I wanna buy / build / assemble a new pc - got a good LINK?

[Cilla]

I need a new pc.

I don know wheter i should buy one or assmble my own.

Im looking for something like a good site to compare hardware (costs) etc.
Or forums where people discuss and help assemble pcs.


Is there anybody who got some experiences with "homebuil" pcs?
MAybe you got some helping links?

Thanks alot

Cilla


Edit: Im from germany!

 

[SFilip]

> assmble my own
Always. The premade configurations are (at least in my country) one great way to get ripped off.
I'd recommend looking for some PC distributors available in your country/city (get the prices from them), obviously it doesn't help when you see the price of some component the way it is in USA.
Oh and don't buy if you don't intend to get a dual-core CPU, they might be expencive but are worth it.

 

[Rad]

The premade configurations are (at least in my country) one great way to get ripped off.

Sort of, but most of the time you have to consider:
Labor, the time it took to construct
Operating system, a legal copy
Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse etc

Of course they need to make a profit too though. They cost alot more than custom built but its not quite getting ripped off (Unless you dont know how to shop for a comp, and like my cousin, buy a 3000$ computer that you could custom build for 800$)

...Anyway

Germany? I dont know about that... But I use Newegg for my PC's. They sell everything there. If you plan to custom build, try that (I dont know how shipping would work, though)

For custom building a computer (from scratch) you'll need:

Case

To house the parts, obviously
Make sure its an ATX (medium does fine)​

Motherboard

Where each part attaches to internally
Keep in mind the RAM type (DDR, DDR2, SDRAM etc, and frequencies and/or size)​

Processor (CPU)

A small chip, make sure it comes with a stock heatsink/fan (HSF), if not youll need these as well
Make sure the processor 'slot' matches your motherboard, ex: mines socket AM2, my old one was 939​

Video Card

There are 3 types, PCI (oldest), AGP (old), PCI-E (suggested)
I suggest getting the 7900gt by NVidia, its around 150$ to 200$ (USD), but its almost top of the line​

Memory

The main types listed above, DDR2 (Dual Channel), DDR (Older standard), and SDRAM (Oldest i believe). No more than 2gigs is neccessary, one gig will do fine for gaming.
Make sure they are compliant with your motherboard​

Hard Drive

Stores data... Obviously. When buying a harddrive you mainly decide by size.​

Operating System

Vista is NOT reccomended! I suggest Windows XP Pro, service pack 2...​

You'll also need a monitor, keyboard, mouse... And let me know if i let anything out I need to go to class!

 

[Cilla]

Btw:

This is my current Components List...

 

[enouwee]

Btw:

This is my current Components List...

The components look solid, although I'm not able to say for the watercooling parts, as I'm not into that business. (too risky)

I went GigaByte P35-DQ6 instead of Asus. It's more a personal taste, as the two last Asus mainboards didn't meet my expectations: one ended up having a fried cap (a while ago, Athlon) and the other was dead on arrival (P5E-plus).

My HDD preference would be Western Digital or Seagate instead of Samsung. Some "silent" Samsung drives are notoriously known to fail.

You may want to look at these forum threads if you decide to choose an energy-efficient PSU on a delayed power-on mainboard:
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/77909774/m/849007992831
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page5.html (linked from above)

 

[SFilip]

I would definately take WD over Seagate as I had some very bad experience with a Maxtor drive (which is now the same as SG from what it seems).
The HDD showed some major failure, it turns off itself every now and then while in use. This results in freezing whatever program was using it in the first place, either temporary or completely.

Also I'd take Kingston RAM instead of SLI, it may be more expensive, but it's really worth it, never failed me while some other have.

 

[Duwenbasden]

>XFX GeForce 8800GTS 500M, 640MB DDR3, PCI-Express

Get the 320MB version -- will save you a bundle.

>Samsung T166 500GB

Try Seagate.

