Computer Build
 

Hello,

Just out of intrest, has anybody on this site built their own computer.

I have been looking to upgrade my PC in the near future, and although have never built a PC before would like to give it ago.

At the moment I am info gathering, but have some idea what I would like to finnish up with.

would be great if I could, if need be ask some questions.

regards

TopiToo

I built my current one but as I'm off to Spain in a few hours and not back till Jan 8 I may be of no use to you whatsoever.

If you're doing it after I get back I'll be more than happy to help, and you're just up the road from me so should make it easy.

Ask my brother, he is a bit of a comp wiz, rins under the user name of "Bionicle" on this board.


Chris:roll:

Building your PC was never that hard anyway, but with all the hardware/software/toys now on the market it has become so straight forward that there is no reason why anyone cannot build one up.
All comes down to several main factors.
1) How much do you want to spend
2) what do you want to do with it.

There is so much hardware available now, to do everything except make the tea.
You really have to decide what you expect to get from a PC.
Do you want a games machine or a business system, general purpose of specalist system.
A PC will be only as good as the components used in it, and only as fast as the slowest component.
No point having a dual P4 xeon based system, with rubbish ram, disk drives etc.
eg, little point sicking an U320 SCSI drive in a low end system, unless you have a complete system that will fully utilise the SCSI bus to its max, you would have had better performance from IDE bus technolgy.
take the time to research all these areas, and you will reap the benafits.

If you need help let me know, I run my own retail computer shop , so can sort you out a decent deal on parts.

cheers
robin

I build all my own, and have done for years, I also build machines for local SME's as has been said it's pretty easy these days, and it will work out more expensive initially, but as you upgrade you'll start to get some return as you're only replacing the components that need changing, whereas with something like a Dell desktop you'll end up swapping the lot.

And as RedSPS has said, don't skimp on quality parts, because the cheapest will be the weakest link, for example I've just upgraded my video card for the latest and next generation of games, and that cost me nearly £300 trade!

Thought you were going to get a CAD job Weeksy?

Hello,

Thanks for all the advice, at the moment I am working my way through this web site.

http://forum.pcmech.com/

some good advice,

I had a dual PIII built about 4yrs ago with NT4 workstation, mostly running 3D software/photoshop although photoshop does not take advantage of dual processing.

I tried to setup a Dual boot with 98/NT and XP pro, as XP pro would take advantage of the dual processors and networking to a Mac.

But I could never get xp to boot. . .
I suspect because of the Mother Board/ device conflict.

The motherboard is by todays standards old hat Gigabyte GA-6BDX and maxed out with Dimms Ram. (which I will not be able to use on the new Mother Boards)

As pointed out I could buy a complete system, but as before I like the option of upgrading if and when needed.

I hope I am right in saying that my biggest spend should be Processor/Motherboard/Graphic card.
Then HD ( which I can take out of my excisting PC) /Memory/Power Supply/Fans. Case I can use.

Cheers Robin when I have a list together I will email you.

Thanks again all for the info, at least I now know who to ask.

regards

TopiToo

TT,

It all depends on what you're using it for, but you need to invest in processor, motherboard, graphics card and memory.

I assume you have an AT case and power supply, otherwise you'll be after those too, and if you go high end with your CPU and graphics card you'll need a fairly high wattage PSU to run those.

Obviously you need a neon too :D

Wish i'd known that before i bought 14 new ones and a server:(

.....Well you know where to go if you need anymore, or any support don't you matey? ;)

If your systems is about 4 years old, and that is the original Disk drive, this is also relavant.
all the latest Decent m/boards suppport SATA bus which is a much faster bus transfer than earlier standards, the chances are that, if lob your old and tired disk drive in to nice new case with new m/board etc, you will not be able to utilize this increased bus though put of that interface, instead be stuck with lower data transfer speeds.

In practice, for light use you may not see much difference though, until you start doing some heavy weight apps or database work, then you will wonder why the PC is a bit slow.
which makes buying really good other components a pointless exercise.
To get the optimum performance from a PC, wether that be plain desktop or superfast graphics workstation, or high end server, you really need to optimise all the components, and make sure that they are fully compatible, and that they are able to fully utilise their connnections with other components.

Only by doing this will you truly get a 1st rate system, one that really performs well, and will be reliable .
comes back to the same old phase mate, "only as fast as the slowest component".
Have a good think about what you will be running on the system, will it be disk intensive apps, or heavy graphics work etc.
once you have decided what role the system is to fullfill, you can you decide what to get, and how to fully optimise it.

PS, If you are running heavy weight graphics or database apps etc, you should consider running a SCSI hard disk drive,
(U160/320) setup, instead of IDE based drives.
They can handle the load so much better, with little if any reduction in performance.

They don't come cheap, but they do make a big difference.
I run 3x 147Gb U320 SCSI drives, with a decent HP U320 raid card in one of my workstation systems.
Disk drive through put and performance is awsome, and it's only a 1Ghz P3 cpu.
It leaves most decent single CPU P4's miles behind. its all about optimising.

Something to chomp on mate.

cheers robin;);)

I`ve built 3 of them an the one I`m using now I built about a year ago.

Cost me about 1K but it has all the bells and whistles I wanted.

Dead easy and recommended, at least you get what you want but there are some good deals about if you just want a ready made package. I`ve seen a system that has a 15" flatscreen monitor included for £399. Pays yer money etc etc etc

You should get a mac - G5's are running photoshop 98% faster than p.c - watercooled processors rock. :sing:

Seasons Greetings

Mark:sing: