Help me build my PC

[HalfLife]

Ok, ive been without a home computer for almost 6 months now, it blew up on me and i had to wait for tax season. Now that tax season is here im planning on spending about 1500 bucks on a new PC. I want it to be the ultimate gaming rig. I know what all the pieces i need are, but i dont nessicarily know what the best and the compatible are. Id prefer to get the parts individually because thats usually cheaper and better.


Id like some help from some of you out there to help me design my PC. If you can help me in any way at all id greatly appreciate it. If you can list the parts for your dream machine id be a very happy camper. Thanks in advance to anybody that offers any advice.

[Tenumi]

Hmm. Try http://www.newegg.com . Best Place for computer parts IMO. I don't know much about computers, but my only advice is to get a motherboard with a AGP slot.

Good Luck With Building a Great Gameing Rig :D

[Chuklz]

Before you buy,

research, compare, and analyze all your components.

Or, just go here:

http://www.maximumpc.com/

[Zutan]

depends on what you want. gameing computer, or a every day use with some gameing.

for gameing. go for the "drop off point" where prices jump higher than the rest (ie processors going in 500mhz jumps and price jumping by 20bucks, at a point for the next 500mhz its gonna jump 100 instead of 20.. go back one to thelast 20 jump)

dont skimp on parts. (buy good brand name parts, not some no name motherboard... probably have bad luck. good mobo's are asus, abit, and MSI.... just dont special order.)
get a good power supply. 350+ watts of power. good to have a decent amperage aswell.

atleast 512 megs of ram. XP doesent run well with less.

thats about all i can think of. hope i didnt confuse anyone with my description above :)

[Andara Bledin]

I know that one of the Ziff Davis magazines did a bit on building a screaming gaming rig not too long ago. Plus they have some pretty in-depth comparisons on various components. So that would be a good place to do a little research.

You should have a Fry's Electronics not too far from where you are, so if you're dedicated to building it yourself, that's usually one good place for components. But only if you know what you want as the employees are often quite clueless. (not always, but I often know more, and that's really rather sad)

^-.-^

[Minwee]

Try stopping at the Ars Technica system guide (http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer.ars) for some ideas of what you can do.

Although Tenumi's advice is good, AGP is last week's technology. The newest video cards are now being made for PCI Express which has only three letters in common with PCI -- It has up to four times the bandwidth of AGP 4x and all kinds of subtle performance improvements as well. PCIe can be used to run two video cards in parallel if you have an SLI enabled motherboard -- Look at the ASUS A8N-SLI (http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=a8nsli&page=1) if that sounds interesting.

[Lumax]

Do you need a system from the ground up? Including monitor and everything else like a keyboard, mouse, speakers?

Also if you do need a monitor, how big? That can take a huge bite out of your gaming budget.

[HalfLife]

I have a 19" monitor, keyboard and mouse, i just need case/motherboard, grapchics card etc.... I dont know anything about motherboards so i have no idea what to get there. Stuff like that

[El Vago]

As far as motherboards the big decisions right now are AMD/Intel and AGP/PCI-E. You really cant go wrong either way, though I would suggest AMD, as their top of the line chips perform much better, and their midrange are much cheaper but somehow still better. Brands like MSI (the best), Asus, Chaintech, and such are all good, and then theirs my personal favorite, Soyo, the single best motherboards ive ever come across, and they run pretty cheap as well. If you going AMD, make sure you get a socket 939 mobo just so you dont limit yourself for future upgrades.

[Demitrius]

The following is a list of high quality brands of parts that I've either used, or heard very much about. These are close to top-of-the-line if not the top.

Asus Motherboard. Rock solid dependable, good features.

AMD Athlon64 Processor. AMD is far superior to Intel in gaming PCs. And, don't get Semperon, it's a far step down below Athlon64 in gaming power.

Corsair Brand, TwinX (two sticks in the package)Dual Channel Memory (thought DDR is good? when its setup Dual Channel its even better, at least 1GB. Industry leaders in RAM with a superior customer service policy if your RAM ever goes bad

Western Digital Hard Drive, get it as big as you can afford it. If you really want some retarded power get a Raptor SATA drive. The thing broke the 10,000 RPM mark on disk speed. (Near EVERYTHING else runs at 7200). Most new motherboards come with SATA slots.

