computer whatnots

[leeroy]

lo gaming peeps, i have some questions to ask you lot i'm getting a new pc pretty soon and decided to get a mate to build it for me and voila ere is le specs:

Motherboard

Abit IC7-MAX3 "Canterwood" (Socket 478) Motherboard (MB-039-AB)
Price: £125.00

Power unit

Globalwin Sapphire Super Silent 19dBA 520W ATX Power Supply (CA-004-GW)
Price: £124.90

Processor

Intel Pentium 4 "Northwood" 3.06GHz (533FSB) with HT Technology - Retail (CP-018-IN)
Price: £182.00


Gfx card

Asus ATI Radeon 9800XT/TVD 256MB & Half Life 2 Bundle - Retail (GX-019-AS)
Price: £299.95


Ram

winMOS 1GB (2x512MB) DDR PC3200 Dual Channel Kit (MY-007-TM)
twinmos
Price: £93.75


Case

Antec Super LANBOY Aluminum Super Mini Tower Case - No PSU (CA-012-AN)
Price: £54.95

hard drive

Western Digital Caviar 40GB Special Edition 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-004-WD)
Price: £34.50


hard drive
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus9 Serial ATA 200GB 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-027-MD)
Price: £106.00

dvd writer

LiteOn LDW-811S 8x DVD±R/±RW Drive - Retail (CD-021-LO)
Price: £89.40

£1112 total

£1306.60 with vat


now all i know bout this thing is the price and its a shit load, but i like my games and i know that the graphics card is the uber shit, but do i really need all this crap?

if anyones built a pc before i'd also like a bit of advice, and im also debating weather or not to overclock my cpu

[terrrbite]

do i really need all this crap?

Why, did you not choose these parts yourself?
I would say it all looks good, except

a) Do you really need 240Gb hard drive space... split over two drives??? 240Gb is very excessive unless you have a reason to need it.
Alternative:
120Gb Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 (ATA-150) (7200rpm, 8MB Cache) 1yr £74.03

b) That power supply is stupidly expensive, and you don't really need a 520W one either.
Alternative:
465W Enermax EG465AX-VE-G-FMA II PSU with Manual Fan Control/Temp Control 2Yr £58.69

(prices I've quoted are from Scan.co.uk, and yes I am aware things are some things are cheaper elsewhere)

im also debating weather or not to overclock my cpu

If you're getting a 3GHz processor, I wouldn't bother personally. Maybe in a year or two if you've still got it.

[leeroy]

i kinda need the copious amounts of hard disk space i've already filled 100 out of my 120 gig on this pc,

i'll take you up on your recomendation and get a cheaper psu

thanks very much mate, do you know if all this stuff works ok with all the other bits?

[terrrbite]

do you know if all this stuff works ok with all the other bits?

Everything should work fine, assuming the motherboard is fairly new.

[fat bear]

Just make sure that you get all retail parts and no OEM parts.

[terrrbite]

Just make sure that you get all retail parts and no OEM parts.

Nothing wrong with OEM optical, floppy or hard drives.

[fat bear]

true, but just the higher chance that there could be is worth the little amount of extra money

[leeroy]

OEM? someone please enlighten me

[Evilone]

drop down to 500 -700mb RAM, 1gb is really too much, your getting to the point it SLOWS your pc because of the time taken to read it all. Also, 60gb of hd space is ennuf unless your SERIOUSLY into downloading films (heh) or image editing etc.

Buy an athlon not a pentium if you want to save some cash, athlons are definately better value for money...

do you really want a dvd writer? a cd writer and seperate dvd drive is probably a better option, if its cheaper...

[leeroy]

money isnt really a problem,i prefer the pentium chips, as i said i need the hd space ;) and a dvd drive would be handy.

i didnt know the ram could slow it down, thanks, i'll take that into consideration.

[terrrbite]

There is no point buying an Athlon XP which Evilone is probably talking about, since they have now reached the end of their life, and you will want a bit of future proofing.
The new 64 bit Athlons are v expensive (I think).

Using 1Gb RAM will not slow down your comp. Since you are getting a modern motherboard with dual channel RAM support, you may as well buy two matching sticks of RAM, therefore you can either stick with what you are getting (2x 512Mb PC3200 DDR) or go for 2x 256Mb of the same.
I would stick with what you've got now. You can never have enough RAM :)

OEM? someone please enlighten me

The difference between an OEM and retail product, is that the OEM version sometimes doesn't come with a warranty, and will come in a plain box or bag, sometimes with no drivers, and usually no manual.
Its still the same genuine product though.

I'm not sure, but I think OEM products are made for people or companies who build computers, and so don't need the fancy packaging etc that you find on the shelves of PC World...
Maybe someone can enlighten me on that?

[leeroy]

oo thank you for all the help and stuff, i'm ordering everything tommorow or the day after, and i should get everything next day,

any tips for putting it together? its my first building job.

thanks terrorbite you've been uber helpfull

[Digga]

Originally posted by leeroy
oo thank you for all the help and stuff, i'm ordering everything tommorow or the day after, and i should get everything next day,

any tips for putting it together? its my first building job.

thanks terrorbite you've been uber helpfull

don't get worried if it doesn't work first time, they never do :P

[terrrbite]

any tips for putting it together? its my first building job.

