Originally posted by Andy
I've got some money saved up and thinking of building myself a new computer. I've done upgrading to older systems, more memory, new PCI cards, new HD's and optical drives, even replaced a floppy and HD in a laptop, but never build one completely from scratch. I think I have all the basic ideas down, but the only way to learn is to try. Here's the parts list I've come up with so far.
Pentium 4 2.8Ghz, 800Mhz FSB HT
Asus P4P800 MB, 865PE chipset (HT), 800Mhz FSB, 2 SATA slots, 8X AGP, integrated AD audio, 10/100/1000 ethernet, 8 USB 2.0, 2 Firewire.
2 sticks of Corsair XMS extereme 512M PC3200 (400Mhz), 1Gig total
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128Meg
Western Digital Raptor, 36G 10,000 rpm SATA HD (planning to add a standard IDE ~100Gig for storage later)
Lite On DVD/CD reader, Lite On 52x CDRW
Cooler Master alumium case and Enermax 431W PS
NEC/Mitsu 19" CRT
WinXP Home
That's pretty much it. Ordering basically everything from New Egg, around $1800 for everything. I was wondering if anybody had any opinions or things they'd change. I'm basically building a strong gaming machine that can do pretty much anything without spending a fortune.
I'm going with the 2.8G P4 and 865 chipset rather than a 3.2 or 3.0 and 875 becuase I figure by the time it becomes an issue, the Pentium 5 and Athalon 64's will be out so save the money now. Same with the 128Meg 9800. They have a 256Meg but it's $120 more and by the time I need 256, a much faster/better chipset will be out. I don't plan to move this thing much so I'm sticking witha cheaper CRT rather than an LCD for now. I've also used Lite on stuff before and liked it, so I wanted use that. I decided not to go with a DVD-R for now because I'll never use it and by the time I need one, they'll probably be $100. Almost everything is retail, except the HD which is OEM only right now. Probably going to order this week (still doing some research) but I wanted some opinions. Thanks, seeya.
ya know the funny thing. i just got almost that exact same setup for with a p4 3Ghz processor and a 17" flat panel monitor for $1400 from dell.
so, IMO you need to shop around a little more.