f13.net

Update 2/1/2007
OK, part list is almost done for Schilds computer.  I will probably be ordering the case next week at some point: if anyone is going to donate a part please let me know ASAP so I do not order it also!  FYI, the links for the different products are just suggestions.  Feel free to order from whomever; as long as it is the specific part I am not too worried about where it comes from.

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Parts (Schild):

Case: Zalman HD 160 (http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_info.php/products_id/481) - $250 - Ordered by Cheddar
Motherboard:  ASUS P5W DH DELUXE/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard  (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131025) - $214
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115003) - $320
Video Card:  [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102082]Radeon X1950XTX[/url] - $379
Power Supply:  SeaSonic M12 SS-600HM  (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817151030) - $160 - Donated by Samwise
Sound Card:  Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (http://www.buy.com/prod/creative-sound-blaster-audigy-2-value-sound-card-dolby-digital-7-1/q/loc/101/10381395.html?dcaid=17379) - $64
Misc:  Rounded IDE Cables (http://www.directron.com/24uvidegreen.html) - $10


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Parts (Cheddar):

Case: Zalman HD 160 (http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_info.php/products_id/481) - $250
Video Capture Card: WinTV-PVR-150 (http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/products/data_pvr150mcekit.html) - $120

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UPDATES:

Update 1/27/2007

Per Trippys advice I have settled on a card for myself.  More updates to follow, we are working on parts list now.  Hashing items out now even as we speak.

Update 1/25/2007
After researching cases we have decided on this one:  Zalman HD 160 (http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_info.php/products_id/481).  I am inspired to build myself a media box as well; the case is too sweet to waste on just 1 person!  I am aiming for something different, though.  I am looking for a media center solution, so as such will be building one which will have less power than Schild requires.  I am not 100% sure what kind of TV card would be best for the one I want: my goal is to get TiVO type capability along with great sound capability.

----Summary---
It has recently come to my attention that Schild is using a computer that is extremely out of date, held together by duct tape and broken dreams, and unable to play the latest shiny at full resolution.  I intend to correct this.

Preface: I do this for friends (put together computers) as a hobby; as such doing this is not to garner special favor.  Also, it will take time; I am constrained by my schedule and am loathe to purchase anything I cannot find at a decent price (I am known for saving hundreds if not thousands by being patient and looking for elite deals across the 'net).  Currently goal is to mail out a working PC that can launch missles by March 20.  This assumes purchasing a major part every week and only having a couple setbacks. 

This could get expedited if people are willing to donate parts; caveat- they will be specific parts.  I am not going to take cash donations due to the annoyance of tracking who donated what along with figuring out what to do if there are extra funds.  Of course this could change but for now I am not planning on dealing with cash from others.  I will also track progress and maybe take pictures as I go along.  I will not be accepting donations from Lurkers due to the creepy factor.

This weekend I will be ordering the power supply and case, plus researching exactly what mobo/CPU combo to get.  After I consult with Schild I will post a complete list of parts needed and open up the gates for people to purchase said parts; I will track who sends what so I do not receive 4 of any one thing. 

Does anyone have advice on what video card should be included?  I have not done research on cards in awhile.

To DX10 or not to DX10, that is the question.

This is a joke right?  You guys are sitting around in IRC all day dreaming up pranks to pull on the board.  You got me, good one.

Huh? 

Schild pretty much has the same PC power as I have (though I did give him my old vid card awhile back...So mine's better at the moment). If you give him something, then think of me too. :P

That being said, I wouldn't cry if you didn't. I doubt Schild would either. There aren't any games to get on a PC that are good, need new hardware, and can't be done elsewhere. MMO's are not worth playing, RTS's don't require a new PC, and current shooters have 360 or PS3 tie-ins.

I'd chip in on this, Cheddar.  If you're looking for parts advice, I'd say build the PC Morphiend described in the "$$$" thread.  It sounds pretty kickass.

