I might build a new PC

[Stephen Coates]

Everything has changed since 2004. So I don't really know what is best any more.

Hopefully the nice members of this forum might be able to help me choose some new components.

I would like to keep the cost down to around £200.

I have already decided I will get a couple of these hard drives:
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=30839&category_id=112&manufacturer_id=0&tid=st3500418as

The case isn't really a concern as I can use one that I have already. Same goes for CDRW drive and floppy drive (though I may buy a new DVDRW).

I will definitely need a new PSU. And of course a Motherboard and Processor. I'm not sure whether Intel or AMD is best these days. When I was looking at systems back in 2004, I decided that the Athlon XP would be the best, but that was a few years ago now.

I would also like a proper graphics card and PCI slots so that I can use my PCI SCSI card. A floppy drive controller, parallel port, and serial port would also be nice but its not the end of the world if these aren't available. Do motherboards tend to have firewire built in these days? I have a firewire card in my current PC which I got exclusively for the external CDRW drive that I was given, but I don't use this much.

I'm also not too sure about sound cards. I have always found integrated audio to be pretty good but I would consider a sound card if good ones are available.

I may also get a new mouse, for which I will definitely be going to Microsoft for. And possibly an extra keyboard, which, if I do get one, will be from Unicomp. My current mouse is USB with a PS/2 adaptor, but my keyboard is PS/2, so a PS/2 port would be useful. Of course I'm not sure how popular these are these days.

Operating system wise I will be using Linux and Windows XP.

All suggestions and recommendations are welcome.

Thanks
Steve

[Harrison]

Great to see you are finally considering a new system. And the good news is that you should be able to keep the costs under £200.

Intel are currently the best CPUs to go for. On a price to performance basis they give the best at the moment. And while the newer i7, i5 and i3 CPUs are now available, the slightly older Core 2 Duo and Core Quad CPUs are a better option to go for now as they are right down in price and give great multi-core performance. However as you are not into games tat much then the even more avoidable Pentium Dual Core E5xxx CPUs are good and I highly recommend these.

For motherboards, I would go for an Asus Intel Socket 775 motherboard.

Ram has gone up in price recently since I last purchased some. But you should be able to get 2GB or maybe even 4GB within your budget.

Is your budget including the HDDs you are buying or not? I hope not, or you will be a it restricted.

For your requirements you are going to need: PSU, Motherboard, RAM, CPU, Graphics card. For everything else, as you mentioned, you can use your existing case, optical drivers, keyboard, mouse, monitor etc..

Most new motherboards only have one IDE port to run 2 devices, so keep those for your existing CD/DVD drives and use SATA for all your HDDs.

For graphics cards the current ATI Radeon 48XX range is great performance for the money, and depending on what you want the card to be able to run they are affordable, from as low as £40 to over £100. However many motherboards have fairly good built in graphics cards for general use, plus a PCI-E slot so you could use the built in graphics to begin with, and then add a PCI-E graphics card later if you find you need one.

Sound cards are not needed unless you are into music creation in a big way, or want the ultimate sound in games. Most motherboards come with 7.1 sound built in that is good quality.

Finally PSUs. Never buy a budget make or unbranded PSU. Always go for a good known make. For the spec I'm going to be recommending a 500W PSU should be more than enough.

Looking at currently available options and your budget I would recommend the following items:

CPU: Intel E5400 2.7GHz CPU - £74.75 (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Processors/IntelPentiumDualCore/Intel/BX80571E5400.html)
Ram: Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400 800MHz Dual Channel Kit - £40.24 (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Memory-PCAndLaptop/DDR2-PC2-6400/800MHz/Crucial/BL2KIT12864AA80A.html)
Motherboard: Asus P5KPL-AM EPU Intel G31 Micro ATX (Socket 775) PCI-E DDR2. - £41.39 (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Motherboards/Intel775AllChipsetMotherboards/Asus/90-MIB9N0-G0EAY00Z.html)
PSU: OCZ StealthXStream 400W Silent ATX2 PSU - £37.98 (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/PowerSupplies/OCZ/OCZ400SXS-UK.html)

Those parts would come to £194.36 which is just inside of your budget and will give a nice system that can easily run any current OS well, and most games too.

