(Also) building a new computer

[D4\/!d]

Hello Liam, yeah I too am thinking of building me own

However, my requirements are different. No games for me, but very heavy with Music use.

I want to build something that is vista ready, with as much *insurance against future upgrades* in it..!! I wish..!!

Liam, I see you are based in England, me too, so what do you recommend for me..??

Thanks Volitle for asking the question - hope you don't mind my butting in

[lgbpop]

D4V!d, I'm going to break this off into its own thread, and then move both over to our Frankenstein forum. We have members who love to help out with just this sort of thing!

[photolady]

When you say music use, could you explain about this? Is it recording or listening to music?

[liam858]

Hey David, i'd recommend a nice Creative X-Fi soundcard, and some more detail would be good as Photolady pointed out above, but if you're gonna be messing around with encoding and converting music then a decent CPU and a good amount of storage too.

I can also recommend plenty of good UK sites to pick up the bits.....much much cheaper then going to a shop.(*cough* PC World's crap *cough*)


Liam

[D4\/!d]

@lgbpop, thank you for breaking this off into its own thread, and then moving over to Frankenstein forum. Nice moderating

Hello photolady, thanks for clarifying this. No recording of music, and just a little encoding and converting music. I tend to use my PC as a jukebox. So the answer is Listening/Playing. The PC is usually playing stuff all day long

High Liam, in my present PC I have an EMU 0404 soundcard. The output lead goes (round the room) to my audiolab Amp which drives my ProAc speakers.
As regards storage space; I have 2 x 160Gb hard drives, with an extra 500Gb External Hard Drive

[liam858]

If you're happy with the soundcard, and the storage, then you're just looking to up the power, we need to know your current specs to see if anything can be salvaged from the current rig, such as Graphics Card? PSU? Case? or indeed if you could upgrade your mobo enough to notice a difference, if not then a new mobo and Dual-Core CPU would be the way to go to get some Vista-Proofing. Are those hard drives IDE? (ATA)


Liam

[D4\/!d]

Hello Liam, um, I am actually thinking of building a separate vista ready PC.
Never done this before

On another PC, I had to change a PSU recently. And I did it myself..!!
He, he, and now I think I am the world's greatest pc engineer LOL

My present setup is an SFF iDEQ 200T XP Pro SP2 and will continue ftb.

And then quietly, in another room, I will have a go at making the new vista pc. It will get a fresh vista install onto a fresh hard drive. None of this upgrade milarky for me

[liam858]

Nice shuttle you have there.

So a new build, first thing is a budget, and then we can get into the nitty gritty of bits and pieces.


Liam

[Train]

Do you wish to stay with the SFF or go to a normal size tower?

Do you watch music videos?

That iDEQ 200T is still a good rig. Probably OK for vista too.
http://www.biostar.com.tw/products/b...00t/index.php3

[D4\/!d]

Hello Train

Do you wish to stay with the SFF or go to a normal size tower?

I like the SFF, and as it's in the dining room the neat shape keeps 'er indoors 'appy

Do you watch music videos?

Nope - well maybe, but very rarely.

That iDEQ 200T is still a good rig. Probably OK for vista too.

Ah! Do you think so? It's 2-4 yrs old now. How will it cope with ever increasing high temperatures inside cases - not to mention our hot 40C/100F degree summers

[D4\/!d]

Nice shuttle you have there.

Thanks

So a new build, first thing is a budget...

Oh, I wish you hadn't asked that one. I dunno

Not silly money (£1000+), and not budget basic (£200). I think Reasonable costs would be accepted by 'er indoors. What is reasonable? I dunno
Let's say £250 - £450, or is that too low for some good kit..??

[Train]

Ah! Do you think so? It's 2-4 yrs old now. How will it cope with ever increasing high temperatures inside cases - not to mention our hot 40C/100F degree summers

Install faster or larger fan(s).
Keep the dust and stuff cleared out of the case.
Install a room AC unit. What we have to do with the higher temps. Or like me this last summer, just accept the cpu running 5 to 10C hotter when the ambient hit 110F (43C).

EDIT: If I remember right, the newer P4's run a lot hotter than the cpu you have right now. So with that in mind, you just may want to go with a AMD cpu and mobo this time.

[liam858]

Well, if you need everything, then that means PSU, Case, Motherboard, Graphics Card, Sound Card (Anything in mind? Or would something in the range i mentioned do - Creative X-Fi??) Processor and RAM, and if you were going to use a hard drive from your other machine that would be okay, as long as we find out how they connect?? (The internal ones, are they ATA or SATA) and then an optical drive or two.

With the price cuts to both AMD and Intel chips since the new conroe appeared on the scene, you couldn't go wrong with an AMD X2, with a decent Asus board, you might as well go with a PCI-E board and get a PCI-E graphics card just to give you that future-proofing.

[D4\/!d]

Train, he, he, yeah I did buy a small desk fan during our hot summer LOL
Liam,

With the price cuts to both AMD and Intel chips since the new conroe appeared on the scene, you couldn't go wrong with an AMD X2, with a decent Asus board, you might as well go with a PCI-E board and get a PCI-E graphics card just to give you that future-proofing.

Thanks that's good advise. It's the sort of thing I need to know

I can also recommend plenty of good UK sites to pick up the bits.....much much cheaper then going to a shop.

Liam, where do I visit to get these bargains?

I like the EMU0404 soundcard so I think I shall get another one of those.

I will be getting fresh hard drives. The existing ones will stay in the present machine, or be slipped into an enclosure and used as ext hard drives to store stuff

[liam858]

Erm, to name a few good ones that i've used:

www.overclockers.co.uk

www.komplett.co.uk

www.cclonline.com

www.savastore.com

You need to see what X2 chips are still available, as the socket 939's are still around, and the 4400+ is probably the best bang for the buck, but as there is a new socket that supports DDR 2, it would make sense to make that jump, BUT the 4400+ is hard to come by in socket AM2, so you'd need to go either way (4200+ or 4600+) which would mean you'd lose the extra L2 cache from compared to the 4400+ (1mb per core, compared to 512kb per core on the other 2 chips)

If that made sense, then the best chips to go for to save a bit of cash is the 4400+, if you can find an AM2 4400+ then you're golden, if not, then you could leave the CPU until last and price up some mobos, and if you have enough cash to make the jump to 4800+ AM2, then that would be good, otherwise you'd be sacrificing the DDR 2 future-proofing for the sake of extra L2 cache.


Liam