Building a new PC. Obvious first timer, come school me and offer advice!

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SarBear

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Hey,

In about two weeks or so I'll be purchasing the majority of the components for a new PC. I don't buy them very often (the last one I bought was in 2001), but I need to future proof this thing as much as possible. I really haven't the slightest clue about what motherboard matches with what processor and the whole nine yards, but a friend of mine (masters in computer science) will be putting it together once I get it all. He just doesn't have the time to sit down and guide my purchases like you fine people.

I definitely want to keep everything between 900 and 1100 dollars. Monitor's not necessary (I have a 30inch lcd for my pc already) and neither is a keyboard/mouse. What's the deal on the quad cores? Would that be my best bet?

I'll mainly be using it for internet browsing, light gaming, and heavy accounting programs. Hard drive needs to be at least 400GB, 3GBs of RAM, and (obviously) be a 64 bit processor....'cause I probably won't be doing this again for a while. Well, at least 2.5 years.

Any insight? Many thanks and much appreciation for even reading.
 
I just built my first PC a few days ago (after a lot of planning, deliberation) so I'm no pro, but here are a few suggestions:

--Set up an account at newegg.com and do a wishlist to keep everything organized. Every item has an "add to wishlist" button on it. It'll keep track of what you want and how much it costs. It's nice to refer to when you're cross checking prices.

--I just spent around $1100 and got a kick ass gaming PC. if you're only looking to do light gaming, you could probably get a cheaper graphics card and processor, to keep it around $700-800. A quad core processor won't be necessary at all. Sounds like a cheaper dual core would suit you fine. Intel Core 2 Duos are pretty popular. then again, I don't know what the demands of heavy accounting programs are so I could be wrong...

--Newegg has pretty full descriptions of their items, so you could figure out which processor goes with which motherboard easily. Also pay attention to RAM timings-- it'll be a number like "5-5-5" and RAM types (DDR2 etc.). Check out reviews--there's always some good information in them.

--Check around-- newegg isn't always the cheapest, but is a great place for info :)

Hope that helps! Post your wishlist when you get some stuff on there.
 
You can do well under that, IME.

I built mine in 2004 for $500 and all I've done is add a half-gig of memory and it runs like a champ.
 
I've been saying this in all these "zomg help build comp" threads, so I'll say it here too.

Get a P35 mobo.

Now for bonus advice.

Light gaming? What kind? You may be able to settle for a low end or even integrated graphics if its not intense. With your budget, you can certainly afford to throw a very good gfx card in there, but you might not need it.


So heres my suggested build for you and why.

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R mobo:
1333fsb support. Support for penryn chips when they come out. Fair price.
120$~

Corsair XMS series dd2 800. x2 1gb sticks.:
Memory is really personal preference, but Corsair is widely acknowledged as one of the best memory companies so I usually go with them. I say the DDR 800 vs the 1066 simple due to the massive price difference for minimal performance gain. 2gb of memory is pretty much the new standard.
120$~

Intel Core 2 Duo E6550:
Again, personal preference on Intel vs. AMD. Intel is held as having the better processor right now and it seems that AMD is going to be stuggling to keep up with them. The E6550 has the 1333fsb and a nice clock speed of 2.33ghz stock. I don't know how intense your accounting programs are but this should be more than enough for both calculations and your gaming. Price is same as the slower and lower fsb E6320 so why not?
175$~

Video card will be dependent on your preference and what games you play, but for your price range, you could throw in a very nice higher end card and still be under budget.
High End Option:
eVGA 8800gts (640mb). Nothing you can't do with this thing. Has dx10 support. An amazing card that will be smooth even at the highest resolutions. With your giagantic monitor you'll need something like this to run modern games at max settings on your native resolution. Obviously, its gonna cost you.
350$~

Compromise Option:
PNY 7900gs. A great card. Will play most games at acceptable rates on mid to high settings depending on your resolution, but considering you have a beast of a monitor you may have to turn some stuff down to play at native resolution.
120$~

Budget Option:
eVGA 7600gs. A fine card. Will play non-brand new games such as Half-Life 2 and such on lower resolutions and mid settings with no issue. Choose this if you're gonna be playing older games. Price is awesome.
70$~

Finally, you'll need a case and power supply.
A "high quality" power supply that delivers steady voltages can cost quite a bit depending on how much power you're drawing. I would say no less than 500w on a "low end" supply and no less than 450w on a "good" one. If you go for the expensive video card, I'd suggest 550w.

Here is a list of the various makers of power supplies. Find one higher up on the list and choose a wattage and price you like.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=108088

And here are high efficiency sub-150$ psu:
http://www.jonnyguru.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1460
50-150$~

Next, you'll need a case.
This is a huge amount of personal preference. Find one you like the look of. Note the size amd format (ATX etc.). Make sure to check on the PSU you decide to buy the length of the power cables. Nothing sucks more than having to go out and buy extensions to make stuff fit in your case. Also, note the # of fans and their placement. I like to have one bringing in air in the front, an exhaust fan in the back, and a side fan to feed air directly to the CPU.
40-180$~

Theres your box. If you need keyboard/mouse etc. thats entirely up to the feel you like.

Overall price excluding shipping and rebates would be:
575$~ - 1095$~

EDIT: Forgot HD and Optical Drive.

Add +100$~ for the 400gb HDD and about 30$~ for a DvD/CD Burner combo drive.



Also, I just noticed that you said you want 3gbs of RAM. In order to use that, you will need to use a 64bit OS. It seems that you are aware of this due to your,"and (obviously) be a 64 bit processor" comment. However, 64bit enviornments are notoriously a pain in the ass to get to work with stuff in general. Poor driver support, overall lack of compatability, but more importantly, very few things take advantage of the 64bits. So, unless you know for a fact that your applications are going to work, I'd say stick with 32-bit.
 
Here's my newest cheap build including a power supply. It's under $600 after rebates and shipping. Just add hard drive, dvd drive and case. Not too shabby. Quite fast to boot.

XFX PVT80GGHE4 GeForce 8800GTS 320MB Video Card

$269.99 after $20.00 Mail-in Rebate

CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX ATX12V V2.2 450W Power Supply (33A on the 12V rail, single rail)

$79.99 after $10.00 Mail-in Rebate

CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) TWIN2X2048-6400C4

$64.00 after $40.00 Mail-in Rebate

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard

$94.99

Intel Dual-Core E2160 Allendale 1.8GHz (easily overclocked to up 3.2 ghz on air)

$84.99

Shipping $12 total
 
I would go for a faster processor, at least an Intel E6750, since the OP did say he wants it future proofed. And since it's only ~$20 more than E6550, it's a wiser decision. I would leave overclocking completely out of the equation; if the OP cannot build it himself, he shouldn't fiddle with overclocking.

The term light-gaming is a bit misleading. Are you saying you're going to play Crysis every now and then? Or play HL2 an hour a day? With your given budget though, you might as well get an 8800GTS, at least you'll know next year you can still play new games.

You can still use 4GB of RAM in 32bit Vista, just that it addresses about half a GB of it to drivers memory mapping. So you'll see the OS reporting about 3.5GB rather than 4GB. But if you insist on 3GB of RAM (2x1GB, 2x512MB), you're completely safe with 32bit Vista.

Other than that, most of the recommendations above will work.
 
[quote name='SarBear']Hey,

In about two weeks or so I'll be purchasing the majority of the components for a new PC. I don't buy them very often (the last one I bought was in 2001), but I need to future proof this thing as much as possible. I really haven't the slightest clue about what motherboard matches with what processor and the whole nine yards, but a friend of mine (masters in computer science) will be putting it together once I get it all. He just doesn't have the time to sit down and guide my purchases like you fine people.

I definitely want to keep everything between 900 and 1100 dollars. Monitor's not necessary (I have a 30inch lcd for my pc already) and neither is a keyboard/mouse. What's the deal on the quad cores? Would that be my best bet?

I'll mainly be using it for internet browsing, light gaming, and heavy accounting programs. Hard drive needs to be at least 400GB, 3GBs of RAM, and (obviously) be a 64 bit processor....'cause I probably won't be doing this again for a while. Well, at least 2.5 years.