This doesn't include a graphics card, and as mentioned there is one built into the motherboard which is fine for general use. And with a PCI-E slot on the motherboard a proper dedicated card could be added later.

If you did however want to buy a graphics card, then something like:

Asus ATI Radeon HD 4550 512MB - £34.49 (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Graphics-ATI/ATIHD4500Series/Asus/EAH4550DI512MD3%28LP%29A.html)

Would be perfect for your needs.

With that graphics card, the total would come to £228.85.

I hope that helps.

I build a very similar system for someone a couple of months ago on a similar budget and they were very happy with the finished system.

[Stephen Coates]

Thanks for the reply harrison.

One reason I am interested in graphics is because I wouldn't mind having the ability to play high definition videos, possibly from Blu-Ray, if I were to get a BR drive. This isn't a very high priority though.


However as you are not into games tat much then the even more avoidable Pentium Dual Core E5xxx CPUs are good and I highly recommend these.

I originally read this as 'affordable' but I just looked now and it said 'avoidable'. I'm guessing you actually did mean affordable. I certainly hope you don't recomend to me something which should be avoided :D.

Is there likely to be much difference between an Intel e5300 and an e5400?
Do these e5xxx processors come with cooling fans, and if so, are they likely to be adequate, or would a thrid party one be better?

I see the Asus motherboard you recomend is a MicroATX one. Is this likely to fit OK in an ATX case? Or maybe even an AT case? Perhaps I should just buy a new case since I intend to continue using my Dell and Pentium systems.

[Harrison]

MicroATX motherboards fit ATX cases. They use the same holes, but only use the 6 pointing points towards the back of the case, instead of the full 9 of a full sized ATX board.

Oh, and yes that was a typo.

The main difference between an e5300 and e5400 is the clock speed. Retail boxed Intel or AMD processors come with a bundled fan which is perfectly adequate for the CPU at stock temps. You would only need to consider a third party cooling fan/heatsink if you wanted to overclock.

If you did want to buy a new case then you can find good ones starting as low as £30, but it depends on what you would want. It is better to get a case with at least 1 120mm fan at the front and 1 120mm fan at the rear. The larger size keeps noise down and still shifts more air than an 80mm fan can at faster speeds. I personally like Thermaltake cases, but they do cost a bit more, starting around £55.

Never buy a case with a PSU included as they will generally be a budget PSU that is not good quality and is more likely to die at some point and take some of the components with it.

Most graphics cards can easily do HD video these days. Even the budget end of the graphics card range such as the card I recommended above. On board video might also be able to handle it with the dual core CPU and 2GB of ram. Should handle it fine.

[Stephen Coates]

Is the fact that my current case does not have any fans likely to cause problems? (I could probably add some if neccesary)

Will any LGA775 motherboard work with any LGA775 processor? I read some specifications for other LGA775 motherboard and there was no mention of the Pentium e5xxx, but I only read them briefly. I am looking at different motherboards as Firewire and a floppy drive controller would be quite useful if it is possible to have them. Extra PCI/PCIe slots would also come in handy I'm sure.

[Harrison]

You won't find many motherboards these days with more than 2 PCI slots because they are slowly being phased out in favour of the much smaller PCI-E x1 slots for network and sound cards.

Not all LGA775 motherboards are the same, but all should work with the e5xxx CPUs because they are basically the last of the dual core Pentium's, before the Core range starts.

The main different between motherboards will be the chipsets being used. Some chipsets offer more things like firewire, more sata ports etc, Plus supporting quad core processors, and different front side bus speeds, for CPU FSB and Ram type and speed. For the e5xxx CPUs you are only going to need 800MHz FSB and DDR2 PC2-6400 800MHz ram.

