If you were building a computer what parts would you use?

Just from experience, I would stay away from Gigabyte MB's. Horrible return policy. They demand all returns go to them, rather than distributer and they are very slow and difficult to deal with.

I just built my computer.

P4 2.8 w/ 800 fsb and hyperthreading
512 crucial ram
MSI motherboard with 8x agp
Radeon 9800 pro
combo dvd-r drive

For motherboards, I've had good luck with ASUS, Abit, Iwill and Epox, for either Athlon or P4. Get one of the better ones if you want more life from it. 4x or 8x agp, plenty of memory space, good chipset.

Don't scrimp on the RAM. Get good quality ram from crucial, corsair, mushkin, etc. They tend to use top of the line chips, and they are much more reliable, and not all that much more expensive. Get 512M minimum, get 1G if you can afford it.

For IDE hard drive, get a Maxtor, or Western Digital (I prefer Maxtor, had the best luck with them overall). Higher rpm and lower seek times are best. Get the biggest one you can afford, you'll find you always need the space .

For a video card, ATI or Nvidia are your best choices, especially if you're into gaming. If you use Window FX, you should probably get an ATI, as they seem to work better than the Nvidia. Unless you want a top of the line gaming PC, buy a card about 2 levels below the very top of the line card. Your performance will be more than acceptable, and the cost savings will be significant.

For sound, get an Audigy or Turtle beach, for gaming and general sound. If you want audio quality, get an M-Audio or one of the better audiophile cards (often a bit more expensive, though).

For a DVD drive, any good name should be fine. I've had no trouble with any of the more well know names. Can't speak for a dvd burner, never used one.

For a CD burner, I've had good luck with Lite-On and Yamaha (I have both currently, and they're both excellent and reliable).

I haven't found any brands specifically to stay away from (apart from the obviously cheap). For good examples of good baseline systems, check out the systems guides at ars-technica: http://arstechnica.com/guide/system/index.html


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Proc: Intel Pentium 4, 3.2 Ghz, 512KB L2 Cache, 800Mhz bus, Socket 478, Hyper-Threading
Hdd: 200GB, 16 000RPM (2 pieces)
Dvd+Rw: HP DVD300i 8x/40x/16x/10x, DVD+RW 2.4x, DVD-R 4x
Motherboard: Intel 875P chipset, Firewire, Serail ATA
Monitor: 23.1" SONY Lcd
Video: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Ultra DUAL 256mb

+ many lcd lights, 5 coolers, nice and modded case, mouse, keyboard...

If your going to play latest games say DirectX9 DONT get NVIDIA, their latest line GeForceFX 5900/5950 Ultra's are not true DirectX9 cards "hate to say it but right now NVIDIA (Really sucks for GeForceFX cards) if you havent already heard about the problems with Tomb Raider, HALO, H A L F - L I F E ² & DOOMIII" go for any ATI card 9xxx upwards or even 9600XT good bundle. Not only that their FSAA AF performance is way better than NVIDIA's.

Asus ATI Radeon 9600XT/TVD 128MB & Half Life 2 Bundle - Retail
ASUS Radeon9600XT/TVD equips with newest ASUS-specific award-winning features and ATI®'s Radeon™ 9600XT Visual Processing Unit(VPU), which owns both ultimate excellent cinematic resolution and fierce graphics computing power. Incorporating various state-of-the-art technologies such as ATI's SmartShader™ 2.1, SmoothVision™ 2.1, Hyper Z™ III+, VideoShader™, and unique ASUS innovations such as "ASUS Smart Cooling" ,"ASUS GameFace", "ASUS VideoSecurity", and "ASUS Digital VCR"make ASUS Radeon9600XT /TVD a complete solution for the 3D market.

- ATI Radeon 9600 XT Graphics Engine
- 128 MB DDR Video Memory
- 500MHz Engine Clock
- 600MHz(300MHz DDR) Memory Clock
- 400MHz RAMDAC
- AGP8X/4X/2X Bus Standard
- 128-bit DDR Memory Interface
- 2048x1536 Max Resolution
- Standard 15-pin D-sub VGA Output
- DVI-I Output
- 2nd VGA Output
- S-VHS and Composite TV-out
- S-VHS and Composite Video-in
- Bundled with coupon for single player version of Half Life 2 (released 2004)
Price: £140.55 (£165.15 Including VAT at 17.5%)

or even if you want it to last good few years get 256MB versions.

Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB TV-Out/DVI - Retail
RADEON™ 9800 Series of visual processors is the most visually advanced 3D performer on the planet, delivering an immersive, cinematic experience for the most demanding next-generation games with 256MB of DDR memory and a 256-bit memory interface. Merging advanced stability with revolutionary features, RADEON™ 9800 Series is the only Visual Processing family in its 2nd generation. Prepare yourself for the world's fastest and most compelling gameplay, courtesy of the unprecedented power, control and eight-pipeline architecture of RADEON™ 9800 Series. Experience feature film quality on your PC, the new standard in 3D entertainment. Advanced stability meets revolutionary features with support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0, OpenGL® feature sets and the only cinematic quality Visual Processing Unit in its 2nd generation. Featuring CATALYST™, the industry's most stable 3D acceleration software.

- 256MB of DDR memory provides increased performance
- 256-bit memory interface delivers the bandwidth for real-time 3D graphics
- 8-pixel pipeline architecture doubles the rendering power
- SMARTSHADER™ 2.1 supports latest Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0, enabling cinematic quality lighting and shadow effects
- SMOOTHVISION™ 2.1 delivers the sharpest, clearest textures without sacrificing frame rates
- 128-bit full floating point enables billions of color variations for same lighting and effects as Hollywood studios
- Featuring CATALYST™, the industry's most stable 3D acceleration software
- Supports the latest Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 and OpenGL® feature sets
- FULLSTREAM™ removes blocky artifacts from streaming Internet video
- VIDEOSHADER™ integrates features to provide unprecedented support for digital and high definition video
Price: £320.00 (£376.00 Including VAT at 17.5%)

If you go the AMD route get the Barton cores 2500+ upwards with 512L2 cache plus real good prices as low as £60. The best motherboards for AMD right now are NVIDIA nForce 2 Ultra's preferably find Rev2.0 boards as it supports 200/266/333/400FSB Athlon processors. Also good features such as MCP2-T, the APU (Audio Processing Unit) delivers Dolby Digital 5.1 cinematic-quality sound and 3D positional audio to your home PC. By SoundstormTM technology, SATA 150 Connectors, USB 2.0 headers, IEEE1394 Firewire, DDR400 RAM providing upto 6.4GB/s of memory bandwidth and dual Nvidia & 3com LAN onboard.

As for ram my prefered choice would have to be Corsair - High performance Corsair XMS DDR memory, also another few good brands would be TwinMOS - Excellent value DDR memory, OCZ - Ultra-fast DDR memory up to PC4000 but the wise thing to do is get matched pair (Dual Channel Kit) as NVIDIA boards use dual channel.

As for HDD's i would say go for Seagate Hard Drives - Super-quiet Barracuda V 7200RPM ATA100 drives. Seagate's Barracuda 7200.7 disc drives deliver 7,200-RPM performance for desktops and entry-level ATA servers, with capacities up to 160 Gbytes. The products feature all FDB motors for the quietest acoustics in the industry, superior reliability and the Ultra ATA/100 interface. These drives include Seagate's exclusive 3D Defense System and a three year limited warranty. To improve performance further this drive is outfitted with an 8MB cache.

Well I have taken a week to colect my thoughts, hence the reason you all haven't heard from me. I have been lurking thats all.

I would get these componets:

MSI MoBo
AMD 3200 Barton Core Processor
1 Gig Corsair DDR 400 Memory
ATI 9800 Video Card
Sony DVD Burner
Sound Blaster Audigy sound card
Yamaha CD RW

And I forgot: Maxtor 120 Gig HD

Adam: I hope to see your LCARS work again soon.

I really like what AMD is doing. They just released the first sets of the Athalon64 processors...and they are more than living up to the hype. The new Intel 3.2EE still beats the AMD when it comes to 3D/Graphics, but the AMD is running at 1200mhz LESS! The Intel still doesn't win by much...I bet they are shaking in their boots right now. The first set of processors aren't worth buying, they don't have enough L2 cache or don't support DDR400 ram or something like that, but AMD is releasing the next set of 64's at the begginning of 2004 that fixes these things. Any gamer/hardcore PC user is going to want one. If I were to build a new computer, I would center it around that proccessor!

As far as video cards go, nVidia is just terrible. How can they make the same mistake twice? If you're serious about PC's...ATI is definately the way to go.

HD's...you gotta get Serial-ATA. It's SCSI without being SCSI.

Memory...Corsair XMS.

Sound...Sound Blaster Audigy...what else is there?

DVD...Sony DVD+RW/-RW

Viewsonic Monitor and Klipche speakers.

Adam........i upgraded my machine only a couple of weeks ago and if you shop around the net for UK sites you can get some good bargains.
After talking to several people who are far more knowledgable than me on techspecs i purchased an ASUS motherboard, AMD XP2400 CPU, 512mb of DDR Ram and GEforce FX5200 graphics card all for 200 quid. Fitted it all myself and what a difference. I now got my own flying machine

BTW - If you want to know any details of the UK websites i got the gear from give me a shout, buddy

Proc: Intel Pentium 4, 3.2 Ghz, 512KB L2 Cache, 800Mhz bus, Socket 478, Hyper-Threading Hdd: 200GB, 16 000RPM (2 pieces) Dvd+Rw: HP DVD300i 8x/40x/16x/10x, DVD+RW 2.4x, DVD-R 4x Motherboard: Intel 875P chipset, Firewire, Serail ATA Monitor: 23.1" SONY Lcd Video: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Ultra DUAL 256mb + many lcd lights, 5 coolers, nice and modded case, mouse, keyboard

Jeeeeeeeeeeez........Morph......thats not a computer thats more like a Ferrari

Morph forgot to add how much memory he has!