I will check that out, Samwise.  I rarely check in on the PC forum, so musta missed it.  I do have the case picked out; as an added bonus, it comes with a kickin' rad power supply.  2 hit combo!  I will order it Saturday and have the parts list by sunday (if not earlier).  Hopefully people will keep their useless comments out of this thread.  Normally I am all about useless comments, but in this case would prefer we stay productive.  I figured people would enjoy the discussion.

I'm not even sure what the thread is about. The useless comments actually make more sense.

I take it you want to build a PC for Schild? Or is it....Chart up some wishlist of sorts?

Seriously, I'm confused.

Secondly, why Schild? If anyone needs help, it's the non single guys if anything.  :-P

He'll probably just sell the new PC to buy a bunch of imported Japanese games anyway.

And good on him! He should.

Really, PC's suck.

Cheddar told me the other day that he'd stop poking fun at me in IRC if I started playing MMO's again.....As if I was some out-of-trend destitute gamer myself.

I know he means well, but I can't help but chuckle at that.

I have small pockets of disposable income. They happen to be pockets shaped like PS2 games. Seriously, all I spend money on is games so it looks like my disposable income is huge, I don't do much else other than run this board. I did not ask Cheddar to make this thread, I did not intend on putting a donation button up. This is an offer he made and it's hard to refuse this sort of thing. So, I didn't. Fault either one of us, whatever, I'm not gonna lie, I think it's awesome.

As for the computer... it's a nasty piece of shit. The power supply (that's hanging out the back) is held up by cardboard, most of the USB ports can't be trusted to send data - because they do it BADLY. And I think it's older than Strazos.

If you really need help, then I'd be happy to contribute. F13 is a good source of entertainment. I appreciate it. You know me.

Couldn't promise anything near a DX10 quality card, but I could possibly donate something towards that.

However....And I know it sounds asshole-ish when saying this....

But getting an uber gaming PC of that caliber seems unnecessary *at the moment*. "Uber ready" seems more feasible (i.e. at least a good mobo). Crysis isn't even out yet....And that's about all that's worth looking forward to.

Yes, it's fairly obvious the most important thing is the mobo. My last mobo was futureproof UP to the introduction of dual cores. It's the only reason it lasted so long. Though, most might not consider 4x AGP futureproof, it ran everything up to the last round of "latest titles."

Edit: Something didn't make sense.

I have 512 mb of RAM, could someone donate me some?

Also a Wii would be nice. :-P

I think that Ched is making a very nice gesture.  I was only trying to be silly in my post.

(http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/lazy.gif)

Signe, I swear you belong to some sort of "Smiley of the month club" or something.

I think we could all use a donation when it comes down it. I, for one, am poor as dirt because of the PS3.  :-D

Funny thing is, it's probably 10 times more powerful than my PC, and I can't do very many PC things with it.  :|

i've got a decent vid card (128 mb ddr ATI Radeon something or other) and a stick or two of RAM laying around somewhere.  PM me an address.

Damn, what do I have to do to get handed a new PC....or HDTV....or new console?

Also, Schild....you don't have to have all the cash on hand. It's called a credit card, keke. Hell, with a Newegg account, you get something like zero interest for a year or no payments for a year (I forget which, I still haven't even activated my card).

I'd suggest checking the Slickdeals Hot Deals forum (http://www.slickdeals.net/) and snagging parts when good deals pop up, helps if you can be patient. For instance, there is a free after rebate case (http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=167688&t=429418) right now that seems decent. Here is a thread on  how to  build an inexpensive gaming system. (http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=167688&t=429854&highlight=system)

Also good for finding parts deals is the Anandtech Hot Deals forum. (http://forums.anandtech.com/categories.aspx?catid=40&entercat=y)

There's a reason that case is so cheap, and it has nothing to do with the brand name...

This system is doing me wonders. As always most parts are interchangeable. Chedder, if you are aiming for a decent system that will run Vista well, you do not want to skimp on the PSU. I guess you know that since you said you build systems for a living, but genuinely the ones that come packaged with a case are crap.

