Building a computer on SAT. From a Computer show, Been out of the LOOP for 3 years!! UPDATE!!!! Help I can choose MOBO??

[Epoman]

Ok now I need your help the last computer I built was my wifes:

P3 450mhz
256 MB ram

I've been out of the loop for about 3 years, I've been going through some problems and I have not built any computers for awhile. Well my wifes computer is just to slow lately she's been doing alot of photo editing and I will need to be doing video editing (from my mini-DV).

I will be going to a computer show this weekend I'm in california and theres a great computer show in pomona GREAT
prices ALWAYS.

SO I have the basic skills to build the computer but man on man all these MEMORY types and mobo BUS speeds are confusing me. Things have gotten so complicated.

I can't spend to much but at the computer show a lot goes along way.

Give me some ideas?

P.S. I am not a GAMER nor is my wife.
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UPDATE

Ok thanks to the great people here through this post and Pm's I have decided on the following:

Pentium 4 2.6c ghz 800mhz FSB 512k Cache W/H.T. (Retail)
2 sticks of 512mb 400mhz DDR PC3200 DIMM cl2.5 Kingston Brand
160GB 7200rpm **SATA** 8mb buffer MAXTOR
48X24X48X16 Lite-on (Maybe other brand) CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive

But I can't find a MOBO with all the features I need, I want to take advantage of the PC3200 and Hyper Threading CPU
and 800 bus speed AND I need FIREWIRE support and USB2.0 And I want the mobo to be able to handle at least 2GB ram, Of course it needs SATA and IDE. I want it to be a MOBO that I can upgrade the CPU in 2 years.

I also NEED a case I want Full size tower, BLACK with a window, Front USB and Front Firewire, Intake fans and Exhaust fans ( I can add the fans I just want the space for them)

Yes I know I have increased my budget, Thank goodness for credit cards.

 

[Ionizer86]

Hi, how much budget money do you have set aside?

As a basic rundown, the 3 modern CPU families are the Athlon XP, Pentium 4 (with 800 bus) and the Athlon 64. The best price/performance chip in the Athlon XP family is the 2500+ (about $90). It has a high probability of overclocking to 3200+.

The P4's best price/performance chip is the 2.6c (the c designates that it's an 800 bus chip with hyperthreading technology). It's about $170.

The Athlon 64 is a new chip. The best price/performance chip is the 3000+. It is about $240.

All of the processors use DDR ram, with PC3200 being the usually used type (The XP2500+ uses PC2700 at default, but PC3200 lets you run the chip at XP3200+ speeds). PC3500 or higher ram lets you overclock a bit.

A good amount of minimum ram to have is 512MB, though many people shell out for 1GB too. The P4 runs best when you have two physical pieces of ram on the board (appropriate P4 boards run dual channel, doubling the memory bandwidth).

 

[Snoop]

I would recommend:
Nforce 2 chipset based motherboard, with integrated Geforce mx graphics and audio. Abit NF-7 is a good example ~100
Barton core AMD Athlon XP 2500 ~90.00
256 x 2 quality (micron, corsair, buffalo, kingston) PC 3200 DDR memory ~ 50 x 2
Other things like case, harddrive, monitor and CD RW etc. are all personal preferance.

 

[Twilling]

Do yourself a favor an shop Newegg.com. In most cases you will do better and be even more satisfied. Usually these computer shows are questionable with mixed results, go with quality products recommended in this forum and you will have a 90% succces rate. (don't ask me how I came up with that, it's been Miller time since 6:00pm)

 

[DaveSimmons]

You might also check prices at newegg.com since they actually give you a warranty if you get a bad motherboard or mmeory stick, both of which do happen even with the best brands.

You might use the search box here and type "budget" to see comments on spefici nforce2 motherboards for the Athlon XP.

 

[Epoman]

Originally posted by: Ionizer86
Hi, how much budget money do you have set aside?

As a basic rundown, the 3 modern CPU families are the Athlon XP, Pentium 4 (with 800 bus) and the Athlon 64. The best price/performance chip in the Athlon XP family is the 2500+ (about $90). It has a high probability of overclocking to 3200+.

The P4's best price/performance chip is the 2.6c (the c designates that it's an 800 bus chip with hyperthreading technology). It's about $170.

The Athlon 64 is a new chip. The best price/performance chip is the 3000+. It is about $240.

All of the processors use DDR ram, with PC3200 being the usually used type (The XP2500+ uses PC2700 at default, but PC3200 lets you run the chip at XP3200+ speeds). PC3500 or higher ram lets you overclock a bit.

A good amount of minimum ram to have is 512MB, though many people shell out for 1GB too. The P4 runs best when you have two physical pieces of ram on the board (appropriate P4 boards run dual channel, doubling the memory bandwidth).

