Need help from the computer Guru'sthere. I am having a new home out computer built and need advise on components. The machine will primarily be used for the net, gaming, desktop publishing, graphics, etc. I have allready decided on using an AMD cpu (not sure which is best), cd-rom & rw-cdr, 3.5 floppy, 40GB 7200 rpm hd (is 40gb enough, which brand), 512mb ram (1gb? what's the best ram to use?).

Basically I need help with brands and best components to use. Want a top shelf video card and sound card. What to use for a power supply and case etc. Thanks for your help. Bill.

 

'Bolt,

Video: 64MB GEFORCE3 TI200 TV DVI 4X/PRO

Sound: SOUND BLASTER AUDIGY MP3+ PCI

CD-RW: SONY CDRSO134 10X/24X/40X CDRW EIDE

Case: not familiar with brands but a 350W powersupply is a good choice...


Maxtor makes good Hard Drives. As for 'real estate,' it depends on how much data you'll be loading but 40 gig should be sufficient.

Try to stay under 512 Meg of RAM if your planning on using 9x/ME. If using 2000/XP, the more the merrier.

Make sure the Motherboard has extra USB connections (at least 4) and plenty of PCI slots as well as an Ultra ATA slot for the Hard drive..

 

hey, i recomend AlienWare...

this brand of computer is like the SVT Lightning compared to all other truck company's finest


they come super quick, and totally pimped out right out of the box


check it out..


www.alienware.com

 

OK, so this is going to sound like a rant, but it is the result of 20 years worth of IT experience, so please bear with me...

I can't count how many people I've known that purchase a new machine with scads of storage space, but have NO plans on how they are going to back the thing up! Then, when the drive fails (notice I said when, not if), they have no method of recovering. Great for tech support at Microsoft or wherever, but lousy for your disposition.

Buy a tape backup. Do not plan on using the CD-R as your backup device because they can sometimes be iffy. If tape drives are used to back up servers, why shouldn't you protect your investment of time and data just as strongly?

- soap box mode off

Enjoy the new machine, whatever the configuration!

 

i use CDR to backup my files... i have mostly music, video, and misc text/small files on my HD

they work great


IMO, if you have anything valuable on a computer in which you can not afford to lose, youd better back it up with paper or whatever medium so fits.

 

Silver-Bolt,

If you're dead set on an Athlon get an XP CPU and a KT-266A chipset board from a good manufacturer (ASUS, Abit, Soyo, A-Open).

Ensure you buy GOOD DDR Ram (Corsair, Crucial, Mushkin) and get PC-2400 or 2700 if possible. And even with Win2k or XP 512M should be plenty (but do get 512).

The GF3 chipsets are faster but for 2d image quality and feature sets the ATI Radeons are better buys. I use an AIW Radeon and love it compared to the Nvidias I've used for high res 32bit 2d it can't be beat and that sounds like mostly what you'll be doing. Graphics are more user dependent and many people will argue both sides but when you get eyestrain it bites. I get great 3d game play in games like Quake II/III, AVP2, DiabloII... Plus I can watch and record video/TV (kinda like TIVO but free). And at 1280x1024 (or 1600x1200) the screen fonts, colors, brightness on my 19" are rock solid and perfect.

If you can swing the bucks get a Lian-Li PC-60 case. It's all aluminum and will got perfect with that silver Bolt.

Enermax and Antec both make good 350 and 400watt PSUs (get at least 350W).

40 gig drives aren't much cheaper than 60 gigs. I would go with the largest you can swing. Especially if you start doing video capture.

I'm using a Yamaha lightspeed 16x10x40 CD-RW and it works great. I use it to backup everything but my large video caps.

For sound I like the Hercules Game Theater XP. It's cheaper than the Audigy has the same kind of breakout box with all the I/O you could want and the Live! series of cards have had some compatibility issues with Win2K/XP and VIA Athlon chipsets.

But I must agree with Malibu also. Buying a system is usually more cost effective these days. You get all the software bundled and pre-installed, a single warranty source and the system is usually pre-tested for compatibility issues. Alienware and Falcon both sell "customized" pimp rigs and that may be a better way to go...

Luck

 

Check out their N-force motherboard. It's the fastest AMD motherboard out there by about 15% or so...

It's got an integrated GF2 that's not to bad, but you can always add a GF3Ti for better graphics.

Both Radeon and GeForce are good chips. Radeon has slightly better 2D, but the 3D is lacking in quality to the GF.

Enermax Power supply. Case only matters if you are planning on oppening it up often.

Coldie.

 

Why buy a tape drive when you are only backing up your data? On a server you need to backup gigabytes or terabytes of data, therefore a tape drive is useful. There's no sense in backing up applications on a tape drive when the full restore seldom works correctly anyway. Also, you would need to install your OS, tape drive software, and then do a restore. Most new computers have a CDRW installed, just buy a $5 blank CDRW and backup your data files once a week or so.

Granted a scheduled tape device is nice, but there is plenty of software out there now to backup to a CD or CDRW. Tape drives for home PC's are few and far between these days anyway. Just my .02.

 

Thanks for all the input. I am having a local company quote the new unit. They have built a couple of units for our company which work great. I did a Dell for the current system (p-II 266) just don't like all the extra garbage that comes with it. Not oppossed to a Pentium chip, I have just heard very good things about the AMD's (which are cheaper). What about "fire-wire" connections? What do they do and do I want/need them?

Thanks again for any and all input.

 

... firewires are most commonly used for transfering video from video camera to computer, and back again (at amazing speeds)

as of late, CD Writers and DVD players, among other things, can be hooked up to the computer through firewire

 

99svtlightning says that backing up the data is the important thing. I'm not disagreeing that backing up the data is important, but without the programs that created that data, all you have are a bunch of files.

I'd rather see a person backing up their entire system and have a rational recovery system than having a system which is hit and miss. And now that Microsoft has gone to a CD key AND a registration key after the software is installed, is it worth going through all that hassle and time when a restore from tape of the entire system would be faster?

And the idea of tapes only being used to back up servers is old hat. Backing up a workstation by tape is much more economical with tape than trying to do the same thing with CDs. A 40 gig native tape costs more, but the time saving in that you do not have to change a tape every 600 MBs means less time that someone has to babysit the backup. With tape, I can start the backup and go to bed, knowing that when I wake up that the backup is complete.

 

I have to agree with Malibu. I have an Alienware. It's just as Richard Petty says about Goody's headache powders, "It's just plain fast".

 

Tapes are good for backups BUT few if ANY will do a sucessful bare metal restore. I have met with the leading Backup software vendors and the reps all say that bare metal restores are a Hope and a prayer at best...

If I have a system I have to be sure of restoring, I use Ghost. It copies the entire drive bit by bit and is sure to allow bare metal restore... BUT is NOT good for single file restores.... So you cant win....

I use CDR's for my data... I format and reinstall the OS every 6 months anyway.

Doug

 

Can you use Ghost walker (sp?) to restore individul files from the image? We use ghost alot at work. Great for installing the basic software quickly. Once too much gets on the PC the image size can get bigger than the CD can hold. But you can always ghost from another harddrive.