hi all...

i'm looking to build a win xp pro machine and i could do with a little guidance (i've relied solely on my 800mhz g4 imac for the past year so i'm out of the loop on current components)...

primarily it will be for webdesign and general software development but it would be nice if it had tv capabilities along with dvd playback and maybe up to playing a game or two... so all in all a pretty general purpose machine.

so far i know it will be housed in a lian-li pc-60 case

i'm leaning towards an amd xp processor (not sure of speed just yet).
nice atx mb with no onboard sound/graphics... but maybe firewire/usb 2.0
maybe 512mb ram
60/80gb 7200rpm hdd
a mid/top range video card
half decent soundcard

basically i'm looking for suggestions on some decent brands/models that fit these specs so i can do some reading on them and make my descision

i'm based in the uk as well so any suggestions on cheap/reliable suppliers that ship to the uk without charging the earth would be a great help too...

i dont really have a budget i'll just be buying the components one by one when i have the cash....

i'm also planning a linux box for testing/php coding (i prefer the prompt/vi style when i code for some reason). so if you wanna throw in some ideas for that too then feel free

thanks all in advance

ciq

i'm leaning towards an amd xp processor (not sure of speed just yet).

> get a Barton core. They run at 333 mhz rather than the older 266 mhx chips

nice atx mb with no onboard sound/graphics... but maybe firewire/usb 2.0

> asus and gigabyte are some nice quality brands.

maybe 512mb ram

> get quality ram. Kingston, Crucial or Corsair are my favorites.

60/80gb 7200rpm hdd

> look at the new Western Digitl and Maxtor drives with 8 megs of cache. Seagate also make very stable drives.

a mid/top range video card

> look at the ge-force 4200 by nvidia. it runs any game out there lovely.

half decent soundcard

> look at the soundblaster series by Creative. I am not sure of their latest and greatest but they alsways have made nice cards.

I agree with Rob and plus those componets are priced pretty nicely. My recommendations are about the same.

Processor running at 333 on an asus mother board. Kingston 512 MB DDR memory you can get pretty cheap and it's realiable. I've never had any problems with PNY memory either. I exclusively use Western Digital drives and have yet to have one fail on me in about four years. Creative and nvidia continue to set the standard in sound and video respectively. Honestly though, in my experience a sound card is a sound card. Find one that has the features you want and you probably won't have any problems or notice any difference between a top of the line brand and a generic one.

Heck, I use motherboard onboard sound and it sounds just fine to me. :)

the non on-board sound requirement is a hangover from when i used to dj and my turntables would be hooked up to my pc... i dont do it right now but i'm slightly leaning towards buying some more so it would be nice to have that extra connectivity etc there from the offset. something like the soundblaster audigy where i get a 3.5" bay with all the connectors up front...

and this should open up a can of worms... which is the better for pc-tv applications nvidia or ati?...

i believe ati is less gaming orientated and more about overall graphics processing than nvidia. is this a correct assumption?

basically i'm planning to use this machine to also watch tv in the office (probably cheaper than another satellite box and subscription and having to buy a new tv as well) and the timeslip and recording functions like the new hard-drive set-top boxes is something i wouldnt mind playing about with... any cards out there that handle these kind of jobs really well?

thanks for the current input its been very helpful... but feel free to add anything else that may have been overlooked.

Ciq

The ATI one used to be true, but could easily be debated these days.

with a little browsing i am thinking of...

processor: amd athlon xp2600+ (333 fsb)
graphics: ati all-in-wonder 9000
sound: soundblaster audigy

i will look at the 8mb cache western digital hdd's

still stuck on a motherboard though...

how does that sound so far though?

Abit motherboards, and you're good to go.

Originally posted by ciqala
with a little browsing i am thinking of...

processor: amd athlon xp2600+ (333 fsb)
graphics: ati all-in-wonder 9000
[..]


graphics - hm, I still suggest going with nVidia.

