| Author |
 Topic  |
|
Andrid
Wordy Bastard
692 Posts |
 Posted - 12/23/2003 : 11:49:33
|
i'm gonna be building a new computer. some pieces from price watch...look at da stats :)
EIDE 120GB 5400RPM 2M Buffer hard drive
athlon 64 3000+ motherboard combo
512 mb pc4200 ram
ati raedon 9600 256mb ddr
i have some questions:
does the athlon being 64 bit make it incompatible with the ram?
would it really add a lot for the 64 bit one, instead of let's say a [2.8 ghz 800 Pentium 4 - Intel 845E chipset Audio DDR RAM 4xPCI 1xCNR Full Size ATX 1xAGP4X.]?
would i need to buy bran new I/O devices? (i have ones from a really old pentium 2 computer)?
i have 1 gig of pc100 sdram in the other computer. would we be able to use it, or should we sell it?
is there any way to make an exact copy of the hard drive? I have lots of music files and i don't want to start *getting them from the disks again*....yea gettign them from the disks. and also all the computer and game settings and the registy and and and and...
also any ideas would be nice, because my dad is putting this into my hands.
Edited by - Andrid on 12/23/2003 12:01:20 |
|
|
ListerD
Administrator
1205 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2003 : 12:33:51
|
What OS are you going to run?
Are you going to shell out the money for Windows 2003 Server 64bit?
Windows 98/XP will not run on that machine...
---
Read the mobo specs and buy ram accordingly
---
Whether you buy this machine or a P4 the PC100 will not work.
---
Ghosting the hard drive would work to a P4 (run sysprep first)- EXCEPT of you go 64bit (see first entry)
 |
 |
|
|
Him
Super Noobie! ;)
171 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2003 : 12:51:10
|
According to Intel if you have a 64bit CPU, you need 64bit drivers for everything. I'd research that if I were you.
Your hard drive sucks.
I think only WinXP 64bit or some *nix flavors support 64bit and nothing else. If you find out actually good data inform us would ya?
|
|
|
|
Andrid
Wordy Bastard
692 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2003 : 13:21:40
|
k...64 bit is pointless then.
i can get a mother board with athlon xp 3000+ for 199 or a motherboard with pentium 2.8 ghz. is teh extra 90 bucks worth the pentium?
are there any good sites to check compbatibility or should i just use google/manufacturer's site
quote:
Your hard drive sucks.
yea it does...i was just talking to my friend though and i might buy his old hard drive for 70 bucks....i need to check it out thuogh.
------------------
absu-f***ing-lutly
Edited by - Andrid on 12/23/2003 13:22:18
Edited by - Andrid on 12/23/2003 13:26:31 |
|
|
|
Slayer_Allen
Incredibly Wordy Bastard
2081 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2003 : 13:50:20
|
But I hear that Microsoft is planning on having everything 64 bit by 2005. Gonna buy a new computer before then?
---------------
www.tribalevo.com
|E|-^Slayer- |
|
|
|
ListerD
Administrator
1205 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2003 : 15:09:16
|
2005 will show 128bit...
|
|
|
|
Slayer_Allen
Incredibly Wordy Bastard
2081 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2003 : 16:06:14
|
Do you figure they will try to skip 64 bit altogether? My friend invited me to sell computers for him at my university, I am going to start looking into stuff like this.
---------------
www.tribalevo.com
|E|-^Slayer- |
|
|
|
ListerD
Administrator
1205 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2003 : 16:27:57
|
Not saying they will skip it... they're ahead of the curve on Moores Law, scale it up from here and they'll be at 128 bit by then
|
|
|
|
na85
Incredibly Wordy Bastard
1404 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2003 : 16:33:25
|
That hard drive needs an upgrade...
Look for something in the range of 7200 rpm (my 10000 rpm is teh winnah)
They call me Sodium |
|
|
|
SLipNoT
Noobie! ;)
89 Posts |
|
|
Impact4ever
Wordy Bastard
664 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2003 : 19:16:05
|
Andrid... man, stick with a 32-bit proc.( Athlon xp 3200 ). Besides from 2-3 years microsoft is coming with a new os that will use 64-bit proc. for home users.
But about that harddrive, if you can't get a 1,000rpm drive. Use what must of us is using... a 7200rpm with 8 megs of cache. its cheaper, faster, great for gaming.
"Just because your a genius doesn't make you a smart guy" |
|
|
|
Atriedis
Wordy Bastard
780 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2003 : 19:31:28
|
dude, settle for less space andmore speed with the hard drive. the RAM you currently have is crap, dont even try to sell it, you couldnt get five dollars for it. i have athlon xp and i like it more than any pentium 4 ive ever used. ghosting the drive can be difficult, and if all you want is music files, just set up your old hdd as a slave after youve installed the os on the current one. your old I/O devices should work, although current drivers will need to be downloaded.
--------------------------------------------------
nicknames - atr, art, atri, atar, atru, atari, Harkonnen (more to come as I recieve them) |
|
|
|
Krusty
Incredibly Wordy Bastard
1158 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2003 : 21:38:50
|
#1. Don't trust toms hardware. His reviews tend to be unbelievably biased in favor of whatever manufacturer happens to be paying to have their banner ads put up on his web site.
#2. It appears that you don't have a whole lot of knowledge of current computer hardware. How about you answer the following questions for us and we tell you what we think you should be getting.
What will you primarily be using the computer for?
What other things will you be using the computer for that may influence hardware choices?
How much money do you want to spend?
Is money an important factor in choosing what type of computer to build?
How long do you want this computer to last? How long to you expect this computer to last?
