The Parts for Building a Computer from Scratch!Jul 20 '02 (Updated Jan 17 '03) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Building computers is fun and educational, it is easy if you take your time and do your research!
Building your own computer from scratch is easier than you think. Building my own computer usually costs slightly more than if I order one built but I can build it the way I want to with quality parts built inside. So lets get started, I will give you some ideas of what to look for and then pick what I would get to build a computer for my preferences. There are many ways to build a computer, I will show you mainly the components that I would use to build a powerful computer for my personal use. ~ The Processor ~ There are two main companies that I will consider for my processor needs and they are Intel the biggest company of all of them and AMD who has given Intel a run for the money in the last few years. Both companies produce an excellent quality processor that will run any application or games that you may wish to use. The main difference is price, an AMD processor of the same speed is usually half the price of the competitor Intel. An Intel processor under most tests show to be the best performance under business type applications like a spread sheet, while the AMD processor will usually out run the Intel processor on games and graphic applications. AMD is the under dog but because of them the prices of processors have dropped dramatically over the last few years. Currently Intel has the higher priced and faster processor in the Intel Pentium 4 chip and at the lower priced end they use the Intel Celeron chip. AMD has their top of the line processor as the Athlon XP chip and on the lower end they use the Duron chip. For my choice on this computer I am going with the AMD Athlon XP 2000 processor for a price of $168.54 with a three-year warranty and a cooling fan included. ~ The Motherboard ~ Motherboards can be confusing with so many brands out there. I will go with the BIOSTAR M7VIF, I have had a lot of luck and good service with the BIOSTAR brand name. Here is what I liked about the BIOSTAR M7VIF motherboard and these are things to look for when buying a new motherboard. (1) It will run at the 200 or 266MHz system interface speed, the AMD Athlon XP 2000 processor is made to run a 266MHz system interface speed. (2) This motherboard is made for the faster PC2700 DDR 333MHZ DIMM memory chips with three empty slots for memory. (3) It is made for the faster ULTRA ATA133 hard drives. Cost for the Motherboard is $65.27, this motherboard has been out for a while and the cost has dropped almost in half. The motherboard installs easily with all the screws and everything you need to mount it to the case comes with the case. The motherboard includes a parallel port, two serial ports, two rear USB ports, two front USB ports a game port and more. ~ Memory ~ Memory is another area that can be very confusing with the different types out there. The most common memory today is the SDRAM PC100 and PC133. The faster and newer memory is the DDR memory chips with the PC2100 being the most popular running at 266MHz and the newer and faster PC2700 running at 333 MHz catching on fast. I went with the faster PC2700 DDR memory chip in the Multiwave brand name with 512MB at a price of $151.94. Your motherboard must support the PC2700 for you to use it. This should give me plenty of memory. The memory installs easily on the motherboard, there is usually instructions with a photo showing you how it installs. ~ A Case ~ Cases, do you want a desktop, mini tower, mid tower or a full tower? The things to look for in a case is that it is made for your motherboard, it has at least one cooling fan and I recommend at least a 300 watt power supply. I went with the MWAVE CI-9106 FULL TOWER because I wanted the full tower with plenty of room. It comes with a 300-watt power supply and has plenty of room for all your computer add-ons. This is an excellent tower that comes apart and goes back together without any tools. This case is made for three fans (Not Included) so I purchased them separately. The MWAVE 80mm fans cost $3.50 each so I added all three for a cost of $10.50. Cost of the case is $75 plus the $10.50 for the fans bringing the total cost to $85.50. ~ A Hard Drive ~ How big of hard drive do you want, what type and how much do you want to spend? These are question that you will have to come up with. With several types of drives out there SCSI, USB/Firewire and EIDE, the EIDE is the most cost effective and ready to be used with your motherboard. Now as far as brands I prefer Western Digital but they do not have a 133 EIDE ULTRA-ATA yet so I will go with the MAXTOR 80.0GB DX6L080L4 EIDE ULTRA-ATA 133 8.5NS 7200RPM 2MB BUFFER for $108. Now this is a bare drive meaning you don’t get any cables connectors or software with this drive. The software can be downloaded from their website. Here you get 80 Gigabytes of storage with plenty of speed storage for all your needs. If you have never installed a hard drive, I recommend getting the