First homebuild

D

Doc

Doc wrote:

I'm just going to embark on my first home build PC for gaming.

Heres what it's been suggested I buy, all of these prices are from CCLonline
:-

Microsoft internet keyboard and mouse
1 @ £10.22
Eye-t case (500w atx case)
1 @ £31.58
Sony DRU-810a Duel format and double layer
1 @£40.48
Lite-on 52* (retail)
1 @ £10.81
33 in 1 media drive
1 @£10.00
Floppy disc drive
1 @ £5.75
200gb Maxtor diamondmax
1 @ £52.14
Corsair xms3200 1024mb
2 @ £109.42 = £218.83
128mb Winfast px 6600gt tdh Extreme Graphics card
2 @ £143.19 = £286.37
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ oem
1 @ £135.97
Microsoft Windows XP Home
1 @ £60.32
MSI K8N Diamond motherboard
1 @ £110.74

Grand total
£982.35

Any suggestions as to what I can improve on or save money on?

Thanx for your help.

Doc.
 
O

old jon

Doc said:
Doc wrote:

I'm just going to embark on my first home build PC for gaming.

Heres what it's been suggested I buy, all of these prices are from
CCLonline :-

Microsoft internet keyboard and mouse
1 @ £10.22
Eye-t case (500w atx case)
1 @ £31.58
Sony DRU-810a Duel format and double layer
1 @£40.48
Lite-on 52* (retail)
1 @ £10.81
33 in 1 media drive
1 @£10.00
Floppy disc drive
1 @ £5.75
200gb Maxtor diamondmax
1 @ £52.14
Corsair xms3200 1024mb
2 @ £109.42 = £218.83
128mb Winfast px 6600gt tdh Extreme Graphics card
2 @ £143.19 = £286.37
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ oem
1 @ £135.97
Microsoft Windows XP Home
1 @ £60.32
MSI K8N Diamond motherboard
1 @ £110.74

Grand total
£982.35

Any suggestions as to what I can improve on or save money on?

Thanx for your help.

Doc.
Not a bad list. Everyone has their own ideas what`s best. Personally I`d go
with a
NEC or Pioneer Dual Layer. Not quite sure why you need the LiteOn 52x as
well.
Have you researched your choices ?.
bw..OJ
 
D

Doc

old said:
Not a bad list. Everyone has their own ideas what`s best. Personally
I`d go with a
NEC or Pioneer Dual Layer. Not quite sure why you need the LiteOn 52x
as well.
Have you researched your choices ?.
bw..OJ

Thanx for the reply, my area of expertise lays more in logistics that
computing, so I was relying on a friends reccomendations. I wasn't entirely
sure about the extra CD either, I guess he likes them.
The majority of research I have done is making sure that 2 * 6600 is going
to be better than having one higher spec card and I'm reliably informed that
it will be.
 
S

__spc__

Doc said:
Doc wrote:

I'm just going to embark on my first home build PC for gaming.

Heres what it's been suggested I buy, all of these prices are from
CCLonline :-

Microsoft internet keyboard and mouse
1 @ £10.22
Eye-t case (500w atx case)
1 @ £31.58
Sony DRU-810a Duel format and double layer
1 @£40.48
Lite-on 52* (retail)
1 @ £10.81
33 in 1 media drive
1 @£10.00
Floppy disc drive
1 @ £5.75
200gb Maxtor diamondmax
1 @ £52.14
Corsair xms3200 1024mb
2 @ £109.42 = £218.83
128mb Winfast px 6600gt tdh Extreme Graphics card
2 @ £143.19 = £286.37
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ oem
1 @ £135.97
Microsoft Windows XP Home
1 @ £60.32
MSI K8N Diamond motherboard
1 @ £110.74

Grand total
£982.35

Any suggestions as to what I can improve on or save money on?

Thanx for your help.

Doc.

Dump the floppy disk. Get a SATA HDD. Go P4 and socket 478 mobo.
 
J

Jan Alter

Dump the floppy disk. Get a SATA HDD. Go P4 and socket 478 mobo

A rather interesting note, since you would need a floppy drive to install
the SATA driver when installing XP on a SATA drive.
 
S

__spc__

Jan Alter said:
A rather interesting note, since you would need a floppy drive to install
the SATA driver when installing XP on a SATA drive.

Errr, on a CD?
 
