After 3 long years of planning to purchase a new computer I finally have done it. This weekend I ordered the components of the system that I plan to build myself. If all goes well I could be using my new screamer by next weekend, yea! I have been merticiously tracking component prices for most of the past year looking for the best deal and configuring the system I want, but at a very competitive price. Here’s what I have:

I will be using the venerable ASUS A7N8X-X motherboard for starters. I did not opt for the deluxe because I don’t need raid or LAN with this system, and I am not too keen on duel channel RAM quite yet. This board actually came down quite a bit with the release of the –X version this past spring. I got the retail version to get all the cables, documentation, warranty, and software.

I opted for the AMD XP 2800+ processor. This chip offers the best value for the money, a little more expensive than the 2700+ by about $30 but, but going to the 3000+ means an extra $60. AMD processors are just as good if not better than their Intel counterparts at this mid level range, they are certainly cheaper. I got the retail version to get the fan, heatsink, and 3 year warrenty.

For RAM I wanted something good so I went with a 512 MB stick of Corsair PC3200 XMS ram. That is perhaps one of the best sticks of RAM you can get without going for low latency or their funky RAM with the LEDs all over them. The XMS series is their best quality xtreme performance ram. Since I don’t have a duel channel motherboard I can wait until RAM prices drop before buying another 512 MB stick. My mobo can hold up to 3 sticks. The PC3200 is the fastest the Asus board supports.

For graphics I wanted something that would last into the foreseeable future, give some modicum of performance, and yet be cheap. I opted for the Radeon 9600XT with 256MB of ram over the 128. The XT is the newest flavor of cards with directx 9 support and all that good stuff, plus the 256 MB version should offer better performance over the 128 MB. A 9700 card would have been nice, but there is a huge price premium I am not willing to pay. I got the retail version because I want the Unreal 3 game voucher that comes with it, and because there are not yet any OEM versions of this particular model..

My hard drive is a Western Digital 7200 rpm 120 GB drive with 8MB cache. It does not get much better than this especially for the price I got this. I have actually had this drive and been using it for the past couple of months now.

I bought an Optowrite combo CD-RW and DVD ROM drive that has a 48x24x48 CD speed and is a 16x DVD drive. It is actually backordered, so I may be using one of the old CD drives I have laying around until it gets here. It matches my case even. I could have gotten two drives, but the prices of combo drives have fallen so much this past year that it is now cheaper to get the combo. I could have gotten a faster CD-RW, but I never burn faster than 40x because very little media supports that, at least mine doesn’t. It will be years before I use up my current stash of CD-Rs.

For the modem I sprung for a US-Robotics v92 56k bad boy. I actually got a great deal on a new one off of Ebay for $16. This baby goes for $60 in the stores. The Ebay one is not used, it is brand new still in the shrinkwrap. I am actually toying with buying broadband (cable most likely).

For my case I went with the Raidmax Scorpio 860 black case with a 420W power supply. This is a very stylish case with a window and all, not very expensive at all really. It beats the pants off a beige box any day that’s for sure. I also got a discount on combo wireless Raidmax keyboard and mouse that matches the case.

For a sound card I want to get a Creative Audigy2 ZS card, but I have not narrowed my choice of speakers as of yet, so I will wait on this one since I can always add it later. The motherboard supports 5.1 sound as it is. The Audigy2 card has the 7.1 surround capability that I want since I will be using my PC as a home theatre system as well. I want some good 7.1 speakers, but they are not in the budget as of yet.

I should mention the floppy, not much to say about it except that it matches the case being black. Other incidentals include some Artic Silver V thermal paste for my CPU, some colored round cables for the hard drive and floppy, and a hard drive cooler, which came with the case as a free gift from the vender.

Now I bet you all want to know how much all this cost me eh? Well to be quite honest it has thus far run me a little over $730 and change. Not a bad price if I do say so, and the price includes all shipping and handling charges. A similarly configured system from Best Buy, or Dell, gateway, HP, etc. would run over $1200 and it would still have crappier components than mine. I would have to pay tax too. I also bought a refurb Viewsonic 21” monitor for $140 (shipped).

Now we shall see if I am up to the task of building my own system from scratch. I anticipate problems; there are always problems in my experience. Lets just hope it’s nothing I can’t handle. Even if I do get stuck my local computer repair shop can bail me out and I will still save tons of money vs. a pre built.

