?s on Building a PC

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Postby klinky » Thu Jul 29, 2004 2:23 am

I agree w/ madmag9999, I like his setup.

32-bit vs 64-bit: There is no use right now and most likely in the future you will have no use for this feature. It is many many years down the road before we will need this.

History: Intel had the first 64bit processor in the Itanium. However it was based on IA32/IA64 architecture vs x86. It would emulate x86 code to work with it for backwards compatibility. Intel was trying to move us away from the x86 architecture and in this IA realm. However the Itanium had delays and suffered from poor initial performance. AMD was working on extending the x86 architecture to 64bit land. The Athlon64/Opteron use the x86-64 architecture. Microsoft adopted x86-64 and announced they would only be support x86-64 for 64bit versions of windows. This forced Intel to adopt x86-64 as well, which is what is in the new Xeon processors. Itanium is pretty much sunk.

PCI-Expression(PCIe): Not needed. PCI is going to be around for alteast a few more years. There is no need to buy an Intel board now just because it has PCIe and there are a handful of PCIe video cards available. Regular PCI & AGP slots will work fine for the next few years.


I would recommend getting and Nforce2 board that has Serial ATA(SATA) on it. A Seagate SATA drive(biggest you can get). The fastest AthlonXP you can afford. The most ram you can get(get two sticks so you can operate the board in dual-channel mode, this will give you a slight performance boost). Make sure the memory you get meets the requirements of CPU you're purchasing.

Bus/DDR requirements:
266Mhz bus = PC2100
333Mhz bus = PC2700
400Mhz bus = PC3200

If you want to play games pick up a Radeon 9600 Pro or XT like madmag has. If you're not going to play games, no need in wasting your money. In that case get a Radeon 7500 or a Geforce2 mx. Make sure they have "DVI" outputs for your LCD before you purchase the card.

A good power supply is a must. Look for brands like "Sparkle" "Channel Well" "Antec". You don't really need a lot of watts. 300Watts should be enough. If you can afford a higher watt power supply from the same company then go for it. Don't fall for one of those $12 "500 Watt" power supplies, they can cause instabilities by not supplying porper voltage.
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Postby klinky » Thu Jul 29, 2004 2:24 am

it's PCI-Express not PCI-Expression, I shouldn't post when out of it...
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Postby Scintilla » Thu Jul 29, 2004 3:02 am

klinky wrote:The fastest AthlonXP you can afford.

Or, as of yesterday, the Sempron. :)
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Postby klinky » Thu Jul 29, 2004 3:35 am

Scintilla wrote:
klinky wrote:The fastest AthlonXP you can afford.

Or, as of yesterday, the Sempron. :)



Sempron is to replace the Duron line, not the AthlonXP. The XP wills till have more cache than the Sempron. The prices quoted for the Sempron do not seem to really reflect their "value" part nature either. You can get an Athlon XP @ the same clock for the same price as a Sempron. You just get more cache with the XP. At this time, I'd have to say the Sempron is a no go.
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Postby Scintilla » Thu Jul 29, 2004 8:26 am

klinky wrote:
Scintilla wrote:
klinky wrote:The fastest AthlonXP you can afford.

Or, as of yesterday, the Sempron. :)

Sempron is to replace the Duron line, not the AthlonXP. The XP wills till have more cache than the Sempron. The prices quoted for the Sempron do not seem to really reflect their "value" part nature either. You can get an Athlon XP @ the same clock for the same price as a Sempron. You just get more cache with the XP. At this time, I'd have to say the Sempron is a no go.

I remember reading in <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040728/sempron-01.html">that Tom's Hardware article</a> that the Semprons are nothing more than renamed Athlon XPs, based on the Thoroughbred B core, except for the Sempron 3100+ for Socket 754, which is just an Athlon 64 with the 64-bit capabilities removed.

And also from that article, the Athlon XPs are soon to be phased out... so if you want to get one, you'd better do it fast.
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Postby klinky » Thu Jul 29, 2004 5:27 pm

Well for now most of the Semprons are Athlon XP cores with half the cache disabled. In the future it seems that the Sempron name will take over the Athlon XP name, so new Athlon XP parts will be coming out with Sempron names. So we'll have 512KB Semprons in the future. They most likely will be Socket A compatible, but I wouldn't get a 256KB Sempron. I imagine AMD is going to keep the Athlon XP line going until they have a comparable Sempron product out to fill the gap.
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Postby slackergirl » Thu Jul 29, 2004 8:37 pm

Thanks klinky! That pretty much answers any questions I had!