And now for some initial critique of your current hardware decisions: Hard drive is about the worst decision you can make. The major bottleneck of todays computer systems is the hard drive. I generally recommend a RAID 0 array and a backup hard drive if you are willing to spend the money and are willing to occupy a fair amount of space in your computer.
Unless you are overclocking, I doubt you would actually utilize that pc4200 ram. 512MB or even 1GB of pc3200 would be a better decision. I don't know of any motherboards that actually support memory beyond 400Mhz at the moment.
I don't personally see a need for the 64 bit processor yet. Its very pricy and, as mentioned earlier, requires a 64 bit OS and 64 bit applications to be fully utilized.
Yes, you can make an exact copy of a hard drive. Use Norton Ghost. You don't want your operating system drive from your previous computer to be ghosted though. Your computer likely wouldn't even boot with an image from an old computer OS. So you can copy music files (and other files) over, but you will need to do a full re-install and manually install everything over again. Most games don't require an install though. You might be able to get away with just copying the directory over.
EDIT: As for the decision of AMD or Intel, I have a very simple answer. If you want to save money, go AMD. AMD is perfectly fine and you will get more bang for your buck from AMD. If you are willing to pay a bit of a premium, go for Intel. Intel processors currently have the advantage in that they have the 800Mhz front side bus, which makes for much more memory bandwidth being available to the processor. If you want to pay a FAT premium, go for the 'EE' version of the penitum 4 3.2Ghz processor. It's got a whopping 2MB of on die cache but will cost you like a grand for just the processor.
Edited by - Krusty on 12/23/2003 21:42:13 |
|
|
|
Andrid
Wordy Bastard
692 Posts |
Posted - 12/24/2003 : 16:33:44
|
What will you primarily be using the computer for?
most likely mainly gaming. I was thinking about using the 64 bit because this computer will hopefully last me at least another 6 years.
What other things will you be using the computer for that may influence hardware choices?
this is the second computer we will have, so the other one will have most of the kazza stuff. i might move a gig at the most of tunes over though.
How much money do you want to spend?
i'm willing to spend about 300-400 dollars, hopefully less, but if i can i'm going to try to sell my older computers so that i'll have about 600 to spend.
Is money an important factor in choosing what type of computer to build?
that it will last more than a year before games start taking a tll on it.
How long do you want this computer to last? How long to you expect this computer to last?i want it to last 6 years...i expect it to last 6.
as for the hard drive, i will buy a better one. i just found a gift certificate to fries from i don't know when that's 60 bucks so i'm gonna use that, add a bit, and get a maybe 30-50 gb hd.
i don't know a lot about hardware, because up until this computer my dad would install the thing, and I'd do the configuration and stuff.
i think that to save some money i might go amd 2.6 or 2.8 ghz processor. the pc 3200 memory will also save me a bit.
for the video card, i want to get one that will last and last. should i get the 256 mb ati raedon 9600 or something newer with less memory?
thanks for all the help.
------------------
absu-f***ing-lutly |
|
|
|
JesterUSMC
Super Noobie! ;)
164 Posts |
Posted - 12/24/2003 : 18:36:46
|
6 years ? for no more than 600$???????
Good luck man.........the lifespan of a PC is closer to 2-3.
----------------------------------------------------------
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. |
|
|
|
Andrid
Wordy Bastard
692 Posts |
Posted - 12/24/2003 : 19:06:42
|
quote:
6 years ? for no more than 600$???????
Good luck man.........the lifespan of a PC is closer to 2-3.
i don't think that it will be the top system for 6 years. i just want it to be able to handle stuff, at least the minimum requirements for a long time to come. maybe 6 years is a bit too much, but at least 4. Also I most likely will be upgrading it in the future, so i'm picking a mother board that will be able to handle more than what is needed now probably.
what are pci and agp ports?
should i take nothing but 400 mhz fsb, or is 333 mhz also ok?
------------------
absu-f***ing-lutly
Edited by - Andrid on 12/24/2003 19:26:23 |
|
|
|
JesterUSMC
Super Noobie! ;)
164 Posts |
Posted - 12/24/2003 : 19:51:07
|
PCI is the "slot" that you would use for sound cards, ethernet cards, modem, etc. AGP is strictly for graphics (vid cards)
----------------------------------------------------------
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. |
|
|
|
Andrid
Wordy Bastard
692 Posts |
Posted - 12/24/2003 : 23:24:03
|
so the pci slots would include where u put the usb cards right?
also how many of each of the slots should i have?
update:online the mother boards are bad, so i decided to find specific models at the store and then buy them online.
------------------
absu-f***ing-lutly |
|
|
|
JesterUSMC
Super Noobie! ;)
164 Posts |
Posted - 12/25/2003 : 01:55:41
|
well, some USB "cards" just hook up directly to the mobo, but if it is a slotted card, then yes, PCI. You should have 5-9 of them depending on what mobo and case you go with. 5 is about the MINIMUM you want to have.
You will always have only one AGP slot
----------------------------------------------------------
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. |
|
|
|
Andrid
Wordy Bastard
692 Posts |
Posted - 12/25/2003 : 14:09:04
|
because i want this computer to last a long time, should i get 64 bit processor, or should i stay with 32 bit?
will 64 bit proccessors still work, just not to the full potential, without the drivers?
550 wats is enough for the power right?
------------------
absu-f***ing-lutly
Edited by - Andrid on 12/25/2003 14:17:20 |
|
|
|
JesterUSMC
Super Noobie! ;)
164 Posts |
Posted - 12/25/2003 : 18:43:36
|
550 will be enough. Hell, i have a TON of stuff and I'm only running a 400. As far as the processors go, i really have no idea.
----------------------------------------------------------
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
new computer!
