Building a new computer

First, I'll explain my situation:

I'm running on a Dell now, but thats not the problem. We had an old Packard Bell a few years ago, and it's been handed down to me. Specs:

Pentium MMX
4.3g Hard Drive
a motherboard that rests on the bottom of the case, with a vertical plate mounted to it in a slot, and the vertical plate has expansion slots for additional cards.
No idea what watt power supply.
CD Rom Drive 52X (2 blank 5.25 bays)
Floppy Drive
Windows 95

I want to strip the computer, reusing the CD drive, floppy drive, and possibly the power supply. The motherboard I was looking at is the vertical, not horizontal type. Is there a way to reuse the vertical card I have with the vertical motherboard? Here is what I was wanting to get:

-Asus A7N8X motherboard (Not sure whats built in and not)
-I wanted to add a Soundblaster Audigy 2 Platinum sound card with the 5.25 bay insert that has jacks for audio/video equipment.
-I want at least 256 RAM (Not sure what type I need)
-Maxtor 40(or greator) Hard Drive
-AMD Athlon XP processor
-Windows XP

Basically, I want a system that I can make competant for today, but will be able to easily upgrade in the future. I can't do that now, because everything is integrated together.

On the motherboard issue, if it's not possible to reuse the vertical card I mentioned, then would I be better off to just buy a new case?

Thanks for reading so far, I'm really quite interested in computers, and I really want to build this computer.

hmm what would you be using this computer for?

basically, to do paper writing for school, and be strong enough to handle games well. I'll be playing Nascar 3, Rollercoaster tycoon 1 and 2, Age of empires 1 and 2. Feel free to add and delete components as you see fit, nothing is really set in stone in my mind right now. Thanks guys, this is appreciated.

You will not be able to salvage the case, so you'll most likely have to buy a new case, as with brand names they tend to use proprietry stuff so its useless.

Secondly the power-supply MIGHT be re-usable (should be atx) but depending if its atx or at connection, it can be re-use (only atx connection).

Also check the mounting points of the power-supply as u'll be getting a new case for the new pc.

Get some 512mb of ram, at least pc 333.
Athlon 2000xp+ at least
use the mobo u mention
video card, well this is debatable, either a 4200 or 5600, up to u if u like dx9
and sound card, depending on the different mobo you select, use the nforce sound onboard, its quite good actually.

get a new hard drive too, at least 80-100 gigs.

That's about the specs currently, a bit hard for me to give specifics without the cost your willing to fork out plus I'm only aware of the Australian market. Good luck.

well thanks, I figured I'd have to scrap the case. Is there any harm in buying off of ebay? I'd of course use reputable sellers. I'm worried about the scans the postal service uses, with radiation and all. Couldnt that ruin stuff?

I know ppl whom have traded off ebay, but its touch and go, personally I'd prefer a front end shop, for warranty purposes its SO MUCH easier.

But whatever you do, just becareful and get educated, if you undsure how to tackle this post specific question and the other members and myself will do our best to steer u towards the right direction.

The front end shops are much more expensive too

There's a shop here in australia that sells the good products so cheap (been around for 10 yrs as far as I know) and its a front end shop.

Its most likely bargain hunting as I'm sure there are shops which is similar to what I've mentioned above.

Its really your call about the products and price you buy, but if you DO buy, buy quality products. By that I mean the brand names, and have regular driver updates. Drivers are the lifeline of stability, without much driver support, you may as well burn your money to tell you the truth, as drivers offer stability as well as compatibility and performance through each revision.

So you said the motherboard had audio and video built in?

Go for the Asus A7N8X Deluxe, you won't regret it.

For more info check out www.asus.com.tw and select where appropriate you region.

alright, my shopping list:

-new vertical mobo ATX case and power supply
-Asus A7N8X Mobo
-AMD Athlon 2000xp processor
-Windows XP
-Maxtor 80gig HD
-New CD Drive
-new floppy drive
-500+ memory
-Will reuse monitor(eventual upgrade
-Will reuse mouse/keyboard
-will eventually get a new printer

My current mouse is a USB mouse, but has an adapter for the ps/2 port. Which is the better port to use?

What type of memory is used by the A7N8X? (EDO, SDRAM, etc.)

I'm sorry for asking so many questions, This is my first computer build. what will happen on first boot? Does the mobo know enough of DOS to let me install windows? What order should the software for the components be installed?

if your going to play games then i would suggest not using xp. I would suggest Windows ME, as its seen as alot better for games and stuff. But as you are upgrading everything you might as well get XP.

