The New PC Q&A

Well, I\'m going to build a brand new PC.  Sure, I can research all of the information I need with a few clicks in google, but I want information from those who actually own these devices and have used them.  The information provided here I\'m sure will help many (including me) in building new PC\'s and putting together great machines.  Technology is ever changing and I hope this thread does as well.  Maybe it will amass so much information that it will grow beyond the bounds of those religion threads.   Anyways, on with the questions\\data.

Remember now, budget is of no concern here, but lets be practical.  No, a OC3 is not in my price range or any other normal joe off the street, but certain components can easily be attained so lets get it all out here.

First of all, lets start with Computer Cases.  http://www.coolerguys.com/ has a few of the Lian-Li cases, but those are a bit pricy compared to other cases.  They do seem to be ventilated quite well and they do seem very sleek, but I\'d like to know what else makes them worth that $140 + price tag and if there is something better out there.  Also, to keep things cool, what\'s a good fan?  How many?  What\'s the difference between a heat sync and a fan?

Next, what about motherboards.  What\'s a RAID motherboard?  Why are they so good?  Do any of you recommend them?  What abour Firewire or SCSI?  I\'m more interested in the RAID question then anything else.  Is RAID a processor specific function?  Does it cost considerably more than a standard motherboard?

Finally, what does everyone recommend for the best network cards and speaker set ups?  An Audigy soundcard is a given seeing as how it\'s the best card out there right now, but what speaker set up would go great with that?  Network cards aren\'t too important, thay are practically a dime a dozen nowadays, but what is the best out there in everyone\'s opinion (First hand use is preferable).

Well, I hope that will get everyone started on replying.  I know there\'s PLENTY of tech heads out there who spezialize in audio, video, and just plain performance so lets hear everyone\'s opinion on these things.  I\'d be greatful.

aluminum cases look cooler, allow heat to dissapate faster, and are easier to mod

a heatsink goes on top of yer cpu and it just a hunk of metal that draws the heat off the the cpu, a fan goes on top of this

one fan in the front to suck air in and one fan in the back for exhaust is fine

RAID = reduntant array of inexpensive disks
it allows to "link" multiple hard drives
mostly for mirroring and "striping" to prevent loss of data
not practicle for the average user unless yer running a website

firewire is just a faster form of USB used to connect periphials like digital cameras.

SCSI = small computer system interface
its a means of connecting devices to yer pc such as hard drives and cdroms
faster than IDE and allows for more devices.  you can put 8 devices on a SCSI chain
again, not that practical for the average user

get a 3COM  NIC, enough said

speakers, not much difference in them nowadays
dont buy ANYTHING under $150 for a 4.1 setup and youll be fine

Well, I\'m not quite as tech-headed as alot of the folks here so I\'ll keep my constructive comments to myself. However, while I was browsing AlienWare the other night, I decided to see just how much one of those lil buggers would cost maxxed out. With all the best hardware, biggest moniter, most ram, and such.. the grand total came out to $17,779 and one helluva powerful machine. It had over 600gig of HDD space ALONE.

Well you said budget was of no concern.

[videoholic]

Just to add to MM.

A Raid is multiple drives together, but what it\'s great for is video.  The biggest problem with editing video is not thoroughput, but access speed.  To edit shot to shot, the drives are bouncing around all over the place.  To have multiple drives in an array increases the access speeds.

Firewire is faster than the original USB, but now USB 2.0 is actually a tad bit faster than firewire.

[nO-One]

Well mm basically explained everything, you won\'t need RAID I always intended to use the RAID on my board but I never did.
Case wise if your not going to go aluminum may I suggest Antec\'s or Chieftec\'s, basically the same cases but Chieftec offers more colors than Antec.. I have a Chieftec Dragon fulltower (DA-01BLD) best case I\'ve ever used, the drive rails are a godsend along with the drive cages. http://www.chieftec.com/products/Workcolor/ColorDA.htm cooling is also great, you get a built in sude fan and a number of fan cages.

The speakers are easy to buy.  You just need to compare the frequency response of whatever models you\'re considering.  The theoretical limit of human hearing is 20hz to 20khz, so you\'ll be trying to find speakers that get as close to these limits as possible.  (probably won\'t happen).  Also consider getting speakers with multiple drivers, (more than one cone per enclosure) that way you won\'t have just one driver trying to make all the sound from top to bottom of the frequency spectrum at the same time.  Make sure you get balance, bass, treble, and volume pots, and a headphone connecter on the speakers at a minimum.  Then buy a reliable brand so you\'ll know it\'s made of more durable materials.  That\'s it.

i agree with nO-One on the cases, antec and chieftec make good cases, and they are more affordable then the aluminum ones.  i\'m gonna order an antec sx-1040b, its $115 or so, and its a black case, its nice.
as far as the speakers go, get klipsch or logitech z-560.  the logitech subwoofer is rated at 180 watts!!!  sounds good to, i went to my local best buy and they had them setup their, they also had a couple different klipsch speakers.  i suggest you try your local best buy and see what you think of the sound, and then order the one you like off the net.  the logitech comes with 4 speakers and a sub for around $140(on the net), and the klipsch with 4 speakers is over $200.

