building a computer

[Carbon]

I'm thinking of helping a friend of mine build a computer - he's been
looking at the Dull webpage and thinks he can do better on his own.
Primary emphasis is decent quality with high bang for the buck ($800
budget). System will be dual-boot XP Home and Linux. Parts list (from
newegg.com):

Inwin S535g case w/300 watt PS: $ 49.00
AMD XP2500+ 333mhz Retail CPU: $ 90.00
Aopen AK790 nforce2 mainboard: $ 74.00
WD 120GB 8mb 7200 rpm SE $ 97.00
Crucial 2x256 PC2700 $ 90.00
Aopen GeForce FX5200 Video $ 68.00
Samsung 1.44 Floppy Drive $ 6.00
Samsung 52x24x52 cdrw + dvd $ 46.00
USR 2976 OEM Modem $ 39.00
Microsoft XP Home OEM $ 91.00
KDS 17" monitor $118.00

Total: $768.00

Shipping looks like it'll be $40 or so, making the total just over
budget. Are online retailers charging tax yet? They weren't last year,
but I don't know if this has changed.

We're definitely going with a Barton cpu because of the price /
performance. However, I've never built a computer with an nforce
motherboard. Is it considered more stable or better than comparable
via boards? Is this a decent board, and is it worthwhile getting a
board with integrated video? I went with no onboard video and the
fx5200 because it has a dvi connector in case he decides to go with an
LCD monitor.

I like Inwin cases - they're well built and not too expensive. But is
a 300w power supply enough for this computer? (I also want to go with
an inwin case because that's what I'm using and I want to grab the
spare siderails ;-).

We like the idea of dual channel ddr, but with only 3 ram slots we're
a little worried about future upgradeability. Otoh this is going to be
a basic desktop box and 512mb should be lots for the forseeable
future.

Is it worthwhile to go with separate cdrw and dvd? I'm not sure about
a dvd writer because of the expense. What do you guys think?

 

[Craig]

Well, I just got done building my first computer, and I have to say you
should look into getting a RAID for your hard drive. That makes the WHOLE
system SO much faster. It uses two hard drives, and pulls the info off of
both at the same time. You could go with a smaller HD size to save money,
because you will still have the combined size of both drives. Like, if you
took two 80Gig drives, you would end up with a 160Gig RAID drive. The hard
drive is a hugh bottleneck in any system. Look for a motherboard that
supports it.

Dual channel ddr with only 3 slots? Mine came with four slots. You put two
identical sticks in for the "dual channel". The other two I didn't use, as
I didn't see the need for that much memory at this time. But three sounds
odd. If you put your two sticks in for the dual channel effect, what then
is the third one for?

I got a DVD player on my last computer, that I put on my new one. I NEVER
use it. I have a TV with a DVD (Xbox), why on earth would I want to watch a
DVD in front of my computer? Tried it once, never again. If I didn't
already have one, I would have never bought one for my new computer. But,
they are getting so cheap now, I guess you can get one for about the same
price as a regular CD-RW.

Just my thoughts,
Craig

 

[jeffc]

Well, I just got done building my first computer, and I have to say you
should look into getting a RAID for your hard drive. That makes the WHOLE
system SO much faster. It uses two hard drives, and pulls the info off of
both at the same time.

Did you read that somewhere? Or is your system faster than your last one,
and you just assumed it was because of RAID? What level are you using?
http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/perf/raid/whyShould.html

The hard drive is a hugh bottleneck in any system.
Hmmm.

Look for a motherboard that supports it.

Well, I guess I can't take issue with *that*

 

[Carbon]

I'm extremely dubious about striped RAID across two hard
drives. One drive fails and you lose the entire array. You're just
asking for trouble when you factor in the order of magnitude MTBF
decrease when using two disks as one. I care more about the safety of
my data than a couple of percentage points of raw speed anyway.

If I was going to use ide raid it would be mirroring. But at this
point I'm just planning to image the drive into CD.

Did you read that somewhere? Or is your system faster than your
last one, and you just assumed it was because of RAID? What level
are you using?

http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/perf/raid/whyShould.html

Informative website. You can have cheap, fast and good. Pick two .

 

[William W. Plummer]

If anything, RAID will slow down your system. Striping where the sectors
are spread across multiple (2) drives only tries to economize on the time to
transfer the sector data, but you will have to wait for the track-to-track
head movement on two drives and the rotational posistioning on two drives.
At best, these are as good as a single drive, but at worst, they can be as
much as twice as long. Numerically, both delays are typiclly 9
milliseconds on typical drives these days. The data transfer time is not
seen in the computer because most drives have a cache that holds the data
while the disk is positioning letting the CPU charge ahead. Mirroring has
the same problems.

 

[DaveW]

Integrated video is awful. And it slows the computer down considerably by
using system RAM in place of video RAM.

 

[jeffc]

Integrated video is awful. And it slows the computer down considerably by
using system RAM in place of video RAM.

You said "and it slows...", which implies there's something "awful" other
than that. What is awful about it that is inherent in the fact that it's
integrated?

 

[Bill Turner]

Integrated video is awful. And it slows the computer down considerably by
using system RAM in place of video RAM.