Your missing out on a video card, get either Nvidia or ATi.

The one your looking at for Nvidia would either be the Ti4200 or the 5600 at least (you'll have to look at benchmarks to determine which you want, and if you'd like direct x 9 support or not).

For ATi look at around the 9200 or higher, again, benchmark and considerations.

Secondly, the ram used will be DDR ram (double data ram), which means there's a dual bus channel to the ram (parallel way of running it, but there is overheads, etc but you don't have to worry bout this bit, its comp architecture stuff).

SDRAM and EDO ram have been essentially replaces, EDO has parity checking which was needed in the old days (ALOT of performance overheads) and SDRAM well too slow for conventional use.

In regards to performance in relation to operating system, that's BS. If your looking in the sense of PURE performance, go for Windows 9x series, they allow the hardware direct communication and there's no encapsulation that ME provides with hardware and various memory management. But stick with XP because of various reasons:
-compatibility
-support for newer hardwares and its function
-driver support
-better memory management
-better security in relation to older version of windows
-better networking support compared to older version of windows

I mean, there's HUGE benefits in going to windows xp that your well worth in getting it.

Now basically you need to hunt for your video card.

from what i hear, ATi cards dont support OpenGl modes well, which is what alot of games use. I would suggest getting something that is made for OpenGL games.

Thanks for being patient so far De$i and zeus, but what is De$i talking about?

Look mate its alright, you should have seen the computer industry about a couple of years ago when I first started, was like 11 and NO HELP as there's too many arrogant ppl or offering me WRONG advice, and back then computer parts weren't cheap so I learnt a lot of things the wrong way and expensive way. On top of that, if you think there are guides or magazines which are user/n00b friendly back then, your truely mistaken. But anyway...

What De$i is talking about is the modes which the video card renders images. Look at it as a language form. We humans have languages which we communicate whatever meaning we want, same deal with computers.

In video forms, there is two primary standrads which dominates the market, the OpenGL format and Directx format. OpenGL is open source and under the GNU licencing scheme, and as you guessed it, Directx is microsoft. Back when 3dfx was still around, they had Glide which was their format and a lot of games used it, but not anymore and its no longer supported/in the picture.

What you'll find the fact is most games support both formats, and also most games are written primarily for Windows based platform also. The advantages of either format is basically negligable. Unless your running a non Windows Operating System (Linux, Unix, Mac OS), then you'd want OpenGL support, otherwise you'd probably don't care.

Basically most of the time you'd run games in Direct x simply because of better support from the games and also its faster then OpenGL, but OpenGL (in my opinion) produce graphics better, but basically it doesn't matter which format is faster by the video card.

I'd personally go for Nvidia simply because of their support and experience in the industry, but ATi is coming up very good to give Nvidia the run for its money.

Check out the video cards based on the price range you have to offer, and we'll slowly narrow it down. Best of luck again.

I wont be buying the stuff immediatly, most likely later, maybe even next spring. make a recommendation for me. I definatly am biased to Nvidia, as both of the family's previous comps have had Nvidia. No complaints there.

I won't be able to make a recommandation because primarily I'm not in the US market, not aware of your ability to source specific parts, etc.

But look into either MSI, Asus, or Leadtek. Those are the names that come up to my mind with good driver support for nvidia.

Either Ti4200 - the end of the 4xxx series, Fx5600 onwards. These will greatly depend on your budget.

But the main consideration (even though the 4xxxx series is faster/comparible to the Fx series, the Fx series has Dx9 support, which means when games support Dx9, there might be (most probably) have a huge increase in performance when it comes out.

yeh exactly wat zeus said. OpenGL cards produce smoother and higher quality graphics while Direct3D produces more effiency. I personally would recommend that you get no card less then 124mgb. As more and more games are demanding faster and better computers. Even 124mgb card wont be top of the line as their are 256 cards.

It all depends on how much money you have. For example if you have lots then i would suggest soemthign like ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB Video Card which costs generally around $599, which is alot of money to fork out for a video card but it will last you a good solid 3/4 years. Also make sure you get an AGP Slot card, as they have been proven to run alot faster then PCI Slot cards.

If you would like a Ge-Force card then i woudl recommend the XFX GeForce FX5600 256MB Video Card it costs about $340-380 and the company Ge-Force itself as seen as a good one. They have a very good reputation for OpenGL cards and be assured this will also last you a good 3/4 years.

