How to build your own pc !

[slaphapy]

Nyar would you recomend buying from Dell or www.cyberpowersystem.com ?

_______

and on the cyberpower one, i dont' mean the prebuilds but the ones that are under the "weekly mega sale" text where you build your own using either AMD or Intel

[GUNWOUNDS]

slapy

take my word for it... I build my own computers .. but if i didnt know how.. i would buy one from Monarch Computers.

They have the best customization and parts.

But do try to learn to build your own system. The COmputer stores do a 3 to 4 times jackup of the price!!

for example i build my computer which is prolly worth like 4000 dollars at a store.. but it only cost me 1200 dollars to build it myself.

[Nyarlathotep]

Slappy, I would suggest you do the following:

1) Sort out what your pc would cost if you'd select the parts at cyberpower and have them build it for you.

2) Compare that price if you'd search stores for the same parts and build it yourself.

If the price difference is worth for you to try and build your comp yourself, do it. If the price difference isn't worth for you to do the work yourself, have cyberstore build your comp.

No one can tell you to build your comp yourself. it can be a hassle. All I can say for myself is that it's been worth the time I've spent to learn how to build my pc.

I hope the above helps...

[slaphapy]

well my dad really does not want me to build one or buy it from cyberpower because he says "there is no technical support" so with that stupid excuse he wants to spend about $500 more on a Dell pc that is only 2.4 GHz when they have a 3200 athlon at cyberpower for about 200 dollars less and it runs much much much faster.

I really don't see a point in buying a computer that isn't very good because it is pointless to do especially when I can get one that is much better for much less. Because we dont' have an unlimited budget and my dad has no clue what a hard drive is (or anything else involving computers for that matter) he tried to find one of the deals on Dell... he found one and said "wow! look at this!" so i looked at it, they had a 2.4 GHz pentium .... everything else was pretty much crap, it was almost the exact same as the computer I am sitting at right now but with a faster processor. they took out the floppy drive only had some kind of Intel Graphics card (which I have never even heard of) and it only was at a max of 32MB i think which is the same as in this computer, and it had a 40 GB hard drive (same as in this comp) it did have a much better CD-ROM drive than this one, it had a CRT moniter that is the same size as this LCD I have here. I really wish he knew more about computers before shopping for all the special deals which are basically ..... cr*p

[gryphon]

I don't know which Dell modell you'r dad has in mind. . although that Intell grafics card could be an integrated one :-

And don't know how, but I would do anything possible to convince your dad that the Dell might not be as good as it seems. But then, it is his money probably :-X :-

[slaphapy]

well he says that he wants dell because they are the biggest company (that's all there is to this world... who has the biggest name) and that he won't get an athlon because he thinks they are going out of business (or something)

the computer he is looking at is one that Dell obviously took and downgraded everything but the processor because all people usually look at is the processor... i think that's why people buy so many celerons because they are cheap as hell and made by Intel (it's all in the name) even though they are the worst processors I think i've ever used. we have one that is around 500 MHz and it runs about 3 times slower than this pentium 266 MHz.

Fortunately I have a friend who has taken college classes in computers so that he can have a second job of building or upgrading other people's computers... he's a close friend of ours perhaps I could ask him to tell my dad not to get a $700 Dell like the one i mentioned earlier.

[Nyarlathotep]

IF he goes for the Dell, at least convince him to add a video card to the config. The Intel card in the Dell will bring you problems when trying to run newer games.

And about Intel and AMD, it's just what one prefers. I wouldn't have an AMD in mine anymore, hence why I bought the fastest (currently) out there right now, which is Intel :)

[gryphon]

well he says that he wants dell because they are the biggest company (that's all there is to this world... who has the biggest name) and that he won't get an athlon because he thinks they are going out of business (or something)

So was Enron ......

[SurlyPIG]

Awesome topic Nyar. I trust that new rig was sufficiently overclocked?

[Nyarlathotep]

Awesome topic Nyar. I trust that new rig was sufficiently overclocked?

Thanks Ace. With this new motherboard, you can have the BIOS automaticly overclock. All you have to do is set the overclock option to 5%, 10%, 20% or 30%. All ram and processor settings are then set automaticly. Currently I haven't overclocked anything, because I want to see if everything works as it should. I will overclock this baby later on though :)

To give you an impression on the improvements to my old system:

Old: Pentium PIII 1Ghz, 512mb ram, GeForce 3.

In Renegade, with resolution set to 800x600 16 bit, graphic details to just below minimum, on a 32 player server, FPS max was 35 -40.

