keeping up with the technology.. some questions

[ropeadopa]

Hi i have a 200-300$ budget and I want to get a new motherboard, cpu, hard drive, and ram. any places to shop or general information would be great.

i used to be able to build my PC's but technology seems to have changed. im looking at motherboards and almost none of them have AGP slots for video cards? they seem to all just have these:
2 x PCI
1 x PCI-e x 16 >what do these mean??
1 x PCI-e x 1 >

also, what is meant by "barebone" pc. does that generally means the case will come with it?

and as far as hard drives go, is there a different between IDE and SATA. I guess i will need a new hard drive if they are.

 

[hikaricloud]

PCI-e x16 refers to a PCI-Express slot the runs video cards. x16 denotes the speed. AGP has been dead for the better part of almost 3 or 4 years.

PCI-e x1 is normally used for add-on cards now, kind of like PCI is.

SATA is what you want to get. SATA 3.0gb/s to be precise.

Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more! is the best place to browse for parts.

Barebones are usually cases that come with a motherboard and PSU.

You can use your old IDE hard drive still if your mobo supports IDE, which most still do. But it's best to get a newer SATA one. Much faster.

 

[eyeCpc]

Newegg is a popular vendor for generally seeing some of the best prices on various hardwares as well as other types of consumer electronics. Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

AGP cards are still being made for use on older boards while PCI-E is a far better interface for video cards offering stream processing pipelines. Most boards now seen only see two PCI type slots for expansion cards like addon sound cards, tv tuner/video capture cards.

The first PCI-Express cards being the new bus for video cards first saw PCI-E 4x later 16x 1.0-1.1 and now PCI-E 2.0 for an improvement in performance. Boards will see one, two, three, and four PCI-Express slots for running multiple video cards in sync with each other as additional processing power taking the load away from the main cpu.

Bare bones is simply the basic components where you add in all of the hardwares yourself. You may see a board+cpu bundle or case with power supply and simply to add in the rest of the hardwares and devices, drives.

Sata=Serial ATA is the current trend away from Pata or Parallel ATA(EIDE). The sata bus is faster then that seen with the eide bus while the drives themselves are still limited to the ATA standards hardware wise.

The typical ide drive uses a 80pin 80conductor flat ribbon or round type data cable and 4 wire molex type power connector while sata II drives while use a thinner 7pin data cable and the choice of either a thin 15pin or standard 4 wire molex type power plug. Someone posted a Youtube video that shows the differences in the power and data cables at YouTube - SATA vs. IDE

 

[ropeadopa]

thanks you guys are extremely helpful.

another question though:
1. what are the best motherboards to get these days? a few years ago ASUS and abit used to pretty much rule the mobo buisness, now it seems they dont even sell abit motherboards anymore.

2.and also what is the difference between core 2 duo and pentium dual core. according to mwave.com they are different things. dual core is much cheaper. (ps. i think youd all be surprised with mwaves prices, i used to use them they are excellent)

3. i've been looking at ASUS V3-P5945GC. any input?

 

[oldskool]

Someone posted a Youtube video that shows the differences in the power and data cables at YouTube - SATA vs. IDE

I just went and checked out the YouTube video, it's funny at the very ending, the guy says he would smack a robber in the face with the SATA and IDE drives ! :laughing:

thanks you guys are extremely helpful.

another question though:
1. what are the best motherboards to get these days? a few years ago ASUS and abit used to pretty much rule the mobo buisness, now it seems they dont even sell abit motherboards anymore.

2.and also what is the difference between core 2 duo and pentium dual core. according to mwave.com they are different things. dual core is much cheaper. (ps. i think youd all be surprised with mwaves prices, i used to use them they are excellent)

3. i've been looking at ASUS V3-P5945GC. any input?

Core 2 Duo is a true, two-core processor, whereas the Pentium Dual core is not. More like one processor with split duties to put it simply. I had read this in my Mike Myers A+ book, so take it from him not me.

 

[eyeCpc]

thanks you guys are extremely helpful.

another question though:
1. what are the best motherboards to get these days? a few years ago ASUS and abit used to pretty much rule the mobo buisness, now it seems they dont even sell abit motherboards anymore.

2.and also what is the difference between core 2 duo and pentium dual core. according to mwave.com they are different things. dual core is much cheaper. (ps. i think youd all be surprised with mwaves prices, i used to use them they are excellent)

3. i've been looking at ASUS V3-P5945GC. any input?

1)Lately everything would be scrambled eggs trying to see which vendor has an Abit board instock since those are no longer any big seller. Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, DFI, and a couple of others are the names still referred to.

2)they are two different things. One is the core duo being a Pentium model as Intel first dual core attempt there while the Core 2s run far cooler and see a hugh performance boost. AMD did have the leading edge until the Core 2s passed the test.

3)You would be getting into a rather outdated package from the specs seen on that at ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

4gb max of DDR2 667 memory while most now are waiting for DDR3 boards. You could put a newer beter case together with a little effort for about the same as what they would charge for that.

I just went and checked out the YouTube video, it's funny at the very ending, the guy says he would smack a robber in the face with the SATA and IDE drives ! :laughing:

Well what woud you expect to see in a YouTube video to start with?

 

[oldskool]

The guy wasn't Spielberg, but funny it was

 

[eyeCpc]

That's YouTube for you!

ropeadopa you will probably end up going over $300 a bit in order to see a new case put together while you wouldn't need to spend an arm and a leg for a basic build. Mwave is a bit higher priced when comparing to what is often seen at TigerDirect and usually better at newegg.

Most at this time while browse through newegg first being the popular vendor. The main catagories page for newegg is seen at Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

 

[veg1992]

I just went and checked out the YouTube video, it's funny at the very ending, the guy says he would smack a robber in the face with the SATA and IDE drives ! :laughing:



Core 2 Duo is a true, two-core processor, whereas the Pentium Dual core is not. More like one processor with split duties to put it simply. I had read this in my Mike Myers A+ book, so take it from him not me.

You are confusing the Pentium Dual-Core with a Pentium D..

 

[ropeadopa]

That's YouTube for you!

ropeadopa you will probably end up going over $300 a bit in order to see a new case put together while you wouldn't need to spend an arm and a leg for a basic build. Mwave is a bit higher priced when comparing to what is often seen at TigerDirect and usually better at newegg.

Most at this time while browse through newegg first being the popular vendor. The main catagories page for newegg is seen at Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

thanks again for the help. so youre saying i can save a lot of money buying a separate case and motherboard bundle and assembling it myself right?

not to be a bother, but is there anything you can recommend in my price range? a good motherboard preferably asus that can take a core 2 duo?