building a comp?

[cky]

ok. i have to do something for my senior project in order to graduate and i decided ill just build a computer. but my question is...im not all that great with hardware. so i was wondering whats compatible and what not, that i could purchase and put together for hopefully under $1600 and it still be good and all that stuff (keep cool,fast,etc.) ?thnx

 

[wyrlwyn]

well, what do you want to know? these are the things you need(to boot into an opperating system like windows xp)
motherboard
cpu (with heatsink and fan)
ram
video card
hard drive
cd drive
case(and power supply)
now, these days you have alot of chooses, like intel or ***amd***, diffrent manufacturers of motheboards, video cards, ram, and everything else... you have to make some disisions on what you want to go with, ask more questions, bvut mostly, just look at all or signitures, most of us post or systems in or sigs, and all of them work great!

 

[cky]

ya i know what has to be in a comp to boot, but like whats good these days? and why do people prefer amd over intel, vise versa and what are good speeds and stuff to get ? somethin to make a quick kickass computer

 

[Sazar]

for 1600 dollars you can put together an amazing machine...

if you need specifics... you can check out all kinds of threads already active on this forum...

most of the money will go to your video card if you are a gamer and your monitor..

case/psu should be around 100-130 for a GOOD set incl case fans

mem/cpu depends on intel/amd... and I don't want to get into that kind of stuff ) just check out pricewatch for prices...

www.pricewatch.com

g.luck

btw my rig cost around 650 so far )

new monitor/19 inch samsung... will cost around 200 dollars

 

[Taurus]

you'll find most of us prefer AMD's line of processor... simply because they offer a considerably better value (price/performance). i guess the advantage of an intel chip would be it's lower heat output.

after you decide which way you want to go there, you'll need to decide what motherboard you wanna buy. now when a company makes a motherboard, they base it off a chipset designed by yet another company. chipset people include VIA, SIS, AMD, and Intel. the latter two only make chipsets for their brand of processors, understandably. i think it'd be safe to say that VIA chipsets are just a little more costly but offer very good performance. SIS and AMD chipsets are a little more on the budget side, while Intel chipsets are a good choice if you're building a Pentium machine. different chipsets will have different features and use different types of memory.

once you find a chipset you like, you then go about finding a brand motherboard. when you pick a motherboard manufacturer, you have to look at past reliability, extra features you may/may not use, future upgradeability, and price. there are tons of good brands... like Abit, Asus, Gigabyte, Epox, Shuttle, MSI, and more.

that's all for now. }:>

 

[forceusr]

One nice thing is that amd's website will list "approved" motherboards for each processor, and what kind of RAM is used.

Speaking of RAM, I've used RAM from Crucial exclusively, and have had NO issues. I tried a stick of RAM from CompUSA, and my system acted flaky after that. You can find cheaper RAM out there, but Crucial's prices are not bad, and the quality is there. If you're going to overclock, there is another manufacturer of RAM (Corsair, I believe) that is reported to work well in overclocked systems.

For component info, check out Tom's Hardware.

Rob

 

[2z]

If your going to go for the cheaper & much hotter Athlon
heat is a very important issue so it might be worth doing some modding to the case like extra case fans & more ventilation. Plus it'll give your PC that personal touch

 

[Zedric]

Originally posted by cky
ok. i have to do something for my senior project in order to graduate and i decided ill just build a computer.

Sounds a bit easy for a senior project. It will only take a few hours to build you know...

 

[JJB6486]

It sounds easy to a senior, but probably not to a teacher that only knows how to use MS Word.

JJB

 

[Octopus]

Originally posted by cky
ok. i have to do something for my senior project in order to graduate and i decided ill just build a computer. but my question is...im not all that great with hardware. so i was wondering whats compatible and what not, that i could purchase and put together for hopefully under $1600 and it still be good and all that stuff (keep cool,fast,etc.) ?thnx

see these two sites..they cover everything:

http://www.motherboards.org/articlesd/how-to-guides/21_1.html

http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/index.htm

 

[wyrlwyn]

msi makes good motherboards(especially nforce ones hint hint hint) amd would best price/proformance for ya, and i would go with either samsung/kingston/crucial for ram...

 

[cky]

Originally posted by JJB6486
It sounds easy to a senior, but probably not to a teacher that only knows how to use MS Word.

JJB

exactly! and i know it will only take a few hours which is better and its a way to get my parents to pay for a new comp lol.



thnx for the help

 

[spikemic]

intel