NationStates Jolt Archive

OK NS, I've been having some computer issues as of late, and being that my computer is becoming dated, and I have a little bit of computer know how, I would like to take my shot at building a computer of my own. The question I pose at you all, is if you were building a computer from scratch, what would you put in it?

OK NS, I've been having some computer issues as of late, and being that my computer is becoming dated, and I have a little bit of computer know how, I would like to take my shot at building a computer of my own. The question I pose at you all, is if you were building a computer from scratch, what would you put in it?
Lol you are not asking an easy or uniform answer lol ...

First of all price range and features you want in a computer

Depends on what I wanted to do with it.
What do you want to do with it?

Lol you are not asking an easy or uniform answer lol ...

First of all price range and features you want in a computer
I want something I can casually play some games on, use to watch movies every now and again, and use to type essays and whatnot. Nothing uber powerfull, but enough to use for said functions. Price range, is a factor, but not an overly huge one.

I want something I can casually play some games on, use to watch movies every now and again, and use to type essays and whatnot. Nothing uber powerfull, but enough to use for said functions. Price range, is a factor, but not an overly huge one.
Ok name the range I am guessing about a thousand? with monitor?

Ok name the range I am guessing about a thousand? with monitor?
I already have a good one, so no monitor.

The question I pose at you all, is if you were building a computer from scratch, what would you put in it?
Ummm..computer stuff I guess.

OK NS, I've been having some computer issues as of late, and being that my computer is becoming dated, and I have a little bit of computer know how, I would like to take my shot at building a computer of my own. The question I pose at you all, is if you were building a computer from scratch, what would you put in it?

Surely no Microsoft OS :)

The question I pose at you all, is if you were building a computer from scratch, what would you put in it?
porn? :)

Go into your local computer parts store. They will often build a reasonable system for you at prices that are not eye-watering like at the major stores.

You will need

Essentials

1 * Motherboard- ask at the store, they will recommend the best in your price range
1* CPU- ask at the store, they will recommend the best in your price range
512Mb- RAM. ENough to do everything without causing slowdown or busting the bank.
1*case, normally supplied with an integral power supply- But check FFS.
1* sound card-ask at the store, they will recommend the best in your price range
1* ethernet port (on motherboard in some cases or buy a card) for broadband access.
1* Video Card- depending on how important you regard super-duper graphics else it could be on the MB
1 * Hard Drive - 80-120GB is normally sufficient unless you are downloading films
1*CD/DVD R/W- so you can burn you own CD's and DVDs



Good to haves.

4-8* USB ports
A nice mouse
A good keyboard to suityour size. I find some keyboards too small. If you have dainty hands you might want a smaller keyboard.

I built the computer Im using right now.
And spent about 900 dollars all told.

Thats not including a monitor.

However this machine is for high-end gaming.

Its doesnt sound liek you need a gaming rig.

Therefore, you wont need a grahpics card any higher that 128 mg.
You really wont need a lot of RAM, unless you use very demanding applications.

An Invidia or Radeon ALL in Wonder card would probably be perfect for you.
Not really meant for Doom 3 or Everquest 2 or anything, but its got TV I/O and all that good stuff.

1 gig of ram will be more than you'll probably need.

As for the Motherboard, I would go and buy a lower-end Asus, or A-Bit motherboard/fan/cpu combo deal.

Zipzoomfly.com
Newegg.com
Tigerdirect.com

These sites always have decent to sweet deals on parts.

Unless you plan on having a lot of mp3's, or movies on your hard drive, you really dont need a huge hard drive.

You can get a 40 gig HDD for pretty cheap.

That leaves cd-rom, maybe a dvd-rom, and a case.

As for the dvd and Cd-ROM, go with Lite-on....always.

OK NS, I've been having some computer issues as of late, and being that my computer is becoming dated, and I have a little bit of computer know how, I would like to take my shot at building a computer of my own. The question I pose at you all, is if you were building a computer from scratch, what would you put in it?

Note that it's also a matter of how you put it. To save you from something that I've seen happening a lot: while screwing the motherboard (no pun intended) tighten the screws until they offer resistance and no more - do not overtighten the screws or you're almost guaranteed to damage the motherboard.
As to what to put in it, it only depends on what you want the computer for and how much money you have.

I would probably start with a barebones system with a power supply 450W or more, at least one PCI-express slot, preferably more than one PCI slot, and probably around 4GB expandable memory.
All USB 2.0 slots with some in the front wouldn't hurt.

What do you do with it?

Just office work, gaming, video editiing or just net surfing?

Ok name the range I am guessing about a thousand? with monitor?
For way less than that, I managed to put together a nice machine that is powerful.

I thinmk they could make a decent one with less than $500.

One word: Newegg.

Take a little look at this.

The parts have since gone down in price quite a way so you could probably improve everything bar the RAM :p

Personally I'd try to replace the processor with an Athlon X2 3800+ It wouldn't be massively faster (but it would still run on a par with the GFX card) but it would allow more intensive tasks to run in the background (virus scans etc, mine's run them automatically while I'm gaming before, not good on a single-core machine).

Might try to get a non-SLI board as well because it'd be cheaper and you'll never use SLI anyway...

One thing you might consider is getting an AM2 version of the board/processor and using DDR2 RAM, you'll be a bit better future-proofed that way if nothing else.

(and whatever you do, wait until the end of july if possible, AMD are going to crash their prices around then, you may well find some absolute bargains).

Take a little look at this.

The parts have since gone down in price quite a way so you could probably improve everything bar the RAM :p

Personally I'd try to replace the processor with an Athlon X2 3800+ It wouldn't be massively faster (but it would still run on a par with the GFX card) but it would allow more intensive tasks to run in the background (virus scans etc, mine's run them automatically while I'm gaming before, not good on a single-core machine).

Might try to get a non-SLI board as well because it'd be cheaper and you'll never use SLI anyway...

One thing you might consider is getting an AM2 version of the board/processor and using DDR2 RAM, you'll be a bit better future-proofed that way if nothing else.

(and whatever you do, wait until the end of july if possible, AMD are going to crash their prices around then, you may well find some absolute bargains).
Swwet crashed prices for the win. Though you usually get a deal when buying motherboard and processor combos anyway.