Building A computer

Im about due for a new computer...but i dont have a lot of money to spend, and i have heard that bilding a computer is one way to spend less many and get a good computer....but i dont really know where to start, or whats good or not....i guess i could reuse some parts from my current PC like RAM and video cards and such....but other than that im lost....any one care to help me

How much do you want to spend? What will you be using the computer for?

i wanna use it for gaming, watching videos, using the internet
i don't know how much moeny i wanna spend $1,000-3,000?

I figured i would need a motherboard...and i think i found a decnet one here
http://motherboards.bizrate.com/marketp ... 53024.html
and a case
http://www.xoxide.com/5in1combo1.html
But what else do i need?

Because its for games you should based the PC beget around a Geforce 6800 series of cards for the AGP slot. The 6800 based cards have a larger feature set than any current Radeon and better AA quality. Radeon 9800 pro can be used as you say your on a budget.

I recommend a big 19” CRT Flat screen if you have the desk for it. TFT's are better for movies but CRT is better for designers and IMO Gamers.

Because you’re a gamer the AMD 64 processors arepreferred but an Intel Solution is ok. AMD's requires a defferent motherboard like nforce 3 chipset. If your on a budget an AMD Barton 2800+ can be recommended with a nforce 2 motherboard. Barton chips have more cache than Sepron.

You will also need:
CD/DVD rewriter combo
2 sticks of ram (these need to matched to the type on your motherboard and AMD's need 2 chips to run in Dual channel mode for a tiny boost)
2 Hard Disks with 8MB cache (when installing do it as non compressed drives and place all your important files and downloads on a separate Hard drive. Serial ATA HD's can be used if the motherboard supports it for jumper less install)
Windows XP OEM (OEM can be purchased with a hardware component)

Before placing your order check with us so you don’t make any mistakes and make your budget clear.

p.s I would have gon for 5.1 speakers for movies and first person shooters.

summery:
BUDGET GAMER: Radion 9800pro AMD Barton 2800, Abit Guru AN7 Motherboard 2 sticks of 256MB

VALUE FOR MONEY: Geforce 6800 with AMD 64, 2 stiks of 512MB

EXTREAM: Geforce 6800 GT, AMD 64 FX (see http://www.ozzu.com/hardware/what-motherboard-get-with-amd64-t32343.html ) 2 stiks of 512MB

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... =A458-2101

Hows that motherboard.... its AMD 64....i think
Question:Are AMD measured in GHz...because i dont see any of that there

Question 2: I have a randeon 9600 video card and 1gig of DDR ram along with 2 hardrives....that stuffs all cool to reuse rite??

1) I believe that an AMD 2600+ (actual ~2.16GHz) is designed to keep up with a Pentium 4 2.6 GHz.

2) What are the exact types of each of these parts? ie - model #, size, speed

is there anyway to get that from my comp....cuz i dont feel like digging out the boxes

There are four different models of a Radeon 9600 video card: 9600, se, pro, and xt. Try looking in display settings, advanced button.

How do you know that you have DDR ram? In system properties, general tab, it says 1GB?

As for the hard drives, right click each drive in windows explorer and go to the hardware tab. Then search google for the model number it gives you, and you will find the specs for each drive.

Basically, if these components work in your current computer they will be fine in your new one. You just have to decide which components you can afford to replace and which parts need replacing the most. I can tell you that a GB of memory is going to be fine. If you have a Radeon 9600 XT then you probably won't need a new video card either.

i have a
radeon 9600 series AGP, 128mb


I remeber from when i bought the RAM that i needed DDR, and yeah it is 1gb...2 256 sticks
I know both my drives are Western Digital, and one of them is 80GB with 8mb cache and 7200RPM.....but im not sure about the one that came installed on my comp, all i know is that it is 40GB

2 sticks of ram at 256 = 512mb of ram not 1gb....

This will tell ya .CPU-Z < tiny little utility 259kb
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

yeah, try to only buy what you have to.

if you already have a computer your not going to need speakers, monitor, keyboard, mouse, possibly mobo

these things are reusable in your new computer, but you may want to conisder upgradeing them, or getting more:
Hard drives
Ram
removable media drives
fan
power supply

My bad...the concept of adding escaped me for a second there...i have 2 512 sticks

Hey heres a quick question for yous guys. If there any danger in formatting my harddrives before i put them in my new comp, then reinstalling windows on one of them once its all built, because my dad said that he thinks it too risky to do that, but i figure if im building a new comp, i may as well start off clean.
Also if i post up a list of parts i wanna buy, can you people tell me if they are good or not