There is no benefits in "bigger is better". The ram in the video cards is only used for textures which is primarily for games or graphic intensive application.

Nowadays games only utilize 64mb of the graphic's memory, any more will only give you an increase/benefit of 10% give or take as the overheads from the bus architecture, cpu, I/O devices etc all contribute to the overall performance.

Graphic intense programs such as photoshop, paint shop pro, illustrator, 3d max, maya, etc all utilize a different aspect of the graphics card. That's why they have nvidia produce the quadro series which would be of no benefit to games but rendering real time animation would be of HUGE gains, plus these cards cost an arm and a leg.

The motherboard you have actually have an agp slot, but there's new technology replacing all these dated technology as you may have heard of the athlon 64 and PCI express.

It all depends on how much cash you are willing to spend and also how easily obtainable you can get the products, so its really hard to recommand. On top of that just be wary that you only need a medium card, as top of the line cards ONLY offer marginale gains.

My advice from many of my post which I will re-iterate is trade-offs. You compromise one for another, by that I mean speed vs memory vs availability vs time vs cost, etc. Also, be educated, KNOW what your getting yourself into and the products you buy, and possible read reviews and get first hand info from users. It may be daunting but the time and cost you spend on doing this will save you ALOT of headaches.

Paying a bit more for service (ease of warranty/troubleshooting) plus a bit more for a brand name would guarentee the product a long life-line plus maximum compatibility, etc.

yeh i understand what your sayin Webmaster, but if you have more memory then the card will last longer, as more and more games are starting to demand 124mgb cards. Which will mean its kind of a good tradeoff as the card will last atleast a good 3/4 years, and may end up saving you money, as you may need to upgrade your card if you get a bad one.

And Webmaster i havent really heard of the new technology thats replacign AGP/PCI Slots. Could you post a link up so that i can read up on it please, just so i know what it is.

The additional memory with current hardware is useless, simply because the hardware cannot utilize the memory to its full potentional.

When you have a large memory, your also introducing a higher ratio of hit ratio, which means data has to be maintain in the memory, and to traverse each page/segment of memory to check if its there means more overheads.

So in a way having that extra memory is sort of a double edge sword, current technology only fully use the 64mb memory, 128 would be used to its maximum in the FX and ATi newer series but 256 is still not a plausable cause, only two games I can think of utilize so much memory, bandwidth and power, HL2 and Doom3.

Also the applications (games included) must be written to fully utilize the hardware, but I do agree its good to plan 6 months ahead, as that's how long it'll take you to fully use/understand your pc's limitation and adaptation to new hardware.

But anyway it all comes down to cost, as I said being educated is important too. Plus I wouldn't worry about looking at what to buy now, use what you would like to buy as a guide, as a lot can change in months in the computer industry.

The website wouldn't be of much use to u, its in chinese, unless you can read it, there's not much point in me posting it.

Also PCI express is suppose to replace the AGP slot, but PCI will still be around. Just google PCI express in google and a lot of interesting reads will be available.

ah yeh i understand what your saying now. And yeh i cant read chinese, but i'll search for it on google.

let's not have an argument now folks, Can a quality video card be had for under $100?

let's not have an argument now folks, Can a quality video card be had for under $100?

I don't see of it as an argument, its a discussion. Exhange of ideas with information to back it up is essentially good healthy exchange, if its all just agreeance and presenting points without backing up with information or a form of justification, we may as well throw away this section of forum as through discussion we can accomplish a lot of things, and come to an educated conclusion.

But regarding the price, the Ti series and Fx 5200 hould be had for ~$100, well the prices here and after converting it can be had for that price easily, plus its normally cheaper in the USA compared to australi.

heh yeh i agree with Webmaster there, we were just havin a healthy exchange of ideas. And tman yeh you can probably find somethign half decent for under $100. I live in canada and bought a Radeon 9000 64mb card for $150. And all games run fine for me. So im sure you should be able to get somethign for cheaper and it'll probably be better then what i have.

De$i, is this what you've got now?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1051826238545&skuId=5429592&type=product

yep thats exactly what i've got

What sort of power supply do I need?

It would depend on if you get a case with the power supply or not, plus also your budget.

But the "style" of power supply you require is an atx style, and try to get one also with the P4 supply interface as well. At least if you decided to swing both ways you can always reuse it.

The wattage you want is around 350 - 500 max, but make sure its TRUE rating not just maximum rating, huge differences.

Thanks, I'll post a detailed shopping list later, with prices, and specific parts.