If you didn't mind spending a bit more then there are motherboards with 3 PCI slots and a floppy port, such as:

Gigabyte GA-P31-ES3G Intel P31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - £46.99 (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Motherboards/Intel775AllChipsetMotherboards/Gigabyte/GA-P31-ES3G.html)

Gigabyte are also a pretty good motherboard maker.

[Stephen Coates]

I did consider the Asus P5KPL/EPU as that has extra PCI slots. The fact that it doesn't have integrated graphics doesn't matter as I have decided to get a graphics card.

However, the Gigabyte one is tempting since it has a floppy controller. The floppy controller will be useful, but I'm sure I could cope with a USB drive (I don't intend using the new system with MS-DOS).

[Stephen Coates]

I have ordered the following:

Gigabyte GA-P31-ES3G iP31 Socket 775 5.1 channel audio ATX Motherboard - £47.17 inc postage from Ebuyer

Gigabyte GV-R455D3-512I Radeon HD 4550 512MB ATX DVI-i Graphics Card - £29.28 from Amazon

OCZ-S400 OCZ StealthXStream 400w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply
SG-712S500 Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB 16MB Cache Hard Drive SATA II 300MB/s 11ms 7200rpm - OEM
IL-CE6300 Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 2 x 2.8Ghz 2MB Cache 1066 FSB Dual Core Processor
CRU-B642GK Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel Kit
£187.27 inc postage from Novatech

So the total has come to £263.72.

I only ordered one hard drive. I would like to have two but I can always get another one in the future when I have more money. I will be reusing harrison's old CDRW drive which is currently in my PC. I guess if I end up having to use DVDs I will use my 10 year old Hitachi DVDROM. Will also be reusing the floppy drive and case.

I'm not sure whether I will keep my 120GB Maxtor IDE hard disk will the old Dell stuff or whether I will put it in this new system. That would mean I can't have the DVDROM, but I am thinking about possibly getting a Blu Ray drive at some point in the future and that would be SATA, so this isn't a concern in the long term.

Hopefully this will all work nicely. It should all be delivered before friday.

Now for the hard part, deciding what Operating Systems to install and how to partition the disks.

[Harrison]

You should have a very nice PC once built Steve. If you need any advice or have questions when building it please let me know.

The hardest bit is fitting the stock Intel heatsink's to the motherboard/processor. Follow the instrustions that come with it exactly and it should be fine. Make sure you align the processor correctly with the motherboard socket before seating it with the lever, and when putting the heatsink on, make sure the 4 catches on the feet which clip through the motherboard are rotated correctly. It can be worth looking at a couple of videos on how to install them on the Intel site, and also on youtube, just so you get an idea. It looks easy but can be a right bitch to actually get into place and secure.

I find it best to fit the PSU into the case first before the motherboard or anything else. And to fit the processor, heatsink and ram before you install the motherboard into the case. But make sure you do this on a flat non static surface. I have a large coffee table with the glass top I use for this, and also a large wooden desk. Both great for antistatic environments.

[Stephen Coates]

I will definately take care with the heatsink. And don't worry, I won't use any sellotape :D.

I thought first, before assembling it in a case I could connect it all up on the table and test that it works, kind of like my A1200T was before I finally manage to get a tower, but I'm not sure this would be a good idea.

I am wondering how well it will all fit into this case, with it being a Dell one. The case does have a fan (probably an 80mm one) situated next to the Pentium III's heatsink. This is clearly part of the case and not the heatsink unit, but there is a piece of plastic covering these bits up so the fan will only suck warm air away from the pentium III and not from the rest of the case. I expect this fan could remain in place and possibly be replaced with a bigger one.

Hopefully I will be able to install Linux and Windows onto the same hard disk. Last time I attempted that I had trouble setting GRUB up.

[J T]

Did the Dell originally have a standard motherboard or a proprietary one? I've heard that dell often use things that are slightly non-standard to make user-upgrading hard.

I don't know if this is true, or just anti-dell moaning (possibly the truth is somewhere in between)


don't worry, I won't use any sellotape

Awwwww, not even a little bit, just in the corner of the case, for old times sake?