I too have a 120gig, 7200rpm, western digital hard drive. It is an external though. Western Digital makes a good product.

Mega, did you go tothe computer show out at the expomartb in december i went there and got a intel D865PERL mobo and a 3.2Ghz P4 for $360 the I got 2 sticks of 512Mb PC3500 PNY verto memory, and a 160Gb with 8Mb buffer for $197 at best buy, then I used a ATI AIW 9000 Pro. And I usedmy old cd-rw/dvd/floppy drives. Then I'm reading the paperwork that came with the hard-drive and I find I cant use more that 130 gb of my hard drive with windows 98 any body know where i could get a copy of xp?

mmmm Radeon 9600XT w/ 256MB RAM, I'm still stuck with a crappy old Voodoo 3 w/16MB!

And does anyone 'get' this whole case modding craze? Seriously who spends £200 making their case look like a pimp mobile. Beige does the job for me, but once you go black you might never go back!

Its just the computer geeks version of 'boy racer' - you know the sort, blue mags, 3" exhaust, intercooler strapped to the front, chrome gear knob etc, on a Honda Civic :D

There is chance that this might start abit of an argument, but seriously, why do people have such a problem with these 'boy racers'? Or these case modders?

I think the urge to modify things is no reason to get angry.
I know there are people out there that do modify their car so as to attract attention either of their friends or the opposite sex. These are the idiots.

But modifying something to be more useful, or faster, or stronger, or even to look better, whats the problem with that? I suffer from this. I have modified everything. My car stereo for one, my computer, my furniture, my house, even my clothes.

Whats the problem with that?

the 128mb Radeon 9600XT would have been better as the 128mb versions normally have 2.5ns-2.8ns while the 256mb versions have 4ns RAM.
The Asus A7N8-X does has dual channel RAM. Dual channel does improve performance of the overal system quite alot. I have a 120gb WD HDD myself and they are quite good.

The Audigy 2 ZS is a very expensive soundcard, but has excellent sound quality. If you are after a decent set of 5.1 speakers I suggest the Logitech Z-680s. These are 500w THX certified speakers and produce high quality sound.

Hey don't get me wrong I'm not angry, just a bit confused.

I think modification is great as long as it serves a purpose such as making the item faster, stronger etc even more aesthetically pleasing to some extent. However, I would rather spend my cash on a tasty video card than on a transparent acrylic case, or a glowing fan for example.

Case modding was cool when you couldn't buy it ready-made over the counter for little more than regular-case money - IMHO :)

I myself am in the process of building a computer. What I plan to have in it and some of which I already have(mobo, case, CD drive, HDD, ): Antec Sonata 380W case, Asus P4C800-e Deluxe, 512mb PC3200 Kingston DDRRAM , P4 3.0 GHz CPU, western digital SE Caviar 80GB HDD, 3pc speaker system, 18W sub 6W satellites, 19" moniter, win 98 2nd ed, and most likely an ATI 9800 of some flavor, I haven't decided how important the extra features are versus the $$ spent. all around its gonna cost me ~1200 excluding shipping.
Its gonna be used for online gaming(after i get a job and get broadband) and video editing
http://extremetech.pricegrabber.com/index.php/mode=et_check_prices/ut=4324080ac923a593 has a good product-for-cheap finder

Some "extras" that I'd add if I were going for a new comp.:
Some arctic silver compound (I hear they released the Arctic Silver 5 some time back) to re-attach the heatsink/fan combo on the GPU and CPU.
I'd also go for a higher rpm cooling fan for both the GPU and CPU. I find the cooling fans on ASUS's 3d cards not quite up to speed- my GeForce kept overheating till I replaced the fan.
Oh, and a USB hub is useful, for I'm ever falling short of USB ports...

I actually bought some artic Silver V a little while ago, it recently arrived. My monitor is here and it looks great, it is very bright and huge. It did not come with a VGA cable, so I went out to the local computer surplus store and bought one. When I later priced some on pricewatch I learned I payed too much. What I want now is a 5 way BNC connector, I never knew what that was but I noticed some funky attachments on the back of my monitor and saw the same things at the computer store. He didn't have any, but there are plenty abound on the web for under $20.

