Putting together my first...

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bubbagumper6

New Member
So i'm looking around trying to put together my first comp. Basically it's a budget comp that will be able to game decently. I don't need it to be a great gaming system because I just bought an Alienware laptop that "should" last me awhile (lol, with technology these days it'll be obsolete in a month)...anyway I already have a case, power supply, monitor, keyboard/mouse. I'm not worried about a dvd burner or hard drive because I those are hard to screw up but as far as motherboard, processor, graphics card, and ram go...not that sure about

here's what I was looking at so far

motherboard
processor

haven't looked at ram or graphics cards yet, the card might have to wait which is a reason I want to get a motherboard with onboard graphics. I know they suck but I don't know if I can drop all that money at the same time, might have to be spaced out and I want to at least be able to use the comp till I can get a card...

didn't know much about IDE/SATA before today but after reading about it, it seems SATA would be the better choice? Faster speeds and smaller cables?

thanks for any help guys, you can go ahead and consider me a noob, I've been reading through the 101 guides here trying to absorb as much as possible :)
 
Well, whats your budget? And what do you prefer... AMD or Intel?
You would probably need to buy ram for the motherboard because some motherboards are fickle on the type of memory they use.
Yes SATA is better than IDE and most new motherboards mostly only use SATA, but with SATA you need a CD drive and or hard drive made to use SATA.
 
well the budget isn't exactly anything grand. I'm an unemployed college student right now slowly leaching off my grad money (im going to look for a job next week when i go back). So I know the prices for dvd drives and hard drives (and I know they have to be SATA). As far as budget for the motherboard/cpu/ram goes...well i guess like 300 or so for all 3? I don't exactly know what good prices are and if I could get decent stuff for less I would :)

as far as intel vs. amd I haven't researched that yet so no idea, my laptop has an AMD in it but everyone keeps telling me Intel is better...
 
damn well you guys lost me because the only way I know to compare CPU's is their speed and saying that 1.6 dual core is better than the 3.0 dual core i was looking at confuses me...guess it's time to read CPU's 101 (if there is such a guide here)

also I'm kinda stuck between gaming and not gaming. It's not going to be a gaming comp right when I build it but eventually when I get more money I'll probably turn it into one...so I want to leave room for improvement, for example by getting a mobo that has 2 PCI-E slots so if I want to go SLI, I can. Not sure if I can accomplish this on a budget, might just have to settle with having to upgrade basically everything eventually :P
 
i dont understand that chart, is a smaller bar better?

also as far as the PSU is concerned (thats power supply right?) the one I bought should be able to power a low level card right? Like i'm not talking about a huge SLI rig but just a cheap low level card for the time being...
 
Your power supply shouldn't have any problem running a 8600gt with e2140 etc. but you'd be cutting it close with a 8800GT.
 
ok cool, I know it isn't extremely powerful but it was only like 20 bux. When I start upgrading I realize it will have to be upgraded first...

How much power do case fans pull? My case has room for up to like 10 fans about 5 of them being 140mm but if that's gunna be too much of a strain on the PSU i'll cut it down to the essentials :P

also I think I would rather go with a Mobo that supports SLI even if it means i have to pay a little extra because the graphics cards would probably be the first thing to get upgraded in the future (after the PSU of course!)
 
SLI is really a waste of money, by the time you save up for duplicate video card, there will be faster video cards out that will blow away both of your old cards in SLI. Don't waste the money on a SLI motherboard unless you can run it from the start.
 
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