Feh, if I had anything beyond a machine that was purchased in Summer 2003 (and wasn't close to top of the line then), I'd be using it.  But hey, if I get around to getting a better video card, he's welcome to my AGP Raedon 9000, which is what I'm currently using.

All the shit I have laying around is outdated and suitable only for cannibalization to bring family members around to the 1999 era of computing.  I would donate some scratch through PayPal though.

They probably already have this in Japan.  I can just import the vending machines and the panties.  $$$

I don't get all this ruckus. If some good soul is offering to build a computer for somebody else its not our business to judge if that is a needed donation. Hell, I certainly think there are few people better off than Schild regarding disposable income, and one day when he will see that in the real world all luxury purchases are made by saving up small amounts of disposable income for some time. But that is no reason to envy him his new rig. The world is certainly not poorer just because Cheddar builds Schild a new computer. Cheddar is happier for it, Schild is happier for it, and the worst anybody else should do is not care. Its not like Cheddar would donate the computer to some poor children who really need it if Schild wasn't in the picture.

Ehh.. if he wants to do something nice for Schild who cares?

The guy lets us make fun of him endlessly.  If someone wants to get him a thank you gift why not?

I won't donate, but I won't demonize anyone who does.

Though if anyone wants to buy me New World of Darkness RPG books it would be appreciated.  Its to run a game for a DM who isn't subjecting me to full on sucktastic D20 D&D in the Shackled City campaign so I listed RPGs I could run on my GMing weeks and he got all giddy at WoD.  A check on Wikipedia (Youtube for nerds!) and I decided to get the new ones.   :evil:

That or a new Apple Airport Extreme Basestation wireless router thingie.  Maybe my Wii will like that over the Belkin router it decided to stop paying attention to.  :cry:

No takers?  Ehh... its cool.  I pretty much stopped buying Heroclix and D&D minis.  Itll work that way.  Plus the upcoming deluge of Transformers toys aren't ones I would buy too many of so I will have the cash.

And you may be asking what this has to do with anything, and I would direct you to how Chewbacca is a Wookie yet lives with the Ewoks on Endor......

We should use the children as bait to trap Santa Claus.  Then we can shoot him in the head.

Sometimes you scare me.

All I want is The Black Hole on DVD.

And rightily so. Double Laser pistol action for the win!

I think this is a keen idea. I mean, after all, Schild is the boss, and he's veering perilously close to just flat out moving to Japan and playing outdated gameboy for the rest of his years. Anything to bring him back into the fold of PC gaming is a good move. I myself have nothing to donate at the moment, since I just recently upgraded to PCI-E and on a budget at that.

And he'd live on mountain.  To visit him, you must climb the mountain and pass 3 challenges.  If you do, he'll teach you the Essence of Five-Point-Palm of Pure Gaming.

Meaning, he'd hand you the newest NIS game.

Think of all the phat lewtz he would drop!

There you go. 0.99$ (http://cgi.ebay.com/The-Black-Hole-1999-DVD_W0QQitemZ190075188989QQihZ009QQcategoryZ617QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item190075188989)

Used?  Ebay?  Who am I, Fred Sanford?

I'm holding out for the super special edition that comes in a tin case shaped like Maxmillian, the killer robot from that movie.

And Signe's plan sidesteps the faction grind entirely.

I'm a poor romanian kid who had to act in Borat's movie to fee his family.

GIMME THE MONEY.

...not

What is a senior quad?  I googled it but it didn't help.

Split and denned the negativity.  As a result, some posts got taken for a ride and some stuff may not make sense anymore.  OOPS.

Stop it!  You're making me run around in circles! 

Suddenly I feel like nesting.

Lots of military schools are broken up by how the dorms are laid out.  In this case it would be the sort of courtyard outside where the senior cadets live.  I.e. expect a lot of hazing to junior cadets that are caught there.

edit for linkage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrangle

When I think of a quad, the first thing that comes to mind is the walk of shame (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_of_shame). I used to love watching the crowd headed back home in the morning.

