Building My First Comp, need Advice

[Jiffy John]

Here's what I am planning on getting: the blanks means I'm still looking and would appreciate help

Intel Pentium 4 1.6A GHz 512K Socket 478 Processor 400MHz Processor Bus - $142
Abit BD7II Mobo With Raid, Socket 478 - $128
Case (PS?)- (perferbly with 2 80mm case fan sockets)
512 DDR Ram - Frequency + brand?
1.44 Floppy -
CD Drive -
CDRW Drive - Probably Plextor?
Storage - Hmm, looking at around 2 * 60- 80gb drives
Geforce4 TI 4400 (what brand? Is Gainward worth the extra $22?)
Audio - SB Live 5.1 Value
Speakers -
Monitor -
Mouse - Logitech Optical
Keyboard -
Printer -
2 Vantec 80mm Stealth Fans - $20

I'm on a tight budget since I'm going to be a starving college student next year so any cheap deals or low costing solutions (as long as they are reliable) are welcomed. Thx =)

[Speedfreak]

Case (PS?)- (perferbly with 2 80mm case fan sockets) - Go to the nearest Comp. show. They have some damn nice cases for $30 with a 300W power supply. Definately a place for at least 2 fans.
512 DDR Ram - Pc2100 will do ya. Any kind, really. Unless you WANT to go all out.
1.44 Floppy - First one you see.
CD Drive - On of the Kenwood variety? Nice and quiet, yet speedy.
CDRW Drive - Probably Plextor? - I have the Lite-On. Damn good drive and it is much cheaper and rated a little faster than Plextor.
Storage - Hmm, looking at around 2 * 60- 80gb drives - Well, unless you have a brand preference and depending on how much you want to spend and maybe if you want bigger drives, Fry's has the 120GB WD 7200 RPM drives for $110. Otherwise, go to pricewatch.com and look around.
Geforce4 TI 4400 (what brand? Is Gainward worth the extra $22?) I don't think so. What is the one you are looking at that is $22 less?
Audio - SB Live 5.1 Value - Sounds good
Speakers -Again, if you want go to ALL out with 5.1 and all, get the Klipsch 5.1, otherwise there are the Logitech Z-560s for 4.1 surround or the Logitech Z-340s for 2.1
Monitor - What size? LCD or CRT?
Mouse - Logitech Optical Sounds good.
Keyboard - First one you see, unless you want something special.
Printer - What kind of stuff will you be printing? Photos or just text all the time?
2 Vantec 80mm Stealth Fans - $20 Cool.

[jase71]

Jiffy John... let us know how you're going to use the machine.

Gaming? Multimedia?

And are you going to overclock? Buying a 1.6A suggests you might... but some things, like the kind of memory you'll want, depend on whether you'll overclock or not.

[d12agonxboi]

you're on a tight budget, but are you going to overclock? gaming? or just use it to type papers?

i don't think you'll need a CD rom drive, just go with DVD, unless you're goign to be ripping a lot of CDs then you'd want a faster CD-rom drive but i think a DVD rom will be adequate, and get a Liteon CDRW they are really fast, and pretty reliable and way cheaper the plextor :)

for ram 512 samsung 2700 will help if u plan to OC if not then just get 512 2100, that'll be ok

floppy just go to newegg pick out ne for 10 bucks, u might find one cheaper at pricewatch

monitor is all up to your preference, if u want to save room or go gaming, CRTs are better for gaming then LCDs but they make up in size so its ur choice

Sound card i think SB Live 5.1 sounds good

Graphics get a gf4 ti4200 gainward with 128 and oc it it'll make up the price difference =)

[Jiffy John]

-Probably gonna stick a tv tuner card in there to watch tv (small dorm room). Hmm, some gaming like UT2 when it comes out and such. Maybe a dvd movie or two but nothing much else that's performance intensive.
-Yes, I'm going to overclock the Ti4400 (or maybe TI4200) and the 1.6A.
-I'm looking at the Ti4400 because u can overclock the Ti4400 to Ti4600 speeds without too much trouble since their hardware is virtually the same while the Ti4200 is quite different at the hardware level. Yet the Ti4400 costs $80 more than the Ti4200 (128mb), is the performance difference worth the price difference? Hmmz... Gainward TI4400 costs $22 more than the Leadtek Ti4400.
-MSI Ti4400 only costs $219 from target-sale.com, is MSI good? and is that store reliable?
-I'm probably going to go CRT if I can fit it in the dorm desk.
-Printer wise, mostly text and I don't want another HP printer cuz it takes forever for the driver to load.
-And the memory... it's not really going to matter that much if I overclock it or not, right?
-The main reason I'm looking at Plextor because that it is able to burn 1:1 copies easier and more reliable, I haven't heard about Lite-On.
-And yes, I'm in SD and I'm gonna head over to the comp show at the Scottish Rite Center on 7/14 and 8/4 to view the cases.

Btw, thx in advance. :)

[Hoser]

I'd recommend having a DVD and CDRW drive. Almost all my systems have both drives. I just got a Lite-On 48X12X48 CDRW and Lite-On 16X DVD drive from Dell.com for a little over $110. The DVD is supposed to be equal to a 48X CD drive. According to Lite-On, this drive will rip audio quickly.

I've got both WinTV USB and WinTV PCI for TV tuners. For DVD viewing I use PowerDVD.

I'm also thinking of getting a Ti4400, unless I get a really good deal on a Ti4600. My current video card is an ATI Radeon 7500. It's OK, but I'm looking to move this card to replace a Vodoo 4 4500 card in another machine. 17" monitors are very inexpensive now(locally about $150), but you'd be better off with a 19". The newer monitors have a smaller footprint than their older versions, so they don't take up as much space as before. Since you'll be watching DVDs, a bigger monitor would be nice.