Sound Card: If your new motherboard doesn't come with sound (Most sound hardware on mobos nowadays is actually really good, the sound hardware on my Asus motherboard is 7.1 quality) Pick yourself up a Sound Blaster Audigy 2. Its your preference on which bundle package (MP3, Gamer, Platinum.) You can also get it Basic without all the extra crap, just comes with the card and drivers. But the sound processor is the same in all of them.

Video card: I like ATI Radeon's because you can buy graphics cards made by the maker of the processor. When you buy Nvidia, you have to deal with multiple 3rd party people that put various crap on your card and some of it can be really pewpy. If you're willing to spend 1/3 of your computer cost on just your graphics card, get the newest ATI Radeon.

Antec case. Antec makes by far the nicest, non-flamboyent cases in the world. And most of the time they come with one of their high quality power supplies, I'd recommend 400Watt+ if you can swing it.

If there's anything I've missed let me know and I'll reply again. Its been a long week.

-D

[Zutan]

im not to hot on PCI-express right now. none of the cards i have seen tested outdo an 8x AGP card right now. its to new. nothing works as its saposed to. if you were makeing a comp in say the middle fo summer. id look harder at a pci express. but my Nvidia 5900FX ultra works perfect (even for Halflife 2).

cases. yean antec make good cases. they arent flashy or overly stupid (with the windows and crap and LED flames on the front). but i went with a Thermaltake Lanfire(dont get it if your not the best at building comps. its a VERY small case not much room for lotsof wires) but some of their bigger cases are more than enough. they have the window, and the flames. but the flames can be turned off and the window doesent hurt. i like them cuz they arent to much more expencive. and have a lot of fans in them. mine has 4 case fans. the CPU can have 2 on it. and my PSU has 3. and its quiet as a mouse (my old comp my ears would ring when i left the room it was so loud).

doesent matter on the CPU. intell are more expencive but people like them. AMD you get more bang for your buck. your choice. i like both. i went with a AMD 64 3500+ cuz it was the fastst without blowing my bank. .... im tired. so this may not come out all perfect :) hope it does and im not rambleing to much :).

oh, with the CPU cooler i got and the case fans. my CPU while running HL2 runs at about 95F. pretty cool i think anyhow.

[Iueamil]

Video card: I like ATI Radeon's because you can buy graphics cards made by the maker of the processor. When you buy Nvidia, you have to deal with multiple 3rd party people that put various crap on your card and some of it can be really pewpy. If you're willing to spend 1/3 of your computer cost on just your graphics card, get the newest ATI Radeon.

Edit: Oops pressed submit too fast.
I agree with all except the ATI part.
I would go for NVidia, since most Mmorpg are written for NVidia cards + they have one driver which works.
ATI always needs to release a new driver for each new game to fix the bugs.

So my advise is nvidia if you want to play a mmorpg.

And def AMD, since the intel P4 chipset 3K+ MHz has following problem.
If your thermal paste for your CPU is not perfectly closing the gap between cooler and CPU, then your CPU will get less and less performant the more you use it.

They noticed this while doing benchmark tests and seeing that the test became lower and lower the more they tried it.
So they found out that that CPU is extremly sensitive to heat.

Iue

[Zyndor Fyrmane]

My single bit of advise is, don't stay with the stock cpu fan. They simply dont have the cooling power neccessary for gaming. my CPU has a good sized heat sink and fan, and my cpu temp still jumps by 10-15 degrees F when I run WoW or EQ.

[Lenardo]

socket 939 athlon 64 3200 - 200 dollars

now you have a choice
agp or pci

pci you need an nforce 4 board

pci you have the choice of 1 pcie slot or an sli config

normal gigabyte's is 150 dollars

asus;s SLI's is 270
gigabytes is 255
(only two avail at newegg)

lets choose sli

ram

gig ram 250

dvdrw dual layer 65

hdd ~100 bucks - get Serial ata

spu cooler 40

video card ~400

antec case 120

total ~1300

[Andara Bledin]

I have to agree on the nVidia vs ATI.

I used to have a GeForce 2 that worked fine for nearly everything, until I got CoH.

Switched to an ATI 9200 (which, admittedly, is a budget card) and have had to install new drivers every time a new game came out.

It still had minor issues with CoH. It never worked right for ATITD. It almost works with WoW, with occasional driver crashes.

According to comparisons, the high-end and low-end for video cards belongs to nVidia. However, the "best-bang-for-your-buck" comparisons always choose the ATI mid-range cards for performance/cost balance.