 

[Cilla]

I think ill buy this HD: WD Caviar® SE16 / Western Digital WD5000AAKS (Caviar SE16)

 

[Duwenbasden]

Instead of 500GB, how about RAIDing a pair of 320GB SATA?:shades:

 

[Cilla]

I never used Raid before.

Whats the pro of a raid with 2 hds?
If i lose one HD ill lose all my data, and I dont have the money for a backup raid.
I think ill buy 2 WDs and use the second HD as Data and Backup HD.

 

[enouwee]

I never used Raid before.

Whats the pro of a raid with 2 hds?

It's up to you:

• RAID-0 (aka striping): you can use the full capacity of the smallest of the two disks; data is stored in blocks on each drive alternatively. Lose one disk and all your data is gone. It's fast, but not really RAID, as there is no Reduncancy here.
• RAID-1 (aka mirroring): you only get the capacity of the smallest of the two disks, but the data is stored on both. Lose one drive and everything's still fine on the second. Replace the faulty drive and the data will automagically be replicated. Additionally, read performance is increases, as you can read off the two disks independently.
• RAID-4/5/6: require at least three (or four disks) and work like RAID-0 but use the additional disk(s) for redundancy (to add parity information). If you lose one (two in the case of RAID-6) all your data is still available, but you should really replace the faulty drive. Performance is not as good as RAID-0, as parity has to be computed somewhere: it's the CPU's job (aka. Software/Fake-RAID), you lose raw computing power when doing I/O to the disk.
• JBOD (aka spanning): concatenate the drives. No redundancy, no speed increase, but you can use the whole capacity of the two disks. Not RAID, but most controllers offer this option.
• RAID-0+1 or RAID-1+0: combination of both: you can have both speed and redundancy. Requires at least 4 disks though.

You can add hot-spare drives too, which aren't used at all and added to the array when a drive fails.

Never use RAID-0 without a backup plan. RAID-1/5 is not a drop-in replacement for a backup-solution (DVD, tape, ...). If you erase a file or get some nasty virus/spyware, you have it on both disks (or don't have it, in case of file deletion).

You should never use a system without having a backup somewhere.

For a redundant home system, I'd use RAID-1, as you should be able to recover your data on a regular PC with a compatible interface (SATA, IDE, SCSI-LVD, whatever you drive is using).

It's hard to find informations, but the way the RAID meta-information is stored (generally at the back of the drive) is vendor-specific. Don't assume that you'll be able to plug your 6-disk RAID-5 array into another controller and it'll work out of the box.

I think ill buy 2 WDs and use the second HD as Data and Backup HD.

Get an external USB or firewire drive if you want to make backups. It might not be as fast, but is more flexible and you can carry it around or unplug it when not needed. Most importantly, it's outside of your box, in case you flood your box

 

[AceHart]

> You should never use a system without having a backup somewhere.

While that's certainly sound advice, it's also wishful thinking.

I do know some people that actually do, every once in a blue moon or so ("I think something's wrong here, let's make a backup"...).
Though, untested, unverified... if they ever needed to use it, they'd probably be in for some surprise...

There's also some strong beliefs that extra-special-never-been-cheaper CDs last for at least 10 years...


Anyway, ALWAYS backup all important data. Preferably all of it, but at least the important stuff.

 

[enouwee]

You should never use a system without having a backup somewhere.

While that's certainly sound advice, it's also wishful thinking.

I do know some people that actually do, every once in a blue moon or so ("I think something's wrong here, let's make a backup"...).
Though, untested, unverified... if they ever needed to use it, they'd probably be in for some surprise...

There's also some strong beliefs that extra-special-never-been-cheaper CDs last for at least 10 years...

Personally, I don't know of any long-term and affordable backup solution. You may choose DVDs, but they aren't guaranteed to last longer than a couple years. BluRay, as it makes use of non-organic disks, will last longer, but the recorders are still expensive.

And it'd require you 10x 25GB disks to do a full backup of your 250GB disk. That's not really an option. Price estimate: at least 800€/$ for the drive and 15$/€ per 25GB disk.

