#285104 - 02/08/2006 20:35
Building a PC: where do I even begin?
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pooh-bah
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2489
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The time has come - my 4 year old PC just won't hack it anymore! I decided this time I'll just build one myself instead of paying Dell a premium.
But where to start? I'm competent in putting bits together but I've been out the game so long I couldn't even tell you what the best processors are and what m/b's they'd fit. Is there an idiot's guide to navigating the huge market place?
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#285105 - 02/08/2006 20:40
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: CrackersMcCheese]
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member
Registered: 24/02/2003
Posts: 111
Loc: Elk Grove, CA
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Check out the Ars Technica System Guide. They update it every few months and have three PC tiers depending on your fundage.
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No longer a stranger, finally a full-fledged member! 
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#285106 - 02/08/2006 21:04
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: CrackersMcCheese]
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addict
Registered: 01/03/2002
Posts: 598
Loc: Florida
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Post more info about what you plan on using the PC for. I'm building this machine for a friend. He is also going to get an Apple 30" LCD.
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Chad
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#285107 - 03/08/2006 04:29
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: CrackersMcCheese]
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old hand
Registered: 07/01/2005
Posts: 893
Loc: Sector ZZ9pZa
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Quote:
I decided this time I'll just build one myself instead of paying Dell a premium.
Unfortunately this is not really a good reason to build your own PC in 2006. Economies of scale mean Dell and friends can put together a PC and sell it to you for (generally) less than if you bought all the bits and spent a fun evening putting it together. If this is purely to do with cheapness, I'd give up now and shop for a complete PC.
Having said that, building PCs is fun! When researching the bits you need and reading reviews of motherboards, processors and the like you can learn so much about current PC hardware. The best part is customisation. The fact that you can have your low latency memory, motherboards with high end sound cards, RAID, multiple SATA controllers, the ethernet controller you want to have, a crazy fast graphics card etc etc.
I still build my own PC for home use because it is fun. But it is not cheaper than Dell.
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#285108 - 03/08/2006 06:20
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: sein]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5914
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
I still build my own PC for home use because it is fun. But it is not cheaper than Dell.
Even more so if they happen to have one of their deals on where they give you a hefty discount on a monitor when buying a system. In my opinion their monitors are just as good as the Apple ones (many use the same panels) but much cheaper.
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Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#285109 - 03/08/2006 07:30
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: CrackersMcCheese]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2489
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Its not cheaper? To upgrade to larger drives and more memory I'd be cheaper getting it from eBay/Crucial/eBuyer. No?
Perhaps the key is to get the base-spec one from Dell and add the extras myself?
Anyway... I miss playing games! And all the talk on here lately has made me decide I want a gaming machine. I also do a lot of video editing/processing so I guess I need a nice fast processor, lots of RAM and a sexy GPU from nvidia.
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#285110 - 03/08/2006 07:44
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: CrackersMcCheese]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
Its not cheaper? To upgrade to larger drives and more memory I'd be cheaper getting it from eBay/Crucial/eBuyer. No?
If you want a mid to low end PC then just buy the prebuilt PC, they buy the components in bulk by the thousands so it is going to be difficult to get a better price. If you want your uber high end gaming PC then build it yourself, they put a premium on these so you should be able to build one to your own spec for cheaper.
If you want more memory then it is nearly always cheaper to just do it yourself later. For things like laptops with not many memory slots, you may have to pay more for them to use a single stick of memory. I usually just buy my memory from Crucial and it is still significantly cheaper than if I bought preinstalled.
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#285111 - 03/08/2006 09:50
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: tman]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 27/02/2004
Posts: 1900
Loc: London
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Waste is a good reason for building your own, I bought a LianLi aluminium case a few years ago that's had 2 different m/bs in it, quite a few of the components have worked with the new m/b. Lot better than ditching a whole PC.
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#285112 - 03/08/2006 10:12
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: tahir]
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old hand
Registered: 14/04/2002
Posts: 1172
Loc: Hants, UK
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Up until this year I used an ATX case and PSU from a machine bought in 1996 (Cyrix 6x86 166), it still worked fine with a Athlon XP1400, several drives and quite a few PCI cards.
Gareth
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#285113 - 03/08/2006 11:32
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: tahir]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5682
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
Lot better than ditching a whole PC.
Or you could find a use for the old PC. I've managed to keep old PC's running Linux for quite a while without having to throw them away. Alternatively, you can donate your old kit to a local school/charity.
