Building New Computer

[Taxious]

So I'm interested in getting a new computer going. I've swapped out parts of old computers countless times but have never actually built a computer from scratch. The main part I'm sketchy on is the motherboard. If ya'll wouldn't mind giving me some tips that would be cool. I'm looking for decent prices and quality - time isn't a problem, I don't have a deadline.

Here is what I have so far.

Case - glowing lights ftw!
Motherboard - Is this alright? I don't really understand what makes a better motherboard compared to a bad one apart from number of USB ports. Is it weird that this doesn't have an AGP expansion spot? I am planning on going with PCI express, but should this be a red flag?
CPU
Memory - Probably get 4gb (4 x 1gb)
Graphics Card - I don't have one picked out yet, but this is the item I plan to spend the most money on. I want to use this computer for gaming, among other things, and it should look good.

[Kulaf]

Here is how I usually approach a new PC. First I determine my overall budget. If you don't do this first it can really make your choices tough because it's all a matter of give and take. Then I usually go to Sharky Extreme and look at their buyers guides that fall near my budget. For example let's say price is no object and you wanna drop 4k on a new box:

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/EGB ... hp/3707471

It's got pretty much ever facet covered.....from PSU (the heart of your box, don't go cheap here) to fans etc. There are 3 or 4 guides covering most "common" price ranges.

[Klast Brell]

The AGP port is being replaced by the PCI Express standard. As the graphics cards get more powerfull the amount of data they transfer back and forth to the mother board grows. Their electrical power consumption grows as well. The AGP slot had a fixed limit of how much data it can pass and how much electricity it can supply. Modern cards were beginning to hit that wall. A new slot astandard was needed for the new faster cards. PCIX is it.

No need to worry about the lack of an AGP port. The only cards you can get in AGP are really gimpy ones anyway.

[Ddrak]

Get a bigger power supply in that case. I'd shoot for 600W, just to be safe.
Consider a E6750 over the E4400 - yeah, it costs more but it's significantly faster too.
4G of memory is a waste if you aren't going to run a 64 bit OS - the system will only see 3G of it.

Both Kula and Klast offer excellent advice. AGP is worthless, and choose your budget FIRST.

How much are you planning on spending total - I can help more if I know that.

On a video card, the GF8800GT is the best card for the money hands down. It beats the 8800GTS and is much cheaper than the 8800GTX. You'd want to think long and hard before getting something else.

Dd

[Taxious]

Thanks guys. I'll check out that link, Kulaf, when I get some time tomorrow. I've heard a lot of mixed views on power supplies. A couple people say 600+, a couple people insist 400+ will cut it.

As for the budget: I don't really know yet. I was kinda hoping to see what parts I want and then figure out if I could afford it or not as it goes. I'm kind of leaning on my parents being able to buy me some of this shit for xmas which is usually the case (pun intended) - "we don't know what to get you so tell us what you want!"

[Ddrak]

A couple people say 600+, a couple people insist 400+ will cut it.

400+ *probably* will cut it. The question is how much of a tolerance for expansion do you want to build in, and do you want a power supply that will "just" cut it or have an overengineered system that will cut it for sure - especially when the price difference isn't really huge.

Dd

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Well, if you keep the CPU, main board, RAM, hard drive, case and power supply to $50 each, and bought something like a GeForce 8600 for around $200, you're still looking at around $500 before shipping, and you'd still be short a cd drive. So yeah, I'd say come up with a budget first, or your $500 rig could easily turn into double that. Maybe you could scrounge up a hard drive and cd drive?

[Kulaf]

PSU's really boil down to efficiency. The total wattage is far less important that how efficiently it can be delivered. So when looking as a PSU don't fall for the more watts = better. It's not always the case. You also need to think long and hard about whether SLI will ever be in the future for this machine.....and plan your PSU around that.

