My Custom PC

[mipadi]

Alright, I've assembled a rough (very rough) draft of the parts for the PC I plan to build next summer. What do you experts think? (And am I missing anything that slipped my mind?)

• PROCESSOR: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ @ 2.0 GHz
• MOTHERBOARD: Asus K8N-E
• RAM: 2x Rosewill Modem RW400/512 512MB PC3200 (total 1GB)
• MONITORS: 2x KDS XF-7BK 17" Flat CRT
• GRAPHICS CARD 1: Gigabyte ATI Radeon 9250 128MB AGP 8x
• GRAPHICS CARD 2: Powercolor ATI Radeon 9250 128MB PCI
• CASE: Maxtop CSX-7788KEB w/ 350W power supply
• HDD: Samsung Model SP1614N 160GB ATA/133
• OPTICAL DRIVE: Sony DW-D22A-B2 DVD+/-RW
• OS: Windows XP Pro w/ SP2 OEM
• MOUSE: Logitech Optical Mouse (already owned)
• SPEAKERS: Dell Black (already owned)
• MIC: YOMMO MP-018B
• ADD. SOFTWARE: MS Office 2003 Professional (Academic)
• KEYBOARD: Viewsonic KU-306

[neb1211]

- Motherboard: Might want to look into the nForce 4 motherboards.  I haven't heard a whole lot about the nForce 4 chipset as of yet but it is supposed to be pretty good.  Also you might want to check into the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum.  From what I hear it is supposed to perform quite nicely.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-130-468&depa=1

- Ram:  I haven't heard much about Rosewill ram but I would suggest getting either Kingston or Crucial ram.  Mushkin ram isn't that bad either and you get get 1gb kit for $129 at newegg
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc....-146-299&DEPA=0

Monitors:  Stay away from KDS monitors.  They may be cheap but they are definatly a fine example of the saying "You get what you pay for."  I have used many KDS monitors and problems developed a few months after the monitor was bought for 3 out of the 4 KDS monitors that I have owned.

Graphics Card:  You do not need dual video cards to run dual monitors.  I would suggest getting a little more expensive video card that has two video outputs instead of 2 video cards.  It will also save you some problems down the road.

Powersupply:  Whatever you do, do not use the power supply that comes with the case.  Most of the time they are "generic" powersupplies and produce up to 100 watts less than they are rated for.  This is due to the difference between what generic psu manufacturers consider "normal" operating temperature being lower than the actual normal operating temperature.  The hotter a PSU gets the less power it produces.  They are also unreliable and could end up killing your whole computer.  I would suggest getting either an Enermax, Antec, or PC Power and Cooling power supply.

DVD Burner:  If you like the features of Sony's DVD burners you might want to check out Liteon DVD burners since Liteon makes the burners for Sony.  All sony does is stamp their name on it.

I hope that helps

[mipadi]

I think I'll stick with the KDS monitors. I've used a bunch and I've never had any problems with them. I guess I've heard some other people that have, but I've always had good luck with them.

I've considered getting a card with two video outputs, and I am looking into it.

[Picchioni]

Looks good minus the video cards and the duel monitors.

1) You don't need 2 video cards for 2 monitors as neb said already.  Most new ATI cards have duel ports on them already.

2) Duel monitors are sweet but the only thing that sucks is that if you are thinking about doing it for gaming, most games do not support duel monitors.  & the ones that do end up sucking because your crosshair is right at the split between the 2 monitors.  For gaming you pretty much need an odd number of monitors (1, 3, 5 etc..)

I had a liteon CD Burner and the damn thing sucked.  It lasted me maybe 3 months and when I called them they wouldn't do an RMA for me

[mipadi]

1) You don't need 2 video cards for 2 monitors as neb said already.  Most new ATI cards have duel ports on them already.

Can you point me in the right direction? On NewEgg I found 0 256MB with dual VGA outputs, and the only 128MB dual-VGA output cards I found cost at least $40 more than the two cards I selected above.

[neb1211]

You won't find many cards with dual VGA outputs.  Most video cards have 1 VGA output and 1 DVI output.  Most of the time these video cards also come with DVI to VGA converters which will allow you to have dual VGA outputs.

[mipadi]

What's the problem with using two video cards, anyway?

[neb1211]

It usually causes many headaches and is usually much easier to have just one video card in the system.  If you want to have dual video cards go for it, but you really aren't going to gain much in terms of performance

[mipadi]

What sort of "headaches" are we talking about here?

[neb1211]

hmm now that I think of it you shouldn't have many problems as long as the cards are the same.  I just realized that most of my problems were probably due to me using two different cards...

[mipadi]

Ah. I was thinking that as long as I was using the same chipset, I should be okay.

[mipadi]

- Motherboard: Might want to look into the nForce 4 motherboards.  I haven't heard a whole lot about the nForce 4 chipset as of yet but it is supposed to be pretty good.  Also you might want to check into the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum.  From what I hear it is supposed to perform quite nicely.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-130-468&depa=1

Will that motherboard support the processor I have selected? I thought my processor was a Socket 754; that motherboard supports the Socket 939.

[neb1211]

It depends on what core you are looking at.  The 3000 is available with either a winchester core or a newcastle core.  Here is a quick run down according of the specs for the 3000 in both cores:

Winchester:
- 1.8ghz
- 512kb L2 cache
- Socket 939
- 90nm process

Newcastle:
- 1.8ghz or 2.0ghz
- 512kb L2 cache
- Socket 754
- 130 process

(w00t!  My memory is better than I thought!  For once I didn't have to look up the specs of something )

You were looking at the Newcastle core but I would suggest going with the Winchester core.  The Winchester core is supposed to be a lot better than the Newcastle core.  Also AMD is planning on slowly moving all their higher performance processors over to the socket 939 side of things so for future upgradability having a socket 939 motherboard would be a benefit.  The future of the socket 754 is the sempron which is supposed to replace the Athlon XP.