E

Ed Cregger

__spc__ said:
Dump the floppy disk. Get a SATA HDD. Go P4 and socket 478 mobo.


I have several programs that still require a floppy disk drive in order to
create restore disks. I wouldn't dump it just yet.

Ed Cregger
 
J

J. Eric Durbin

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ oem
1 @ £135.97

I'll just throw in that if you get the OEM CPU, it probably won't come
with a CPU cooler/heatsink. You'll need to price and purchase one
separately. Say, +USD 25 - 60 depending on which you choose.
 
B

Bill Stock

old jon said:
Not a bad list. Everyone has their own ideas what`s best. Personally I`d
go with a
NEC or Pioneer Dual Layer. Not quite sure why you need the LiteOn 52x as
well.

I'm not a Sony fan either, having owned one of their earlier drives. I also
had a bad Pioneer that went back for warranty repair. The repaired drive
came back with mismatched serial numbers and a different problem. Their
customer service was the shits. I've bought LG ever since.
 
D

Dreamstalker

__spc__ said:
You do indeed, I stand corrected; I installed mine off an IDE HDD...

Floppy drives are dirt cheap, and most cases have a 3.5" drivebay (if
not, you can get bay adapters). You'll also need one for
flashing/reflashing bios.
 
R

Ruel Smith

J. Eric Durbin said:
I'll just throw in that if you get the OEM CPU, it probably won't come
with a CPU cooler/heatsink. You'll need to price and purchase one
separately. Say, +USD 25 - 60 depending on which you choose.

And...it won't come with a factory warranty, either. I've seen OEM AMD CPU's
cost more than the retail boxed version, so I'd get the retail version and
get the warranty, even if I was going to put a nice Zalman cooler on there.
 
R

Ruel Smith

Doc said:
Eye-t case (500w atx case)
1 @ £31.58

Never heard of this brand. I will caution you, like I do everyone else,
power supplies are a big deal. DO NOT buy some cheap power supply. Two
power supplies, both rated at 500W, can put out drastically different
power. A heavier power supply is usually a better one. Look for the amps on
the +12V line, and there may be 2 +12V lines as in the Antec SmartPower 2.0
series.

Anyway, a cheap power supply is the number one culprit for phantom problems.
They mask themselves as something else. I had video problems on a Soyo
barebones kit that turned out the be the junk power supply. I replaced the
case and PSU with an Antec and all is well.
Sony DRU-810a Duel format and double layer
1 @£40.48

Consider a Lite-On instead. Fast, reliable drive, less money, and
LightScribe:

http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=4777&category_id=121#
Lite-on 52* (retail)
1 @ £10.81

Is this a CD-R/RW drive? If so, why bother unless you're doing a lot of CD
to CD copying? Save some money and go with a single DVD +- R/RW DL drive.
33 in 1 media drive
1 @£10.00

Have no idea of the brand or model. 33-in-1??? Are there 33 types of
smartcards out there?
Floppy disc drive
1 @ £5.75

Useless. The only reason I put one in my Windows box is because when I built
it, you still had to boot to a floppy to flash the BIOS. Otherwise, I
wouldn't have wasted my money.

If you still insist on a floppy, consider getting a combo media card reader
and floppy from Mitsumi and killing two birds with one 3.5" slot:

http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=1340&category_id=135

Besides, what in the world could can the 33-in-1 media reader read that you
need that this drive can't?
200gb Maxtor diamondmax
1 @ £52.14

Seriously consider Western Digital or Seagate, and get native command
queuing if possible. Make sure you go SATA or SATA 2, depending on what
your board supports, which I believe the current nVidia chipsets support
SATA 2/300. I used to be a big Maxtor supporter, but recently they've had
reliability problems. I now buy Western Digital and swear by them.
Corsair xms3200 1024mb
2 @ £109.42 = £218.83

If you plan to OC, get faster memory for more headroom.
128mb Winfast px 6600gt tdh Extreme Graphics card
2 @ £143.19 = £286.37

They may be great cards in their own right, but 2 6600GT cards won't
outperform one 7800GTX, and is roughly about as fast as a single 6800
Ultra. In some circumstances, the 6600GT SLI setup are faster, but in many
cases they are the same or slower. I understand you're buying the extreme
version, but it won't be _that_ much of an improvement over a normal
6600GT.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050524/index.html

Also check this article out, remembering that even though they don't show
the 6600GT SLI setup, it's slower than the 6800 Ultra SLI, which they do
compare the newer cards to.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2496