When I think of quads, I think of naked men with HUGE leg muscles riding around on one of those off road thingies.   :-)

Updated first post.  The case we are looking at is extremely sweet.  As such I am going to build up my own system, though mine will be multi media based (I already have an ExxXXXxxxxXXXxxXxxxxXXXtreme gaming computer). 

Be sure that what you end up with is about the size of a toaster and has strategically-placed acrylic.

I see what you did there.

Moved attempted revival of hostilities back to the abyss.    :hello_kitty:

Those of you that feel I'm over sanitizing are free to send me a PM.  Savvy?

I kid because I love.  And I know what's in your closet.  If I had any parts worth a damn that I could not fit into my chassis, I'd send it your way.

You're like some kind of sanitary...napkin? ;)

I am slightly behind on getting a parts list for Schild; he is extremely picky and wants particular things.  Currently I am looking at video cards, preferably Radeon, and mobos.  RAM is easy enough, 2-4 gigs should suffice.  Sound card is easy as well, a sound blaster Audigy 2 is more than useful enough.

2gb of RAM should be plenty and with a decent motherboard, onboard sound should do fine. Thats a savings of $300 right there.

If you want any advice I would not touch a Radeon card. Their drivers are shit and I've never had a good experience with one.

I'm not entirely sure a soundcard is necessary at all. Is onboad sound all that bad? Is there any advantage to a soundcard? I've had the same Soundblaster since before 2000, still chugs. I only use 3 speakers and 99% of the time I use headphones. I can just throw that in the machine. If you insist on outfitting it out across the board, find the cheapest audigy 2 you can and chuck that in there. I think they all have digital output. Sound = Almost maybe nearly unimportant. It's not a matter of _extremely_ picky, so much as - I don't know any other way. I've always used Radeons and obviously an upgradable motherboard is key. If someone can make a good argument for NVidia over ATI other than ATI DRIVERS SUX LOL, then I probably wouldn't care. Unfortunately I've been using ATI cards since my Pentium 75 and I've never had a driver issue.

So yes, we want everyones advice.

When I had onboard sound, I had nothing but issues with it. But it was an earlier NForce board, so maybe they're rock solid now. I'd also rather not update motherboard drivers when updating sound drivers. 

You can get a cheap, decent soundcard and I'm sure it'll do fine.

AC'75 standard onboard sound is ok. If you're not a sound geek, don't worry about it. There's some persnickety argument that having an actual card takes some load off the CPU, but I think that's only the case with the newer fancy Creative cards, which I hear are having issues with Vista. All in all, I'd put it on the bottom of my priority list.

Video cards, I've had both. I like both companies. there's some noise about ATI's drivers not being as versatile as Nvidia's in their universal packaging, so folks go to some dude's website and download customized ATI drivers, and that seems to make 'em run better. But heck if I could tell the difference.

Also, for what little its worth, the ATI Catalyst Control interface has a nicer, more intiutive layout than Nvidia's control center.

I also had tons of problems in games with onboard sound, all of which cleared up when I installed a proper sound card. 

I would just toss a basic SB card in. Take the supposed load off the CPU. Plus, you don't have to mess with the mobo when fooling with sound drivers (which always seem to be a pain for me).

Also, I thought you were done with ATI cards, Schild? I've only owned 5 video cards in my life: a Voodoo2, 2 GeForce TI4600s from Leadtek, and 3 different Radeon cards. Not counting the backup card I have running right now, both of my previous ATI cards and both of my Leadtek cards have all had different problems - the fans died on the ATI cards, one of the GeForce cards slipped partially out of the slot...somehow, while the PC was running, and the second replacement card somehow corrupted its own drivers all to hell eventually.

I have a BFG 6800GS on the way, so I can tell you about the newer GeForce cards once it gets here and I install it next week. (also, any comments on BFG?)

