I'm Building A Computer

[Gunpei]

I am going to be building a high end computer soon and i wanted to know what you guys think i should put into it. For Example should i go for a 64 Bit processor or get a 32 bit one. Go for dual channel RAM or just the standard version....etc.

[Blaksmoke]

No. Fucking. Clue.

:roll:
*rolls away*

[Gunpei]

Alright this is what i am thinking of getting...

Processors:

• Pentium 4 3GHz w/HT

Or

• AMD Athlon 64FX-53


RAM:

• 1 or 2 GB DDR SDRAM


Drives:

• 8x DVD+ - R/RW CD+ -R/RW

• 52/24/52x CD-RW


Hard Drive:

• 160 or 200 GB internal


Other:

• 8 USB 2.0 ports

• 4 Firewire ports

• Media Card Reader

• Floppy Drive

• Zip Drive

[Sendok]

id say go for an AMD. and skip on the floppy drive...unless its only a few bucks.

[jonapete2001]

For the processor i would go with the AMD Athlon 64 3400+. It is definately the best performance for your dollar.

[peasantlover]

I didnt know you were a geek Gunpei

[=NukeBlaze=]

I second jonapete with that processor, but I will add one detail.

In a few months time, AMD will release thier socket 949 motherboard. This will replace the current 754 board that AMD processors use, and will add a dual channel -RAM controller for the AMD athlon 64, which is currently only reserved for the AMD 64 FX series. Waiting for this board would enable you to upgrade in the furture, for the socket 754 board are supposed to stop at or before the 4000+ rated Athlon 64. Who knows, you might even get the faster "1000 Mhz" trasport bus and PCI express as well. I would not, howerver, reccomend the Athlon 64FX-53.

As far as the harddrive, if you had a motherboard with raid features, you could get 2 - 80 GB harddisk and raid them together. This si require a bit more setup, but boards from main brand compaies, or name brand PCI raid cards, provide quite a bit of tech support, software, and documentation.


Even the Pentium 4 will be leaving its current socket in favor of a new LGA 775 socket, named "Socket T". This will enable for faster processor to be installed in the furture, and will support intel's furture prescotts processors, and Tejas processos , replacing the current P4.(Might I add, the prescott process is now a failure, and will probably be replaced with the new, new core code named -Tejas.)

[JustUsOwls]

Don't forget a good graphics card! That could make all the difference.

I have a Radeon 9600 Pro 128 and I want to upgrade. I say you should get a 9800 Pro XT (That's what I want!)

[=NukeBlaze=]

^

I would wait for a graphics card as well.

The next generation of cards will be out in april and will offer much greater preformance in direct X 9 games ( Doom3 and Half-Life 2 for example).

[Gunpei]

I wont be building this beast until june anyways so thanks for the input guys. So how long would i have to wait for that newer motherboard that allows me to upgrade? Also, what exactly is dual channel RAM? Finally, i forgot to add in that i was going to get the Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB or look at the newer generation of cards to come.

[jonapete2001]

I second jonapete with that processor, but I will add one detail.

......In a few months time, AMD will release thier socket 949 motherboard. This will replace the current 754 board that AMD processors use, and will add a dual channel -RAM controller for the AMD athlon 64, which is currently only reserved for the AMD 64 FX series. software, and documentation......

.)


Just to clairify, it will be a 939 socket chip for the new amd chips(not 949). dont want anyone to be confused. personally i am waiting for this upgrade myself.

[=NukeBlaze=]

^ lol

Thank you for the correction. Did not even notice that the "4" happend to replace the "3".

Hopefully AMD will add SSE3 support sooner than expected. A bump to 1000Mhz in the Hyper-Trasport bus would not be bad either. Neither would PCI express.....At the current rate , I am never going to get a new computer! Waiting till the end of time!


Gunpei:: Dual channel RAM is a setup in which the computer's data bus to the RAM is expanded to 128 bits, verus 64 bits in single channel. Almost all RAM has long been 64bits wide for trasmitting data at one time. The way this boosts preformance is that you can get benefits of much faster memeory access than would be possible. Let me give you an example.

If you have DDR-SDRAM running at 400Mhz in single channel mode, it will provide a theortical 3.2 Gigabytes of bandwidth. Now, if you have a processor and motherboard which support dual channel memory, you can add another ideatical stick which will give you 6.4 Gigbytes of bandwidth. This memory now run like one stick of 800Mhz DDR-SDRAM because the two stick of memory are combined to 128bits a second, versus 64bits a seconds, running at 400Mhz.

(Keep in mind that DDR has a trick to increase performance again. Being that is is called Double-Data-Rate SDRAM, it gives out 2x the data at a give clock speed. Hence, DDR-RAM running at 400Mhz would performce like DDR 800Mhz, becuase it gives out data twice on ever clock cycle in your computer. This would figure in that dual channel DDR-SDRAM running at 400Mhz, would perform simmilar to one stick running at 1600Mhz! ( 400Mhz * 2 = (800Mhz) + 400Mhz * 2 = 800Mhz =1600Mhz.)