Advice for a new gal...

[nerdgirl]

I am pretty new to this, so please be patient with my ignorance . I am looking into building my own computer, primarily for gaming. It sounds like a neat thing to do, rather than buying a pre-made one, so I have been trying learn by reading a lot of stuff. I was looking at some magazines that provided models for building the "ultimate gaming system" and the like. My question is, are these good models to look at when putting my own system together? Or, does anyone have any advice or information on how to guide me or what I should be looking at to model after? Thanks in advance for the help

[Rhino302]

You can look at those, but sometimes they go to extremes. You wont need near what some of those recommend to play every game acceptably. I would concentrate on proven stable performers. For example, a good Athlon DDR board, (Epox 8K7A), good RAM (say 2 sticks of 256 mb Crucial PC2100), good video card (I'm not getting into this one), and of course a decent processor. You could probably sacrifice processor speed before you sacrificed video card speed.

[camaro]

It all depends on how much you want to spend. IMO this is what you want to get.

-Geforce2PRO (Geforce3's features won't be needed for some time no reason to waste money now)
-Epox 8K7A+ mobo(Has yet to crash ONCE on me)
-1GHz or higher AMD Bird (1.4GHz seems to be a sweet spot now with the price drops)
-Good Heatsink/fan for CPU
-256 memory (memory is so cheap now)
-SB Live (Any decent sound card might do though)
-19 inch monitor (Highly recommend Samsung SyncMaster 955DF)
-30 GB or higher HD (recommend IBM)
-Klipsh 2.1 speakers
-12X burner (Plextor or TDK, same drive)
-16X DVD Pioneer

[LostBok]

I agree with Camaro and Rhino...

Sacrifice CPU speed before video (eg a Duron 800Mhz would do fine for now and is easilly and cheaply upgradable - but the 1400's seem like a pretty sweet deal).

Start with 256megs Crucial 2100 DDR, again EASILY upgraded later, but if you find it cheap, go for it.

SB Live! is NICE

Only thing I'd be more specific on is hdd's - I'd emphasise IBM a lot more and IBMGXP60's (40 gig or thereabouts is good) over the older IBMGXP75's which are very fast, but hot and noisy... if you REALLY want disk speed - a fistfull of these (GXP60's) RAIDed together (yeah, go for four of them!) - or maybe's that's overkill

Video - talk about an argument starter... if you're serious about games, a high end GeForce2 (DDR, Pro, Ultra, whatever) always does nicely... GF3's still pretty steep, although dropping fast and might be worth it for the future-"proofing" and I certainly wouldn't go for less than an mx400, but if you're serious about gaming you're probably not even looking that low...

And you won;t really need the DVD or CDRW's, but if you're on a budget then the Ricoh DVD/CDRW isn't too bad: 12cdr/ 10cdrw/ 32cd/ 8dvd... otherwise the Plextor 12/10/32 is a nice "budget" drive that'll copy anything... on the DVD front I've always been partial to the Pioneer SCSI Slot loaders... but these are my just my personal preferences... like I said - you don't need any of this lot for gmaing though.

Enjoy!

PS - how you going to be getting online?

As far as lan cards go, I highly recommend the 3-com 3C905TX 10/100TX - solid as a rock and decently quick too..

[This message has been edited by LostBok (edited 08-30-2001).]

[Hellmund]

I think you guys missed a crucial little nugget of informations, how much do you want to spend? Also what country are you in so we know what currency to work with

[camaro]

Actually that was my first line.

[Infinitus]

For a mobo I've got my eye on the Asustek K7V-266. Factory overclocked to a 134.3MHz FSB. Has almost everything you'll ever need and can be found with onboard RAID and audio (although the audio is probably lame). Very expandable. Its also the only board that I've seen that supports the Palomino core.

If anyone knows any other board out now that can do this then I'm listening. I'm about to build my own system with this as the basis.

[Warthog]

Yeah, some of those pcs they call "Gamer Machines" are wayyyyyy over done, like Rhino said. They'll say you need the latest and greatest, Geforce3, Pentium 3 1.7ghz, 512mb RAM, etc, etc. Then they'll be around $3k. CRAZY

Listen to the dudes here

Warthog

[madfish]

nerdgirl
The guys forgot the most important thing of all.
WELCOME TO SYSOPT!

Madfish

[j moy]

For a sound card... go for a Hercules Game Theater XP best sound card in the world...! don't forget the box if you go on LAN parties... as for the burner... go to buy.com (Cheapest) and the sound card.. best buy... it might be an expensive place.. but they have this "sale" ... and it's been forever since they changed the price... go to newegg.com for the 1.4 GHz if you want it... and welcome to sysopt!

[Warthog]

www.mwave.com has a lot of stuff.

Yes, as my fellow Vermont brethren said, Welcome to Sysopt!

Warthog

[chefde]

Go out and pick up a PC Gamer Magazine,
it has specs for three levels of Gaming Machines; Economy, Mid and Highend with estimated pricing from Pricewatch.com. Then you can follow directions from this website:
http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/index.htm

There may be better sites for instructions (this one seems dated) but I don't know of any.

[nerdgirl]

Thanks, I'll check them out.

I'm adding another couple of questions here (I hope this is okay). I don't want to sound super-lame, but what is the difference (price?) in buying the hardware at a dot-com as opposed to a retail store like Compusa? Doesn't all the hardware come with manuals? (If these are really stupid questions, go ahead and blast me.) I don't mind paying the price for a quality gaming system, but I also want to spend wisely.

Thanks everyone!

[camaro]

Buying OEM from online is cheaper then retail. Even if you bough a retail box from online it would be still cheaper. I got my video card, DVD, etc white box. This means no manuals, white box, just the hardware. Sometimes it's not worth buying a pretty box and manual for $20 more. You can get all the drivers you need from the web and usually they are more up to date anyway. I got the cpus oem also. I knew the stock heatsink of a retail packadged cpu wasn't going to be enough and I'll need to change it anyway. The only thing that sucks is returning. Shipping is a ripoff sometimes.

[TechDude]

How much $$ do you have?

With around $1100 (give or take a few 10s) i was able to build this..

VisionTek Geforce3
AMD Athlon 1.4Ghz 266fsb
Iwill KA266
SB Live! X-Gamer 5.1
IBM 60GB HDD 7200RPM
2x 256MB DDR-SDRAM
52x CD-ROM
14(?)/10/40 CD-RW
Antec(sp?) ... case /w 400watt PSU
Altec 4 pice speakers /w subwoofer
PS/2 Opticle Mouse
PS/2 Internet keyboard

It didnt include the moniter .. but i already had a 21' flatscreen.

The mobo i got has built in 4.1 sound so if you wanted to save an extra 50+ then dont buy the sound card.