In case you want some long-term storage: get an LTO tape drive. They aren't cheap either, but you can fit 200GB of uncompressed data on a single cartridge and they last 30 years under optimal storage conditions. The cost? Well, it's entry-level enterprise class stuff: about 1200€ (give or take a few) with enough tapes for 2TB. Oh, you need an LVD-SCSI controller in case you're wondering whether you can plug it into your USB port or not.

Anyway, ALWAYS backup all important data. Preferably all of it, but at least the important stuff.

This reminds me of something:
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070411&mode=classic
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070412&mode=classic

You do have a backup, don't you?

 

[Prometheus]

http://www.ibuypower.com/mall/lobby.htm
Here ya go

 

[Duwenbasden]

>In case you want some long-term storage:...

Alternatively, you can get Firestreamer. It uses DV Tapes to backup data (15GB/tape). DV tapes lasts very long, and are generally cheap ($12 for a 3 pack)

 

[enouwee]

>In case you want some long-term storage:...

Alternatively, you can get Firestreamer. It uses DV Tapes to backup data (15GB/tape). DV tapes lasts very long, and are generally cheap ($12 for a 3 pack)

How much does the drive cost? I'll put it into the chart I'm building.

I hope it's not that one (from your linked site):

Important Notice

Firestreamer-DV
8-Mar-07

Firestreamer-DV has been discontinued and is no longer available for download.

 

[SFilip]

Wait, you people are talking about some serious backup solutions here...
Unless there is a good reason why you need one of these on a home PC, it's pretty much a waste of money...
How much data do you consider important really? In most cases it's less than 1GB which can be backed up in many possible ways.
If it's more than that...think again. I'm sure you don't need to backup the whole HDD.

 

[enouwee]

Wait, you people are talking about some serious backup solutions here...

Of course we're serious. :nuts: We could talk about joke backup solutions, like paper transcripts in binary form, or remembering every and each byte of a file.

Unless there is a good reason why you need one of these on a home PC, it's pretty much a waste of money...
How much data do you consider important really? In most cases it's less than 1GB which can be backed up in many possible ways.
If it's more than that...think again. I'm sure you don't need to backup the whole HDD.

Sorry, but I disagree. Think of how many people are storing pictures of their holidays or children on a single disk or DVD. There's more: digitized old recordings, (boring) family videos. That's unvaluable data and it takes a lot of space. Maybe not TBs, but sometimes a few 100GBs. Now they're storing everything on DVD, hoping it's safe for their grand-grand-children to watch.

Freelancers... GBs of design work or documents. Over the few last years, I put together over a TB of data and don't want to lose it (nothing illegal in there, all my hard work). A Halflife-TC ate up to 2GB of space on my disk. That was 8 years ago.

Mere mortals are not hitting the terabyte... yet. Welcome to the digital age. Where everything you stored could vanish in just a second.

I'm pretty sure you know some people that have disks full of music or pr0n. Not quite as valuable, thou.


Rather than drifting completely off-topic here, I'll open a new thread with cost and advantages/disadvantages of the different technologies. Or just post it if someone else's faster.

To get back on topic: want a new PC? Get a Dell. *duck*

 

[AceHart]

> How much data do you consider important really?

Um... let's see...hm. Yep, that would be it: all of it!
Especially the 99.7% of it that are completely unrecoverable and irreplaceable.


My current set of "important data" exists, in its entirety, on this comp, the previous comp, on two other different comps in a different building(sic), once on CD and once on DVD.
And, no, I don't think that's overkill.

My current comp has two disks, where one is, you probably guessed it, a complete copy of the other.


> like paper transcripts in binary form

Then again, "written in stone" has already passed the test of time.
Any other medium still needs to show that kind of long lasting value.


> Get a @!#?@!

No comment.

 

[sqrage]

Data Back-up discussion: Here

Back on topic starting....now!