to do that at least, and minimize/maximize with little or no screenlag.

I'm not big into overclocking, I've never done it before, and I'm not really interested. I'm sure I'd screw it up somehow. Whatever would be the best for what I mentioned before is what I'm looking for.
Click to expand...

Functionally speaking that amount of load is very very little for a CPU to handle and hyperthreading probably won't matter to you.

Obviously you're in to gaming or you wouldn't be after a 6800GT, go with the A64, it's very good for gaming.

If you're not going to overclock it, you might want to get a CPU with a higher stock speed than I did, I picked that one because I could get it for $150 and be fairly sure I could run it as fast as a CPU 2 to 3 times its price with little effort, risk, or additional heat. There's always some risk and effort involved in an overclock though so if you're not comfortable with it don't do it. But you might want to go for a 3200 or 3500 instead of the cheaper 3000.

Speaking of overclocking, that reminds me...stock coolers are usually quite adequate for cooling purposes - but kind of noisy. If that bothers you, you should probably get an aftermarket heatsink.
 
ashmedai said:
If you're not going to overclock it, you might want to get a CPU with a higher stock speed than I did, I picked that one because I could get it for $150 and be fairly sure I could run it as fast as a CPU 2 to 3 times its price with little effort, risk, or additional heat. There's always some risk and effort involved in an overclock though so if you're not comfortable with it don't do it. But you might want to go for a 3200 or 3500 instead of the cheaper 3000.

Speaking of overclocking, that reminds me...stock coolers are usually quite adequate for cooling purposes - but kind of noisy. If that bothers you, you should probably get an aftermarket heatsink.
Click to expand...

I'm interested in it if it's relatively easy/safe to do, I might consider giving it a shot, especially if it will save me money.

And you lost me on that last point, what's an aftermarket heatsink? I do want this system to run very quiet, the one I have now is very noisy and I hate it, so the quieter, the better.


On a monitor note: How does this look for a CRT? I went browsing after several people said bad things about LCD for gaming, and even though I really dislike the lugginess and size of CRT, it's not really THAT bad I guess.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=24-002-248&depa=1
 
Overclocking takes a little work but you can have the system going significantly faster inside maybe 15 minutes. With a Winnie 3000+ it's not that hard to get it to run like a 3500+ especially on the DFI board I mentioned. Practically though what you're going to want to do afterwards is stress-test the thing and make sure it's fully stable at the new speed.

Monitor looks fine.

For the heatsink, assuming you buy the retail-packed CPU it'll come with a heatsink to cool it. These things tend to sound like a buzzsaw though so I stick the stock one in storage and slap one of my own choosing on. Zalman & Thermalright are both very good. SVC.com has the XP-90 heatsink for 30 bucks and has been selling it for 25 off and on, you'll also need a fan to go on it as it doesn't have an integral one (this is a good thing, fans become damaged eventually and this way it's easy to put on a new one instead of having to replace the entire heatsink). Here is a typical one by Zalman on Newegg, they're pretty quiet but I find that it's easy to get wires in through those radial fins if you're not careful.

Might look into Cooler Master for the case if your heart's not set on the one you linked, they tend to be very good. If you find one with 120mm fans, you can get the same airflow levels for less noise.
 
Okay, I've come to a few decisions. I've decided against overclocking, because I really don't want to screw it up. I've also decided on getting the LCD and not going for CRT.

One question though.. the mobo/processor I mentioned, if I switched to an A64 how much of a difference would I notice spending the same amount of money? A lot?


Another thing, with the current specs: how much noise will it make? Should I consider getting more fans? Or even fans to replace the stock ones? If it's not going to be too loud, I'll be happy.
 
Yeah even at stock AMD kicks Intel's ass around the block, Intel just has that hyperthreading thing going for 'em. Oh yeah plus DDR is hella cheaper than DDR2 and has lower latencies to boot.

AMD's pretty much always been faster than Intel at the "point of diminishing return" price point. Dunno about the "I have more money than God, bwahaha" price point, because I have yet to pay more than $150 for a CPU. But ask around here and everyone except the f@nb0ys will tell you that A64 is THE way to go for gaming.