Any insight? Many thanks and much appreciation for even reading.[/quote]

First: This is a long post, but entirely helpful to you. Read it all, trust me.

Pick a goal and try to base any decisions you make on that goal. If you do light gaming, there's no reason to have a $400 video-card. High end isn't the only end.

Quad-core = Honestly not worth it. There's maybe 5% of programs you'll use in the lifetime of this PC that will take advantage of it. Photoshop CS 9.0 I believe takes advantage of it and rendering programs like 3d Studio Max. For your basic day to day errands, a regular Dual-core processor is more dollar efficient, runs cooler and you can get better performance for the dollar.

Newegg = Not the only shop out there.
http://www.resellerratings.com/ < Your best friend, shake his hand and know him well. The trick is:
http://froogle.google.com/
Find a part you want on Newegg, copy and paste the model on Froogle and find the best price. When you find a good price from a non store-front site, you check the seller's reputation on "Reseller Ratings". If they have a 7.0 lifetime/6 Month and recent ratings, they're good.

Motherboard - Don't skimp on this.
Power Supply - Don't skimp on this either.

Do you plan on using Vista/Direct X 10 games?
Games like Halo 2 and Gears of War on PC are usually Vista only, and Gears of War might benefit from DX10 hadware, but if you're only going to lightgame, having a Direct X10 high end card isn't necessary. If you plan on using Vista, make sure your hardware is Vista compliant and make sure it's a little more powerful.

Do you plan on over-clocking?
If not, and since you're a casual user, I don't think you need "over-clocking" components. Things like enthusiast boards and performance heatsinks aren't as beneficial to you as getting simply more reliable components or components with longer warranties.

Here's a list of components I think you should consider, and their models and general price ranges:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231098
G.Skill NQ 2x1gb DDR2 - 800 Kit $74.99 + Free Shipping
-Get two of these totaling 4gb. The reason I recommend 4x1gb instead of 2x2gb is because, unless you over-clock or rely on timings, you won't notice a performance difference. And in the EXTREMELY rare circumstance that a stick fails, you'll only be out 1 gb while you wait for replacement, where-as with a 2gb stick you'd be losing 2gb while you wait. 3GB isn't a good configuration because for dual channel it would require 6x512 or 2x1gb + 1 extra GB stick. YOu want to use dual channel for your memory.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136076
Western Digital 400gb SATA 16mb cache $94.99 + Free Shipping
-Performance enthusiasts use Seagate, but I 100% use Western Digital drives for my customers' rigs. The reason for that is because I have never had a WD drive fail on me, ever. In 10 years of directly working with PC's, I've not seen one WD drive fail. They're also fast and quiet. Perpendicular recording drives aren't fully implemented so I tend to stay away from Barracuda.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115030
Core 2 Duo E6550 2.33 GHZ 4mb L2 Cache + Free Shipping $175.99
-Best price for performance ratio. The price of an E6400/6300 but has the 4mb L2 Cache along with the clock speed of 2.33GHZ. Almost as fast as the E6600 but nearly $60 cheaper with free shipping. If you don't plan on over-clocking, this will last the longest for you, time-wise. Easily last you 3 years or longer.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059
Gigabyte P35 DS3L $99.99 + $5.84 Shipping
-Very solid motherboard, uses a new northbridge chip, has 4x ddr2 slots, the PCI-E slot for video-cards, great company. Very reliable board and easy to set up for a new builder.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817189005
Xclio Goodpower 500 $49.99 + $7.84 Shipping
-For $50, you will NOT find a better power supply and for someone who isn't over-clocking, doing light gaming, this is a 100% stable power supply. It might even be considered over-power. I used this in an over-clocked Core 2 Duo rig with an 8800GTS 640mb and never had any issues.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130084
EVGA 8600GTS 256mb GDDR3 HDCP Enabled $159.99 + $5.84 Shipping
-There's no reason to get fancier than this. Direct X10 support, about as powerful as a 1950 Pro/7900GT. A very solid card for $160. If you want to go cheaper on the video card, you can get by with a 7600GT or 8600GT.

