The Official PC building thread!

hey so i went on savastorm and found this pc for 499 i customised it and got the price up to around 750. i added 1bg ram, 256 mb graphics card.
could some customise it and tell what they've added to make it into an awesome pc for under 750. and what processor speed it is thanks.

http://www.savastore.com/productinf...vastore&product_id=10284434&pid=5&rstrat=3169

 

They don't have any X2 (Dual Core) CPUs avail. I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole, considering the X2 version of the 3800+ they offer isn't much more.

 

ok...my first build,PSU just came in,plugged it in just to test it out and nothing WTF!! no turning fans no working noises no nothing WTF! should it work when i plug it in ?? is there anything else i gotta do to make it work?? i got a ANTEC Truepower 2.0 any help you guys can give me would be good,....i hope its not a DOA

 

heres an update,at first i didint know that it had to be plugged into the MoBo but i do now.so a little LED pops up on the MoBo which i looked closely and it said that,that meant that the MoBo was getting power from the power supply so that good right..but yet the fan on the MoBo doesent start up,the fan on the PSU doesent start up and the fan on the CPU doeint start up....sigh

 

Hey Everyone; I was looking to see if I could get some opions on my first full PC Build. Any and all opions and/or suggestion welcome...
CASE: Powmax Silver 1809-2. I replaced the 450w p/s with XION 600w ver 2.0, three 80mm and one 120mm case fans...
MOTHER BOARD: Asus A8N-E nForce4 ultra PCIE Socket 939...
CPU: AMD Atholon 64 x2 Dual Core 4200+ w/Fan...
MEMORY: 4 dual chanel Corsair TWINX 1024mb PC3200 DDR 400mhz...
VIDEO CARDiablotek Geforce 6600 512mb pcie with dual dvi...
c: drive 200gb and three internal 500gb hard drives
DVD ROM: Lite on SOHD-16p9s 16x...
DVD BURNER 1: Lite on SOHW-1693S Multiformat & Dual Layer...
DVD BURNER 2: Lite on LDW-851s (not a dual layer burner)...
CD BURNER: Lite on SOHC-5236k...
Sabrent 42 in 1 internal flash card reader...
Ultra 3 port Firewire 800 pci card...
OS: windows xp pro

 

May I ask why you need three burner drives?
<the rest is cool by the way>

 

There is no logical reason for having 3 optical drives when the specifications of all three can be covered by one, and usability covered in two.

 

Yeah, I can understand perfectly whay you'd have a DVD-ROM and a DVD-Writer, but all those? Unless for redundancy, but surely if one fails, the other two will do all the rest?

 

I want to build a super computer for gameing but do not want to spend to much money, I have heard that AMD processors and motherboards are super cheap compared to Intel but I can only find expensive ones that dont have a lot of power to them and I'm not really sure on how to build it (what goes good with what)

anyone ahve any ideas

needs PCI express 16x
at least 3 Ghz Processor
case for motherboard

and Ram,

that will work with the motherboard i have trouble finding the pinn size for some of the searchs and worry about getting a 200pinn when i need a 184 pinn or the other way around is 240 pinn or 200 pinn worth spending more money as aposed to 184 pinn?

thanks for you input.

and what is the equation to compare AMD to intel 3200amd is equal to 3.2 Ghz intel?

 

It seems you aren't at square one, first search the web for tuturials on building a PC, and read them, there is no short way of doing it all through a forumn site. We cannot magically instill basic to building knowlege in your head.

There is no need to compare on AMD CPU to an Intel CPU if you are gaming. Go with the AMD in your price range.

You cannot build a supercomputer, use some termanology discrestion here.

ANd tells us what you rproce range is, including monitor and what type of monitor.

 

I know how to build a computer i ust thought that maybe some parts worked a little better together than most.

and for the AMD and intel thing i just want to know that so I can look at system requirments and see if my amd can support it, and see how much better it is than the system requirments (req 2 gHz, and i have say 2.4 gHz.)

my price range is as cheap as possible and i have a 19" flat now so no need for a second.

 

Name21
You should run a search in Googlo, ets such as "AMD vs Intel" without the quotes. Likewise the other components that you are considering.
BTW are you really considering building a SUPER computer. The cpu alone will cost WELL in excess ot $1000 US, the M/B $2-300 etc
Photog

 

You want the cheapest computer possible, or the cheapest you can build?

Cause the cheapest you can get is always a low end PC from Best Buy because of their byuying power, it saves to money behind a certain price poitn of say $800...

 

Well, what you're looking for is:
Athlon64 3200+ (Socket 939)
Motherboard to match made by Asus (A8N-SLi Series is one of the best, regardless of whether or not you actually use SLI)
1GB DDR PC3200 RAM (Corsair, Kingston, Crucial or OCZ)

Now, that's pretty standard and exactly fits your requirements. The other options are more variable. Other than saying PCI Express, you didn't mention what Graphics system (the most important factor for gaming) you wanted. If you're not looking to spend much, then X700 Pro. If that's still out of your reach, then maybe scale back to an Athlon64 3000. If you have finances to spare then maybe you could upgrade the card further. X800GTO is a good place to look, or better an X850XT since the price of these has dramatically fallen in the past few weeks.