I don't really play games on my computer that are more advanced than minesweeper, so that will save me in the video card department. (I prefer console platforms myself.)

One last thing... Do I have to worry about going overboard on the wattage of the power supply? Say the case I want only comes with a 500W (of a recommended make, of course). Would I be in danger of damaging any components? (Stupid questions are always preferable to stupid mistakes.)
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Postby Kalium » Thu Jul 29, 2004 9:54 pm

No, too much wattage isn't an issue. That's really just the upper limit of what you can draw, power-wise.
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Postby klinky » Thu Jul 29, 2004 10:36 pm

Kalium wrote:No, too much wattage isn't an issue. That's really just the upper limit of what you can draw, power-wise.


Exactly. The only problem is that a lot of powersupplies you get with the case are crappy. Do you have a link to the case you want to get? It might be a good idea to budget in a different power supply. You could pick up a 350W sparkle for $25 from NewEgg.com. Even though it's rated for less watts, it provides better current, which means it's less likely to give you stability issues.
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Postby LovEnPeaCE » Sat Jul 31, 2004 2:12 pm

i'd just like to say that right now, a lot of the amd processors, including teh amd64, are cheaper than many intels :-p
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Postby oldwrench » Sun Aug 01, 2004 9:44 am

There are lots of good ideas here. I think building a computer with the intent of upgrading it for several years is not a good idea. Seems every year they come with something far better. There is a change in motherboard design coming, AMD is going to a new socket, pci-x is comming, serial ata is due fo a bump in speed, ect. Best bet ia to build a fast computer with last generation components, it will be good for a few years and cost much less. try this

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... =S450-3200

Nice cheep barebones kit, add an AMD xp 3000, a gig of pc 2700 ram, a 200 gig hard drive, a dvd burner and your set to go. Onboard audio and video arent the best, but are good enough for 2d work on video editing. I used one of these kits to build an office computer, they use it to convert old vhs tapes to dvds, works fine.
Where did you say I'm going?.... And what am I doing in a handbasket?

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Postby klinky » Sun Aug 01, 2004 11:52 pm

Beware a lot of barebones kits use cheap parts and actually cost more than buying decent parts individually. That one actually looks pretty good, especially if you don't mind waiting for the rebate to come in. But it's definitely not something you'd want as the basis for gaming rig. Video/2D work would probably be fine.
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Postby slackergirl » Tue Aug 03, 2004 8:32 pm

I did look into a few barebones kits, but they all were missing something I wanted, so I think I'd be happier putting it together myself. In the little spare time I had this weekend (work has been INSANE), I put together a wishlist at Newegg. Might not get everything there, but any suggestions about the selections? Do I need an additional fan for the case?

I picked an Antec case mainly because a) klinky recommended their power supplies, and b) that is also the name of the diagnostic lab my practice uses (though I highly doubt they're related :wink: ).

Thanks again guys!
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Postby TaranT » Wed Aug 04, 2004 3:10 am

Not very fashionable - tower cases are so Nineties! :o - but it'll get the job done.

I'm using this memory:
Corsair Value Select 1 GB DDR400 kit
It's the same as yours except CAS-2.5 instead of CAS-3. I'm not sure how much difference that makes, but my geek friends tell me the lower number is always better. And it only costs a dollar more than what you've listed.

If you want WinXP, you'll get the OEM price if you order at the same time you order a CPU, hard drive, or mainboard.

BTW, don't forget to click the check boxes for the freebies that NewEgg offers. And keep an eye out for free shipping deals. And...I've sometimes obtained better prices ordering the same items from ZipZoomFly.com. Odd name, they used to be called GoogleGear.com until Google.com issued threats. They've been 100% reliable for me, same as NewEgg.com.
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Postby Brolly345 » Thu Aug 05, 2004 11:29 am

I'm just going to give you a good site for biulding a PC. Everyone else seems to be providing all the technical specs. :P

teh site

This is just a directory for sites on specific computer parts.
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