I love the way all of your smart guys say, " build your own computer". Where do you get instructions to build one and how do you know what to put in it? I am thinking about getting a Dell XPS 400, with Pentium® D Processor 940 with Dual Core Technology (3.20GHz, 800FSB, 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 2DIMMs, 256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) nVidia GeForce 6800, DataSafe 160GB (Includes main hard drive plus a hidden reserve hard drive, Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/dbl layer write capability and a 3/2 inch floppy drive.and a 56K modem. Any suggestions?
@tashacat There's not really much to building your own PC. It isn't for the faint of heart, but not too bad. You need: Case/Power Supply Motherboard (usually comes with all the data cables you need and a manual) CPU (if planning to overclock, get a [bold]good[/bold] heatsink/cooling fan combo) Memory Hard Drive(s) Floppy Drive (not used much anymore so is optional) CD/DVD Drive(s) Video card Network, sound etc... is usually integrated on the motherboard. Great thing is you get [bold]exactly[/bold] what you want and can save money. The only downside is that for warranty issues, you may have to dig through receipts
waynekusa, What core is your P4 3.2? Reason I ask is because my northwood P4 3.4 becomes unstable at 3.7 and my pc hardlocks while running rb/cce sometimes. Temp is not a problem.
Heck, I don't know, I haven't bought it yet, I am still evaluating it. I got the information off of their website at http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=DXPS400F1&s=dhs I want a good computer mostly for copying movies.
Mort, Mine's a Prescott. When I first got it, I tried to overclock it to 4.16, but it hardlocked on me. Thanks to Asus crashfree bios, I didn't have to crack the case to clear it, but it's stable as can be at 3.85. Since I'm too old to play games anymore, I built this box just for backing my DVD's up. BTW, I have the Antec TX1050B case. I really like their power supplies.
Yeah, I figured as much. Although the prescotts have longer pipes and bottleneck more than the northwoods they will tolerate more OC'ing. Mine was stable at 3.7 for everything except when I used rb/cce to encode. Probably wouldn't hurt to up my psu a bit since I'm using the 350 watt psu that came with my antec case. I tried raising vcore to 1.575 but was afraid to go any higher. I can go to about 3.67 and remain completely stable. 3.6 is good enough and not pushing things too hard.
@tashacat That's not a bad deal and should serve you well! Did you get your quote with the included 19" flat panel? I don't think you can beat $200. I've seen them and they are nice. I bought mine 2 and a half years ago (NEC XtraView+ 19") and don't even want to say how much I paid
Mort, When I started my project, I intended to keep my old CPU, so I bought a socket 478 motherboard. When I found out how well it overclocked, I decided to buy a new processor as well. You know what they say about hindsight, but all-in-all, I'm extremely pleased with my box.
wayne, It should serve you well and you've got the fan and h/s to keep it cool. I've got the same mobo as you but only a zalman 7000b to keep things cool. It does fine since the northwoods run cooler. Seldom hotter than my mobo. Good chatting with ya.
