building a system

[wannabe]

i'm new at trying to do this so i was wondering what kind of cash do you think i need to spend to build a system from the ground up. keep in mind i've never done this before so my first won't neccesarily be my last. i know i need lots of hardware and components but really have no clue as to how much this will cost me. any good sites that sell cheap harddrives, cd roms,etc.? i don't want to spend a arm and leg on my first timer system. i'll save that for when i feel more comfortable building the next one. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated?

[surrealchereal]

Hi, and welcome to Sysopt. I think this should be over in the General Tech Discussion Forum. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
surreal

[socalgal]

Zoom-zoom to General Tech.

wannabe - please take a look at posting guidelines (http://www.sysopt.com/forum/Forum17/HTML/003541.html) for the best results.

Thanks.

[eagle1]

Heyy. wannabe.. welcome to sysopt..! Well your question depends on how much cash you have. You see, if you want the best components, you need to spend some serious dough!!

Anyway, the best places (at least for me):

http://www.mwave.com
http://www.newegg.com

I built my new system with $730 (more or less) and it goes like this:

AMD Thunderbird 1.2
Gigabyte 7ZX-1 m/b
256pc133 ram
20gb Western Digital HD
Sound Blaster Live Value
Elsa Gladiac mx400 64mb ram
a mid tower case
keyboard + mouse
don't remember right now what else I bought but if you are in a budget.. go to these places..!

[Goldwingnut]

3 sites with reasonable prices:
www.jazztechnology.com (http://www.jazztechnology.com)
www.shentech.com (http://www.shentech.com)
www.teamexcess.com (http://www.teamexcess.com)

To find sites like these:
www.pricewatch.com (http://www.pricewatch.com)

To find out if you want to do business with them:
www.resellerratings.com (http://www.resellerratings.com)

Get Microsogt OSes and other software at:
www.directdeals.com (http://www.directdeals.com)

See also:
www.karbosguide.com (http://www.karbosguide.com)
www.informit.com (http://www.informit.com)


[This message has been edited by Goldwingnut (edited 06-20-2001).]

[nunyadam]

welcome to sysopt .
Now that some member's have covered where to buy the part's here's a link so you will know what to do with them.
http://www.sysopt.com/sphelp.html
Sysopt's how to guide's for upgrading or building a cpu.

nunya

[samwichse]

If you're looking to go as cheap as possible, just to do something workable and get the feel for it, I would reccomend an AMD Duron with a motherboard with built in sound/video. Combine that with an inexpensive case, cheap ram, a smaller hard drive, CDROM, and modem you can build one as cheap as 250$. If you already have a monitor.

Something like that will be excellent for web surfing, playing/downloading mp3's, word processing, etc. In fact, if you want to give a gift, you'd be suprised how eternally greatful someone will be to get something as pricey as "a whole computer" http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif.

Nowadays, you can still build a good gaming rig for less than 1000$ though.

Also, I second http://www.newegg.com/ , good site.

[hallam2003]

wannabe - it would help greatly if you set down a price, how much money do you want to spend? remember that your going to see cool parts and want them, so add a little extra, just in case...hold on, out of coffee...ah, that's better...ok, now. i build these things for, kinda, a living, so i know how it's done, ussually. i typically only build performace and gaming systems, but i can, and have, build some really cheap everyday crappers, mainly used for Word documanets, and maybe internet surfing. so, to start this all off, you need to set down some guidelines, and post them here, so we can help you out, believe me, people here will help, I never would have build my first system if it wasn't for the guys(and girls http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif) here assuring me that the thing will work. instead of going and looking for prices to see how much you can spend, i recommend you find out how much you can spend, then look for parts. also, are you including a monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, and any other extras in this price? most people here won't add these parts in. since you don't know a price, i'll tell you, you can build a duron system, with crappy sounds and video, that will surf the net, run office, do about anything you want, run SOME games, nothing big, but still okay, and you caould easily get it under 300, probably 250 even. BTW, all these prices are USD. BUT, you can also build the big-a** gaming system, big old case, windows and fans and all that ****, geforce3, a gig of RAM, DDR, surrond sound, cd burner, DVD, all that ****, and still get it pretty cheap, building is really the way to go.
I'll give you some simple specs that i have out on my desk at the moment, these are for friends, or friends of friends, BTW, i buy cheap, but not crappy, the only thing crappy on these is the NIC and modem, and for those prices, you can replace them a few times, and since i have 4 or 5 of each just laying around, it's no big deal to me. the Internet systems i have might be kinda crappy, i think it even has on-board video, which is BAD, but it's cheap, and includes a bunch of stuff.