I'm pretty sure "!!!!!!" is on the blocked word list. Which is fun, because fuck and mecrob aren't.

Edit: Yup, there goes fan boy getting blocked.

The CPU fan will make more noise than I like to put up with. Case fans, doesn't that thing come with like 7-8? Get a fan controller, or use one of the other various methods to undervolt them.
 
Sorry to be such a newb, but what's a fan controller? I've never even heard of such a thing. However, the case I spec'd has 3 rather large fans. I looked at cooler masters and they don't really look that good to me. This is my current:

Cooling System: 1 x 120mm front fan, 1 x 90mm side fan, 1 x 120mm Blue LED rear fan

I'm going to start looking at the AMD mobo/processors. If you can give some suggestions (links would be awesome) I'd appreciate it greatly. I'm not very good at picking stuff that's compatible with everything else I got though, so if I'll need to change anything that I've already mentioned along with the mobo/cpu, let me know or I'll probably end up screwing it up.

Thanks alot.


edit: Also, I've noticed that intel says 800mhz FSB, while most AMD say 400mhz FSB. What's that mean?
 
I looked into some AMD mobo/cpus and the two of these caught my eye, but a couple of questions: How would the compare to my system with the intel? And would everything else be compatible with these?

Mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-136-154&depa=1

Processor:http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-390&depa=1

edit:

I noticed that the processor I spec'd is an athlon XP, not 64. I don't think it will work.. but I'll leaveit there anyways. I found this one too, would this one work? It's actually a 64.


http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-500&depa=1


edit2: What does the 'integrated into chip' for FSB mean?
 
It means Intel uses a multiplier and pretends like it's significant. Both are really running at 200MHz.

Motherboard chipset determines what CPU socket type, memory type, and graphics card type it supports. DFI rocks, but the DFI nF4 UT would require a PCI-Express graphics card instead of the AGP one you picked. IIRC this board by MSI has a pretty good repuation, I have a bit of a grudge against them but they make some of the better A64 boards.

The Winchester 3200+ you linked is good. Think about going with the Retail packaged CPU even if you're using an aftermarket heatsink, it comes with a 3 year warranty.

The mobo you linked is socket 754, the Winchester A64s are socket 939. Both are out there and are NOT cross-compatible.

For memory, there are 4 timing numbers commonly displayed, i.e. 2.5 / 4 / 4/ 8 or something like that. Alot of times Newegg will only show the first one, the CAS latency. The second two numbers (RAS to CAS delay and RAS precharge) are much more important.

On an A64 the memory controller is built into the processor...this helps speed it up for some things but it makes it a bit flaky on using 4 sticks because of a bit of a bug. Doesn't mean anything really since you're using 2x512 and 2GB won't help you much. That's probably where you saw the integrated FSB thing. FSB is what they call the clock that drives the cpu/memory connection and a few other things. Like I said, FSB is going to be at 200MHz for Intel & AMD both anyway so don't worry about that too much. Makes for interesting reading later if you want to look in to how computer architecture works.
 
Yep, that. Get it if you want the warranty, get the OEM one if you don't care and want it to be cheaper. It's a matter of preference, just making sure you know your options.

That processor in either package, the motherboard I linked, the DDR memory & AGP 6800 GT. If you're going with the aftermarket heatsink, get it NOW and not later, or you'll have to clean off thermal interface material spooge before you change it. Any of the case fans or whatever, if they annoy you or if you want more air, you can easily do later. CPU heatsink has thermal pad or goop in between it and the CPU itself, and it's a bit annoying to clean off.

Oh yeah. I keep remembering crap. ^_^

You're getting that fast of a graphics card & processor, are you sure you want to go with 1 normal hard drive, and not a Raptor + data drive? It'll speed things up a bit, and you're already paying a premium to do that, so you might as well cover all the bases.
 
My brother actually said something about him having dual raptor drives, I didn't think it made a difference.. but obviously it does? I don't think I'll be needing more than 80gb of space, but if it will increase my performance, I'll put some thought into it. Any links for thought?
 