[Harrison]

Dell often use their own Motherboards and it has been common practice for them to design their cases so that only their own components will fit. Normally this means standard PSUs don't fit and Dell motherboards fit up-side-down compared to a standard ATX motherboard.

However Steve's existing PC is quite old, so it might be from before Dell started doing this.

[Stephen Coates]

I havn't done an exact comparison, but the size of the Dell PSU should be identical to an ATX one. I believe the only proprietry thing about the Dell PSU is the pin layout on the connectors and the colour coding. The voltages and connector are otherwise the same as an ATX one.

As for the motherboard, I'm not sure about the exact sizes of it. All I know is that it is manufactured by Intel. I will wait for the new Gigabyte board to come tommorow (hopefully) and find out. If it doesn't fit I will get a new case.

My Radeon HD 4550 came today. As often happens, I was in the shower when the postman came, and fortunately, he left it in the electricity meter box :). Saves waiting 48 hours and a trip to the delivery office. Do postmen tend to carry keys for meter boxes?

[Stephen Coates]

Slight change of plan. I decided to get a new case. Then I will be able to keep the old Dell system together.

This is what I bought: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150399192718&ssPageName=ADME:B:EOIBSA:GB:1123

[Demon Cleaner]

I always liked the Lian Li tower designs, although this one really looks very basic.

[Stephen Coates]

I can't say I am too keen on many of the fancy designs that are available and prefer simpler designs.

[Demon Cleaner]

I also mean the case design, how much space there is inside, and how the components fit, I mean that design, don't know what you would call it, inside design? I don't like the meant to be "nice" looking cases either.

[Stephen Coates]

Layout perhaps?

I can't say I have had lots of experience of working with ATX cases but they all seem pretty similar to me (as should be expected since they are all ATX).

This Lian Li case certainly isn't the biggest available but it has more drive bays and its dimensions are bigger than my current Dell, so there will probably be plenty of room for the new system. But even if my new system were to go in my old Dell case, there would probably be lots of room left over. The Dell system currently is a bit over crowded with ribbon cables and PCI cards.

[Harrison]

Lian Li tend to male nicely constructed cases, and while as DC said, your new case is quite plain, that is also a good thing as it won't look dated over time and is easy to keep clean.

The internal layout seems OK and the addition of a HDD drive cage is always very useful as it saves needing to open both sides of the case to secure HDDs.

The main issue with cases these days is graphics cards. A lot of graphics cards are now getting very long. Some over 11" in length! My 4870 only just fitted inside of my Thermaltake Tsunami case, and even then only by moving the HDDs down in their cage, as the 2 graphics card power connectors needed the room the HDDs were occupying.

However your new graphics card should be much shorter Steve, so your new case should fit fine. Also I noticed they have designed the internal layout with a bit more space in line with where the PCI-E slot will be exactly for this reason.

Having fans already fitted is also good. If possible try to connect the case fans to the motherboard if they have the 3 pin motherboard headers. This will allow the motherboard and the OS to monitor their speed and adjust their speed when case temp rises or falls.

As I mentioned before, make sure you install the PSU before the motherboard, or you won't be able to get it in.

Good luck with the PC build.

[Stephen Coates]

My case and motherboard arrived today.

The case is nice. I have become quite fond of aluminium recently. The paint on my silver painted plastic items tends to come off after a while. I recently acquired my Dad's thirty year old HiFi system which has been sat in the garage for the last 10 years. It is a really nice bit of equipment and looks nice in aluminium which is in good condition. The Lian-Li case is of good quality and should be a massive improvement over the old Dell case.

Fortunately my graphics cards is about the size I would expect a graphics card to be. Perhaps a little bigger than my TNT2 or VooDoo 3000.

I doubt the rest of the stuff will come until at least next week as the memory I ordered from Novatech is still on backorder.

[Harrison]

Has everything arrived now for the new PC Steve? And how is it coming along?