Pretty good gaming system:

Newegg.com
Enlight Medium Tower Case
MSI Geforce 2 GTS 32MB DDR RAM W/TV out
AMD Athlon T-Bird 1.2Ghz 266mhz FSB Socket A
Cooler Master EP5-6i11 CPU HSF

Mwave.com
Aopen 12X DVD
Smartlink 56k Modem
Smartlink 10BT/100BTX NIC
80mm CASE FAN
MSI K7T266 Pro w/audio
1.44MB Floppy Drive
Arctic Silver II Thermal Compound
Western Digital 20GB ATA100 7200RPM

Crucial.com/webpromo
Crucial 256MB 184-pin DDR

woops, guess i don't have prices on those, anyway, this systems comes to $732.11 including shipping. the furture owner has also asked me to upgrade some of the parts, so it now has a 64MB video card, a 30GB HD, hhhmm, a keyboard, mouse, speakers, and that it i think. it now come to about 800 i think, i can find a better deal on the HD though, the extra 10GB cost me $20, and that's kinda too much, anyway, here's the internet system, i didn't spend too much time on this, infact i onlt looked at one site for the parts, so, you know.

poop, I'll have to type this one out, dang:
Duron 800
recommend Heat sink/fan
52X cd-rom
crappy case, 250W
floppy
3-button mouse
keyboard
modem
AOC, 15in 1280X1024 60HZ monitor w/speakers
NIC
gigabyte mobo, i think
Crucial.com 128MB PC100 RAM
Lexmark printer

whew, ok, this one comes to around 530, that's with the monitor too, and shipping, but I'd take off like 10% of that when i start looking for deals at other places. And this one isn't really crappy, sure the vieo will suck, but for running IE, big deal, ya know? and this is a duron 800, that's not bad at all. i could add some good 3d cards, for like under 150, and make this into a good budget gaming sytem, good LAN rig. remeber this has a monito and printer, that's mainly why the price is so high. ok, so, let's se now, you really need to tell me a price here man, or at least, what you want this thing to do for you, are you a hardcore gamer, or an everyday internet surfer. and, BTW, you will probably spend a little more on your first system(S), i know i didn, you'll start doing this thing where it's like, well, I'm not too sure about this part, so i'll buy THIS one that i do know about, that also $20 more, after time you get to know stuff, and don't really care, but you still have to be carefull, you say you know your parts, so that's cool, i really didn't when i build my first one. anyway, i recommend using the following places for your parts, I've used them all many time, not had many problem, those that i have had were fixed quickly.
www.mwave.com (http://www.mwave.com) www.newegg.com (http://www.newegg.com) www.crucial.com/webpromo (http://www.crucial.com/webpromo)

use crucial for your RAM needs, they have about the best prices out there, especially if you use the webpromo, and free shipping, and it's dang near the best stuff out there, lifetime warentee, good RAM, will last forever, all that, and it's dang cheap, especially with the 15% off and free shipping off the net. BTW, DDR is the same price as PC133, so it make the move to DDR systems a little cheaper. anyway, let me know when you have some more info. you can e-mail me at evanhallam1@hotmail.com, don't worry, i don't have a life.

Hallam

[hallam2003]

oh, BTW, welcome to sysopt, and please excuse my spelling/typing mistakes, most others here are a little better at that, hehehe, knew I was going to school for something.

something else, where is wauconda? i live down south.

Hallam

[This message has been edited by hallam2003 (edited 06-21-2001).]