No you have it exactly backwards. Creative has the best hardware support for OpenAL which is what you want under Vista.

I'm assuming you are going Intel Core 2 Duo. If you want an ATI GPU you'll probably want a board that support Crossfire but that means using a technology that AMD bought out with its acquisition of ATI which I wrote about more here (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=9025.msg265499#msg265499). That may be some unwarrented FUD on my part but I personally would not want to invest a lot of money in such a combination of technologies.

I'm also solidly in the camp that believes that the ATI drivers are still not as good as the NVIDIA ones. I had an ATI card a while back (an AIW 9600 Pro) and was constantly having to fiddle with it and non-id engine OpenGL games never worked quite right even after all the fiddling. If you search through this forum you see people asking for help with their ATI drivers on a regular basis (with the standard answer being "use the Omega drivers"). How many times have you seen that for the NVIDIA drivers? Which is not to say that the NVIDIA drivers are perfect but I think the evidence is pretty clear that they have fewer problems than the ATI ones. That doesn't mean you shouldn't get an ATI GPU but it does mean you'll probably have to fiddle with the drivers more compared to an NVIDIA card unless you are like schild and don't play PC games all that much.

The Audigy/2 cards I've had over the years have always been somewhat "noisy" through the headphones jack. I would recommend an X-Fi card instead.

Then why don't you have him pick out the parts?

I don't know enough to do that. Short of the case being a certain dimension (full towers for example don't fit anywhere around my desk) and the motherboard being reasonably futureproof (I'll obviously eventually want to upgrade), my pickiness is due to my lack of knowledge. You know how I was going to build my new computer when I finally got enough? Max out the shit on the Dell custom page. Yea. I'm nooblish.

Sound blasters are so cheap it would be silly not to include one.  Personally I am a fan of Radeon; mind you I have used Omega drivers for years and am pretty good at making windows run relatively slick.  Schild is doing most of the picking; Perhaps people could post suggested configurations for what he should get.  I will put my parts list together; as I said earlier, my computer will be a media center thingamajig so will be easy to piece up. 

My issue is I lack knowledge on video input.  If anyone could point me in the right direction I would be ecstatic (I prefer input be coax with output as S-video, though RCA is fine as well). 

Video Input I'll look up. It would be neat to hook up consoles via Component in and take direct feed pictures. I'll look into this. Unless someone already has.

If video input is important you may want to consider an ATI GPU card with "Avivo" support which has support for video in (S-Video being the best you can get) and various video out including component. For "VIVO" stuff (Video In Video Out) ATI is better than NVIDIA. schild is, however, dreaming if he thinks he's going to be able to do component input video capture on a gaming video card. You'll need to get a separate card/external converter box for that sort of thing.

If you are just looking to turn your box into a PVR-type device you are probably better off getting a dedicated PVR board like one from ATI or Hauppauge. The VIVO chips on the ATI video cards only do software MPEG-2 encoding which probably isn't so bad on a dual-core processor but it'll still suck up a lot more CPU cycles than a card with a dedicated hardware MPEG-2 encoder. The disadvantage of a hardware encoder is that you can't play a console game through it cause it introduces too much of a delay between input and output. Building a robust PVR box that you also want to be able to play games on while recording simultaneously will require you to have at least two hard drives. 3D game performance really sucks if a single hard drive is trying to steam video data onto the disc and load game data at the same time.

I have no idea what the fuck you just said little man, but you touched a brother.  Tell me what to buy.

For a dedicated PVR card Hauppauge's line of cards is best supported so if you aren't sure what to get that's what I would recommend. Then you have to decide if you want to use Windows XP Media Center Edition.

With MCE:

http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/products/data_pvr150mcekit.html

There are other MCE specific choices but they don't include a remote which is problematic.


Without MCE:

http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/products/data_pvr150.html or
http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/products/data_pvr350.html if you really want to listen and record FM radio

The software that comes with the non-MCE cards is not TV friendly so you'll need something like BeyondTV or SageTV or GB-PVR if you want a TV-style UI to control things.

