Ye' old general discussion board. Basically, for everything that isn't covered elsewhere. Come here to shoot the breeze, shoot your mouth off, or whatever suits your fancy. This forum is not for asking programming related questions.
I've taken the liberty of putting together a new computer over the summer. I'm looking for any thoughts and/or opinions of building your own vs purchasing one from Dell/HP/Gateway/etc.
My setup (in order of purchase):
(link) Antec PlusView1000AMG Full Tower SOHO File Server Case
(link) Raidmax 400W Tri-LED Power Supply
(link) MSI K7N2 Delta-L nForce2
(link) Athlon XP 2700 (or 2600, it's $40 cheaper, and only like 80mhz less)
(link) Thermalright SLK-800A Heatsink
(link) Blue Dual-Blinking-LED 80mm Fan (4 of them)
(link) 512mb DDR
I've already purchased my rounded cables, and already have the power cords, keyboard, mouse, printer, monitor, etc. List your suggestions on what I should change (if any), and any feedback. Thanks!
since this is going to be (caution: prejudice ) a case-modded games-only thingy you might find this borring but linux nForce2 support is ..err.. I just installed windows again on this box.
Didn't you forget a graphics adapter?
The motherboard comes with nForce2, and I will not install anything else except WinXPPro on it. When I get around to a bit more money, I plan on buying an ATI Radeon 9xxx video card (which ever model is best for the price).
What is the computer going to be used for? For a gamer machine, I'ld probably still buy it from a major vendor. I wouldn't want to deal with tracking down/loading all the drivers, etc. My time is worth something, and having a machine that actually works for its purpose is important.
For a server, however I can build my own for about 1/3rd the cost of a vendor built system. Last summer I made a PIV 2.4GHz, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HDD system with basic NIC, CD ROM, etc for a little under $800 US. Similar systems retailed for about $2000 US but with only 512 MB RAM.
I'm planning to build another one this summer. Looking at doing a dual PIV 2.6 GHz, 2 GB RAM, RAID'ed 4x80GB HDD, etc. Current cost is looking at about $1500 US. I want to play with SMP and RAID so this is the way to do it. I use Linux almost exclusively, except for my one old gaming machine, so I like building my own and not paying the MS "tax" for Windows/Office/Works/etc....
Building your own is very simple these days. I had never done it before last summer. It took me about a two hours from opening packages to having a booting system... I had planned on all day, so it was a nice surprise.
I plan on using it strictly for gaming and programming, but my prices for the computer is roughly $400, far from any other computer that resembles this one.
Never have liked linux, screwed up my machine far too often with it, so I trust something that actually works.