I found these guides very useful. The motherboard manual will tell you the rest.

Building Your Own PC, Part 1
http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20020904/index.html
Building Your Own PC, Part 2
http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20020918/index.html

thanks terrorbite you've been uber helpfull

No problem. Thanks for the + rates.

[HiTmAN]

Just a note, good place to go for tech support with building computers, etc is this forum (http://extremetechsupport.org/forum/)

Don't worry if it doesn't work the first time, here (http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm) is a list of different motherboard beep codes (if there is a hardware problem, these beeps tell you what). If it doesn't work properly, and you don't know what is wrong, just take it all apart, take a break, and put it back together again. It has worked for me.

Also be sure not to touch circuity bits of the parts too much, and touch something to discharge static electricity before handling the computer parts, the static from your fingers can easily wreck an expensive piece of equpiment.

Also, when installing the processor, be very careful not to bend the processor pins - only a very slight force should be needed.

When you first make it, only attach the basic hardware. Don't plug in loads of different accessories, just the screen, mouse and keyboard. That way, finding out a problem is easier.

Hope this helps :)

P.S: terrorbite, if you want OEM cleared up, OEM is Original Equipment Manufacturer, it is basically the product, and nothing else. Big companies buy them in bulk to build generic computers, while a retail product usually comes with a fancy box, a manual, driver, etc.

[cliffhanger]

Can I hijack this thread with a question? I have 256mb of RAM and want to increase this. I have 2 extra memory slots but I want to know whether I can get 2 extra sticks of 256mb to make 778mb of RAM or if I can only increase my memory by the same amount again to 512?

[terrrbite]

P.S: terrorbite, if you want OEM cleared up, OEM is Original Equipment Manufacturer, it is basically the product, and nothing else. Big companies buy them in bulk to build generic computers, while a retail product usually comes with a fancy box, a manual, driver, etc.

Wha? That's exactly what I said in an earlier post. I was just not 100% sure who the main buyers of OEM products were.

Can I hijack this thread with a question? I have 256mb of RAM and want to increase this. I have 2 extra memory slots but I want to know whether I can get 2 extra sticks of 256mb to make 778mb of RAM or if I can only increase my memory by the same amount again to 512?

You can add as much RAM as you like, of any size.

Why buy two more 256Mb sticks though, when you can just get a 512Mb stick, and leave one slot free? It would be cheaper that way too.

[Kelp_Master]

i would just make the suggjestion to get a geforce instead of a raedeon

(driver issues)

[leeroy]

Originally posted by Kelp_Master
i would just make the suggjestion to get a geforce instead of a raedeon

(driver issues)

i have a geforce at the moment, and from all the reviews and comparisons i've seen the ati radion 9800xt cards are complete beasts and clean the floor with the geforce ones. if i have any real driver problems a mate of mine can sort em out pretty quick

[jimjimjimjimjim]

the thing with geforces are you need the right processor to go with it, to get a geforce to run at top preformance you need to have an athlon processor. and with the ATIs you are better off with a Pentium.

and cliffhanger make sure that you get the right sort of Ram, If your Pc is new Then you need DDR but if not then SD, also find out what bus speed your existing Ram is because i dont think you can mix different speed Ram

[wyrd_fish]

you can have differnt bus speeds, but it'll run at the slowest of teh lot...

i'verecently put a corsair twin x pair :) in mine (512mb)

as soon as i get a new case and CPU fan its o/c time


and i've just realised how quiet my PC is... i put a quiet PSU in (about £30) and its awsome

PS mak sure that your PSU has sata power connectors

[cliffhanger]

and cliffhanger make sure that you get the right sort of Ram, If your Pc is new Then you need DDR but if not then SD, also find out what bus speed your existing Ram is because i dont think you can mix different speed Ram [/B][/QUOTE]

Thanks for the comments Terrorbite and Jim IV. (can I call you that for short?)

I've had my PC for 1 year and it says that it has 256mb of DDR SDRAM on the label on the front!?

I was dumb enough to buy the PC from PC World so I think I might take it back there to get the RAM installed. I know it's cheaper at the computer fair but I'm not confident enough to install it myself and my friends will probably just f*ck it up. Last time I was in PC world they told me that they only have 256mb memory sticks and not 512 which was why I was considering getting 2 of the former. Anyone have any other ideas?

[jimjimjimjimjim]

i did the same my first computer was bought from Pc world, it said it was DDR SDram, but when i opened it i noticed it was only Sdram not DDR.

You have to look at the pins on the ram in your computer.

Sd is noramlly like this:

........... .................................................. .......

wher as DDR is:

................................. .................................


P.S If your looking for Computer Hardware go to www.Ebuyer.com (http://www.Ebuyer.com) its great for low priced hard ware, if you were to build the highest spec computer from scratch the parts bought from her would be about £1700