Edit: here's the table of WinTV cards if you want to see all the options available:

http://www.hauppauge.com/Pages/compare/compare_pvr.html

Trippy, if you don't mind, take a gander at this, one of the guys on neoGAF used it: sweetspot (http://www.pluggedin.tv/s.nl/it.A/id.10/.f).

I haven't heard of that card but that is the sort of thing you would need if you wanted to capture a component source.

Crazy geek talk in IRC.  See what you miss when you do not bother with it?

Like I already said, you should be fine with onboard sound. And yeah, sound cards are cheap, but for headphones or only a few speakers, why spend the extra $100 when you could add that to other parts.

Get a cheaper case, and no soundcard, and you could put that extra money to a really good graphics card. Just downgrading on those two could save you up to $300, thats a graphics card in and of its self. If you keep picking components like this, the system is ether going to have to cut corners some where important, or its going to be in the $3k range.

OK, part list is almost done for Schilds computer.  I will probably be ordering the case next week at some point: if anyone is going to donate a part please let me know ASAP so I do not order it also!  FYI, the links for the different products are just suggestions.  Feel free to order from whomever; as long as it is the specific part I am not too worried about where it comes from.

I do still need to list RAM, but that should be pretty easy to pick out.  I figure a 2 G stick or so should be enough.  I have not put my computer list together, but will probably pick up whatever shit is on special at a reputable site.  Really I just need something that will take 4 IDE drives, 4 SATA drives, and has a few PCI slots.  Does not need to be super duper in the processing department!  Lemme know if we made any mistakes on the parts, I have no done a close look and compare yet.  Damn being sick! (sleep work sleep work)

*Sigh*

Seriously, get a cheaper case and no sound card, and you can upgrade the graphics card to a Nvidia 8800gts or even gtx if you get a really cheap case.

Why would you spend so much on a case when it could go to some thing that will drastically improve performance?

I should warn you of a terrible problem with that video card.  Since it is an open box you do not get the accessories.  That's right, the awesome OEM disk of The DaVinci Code game is not included, I am sorry to have crushed your dreams of owning that masterpiece.

We already picked out the memory -- schild should still have the info. If you are going for 2 GB of RAM *DO NOT* get a single 2 GB stick of memory since you'll be losing the dual channel memory capability which the Intel processors desparately need (unlike the A64).

I think, given the small performance increase and huge cost increase, it may be better to go with a 1900XTX or even 1900XT. Bleeding edge at 10% increase is sorta meh.

But remember, I am not with the times.

schild wants an ATI card for some reason and switching to NVIDIA would mean switching motherboards if he wanted to be able to eventually use SLI.

Because schild wants that case.

The case is my only REAL sticking point. Nearly everything else I'm extremely flexible on - mostly because I don't know better.

Cheap cases are Cheap for a reason.

It's funny, the Shuttle case was one of the best I ever had and it was eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeexpensive back when I got it. And hard as hell to find. Had to go to a computer store run by Koreans who were obsessive about PC design.

Shuttle "cases" are expensive cause they aren't just cases, they are actually barebones systems with a case, motherboard, power supply, CPU heatpipe cooler, special cables (with lots of stuff "prewired"), etc.

From specialty retailers you can pick your mobo for your case and it's priced seperately. I think the case cost maybe $50 less than the one we're looking at now with... nothing. Wait, no, maybe the 250W power supply.

While I personally wouldn't want to get, say, a $20 case (ouch my fingers) there are plenty of very nice cases in the $60 range and even the P180 is only $130 which is half the price of that Zalman case. With the Zalman you are paying extra for the display and a few extra bits of functionality like the card reader but really you are paying a big premium because of the style.

And actually for Cheddar, you might want to consider something like this for a dedicated HTPC machine:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129131

It's limited to Micro-ATX motherboards but may be a better option if your PC is more for media center stuff rather than playing games on it.

