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need help deciding on components

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carpeliam

Programmer
Mar 17, 2000
990
US
I'm building a system from scratch, and I mean from scratch (nothing new to many of you, but new to me). Here's what I'm thinking at the moment:

[ul][li]AMD Athlon 1.33 GHz processor
[li]ASUS A7M266 Motherboard
[li]Antec PP403X 400 Watt Power Supply
[li]TaiSol CEK747092 CPU Cooler
[li]IBM Deskstar 60GXP 40GB 7200 RPM IDE/Ultra ATA-100 Hard Drive
[li]VisionTek GeForce3 64MB 4x AGP
[li]256MB DDRAM (DDR PC1600 with a CAS/Latency of 2, or DDR PC2100 with a CAS/Latency of 2.5? Any suggestions?)
[li]Lian-Li PC-60 Aluminum Case, with 4 USB ports (in the front), 3 fans (1 in the back, 2 of variable speed in the front), thumb screws, air filters, and a blowhole[/ul]I already have a USB keyboard, a USB optical wheel mouse, a 20GB 7200 RPM hd (making for 2 hd's), and a digital soundcard. Because I'm building this myself, I expect to pay just shy of around $1,300.00 (I left space for cables and other issues).

Any thoughts? the motherboard was chosen because (a) it was on AMD's list and (b) it looked decent. However, the site mentions "optional LAN"- what's the deal with that? An ethernet card is wired to the mobo?

The power supply was chosen because it was on ASUS's list... and seemd to have decent specs, but I'm not an EE, so I don't know. Anybody know where I could find reviews of different power supplies?

as for the vid card- it seems that the GeForce3 wins hands-down.. but which GeForce should I buy? A dozen companies make that thing... what's the difference?

AMD's site says that unbuffered RAM is mandatory for the Athlon, but crucial.com lists "registered" RAM for that particular mobo. Also, all of the Error Correction Controlled (ECC) RAM, which is preferred for the Athlon, is of type "registered". What's the deal? Is registered RAM ok? And what's this PC1600/PC2100, and is that more/less important than CAS/Latency? and what does CAS stand for?

The Lian-Li case with USB ports has the ports in the front of the case. How do I make these ports functional? How do you connect USB ports to the motherboard?

When I installed my USB keyboard to begin with, I had problems because the drivers weren't installed until after I went through the setup procedure in the OS. (And how the hell do you set up the drivers without a keyboard or mouse!!) Is this going to be a problem, or will my motherboard have native support for USB? How can I tell? Will I have to first install using a USB-PS/2 adapter?

Has anybody heard any reviews of things that might change my mind? Anybody have any opinions on any of the products? Anybody have any product choice advice, or installation advice?

Thanks to all... I don't know if I could go through with this without the support :eek:) Liam Morley
lmorley@wpi.edu
"light the deep, and bring silence to the world.
light the world, and bring depth to the silence."
 
ok, i didnt read much of your text... BUT- go out and buy something from gateway or some other manufactuer if you want to get ripped off that bad. Listen- you can find this stuff chreaper.

Hint:
 
I agree with compnut24, watch your pricing very carefully.

As far as specs, I wouldn't post it the way you did (constructive critism comming). I would look to see what I wanted, then questioned the performance vs. quality of the product(s). The questions you asked leaves the topic open for those to rant about how you made a horrible choice in Mobo because they like Tyan. When I ask about a product I weigh out the Plus vs. the Minuses and make a choice based on that.

As far as what you asked, I would say go with it. You found what you liked, go ahead and get it. If you question the overall quality of the one of the products, this would be a good place to ask!

Good luck on building your first computer!

If you have any more questions, make sure to ask us!
Mike Wills
RPG Programmer

"I am bad at math because God forgot to include math.h into my programming!"

Please let us (Tek-Tips members) know if the solutions I provide are helpful to you. Not only do my posts help you but they may help others.
 
Yeah, I'm looking at 3 different places for pricing:<br><A HREF=" TARGET="_new"> HREF=" TARGET="_new"> HREF=" TARGET="_new"> far as specs posting- if somebody has a rant about a Tyan mobo, then I'm willing to hear it (I actually did get an email from a friend saying something about a Tyan mobo, and I'm going to look into it). The thing is, I don't know all my options, so I'll take whatever anybody is willing to say. But if you could point me in a good direction where I could evaluate the pluses and minuses, that would be helpful. I have done a decent amount of research, but as I'm relatively new to this sort of thing I don't know what the best websites for info are. <p>Liam Morley<br><A HREF="mailto:"></A><br>&quot;light the deep, and bring silence to the world.<br>light the world, and bring depth to the silence.&quot;
 
Hmm...Let's start from the beginning.....

What are you going to be using the computer for? High end gaming? Compiling huge programs (since I see you are a programmer)? If so, I think the specs you gave is good. Asus is/has been a good brand. If you are going to do email and word documents...you are wasting your money!

Good resources are the MaximumPC Forum on Delphi (or whatever they call it now), tomshardware.com, and...I will have to get back to you later for more...still at work! ;-)
Mike Wills
RPG Programmer

&quot;I am bad at math because God forgot to include math.h into my programming!&quot;

Please let us (Tek-Tips members) know if the solutions I provide are helpful to you. Not only do my posts help you but they may help others.
 
Be carefull about selecting a Motherboard with any type of DDR Ram for now. 512 Meg is all you can plug into most of them. ( 256 x 2 slots) They tout 2 Gigs or more, but it's not even made yet....
 
well I heard something about the AMD 760 chipset only really supporting 512MB of RAM, which is kind of scary. Has anybody run into this? <p>Liam Morley<br><A HREF="mailto:"></A><br>&quot;light the deep, and bring silence to the world.<br>light the world, and bring depth to the silence.&quot;
 
jisoo22, ditch what? <p>Liam Morley<br><A HREF="mailto:"></A><br>&quot;light the deep, and bring silence to the world.<br>light the world, and bring depth to the silence.&quot;
 
Might want to stay away from Visiontek. I have an Asus mobo and a Visiontek Geforce2 GTS and have plenty of game crashing using Opengl.

Up to. PC/Network Analyst
A+ Certified
 
Any thoughts on the O/S? This may impact the decision on mobo and especially RAM. My suggestions are what I would try myself. If incorrect, I welcome corrections to my knowledge. Andy.
 
I think I'll partition it a few different ways. Windows 98 for one, Windows 2000 for another... I think I might want BeOS on there as well, but I'm not sure if I want a seperate partition for it. I might want some brand of Unix on too, but I may not if I can get MKS Toolkit, which has korn shell for windows, etc... the more I can integrate, the better. <p>Liam Morley<br><A HREF="mailto:"></A><br>&quot;light the deep, and bring silence to the world.<br>light the world, and bring depth to the silence.&quot;
 
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