Building the Beast

[Conroe]

In the near future I plan to embark on my first build. I am an extreme newbie in this area and in need of some qualified advice. Below is a layout of my goals and objectives for the system.

Goals and Objectives

I am in search of a machine that provides good performance and flexible upgradability. At present I am in possesion of a pentium 4 3.2 processor and looking for a quality motherboard why supports DDR2 and a SATA 2 HD (I assume this is the best way to go albeit somewhat more expensive). If possible I would also like my mother board to have the ability to support the new conroe type processor for a future upgrade as long as the price difference is not extreme.

System General Layout including hardware rought ides

MOTHER BOARD

http://www.cybersprinter.com/item_description.asp?prodid=6275

RAM

Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 1024MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz EPP Memory (2 x 512MB)

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2341284&CatId=0

VIDEO CARD

I dont need anything too crazy so this seemed like the best bang for my buck...I assume its not the greatest, any opinions?

Diamond S120 Radeon 9550 / 256MB DDR / AGP 8x / DVI / VGA / TV Out / Video Card

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2145957&Sku=D10-2090


HARD DRIVE

SAMSUNG SpinPoint P Series SP2504C 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822152025


Conclusion and concerns


As stated earlier upgradability is important to me. I am particulairily interested in possibly being able to upgrade to conroe in the future and am interested in if its worth having a SATA2 hard drive. Compatibility and ease of setup is also of outmost important in my system setup as im a newbie builder and want everthing to go as smooth as possible. Thanks for reading and I look forward to some qualified insightful comments.

 

[b1gapl]

That graphic card you chose is not compatible with the mobo because it is AGP, you need a PCI-e graphics card. Look at the 6800 or 7600 series from NVIDIA. And also don't get samsung hard drives. Get either Western Digitals or Seagate hard drives.

 

[Conroe]

That graphic card you chose is not compatible with the mobo because it is AGP, you need a PCI-e graphics card. Look at the 6800 or 7600 series from NVIDIA. And also don't get samsung hard drives. Get either Western Digitals or Seagate hard drives.

Thank you for your reply. A couple follow up questions.

1) Can you explain why those HD choices are better than sansung?

2) Is it better to have a mobo with an AGP slot? How does this effect future upgradability ect.

3) Will the mobo I selected support P4 HT as well as the conroe?


4) Should I go sata 2?

 

[b1gapl]

Western Digital and Seagate are just more known and reliable, top brands of hard drives. AGP is too old no upgradability there, get a mobo with PCI-e slots. Yes go SATA 2. As long as the socket is 775 it should be compatible.

 

[Conroe]

is this a decent card?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1520540&Sku=B52-1022

 

[bsnyder100]

NO offense, but please do not even think about buying from them. www.newegg.com is the place to go...very good customer service along with unbeatable prices. Check it out.

 

[b1gapl]

Um why are you buying that card...its PCI not PCI-e. You want PCI-E graphics. And get from newegg.

 

[Conroe]

NO offense, but please do not even think about buying from them. www.newegg.com is the place to go...very good customer service along with unbeatable prices. Check it out.

I believe newegg doesnt ship to canada where I live.

 

[Conroe]

Um why are you buying that card...its PCI not PCI-e. You want PCI-E graphics. And get from newegg.

Im not buying anything yet...looking for suggestions. Im also not doing any high end gaming and hoping to find a quality yet affordable card.

 

[bsnyder100]

Well if you are loccated within the US go with newegg.