As to the original question: I recently built myself a shiny new games PC, but only because I wanted to spec out each of the individual (top-end) components. If you're looking for a fairly standard desktop PC, it is cheaper to buy something from Dell (or whoever).
For example, if I was specifying something for my father-in-law, I'd simply point him at the Dell website.
What Andy says about the Dell monitors is true, though. They're well worth the money. Reasonably priced and good looking. Even though my home PC isn't Dell, I still bought a pair of 2005FPW monitors for home (and recommended them so strongly that they're now part of our standard dev kit at work).
_________________________
-- roger
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#285114 - 03/08/2006 11:42
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: Roger]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 27/02/2004
Posts: 1900
Loc: London
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Quote:
you can donate your old kit to a local school/charity.
If you can find one that'll take it.
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#285115 - 03/08/2006 11:43
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: Roger]
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old hand
Registered: 14/08/2001
Posts: 886
Loc: London, UK
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Schools don't want old PC's any more. They've all got massive IT budgets these days and have all new whizzy kit
FWIW I built my PC years ago - but it's a bt like Triggers Broom now days as over the years I've replaced everything in several times
_________________________
Mk2a RioCar 120Gb - now sold to the owner of my old car
Rio Karma - now on ebay...
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#285116 - 03/08/2006 12:00
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: furtive]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5682
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
Schools don't want old PC's any more. They've all got massive IT budgets
True. So what do you do if you've got a pile of old computer kit that you want to get rid of?
This is not a random question: I've got a box of bits (network cards, old SCSI kit, etc.) in the loft that still work, but aren't any use to me. It'd be good to find them a good home.
_________________________
-- roger
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#285117 - 03/08/2006 12:06
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: Roger]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2489
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Yup, its a shiny new games machine that I'm wanting. With all the bells and whistles!
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#285118 - 03/08/2006 12:23
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: furtive]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Quote:
Schools don't want old PC's any more. They've all got massive IT budgets these days and have all new whizzy kit
I don't know the situation in the UK, but that's definitely not true here. At work, we just got done giving a dozen or so old PCs to the local school system. And about a year ago, we gave a bunch of decrepit PCs to Duke University, which is probably one of the wealthier universities in the US.
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Bitt Faulk
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#285119 - 03/08/2006 12:38
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: Roger]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 27/02/2004
Posts: 1900
Loc: London
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Quote:
True. So what do you do if you've got a pile of old computer kit that you want to get rid of?
NO idea, I spent a couple of days last year trying to find some place to give some old PCs to, finally found a charity that agreed to pick them up (most weren't interested) and then they never showed. In the end one of the guys at work took them to Kenya as he sponsors a school out there.
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#285120 - 03/08/2006 12:39
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: CrackersMcCheese]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 27/02/2004
Posts: 1900
Loc: London
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Quote:
Yup, its a shiny new games machine that I'm wanting. With all the bells and whistles!
Then build your own, that way you get to specify every single component, much better for a high end system. I've used CCL before:
http://www.cclonline.com/
They also provide a system build service.
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#285121 - 03/08/2006 12:41
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: CrackersMcCheese]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5682
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
Yup, its a shiny new games machine that I'm wanting. With all the bells and whistles!
Right, well my shiny new (3 months old or so) games rig was bought mostly from OcUK.
It's an AMD Athlon X2 4800+, on an Asus A8N-32 SLI Deluxe, with 2Gb of Crucial RAM (sold through OcUK). There's a (single) 512Mb Leadtek nVidia Geforce 7900GTX on it, and it's all in an Antec Sonata II case. The other bits (DVD/keyboard/mouse, etc.) are pretty much irrelevant.
It goes like the clappers, although you can probably get something quicker and cheaper now 
_________________________
-- roger
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#285122 - 03/08/2006 13:12
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: Roger]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2489
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Ok Roger...
Assuming you were buying now... what would you be going for? Overclockers looks great but I'm already lost by the sheer amount of choice available to me!
A side question....
AMD or Intel?
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#285123 - 03/08/2006 13:30
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: CrackersMcCheese]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5682
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
AMD or Intel?
Right now, I'd be holding on until the desktop Intel Core Duo kit came out, and then looking at suitable motherboards, etc.
Last month, I'd definitely recommend (essentially) what I bought, but maybe slightly quicker...
_________________________
-- roger
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#285124 - 03/08/2006 13:49
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: Roger]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Quote:
Quote:
AMD or Intel?
Right now, I'd be holding on until the desktop Intel Core Duo kit came out, and then looking at suitable motherboards, etc.
Last month, I'd definitely recommend (essentially) what I bought, but maybe slightly quicker...
