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View Full Version : I'm building my first computer. Where do I begin?


Uncle Jat
April 3rd, 2004, 07:04 AM
I'm in the planning stage of building my first computer. I don't have the specific specs picked out yet. I've been reading some computer sites to get a feel for everything and I have some somewhat random questions.

In a nutshell what I want is a desktop with the state of the art cutting edge technology ;) and each and every accessory like printer , scanner , copy machine , fax , web camera head phones , mic et al . I read somewhere that these days there are All in One machines avaliable from HP ( Print + Scan = Fax + Copy ) .Budget is not the problem but I wanna assemble it all at once and don't wanna go for upgrading later after a few years .

My priority is performance and not price and I don't wanna go for a TFT or LCD but a simple 17 or 19 inchee monitor .Which one is the best , I do not know yet .

I am not even a bay bit interested in Gaming so AGP type of things and other superior display cards are not my need and neither am I into music composing or something equally music demanding that I have to pay attention to each and every decibel output so a motherboard with integrated sound and video would do fine for me .

What do I pick out first? Do I pick the processor first and then find a compatible motherboard or do I figure out everything I want and then make sure the motherboard can fit it all?

I Am interested in an Intel Pentium 4 Processor and Celeron and AMD , Cyrix et al don't appeal to me .

Which Intel Pentium 4 Processor is presently offering the maximum Bus Speed ( FSB).In my knowledge presently it's 800MHz the max FSB avaliable in Intel Pentium 4 .

Which is the best mother board for such a processor and does it supports the 800MHz FSB or supports less .

I wanna go for a minimum of 1 GB RAM , don't mind going upto 2 GB also or the max the moBo can support .

Whats the max FSB avaliable in RAM presently .FRom what I have read advertised in papers it's just 400MhZ.

Whats the speciality of ECC RAM and is it advisable to go for it instead of DDR , for the sake of performance .How do u compare ECC RAM with SDRAM , DDR et al in terms of price , performance and FSB ?

JUst as CD writers are as common today as a FDD , are DVD writers also avaliable and whats the approximate price and which one would you recommend .ARe they avaliable in a Combo drive type of a thing .

NO I don't need advice on picking up a mouse , KB etc.

For a dial up connection , which external modem would you recommend ?

Which is the best ( max features ) TV TUNER CARD avaliable presently ?


Any other thing that you might wanna sugest .

Uncle Jat
April 3rd, 2004, 07:12 AM
Somebody told me that for getting more speed one should install two harddrives, and put the majority of the pagefile (virtual memory) onto the one that doesn't have windows installed. This spreads a lot of the workload between two pieces of hardware.

The person who suggested this was previously running XP on 256MB RAM, and with one hard disk, She often use to get pauses switching between applications, slow menu responses and the like. Once she did as she suggested me , it's been pretty much as fast and responsive as she could expect.


Do u think she is giving me the right advice and if yes then on a windows machine how do u put ur pagefiles ( virtual memory ) onto that harddisk that doesn't have windows ?

I Am planning to have 2*80 = 160 GB .

Which harddrives u recommend .

It's said that seagates are the best but it comes with just a year of warranty , whereas Samsungs comes with a 3 year warranty .What should be the minimum RPM that I shud go for .From what I have read in papers currently the trend is 7200.


Would it make much of a speed difference if I go for a SCSI harddisk ?

Parashuram
April 3rd, 2004, 07:18 PM
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
512mb x 2 PC3200 DDR (Kingston)
3.0Ghz P4 800FSB
Seagate 120gb x 2 SATA 7200rpm Hard Drive
Mag Innovision Monitor
ATI 9800Pro 128mb Retail (ATI Original) Video Card
ATI All in One Wonder Pro
Antec Sonata Case
Thermalright SP-94 heatpipe Intel CPU heatsink
Thermaltake Fireball EL and E-LED 80mm Case Fan