building my own pc.

[JJsushi]

soongmak said:

 

 

At the moment I am just studying my options, I will be building the machine in about 6 months time.

 

 

Dude 6 months is a LIFETIME in technology hardware. In that time you will see BTX boards, PCI-express, 12ms LCD monitors, Longhorn finally launched, becoming the norm and a host of other things.

 

keep reading the hardware forums especially those that focus on overclocking and gaming. Gamers are on the forefront of the hardware and they will rarely steer you wrong.

 

You will probably be able to build an even better kick ass machine for 2000 euros 6 months from now.

[carlton68]

Right,

 

6 month is already the next century for computer hardware. And for 2000 Euros you get a hel of a machine. I'd say you still have enough change for a ticket to Los.

E.g. Aldi germany (now I will get flamed because I recommend discounter hardware...) will have a nice machine from 22. November that meets most of your specs (even if it has an Intel CPU) for 999 Euros. Includes XP home and more.

Even if you add two more drives it will be cheaper than everything you may build yourself.

 

We get offers like that every so often from various discounters and mostly the components are made by normal manufacturers like MSI or ASUS for the mainboard. the front panel offers many options custom made computers lack or are expensive. Worth a look when you are due to buy a machine.

Downside is that usually the cases are quite small and not much space for add ons. Like it has always space for one more harddrive, but is there room for two more?

[JJsushi]

LaoHuLi said:

No doubt it will smoke my Sanuker II ......... but it won't travel as well

 

Best of luck

 

Sanuker II

 

What are the specs on the Sanuker II?

 

You should swap your connectors for flurescent ones, mod the case with acryllic panels and bring it to your favorite Go-go bar!

Also what type of insulation do you use tp prevent static charges?

 

How in the hell do you get that thing through airport security?

[Guest]

jjsushi said:

LaoHuLi said:

No doubt it will smoke my Sanuker II ......... but it won't travel as well

 

Best of luck

 

Sanuker II

 

What are the specs on the Sanuker II?

 

You should swap your connectors for flurescent ones, mod the case with acryllic panels and bring it to your favorite Go-go bar!

Also what type of insulation do you use tp prevent static charges?

 

How in the hell do you get that thing through airport security?

 

hahaha sell I do have all the 'glow in the dark connectoors' but so far this is a 'working machine' primarily for diagnosis and repair of other machines. The idea was to have reasonably powerful machine that I could lug around SEA when I needed one.

 

AMD 2600+ Athalon

 

MSI K7N MB ..... luv MSI for the ability to do online live biios updates, and good stability, plus fully tweakable and Overclosking. This one also has built in TV out so I can hook it up in the boonies and let the kids watch a DVD

 

Enermax 350 PSU ..... real 350 not just rated as, very stable rails

 

Seagate 120g HD .......... also have a external 200 gig for backups of clients files. It hooks to a custom made 'Drive Leech' via usb. (The drive leech is a heavily modded external drive that I can attach any harddrive, optical or laptop drive to and either recover data. or do diagnostics or virus repairs. Big problem with trying to clean a drive IN another computer can be that it is already seriously infected in the OS, preventing it from working, or the HD itself is on it's last legs. This avoids most of this problem and gives me a powerful machine for virus cleans (very cpu intensive)

 

DVD writer ...... Pioneer 2510, dual layer. Also an optional 2nd DVD reader.

 

The Monitor is a 12 volt car job 13" that I bought from HongKong. I direct wired it to the PSU

 

Keyboard and 'Air' mouse are wireless (air mouse=no surface necessary)

 

Finished with a D-Link Extreme 'g' wireless Lan (in addition to the onboard)

 

Overall, I am pretty happy with this setup for the purpose I built it for.

 

Laptops, while a LOT lighter, still have some limits I don't accept ... Like HD size and speed, and huge upgrade pricing, proprietory parts etc.

 

Did I mention that I built the whole thing for 1/3 of the price of a comparable laptop. So it may be a bitch to lug about, (20 pds) but it will pay for a few dozen extra L/Ts 5555555

 

PS ...... I have looked at doing an Acry;ic one ........ as a Lan Gamer.

 

Airport Security is yet to be tested, but should be no problem as, like a laptop, it can be turned on and operated anywhere. (ok so I need a plugin) Will let you all know in a couple of weeks.

[Guest]

A few more toughts.

 

as JJ said, 6 months is a next life time in computer technology ....... don't get too committed to anything until you see what comes along.

 

Since you are looking for video editing speed, consider 2 Sata high speed drives ........ like Western Digital Raptors (10,000 RPM) although a bit small (67 Gigs) they are fast. I don't know if raiding them would enhance performance significantly or not, but I know high end gamers do this. Other choice would be to add SCSI drives and controller ... but $$$$.

 

That would allow you to keep your 4 EIDE connections for a large back up hard drive and optical devices. My current recommend for a DVD burner is the Pioneeer 3500 dual layer. Pioneer has a large commeunity based support and lots of unofficial tweaks are available.

 

BTW, there is no difference between OEM and retail products other than the lack of additional software and possibly some basic connectors. So judge accordingly. If adding 3rd party components like CPU fans etc. get the OEM and save some $$.

 

Should be a great build.

