Time for a new toy? (How to Build the Perfect Computer)

Name: Reficul

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Product:	How to Build the Perfect Computer
Date:	01/08/01 (670 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Can be cheaper, Fun

Disadvantages: Hard work, Slight risk of damaging parts

Does your computer cry when you ask it to play Quake III in high detail mode? Does it freeze inexplicably in Office 2000? Have you ever had to put software back on the shelf after reading the system requirements? I’d say it’s about time you bought yourself a new PC – or, if you fancy saving yourself some money and aren’t too much of a wimp with a screwdriver, you could build your own. Here’s how.

The beauty of owning a custom built computer is that it can be designed to do exactly what you need it to, as opposed to what the likes of Dell and Gateway expect of a ‘Home’, ‘Office’ or ‘High End’ user. The problem is, that when I ask myself questions like ‘What do I want my computer to do?’, the answer is generally ‘a little of everything’. With this in mind, the components I chose for my new toy are as follows:

CPU: AMD Athlon ‘Thunderbird’ 1.0 GHz
The Athlon is almost without question the CPU of choice in today’s market. The 1 GHz version I chose will easily outperform it’s so-called competition, in the form of Intel’s Pentium III, and actually competes extremely well with Pentium 4s running at substantially higher clock speeds, and costing more than twice as much. Yes, I know that the Athlon 4 (‘Palomino’) is the next big thing, but the fact is that in the computing world, there is always something better just around the corner – there comes a time when you just have to settle for what is available, otherwise you’ll still be holding back this time next year.

Why 1.0 GHz? Well, it’s a nice round number. You could get a little more, or you could get by with a little less – at this point in time, it doesn’t make a lot of difference. If you still want to be using your computer in a year, however, I wouldn’t suggest that you dip below the 800Mhz boundary.

If your budge
t won’t stretch to an Athlon, your next choice is AMD’s budget processor, the Duron. It is supposed to rival Intel’s Celeron, but in practice outperforms it by as much as 30%. In fact, as it shares the same FPU (Floating Point Unit) as the Athlon, any applications that involve a lot of floating point calculations (such as 3D rendering) will often run faster on a Duron than on a Pentium III…

Motherboard: ECS K7VZA
Now, this is something of a bargain. ECS are usually associated with the production of low cost boards for ready-made computer manufacturers. So, I am sure that you can appreciate that it came as something of a surprise when this board outperformed equivalents from the likes of Abit or Asus. Of course, even in the most demanding games, a higher quality motherboard won’t buy you more than 9 or 10 fps, so don’t cut your throat if you have to settle for another board.

Feature wise, you get 5 PCI, 1 AGP(4x) and 3 168-pin DIMM slots (maximum capacity of 1.5 GB), which should be enough for anyone. Note the lack of ISA slots, though, which might be annoying if you were planning on re-cycling any cards from an older system. You also get on-board sound, but we won’t be using that. Oh no.

Basically, you’re likely to be using any motherboard based on the VIA KT133, or KT133A if you plan on using the Athlon-C.

RAM: 256MB PC133
RAM is extremely cheap at the moment, so there isn’t really any reason not to get more than the basic 128 MB. Unless you feel like experimenting with the new DDR (Double Data Rate) RAM, your choices are PC100 or PC133 – there is virtually no difference in price, so get PC133 (100 is really meant for people upgrading older systems).

VGA: 64 MB nVidia GeForce2 MX
Since stealing 3dfx’s crown as the producer of the world’s best 3D Accelerated graphics cards, nVidia seem to have been going to strength to strength. The R
16;MX’ variety of their GeForce2 range offers an excellent compromise between price and performance – something that has never really happened before. Ever.

Although this card cannot really compete with the GeForce 2 GTS, Pro, Ultra, or (I shudder to think), the GeForce 3, it will quite happily provide decent frame rates (30+) at 1024x768 in high detail modes. At this point in time, I couldn’t really recommend that you buy one of the more expensive GeForce2s – they really are coming to the end of their lives, and by the time that your MX actually needs upgrading, the GF3 will be pretty much the standard (since their initial release, they have dropped by around £5 per week). Of course, there are those who would say that if the GeForce 3 drops to about £200-£250 by Christmas, after buying an MX for about £90 I might as well have bought the GF3 now and saved myself some trouble later…

One thing that you should be aware of is that the MX is now available in various forms. The standard model has been replaced with the MX400, which is the one you should go for. Be extremely careful you don’t get stuck with an MX200 or 100 – they are really meant as low-end budget cards for ready-made computer systems. We’ve all seen advertisements for supposedly high-end systems saying things like ‘1.7GHz POWERHOUSE!!!!!’, but crippled with aging TNT-2 level graphics cards. The plan is that these companies can now use MX200s, and therefore buy the right to plaster prestigious GeForce2 logos all over their systems.

As impressive as nVidia’s cards are, it is still a shame that 3dfx went under. They did make the first 3D Accelerated graphics chipset that was worth the PCB it was mounted on (good old Voodoo Graphics), but after they lost the plot with the Voodoo 3, their fate was pretty much sealed. If there is one thing nVidia needs, though, it is a rival. The Kyro II comes close, but it is quite b
adly priced.

Sound: Creative Soundblaster 512 PCI
This is a fairly good all-round sound card. You get EAX for all your flashy 3D audio needs, as well as SB16 support for old DOS games. Unless you are a dangerously obsessed audio loving freak, this is about the level of card you should go for – it won’t hog your system resources (like a real SB16 would) , and sounds good, which is pretty much all you can ask for. The retail pack also includes an EAX demonstration game, ‘Rage Rally’, which is, well, interesting.