I'd get a single 7800GT or for a few bills more, a 7800GTX and be better
off, having the other slot open if I wanted to add another identical card
later to get more performance.
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ oem
1 @ £135.97

Get the retail version and you'll get a factory warranty and a cooler.
Microsoft Windows XP Home
1 @ £60.32

If you plan to swap your Athlon 64 out for an X2 later, you won't be able to
take advantage of it. You must use the Professional version of XP for SMP
to take advantage of dual core. However, if you never plan to upgrade, Home
version would be plenty.
MSI K8N Diamond motherboard
1 @ £110.74

If you like your SLI, you might want to get the next generation of nVidia
nForce 4 chipsets, the nForce 4 SLI x16, where you get 2 full PCI-e X16
lanes instead of one split between the two cards, causing a bottleneck.
Asus already has one out, but MSI and others should have them on the way.
They maybe expensive at first, but they'll come down before long.

http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=15&l3=226&model=744&modelmenu=1
 
L

larry moe 'n curly

Doc said:
Microsoft internet keyboard and mouse 1 @ £10.22
Eye-t case (500w atx case) 1 @ £31.58
Sony DRU-810a Duel format and double layer 1 @£40.48
Lite-on 52* (retail) 1 @ £10.81
33 in 1 media drive 1 @£10.00
Floppy disc drive 1 @ £5.75
200gb Maxtor diamondmax 1 @ £52.14
Corsair xms3200 1024mb 2 @ £109.42 = £218.83
128mb Winfast px 6600gt tdh Extreme Graphics card 2 @ £143.19 = £286.37
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ oem 1 @ £135.97
Microsoft Windows XP Home 1 @ £60.32
MSI K8N Diamond motherboard 1 @ £110.74

Are you sure about the Eye-t case & PSU? This review:
www.moddin.net/review.asp?ReviewID=179&PageNo=2
shows some pictures:

www.moddin.org.uk/reviews/xp/eyet/psunotop_full.jpg
www.moddin.org.uk/reviews/xp/eyet/psupcbbent_full.jpg
www.moddin.org.uk/reviews/xp/eyet/psunocovers_full.jpg
www.moddin.org.uk/reviews/xp/eyet/psunoback_full.jpg

They don't exactly inspire confidence. I'm not referring to the small
heatsinks (a 120mm fan allows them to be smaller) but to that donut
coil wrapped with red and white wire and the seemingly small power
transformer (blue thing between the heatsinks in the last photo). That
small size is OK if the PSU operates at a much higher than normal
frequency, but I have a feeling that it doesn't.
 
T

The Outsider

Dump the floppy disk.

Floppy drives are still useful. Both my PC's have floppy drives and
considering that floppy drives are dirt cheap - why not?
Get a SATA HDD.

Is SATA faster than IDE? Nope. Setting up SATA can be a PITA on some
mb's. I use IDE caddy drives and know I'm not losing anything by not
going SATA. My mb has IDE, SATA and SATAII. Going SATAII might give me
some benefit but going SATA will do jack shit.
Go P4 and socket 478 mobo.

This is a joke, right?
 
R

Ruel Smith

Siôr Dragan said:

All that does is subdivide each format into different models. Usually, if it
says it supports Memory Stick, or Compact Flash, it supports all, or just
about all of them. Therefore, a 7-in-1 or 9-in-1 or whatever is just the
same. For the most part, those things are nothing more than a slot to
insert the media into.
 
A

AAvK

Naw that's not the way I would do it, to save money I would start with
the best vid-card I could allow myself to afford, meaning no less than
16 pixel pipelines, 256 mb of RAM on the card. 2.0ghz of CPU speed
is all that is needed for games these days, so a 2.4ghz Northwood, and
1gb of PC3200 RAM, a cheaper and older tech motherboard like the
Abit IS7 (highly overclockable). Fully aluminum case, cheap 550
watt PSu like the Coolmax CR-550B (140mm fan), and cheap heat pipe
chip cooling like Thermalright. For LOTS of games to be installed you
only need an 80-100 GB hard disc. You could do it for less poundage
Sterling and be highly effective on the game playing.

If you intend a fresh install of Windows on the new machine, I suggest
get into the Bios first and overclock to 3.0 or 3.2 with an Intel, then
install windows. This way, all programs will adapt to it naturally as they
are installed. I cannot because there are specific software problems that
arise because of the overclock. 2.6ghz is fast enough anyway.
 
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