Thanks, Well I have always stuck with intel as the CPU but I may consider the Athlon (I'm just skeptical) ok so what know for sure is I want 512 MB ram minimum most likely 1GB and it has to be:

DDR PC3200 (What about ECC?) and I want it in 2 pieces so 2x 256 or 2x512 right? for better performance.

I won't even go there concerning O'Cing thats over my head

I plan to spend about $400 on the CASE, MOBO, RAM, CPU.

 

[Epoman]

Originally posted by: Snoop
I would recommend:
Nforce 2 chipset based motherboard, with integrated Geforce mx graphics and audio. Abit NF-7 is a good example ~100
Barton core AMD Athlon XP 2500 ~90.00
256 x 2 quality (micron, corsair, buffalo, kingston) PC 3200 DDR memory ~ 50 x 2
Other things like case, harddrive, monitor and CD RW etc. are all personal preferance.

Concerning the Athlon what are the down falls when compared to an intel chip? is it really cheaper because pentiums are just over priced?

I won't be overclocking.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Epoman]

The other quesiton is what MOBO do I get say I want a

Pentium 4 2.6c
1GB PC3200 DDR

I want the MOBO to have these items:

On Board Video
USB 2.0 (front and back)
FIREWIRE (Front and Back)

I need the Firewire for my mini-DV and the usb for my other stuff.

 

[Epoman]

thats a good idea BUT when I go to a computer show they will tell me if I'm getting the wrong parts
like compatability between mobo and ram.

I know of some good vendors there. They are reliable and give good warrentys.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I plan to spend about $400 on the CASE, MOBO, RAM, CPU.

then you should get the Athlon XP 2500+ at $90, vs. $170 for a P4 2.6c. Don't even think about Celeron, the performance is awful even at very high clock speeds. The XP 2500+ is cheaper only because people are afraid to buy non-intel.

1 GB of Corsair Value PC3200 is $157 by itself, anything you get cheaper at a show might not work reliably.

Good cases with reliable power supplies at newegg are the Antec SLK2600 ($49 +18) and SLK3700 ($65 +18, great case).

newegg tip: place _2_ orders, one with everything that ships free, one for the other items.

 

[Epoman]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

I plan to spend about $400 on the CASE, MOBO, RAM, CPU.

then you should get the Athlon XP 2500+ at $90, vs. $170 for a P4 2.6c. Don't even think about Celeron, the performance is awful even at very high clock speeds. The XP 2500+ is cheaper only because people are afraid to buy non-intel.

1 GB of Corsair Value PC3200 is $157 by itself, anything you get cheaper at a show might not work reliably.

Good cases with reliable power supplies at newegg are the Antec SLK2600 ($49 +18) and SLK3700 ($65 +18, great case).

newegg tip: place _2_ orders, one with everything that ships free, one for the other items.

What is the speed comparision are the two the same what about stability, programs. Excuse my ignorence I have just never dealt with ATHLON I did however have a cyrix years and years ago

Also YES I would not consider a celeron.

 

[Markfw]

So long as you buy QUALITY parts and build it and set it up correctly, stability is just as good as Intel. I had Cyrix years ago also, and it was a bad experience. I have had no problems at all with the Athlons. A few morons don;t get the heat sink installed correctly, and the chip can burn up in seconds in that case, but notice how I qualified my first statement. BTW, I have 6 Athlon XP systems, and one Athlon64, (not including the 100 I have built for friends) so I do know what I am talking about.

 

[mechBgon]

All I want to say is, this thread is awesome. Tons of quality input from everyone! You guys are

AnandTech Forums... open wide, we're gonna cram help down your throat 'til you cry uncle!

 

[sorehead]

I am in the same boat as to getting updated on what to buy for upgrading my PIII 500. I
plan on a Gigabyte 8IPE1000PRO motherboard, with P4 2.6C processor. I went with 2 sticks of 256 mb DDR PC3200 Crucial memory, I am not into overclocking either. I will probably have close to $400 or a little over when I am finished and I still need to get a new AGP video card which will also be a Gigabyte brand. I plan to get it from Newegg as they have free shipping on most of there stuff. By the way the memory is non ECC.

 

[Ionizer86]

Yes, once again the Athlon XP is probably the only sensible way to squeeze those parts into a $400 budget. Since you're not overclocking, go ahead and bump up to a 2600+ (it's about $100). AMD chips are just as good (if not better than) Intel chips now. It's only the old days when Intel was the only way to assure high quality parts.

As for having front and rear firewire and usb, look for a case that has both USB headers on the front and a loopback firewire cable. One example would be the $48 Evercase 4252 on Newegg. It's a good case: not only does it have firewire and usb, it has front audio, it's almost toolless, and last I checked, it comes with a good quality Sparkle power supply.

