Building A Pc

[Valentine]

I am planning on building a PC, not by myself I will have a computer shop guy do it. My normal use of a PC is for everyday things such as email, spreadsheets, Word documents but I also like to have the capacity for occasional game play of 3D games, some graphics but not really high end, plus CAD based prgrammes. The current CPU I would like to use is the Athalon X3 as it seems to have some good reviews & is reasonably cost effective.

My concern is about choosing a mother board & graphics card so that all compnonents are truly compatible & are able to work together at maximum capability. The system should also be able to be upgraded in the future which is why I do not wish to purchase a brand name PC & also be capable of running Windows 7 after it has been released for a while when hopefully some of the main bugs will be sorted out.

Any suggestions will be most welcome along with any recommendations on computer guys in Phuket as it has been a long time since I last had one built.

[dave_boo]

I am planning on building a PC, not by myself I will have a computer shop guy do it. My normal use of a PC is for everyday things such as email, spreadsheets, Word documents but I also like to have the capacity for occasional game play of 3D games, some graphics but not really high end, plus CAD based prgrammes. The current CPU I would like to use is the Athalon X3 as it seems to have some good reviews & is reasonably cost effective.

My concern is about choosing a mother board & graphics card so that all compnonents are truly compatible & are able to work together at maximum capability. The system should also be able to be upgraded in the future which is why I do not wish to purchase a brand name PC & also be capable of running Windows 7 after it has been released for a while when hopefully some of the main bugs will be sorted out.

Any suggestions will be most welcome along with any recommendations on computer guys in Phuket as it has been a long time since I last had one built.

The maximum amount of performance is going to be obtained from the Intel i7. They have a new socket coming out; it's for lower performance i7 models, but I'm concerned that it will go the way of AMD's socket 754. I.E., it will probably be used by OEMs and that's it. It seems to be situated between socket 775 and 1366. I assume that Intel has finally settled on a socket, 1366, that they're going to stick with. Socket 775 has been around ~4 years and until they stop selling the Core2 processors will probably stay with us.

Currently AMD promotes their line-up of processors, motherboards and videocards. When you get a complete AMD system it's called 'Dragon'. And for the price to performance ratio it's hard to beat with an Intel/Nvidia setup. I've read that AMD is planning on sticking with AM2+, which allows you to use DDR3, for a while.

Right now you can get fabulous performance from the ATI 4770. US list price is a smidge over 100 USD. For processor I would definitely look for something with a sub 95w rating; this will run cooler and save you money. AMD offers some 45w processors, but only up to dual-core. With your stated work load I do question the need for more than 2 cores, but it is your money!

With the motherboard; if you're doing a lot of cad work, you want to make sure that you can shove as much RAM in there as possible. While DDR3 isn't as cheap as DDR2, it doesn't make sense to go cheap. Use a proper 64bit operating system. If you have too much (I personally have 12GB in my workstation), you can always make a RAM disk. And that's truly awesome to work off of.

I wouldn't worry about Windows 7 too much; it appears that it's not the performance bloat upgrade that Vista was over XP (or XP over 98, or 98 over 3,11, etc.).

[Valentine]

I am planning on building a PC, not by myself I will have a computer shop guy do it. My normal use of a PC is for everyday things such as email, spreadsheets, Word documents but I also like to have the capacity for occasional game play of 3D games, some graphics but not really high end, plus CAD based prgrammes. The current CPU I would like to use is the Athalon X3 as it seems to have some good reviews & is reasonably cost effective.

My concern is about choosing a mother board & graphics card so that all compnonents are truly compatible & are able to work together at maximum capability. The system should also be able to be upgraded in the future which is why I do not wish to purchase a brand name PC & also be capable of running Windows 7 after it has been released for a while when hopefully some of the main bugs will be sorted out.

Any suggestions will be most welcome along with any recommendations on computer guys in Phuket as it has been a long time since I last had one built.

The maximum amount of performance is going to be obtained from the Intel i7. They have a new socket coming out; it's for lower performance i7 models, but I'm concerned that it will go the way of AMD's socket 754. I.E., it will probably be used by OEMs and that's it. It seems to be situated between socket 775 and 1366. I assume that Intel has finally settled on a socket, 1366, that they're going to stick with. Socket 775 has been around ~4 years and until they stop selling the Core2 processors will probably stay with us.