That's the main components, as far as the rig's heart goes.

I won't go as far as picking a good case for you, because those are honestly taster's choice and you have to pick what you like, but I will let you know what brands to aim for and which to avoid:
Antec
Thermaltake
Cooler Master
Lian-Li
Those are the big names, as in most reliable, best price/performance value, most respected case names.
Rosewill (Cheap $20 ones)
Raidmax
Aspire
Anything with cheap plastic, neon lights or alien faces
Those are the ones you want to avoid.

Also, don't buy a case at Newegg. The shipping is atrocious. Good case venders:
http://www.techonweb.com/ (Despite having a really cheap looking website, this site has over 1800 positive Pricegrabber feedback. I've ordered 3 cases all near $100 cost and never had problems from these guys)
http://www.thenerds.net/
http://www.clubit.com/
http://www.xoxide.com/
http://www.svc.com/

Every seller I link to or recommend is 100% guaranteed to be a good seller. I've been building PC's for 10 years and doing hardware reviews and benchmarking for going on 6 years now. Going through a ton of resellers I can tell you who's good and who isn't.

Also, avoid:
buy.com
tigerdirect.com
ebay.com

Ebay isn't bad for some things, but for computer hardware it is because you never know if something you'll get is exactly as advertised and it often costs too much to ship back/have replaced so you end up being stuck with it.

Tiger Direct has very 50/50 follow through. The people that love them, defend them blindly. The people that have bad experiences with them, like me, hate them to the core.

Buy.com is notorious for sending wrong products, having sales that aren't honored, rebates that aren't honored and having atrocious return policies. They have a 7-14 day return policy that begins when a product is "shipped out" from their warehouse. So if it takes 10 days for something to get to you, you have 4 days to get it back to them before they won't accept it.
 
If you have a Fry's in your area, I'd definitely check them out. I get most of my cases from Fry's because they're fairly cheap and you don't have to deal with shipping.

Here's another vote for Western Digital HD's. They're reliable and cost-effective. My friends/coworkers tell me about their HD failures; I just tell them I can't relate :cool:
 
I jumped on this deal at Fry's (I personally thought it was decent for an Asus SLI mobo and Core 2 Duo E6550 with the 1333mhz FSB):

http://www.frys.com/product/5384798

$259 for both.

Then I went to Directron.com and picked up the Antec Nine Hundred case for $99 (to replace my aging Aspire X-Infinity case), a Zalman heatsink for about $30ish, and a SATA lightscribe burner for $30. I'll be keeping my 2gb dual channel RAM, two of my HD's (One is a 320 gb Seagate SATA, another is a 250gb Maxtor IDE for storing media), and keep my XFX 7600 GT. So all in all, a rebuild for about $400 or so. I plan on selling my old rig and making it functional with the two spare hard drives, IDE optical drives, and throwing a gig of ram in it (along with an XP install) to curb the costs.

Whenever I build a machine, I'd say order as many parts from one source as possible (which for me ends up being Directron) to curb shipping. Mwave is also good, but shipping tends to be high. Of course there's Newegg as well. If you watch the deal sites, you can easily build a great rig for around $650. I personally don't plan on jumping to Vista again anytime soon, but I think the C2D will suit my multitasking needs quite nicely.
 
All the advice given above is great. Newegg.com is a great place. If you are an open person I would recommend going to a BestBuy or a CircuitCity. I use to be a Tech and I always got questions on what system they should buy. I know they are suppose to up sell and make you buy one of there computers but there advice is free. And I garentee you that they are true geeks with small wallets. They will tell you what to get and what not to get. I never tried to sell a computer to someone that wanted to build there own. I always pointed them to certain websites and what to look for in prices (What to expect)

Hardware is cheap. You can always get a powerful machine with a great price. Its the softwaere thats a killer. Honostly just bootleg the software or ask one of your college buddies to score you a $5 copy of Windows. (Usally they are free through a college store)

And remember ATI vs Nvidia and Intel vs AMD will always have a battle. You can always look online to see has the better clock speed.