^-.-^

[Blizofoz]

The most important part is the mb/cpu for performance. If you're going to put most of your money anywhere it should be there.

[Frege]

Seems like most people forget about speakers. Sound cards keep appearing, but speakers are often forgot. If you don't run your computer through a stereo with nice speakers, then the standard egg-shaped 10W speakers you pick up at WalMart for $6.50 doesn't cut it.
I'm not really into the surround systems since that means I have to rig up speakers behind me in an awkward position (keeping in mind where my computer is set up). So I spent some nice cash on a 2.1 system instead, Creative I-trigue L3500. Looks sharp as heck and sounds even better, and I'm only using the standard mobo Intel sound-chip.

So, the point of this is that a sound card is a complete waste of dollars if you don't have the speakers to deliver the sound.

[darkslider]

I'm going to be building my new PC soon as i get round to it - Here are my big advice points

- Athlon 64 - WINCHESTER (maybe its called something different in the US, but this is the 90Nano-meter version)
- PCI-E - its the future - go for a Card with SLI (such as 6600 GT, or 6800) And a motherboard that supports PCI-E and SLI - (Such as Asus A8N)

SLI is so good because it means in a years time you can add another card for peanuts to double your GFX processing power
So.. Parts list something like this
A64 3500+ , '90nm' version (unless you feel like getting an FX55, or 4000+ Processor)
Asus A8N Deluxe Motherboard (S939)
2x512MB Ram (at least PC3200)
GeForce 6600GT , or 6800, depending on budget
DVD-RW, CD-RW, whatever you want in terms of optical drives
Sound Card, speakers, the rest, isn't difficult
in terms of PSU however, get a nice Antec, (the new NEOPOWER is really nice if you can afford it )

[Minwee]

If you are building a new PC then there are also a few aesthetic choices that you may want to make right up front -- If you bothered by fan noise then you may want to design a silent PC.
SPCR (http://silentpcreview.com/) has reviews of the quietest components and design techniques and some helpful folks on the forums.

Small Form Factor PCs are becoming more common. You can get custom designed all-in-one boxes like the XPC from Shuttle or the Soltek Qbic which have most if not all of the features of full sized towers but fit in less than half the space -- This can make a big difference if you are living in a tiny dorm room or find yourself moving around a lot. Total cost for these boxes is comparable to what you would pay for a good motherboard and a nice case, but you may be limited in what kind of add-ins like high end video cards you can put in them due to the smaller, non-standard power supplies.

If you have the time then take a wander through sites like http://www.ncix.com/ or http://www.newegg.com/ and see what's available or browse through other people's "Dream machines" to see if anything captures your interest. The days of having your choice of any kind of computer you want as long as it is beige are long gone.

[EvilIguana966]

For video cards I am partial to the Geforce 6 series. They are the best in terms of reliability and compatibility, and have fixed all the relatively minor complaints people had with the FX 5 series. I have one by EVGA that i found on Newegg. EVGA has recieved some good reviews, and as far as I can tell I made the right choice on this one. The fan/heatsink is beefy and effective. Pretty much basic NVidia reference design, not too many fancy bells and whistles that I don't need, and quite a good deal overall.

BTW, I have a Geforce 6800 GT 256MB. It is a damn nice performer, basically a single step down from the top of the line 6800 ultras. It set me back 400 rather than 600 for an ultra.

[MogDMan]

So, the point of this is that a sound card is a complete waste of dollars if you don't have the speakers to deliver the sound.

If you're doing FPS or anything where sound will give you an edge, get headphones. Surround systems are nice and all, but unless you drop a pretty dollar in getting a really nice card that'll render the sound properly, you're still going to have a difficult time zeroing in on the source of the sound. Your head is wired for stereo sound, and headphones will pipe it directly in. I've gotten some great frags and wins from hearing my opponents actions.

I'm an audiophile in my spare time, and am quite happy with a $50 pair of Sony studio-style headphones. Cheap, but just the right amount of good for me.

But otherwise, yes, I agree with Frege's sentiment completely.

[Andara Bledin]

What MocDMan said.

If you play anything at all that can be aided by directional sound, headphones are the only way to go.

Otherwise, if you want any return on your soundcard investment, you should go with a decent pair of amped speakers.

Also, you should try to get ones with decent shielding. The ones on my home computer are pretty nice, but the ones at work go all squawks and static every time someone in the office gets a cellphone call.

^-.-^