Anyone with dual Raptors conned themselves, RAID 0 is a sucker's game that's overhyped and the people that understand what it does and how are constantly trying to debunk it.

You'd just need the one, and maybe a data drive. Raptors are 10k RPM so they do just about everything faster than a normal hard drive. Also if you move everything except the OS and programs to the second data drive, it reduces the load on it, further speeding up the things still on it. Level load time and such can be significantly sped up. Other things aren't very hard drive dependant though so it affects what it affects and doesn't affect what it doesn't.

Here is the XP-90, you'll need a 90mm fan to go with it, Panaflo fans are great. The Zalman I linked earlier is 939-compatible too I think if you prefer it, it'll say in the description either way. It's better not to have the integrated fan crap going on over the long term, but probably not that significant.
 
I think I'll just go for a normal data drive, but get the aftermarket heatsink you mentioned earlier anyways.

I really appreciate your help, I think I've got an idea of my final build now. You rock.
 
So, planning to install Folding @ Home? Computer that powerful, most of your clock cycles are going to waste most of the time anyway, and it sits on low task priority so it won't interfere with anything you're doing.
 
Final build! (Probably)..

Case: Thermaltake VA3000 Dream Tower Black VA3000BWA ATX Case with Transparent X type side panel window -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProdu...ufactory=BROWSE

CD/DVD Burner:NEC 16X Double Layer DVD±RW Drive, Black, Model ND-3520A BK, OEM
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProdu...ufactory=BROWSE

Floppy drive (yes I do use them):SONY Black 1.44MB 3.5inch Floppy Disk Drive, Model MPF920, OEM
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProdu...ufactory=BROWSE

Hard drive:Seagate 80 GB Barracuda 7200RPM SATA with NCQ Hard Drive, Model ST380817AS, OEM
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProdu...ufactory=BROWSE

Memory:Mushkin Dual Pack 184-Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200 - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProdu...ufactory=BROWSE

Monitor:SAMSUNG 710N-Black 17" LCD Monitor -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProdu...ufactory=BROWSE

Motherboard:MSI "K8N Neo2 Platinum" NVIDIA nForce3 ULTRA Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 939 CPU -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=13-130-468&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE

Power supply (case doesn't come with one):Antec 430W Power Supply, Model "TRUE430" - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProdu...ufactory=BROWSE

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 512KB L2 Cache, Socket 939 64-bit Processor - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-502&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE

Speakers:Logitech X-230 2.1 Black Speaker System -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProdu...ufactory=BROWSE

Video card:eVGA nVIDIA GeForce 6800GT Video Card, 256MB GDDR3, 256-Bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "256-A8-N344-AX" -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProdu...ufactory=BROWSE

Aftermarket heatsink:ZALMAN CNPS7000B-AlCu Aluminum + Copper CPU Cooler for Socket 478/462/754/939/940 CPUs -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=35-118-112&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE


Product total:!
$1,454.98

Looks good to me, any final input is appreciated. Thanks a lot.

Edit: And yeah, it's for home use. I've had a crappy dell dimension L1000R for 5 years now, since it's dying I figured it was time to move on up in the world. Again, thanks for all your help, you made this process a LOT less stressful than I thought it would be.
 
Heh, I went to double-check everything and about half the links came up DOA. Looks good though and everything should be compatible.

You're going to need this when you go to assemble it, it tells you how to properly apply the thermal compound (included with the Zalman heatsink) when you go to put it on the CPU. Proper vs. incorrect application of the goop can mean a properly cooled CPU vs. a toaster oven.
 
Doesn't the L1000R have like a 1GHz Pentium III? This is going to be light years beyond your old system.
 
ashmedai said:
Doesn't the L1000R have like a 1GHz Pentium III? This is going to be light years beyond your old system.
Click to expand...


Yes, yes it does. Imagine trying to play doom3 and cs:s on it. That's what I've been going through for 5 long years.
 
My girl's got a 2.4GHz Celeron and most games from the last few years are completely unplayable...I'm just amused that you're going from something that can be cooled adequtely by my chipset heatsink to something you'd have to pay double to see much improvement in.
 
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