Building a PC!

[Nitro89]

hi, does anybody know any great cheap sites to buy PC components and software etc. I have ebuyer, is there anything else?

Which is a better processor for gaming, AMD or Intel?

[redwudz]

Someone else will have to give you tips for PC parts sites in the UK, but for the CPU, look into the Intel Quad CPUs. For dual core CPUs, it depends on the prices you find. The CPUs are fairly equal between AMD and Intel, though Intel seems to have the edge for gaming. For gaming or encoding, faster is better. And you will need a good video card, especially for gaming.

Assuming you are planning to use Windows XP, one GB of RAM should be plenty.

For building a computer, I choose the CPU first, then the motherboard, then memory. That ensures compatibility. I have been using Gigabyte motherboards lately, both for Intel and AMD processors.

Once you have an idea of the parts you want, CPU, MB, RAM, hard drives and optical drives, power supply, video card and maybe a case, post them here and you should be able to get some advice. Or tell us what you want to spend and you may get some suggestions.

[jagabo]

www.newegg.com

<edit>
Oops, sorry, you're in the UK. It may be a good reference site for you though.

[fritzi93]

www.newegg.com

<edit>
Oops, sorry, you're in the UK. It may be a good reference site for you though.

Definitely. The specs pages are detailed, and they link to the manufacturers' sites. And there are numerous reviews to help in your decisions, you just have to separate to wheat from the chaff. :P

[EDIT] Modesty must have stopped Redwudz from linking to his guide. It's quite good, concise and with good photos:

http://pages.suddenlink.net/sredwudz/index.htm

[Nitro89]

here is what I would be planning to buy:

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair)
- Don't Know much about motherboards
- at least 2GB RAM
- 500GB Hard drive
- at least 512MB Graphics card, I don't know to pick between ATI or Nvidia
- Vista
- A DVD Drive
- Still looking for an Video Card for AVI transfer from VHS to PC
- A TV Tuner, most probably a Hauppauge
- don't know much about fans or PC Cooling or how many I actually need
- a flash card reader

what is OEM?

[davidsama]

Get 3gb. OEM is original equpment manufacturer. Get nvidia. Get at least a 18x dvdrw drive. Get xp pro instead of vista.

[Nitro89]

whats wrong with vista, I've read reviews and people are saying there aren't much problems with it. What does OEM do anyway? whats the difference between retail and OEM?

[davidsama]

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic339183.html Read that about vista.

[Nelson37]

What reviews are you reading, Microsoft.com?

It is a real simple calculation. What does it do that either a) XP does not, or b) that you really need?

Are transparent desktop icons worth 20% less performance, 20% more hardware expense, and dramatically less compatibility?

I would re-evaluate your process for choosing hardware, as well.

If video transfer is important to you, you will need a second HD, and probably something other than a Hauppage as most of their models do not do the AVI transfer you desire.

More research is definitely needed.

[deckard8]

http://www.autdirect.co.uk/

I can recommend these. I use them all the time.
The mail order is also good too, although I live nearby so
I usually drive to the trade counter

[redwudz]

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair)
- Don't Know much about motherboards
- at least 2GB RAM
- 500GB Hard drive
- at least 512MB Graphics card, I don't know to pick between ATI or Nvidia
- Vista
- A DVD Drive
- Still looking for an Video Card for AVI transfer from VHS to PC
- A TV Tuner, most probably a Hauppauge
- don't know much about fans or PC Cooling or how many I actually need
- a flash card reader

That's a good start. If you want to run Vista, you will need 2GB. It won't hurt with XP, but you may not see any improvement over 1GB.

I would definitely recommend more than one hard drive. Your boot drive can be smaller. You video drives(s) can be huge. I normally use three hard drives, boot, edit and archive. You really don't want to use your boot drive for much more than your OS and your programs. The OS accesses it quite a bit, that can slow down your operations. BTW, I would forget RAID, though you haven't mentioned that. Modern hard drives are quite fast enough. I would use SATA hard drives.

Vista or not? At present, I would go with XP for most people. I like Vista, but at this time XP may be a little easier to configure. Vista is still being developed. As for speed, both OSs are fairly equal, so no gain with Vista. There are games that are made for Vista. But be aware Vista requires a very good video card for advanced gaming. As in $$$. XP may be similar. In US$, about $300US. Do lots of research for this.

Tough choice between Nvidia and ATI. Decide what you want to spend and what games you might like to play.

DVD drives. The Samsung SATA optical drives are popular.

Cooling depends on your CPU, your video card and your case. Larger fans, such as 120mm are quieter.

One of the Hauppauge PCI cards would be a good choice, IMO.

A flash card reader is easy enough. They most often use the internal USB connections, which most newer MBs have a lot of.

Don't forget a good, name brand power supply. ~500Ws most times. But if you get a high end video card, you need to allow for that. They can use a lot of power.