New system: P4 3.06Ghz (800FSB), 1gig of ram, GeForce 3(!).

In Renegade, with resolution set to 1024x768 32bit, graphical details set to high, on a 32 player server, FPS minimum was 83.

Talk about improvements :)

[DukeLeto]

Bah. In 1024x768x32 on mine, I can pull down 59-60 FPS minimum on that 52( :O) player server, and I only have a 1.53 GhZ AMD Athlon 1800+ XP, 512 MB of RAM, and a GeForce 4. As you can see, graphics card is real important. ;)

[slaphapy]

ok, my parents are going to get a comp... i think i have finally convinced/forced them to look at cyberpower because they are hugely cheaper than Dell or other big name companies. We did see a very nice computer for a very reasonable price compared to several companies in a store called Fry's (if you have one, they have good deals) but we don't have one where we live, that one was in Las Vegas. So we didn't buy it only for that reason.

but i was looking on cyberpower and I noticed ATI has released a 256 MB Graphics card !!! that's the highest I have ever seen!

and it was only i think about $60 more than the 128 which seemed pretty nice to me... but it's still really expensive ($500) but 256!! I nearly fell out of my chair!

[Nyarlathotep]

Yes, ATi has released (or is going to) a 256mb video card. It performs as one of the best, but the new Nvidia GeForce FX 5900 with 128mb out performs it. I don't know any price of that one yet, but look at the reply in the hardware thread. There's a link to a test for the GeForce FX 5900 and it's also compared to the 256mb ATi card.

My problem with ATi is still their lack of driver support and game suport. I still get many e-mails from people who own an ATi card and ask for help cause some game won't run on it.

Congrats on convincing your parents :)

[slaphapy]

so Geforce is better than ATI?

maybe I will look at the Geforce cards (are they more expensive?)

edit: well i was looking at them and i noticed the newest Geforce card they offer is the Geforce FX 5800 128MB Dual-DDR 8x AGP and it says (best with NFORCE-2 MB... what's that?) and it is 430 dollars which is the same as the ATI 9800 128MB

which would be better in those cases? the ATI 9800 128 or the Geforce FX 5800 128?

[Nyarlathotep]

Performance wise, between the GeForce FX 5800 and the ATi 9800, ATi is better. Next to that, the GeForce FX 5800 has a huge fan on it and it makes a hell of a noise. Hence why I'm waiting for the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra.

The GeForce FX 5900 (ultra) though outperforms all (even the 256mb ATi card !). However, it's a brand new card and will be expensive, but it's a hell of a card :)

Between ATi and Nvidia (GeForce) isn't that much difference. The biggest difference (and to me most important) is the driver support that Nvidia has, which is excellent (even ATi fans have to agree). ATi on the other hand lacks good driver support.

NForce is a motherboard chipset for AMD Athlon processors. Chosing for Nforce is chosing for AMD.

[slaphapy]

alright we've finally agreed on a computer... here is a link to see what we got:

here

does everything look ok on it? i am so happy about the RAID we have on it hehehe

something i wanna know about RAID is that Dell said you have to get 2 120GB hard drives for it to work, cyberpower says you just need 2 identical hard drives but doesn't say 120GB do you need 120?

[gryphon]

i am so happy about the RAID we have on it hehehe

Just waith untill it crashes ! ;D

And you don't need 120's for it to work. 2 identicall disk are prefered although not even needed for a RAID aray. When used as RAID 0 / stripped you can use the maximum amount of the smallest disk and leave a few MB's of the bigger on unused or used as a "normall" partition depending on the type of controler you have.

In case you havn't seen it yet there is a little explenation about RAID in this topic. Reply # 77.

[slaphapy]

wow.... have to reformatt all your drives if it crashes, not sounding good... why don't they tell me this!?!? what if you get a RAID 1.. what would it be like if it crashes and do they crash often?

[gryphon]

When a stripped array crashed you will lose all data on it . Unless you have a backup of in in the form of a mirrored array. So with RAID 2, 3, 5 and 0+1 [ I leave the 10foults out as you probably don't need them ] if one disk will crash you can get the data back. although you need a lot of disks that way. When you would use RAID 1 you have an exact copy of your HD, so if one would crash the second one still holds the data. Althoug you won't get the speed advantage you have with a stripping RAID varient.