[Stephen Coates]

It hasn't arrived yet. The Novatech order was posted yesterday so will arrive on monday, since it seems Parcelforce don't deliver on Saturday.

[Stephen Coates]

It has all arrived. I'm in the process of building it now. I just hope it will work. I will post here when it is all set up.

[Harrison]

Great news. Hope the build goes well.

[Stephen Coates]

It is all set up and working. It all worked fine the first time (excpet for the floppy drive which I plugged in the wrong way round).

The fans are a bit noisy, but they are only small ones. I might try and slow them down a bit after I have tested to make sure it won't have any bad effect.

The Intel E6300 seems to run around 32C with the stock cooler (whilst not doing much). Right next to the Intel cooler is a case fan (80mm) and also nearby is the massive fan in the OCZ power supply.

I installed Debian but am considering running Mandrake. I am posting this from Firefox running on the Mandrake Live CD. I see that the forum still has the Amiga style pointer :). That is something which doesn't work in Opera.

I'm still considering if/how to install Windows.

*wonders what to do with 2GB of memory*

[Harrison]

32C is a very good temp for the CPU at idle using a stock cooler.

If you think the fans are too noisy, which 80mm ones normally are, than you might consider upgrading them to 120mm fans. These are much quieter as they can shift much more air at lower speeds. And if your case only has space to fit 80mm fans then you can get adapters to fit 120mm fans into 80mm fittings.

I'm glad it all went together well first time and worked. Current hardware tends to either work straight out of the box without issue, or causes loads of headaches.

I would consider installing Windows so you can use the ram and dual core CPU, as well as the graphics card fully. Maybe you could try installing Windows 7. If you don't know where to get a "Free" copy from PM me.

[Stephen Coates]

I just unplugged the 80mm fans, leaving the OCZ PSU (with a massive fan) and the Intel cooler (an 80mm fan). Both produced a negligable amount of noise. The three 80mm case fans do shift quite a lot of air and produce a nice air flow through the case, passing over the hard drive and through the graphics card (which has only a heatsink and no fan).

Here is a very rough drawing of the case: http://www.stevecoates.net/stuff/pccoolong.png

[Harrison]

Definitely keep the case fans running Steve. They are essential for today's systems, especially the graphics card as they can generate a lot more heat than the CPU as modern GPUs are designed to run over 100C and that heat output can then overheat ram and CPUs very quickly.

But if you can replace them with 120mm fans it will cut the system noise a lot. I always try to avoid 80mm fans if I can.

[Stephen Coates]

I've now had this PC for two years :).

Unfortunately, the Crucial RAM failed recently. Linux was behaving badly and Windows failed to boot, so I ran Memtest86 and it kept churning out the errors. I tested both sticks individually, and in both slots and narrowed it down to one of the sticks. The other one works fine.

Therefore, I am limited to just 1GB of RAM running in single channel mode. This isn't too good in Linux, but I manage fine in Windows XP as XP is a bit less resource hungry than Linux.

Any ideas whether it is worth contacting Crucial regarding this? Or maybe I should just buy some new RAM?

On the more positive side of things, Harrison's old Lite-On CDRW drive is still working nicely :).

[J T]

Any ideas whether it is worth contacting Crucial regarding this? Or maybe I should just buy some new RAM?


Yes, definitely. Crucial were very good when I had faulty RAM - they replaced it no quibbles (this was about 3 years ago, maybe more, so I'd had the RAM for a while). If you can provide them with the original order number it will help, but I think they can work it out from your details if necessary.

RAM is pretty cheap now, but (unless they have changed since I dealt with them) it's better for you to get it replaced.

[Harrison]

Crucial normally carry lifetime warranties on their ram so definitely contact them. However, if you purchased the ram via Novatech contact them instead first as they have been great for me in the past when needing to do an RMA on hardware. If something is still under warranty, but they can't obtain a direct replacement, they have offered me a new for old of equivalent price asking me to pick something up to a certain value from their existing site/catalogue, so a great service.