I have an earlier version of this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811112025), the only difference being that side vent AFAIK. It was also more expensive 4 years ago.

It was well worth the price.

What we're gonna do now is stop talking about cases. :)

So I take it you don't have hight thoughts about DX10 or the games that will supporting it in the near future?

DX10 is going to rock, but you have to install Vista to use it, and dx10 parts are at a big premium right now. Also, Vista.

I have no clue when I'll be upgrading to vista, probably more than a year from now.

I have the same case, only with a side window so I can look at my expensive stuff. They really do make nice cases. I love the motherboard slide out.

I really would like to find some nice quiet fans though.

You will see more than a small performance increase going with the 8800gtx. This thing is blazing fast, and also its directx 10 compatible. Also, with the 8800gtx there is no need to ever go SLi. Sli is NOT a good upgrade option. If you want better graphics in the future, you buy a new single card that can give more proformance for $ than adding another old card. The only time you should go SLi is if you have money to burn and want the OMG Super Fast NOW NOW NOW.

I think you are making a huge mistake by spending the money on the case and not the card. Also, like Trippy said, yeah a $20 case is crap, but you can get a very very nice case for around $100, hell, my case is on sale now for $70 some places. Thats a savings of almost $200.

Your spending a lot of money on this computer, but with the choices your making, your not going to get close to the performance:dollar ratio that you could. Why buy a $220 motherboard? If you dont plan on making it a blazing fast gaming rig, you dont need that motherboard, or that much ram, but your going to see maybe a 5% performance gain with the expensive board and ram, where you could see upward of 20% performance from getting the better card.

I dont get it.

One other thing. Why are you even putting IDE cables in your box? You should get a full SATA setup, its so much nicer.

Most DVD drives are still IDE.

Link us some stuff, and we can look at various options. 

And what Trippy said. :)  Really, Schild needs 1 IDE cable, whereas I will need 2. 

Most of the 8800s that aren't shit cost almost as much as a PS3. Yow.

Yup. I'm going to bleed for my pc. But I couldn't get a decent vid card and a console, too. I'd want at least something in the $250-300 range, and a 360 is $400 plus extras plus $60 a goddamned game.

Don't think I didn't consider it quite intently!

For the schildputer, a 1950 will kick all kinds of ass. It's almost the cost of a 360 :P

So? Your already spending the money. Hell, if you want to look at it that way, your empty case is as much as a Wii. What im talking about is getting the best performance for your dollar. Right now your making decisions that are leading to an expensive machine with out the extreme performance of an expensive machine. The main reason to build your own computer is to get a much better performance to dollar ratio than prebuilts give. Its looking like your system will end up costing about the same that mine did, but my system will probably have 15-30% better performance in gaming due to the great air flow of my case, and the superior graphics card. Hell, at this rate you could just buy a dell.

Chedder and Trippy

 SAMSUNG 18X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 18X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2M Cache SATA DVD Burner With LightScribe Technology - OEM (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16827151141)
This DVD drive is SATA, Lightscribe, and one of the fastest.

The only reason these days to use IDE is if you are using old parts or installing a floppy drive.

Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JS 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144417)

Graphics Card
Nvidia 8800gtx (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814130072)

I went with this motherboard, because it got great user reviews from many hardware sites, and I heard that it was very stable. Also, I dont plan to go SLi ever. I havent checked in to the now 680i in the last month, but they where having some amazing problems for a while. This Intel board does NOT support SLi.
Intel Badaxe2 (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813121059)

Also, a quick shout out for my powersupply. This thing is awesome. Its modular, so you only need to install the cables you actually want to use. Also, its a beast. From what I have researched, the good name brand PSUs perform much much much better. I really like mine.
Corsair 620w (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817139002)


Enjoy.

What a cool drive.