As for hard disk, it depends how much you want to store. For a gaming PC, a single 160GB disk will be sufficient, but you may want a bit more storage for other things, especially for Videos, so 250 is the best bet (most GB/$ or GB/£ in my case).

Sound is usually OKish integrated, but if you have any decent sound system attached (i.e. 5.1 of some sort) then go for a basic Creative PCI card.

As for the case, there are hundreds. There are plain ones, windowed ones, bubbletube ones, all sorts. And plenty are available for cheap prices (sub-$60/£35) so avoid expensive unnecessary ones.

You'll probably want a DVD Writer too, and these are best accompanied with a DVD-ROM of some kind. Memory card readers obviously optional, Floppy disks also optional but wise just in case. They're pennies anyway.

You'll also need a capable power supply, 400W or more ideally, and make it a proper one, like Akasa, OCZ, Xpower, Hiper, Seasonic, Vantec, Tagan, Enermax, Thermaltake and Zallman. Specifically not Qtec, Magna or Mercury.

I think that's it.
Lol, enjoy.

 

hi everyone.I am looking into building a new system and need ALOT of help as I've just started getting into home computers about 10 months ago when I bought my first.So needless to say I know next to nothing.Over the last 6 months I've saved up almost $2200 to do this,so thats the price range for all parts needed.I want to get the 512 MB GeForce 7800 GTX video card but I dont understand specs and whats compatible with what...again i know nothing.here is min. requirements.
http://www.bfgtech.com/7800GTX_512_PCIX.html
This is what i hope someone can help me out with.
I have 768 mb ram right now and 2-80 gig hard drives but would like more of both.Can someone help me out with what's good brands and what i'll need to build this.Thanks in advance.

 

Before you start, make certain to yourself that you absolutely want a card that expensive, there are many bargains to be had that are over 75% as powerful, for probably 50% of the price. I'm all for full-on graphics, but just make sure you want them!
Second, you have 768MB, so one of your sticks will be 256MB. This is probably of limited use if you want more RAM, so it might be worth discarding it and getting a couple of extra 512 sticks, maybe 3. Or alternatively bin both and get 2 1GB sticks. This is ultimately the better option but clearly more expensive, again, what can you afford?
This is of course on the proviso that the existing RAM is DDR. If it isn't you'll have to bin it anyway.
The two HDs will be fine. Since they're equal, they're also ripe for RAID, if you're into that sort of thing. The best thing to do if you want RAID these days is to merge the two disks together (RAID 0 Stripe) into one ultra fast 160GB disk. Then make a 20GB partition for windows and leave the other 140 for your files. Of course, if you're worried about the other aspects of RAID then ignore it, and just plug and play.
You don't mention anything about processors. At present, I recommend either the Athlon64 3500+ or an Athlon64 X2 series. (3800, or 4200).
If you're capable of building the system yourself, you may also want to consider overclocking, which both these CPU types manage incredibly well.
This leads me to my next point:
Good PSU and good cooling. You'll need a couple of good case fans and a high efficiency CPU cooler (or of course the stock one if you buy the CPU retail, but if you want to overclock it, it may be worth your while adding a better one). For the PSU, aim for at least 500W on a system like that. it might seem excessive, but with a 512MB VPU and a Dual core CPU and several pther devices, you can't afford to be short on power. Oh, and don't forget peripherals, optical drives and a monitor. As for those, if you don't have them already, then Internet keyboard and optical mouse (I prefer wired, but if you want wireless that's up to you). Monitor can be anything you please, but 17" or 19" TFTs are the best bets recently.

Brands:
RAM: Corsair, Kingston, OCZ, Gell, Crucial
Opticals: LG, Samsung, Pioneer
Peripherals: trust, Logitech
Graphics: XFX, BFG - and really only these two
monitor: All sorts except: people like Acer, Digimate and anyone offering a really cheap one who you've never heard of, and avoid anything above 16ms response rate.
PSUs: Most brands except Qtec are fine, but go for a reasonably expensive one and see the brands i quoted earlier in this thread.

Ooh, addendum: Sound card. Avoid integrated sound if at all possible. Go Creative.

 

thanks ddp for the reply.memory is ddr,dont know the speed.How could I find that out?The computer I bought (Emachine) came with the 256 stick and a friend put the 512 in, so I really dont know what brand or anything about it.I'm willing to buy different if you have any suggestions.

 

As you turn it on, the BIOS screen (the first black one with loads of figures on it) will list how much memory you have (Should say something like 786432K OK) and beneath it mention memory clock or something similar.
Be on the look out for these figures:
133mhz
166mhz
200mhz
266mhz
333mhz
400mhz
The 1st and 4th mean the same (PC2100) as do the 2nd and 5th (PC2700) and the 3rd and the 6th (PC3200).
This is so because DDR is double data rate. The RAM achieves 400 million clock cycles at only 200mhz.
If you don't see it set out exactly like that, dont worry. It may be listed as PCxxx or PCxxxx as the type, e.g. PC333 for 2700 RAM. Of course another way is to just look on the chips themselves in the PC, since both sticks may not be the same type, in which case the BIOS screen will only tell you the slower one, since the faster memory will be declerated to run at that speed. If this is the case, bin the slower memory, but above all remove the 256.