Building my own system - Recommendations?

Collapse
X
 
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • Steve Machol
    Former Customer Support Manager
    • Jul 2000
    • 154488

    Building my own system - Recommendations?

    I'm going to build my own system. I'm not really looking for state-of-the art everything but I would like a good fast system, primarily used for web-browsing, with plenty of graphics power for the latest games.

    What are your recomendations for Motherboard, CPU, graphics card, etc?
    Steve Machol, former vBulletin Customer Support Manager (and NOT retired!)
    Change CKEditor Colors to Match Style (for 4.1.4 and above)

    Steve Machol Photography


    Mankind is the only creature smart enough to know its own history, and dumb enough to ignore it.


  • AWS
    Senior Member
    • Apr 2000
    • 1830
    • 5.2.x

    #2
    You might want to consider building a Shuttle XPC. I've been selling a bunch of them since I put the first one on display.
    They are small, powerful, easy to tranport and easy to build. You can build one with a p4 3.2Ghz, 200Gig hd, 1gig ram, cdrw/dvd combo, floppy for under $1000.
    Check out http://us.shuttle.com/index.asp.
    I would suggest you look at the sb62g2. It has Intel Extreme Graphics, dual nics, 5.1 sound with jacks in front and back for speakers and headphones, 4 USB 2 jacks, 2 in front 2 in back.
    They are really nice boxes. I have 2 that I use at home. One sb62g2 with 3.2 P4 and a sn85g4 with 3200+ AMD x86/64.
    Admins Zone - Resources for Forum Administrators

    Comment

    • Shining Arcanine
      Senior Member
      • Feb 2003
      • 2482
      • 3.0.3

      #3
      Intel's Pentium 6 architecture based chips won't be out for at least another year (I'm estimating 2 years) so I'll suggest you consider:

      2.4GHz Intel Pentium 4 Revision C
      Intel 875 chipset based motherboard
      1GB of 400MHz Corsair Twinx RAM
      Thermaltake power supply (reliable, super quiet, brand name)
      ATI Radeon 9800 XT (go for the X800 if you are willing to pay the extra money)
      2 Western Digital 74GB Raptor Hard Drives

      You can look into the Hydrocool 200 if you want to save your hearing (I'm looking into it myself):



      As for case fans, try this:



      If the motherboard you buy doesn't have sound, look into a creative sound card. Personally, I have an audiology 2 and I haven't had any complaints so far.

      Comment

      • IDN
        Senior Member
        • Apr 2002
        • 4030
        • 3.5.x

        #4
        I'll look for complete/exact hardware, but these should do good for starters.

        AMD 2800+ Barton
        9800 Pro (should be under $150 soon)
        Epox or Asus Motherboard
        PC2700 512mb Ram
        Onboard sound or Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
        Lite-On DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive
        120GB "SE" WD Hard Drive. (On sale for under $60 in most places)
        Running vB since 4-14-2002

        Comment

        • TheAnt06
          Senior Member
          • Nov 2003
          • 114
          • 3.0.0 'Gold'

          #5
          Steve, for cooling if you can invest in it, buy an nVENTIV Mach II, it's Vapor Phase Change, which means it cools at -50C when active, about -20C when idle. It's a $1000 system, and I've invested in it, and well I couldn't be happier.

          Comment

          • IDN
            Senior Member
            • Apr 2002
            • 4030
            • 3.5.x

            #6
            A SLK-900 would be more then enough for him, if he even wanted that. Vantec or Zalman would be great for him to keep the PC even more silent. What case are you interested in? A small one? A big one? Any special features such as front USB/Firewire, what colors?

            Also, what is your budget?
            Running vB since 4-14-2002

            Comment

            • Wayne Luke
              vBulletin Technical Support Lead
              • Aug 2000
              • 73981

              #7
              Originally posted by TheAnt06
              Steve, for cooling if you can invest in it, buy an nVENTIV Mach II, it's Vapor Phase Change, which means it cools at -50C when active, about -20C when idle. It's a $1000 system, and I've invested in it, and well I couldn't be happier.
              Dang and I have a $30.00 fan and my machine runs just fine.
              Translations provided by Google.

              Wayne Luke
              The Rabid Badger - a vBulletin Cloud demonstration site.
              vBulletin 5 API

              Comment

              • Steve Machol
                Former Customer Support Manager
                • Jul 2000
                • 154488

                #8
                Originally posted by IDN
                What case are you interested in? A small one? A big one? Any special features such as front USB/Firewire, what colors?

                Also, what is your budget?
                Looking at somewhere between $1500-2000 total with a standard vertical case.
                Steve Machol, former vBulletin Customer Support Manager (and NOT retired!)
                Change CKEditor Colors to Match Style (for 4.1.4 and above)

                Steve Machol Photography


                Mankind is the only creature smart enough to know its own history, and dumb enough to ignore it.


