Building your own computer?

[Calico_Jack73]

For under $1000 and no hassle I'd reccomend you go through Dell. It isn't that I am inexperienced in putting computers together... I did it for 9 years for the Air Force. Dell has the benefit of getting their parts super cheap because they buy in volume... you won't get that discount when you are buying single parts. My father can get the parts at cost and even he can't beat Dell's price because of that volume discount.

The only way that I'd ever build my own is if I was building a hot-rod of a speed machine but then I'd expect to spend WAY more than $1000. For a good middle ground machine at around $1000 your best bet is to go with Dell.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

If you want to go buy a Dell or Compaq or something similar, go ahead. Just be aware that you are most likely NOT getting a system that you can upgrade in 5 years when you are ready to play that awesome new game or run that new office app. On the other hand, the job of "matching" all the parts has been done for you and it's built, ready to go.

I've got a Dell and I've never had a problem upgrading it. Well... only once but it wasn't major. I needed a new power supply when I got my Radeon 9800 Pro Graphics Card which requires a minimum of 300 Watts and my old power supply only pumped out 250. I bought the new supply at Microcenter but the holes on the Dell Case don't match up with the plug ports on a third party supply. I just used a Nibbler to cut out the holes that I needed and it worked just fine. For the uninitiated a Nibbler is a little tool that takes little bites out of sheet metal (computer cases) and you can eventually bite out as big a hole as you need. Other than that I've never had a problem.

Edit: If you manage to get some significant cash to spend on a machine this is what I'd go with.
Falcon Northwest Mach V

 

[Jarrod]

And get to know someone who builds machines so that when it just doesn't work (rare, but possible) you can call for help

I've been poking around system upgrades myself, and I noticed something very interesting. Systems (in particular video cards) are about to shift from a PCI connector to a PCI Express connector. Despite the similarity in names, the two are entirely incompatible.

That means don't buy a high end video card, as there's a ~0.5-1 year time span before it won't plug in anymore. As far as I can tell.

Better yet, Intel is pushing a new board layout (BTX) instead of the current (ATX) format. That means that new motherboards (once they go BTX) won't fit in current cases.

Or, as I told my wife: so you have current vidcards that won't fit in new motherboards; new mobos will require a new case and power supply. Oh, and RAM will probably change because they like to make us sweat.

Sigh.

 

[Stormfalcon]

Instead of panicking about PCI Express and basing purchases based on its arrival, it's probably smarter to take a wait-and-see attitude towards that (as well as BTX). It'll take a while for true PCI Express cards to hit the market (what we're seeing so far are actually AGP chipsets with bridge circuits as far as video cards are concerned...even the planned 6800-series nVidia cards that are to be PCI Express ones use bridge circuits), and even longer for BTX to hit the shelves in appreciable numbers. For all we know, both PCI Express and BTX will wind up being the MCA of the new millenium (how many of us remember MCA?).

If you're planning on building a new system, may as well do it now and not worry about PCI Express or BTX. By the time you're ready for a replacement, it's likely that both technologies will have matured and will have proven their worth, assuming they've done either. Even if you outgrow your new system within a year, the appearance of PCI Express and BTX will not shove AGP or ATX into the technological dustheap right away. There'd be too much inertia on the part of the industry at large. You'll likely still be able to use your cards and other parts for a while yet.

 

[drothgery]

Instead of panicking about PCI Express and basing purchases based on its arrival, it's probably smarter to take a wait-and-see attitude towards that (as well as BTX). It'll take a while for true PCI Express cards to hit the market (what we're seeing so far are actually AGP chipsets with bridge circuits as far as video cards are concerned...even the planned 6800-series nVidia cards that are to be PCI Express ones use bridge circuits), and even longer for BTX to hit the shelves in appreciable numbers. For all we know, both PCI Express and BTX will wind up being the MCA of the new millenium (how many of us remember MCA?).

I don't know of any forthcoming chipset that's not PCI Express-capable. And it's a Good Thing, though more because PCI needs replacing than because graphics cards need the extra bandwidth of PCI Express x16 vs AGP 8X. So it's coming.

DDR2 memory is less certain; the 9xx chipsets support DDR, and aren't all that much faster with DDR2 533 than with DDR400, and the Athlon 64's integrated memory controller means that AMD will need to release new CPUs to support DDR2. But memory makers aren't having any trouble producing DDR2 667, so I've got to think that's extremely likely to catch on, too. AMD's pushing back a little, but they're mostly saying "later" to DDR2, not "never", like they were to RAMBUS.

The BTX form factor is the one that might very well not catch on. The case & motherboard people don't like it, and AMD doesn't see the need for it (and the board layout doesn't work well for AMD CPUs). But CPUs keep running hotter (this isn't just a P4 thing), and we might really need something like BTX in a few years.

Still, waiting for the Next Big Thing can keep you in system-purchase paralysis for months or years. I bought a new 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 in April -- just before Intel launched the 9xx chipsets, with PCI Express support, DDR2 memory support, and a new socket design. I'd decided that my 800 MHz Pentium 3 really was getting old, and I'd been "going to replace it soon" for almost a year. And the new PC will be fine for another three years or so, I think.

Ultra-high-end graphics cards will probably be PCI-Express only starting in 2006 sometime, but by that time I'd be able to replace the rest of my system with something better for less than the cost of an ultra-high-end graphics card, and so wouldn't dream of putting one in my box (I imagine a hypothetical GeForce 8800 would be severely CPU-limited by a 3.2 GHz P4, anyway). DDR memory will be around at reasonable prices for a few years after it stops being the normal system memory.