N0-0ne, those cases look nice, but it seems most of their special equipment comes in the form of full towers.  I just don\'t have the room for a full tower, but the Lian-Li has their best features in a mid-tower.  What\'s the point of the "sliding drivers" as they called it on the site?

Thank you Slick and coredweller for the speaker information.  I will remember that when I go to buy them.

Videoholic, considering what has been said about RAID, it may be useful and it may not be.  How much does that extra feature usually cost for a system?

Sonyfan, you\'re insane.  I did say be reasonable didn\'t I?  hehe.

mm, thanks for all of that information.  Based on that, I don\'t think I will tamper with firewire.  SCSI just might be useful, but that depends on if DVD-Ram drives get cheaper.  Since the burn speeds aren\'t really all that fast, it\'d be nice to be able to burn and do multiple things at the same time.  It sounds useful, but we\'ll see.  I\'m also waiting for DVD-Ram drives to get cheaper as well.

Ok, now for a new question.  How about Ram?  There are so many choices for it on http://www.pricewatch.com but I am wondering the differences.  For example, the difference between PC3200 and PC2100?  What will I really need for a Pentium 4 based system?  And when looking at a 256MB strip of PC2100, what does it mean when it\'s "32x64"?  I mean, that type of ram is so cheap, there has to be a catch behind it.

[nO-One]

There are smaller versions, which are inbetween a full and a middle tower.

My new computer

I\'m putting together a computer right now, that\'s pretty much top of the line.  I definitely would recomment you check out the two 4.1 speaker sets I\'ve decided on... I\'ve gone and listened to about 10 sets, and those two stood out hands down as the best...  Really... HANDS DOWN.  The logitech edges out the lansing for bass and high tweeter response.

Aluminium cases, and multiple fans are only a must if you, like me are an overclocker.  If so, you want as many fans as is feasable, with airflow over the major heatspots (vid card, HDD, CPU).  This means intakes in one location, outfans at another, with those items in between.....  If you are an overclocker, and get more than 2 fans, buy a small fan control knob, and put it on the front, so when your computer is in sleep mode (you never turn it off, like me, right?), you can leave the fans on a low idle speed.  

Heatsincs can be found on many components, either ribbed metal on top of a chip, or extruded bendy pieces of metal.  They simple efficiently transfer the heat to a piece of metal that has a lot of surface area so that ventilation can cool it more quickly.  If you really want to cool stuff, buy copper heatsincs (silver if you are a millionare ), and seal the chip and sinc with a bit of heat transfer material (usually silicon or special plastics), so that there are no little gaps between the sinc and chip.

PC3200/2100 refers to how much data it can send in a second. PC3200 is 3200mb\\sed, whereas PC2100 is 2100mb\\sec.

For a P4 based system you really want to get RD RAM, which is faster than DDR RAM, but more expensive. Get a stick of 256mb for now and consider upgrading to 512 later.

Like FatalException, I\'m going to be building a system over the next few months.  Going to try and get top of the line everything.  Hopefully it will all work out in the end.  Anyways, here\'s what I\'m going for.

- Lian Li PC-65B Black Anodized Aluminum Case with window
- Enermax EG365P-VE FCA 350W power supply
- Asus P4T-E (i850 + Socket478) Series
- Hitachi GF-2000 Internal ATAPI 9.4GB DVD-RAM Drive
- Pentium 4 2.4GHZ CPU
- 24 inch ATA 133 IDE Rounded Cable BLACK Dual Device
- 7200 RPM 40GB Harddrives (2)
- 3.5 floppy drive
- GeForce 4 4600 Ti 128mb DDR RAM
- 512MB (2x 256) of PC800 RDRam
- NEC 17/19" flat panel display
- Altec Lansing 641 Digital Speaker System
- SoundBlaster Audigy
- 3Com NIC
- AlienWare Black Intellimouse Explorer
- Logitech cordless Freedom Optical
- Copper Heatsyncs\\fans

That should do it.

[videoholic]

I didn\'t buy a raid system.  I actually have 4 Lacie external firewire drives daisychained together.  2 are stripped together.  Theother two are for a scratch disk and audio.

It works great.  You can daisy chain 200+ drives together.  pretty cool.

Cases are cases.  Some have sliding trays which make it easier to mount your motherboard.  Just make sure the case you pick out will accept the same size motherboard you pick out.

If you do RAID, you\'ll have to configure all sorts of stuff.  And personally for a home system I consider it to be too much a headache.

All the other stuff just comes down to personal preference, but Iwould recommend the Klipsch or Altec Lansing for speakers as they rock.

And here\'s you some links if you don\'t have them already:

• http://www.directron.com
  
• http://www.newegg.com (THE SITE FOR PC PARTS)
  
• http://www.techbargains.com
  
• http://www.pcstop.com (good keyboards/mice and software)
  
• http://www.directdeals.com
  
  
• If you have a question about a seller you\'re unfamiliar with check here:

PriceGrabber[/list]

[nO-One]

As emperor rob said, if you do raid you better know your stuff it can be a pain to work with.
I never used the raid feature on my mobo.