[Taxious]

Well, if you keep the CPU, main board, RAM, hard drive, case and power supply to $50 each, and bought something like a GeForce 8600 for around $200, you're still looking at around $500 before shipping, and you'd still be short a cd drive. So yeah, I'd say come up with a budget first, or your $500 rig could easily turn into double that. Maybe you could scrounge up a hard drive and cd drive?

I was just planning on taking my old hard drive and dvd/dvd-rw drives from my old computer as well as the sound card.

[Bahd Zoolander]

If you buy anything other than an 8800GT you're an idiot.

Damn, this card rocks. I can play Crysis now.

[Klast Brell]

Here is another place to look at sample systems in different budget ranges.
http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/guide-200708.ars

[Garrdor]

Hey, I've been out of a home PC for like a year

N-E-1 wanna kick a brotha down a rig 4 cheap?

[Taxious]

Updated list. Thanks for the help so far guys. Sharky Extreme helped me a ton and I went with a couple of their suggestions.

Case/Power Supply - Hopefully 500w will cut it? Seemed like a pretty good deal. I like the blue light look of it all too.
CPU
Motherboard
Video Card - Any preference on brand here? There were a couple different ones to choose from with the same price, I just linked the one with the highest number of ratings.
Memory - Yeah just going with 2gigs
---------------------------------------
= ~710$

Does anyone suggest a different place other than newegg to buy stuff at?

I'm also curious of the difference between PCIe 1.0 and 2.0. Does the motherboard I have linked support 2.0? Is that what the PCIe x16 expansion slot is for? Thanks.

[Ddrak]

Those parts all look good. Get it. The system will be screaming fast (it's almost identical to mine).

I've had good experiences with NewEgg, so haven't really looked elsewhere.

PCIe 2.0 is a brand new spec that no motherboard supports yet. Your card will work just fine in that motherboard though. The difference bewteen 1.0 and 2.0 is 2.0 is twice as fast, but the bandwidth of the PCIe bus isn't an issue at the moment anyway, so I wouldn't get too worried.

To put it all in context:

PCIe is a method of talking between an add-in card and a motherboard.
PCIe v1.0 is the common version around at the moment supported by all motherboards. PCIe v2.0 is brand new and runs twice as fast as PCIe v1.0. You can plug a PCIe v2.0 card into a PCIe v1.0 motherboard without any problems.
PCIe allows varying numbers of data wires between the card and the motherboard. PCIe 1x has one wire. PCIe 2x has two wires. PCIe 8x has 8 wires. PCIe 16x has 16 wires. Obviously the more wires the faster data can be transferred. All video cards use 16x and all motherboards have at least one 16x slot these days. It used to be an issue because the earliest PCIe motherboards would split the 16x channel into two 8x channels for SLI configurations, but that hasn't happened for a while now.

[Kulaf]

There is PCIe x1 and PCIe x16. It has to do with the transfer speed of the bus. There is supposed to be PCIe x32 around the corner sometime.

With respect to card brands.....personally I like BFG and Power Color. It's hard to beat BFG's lifetime warranty.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814143080

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Your system looks good. I agree, stick with NewEgg.

[Taxious]

Cool, thanks guys. Now this project goes into the "beg parents to pay for some parts for xmas" mode.

I can't wait till I have a real job. /sigh

[Klast Brell]

A couple years ago I told everyone I just wanted New Egg Gift certificates for Xmass. Managed to get 4.

[Taxious]

Now if the 8800GT would just come back in stock...

Newegg has been completely sold out for the last couple days.

[Garrdor]

I wanna play WoW. I've been on a break from the game for about a year

I built mahself a P4 w/2G RAM/ATI 9800 (old skool)/60G SATA

It won't even fire up - but every component works in other machines. So - it's safe to say it's the motherboard, yes? (I = technoob)

I've been out of a machine forever - and my dumbarse friend accidently threw away the box my mobo came in. That = no refund 4 meh. Anybody have any suggestions for a decent (CHEAP) mobo/proc combo that'll cater to someone who JUST wants to play WoW/EQ1/Hello Kitty Island Adventure ???