Need help building a new PC

Michael_Cole

New Member
Well I think that I am wanting to go for a new pc. The one that I have now is just not cutting it anymore. I will be honost I dont have the money to just go out and buy all the parts at one time, So I am going to peice it together as I go. I used to build computers a long time ago but I have been out of that sceen for a while. Now I am building cars. LOL I have a AMD 1.8 now with a 250 and 40 gig hard drive. a gig of ddr (dont know what kind) and an old all in wonder 7800 vid card. I allready have a 37 inch proview widescreen that I am going to keep as my screen.

Most of my time is spent on the internet, but I do a lot of dvd burning. I play games every now and then but not alot. I have no clue on where to start with what I want to build. I will be adding alot more hard drive space for my movies.

The box I have now takes forever to convert movies so I would like to cut the time down and I would also like to be able to watch hd xvid on my new machine. I wouldnt mind having someway other than vga to run hd to my screen. If you guys can help me out and give me some pointers that would be great.
 
The option of DVI or S-Video are the two main alternatives to vga. The latest "bells and whistles" will be the most expensive part. First you have to decide the basics knowing that hardwares have a fast turnover rate. And a 40gb hd along with the 250gb will no longer work for video and dvd burning.

The first thing to do is to plan out the system to get ideas on whether or not you are staying with AMD or switching to Intel expect to hear the critics on both sides there. If you spend $300 on something now 2007 will easily see it drop down even below $100 depending on what it is. There are some good video cards with ATI chips as well as NVidia since gaming isn't the exclusive item. A 256mb video card, good sound, a board that can be expanded on are all things to llook at.
 
Well can some people chime in on what they think would be a good mobo and procesor. I know that the drives I have now wont be enough but they will have to do for the begining of the build. I will be upgrading that also. At first I was wanting to build a vista ready machine but a few people told me to stay with xp. What do you all think I should do?
 
I just ran the Vista beta and saw a few features like the desktop background extended onto the taskbar which will be translucent. Thrills there. :rolleyes: XP has worked out quite well here so far since I also run video capturing hardware and run out of space fast! :P

If you are planning to store video files on one or more drives capacity like a pair of 400gb SATA drives or even the use of an external adapter is something to consider. With a pair of WD 250gb drives I manage to dual boot OSs along with having a large storage partition on the second drive used to backup and store various things like updates and utilities.

Western Digital has some 500gb SATA drives I will be taking a look at. The WD5000KS can be seen at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136014

Seagate goes one step further with a 750gb SATA drive. There's another large sized drive to consider. But the price tag there is quite a bit higher on the model seen at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148134
 
What is your budget for a new build? Before the unexpected demise of the last build here a 2007 build was being planned for running the highest model Opteron cpu for building a work horse not gaming system. I still want to get into a multi cored AMD cpu but am currently tossing between Asus and MSI on the brand board to go with. You can also go after the newer AM2 board with high end FX62 Windsor for the price seen at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103861

The 5000+ X2 also with the Winsor core can save a few hundred right away.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103757R
For a bundle mwave has an AMD64 4600+ X2 with the Asus M2N32 SLI Deluxe seen at http://www.mwave.com/mwave/Skusearch.hmx?scriteria=mb-BA22752
 
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