That was my 2 cents
 
[quote name='Fuzzibunny']All the advice given above is great. Newegg.com is a great place. If you are an open person I would recommend going to a BestBuy or a CircuitCity. I use to be a Tech and I always got questions on what system they should buy. I know they are suppose to up sell and make you buy one of there computers but there advice is free. And I garentee you that they are true geeks with small wallets. They will tell you what to get and what not to get. I never tried to sell a computer to someone that wanted to build there own. I always pointed them to certain websites and what to look for in prices (What to expect)

Hardware is cheap. You can always get a powerful machine with a great price. Its the softwaere thats a killer. Honostly just bootleg the software or ask one of your college buddies to score you a $5 copy of Windows. (Usally they are free through a college store)

And remember ATI vs Nvidia and Intel vs AMD will always have a battle. You can always look online to see has the better clock speed.

That was my 2 cents[/QUOTE]


I can't help but notice this post contains some of the worst advice someone can receive. I'm sorry but I don't want people who are looking for computer advice to hear something like this.

crystalklear64 and NamelessMC offered some really good advice and suggestions, on the other hand. Picking out parts is about research based on the opinions that experienced computer builders give you. We give you advice on computer parts is only the first step, you have to research on those particular parts and learn about them yourself, that's how you'll gain knowledge.

I'm going off tangent but this shows you not all advices you're given are true/helpful. Go to reliable computer sites such as www.tomshardware.com or www.anandtech.com (and their respective forums) and read more about the topics to aid your decisions.
 
Wow. Thanks a lot guys for the responses. This season I'll be using a different software (taxwise) that stores every account on a the cpu it was worked on. Not like Proseries where it can easily operate off a server.

Only thing is, when I get to about 200 clients or so, that software murders my computer. Seeing as how my business had around 1700 clients last season, and still growing, it's going to get even worse.

I say light gaming because I probably won't have very much time to concentrate on it with clients coming in....but my office will be my second home, or first...so I want to hook this up. I'll probably spring for a medium/high range card. I don't think I wanna fork out 350 bucks.

Here's a question, though: What makes dual-channel RAM better for setups?
 
[quote name='SarBear']I'll probably spring for a medium/high range card. I don't think I wanna fork out 350 bucks.[/QUOTE]

Then you can spend about ~$150 or so for an nVidia 7950GT, or ATI Radeon X1950Pro.

[quote name='SarBear']Here's a question, though: What makes dual-channel RAM better for setups?[/QUOTE]

Dual channel RAM are pretty standard nowadays; they usually come in pair when you by the RAM, and almost all motherboards support dual channel. It allows the RAM to theoretically achieve double the throughput rate by having two memory controllers working at the same time to reduce memory down time. Though in reality it doesn't double your memory bandwidth due to some operation limitation, but it does give you a nice boost over single channel.
 
[quote name='SOSTrooper']I can't help but notice this post contains some of the worst advice someone can receive. I'm sorry but I don't want people who are looking for computer advice to hear something like this.

crystalklear64 and NamelessMC offered some really good advice and suggestions, on the other hand. Picking out parts is about research based on the opinions that experienced computer builders give you. We give you advice on computer parts is only the first step, you have to research on those particular parts and learn about them yourself, that's how you'll gain knowledge.

I'm going off tangent but this shows you not all advices you're given are true/helpful. Go to reliable computer sites such as www.tomshardware.com or www.anandtech.com (and their respective forums) and read more about the topics to aid your decisions.[/quote]

WOW i was just offering if this person doesnt want to listen to the forums you can actually talk to someone face to face. All you did was send him off to other sites. So I would have to disagree with you. Sorry
 
Because in other sites there are tutorials on how to choose computer parts and build computer, something that Best Buy or Circuit City would not be able to do. :roll:

The OP can read more about computers in other computer concentrated sites, since he can only get so much here. Not to mention he was being suggested to head to Best Buy and ask for advice.... :rofl:
 
The 8800 is so much more powerful than the other options mentioned that is actually the cheapest in the performance per dollar rating. Any other card is just garbage for the future games like quake wars and crysis.
 