Originally posted by Miha
graphics - hm, I still suggest going with nVidia.

hey miha

i'm not saying your judgement isnt correct but what draws you to that suggestion.

my choice of the ati is because it seems to come with a full-suite of functionality for tv recording and pausing of tv etc. which i am 100% would get more usage on the machine than playing games. and as such i havent seen an nvidia that is built for this kind of purpose.

of course i may be wrong in my assumptions (this is why i started this thread) but if you could provide some reasons so i can then do my own investigations on what you say it would be appreciated.

Ciq

just a quick update...

this is the list to date now...

processor: athlon xp 2600+ (333mhz)
motherboard: Gigabyte SoA VIA KT400A ATX A L R
memory: Kingston 512MB 184Pin DIMM PC2700 DDR RAM Non-Parity CL2.5
hdd: Maxtor DiamondMax Plus9 120GB SATA150
sound: ???
graphics: ???

go intel, they own AMD from what i've heard from my hardware friends.

Can't agree with your friends there ub3r. My AMD Athlon system blows away my comparable P4 system in regards to speed and performance. If there are any benchmarks out there that Pentium wins in, their differences don't justify the difference in price.

For sound go with a soundblaster card within your budget and for video go with a nvidia card within your budget.

nvidia > ati for sure.

Just, don't buy an mx card, i can't stand my geforce4 mx 440, i really should have gone with a ti 4600 .

go intel, they own AMD from what i've heard from my hardware friends
ub3r, are you just trying to confuse me now...? :D

Of course I am now an Intel guy also. Once I switched to the P4's about 5 months ago I have enjoyed half the heat they put out, the quieter noise of the stock fan that comes with them and their speeds.

Originally posted by ciqala
hey miha

i'm not saying your judgement isnt correct but what draws you to that suggestion.

my choice of the ati is because it seems to come with a full-suite of functionality for tv recording and pausing of tv etc. which i am 100% would get more usage on the machine than playing games. and as such i havent seen an nvidia that is built for this kind of purpose.

of course i may be wrong in my assumptions (this is why i started this thread) but if you could provide some reasons so i can then do my own investigations on what you say it would be appreciated.

Ciq

In case one day you will want to try Linux/FreeBSD (4.7 atm), you will blame folks here who suggested ATI. nvidia supports Linux very well these days, and it is not worse than ATI.

Originally posted by Miha
In case one day you will want to try Linux/FreeBSD (4.7 atm), you will blame folks here who suggested ATI. nvidia supports Linux very well these days, and it is not worse than ATI.

in that case thanks for bringing this to my attention. i'll have to take that into consideration. :)

Abit motherboards, and you're good to go.

Windows XP doesn't seem to recognize Abit Raid boards although it may recognize others.

There are so many quality brands and technology is getting to the point that differences between them are small. You should be considering features that major brands offer over only the brand.

Interestingly, hardware minimums keep creeping up. I had to visit at least 4 or 5 local computer stores to find any video cards less than 32MB and to find memory less than 128MB.

Usage is important when considering parts. I can play several games on a Duron 900 that seem to run virtually the same on an Athlon XP 1800, both with the same 32mb nVidia card. It's a matter of what you're planning on doing with the system including programs you're planning on running specifically as well as what you're planning on storing on the drives. Games and multimedia have higher hard drive requirements than other uses. A 40GB drive is more than enough if you don't have much of either of those. Build something that you can use now as well as 3 yrs from now, but no need to go overboard. Something 'in the middle' should be fine as a multipurpose PC. Why spent $$$ on a beefed up corvette when you never race it?

Get a nice Nforce Mobo.

Check out www.newegg.com for all the hardware....really good stuff

Is that from the same guys who used to have egghead.com?

I always thought that also since the names were simular.

Originally posted by Xshare
Is that from the same guys who used to have egghead.com?

I don't think so. Egghead didn't have something that these guys do...

oh, what was it.....

uh, QUALITY....yeah, I think that's it....

the one thing i've seen when reading about newegg is that a lot of stuff has to go back the first time.