[Stephen Coates]

Thanks, I will send Novatech and email some time.

[Stephen Coates]

I sent Novatech an email.

Lets see what happens.

[Stephen Coates]

I posted the RAM back to Novatech.

Meanwhile I'm back to the old Windows 2000 Pentium III with 320MB of PC100.

Anyone got any suggestions for what I could replace the faulty RAM with as I don't think Crucial make this particular one any more?

[Harrison]

Corsair. It's the only make of ram I use these days. Their XMS ram is very good for the price. What type of ram is it you need?

[Demon Cleaner]

I often used G.E.I.L. and lately Patriot (which runs now together with another 8GB of Corsair XMS3 DDR3-1333), both very good in my opinion.

[Harrison]

I've had issues with GEIL ram in the past. In 2 systems I built/repaired it was bad, and in another it refused to work with the motherboard, so I avoid it. As with any make of anything though, bad experiences put you off using it. I've never had compatibility issues with Corsair ram, although someone did say recently to me they had compatibility issues with XMS ram, but I think they hadn't checked the correct type they actually needed for their motherboard.

[Stephen Coates]

Corsair. It's the only make of ram I use these days. Their XMS ram is very good for the price. What type of ram is it you need?

DDR2 PC2-6400 if your first post in this topic is anything to go by.

Unfortunately I'm still not too knowledgeable on what is available these days.

Novatech have returned my memory to Crucial so I still have to wait for them. No idea what they will do.

[Stephen Coates]

Novatech finally got back to me yesterday. Took a while.

Anyway, they offered me some Corsair XMS2 memory as a replacement. I got a 2x2GB pair, so a total of 4GB, so I get 2GB more than I used to have :D.

It came this morning and seems to work fine.

Now to sort out some SATA optical drives. I'd like to get a blu ray drive and a DVD-RW drive, then I can scrap IDE in this new machine.

[Harrison]

Sony Optiarc is worth getting as its the same company as the old NEC (they merged) and the drives are very good at reading and writing everything.

I've got an Sony Optiarc Blu-Ray RW too and that is great.

When you mention getting a Blu-Ray drive, are you thinking reader or writer? I would recommend spending the extra and just buying a BD writer outright, then you won't need a separate DVD-RW.

[Stephen Coates]

I was thinking more of a reader, but I will see how much writers are in comparison.

I do tend to prefer having two drives.

[Demon Cleaner]

I've got an Sony Optiarc Blu-Ray RW too and that is great.
I have that one too, and I'm also quite happy with it. Although I'm not burning that many BDs.

[Harrison]

What make BD-R's have you used so far? I've been trying to source some at a good price, but there are not many around and they are either overpriced or unbranded. Verbatim is the obvious brand I'm using to date. Also what speed discs have you tried?

[Demon Cleaner]

I have to look when I'm home, I know that I bought Verbatim, Sony and perhaps some Mediarange. All of them worked fine so far, and I always burnt at maximum speed, which is 2.4 for my discs.

I tried 25GB and 50GB, but so far I didn't test BD-RW yet, although I bought a box.

I think it was a bit a waste of money, the whole BD-RW thing with the discs, as it was "quite" expensive, because only just a bit later I bought my Qnap 659 Pro II NAS with 12TB, which at the moment holds everything I need, although I "only" have 1.5TB left :)

[Harrison]

That explains why you are waiting for 3TB drives to fall in price, or maybe 4TB. Does the Qnap support 4TB drives? I've been considering getting a Qnap lately so I can rip all my DVDs to HDD to then store all my DVDs away to save room.

[Demon Cleaner]

Good question, at least it supports 6Gb/s (SATA III) disks. But why shouldn't it support 4TB disks, at their site they only mention a total of 18TB, but it says "based on 3TB drives". And if it wouldn't support 4TB straight away, I guess they could fix it within the firmware, which gets updated from time to time.

[Harrison]

HDD size support is to do with the SATA controllers. Only some current PC motherboards for example can handle 3TB drives. I hope it does as that would be great.