Do your research. It costs nothing, and will pay off when you figure out exactly what you want.

[jagabo]

OEM versions of Windows are limited to use on one computer -- ever. If you upgrade too much you may be forced to purchase a new license. Upgrade the CPU, add memory, upgrade the hard drive, replace a NIC -- buy a new Windows licence. (Usually you can call Microsoft and tell them you had to replace a dead motherboard and you won't have to buy another license -- but there's no guarantee of this.) Retail versions can be reinstalled as many times as you want and live through an unlimited number of hardware upgrades/changes. You're limited to only one computer at a time, obviously.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

zipzoomfly.com

[Nitro89]

I don't understand what SATA is, can someone tell me please?

as for games, I usually play fps's on PC such as Battlefield.

I read positive reviews on ebuyer about Vista, I am a bit bored of XP atm.

I haven't yet seen an AVI video capture card in the UK anywhere, where do I look?

[redwudz]

SATA (Serial ATA) is becoming the standard interface for hard drives and also optical drives. It uses a very narrow cable, compared to the wide, flat cable that the PATA (Parallel ATA) interface drives use. The PATA interface is common with most optical and hard drives up to a few years ago. Also called IDE, though SATA is also a IDE type. SATA has the capability of being faster than PATA and the cable size makes it easier to install and causes less airflow restrictions. Most all commercial built computers are using SATA presently. The drives are about the same price as PATA drives.

I like Vista myself, but it does take some learning to understand as it's a fair bit different than XP. It also needs 2GB of RAM to function well. It also has some restrictions on video cards to get the best performance.

Most newer motherboards will have several SATA ports, but only two PATA ports. They also use DDR2 or higher memory, and PCI-E video card interfaces, along with a few regular PCI slots.

I'm not a gamer, but most newer games will have a rating that compares with the Vista rating system so you can see how they play. But go to a gamer website for the best info.

Because the newer boards use PCI-E or PCI, there's not as many cards available. No AGP cards at all for those MBs.

If you want to capture MPEG-2 for DVD, look to the Hauppauge cards. There are AVI capture cards that will work, but I don't keep up on them.

And as mentioned earlier, explore sites like NewEgg. I know you can't purchase from them, but they have a lot of variety and you can see what's on the market, along with some relative costs and occasionally some good reviews of the parts.

[Cobra]

here is what I would be planning to buy:

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair)
- Don't Know much about motherboards
- at least 2GB RAM
- 500GB Hard drive
- at least 512MB Graphics card, I don't know to pick between ATI or Nvidia
- Vista
- A DVD Drive
- Still looking for an Video Card for AVI transfer from VHS to PC
- A TV Tuner, most probably a Hauppauge
- don't know much about fans or PC Cooling or how many I actually need
- a flash card reader

what is OEM?

www.scan.co.uk are excellent

- The CPU - good choice!
- Asus boards, always - I have never had any issues with them, they're rock-solid and very quick
- Corsair RAM, 4GB if you're planning on gaming and running Windows Vista - makes a difference, trust me
- The Samsung SpinPoint 500GB drive is a sweet one for price/performance
- Graphics - memory on the card makes much less difference than the GPU itself, and the amount of memory required depends on the resolution you need to run games at. What do you want to spend on a card?
- Pioneer DVD drives are pretty good, but then again I think they all are now
- I had a bad experience with a Hauppauge digital TV card, but my Pinnacle hybrid DVB-T USB stick works right away with Vista
- With your system, look at a 120mm intake fan at the front and a 120mm exhaust fan - balance them so there's an equal (more or less) pressure coming into the case than out


What is OEM? OEM stands for "Original Equipment Manufacturer" and software sold as OEM is usually cheaper. You're most likely looking at a copy of Vista OEM. Fine, but there's a catch: it's bound to the computer you first activate it on. If you change the PC, or significantly alter it (eg. motherboard change) it may not activate. You can change the PC if you buy a full retail version, but I wouldn't recommend that - get an upgrade version and do this:

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_upgrade_clean.asp

No idea why Microsoft left this loophole in their installer - they must have known about it, but still you can save yourself a fair bit of money and I believe that you will be able to make significant changes to your PC without any issues. Microsoft are usually very good about activation over the phone, anyway. 8)

I notice you didn't specify a PSU (Power Supply Unit). This is crucial to a durable, stable machine. A poor supply will not be able to feed enough power to your system, and can cause stability issues such as spontaneous restarts and so on. Plus, a poor supply may fail and take components with it. I'd recommend a Corsair PSU - they're actually Seasonic units underneath. An HX520 will suffice if you don't want a very powerful graphics card and only want to drive a couple of hard drives and optical drives. Go for the HX620 if you need to power more. They're modular supplies, anyway, so you plug in only the cable bundles you actually need as opposed to getting a rat's nest in the top of your PC!

Anyway, I hope some of this helps you out.

[lordsmurf]

http://www.pricegrabber.co.uk