Computah

[slimfandango]

How do you build a computah? What spec should you go for? which RAM type? what is the relation between mboard and chip? what about amd vs intel? (da da dum dum)

[mattie]

What spec you go for depends on what you are going to use the PC for.

Myself, I would get the following.

Intel 3.6GHZ LGA 775 CPU

Asus P5AD2-E Premium motherboard

Asus Extreme AX850XT PE/2DHTV PCI Express Graphics Card

Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 4 Pro 7.1

2GB DDR2 Crucial branded RAM.

2 x 160GB SATA hard drives

The type of PC case and type of optical drive is a matter of personal choice, but a DVD rewriter is pretty much standard these days.

Building a PC is pretty straightforward,make sure you ground yourself before starting, remove the side of the case, install the drives, put the RAM, CPU and CPU heatsink and fan onto the motherboard, install the motherboard into the case, connect the leads to the motherboard and to the drives, there will be a diagram to help you with this. Install the graphics card and sound card.

[OBonio]

Motherboard has a front side bus speed that the RAM must be able to match, if not better. DDR RAM is the current kid on the block.

I like AMD. If you want to be cutting edge, get the new 64 bit processor from them. There is a version of XP for 64 bit processors, but I think it's still in beta. Ordinary XP will run on it anyway, then you can upgrade later if needs be.

Not sure which motherboard you should get. I assume AMD and Intel chips are interchangeable, but don't quote me on that!

Definitely recommend SATA drives.

[stevie21]

mattie, any idea roughly how much your system here would cost?

From my existing (quite old) system I already have the HD and DVD-RW etc. Just need motherboard, RAM, CPU (and fans etc.) to plug them into.

[Cockney_si]

Most places nowadays can probably build computers for cheaper than you can do yourself.

Try Novatech.com

[mattie]

That lot would set you back about �1300 including a case and dvd/rw, but �360 of that was the video card, so you could save some money there, and the sound card costs about �130, so you could go for a cheaper option.

I didn't really shop around for prices, so you could find some of the components cheaper.

The breakdown is like this

CPU �190

RAM �190

Hard drives �120

Sound Card �127

Video Card �360

Motherboard �165

Case w/o PSU �100

550W PSU �20

DVD/RW �35