Adam - did i mention i am working ona star trek based sysmetrix skin?

I'm pretty familiar with computing tech and terms, but there was something mentioned by several of you. that was "hyperthreading". Waazat???

Adam.........i will dig out the details later and email them to you
Cheers mate - BTW glad to see you back. You sound a lot more positive and cheerful after your problems with the back ups for LCARS

Morph forgot to add how much memory he has!

Kona........i bet it's something like 3.5 gig of RAMBUS

no i bet it is DDR

As I recall, hyperthreading is to CPUs what multi-tasking is to OS's....the capacity to do two or more things at once....

Jafo is correct [as usual ]...but if you want more details on the subject...here ya go.

http://www.intel.com/technology/hyperthread/

For CD-RW... one word... PLEXTOR hands down, no if's and's or but's...

I built my system in July, the specs are modest:

MB: ASUS A7V8X-X (VIA KT400 chipset for AMD CPUs)
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2700+
RAM: 1GB Corsair DDR 3200 LLPT
GFX: ATI RADEON 9500 PRO

I don't know what kind of budget you have, either getting a new (800Mhz FSB) Pentium 4 or an Athlon 64 (FX for the high-end) sounds good. I'd lean toward the Pentium because the Athlon is brand new and yes, actually, really, costs more. (ouch) For motherboards, I've had good experiences with ASUS, and you can't go wrong with Gigabyte. For ultra high-end, go with the ASUS P4C800-E which IS THE FASTEST Intel mobo. (Doubt me? Look at the benches from Anandtech.com.) For CPU, get as much clock speed as you might need. Make sure the Intel processor has the 800Mhz FSB. (Be warned if you see a death-low price!!) RAM...Get 1 gigabyte of it. Won't hurt, only help. Besides, you can disable the pagefile, which speeds the HD up quite a bit. I'd go with Corsair, though Mushkin and OCZ also make extremely good memory too. Graphics...ATI has the market right now. I would try my best to find a RADEON 9700 PRO. It's a bit old, but it is still better than the newer mainstream cards. If you can't find a 9700 PRO (they're hard to find) then go with a RADEON 9600 XT. Just came out. For sound, Creative is the best way to go if you hate integrated sound. Optical drives...PLEXTOR!! All the way! I like my ASUS too, though. HD...I have a Western Digital, and it spins away perfectly. There isn't a whole lot of difference between Maxtor and WD's models, you should let price decide here. Did I miss anything?

To Voodoo_Freak: Gee whiz, does your system have a 9800XT? Why the heck are you mingling with us lowlifes with 9500s? Just kidding.

I did this about three months ago, its not the very best, but I'm happy

New Stuff
Asus A7N8X Deluxe 400fsb
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton 333fsb
Corsair PC2700 DDR 333MHz 3-256MB sticks, all must be the same.

Old Stuff
Western Digital 40gb 7200 HD master
Quantum Fireball 12gb 5200 HD slave, old
NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200
AOpen DVD
Plextor CD-R
US Robotics V92 Fax PCI, Dial-up Modem
ViewSonic A90f+ 19" Monitor

Windows XP Home

If your looking for the best, wait until Intel counters AMD's Athlon 64.

If your budget allows it, the Athlon 64 FXes are looking more than a little tasty...

Jim - your system's setup quite similar to mine.

kthxbye, Athlon 64 FXes are incredible and can beat the pants in every way (except price) off the new P4s. The benches show this. However, spending $700 on a chip that will be phased out in January seems kind of stupid to me. AMD will be releasing their 939-pin Athlon 64 FX very early next year, which promises higher clock speeds and support for unregistered RAM (costs less). Solution_Design, if its possible for you, I'd recommend waiting until the 939-pin Athlon comes out. It will just be better than the original release. Not to mention better than Intel's offerings now and in January too.

Xendre hit the nail on the head. AMD is expecting to release the new chips at the beginning of next year. AMD has built the next-generation of processors, you also will need to wait for Windows XP 64-bit edition to truly see what the AMD can do, although it's backwards compatible, 32-bit software doesn't take advantage of any of the 64-bit features. No longer is Intel the chip king...LONG LIVE AMD!

No longer is Intel the chip king...LONG LIVE AMD!

been that way for awhile... LONG LIVE AMD!