My new PC

i think the extreme edition P4 are a waste of money... you get a better deal for your money if you get a P4 3.6E Ghz 800fsb 1mb cache.

I would buy 2 hard dives with 8MB cache each, say a 40GB-60GB Master drive and 40GB Slave to put all your important files, downloads, documents into. Works better than a partition IMO. Do NOT compress any of the drives becuase it will slow it down.

You can get away with 1 CPU fan 1 PSU Fan and 1 front mounted fan sucking through the case filter into the case to prevent the build up of dust. Fanless graphics card is also a good idea.

My personal preference of motherboard is the more expensive Abit Guru AN7 because it has a processor for monitoring your complete voltages, fan speeds and temperature and even overcooking all via software. Unlike the old Abits these also have an LED telling you what’s wrong if you have forgotten to plug something in or a component is faulty (as long as it has power!).

i always go with Asus boards but Abit are just as good... and Abit looks cool too if you have a see through case.

Johan007: Its a waste of money to buy a 40-60gig drive. You can get 80-120gigs for $3-20 more.


WoRd Of WiSdOm: I wish I had $900 to piss away on a Proccessor. Sucks because the new P4 64bits are suppose to come out first quarter 2005. But if you're lucky you might be able to find one towards the end of this year.

oh nice! I just checked and HD prices are much cheaper now than when I got mine!!! Buy a 80 master and 120 Slave if your downloading movies I guesss

the p4 EE aren't a complete waste of money. considering the 2mb cache.

they have proven themselves in benchmarks, but he is only 14, and the system he has picked is more than adequate.

if i was going to blow £600 on a processor like a P4EE i would get a AMD Athlon 64 3800 lol

Lol yeah we are going way beyond the original budget and the PC’s we are talking about are a lot faster than I have or need.

For downloading music and watching the odd DVD I would get:

XP2400 or XP2200 or XP2000 (+ stock fan is good)
40GB 8mb cache Master
80GB Slave
1 DVD combo writer
2x256MB Ram with 333fsb (saving over original spec)
19" ot 17" CRT flatscreen
400w psu (ebay do a good 500w psu cheap for only £8! not many power outputs though but more than enough for you)
Geforce FX5600 256MB (ebay do em cheap - very good for direct x8 games and at low setting direct x9)
nforce2 based mother board by MSI or Abit (microdirect do em cheap)
1 case
1 silent case fan
Logitech optical mouse (with chord)
Cheap keyboard
1 Arctic cooling greese (not needed but recommended)
1 magnetic “posidrive/Phillips???” screwdriver

Don’t forget to earth yourself by touching the non painted area of a radiator.



btw I use real programs to benchmark and p4 EE is just not very good in Doom.... take a look at Doom 3 (AMD vs. Intel) .... AMD Wins!!!! http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sh ... i=2149&p=7

My computer cost me around $1100 about 3 months ago:

P4 3.07 ghz 533mhz FSB (HT of course)
Intel D875PBZ MB
Antec 420w PSU
1gb Corsair DDR
128 mb GeForce FX 5200
D-link 802.11b NIC (Wireless)
24-bit Soundblaster Audigy LS
5 case fans + CPU fan
2 x Maxtor 60GB HDD
16x CD-RW
4x DVD-RW/CD-RW

And that's about it. It runs pretty nice if you don't play games. I am gonna upgrade to:

256MB Geforce FX 6800 Ultra
80GB WD Raptor 10,000 RPM
52x CD-RW

But I don't have another $1000 I can spend right now.

Truce,

Why would you buy a 2nd CD Burner?


Tonight I just bought a Sony DVD Burner 8x for $62+shipping.


Where do you people buying your parts from that your not finding great deals?

I just found what looks to be the same burner for $62 s&h included on http://www.pricewatch.com/

TheBecoming: i get most my stuff from ebuyer . just so its easy!

dqualter,

eBuyer are a fantastic company, but their RAM is best avoided...I've had some bad experiences with this, and it's better to spend a little extra for peace of mind - Crucial & Kingston are my favourites.

Also, maybe don't bother with a CD-ROM drive, but get a DVD-ROM drive instead - this way you can do on-the-fly DVD data copies and also use the ROM as your main drive for games, program installs etc, thereby extending the life of your more expensive DVD-RW drive!

Cheers
Ju

ju thanks your post has helped me loads .!!
all of you have helped but we got a but silly with P4 and stuff lol

you're welcome

Go with the AMD 2500+ for sure...I've got one myself and they are brilliant, especially considering the price. Overclocking potential is there too, if you are that way inclined.

Combined with a humble 512MB of DDR400 Crucial RAM (CL3) and my beloved Radeon 9700Pro, I've just finished a 2 hour session with Far Cry ... wow! What a game!!

Take it easy,

Ju

so the only thing i need help with now is this whole fan/s and whats a heat sink !!! please help