Newbie on board!

[ZadoK]

I just wanted to introduce myself! This is my first post (sorry, a long one) on this board. I have been hanging out with computers all the way back to the 8088 processor days, when if you had a Hercules Graphics "Plus" card, and an amber monitor, you were flying high! I have done some hardware stuff, like hd & optical drive swaps, PCI card installs, lots of software tweaks, drivers, LAN installs, etc., etc., but building is a new thing for me.

I am interested in building my first comp. I currently have a Dell (bad word in here?) Pent. III 800, but with it's 64mb graphics card, and configured lean and mean (XP Pro) it has been doing a decent job.

I don't need a gaming machine, but something in the high / higher end graphics is where I'm heading at this point (I do web work). No video, but ability to run several apps like Photo Shop w/o lag. I am also looking to achieve a decent benchmark and not have to worry about upgrading for a little while.

I am looking for recommendations. I plan to learn as much as I can before I start buying components.

Specfically, this is what I am thinking so far:
- Case with lots of cooling
- "Decent" mb for 3gb processor, like Pent IV, hyperthreading, 800 buss speed
- 512 ram to start with (Crucial)
- 2 physical hd's
- on the cards, optical drives, etc. I can figure that out
- may want to run twin monitors, but not sure

QUESTION #1: What do you think of onboard graphics vs AGP card??
QUESTION #2: I was thinking of using RAID 1 since many mb's come onboard with it, and mirroring 2 physical drives. My interest is in data security, not necessarily speed. Currently, I mirror backup user files to a second drive in a dual-boot system.

Thanks!

 

[AndrewtheGreat]

Get an AGP 8x graphics card and RAID might be a good idea.
The links are below for the products, I dont see why you wanted Crucial memory I recommend corsair.

processor- intel prescott 3.2
mobo- Abit i875p
case- 5 fans/420 watt ps
memory- 2x 256mb dual channel
hard drives- 2x 200GB wester digital SATA


http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-116-172&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-127-152&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-144-034&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-477&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-153&depa=1

 

[Kangaroo]

If you are working with Photo shop Pro I would recommend at least 1GB memory - this way you get to do hours of work without any lagg.

Most definitely use an AGP card, something like a 128MB ATI 9200 Pro, they are only cheap.

Nothing wrong with the below system for pure power within graphics applications.

• 3.2GHz Intel Pentium® 4 CPU "Prescott" (800FSB) HT 1MB Cache
• Asus P4P800-E Deluxe - i865PE Springdale 800fs DDDR Gbit Lan + RAID + 2 x SATA USB2x8 6Ch Audio+1394
• 1 Gb (2 x 512Mb) Corsair TwinX, DDR, PC3200PT, Cas 3.
• 256Mb Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT Lite x8 AGP Tv-out, DVI
• With whatever hard drives you like, RAID -1 like you wanted

 

[AndrewtheGreat]

you can go with the 865 or 875 mobo but i said the 875 because it can better run the prescott. he is right about the 1 gig of memory and the video card

 

[ZadoK]

cool, thanks, awesome places to start. i am amazed at how you can get all this stuff cheap now compared to the factory built stuff (Dell). I am so sick of calling them and having to listen to the, "our techs won't help you remove adware, etc."

anyway, still not sure on the hdd controller, RAID, etc.

what's the theology on the case? You buy a nice one, it cools nice, looks nice, and you can keep it long enough to do some upgrades? what's the mtbf on power supplies, normally? and do i need a 400 supply?

also, should i assume i put it all together, install stuff, and it will run w/o a hitch? and if not, is there plenty of help on the 'net to fix it?
Curious...

 

[Demalii]

On the psu issue, you'll want a good one, unfortunatly most cases come with cheap little power supplies. Someone else will probably post their thought about this too, but I think antec is like the only company that puts good (low end) psu's in their cases. So you might want to check into them as their cases are just goreous. Very sleek design.

You'll most likely be wanting to put it together yourself, anyone can do it. It's the troubleshooting that scares people. So basically after you buy all the stuff, you'll have manuals, tutorials, pictures.. everything you need to actually put a computer together. If you run into any trouble, you've got us =)