Yeah, it's about time Intel caught up (and from what I hear, zoomed past) AMD. Still, with the amount of time that AMD has been at the lead, it makes me wonder what they have set to go (aside from that 4x4 stuff).
I'm also looking at building a PC. I'm probably going to take a slightly easier route and go with Shuttle. Most of the work is already done for you, you just drop the parts in (I'm exaggerating, but compared to installing a motherboard, I think I'm fairly accurate). My main desire for a Shuttle, aside from the size, is that I know that most of the important parts coexist peacefully. For the past year or so, my machine has given me some very odd behaviors that seem to point to the motherboard not liking how it's installed or what's plugged into it (USB connections are especially flaky).
Anyway, I'm going to wait to see what AMD does next, since I'd like to stick with them (my best friend is an Intel loyalist for some reason  ).
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Matt
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#285125 - 03/08/2006 14:24
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: Roger]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5682
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
The other bits
Oh, forgot to mention. I plugged a pair of Seagate 120Gb SATA disks into the onboard nVidia RAID array, configured as RAID0 (striped). This means that it's (very) quick, but there's no redundancy. If you do this, make sure you've got some kind of backup strategy.
_________________________
-- roger
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#285127 - 03/08/2006 14:57
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: Roger]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 19/01/2002
Posts: 3583
Loc: Columbus, OH
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Another note on Hard Disks... I bit the bullet and paid the price premium for a Western Digital Raptor 10,000 rpm SATA drive and it ended up being a great decision. I bought a cheap secondary drive that was slower for my storage drive and use the Raptor for my OS, program files, and frequently accessed files. something to consider from the review linked above: Quote:
RAID 0 generally is the best choice if you require high data transfer rates; in fact, it is possible to almost double throughput numbers by deploying a RAID 0 configuration. However, access times do not improve, and sometimes you will even see an increase in access time. Your everyday life with Windows won't be accelerated much by using a RAID 0 array, even if many people tend to believe that!
Available at NewEgg and others.
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#285128 - 03/08/2006 15:06
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: JBjorgen]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31578
Loc: Seattle, WA
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And another thing to remember about RAID 0 is that the R is false. There is no redundancy in a RAID 0 configuration, meaning that what you're doing is doubling your chances for a disk failure without a backup.
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#285129 - 03/08/2006 16:39
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: CrackersMcCheese]
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old hand
Registered: 14/02/2002
Posts: 804
Loc: Salt Lake City, UT
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Quote:
I also do a lot of video editing/processing so I guess I need a nice fast processor, lots of RAM and a sexy GPU from nvidia.
Since you are doing lots of video work, I'd say stick to Intel. Like Roger said though, hold off just a bit for the Core Duo chips. And with video editing consider having one drive for your editing program/OS, and a separate drive for your video files (these drives of course are even faster as RAID 0, or even better RAID 5).
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-Michael
#040103696 on a shelf
Mk2a - 90 GB - Red - Illuminated buttons
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#285130 - 05/08/2006 12:43
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: CrackersMcCheese]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 19/09/2002
Posts: 2494
Loc: East Coast, USA
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If you don't have time for all the research, maybe contact one of your friend's sons or someone who is deep into the hardware scene and could spec something out quickly for you. If you'd like to research, I recommend Anandtech for info. If will take time to get caught up to the latest terminology. Ultimately, the slight differences in all the benchmarks seem negligable and I choose components with the features that I want. The right processor, chipset, expansion board slots, rear panel connections, etc. Beyond CPU, chipset, motherboard, and video card, everything else is fairly commodity. Sure RAM timing and CAS latency are important, but the minute improvement they give is not worth the research. Get some good name brand parts and you're set. And for hard drives, get the fastest name brand drives you can afford. And don't skimp on the power supply. You might do well to buy one to replace whatever comes in the case you get (unless you get a case without one). All these components are power hungry these days. You can do a calculation to find exactly which PSU you need, but I don't know how to do that. Good luck.
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#285131 - 06/08/2006 20:09
Re: Building a PC: where do I even begin?
[Re: FireFox31]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2489
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Cheers guys for all the replies. I think I'll be going for one of the Intel Core 2 Duo processors and the Nvidia 7900GTX GPU, and selecting a motherboard around those. Nearer the time I'll drag-up this thread for advice on cooling, cases and boards Its a shame that Shuttle don't make some slightly larger cases that will take 1x PCI-E (GPU) and 2 regular PCI cards (TV card and sound card)
Edited by Phil. (06/08/2006 20:11)
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