[PoloM1]

If you're really on a budget I would go with AMD instead of Intel, yeah the P4 1.6A is a great overclocker, but I still think Intel cost too much compared to AMD. I recently got an AMD XP 1700+, Gigabyte DDR motherboard, and CPU heatsink for $130 shipped, that's cheaper than the Intel CPU by itself and you said that you don't really do too many things that are performance intensive so I don't see why need the extra performance that the P4 will give you, I would rather save the money or put it towards other components.

I've used a couple lite-on cdrw's and they work great, have no complaints about them.

If you're in the SD area, you might want to check out this site
www.sdiego.com
they sell used computer things.... probably from companies they went out of business, but check out thier monitors if you don't mind that they aren't new. My girlfriend's monitor when out not too long ago and she's happy with a 15" so I was able to pick one up for $40 and they have all sizes, and since you're in SD you can just drive over there and check out what they have.

[sbp]

I concur on going with a DVD and CDRW drive. I also have a Lite-On 48X12X48 CDRW and Lite-On 16X DVD drive.

Sound: An SB Audigy is the best soundcard for gaming and yes an OEM version is available. However since you are a starving college student, a SBLive 5.1 is fine. ;)

"MSI Ti4400 only costs $219 from target-sale.com, is MSI good? and is that store reliable?" Yes the MSI card is good and it comes with a nice bundle. As for the store: http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1417.html

Storage: look for Seagate Barracuda IV or a Western Digital Caviar WD600BB, WD800BB or WD800JB

Yes Hoser, the GeForce 4 Ti4600 costs too much. Go with the GeForce 4 Ti4400 and overclock it. Leadtek and MSI are the brands I would look at.

[jase71]

Lots of good recommendations in here so far....

One I'd add... if you're going to overclock, don't skimp on the memory. Get good memory. If you don't, it'll hold you back.

[d12agonxboi]

-i've heard of leadtek but never seen their actual performanced compared to gainward, gainward seems to be all about ocing and giving you good parts already, read the review on the first page of g|a its a 4600 version but most of their cards are the same when it comes to cooling.
-TV tuner i would get a pinnacle, it comes with a remote n stereo sound, winTV the cheapest one has mono and no remote, but there is somewhat of a price difference of 20-30 dollars for the cheapest pinnacle
-get the liteon dvd players and CDRW at Dell.com the prices are pretty good and u can easily flash the dvd to play all region :)

[JPR]

Memory: I would go Crucial. Good stable stuff and at a fair price. Good warranty service too.

Burner: i dont really think you can beat a Lite-on when its comes to price vs. performance.

Sound: I will no longer use a creative card since they basically left all those with sb-live cards and XP in the dust. I picked up the Hercules Game Theater and love it. 5.1 via coax or optical er.. too many features to list.

[Jiffy John]

I don't plan on upgrading for 3-4 years. (will be still starving)

Should I go with the Athlon XP solution or the P4 1.6A solution?

If so, can anyone recommend an affordable XP + mobo combo with RAID (reliable mobo's please...had bad experiences with my friend's mobo)

And should I go all out or settle for average parts like PC2100 instead of PC2700 Ram and average HD drives...

Thx for all the good advice guys. :D

[PoloM1]

I would go with AMD just because the performance is good and the price is even better.

Which RAID configuration do you plan to use?
I ask because if you are on a tight budget and if you don't need RAID, why get it.
if you plan to use RAID 0, I want to make sure you know your chances of loosing your data just increased a lot. Also if you don't do too many performance intensive things, why are you using RAID 0?
If you plan to use RAID 1 your data must be really important to you but I would think making backups should be good enough.

Basically, I don't see how getting RAID would be a benifit to you right now and if you decide you want it later, you can get a separate RAID card that takes up a PCI slot (I would get one that supports RAID 5).

If you are on a budget, save yourself the money of buying that second hard drive, put it towards food. Just my opinion.

[jase71]

Originally posted by Jiffy John
I don't plan on upgrading for 3-4 years. (will be still starving)

Should I go with the Athlon XP solution or the P4 1.6A solution?


I'm a big AMD advocate... I like their stuff a lot.

But.. if you dont' want to upgrade for 3-4 years, by all means, get the P4 system. In 2 years, you stand a much better chance of being able to buy a new, faster cpu that'll work on your P4 motherboard than you will with an Athlon system. As Chosen mentioned, the Athlons are near the end of the current line... and to make a serious CPU upgrade in a couple of years, you'd probably need a new motherboard as well.

Performance is plenty fast with both systems, and since the P4 is going to give you more breathing room for upgrades, it's the way to go, unless you really want to make an anti-Intel/pro-AMD statement.



And should I go all out or settle for average parts like PC2100 instead of PC2700 Ram and average HD drives...

If you want to overclock, don't skimp on the memory. Get the best you can reasonably fit in your budget. Quickest way to limit your overclock is to use crappy memory.

For hard drives, get one of those Western Dig models Chosen mentioned, if you can. Or, if you want a silent system, get a Seagate Barracude IV.

Get the best of each thing that you can reasonably fit in your budget. Focus on what's important to you, and spend a little extra on those areas. If you're a hardcore gamer, spend a little more on a video card. If you're a hardcore audiophile, spend the extra on the soundcard and speakers. If you're a graphics guy, spend it on the monitor...

You probably can't afford to buy the best of everything... so splurge a little on what's most important to you, and stick to the budget in other areas.

[Jiffy John]

Wow, thx guys for all the advice...
I'm off to finding cheap deals online for those parts mentioned above. :)

[Jiffy John]

wheee. :D