Currently AMD promotes their line-up of processors, motherboards and videocards. When you get a complete AMD system it's called 'Dragon'. And for the price to performance ratio it's hard to beat with an Intel/Nvidia setup. I've read that AMD is planning on sticking with AM2+, which allows you to use DDR3, for a while.

Right now you can get fabulous performance from the ATI 4770. US list price is a smidge over 100 USD. For processor I would definitely look for something with a sub 95w rating; this will run cooler and save you money. AMD offers some 45w processors, but only up to dual-core. With your stated work load I do question the need for more than 2 cores, but it is your money!

With the motherboard; if you're doing a lot of cad work, you want to make sure that you can shove as much RAM in there as possible. While DDR3 isn't as cheap as DDR2, it doesn't make sense to go cheap. Use a proper 64bit operating system. If you have too much (I personally have 12GB in my workstation), you can always make a RAM disk. And that's truly awesome to work off of.

I wouldn't worry about Windows 7 too much; it appears that it's not the performance bloat upgrade that Vista was over XP (or XP over 98, or 98 over 3,11, etc.).

Thanks for the advice & you are probably correct in stating 2 cores will be sufficient. Power consumption is an issue & one computer shop tech was already saying I would need a fairly heavy duty fan to keep things cool when we discussong the pros & cons of using AMD X3 along with a Gigabyte MB &Nvidia graphics card. ATI 4770 looks just fine for me after reading reviews.

[JimShortz]

If I was buying a PC to meet the need you describe I would get an Intel Dual Core chip of 2.*Ghz (look and see where the sweet spot is at the moment in terms of price in determining clock speed), add in 4GB RAM (only about 700Baht for 2GB at the moment if you choose the right shop, so why get less? Two big hard drives (320 or 500Gb depending on your needs) so that one can be used to backup all important files. Any decent Asus Nvidia based video card with 512mb ram will be fine for your needs. In choosing a motherboard I would go with a good brand name (Asus for me) with an Intel chipset on board and just think about whether you need it to have any special features: do you want it to have wireless? bluetooth? Finally, invest in a decent case that sucks in air at the front (fan in the front face) and blows it out of the back/side. That way you ensure a good airflow and can keep the whole thing cool. A word of warning though - some fans are a lot quieter than others; best if you can hear the case fans running before you buy it...

This whole box (no monitor or peripherals) will cost less than 15,000 Baht if you shop around (check out the three plazas on the outside of the NW corner of the moat). It won't be the fastest machine on the planet, but it will fly for what you plan to do. My use is basically the same as you describe and I only have a 1.6Ghz Intel Dual Core with 2GB RAM and mine runs like a dream. Don't get caught up in buying the latest and greatest chip unless you just WANT (not need) a super fast machine and money doesn't matter. You will hardly notice the difference for what you do, and that expensive chip you buy tomorrow will be the cheaper chip that you should have bought in 6 months or so...

PS my dual core runs extremely cool, wheres some dual core AMDs that we run at work are incredibly hot. We have made a policy to only go Intel in future (and I usually like to support the little guy...). I wouldn't touch AMD I'm afraid to say.

[jeffer]

Right now you can get fabulous performance from the ATI 4770. US list price is a smidge over 100 USD. For processor I would definitely look for something with a sub 95w rating; this will run cooler and save you money. AMD offers some 45w processors, but only up to dual-core. With your stated work load I do question the need for more than 2 cores, but it is your money!

The 4770 seems to be the card to get in the budget price range right now. The standard versions are selling for SD179 most places in Singapore but it's sold out almost everywhere as supply can't keep up with demand worldwide. Haven't seen it on sale yet in Bangkok but I imagine this will change over the next few weeks. Expect to pay around 4000 when it becomes available.

[JimShortz]

(check out the three plazas on the outside of the NW corner of the moat)

My apologies if these directions made absolutely no sense to most readers... I thought i was in the Chiang Mai forum!

[Valentine]

I still have not built the PC but gathering information of which ths posters here have been helpful. Although I have always Asus MBs I am now leaning towards Gigabyte with two models under consideration, the ga-ep45-ud3r or ep45 - ud3l, to be used with an E7400 cpu as I believe this combination will be relatively cost effective & still give all the power I will need for the forseeable future.

I have managed to source an HD 4770 graphics card & the choice so far is between this & a Ge Force 9600 Gt but I favour the 4770 considering the rave reviews although a little more expensive. Does anyone have any views on the HD 4830 as an alternative. I have looked at he 4850 & 4870 but seem to be considerably more expensive?