                Comment

                • tgillespie
                  Senior Member
                  • Dec 2002
                  • 2325
                  • 3.7.x

                  #9
                  Originally posted by TheAnt06
                  Steve, for cooling if you can invest in it, buy an nVENTIV Mach II, it's Vapor Phase Change, which means it cools at -50C when active, about -20C when idle. It's a $1000 system, and I've invested in it, and well I couldn't be happier.
                  Why would your average joe need a $1000 cooling setup? I like to overclock, and my fan cooled setup runs just fine. I ran 3.8 for a few weeks using 2 front, 1 top, 1 side, 2 back, Zalman HSF, 2 PSU fans, and OTES. I have no problem with normal usage or overclocking if the room temp is decent. I don't think Steve is going to overclock, nor demand such cool temps. 2 120mm fans would be perfect in my opinion.
                  Trent Gillespie Mod Theater Gillespie Photography

                  Comment

                  • Zachery
                    Former vBulletin Support
                    • Jul 2002
                    • 59097

                    #10
                    Steve for that kind of money you can buld what im building

                    Comment

                    • Shining Arcanine
                      Senior Member
                      • Feb 2003
                      • 2482
                      • 3.0.3

                      #11
                      Originally posted by TheAnt06
                      Steve, for cooling if you can invest in it, buy an nVENTIV Mach II, it's Vapor Phase Change, which means it cools at -50C when active, about -20C when idle. It's a $1000 system, and I've invested in it, and well I couldn't be happier.
                      Hey, out of curiousity, how much electricity does that use?

                      Comment

                      • Steve Machol
                        Former Customer Support Manager
                        • Jul 2000
                        • 154488

                        #12
                        Originally posted by Zachery
                        Steve for that kind of money you can buld what im building
                        What do you have so far Zach?
                        Steve Machol, former vBulletin Customer Support Manager (and NOT retired!)
                        Change CKEditor Colors to Match Style (for 4.1.4 and above)

                        Steve Machol Photography


                        Mankind is the only creature smart enough to know its own history, and dumb enough to ignore it.


                        Comment

                        • IDN
                          Senior Member
                          • Apr 2002
                          • 4030
                          • 3.5.x

                          #13
                          If you're curious, this is what I built for $700 last year. (Just what I bought)

                          Windows XP Pro
                          Epox 8RDA+ nForce2
                          AMD Athlon XP 2100+
                          SLK-800 /w SmartFan2
                          1GB PC2100 Kingston ram
                          WD 120GB HD 8MB Cache 7200RPM
                          Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
                          Lite On 48x24x48 CDRW
                          Samsung 1.44MB Floppy
                          Chieftec Alum. Workstation
                          2 Super cool "silent" fans

                          That's just what I bought for $700, not my whole system. For $2000 you can build something 2-3x that and still have money left over for good speakers and a LCD monitor.
                          Running vB since 4-14-2002

                          Comment

                          • Zachery
                            Former vBulletin Support
                            • Jul 2002
                            • 59097

                            #14
                            Originally posted by Steve Machol
                            What do you have so far Zach?
                            I'm looking at Building
                            This Mother Board http://www.iwillstore.com/product.asp?pf_id=MADH800
                            Dual Xeon's (each @ 3ghz~ 400 us each)
                            2GB of Ram (4 512 DDR 400 Sticks of ram about 200~ us total)
                            RADEON 9800 Pro 256MB
                            SATA 80GB harddrive
                            Plextor PX-708A 8X DVD±RW
                            Plus a spify case
                            1998~ before tax lol
                            Last edited by Zachery; Fri 14 May '04, 6:26pm.

                            Comment

                            • filburt1
                              Senior Member
                              • Feb 2002
                              • 6606

                              #15
                              Originally posted by Zachery
                              I'm looking at Building
                              This Mother Board http://www.iwillstore.com/product.asp?pf_id=MADH800
                              Dual Xeon's (each @ 3ghz~ 400 us each)
                              2GB of Ram (4 512 DDR 400 Sticks of ram about 200~ us total)
                              RADEON 9800 Pro 256MB
                              SATA 80GB harddrive
                              Plextor PX-708A 8X DVD±RW
                              Plus a spify case
                              1998~ before tax lol
                              I would get 1 GB of RAM, even for gaming, at this point. That is, unless you're doing rendering, extremely high resolution Photoshop work, HD film editing, etc.

                              By the time you need it, it will be hundreds of dollars cheaper.
                              --filburt1, vBulletin.org/vBulletinTemplates.com moderator
                              Web Design Forums.net: vB Board of the Month
                              vBulletin Mail System (vBMS): webmail for your forum users

                              Comment

                              widgetinstance 262 (Related Topics) skipped due to lack of content & hide_module_if_empty option.
                              Working...