Storage: Fujitsu 20GB 7200 rpm HDD
20GB will probably be just about enough for me, but you should assess your own needs and get a Hard Disk that is large enough for you. You will certainly regret it later if you cut corners here and end up having to delete work and applications later on. The important thing is to get a fairly fast drive – there really is no excuse for buying a slower 5400 rpm device.

Sony 12x DVD ROM Drive
A DVD Drive is not quite the essential purchase everyone thought they would be, but they are useful, and since they don’t cost particularly much more than a fast CD-ROM drive, you won’t be doing yourself any harm in buying one. Add a separate CD-Writer, and there is also the possibility to ‘back-up’ ‘your’ DVDs to VCD (for use in DVD Players), or to an MPEG-4 CD, which you can watch in your computer (see www.vcdhelp.com for more information).

Case: Pretty much anything with good cooling and a 300W PSU.

Add a basic Modem, Network Interface Card and Floppy Disk Drive, and we’re done. Total system cost, £599.

You should probably note the components that I’m keeping from my old system:

19” Mitsubishi Monitor (originally £420, equivalents probably sell for about £300-£350)
Philips 2x CD-Writer (Yikes. Originally £220 (!!), you can get ones which are 6 times as fast for under £100) r><br><br><br><br>Intellimouse Explorer (£50 for a mouse, but they are cool)
HP Deskjet 690C (Modern day equivalents are probably about £90)
Opticpro scanner (about £40…)

So, you could probably say about £1200, all in all. You could certainly get it for less if you shop around, but for the sake of my sanity, I don’t mind paying a little more for decent customer service and reliability.

Finally: Putting it all together. You should note that the exact steps involved will vary slightly, depending on the design of your case and motherboard. If you don’t know what each type of slot looks like, consult your motherboard manual for their exact positioning.

1. Observe some probably over the top static precautions. The standard procedure is to connect the power lead to the PSU, leaving the mains switch turned OFF. Now, you should touch the chassis whenever you’re about to handle a component, in order to discharge any static. 99.9999% of the time you’ll be fine anyway, but I don’t want to be held responsible for any blown motherboards.

2. Remove the cover(s) from the case.

3. Now, it’s time to prepare the motherboard. This means inserting the CPU and RAM, and maybe configuring a jumper or two. It is well worth doing this now, before any other components get in the way. To insert the CPU, simply locate the ZIF socket (you can’t miss it), lift the locking arm, and drop it in. Contrary to popular belief, it will only go in one way (well, unless you bend half the pins out of shape). Now, clip your CPU fan over the top, making sure that you clip it in properly (to the slots on the side of the socket). Now, locate your DIMM sockets. Pull the clips at either end out, and push in your DIMM, making sure that the clips are pushed fully into their upright position.

You may have to set some jumpers, depending on the exact type of system you’re building, and th
e design of your motherboard. In all likelihood, you’ll only have to set the FSB (Front Side Bus) speed, if anything. Generally, everything is done in software these days. Check your Motherboard manual for more information.

4. Compare the pack panel of your case with that of your motherboard. You will need to twist off some metal covers, in order to allow the ports to poke through into the outside world.

5. You will find some mounting screws supplied with your case. Screw them into the side of the case, wherever there is a screw hole on the motherboard. There will probably be some holes on the motherboard without matching ones on the case. Don’t worry – just use the plastic supports for that extra bit of stability. Now, place the motherboard in the case (it usually helps if you turn the case on its side). Fix the motherboard into place using the screws and washers supplied.

6. Attach the power supply cable to the motherboard. The modern ATX design will only fit in one way.

7. Install your PCI/ISA/AGP cards (usually involves unscrewing some more covers). Don’t be afraid to use moderate force – it usually works best if you push the back in first, then the front. If it really doesn’t want to go in, try bending the metal strip at the front of the card slightly. This fixes most problems.

8. Install your Hard Disk(s), CD/DVD Drives and FDD. You will need to remove the plastic covers on the front of the case, anywhere you want a drive to show through. The drives simply screw in at the sides. At this point, you might have run into a problem, as you will occasionally find cases where the drives cannot be screwed in with the motherboard installed. In this case, go back and start again, but note that I haven’t seen this for years.

9. You will have two IDE channels. For best performance, connect your Hard Disk and CD/DVD Drive to separate ones. IDE cables have their Pin-1 marked wi
th a red stripe – make sure you get them the right way round, or the computer won’t boot. Follow the same procedure with the floppy drive.

10. Attach the connectors for the lights/buttons on the front panel of the case to the motherboard. See the manual for exactly where to connect what.

11. Attach power supply cables to all drives and (very importantly) fans. You don’t want to fry your new computer, do you? They will only connect one way.

Now, close everything up, plug everything in, and pray.

Success! Congratulations, you just built your own P.C
In case you were wondering, this system scores around 5000 in 3DMark2000, or 2200 in 3Dmark2001, which is quite healthy, and easily enough to play modern games.

One quick note: Drivers.
As soon as your new system is Internet capable, you will want to download the latest/best drivers for your hardware. In particular, you will need the VIA 4-in-1 driver, nVidia’s Detonator drivers and maybe AMD’s AGP Miniport driver. The thing to remember, particularly when dealing with nVidia drivers, is not to limit yourself to the officially released versions. Sites like http://www.blargoc.co.uk/downloads/nvidia.shtml have a wide range of ‘leaked’ beta drivers, which will often outperform their official counterparts. For example, I gained 500 3Dmarks when using the 12.90s instead of the (official) 12.41s. Don’t worry too much about system stability and compatibility – the only reason these drivers were never made official is that an official release requires hours of exhaustive and expensive testing, which nVidia don’t normally bother with, unless they have a major fix. In the unlikely event that they do cause problems, simply re-start your computer in safe-mode and remove the offending release. Easy.