[mipadi]

Updated List![/i]
After taking your suggestions, and some suggestions of my friends, into consideration, here is the revised list of what I am looking to buy. (Revisions are in bold for your easy perusal.)

• PROCESSOR: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ @ 2.0 GHz
• MOTHERBOARD: Asus K8N-E
• RAM: Mushkin Dual-Pack DDR PC3200 (2x 512MB)
• MONITORS: 2x ViewSonic E70B
• GRAPHICS CARD: Rosewill ATI Radeon 9600XT 128MB
• CASE: Antec SLK1650B w/ 350W power supply
• HDD: Samsung Model SP1614N 160GB ATA/133
• OPTICAL DRIVE: Sony DW-D22A-B2 DVD+/-RW
• OS: Windows XP Pro w/ SP2 OEM
• MOUSE: Logitech Optical Mouse (already owned)
• SPEAKERS: Dell Black (already owned)
• MIC: YOMMO MP-018B
• ADD. SOFTWARE: MS Office 2003 Professional (Academic)
• KEYBOARD: Viewsonic KU-306

Total, with estimated shipping, is now $1402.16. Any new suggestions?

[JsutTechy]

General: You said about the crosshair in the games and all. I know nothing about dual monitors so just tell me if I'm going in the wrong direction. But couldn't you just, for gaming purposes, just use the one monitor for gaming and not use the other monitor until after gaming then go back to the normal 2 monitor setup?

[mipadi]

I don't even think you have to do that. It's normally possible to run a game full-screen on one monitor, and run other stuff on the second one.

[acemaverick1381]

Well, yes you can. But the issue is that could be pretty process intensive depending on what you are doing. I'm not sure on how much you game, but most of the "hardcore" gamers try to get a bare minimum of programs running so they can take advantage of their cpu cycles.

[mipadi]

I'm not saying gamers typically apply thirty filters to a 4MB TIFF in Photoshop while playing FarCry, but I don't think it's out of the question for a gamer to be playing a game while running Outlook Express, AIM, maybe even iTunes, and it's kind of nice to put those things on a second monitor. (This isn't the only, or biggest, reason why I am building a system with two monitors, of course.)

[acemaverick1381]

Right, thats what I expected. I've been considering getting an LCD for my laptop so I can use the LCD as my main monitor and have my laptops LCD as a second monitor. (I would of course outfit my laptop with an external mouse and keyboard) However, I have noticed with my friends computer when he uses dual monitor, the CPU tends to run very high, if not at 100%.

Here is a question of mine about dual monitors:

I have a dell and an IBM Thinkpad 770. Right now I don't want to drop the cash for a new LCD, but is there a way to use my IBM's LCD as my second monitor? (Meaning the Dell one is the primary one) I'm not sure how I would do this considering the IBM would be on and would go straight to LILO asking whether to boot to Linux or FreeDOS.  

[pcgeek]

oh BTW ati doesnt supportt spanning the desktop across 2 diff cards, cuz they are nazi canadians.

[neb1211]

oh BTW ati doesnt supportt spanning the desktop across 2 diff cards, cuz they are nazi canadians.

huh?  as in like dual monitors or two cards rendering to one monitor?  If you are thinking about 1 monitor then that would be NVIDIA's SLI technology.

[mipadi]

I am planning on building my new computer in about a month and a half. I have altered my design specs significantly, in order to cut the cost of the PC down. Here's my new design--let me know what your thoughts on it are:

• MOTHERBOARD: ASUS "A7V880" VIA KT880 Chipset
• PROCESSOR: AMD Athlon XP 2800+ 2.01 GHz
• RAM: Mushkin (1 GB)
• MONITOR: Viewsonic E70B 17" CRT
• GRAPHICS CARD: Rosewill ATI Radeon 9600XT 128MB
• CASE: Antec ATX Mini Tower Black
• HDD: Samsung 160GB 7200 rpm
• OPTICAL DRIVE: Sony DVD+/-RW drive
• OS: Windows XP Pro SP 2 (OEM)
• KEYBOARD: Lite-On keyboard
• MICROPHONE: YOMMO microphone
• I already have a mouse and speakers to use.

That's it so far. Any thoughts?

[neb1211]

That looks like a fairly decent computer and should serve you well.  However if you are going to be doing a fair amount of gaming you might want to rethink the sempron plan.   I have never personally used a Sempron but from what I hear they are not very good when it comes to gaming.

[mipadi]

That looks like a fairly decent computer and should serve you well.  However if you are going to be doing a fair amount of gaming you might want to rethink the sempron plan.   I have never personally used a Sempron but from what I hear they are not very good when it comes to gaming.

Thanks for the tip, neb. I have adjusted my specs to the following, what do you think?

• MOTHERBOARD: ASUS "A7V880" VIA KT880 Chipset
• PROCESSOR: AMD Athlon XP 2800+ 2.01 GHz

(If you are just joining this thread, you can find the full specs here. Please comment!)

[neb1211]

I would suggest using a motherboard that uses the nForce2 chipset.  I am not a very big fan of VIA chipsets and from my experience the nForce2 chipset is a very reliable and stable chipset.

Here are two choices
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-127-184&depa=1
or
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-127-185&depa=1

The only difference between the two from what I can tell is the first one has Gigabit ethernet while the other only has a 10/100 onboard nic.  Both are very good boards and were very popular before the DFI came out with the Lanparty nfII Ultra B ( http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-136-138&depa=1 )