My DVD player actually arrived first, and that was supposed to be backordered. My graphics card and mobo also arrived. Now I await the cpu, ram, floppy, and the case.

congratulations for the new pc!
i hope you will use it for serious graphic applications: DooM 3, Half Life 2, Stalker, i mean!

i'm planning a new PC for november (budget is the matter!), Atlon 64 FX? Yeah i love AMD processors, surely they have the best power/price ratio.

good playng with it!

So far so good it seems... I survived the inagural boot up and subsequent entry into BIOS. Yeah no damage! I was very concerned with the amount of pressure I had to apply to the ZIF socket lever, and the CPU heatsink. I barely got that heatsink on there, I was woried it would crack the core, jeez why can't they design them better?

Now I just have to finish backing up my drive on this computer because I am using it in the new one. Everything else is plugged in and ready to go. Once I get the drive installed I'll configure the BIOS the rest of the way and install the OS, I am going with XP on the new system.

One question for those who may know, how in the hell do you know if the little plugs that control the front panel lights, onboard speaker, hard drive LED, power switch, and reset button are plugged in right? None of the wires say they are positive or negative or the ground. And my front panel USB plugs have an extra plug that goes nowhere I can figure out. It's a 1 pin plug and it is labeled ground. The other plug is 4 pins, including a ground, and the motherboard only has room for the 4 pin plug. The other wire just dangles there.

For a LED, the colored wire is the positive one and the black/white is the negative. The motherboard should have a tiny "+" near the positive pins.

It doesn't matter which way the power and reset switches are plugged in, they are just switches. You could even turn your computer on/off or press reset by just shorting the corresponding pins on the motherboard with a screwdriver...

The 1 pin connector that you mentioned is most probably for "chassis ground", used to earth the metal frame of a connector or a peripheral. This "ground" is different from "signal ground", which is provided along with the 4-pin connector. You could connect the chassis ground pin directly to (an unpowdered place on) the cabinet, provided the cabinet itself is earthed via the power supply.

On the motherboard, there should be a small "+" symbol beside the positive pin connector. Just align up the red wire to this pin. Since you've already been able to boot up into BIOS, I guess you already know by now whether you'd connected them correctly.

Good choice RAM for that motherboard, it can be picky.... sometimes no brand other than Corsair works! I've put together ~15 computers with A7N8X boards, both deluxe and non, and almost every single time the computer had a pagefault error with any other memory.... oh well, Corsair is good stuff anyway, even if you are practically forced into buying it.

I've set up two comps with A7N8X's and i've never had a problem with memory. Never used Corsair in either of the comps and I have a couple friends who use the A7N8X and neither of them use Corsair.

Strange...

Quite strange, what production date are the boards? I only used earlier boards, as this was about 6 months ago that I put the computers together. Maybe ASUS fixed the hardware compatibility bug?

The older revision 1 borads had various problems with the bios etc., but they adressed the problems and released the revision 2 A7N8X. This was a year ago or so though. So maybe the boards you used were revision 1. It says whether its a revision 1 or 2 in between the 1'st and 2'nd pci slot.

ASUS has only certified a handful of ram sticks to run with the A7N8X motherboard, here is a link to the list: http://www.asus.com.tw/mb/socketa/a7n8x/A7N8Xqvl.htm

Just a comment on the 9600 XT. All the XT's are , are more memory and overclocked drivers, but dam they are good! Still a little outta my range for the 9800 XT at $499.

Mega, sounds like your new gear is extremely hot ! I'm still running a P3 933 MHz
machine that has served me well. I think your choice of Viewsonic for the monitor
is excellent. I bought their 19" version years ago and it still runs and looks better
than the Sonys. Please let us know how well the new hard drive performs.
My slave hard drive is a 120 GB Maxtor @7200 RPM with 8 MB cache and has done
a great job. The master hard drive is also a Maxtor although it's only 60 GB and
considerably slower than the 120. I'll attribute that to the difference in the years
these drives were produced. Also cable modems are great ! I love the increased
download speed despite the higher costs. I'll never go back to a dialup !
Good luck with your new gear and have lots of fun !

Surprisingly, I had problems with revision 2 boards as well as revision 1; the same problems, as well, which in reality helped because I already knew the fix.

Mega, since you like PC games so much, and have a new computer, you might want to get a new game to play on it.

This one is called "Frontal Assault" (http://fa.xmunkki.org). ;)

When you see the screenshots, you'll know why. :D