[quote name='SOSTrooper']Because in other sites there are tutorials on how to choose computer parts and build computer, something that Best Buy or Circuit City would not be able to do. :roll:

The OP can read more about computers in other computer concentrated sites, since he can only get so much here. Not to mention he was being suggested to head to Best Buy and ask for advice.... :rofl:[/quote]

AHH so you have something against best buy. Makes sence now. Well everyone has opinions. He can take or leave my advice. Oh well
Later M8s
 
I have nothing against Best Buy, but you certainly don't suggest people to go to Honda dealers when he wants to learn how to build a car.
 
The OP specifically made a post asking for help, he didn't go to BB or CC in the first place. BB or CC is going to be able to tell you how to get a protection plan on anything you buy, I wouldn't trust them any farther than that. You have quite a few people (including myself) who have built their own PCs and have a knowledge base I doubt any retail employee would be trained on.

That said, the OP can build a nice little rig for about $600 or so that will do fine for a couple years - and then he can upgrade as necessary.
 
[quote name='CocheseUGA']The OP specifically made a post asking for help, he didn't go to BB or CC in the first place. BB or CC is going to be able to tell you how to get a protection plan on anything you buy, I wouldn't trust them any farther than that. You have quite a few people (including myself) who have built their own PCs and have a knowledge base I doubt any retail employee would be trained on.

That said, the OP can build a nice little rig for about $600 or so that will do fine for a couple years - and then he can upgrade as necessary.[/quote]

Sale person would not. I agree with that. But a techniction yes. They have to be certified. How about we leave this discussion alone. Instead of bantering my post. And just help the person build a computer. I do have a BS in Computer Tech from Purdue University and I do have friends that Are Technictions at Circuit City. They are very Knowledgeable on building computers. It was just another resource and opinion. And like you guys stated your own opinons about NOT going to a store for imformation is fine. As you can see everyone here is noligable on the information. But when you go to the library you just don't pick up one book to do your resource. Enough said. We know now you don't have to go to CC or BB so you dont have to reply to this. I enjoy this community and everyone in it. I don't want to offend anyone. Later M8s
 
[quote name='Fuzzibunny']Sale person would not. I agree with that. But a techniction yes. They have to be certified. How about we leave this discussion alone. Instead of bantering my post. And just help the person build a computer. I do have a BS in Computer Tech from Purdue University and I do have friends that Are Technictions at Circuit City. They are very Knowledgeable on building computers. It was just another resource and opinion. And like you guys stated your own opinons about NOT going to a store for imformation is fine. As you can see everyone here is noligable on the information. But when you go to the library you just don't pick up one book to do your resource. Enough said. We know now you don't have to go to CC or BB so you dont have to reply to this. I enjoy this community and everyone in it. I don't want to offend anyone. Later M8s[/QUOTE]

I'm not trying to pick a fight here or anything. Your friends may be very knowledgeable, but on the whole I wouldn't trust any of these 'certified' (By who, anyways?) technicians to know more than I do, someone who is completely self-taught. That's just me. A lot of people told me when I built my setup that it was underpowered, but three years running it can still do everything I want it to. It's all about getting the best things for your budget, a term most retail employees completely ignore.
 
[quote name='BULL_Ship']The 8800 is so much more powerful than the other options mentioned that is actually the cheapest in the performance per dollar rating. Any other card is just garbage for the future games like quake wars and crysis.[/quote]

He's a casual gamer. It's not necessary. He can spend the extra money how he sees fit.

In PC building, there's one option and one option only:

Hitting your goal, sticking with it.

If you hit your goal under budget, you decide how to spend the extra money, not other people.

If you can't hit your goal under budget, you have to either save more or change your goals or shop around.
 
[quote name='CocheseUGA']I'm not trying to pick a fight here or anything. Your friends may be very knowledgeable, but on the whole I wouldn't trust any of these 'certified' (By who, anyways?) technicians to know more than I do, someone who is completely self-taught. That's just me. A lot of people told me when I built my setup that it was underpowered, but three years running it can still do everything I want it to. It's all about getting the best things for your budget, a term most retail employees completely ignore.[/quote]


CocheseUGA where did you get the Wii gamer tag. Thats pretty tight.
 
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