retail kit version, which is priced slightly higher. ~ Video Card ~ Now you will need a video card. There are many types and brands to choose from, the latest video cards use the DDR memory for more speed and many have 64 to 128 MB of memory. I decided to go with the VISIONTEK XTASY GEFORCE2 TI 5864 it has 64 MB of DDR memory at a price of $124.00. This is a good card for the price, the 128 MB cards will cost you about another $100. The 64 MB is plenty of memory for now for all your applications and games, in the future 128 MB will probably not be enough. ~ Floppy Drive ~ The 1.44 floppy drive still lives after all these years and is included in computers sold today. The cost of one is fairly cheap, I picked the TEAC 1.44MB FLOPPY DRIVE (Bare Drive) for $13.50 because I had the floppy cable needed to connect it to the motherboard. A bare drive is what it says, it is the drive only with nothing extra. All you need is a cable, power connections are on the power supply in the case, Windows will automatically recognize the floppy when you start it up. ~ CD Drive, CDR CDRW DVD DVDR? ~ I wanted a DVD writer so I went with the PIONEER DVD/CD RE-WRITABLE DRIVE DVR-104 for $269. This writer will write DVDs and CDs plus playback a DVD or CD. Since the SONY 52X CDROM was only $29 I decided to add it also. Connect the DVD drive by itself and connect the CDROM with the same cable as the hard drive. ~ Modem ~ There are all kinds of modems out there, I will go with the DIAMOND SUPRAMAX V.92 56K for only $22. I have had the best connections and service out a Diamond brand modem than any other brand. If you are into DSL or other high speed connections then the provider of the service will usually provide the equipment for you. ~ Sound Card & Speakers ~ The motherboard has an integrated sound card but I have always loved a Creative Sound Card over anything else. So I went with the CREATIVE LABS SOUNDBLASTER LIVE! PLATINUM PCI 5.1 made for the 5.1 sound from a DVD movie. The cost of the card is $95.00 Since I went with a sound card made for 5 speakers and a subwoofer, I went with the CREATIVE LABS INSPIRE 5.1 5300 for $80. This is a nice 5.1 system for the price. ~ Keyboard & Mouse ~ A Keyboard and Mouse is something that you will need, I have always been happy with the Logitech brand. I went with the LOGITECH CORDLESS FREEDOM RF KEYBOARD & MOUSE PS2 (White box) for $41.28. Here you have no cords to worry about. It is a three-button scroll mouse and a 104 key keyboard. ~ Operating system ~ After getting it all together you will need an Operating System to run the computer and all the programs. I decided on the Microsoft Windows XP HOME for $89. The $89 is a discount because of buying the hardware for building the computer. ~ Total Cost for this Computer! ~ Processor AMD Athlon XP 2000 $168.54 Motherboard BIOSTAR M7VIF $65.27 Memory Multiwave PC2700 DDR $151.94 Case with three fans $85.50 Hard Drive MAXTOR 80.0GB $108 Video Card ISIONTEK XTASY GEFORCE2 TI 5864 $124.00 Floppy Drive TEAC 1.44MB $13.50 DVD PIONEER DVD/CD RE-WRITABLE DRIVE DVR-104 $269 CD SONY 52X CDROM EIDE INTERNAL $29 Modem DIAMOND SUPRAMAX V.92 56K $22 Sound Card SOUNDBLASTER LIVE! PLATINUM PCI 5.1 $95 Speakers CREATIVE LABS INSPIRE 5.1 $80 Keyboard & Mouse LOGITECH BUNDLE $41.28 Operating System Windows XP $89 Total Cost $1342.03 Shipping $46.27 ~ My Prices ~ All my prices were taken from mwave.com as of the day this review was published. Now Multiwave will put together and test it for you for an additional $79 charge. This is great if you are not sure about putting it together your self but you can design one the way you want it to be. Here you can read my review on the Multiwave Direct Online Store ~ My Last Thoughts ~ One good thing about a computer like the one I have put together here is it is all upgradeable for future hardware. This review just gives you an idea of what it takes to built your own computer, there are thousands of ways to customize one for your specific needs. Most items listed as retail will have everything included while the hardware listed bare will only be that item. Building a computer is easy for me, not everyone can get into it, so paying the extra $79 for them to put it together and test it maybe worth it. Shipping is high because of the case but I did not have to pay any sales tax so that saved me $80.52 in sales tax. Final thought, if this is your first time building one make sure there is someone that you can call to help you out if you have any questions. Building a computer is like everything else, you won’t learn to build one unless you jump in there and do it. Good luck on you Computer Building and I hope this review will help you in some way. ~~~ Thanks for reading my review! ~~~ Here are some of my Computer Hardware Reviews! Western Digital 100GB EIDE Hard Drive ATI ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 8500 Graphics card Visiontek Visiontek XTasy 6564 AGP 64MB Card AMD Athlon XP 2100 AMD Athlon XP 2700 Processor Asus A7N8X Motherboard EPoX EP-8K7A Socket A ATX Motherboard  |
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