For the board, make sure you're getting one with firewire. USB2 comes on just about any board. A good way to make sure of that is to get an nforce 2 board with the MCP-T southbridge (the MCP-T has more features than the MCP). An example of a good board that would qualify is the Abit NF7-S, though one of the two firewire ports is unfortunately 4 pin.

 

[Epoman]

Originally posted by: Ionizer86
Yes, once again the Athlon XP is probably the only sensible way to squeeze those parts into a $400 budget. Since you're not overclocking, go ahead and bump up to a 2600+ (it's about $100). AMD chips are just as good (if not better than) Intel chips now. It's only the old days when Intel was the only way to assure high quality parts.

As for having front and rear firewire and usb, look for a case that has both USB headers on the front and a loopback firewire cable. One example would be the $48 Evercase 4252 on Newegg. It's a good case: not only does it have firewire and usb, it has front audio, it's almost toolless, and last I checked, it comes with a good quality Sparkle power supply.

For the board, make sure you're getting one with firewire. USB2 comes on just about any board. A good way to make sure of that is to get an nforce 2 board with the MCP-T southbridge (the MCP-T has more features than the MCP). An example of a good board that would qualify is the Abit NF7-S, though one of the two firewire ports is unfortunately 4 pin.

So is a Athlon XP 2600+ the same speed as a P4 2.6c or is it faster or slower?

 

[Epsil0n00]

regarding AMD vs. Intel CPUs... I have personally never owned an Intel CPU--always AMD, back from the K6 days! I have never had any problems with AMD's CPUs! Intel is great too, but for me it is all about the price and best value!

 

[Ionizer86]

Athlon XP 2600+ isn't quite as fast as a 2.6c, but at under 60% of the cost, nobody's complaining The reason being is that it seems the rating for the newer Barton core AMD chips were done against P4b's (533 bus chips), and when the P4c's came along, they were quite a bit faster than P4b's.

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: Epoman
The other quesiton is what MOBO do I get say I want a

Pentium 4 2.6c
1GB PC3200 DDR

I want the MOBO to have these items:

On Board Video
USB 2.0 (front and back)
FIREWIRE (Front and Back)

I need the Firewire for my mini-DV and the usb for my other stuff.

This is a good system, P4s are always better at encoding then Athlons.

 

[FishTankX]

For video editing, P4's are much faster than equivalent Athlons. There truly is no contest. Whether or not it's worth the extra cost

(About 100$ overall system cost) is up to you.

What I do know is that if you go with the P4 the best chipset would probably something like the i865GE, as you can use the onboard graphics for the time being. They're not that bad, in terms of overall performance in 2d applications.

For the Athlon, there is ofcourse, the Nforce2 platform.

 

[Markfw]

And if you want to spend the extra on the Intel, you could also spend it on the Athlon64, which is comparable, or in this case better than a 2.6c. (the 3000+ equals the 2.8c in encoding, and tramples it on everything else)

 

[FishTankX]

Yes. But then you have to take into consideration that it has no integrated platform, jacking up the cost another 40-50$.

Seeing as this will be used exclusivley for editing, I think integrated could cut it.

Plus, there's also a price differential.

 

[Markfw]

If the video is not important, he could take it out of his other system. And what price differencial ?
Motherboard $91
Memory $157
case $70
CPU retail (HSF included) $240

$558 total.

 

[Epoman]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
If the video is not important, he could take it out of his other system. And what price differencial ?
Motherboard $91
Memory $157
case $70
CPU retail (HSF included) $240

$558 total.

Speaking of video editing which I'll be doing ALOT of, If I use on board video is that OK?
Like I said in my previous posts I will NEVER play games on this machine Just digital imaging and
video editing and of course burning DVD's. I know burning dvd's won't be a problem because I burn dvd's
on my p3 650mhz laptop and multitask at the same time with NO problems.

 

[Epoman]

Originally posted by: PorBleemo

Originally posted by: Epoman
The other quesiton is what MOBO do I get say I want a

Pentium 4 2.6c
1GB PC3200 DDR

I want the MOBO to have these items:

On Board Video
USB 2.0 (front and back)
FIREWIRE (Front and Back)

I need the Firewire for my mini-DV and the usb for my other stuff.

This is a good system, P4s are always better at encoding then Athlons.

OK this is what I'm looking at so far!

Pentium 4 2.6c
1GB PC3200 DDR
On Board Video
USB 2.0 (front and back)
FIREWIRE (Front and Back)
40 gb 7800rpm Maxtor for OS and APPs
120 gb 7800rpm Maxtor for Digital Files
DVD-ROM drive
I will add 2 80mm exhaust fans
Use Rounded Cables (for better air flow not looks)

Any other suggestion?

I will be adding a good video card, DVD burner later

thanks for all the help guys.