Ok, first two things, this is my first build ever, lol, and all I really know about when it comes to computers, besides common sense issues, I know about video cards, PCI express, and a little about processors, but not much. Ok, I spent some time looking on newegg and the web, as well as tomshardware and such, and found and compiled this build. I did this about a month or two ago, so if any price is wrong, let me know. Also, I can't seem to find the document I put the links in, but it was all off of newegg or tigerdirect, although the most of this info I got from builds off of arstechnic.com. MoBo Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2H - $64.90 AMD 740G Based Board HDMI, DVI-D, VGA, Gigabit Ethernet, Six SATA 3.0Gbps Ports with RAID Capability PCIe x16 Expansion Slot Two DDR2 Sockets S/PDIF Out Other Options Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L – $96.25 CPU's Athlon AMD 64 x2 6000+ - $74.90 Other Options Intel Core 2 Duo e8400 On the processors, I wasn't sure if I should go dual, or quad core. If so, what will be the large difference? I don't do a lot of media work, but I work a studio and band out of my computer. Video ATI Radeon HD 4770 - around $100 I found different prices amongst the web, and I chose this card because of its claimed performance and its low price and power drain. Sound None, Motherboard has a Digital Out, so get speakers that can run off a Digital Signal. Communications/Network None, Motherboard has an integrated ethernet on board. If possible and not too much of a hard thing, I would like to use the monitor, mouse, keyboard, as well as Hard Drive and a Lightscribe DVDRW/CDRW 20x/40x on my current computer, for cost savings and to keep everything currently on my Hard drive. If not, then the following. Hard Drive Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB SATA - $53.90 Optical Drive/DVD-RW CD-RW Drive Pioneer DVR-216D - $26.99 Case Antec NSK4480 - $69.99 Speakers Logitech X-240 – $34.95 Memory G.Skill 4GB PC6400 DDR2-800 Dual Channel - $69.99 Power Supply Corsair VX450 - $69.99 The total I came to, without the HDD and the Optical drive, as if I would be using my old ones, I came to a total of $790.05. If I use the other HDD and Optical Drive I will also have to factor in an OS, should I get a 64 bit or a 32 bit vista? Thanks, I am just trying to get help on my first build and advice, seeing as how I will be assembling this over a 6 month period, with about 100 bucks or so a month. Also, if you all wanted to know, I play games like NFS:Undercover, WoW, Runes of Magic, Emulator Rom's for PS1 and PS2, as well as media and music work. Feel free to give me ANY advice PLEASE! my budget is around 700 bucks.
Lots of questions (I guess thats a good thing): 1.) Not a big fan of micro-atx mainboards myself, and that mainboard is one of the worst boards gigabyte makes. I think you would be better off with an intel CPU anyway. I thought that the GA-EP45-DS3L had been discontinued, but other than that, it should do OK. Also, mainboard "RAID" is not true raid, and you will be very dissapointed if you try to make use of it. 2.) The Q8400 would probably be a better choice than the e8400. Older programs might run a hair faster on the e8400, but such programs need so little power that they will work very well with the Q8400. This while the Q8400 will run newer programs better than the e8400 could. 3.) The 4770 is a good ultra-ecomony video card for older games like the ones you listed. There are already games that are nearly unplayable even at low resolutions with this card, but you did not list any of them. 4.) Sound: If you are using this as a studio machine, then you do not want to use that crummy onboard sound. You can get a nice HT Omega card with both digital and analogue inputs and outpus for under $100, and this is the first thing I would buy for a studio computer. 5.) Without knowing your current hdd and burner, it is hard to say. the burner should work just fine, but if they are both IDE (wide ribon cable) then you will want to get a new hard drive. Monitor, mouse, and keyboard should all work fine. 6.) Case: not a big fan of that case, but it should work. 7.) Speekers: Logitech generaly makes nice stuff, but their low-end speeker systems are rather crummy...not very powerfull, and low audio quality with lots of radio interferance. Didn't the top of the post speak of digital speekers? 8.) The memory is overpriced junk. You can get Corsair memory for much less money. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145184 9.) Power supply is good. 10.) To make full use of the components listed, you will need a x64 version of windows. The choices are XP64 (poor driver support, incompatable with a lot of software), Vista64 (waists ram, very slow), or Windows 7 x64 (still not perfect, but much better than Vista64). Windows 7 x64 gets released in october, but it is already in RTM. If you buy vista, make sure to get the free upgrade to Windows 7. If you want Windows 7 ultimate, then you might consider getting a Technet plus subscription. For $250 a year (only have to buy one year), you will get all versions of windows XP, Vista, and Win7. You also get all versions of microsoft office, including office 14 when it comes out early next year. 11.) Don't build it over the corse of 6 months. Save your money and buy it all at once. It will either be cheaper (prices fall over time) or it will be more powerful (today's top of the line is tomarow's low-end).
Hey, Ok, thanks a bunch man. Yeah I have heard about intel vs amd, and I think your right on the board. I know a little about processors, and some about video cards, but nothing about MoBo's, so I was in the dark on that one. I will just revamp my build when I have all the money, do you know of a site that has pre-listed builds, or good templates to go off of? And the ATI4770, well, in that same price range, what else would you recommend? Thanks a ton man.
"I will just revamp my build when I have all the money, do you know of a site that has pre-listed builds, or good templates to go off of?" Why bother, just come here, list a price and what you want it to do, and you will have several people arguing their way to the best setup for the money! "And the ATI4770, well, in that same price range, what else would you recommend?" -The 4870 might be within your price range in 6 months, there may even be a new low-end card with similar performance to the 4870 by then. "Yeah I have heard about intel vs amd" AMD is so hard off that most AMD fans have either gone to Intel or are saving money to go to intel, no reason to use them right now.
