Looking for computer components

[Hiierarch]

I've been working all summer and have some money to throw around: I'm looking to build my own desktop.

 

 

 

I have my processor picked out already:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115029

 

 

 

Now I need to find a motherboard, I'm not entirely sure what to buy. I'd like to do dual 500 gig 10,000 rpm RAID hard drives, and I'll end up using 4 gigs of RAM since that's all XP will support. I'm still looking for a PSU, graphics card, etc.

 

 

 

Anyways, I really don't have much of a limit on price unless it's 1300 or more.

[sloter]

i would fist off like the say a 500GB 10k RPM HDD is rare. The most common is 160GB. You said raid. In order to do a raid setup you need at least 2 HDDs and make sure your mother board can support that. I would not recommend raid 0. I would do raid 1 if i was going to do any. Also you can put more that 4GB with XP in fact it is only going to read around 3GB. Just get the x64 version of XP.

[Jernlov]

I would personally suggest a 160GB 10k master and a 750GB 7.2k slave.

 

 

 

Gigabyte and ASUS (especially Striker Extreme) are good for motherboards (I don't know many offhand) and Antec's 'Thermaltake' line of PSUs are great.

 

 

 

G.Skill RAM is good, and those heatsinks look incredibly, incredibly cool. I would suggest an ATI HD4870 for the graphics card if you can. Also, why not x64 Vista? If you're intending to play games you'll have the advantage of DirectX 10; and if you're not, it's still a superior operating system to XP. Of course if you're not going to play games you could always save money by installing a Linux distro such as Ubuntu, SuSE or Fedora.

 

 

 

Nice choice of processor by the way. C2Ds are great.

[sloter]

I would personally suggest a 160GB 10k master and a 750GB 7.2k slave.

 

 

 

Gigabyte and ASUS (especially Striker Extreme) are good for motherboards (I don't know many offhand) and Antec's 'Thermaltake' line of PSUs are great.

 

 

 

G.Skill RAM is good, and those heatsinks look incredibly, incredibly cool. I would suggest an ATI HD4870 for the graphics card if you can. Also, why not x64 Vista? If you're intending to play games you'll have the advantage of DirectX 10; and if you're not, it's still a superior operating system to XP. Of course if you're not going to play games you could always save money by installing a Linux distro such as Ubuntu, SuSE or Fedora.

 

 

 

Nice choice of processor by the way. C2Ds are great.

 

 

 

I run 160GB 10k boot drive and 750GB 7200 and 320 7200. Also run the asus Extreme striker. Well for it being $450 i think it could havea few less CMOS issues bit other than that it isn't bad at all. I pry need a new CMOS chip. That is for a later date and time to get that fixed.

[blade995]

This processor is better and cheaper.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115038

 

 

 

This is based on the new wolfdale core which uses less power, runs cooler and has more cache.

 

 

 

For a video card you should either get a ATI 4850 or 4870. They are faster than the Nvidia counter parts and are cheaper than them too.

 

 

 

4850

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814103060

 

 

 

4870

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814103061

 

 

 

For a motherboard there are plenty to choose from. Make sure you get a motherboard that has pci-express 2.0 slots and has a good chipset ( p45, x38, x48, or nforce 7)

 

 

 

Sloter: Good idea with a 64bit OS, but 64bit XP sucks, it has tons of incompatible software and drivers. If he needs a 64bit OS he needs to use Linux or Vista.

[Hiierarch]

Ahh I thought XP only supported 4 gigs, and Vista was 8? I didn't pick Vista because of the price. I haven't used it enough to be comfortable with it. And I meant RAID 1.

 

 

 

 

 

@Silver, have you got any links to those two Hard drives?

[Bac_Talan]

Ahh I thought XP only supported 4 gigs, and Vista was 8? I didn't pick Vista because of the price. I haven't used it enough to be comfortable with it. And I meant RAID 1.

 

 

 

 

 

@Silver, have you got any links to those two Hard drives?

 

 

 

32-bit OSs support up to 4 gigs but will only use 3-3.5 gigs. 64-bit OSs support up to like 32 gigs.

 

 

 

Vista's really easy to get used to if you're using XP now. I'm using 64-bit Vista on both my desktop and laptop and had no trouble migrating from XP when I upgraded. Sure, there are some incompatible things because of the 64-bit software, but I have yet to find any major program that doesn't work (except ZoneAlarm, which currently has no plans to ever support 64-bit #-o). Every other recent program that I've used (Made in the last 5 years) has worked fine on Vista x64.

 

 

 

Vista's only about $20 more expensive than XP, also. (And XP Pro costs $30 more than Vista Home Premium.)

 

 

 

XP Home ($90): http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... u=M17-7501

 

 

 

Vista Home Premium ($110): http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=3778

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Both of those are OEM though, meaning you don't get support from M$ and you can't transfer the license to another computer after you install it.)

[blade995]

Ahh I thought XP only supported 4 gigs, and Vista was 8? I didn't pick Vista because of the price. I haven't used it enough to be comfortable with it. And I meant RAID 1.

 

 

 

 

 

@Silver, have you got any links to those two Hard drives?

 

 

 

Well RAID 1 is mirroring to protect from data loss. There will be no speed increase, it may be even a little slower than having no raid.

 

 

 

64bit Vista can support up to 128GB of ram with the Ultimate version. Although most motherboards only support 16GB of ram anyway. The Premium version supports 16GB.

 

 

 

If your going with a gaming computer you should get Vista. For newer hardware the Vista drivers are superior to the XP's and Vista supports directX 10 which all the new games are using.

 

 

 

The only way you will get comfortable with an OS is by using it ;) .

[Hiierarch]

I've heard that using a 64x version of Vista leaves alot of games incompatible and unable to run?