_________________________________________________________

Awful compared to what? I have an MSI mobo with both integrated video
and audio and I love it. I'm not a gamer, just enjoy not having to buy
separate cards. For all my web/email/word processing needs, I can't
tell any difference from my previous computer which had AGP video and a
mid-level SoundBlaster card.

YMMV, but if you're not pushing the limits, integrated sound/video is
fine. You can always disable onboard stuff in the BIOS and install
cards later on.

 

[henny]

what a bunch idiots. raid is the biggest favor you can your self. these
losers don't know any thing about computers an want an excuse

 

[jeffc]

what a bunch idiots. raid is the biggest favor you can your self. these
losers don't know any thing about computers an want an excuse

Well between your spelling, grammar, and nonsense, I'm sure you've convinced
a lot of people of your wisdom.

 

[Jon Danniken]

what a bunch idiots. raid is the biggest favor you can your self. these
losers don't know any thing about computers an want an excuse

ESL is the biggest favor *you* can do for yourself.

Jon

 

[Ric]

If anything, RAID will slow down your system. Striping where the
sectors are spread across multiple (2) drives only tries to economize
on the time to transfer the sector data, but you will have to wait
for the track-to-track head movement on two drives and the rotational
posistioning on two drives. At best, these are as good as a single
drive, but at worst, they can be as much as twice as long.
Numerically, both delays are typiclly 9 milliseconds on typical
drives these days. The data transfer time is not seen in the
computer because most drives have a cache that holds the data while
the disk is positioning letting the CPU charge ahead. Mirroring has
the same problems.

bollocks, bollocks, and more bollocks. try it and post back your
benchmarks. raid 0 is *fast*. not redundant, but fast.

ric h

 

[Ric]

Integrated video is awful. And it slows the computer down
considerably by using system RAM in place of video RAM.

no it isn't.
it depends what you're after. for example, an nforce2 board with latest IGP
and integrated Geforce4MX is pretty close in performance to a separate
Geforce4MX. Not going to set the world alight, but perfectly adequate for
all 2d stuff and some gaming.

ric

 

[¤jº~¥Á±Ú]

Integrated video is awful. And it slows the computer down considerably by
using system RAM in place of video RAM.

I agree with "Integrated video is awful" in general sense, may be average
PC users even can not tell the difference, but in theory, at least, the idea
behind it, is offering a mediocre quality for a cheaper price for average PC
users, this is really not a bad idea, but we should know, it is a trade off
of good quality.

A real good video card has it own delegated memory and local processing
power, which is independent from CPU and PC memory. The integrated video
will compete resource with CPU & memory, that is not an ideal situation.

Sure, if you don't care about video so much, integrated video does not
matter, if you don't care about audio so much, integrated sound card does
not matter, so as modem. In general, I does buy integrated mother board.

 

[Dave]

snip

I like Inwin cases - they're well built and not too expensive. But is
a 300w power supply enough for this computer? (I also want to go with
an inwin case because that's what I'm using and I want to grab the
spare siderails ;-).

snip

try this link re the power supply

http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/

Dave

 

[Dave]

_________________________________________________________

Awful compared to what? I have an MSI mobo with both integrated video
and audio and I love it. I'm not a gamer, just enjoy not having to buy
separate cards. For all my web/email/word processing needs, I can't
tell any difference from my previous computer which had AGP video and a
mid-level SoundBlaster card.

YMMV, but if you're not pushing the limits, integrated sound/video is
fine. You can always disable onboard stuff in the BIOS and install
cards later on.

Intergrated video may not be as good as a dedicated video card but a friend
has an nForce board with integrated video and it play games at an acceptable
rate and the onboard sound is good, he's only using 2 of the 6 channels.
His board also has intergrated LAN and he uses that to connect to another
machine with the modem in it and has the LAN card from his old machine
installed so I connectct to that when we want to play games on the LAN.

Using integrated video is a good way to go if you're on a tight budget
because you can upgrade later when finances allow.

I have an TNT2 PCI video card installed in my main machine and I use it for
some games and the integrated video for others (the TNT has 32Mb RAM the
onboard can have upto 64Mb). I also use the onboard and TNT2 for dual
monitor when needed - very handy for office apps - though it has to be
switched off when running games, the video rate is way to slow with both
enabled.

I am using my old machine - Jetway 530BF with onboard video - to type this.
Its integrated video is perfectly adequate for internet browsing and office
applications though it is a bit slow for Quake2 - the only game installed on
this machine. Quake2 was only installed to demo playing games over a LAN to
a disbeleiving friend (converted him!) but since I had an old Voodoo2 12MB
laying around, that went in for the demo (and stayed).

I used to use the onboard sound of the 530BF board until I zapped one of the
sound channels after which I installed an old ISA sound blaster. Didn't
notice any system speed increase when using the old sound blaster.

The onboard sound may slow the system down a bit on my main machine but
since I'm not a hard core gamer it does not bother me though I might install
a sound card one day to see what difference it makes.

Dave

 

[Carbon]

try this link re the power supply

http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/

A geniunely useful site - I ran the configurator and came out at 296
watts. Lotsa headroom there, so no problem right!