Although you shouldn't take it to serious, it was kind'a ment to scare the *** out of you ok, I'll admit that. But the change that a new RAID array with new HD's will crash is not that big. Not that big at all really. :)

Although it would be safe to know that a RAID 0 setup is the most efficient for home use as it will give you a nice speeds boost, you can loose all your data if one disk fails.

I spend last weekend for 5 hours getting one of my disks back just to copy the data of it. The poor HD had crashed on me an it was in a RAID 0 array. Luckally not the one holding my OS so after a few hours I managed to copy the data of it to a new disk and that way recover the data on both disks. But that's not easy to do.

So don't worry and just use them in a RAID 0 array. oko, if one disk fails you are screwed. But the changes of that happening are minumum. [ I think ;) ]. And to wast a new HD in a mirrored array with a new system like that is. . well don't take it wrong but I would say cra** and overkill. So use the RAID 0 array and you'll be supprised how fast your PC suddenly is. :)

[slaphapy]

all right thanks a ton gryphon, i'll keep the RAID 0 and probably take the hard drives down to 2 80 Gig's instead of 2 120 Gig's... save about $60

[gryphon]

Just if it shouldn't have been clear before. When you use 2 80 gig's in a RAID 0 array you will end up with 1 160 gig disk. The data [ a office document for example ] you store on that is divided into 2 parts. One [ part of the document ] is stored in disk 1, the other half [ of the same document ofcourse ] on disk 2. So that if you should "ask" for the data it needs to read "half" a file from 2 disk instead of the whole file from one. This may sound rather silly although it does give a good performance boost as your hard drive usually isn't the faster part in the computer.

If you can, make shure the hard drives are both "master" on the IDE channel. This makes them again just a little bit faster.

[SurlyPIG]

"Thanks Ace. With this new motherboard, you can have the BIOS automaticly overclock. All you have to do is set the overclock option to 5%, 10%, 20% or 30%. All ram and processor settings are then set automaticly. Currently I haven't overclocked anything, because I want to see if everything works as it should. I will overclock this baby later on though"

Whoa!!! That would make the whole procedure SO much easier! Happy clocking!

[Nyarlathotep]

Slappy, I tried going to the page you copid in, but I only get "your shopping cart is empty".

[slaphapy]

hmm.. it said it before.... o well here it is but not a link this time:

CAS: Aluminum SILVER TurboGamer 10-Bay Soho Server SX1040 Case 420 Watt Power

CASUPGRADE: "See Through Side Panel Window" & Sound Activated Neon Light Installed

CD: (SILVER)16X DVD-ROM

CPU: AMD Athlon™ XP 2800+ Processor [512K L2 CACHE]

FAN: AMD CERTIFIED CPU FAN & HEATSINK + 2 EXTRA 3-COLOR LED CASE FANS

FLASHMEDIA: INTERNAL 6in1 Flash Media Reader/Writer in Beige, Silver, & Black Colors

FLOPPY: [sILVER]1.44 MB FLOPPY DRIVE

HDD: MAXTOR 80GB 7200 RPM ATA 133 HARD DRIVE

HDD2: MAXTOR 80GB 7200 RPM ATA 133 HARD DRIVE

MEMORY: 512 MB PC3200 400MHz DDR MEMORY (REQUIRES KT400 MB)

MODEM: NEW!!! Creative Labs PCI 56K V.92 FAX MODEM

MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte 7VAX-P VIA KT-400 MB W/ US.B 2.0, RAID, AUDIO,LAN,1394 & 8X AGP

OS: WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION

RAID: RAID-0 [DATA STRIPING]; WITH 2X HARD DRIVES ... [NO CHARGE]

SOUND: Creative Labs SOUND BLASTER LIVE 5.1 [X-GAMER 5.1 OEM]

SPEAKERS: JUSTER NEON LIGHT SUBWOOFER STEREO SPEAKERS

TEMP: [sILVER] THERMAL TEMPERATURE LCD DISPLAY WITH 3X FAN CONTROLLER

VIDEO: nVidia GeForce-FX 5600 256MB DDR W/ TV OUT & DVI ZIP: IO-MEGA 250 MB ZIP

2ND USB : STANDARD 2 USB PORT CONNECTORS

CABLE: Rounded Cable Upgrade for Hard Drive,Optical Drive & Floppy Drive

i tried to take out all the prices and everything... btw if anyone is intersted the total price comes out to : $1418 :)

[gryphon]

Slappy, I tried going to the page you copid in, but I only get "your shopping cart is empty".

It worked for my just after he posted it, probably a refresh thing of the site self where possible-orders arn't stored forever and just get deleted after a few hours. :)