[adikgede]

Airport Security is yet to be tested, but should be no problem as, like a laptop, it can be turned on and operated anywhere. (ok so I need a plugin) Will let you all know in a couple of weeks.

 

We had a technician at work who had one of these, errr things, he had the same atitude as you, its a pc you can plug it in and it works so whats the problem?. He only had get held up going into China (3days) and the Ukraine (they grabbed some bits off it to boot) before he knuckled down and got a real portable PC (google mpc-6013). Portable PCs can be real pricey if you buy them new but if you keep your eyes open you can pick one up cheap in surplus or at an auction.

 

Everyone has their own story, but customs and immigration is the last place I want to be an individual.

[Guest]

My post was based on my own experiences putting together a machine to run XP Media Center Edition 2005. My requirements were driven by TV scenarios, since I have other more powerful PCs around the house for encoding DVDs and browsing the internet and such. I wanted to be able to watch one channel while recording another, or record 2 shows at once, etc; to watch/record HDTV; and to distribute music and recorded programs from the PC to another TV in my house. I didn't need to be able to do DVD encoding on that machine or to be able to use the machine actively while doing encoding or watching TV etc, as you do.

 

Nevertheless I am sure that a little tweaking would make this machine in the ballpark for your needs. Here are the specs:

 

* Intel P4 3.0GHz (hyperthreaded)

* 512MB PC3200 RAM in dual-ported (2 x 256MB) config

* Asus P4C800-Deluxe motherboard

* Western Digital Quiet Drive 80GB ATA/100 HDD

* Western Digital Quiet Drive 250GB ATA/100 HDD

* 8x dual layer DVD+-RW

* nVidia 5900FX-based video card

* 2 x Hauppauge 250MCE NTSC tuner cards

* VBox DT-111 HDTV tuner card

* Zalman 7000Cu CPU fan

* Antec 480W power supply

* Ahanix D4 case

* Microsoft bluetooth wireless keyboard and mouse

 

If I had requirements beyond just handling all the TV and music in the house, I would have used SATA instead of AT/100, and I would have put 1GB RAM in there.

 

The thing looks like a piece of stereo equipment, not a PC, runs nearly silent, and cool at ~45 degrees C under sustained load. Originally I went with an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ on an Asus A7V600 motherboard but as I described in my earlier post there were all sorts of little issues with it, I had to tweak RAM timings and voltage settings in the BIOS and in any case it ran over 60 degrees C under load even with the Zalman fan, which is not good.

 

The machine is connected to the TV via DVI and is connected to my receiver via SPDIF. I get Dolby Digital passed through to the receiver from both HDTV and DVDs, and DTS from DVDs.

 

I also have an HP x5400 Media Center Extender so I can watch the recorded programs on a TV in my bedroom, and also distribute the music on the PC to the bedroom. It's connected via wired network so I can't comment about using it with wireless, but 54Mbit is enough bandwidth to stream high-quality NTSC or PAL MPEG2+audio.

 

The whole thing works very well.

[BaronTT]

Your choices look pretty good to me.

 

I've been building my own PCs for more than 10 years because I can get better value over-all. I always get good components.

 

I currently have 2 machines running AMD 64s. One is my notebook and the other is my home PC. Both machines have 1GB RAM, hefty hard drives, firewire, DVD writers, etc etc. The desktop uses SATA.

 

I sometimes use the desktop for video editing. The Firewire connection (on the Mobo) is great for the data transfer.

 

A couple of suggestions... get an ASUS mobo, they're solid and have good support. (And very tweakable for those so inclined.) Stay away from Maxtor HDs! I prefer Seagate, IBM,Hitachi. Don't scrimp on RAM. And get the AMD 64s, you won't be paying much of a premium to get the capability to run 64 bit stuff, some of which is available if you're so inclined. (Linux and WindozeXP Beta.)

 

One CURRENT advantage of the AMD 64 is that it has some built-in anti-virus protection. (Intel has announced that they would put the same into their MPUs by the end of this year, but I don't think it's happened yet.)

 

For video, get Nvidea GF 5700 (or higher) or ATI 9600 (or higher). You should be able to get them for as little as $150-200.

 

Re Power supply... try to get at least 400 Watts... 500 better. The newer video cards can use a lot of power. And you'll have other componenets too.

[gummigut]

"Be prepared to fiddle with RAM timings, VCore voltage settings, and the like to get your AMD processor running properly."

 

Huh? If you want to overclock yes. If you operate at the CPU's rated speed, you don't have to alter anything you wouldn't have to for an Intel.

 

I'm in the build it yourself camp. Building PC's isn't a unique skill anymore so you should be able to find someone who has done this before in your circle of friends. Get this person to come over and talk you through putting all your stuff together. You should do all the work so you get the experience while he/she watches. I actually think it's a lot of fun!

 

BaronTT: You make me feel OLD!!! I've been building PC's since Seagate introduced it's st-225 hard drive. Overclocking was done by removing the crystal on the mother board and replacing it with a new one. We did this with a soddering iron on the motherboard!!!

 

Aacckkkkk.

 

<<burp>>

[unit731]

If you got the time and money, I say, go for it. But for the novice, there are many pitfalls. Each component will have its own warranty. If something goes wrong, most will blame the other companies components. Who you gonna call?