It irritates me to no end that I cannot find a modern mainboard that has more than one IDE controller.  It just means that I cannot put all of my existing devices on my new machine when I build it.  This is not so much a hard-disk problem, but I have two optical and one tape drive which are IDE.  It's also bothersome that I have never been able to get one of those PCI-IDE cards to work, so I don't have high hopes of working around the problem.  /sadf

Buy an external USB/Firewire enclosure and put the tape drive in there. What motherboard chipsets are you looking at?

Good idea. I am just a few inches from buying maybe five of those from newegg and building out a few external units of various types.  Especially since my wife's very new MyBook has gone toes-up, much to everyone's dismay due to the stuff on there.  I'm also very close to buying SpinRite to see if I can recover anything from it.

Mainboards... well I had decided to end my long AMD streak and go with a Core2Duo, which means either Nvidia or Intel as far as I know.  I made a short list of likely parts about a month ago, and seems like I had settled on the Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6.  I recall that this mobo's peers all had a single IDE.  Currently, what is known as the X1 Project is on hold until I get the taxes done and Unclefucker Sam gives me back some of my money.

The mobo I'm putting in my new PC supports 2 IDE channels:

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131025

Is this a bad place to ask if someone can quickly sumamrize the difference between the ICH7R and the ICH8R southbridges?  I'm going to guess the ICH8R in the Gigabyte is what gives it 8 SATA/6 USB over the ASUS 6 SATA (+1 ext?) and 4 USB.  Also 2 1394a on the GB instead of 1 on the ASUS, but I'm not sure if that's a big deal.  The GB mobo is $2 less (newegg price) than the ASUS, too.

My previous mobo was a gigabyte, I had no end of problems with getting it set up. Their website is horrible, their support is horrible, their drivers are bad. But having said that, once I got it up, it was pretty damn stable.

My friend who works in a major computer building and repair shop claims that ASUS are his favorite for stability and features. YYMV.

I went with Intel.

Case and Power Supply ordered.   :-D

Hey! Thanks! ^_^

Keke.  ^^

Wowzers, they got that case ready FAST.  Speedy!

They're just giving them away! Really, that money [that got sent to them] went to hookers and blow.

How long does it take a highschool dropout to roll it to the door and slap a label on it?  Warehouses, keke.

I hope people haven't been able to figure out how to roll a rectangle.

It's too late.  Someone already has. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRRDzFROMx0)

Bah, the Exploratorium has had that exhibit (http://www.exploratorium.edu/cmp/exhibits/s/square_wheels.html) since before I was tall enough to reach it.

Asus FTW. Seriously.

Agreed.

FTW except if you get the one with the super shitty sound, then you probably will need a sound card. I am having trouble finding which one it is. Im pretty sure its one of the ones with built in Wi-Fi.

Well yeah. They all have shitty sound imo. I have the wifi board, and it comes with onboard optical ports, which is nifty. I disabled it on the first boot to BIOS :)

ASUS did have the best onboard sound evar with Soundstorm, though (nForce2). Not sure if there were other manufacturers using that.

Finally, gamers should use EAX anyway. Only thing holding me back was lack of optical surround outs from Creative, which I have now.

No Sky,

There is one of the Asus boards that has MUCH worse sound than all the others. Not sure why, but they basically skimped on the onboard sound. Im talking like HORRIBLE sound.

I think my board actually has on-board sound. I have no idea if it sucks or not, as I have never used it.

Graphics card dropped in price - heavily:

Sapphire Radeon X1950XTX (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102082)

In fact, if I didn't know better, it just dropped $100. And the link on the first page doesn't work.

Edit: Just noticed I was in Lord Beta, my bad.

Edit 2: That might be a sale.

Whoa, that is hot.  Fixed the first page.

I am getting the mobo next week.  Discussion, please.  I want to make sure we get the perfect one!

Well.   Generally speaking, I prefer more I/O slots of all types when I can get them.

:evil:

Damn it, Jim, I'm a motherboard, not a mexican donkey show!

Well, let's stay on topic.  Cheddar might need help mating the motherboard with a daughterboard.