 

[Stormfalcon]

I don't know of any forthcoming chipset that's not PCI Express-capable. And it's a Good Thing, though more because PCI needs replacing than because graphics cards need the extra bandwidth of PCI Express x16 vs AGP 8X. So it's coming.

Forthcoming chipsets should be true PCI Express-capable and not just AGP parts with bridge circuits (like nVidia's 5xxx and 6xxx chips on PCIe boards). Right now though, it's not worth going bleeding edge and going PCIe since the benefits are still quite negligable with the exception of nVidia's new variant on dual-card configurations. Also, I'm not all that sure that we're at the point of needing 16x bandwith just yet. Right now, we're just barely pushing 8x, and that's only needed if you're pushing extremely high resolutions. Doom 3 and maybe Farcry can take advantage of 8x right now with the textures involved, but that's about it right now. Until now, the difference between 4x AGP and 8x AGP has been pretty negligable until you get into current ultra-high resolutions.

The BTX form factor is the one that might very well not catch on. The case & motherboard people don't like it, and AMD doesn't see the need for it (and the board layout doesn't work well for AMD CPUs). But CPUs keep running hotter (this isn't just a P4 thing), and we might really need something like BTX in a few years.

True, though I suspect that the something will probably be much more easier to upgrade from ATX to than BTX is. The AMD factor is a very good reason for ATX to still be around for a while yet and a good part of it inertia potentially slowing down the move to BTX.

Still, waiting for the Next Big Thing can keep you in system-purchase paralysis for months or years. I bought a new 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 in April -- just before Intel launched the 9xx chipsets, with PCI Express support, DDR2 memory support, and a new socket design. I'd decided that my 800 MHz Pentium 3 really was getting old, and I'd been "going to replace it soon" for almost a year. And the new PC will be fine for another three years or so, I think.

And that's the important thing. By the time you outgrow your current system, PCIe and everything associated with it will truly be ready for primetime. Right now, it isn't except for the bleeding-edge crowd, and even that's questionable at the moment.

Ultra-high-end graphics cards will probably be PCI-Express only starting in 2006 sometime, but by that time I'd be able to replace the rest of my system with something better for less than the cost of an ultra-high-end graphics card, and so wouldn't dream of putting one in my box (I imagine a hypothetical GeForce 8800 would be severely CPU-limited by a 3.2 GHz P4, anyway). DDR memory will be around at reasonable prices for a few years after it stops being the normal system memory.

Very true on those counts. By the time a few years rolls around, you'll want to replace everything (or pretty near everything).

 

[drothgery]

Forthcoming chipsets should be true PCI Express-capable and not just AGP parts with bridge circuits (like nVidia's 5xxx and 6xxx chips on PCIe boards). Right now though, it's not worth going bleeding edge and going PCIe since the benefits are still quite negligable with the exception of nVidia's new variant on dual-card configurations. Also, I'm not all that sure that we're at the point of needing 16x bandwith just yet. Right now, we're just barely pushing 8x, and that's only needed if you're pushing extremely high resolutions. Doom 3 and maybe Farcry can take advantage of 8x right now with the textures involved, but that's about it right now. Until now, the difference between 4x AGP and 8x AGP has been pretty negligable until you get into current ultra-high resolutions.

I was talking about motherboard chipsets (like Intel's 865, 875, 915, and 925; Nvidia's Nforce 2 and Nforce 3; VIA's KT600, KT800, and KT880), not graphics card chipsets. The current PCI Express graphics cards are 'bridged' solutions (except possibly ATi's X800 series, depending on who you believe), but the PCI Express x16 sockets they're plugging into are not (the only PCI-Express capable motherboards available now are based on Intel's 915 and 925 chipsets, which are PCI-Express native, and don't support AGP at all). It seems like Intel, NVidia, and VIA are planning on phasing out their AGP-capable chipsets, which means we're getting PCI Express.

PCI-Express x16 provides somewhat more bandwidth than a hypothetical 'AGP 16X' would. But the big thing about PCI Express, really, is that PCI-Express x1 provides far more bandwidth than PCI.

 

[Stormfalcon]

I was talking about motherboard chipsets (like Intel's 865, 875, 915, and 925; Nvidia's Nforce 2 and Nforce 3; VIA's KT600, KT800, and KT880), not graphics card chipsets. The current PCI Express graphics cards are 'bridged' solutions (except possibly ATi's X800 series, depending on who you believe), but the PCI Express x16 sockets they're plugging into are not (the only PCI-Express capable motherboards available now are based on Intel's 915 and 925 chipsets, which are PCI-Express native, and don't support AGP at all). It seems like Intel, NVidia, and VIA are planning on phasing out their AGP-capable chipsets, which means we're getting PCI Express.

Okay, looks like we were thinking different things in regards to chipsets. You were thinking "motherboard" while I was thinking "video card". Yeah, the motherboard chipsets are obviously going to be true PCIe chipsets while current PCIe graphics cards are not. We both agree there. We'll probably have to wait until the next generation of videocards before we see a sizeable number of true PCIe chipsets among them and what the true impact of PCIe will be with them.

PCI-Express x16 provides somewhat more bandwidth than a hypothetical 'AGP 16X' would. But the big thing about PCI Express, really, is that PCI-Express x1 provides far more bandwidth than PCI.

Very true, that. It's just a question of what, besides graphics cards and hard drive interfaces, truly need the bandwidth. PCIe will provide a lot of bandwidth, no doubt. It's just a question of whether or not the I/O ports on the cards (networking, USB, FireWire, legacy I/O, etc.) will be enough of a bottleneck to negate the benefits and whether or not we'll see meaningful upgrades to that I/O that will work better with that increased bandwidth.