A little more guidance for new computers

[Clayton]

As I think about building a new computer, I realize there are several areas that I really have no idea what to look for or what is the importance of these items.

First is the power supply. They run all over the place on wattage. Should I be looking at the highest and exactly what does it do for the computer.

Second, if I am looking at a quad core, how many and what type of fans do I need for cooling.

Third, just how important is the graphic cards and what part does it play in video editing.

Also as to RAM, I understand this, but there are so many brands of memory out there, some with a pretty high price tag. Are there some I should stay away from?

Any thoughts or websites to steer me to for answers.

I always thought I was pretty computer savvy, but after thinking about these things, I realized I had never given them much thought as all my past machines were off the shelf.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

I really don't claim to be any kind of expert as this is the first PC I will have built from components.

In the 'New Machines' thread in Computer Issues I commented on the fact that the original motherboard package (mobo, processor, RAM) that I had received had to be returned because it was faulty. Unfortunately the combo that I had originally ordered with an Intel E6700 is no longer available from that supplier. Shame how technology marches on!

So just one week later and for slightly less than I originally paid I have today received an ASUS P5N32-E mobo, an Intel Q6600 and 2Gb RAM. To ensure good cooling I am replacing the standard, supplied processor fan with an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro. So for me, quad core and Arctic is the way I have gone. The PC case has two 120mm diameter fans for case cooling.

Discs are SATA II Western Digital 7,200 RPM with 16Mb cache - one 250Gb the other 500Gb. Graphics card is fairly middle of the road (I am not interested in PC games) and is a 256Mb nVidia GeForce 8600GT, PSU is Thermaltake 550w, memory is four A-Data 1Gb DDR2 800 sticks.

HTH

Edit: The saddest part is that this PC is for Mrs Twosheds who does web site development and information security consultancy. Yours truly will still be using the Pentium D! Do you think she'd notice if I swapped systems?

[Steve Grisetti]

Would Mrs. TwoSheds notice if you switched the guts out of the two machines and you gave her the Pentium D in the new case?

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Steve - my thinking exactly (hoarse laughter in the style of Muttley)


Edit: Darn it. Mrs Twosheds read this reply over my shoulder. She said it wouldn't be the only thing that would have its guts swapped out......

[Bob]

Darn it. Mrs Twosheds read this reply over my shoulder. She said it wouldn't be the only thing that would have its guts swapped out......

To paraphrase Mr. T, I pity the fool that trys to put one over on Mrs. Twosheds.

[Bob]

Clay,

I purchased my first PC (an IBM XT maxed out at 640K RAM and a 10MB hard drive), but I built all the others I've had over the years. That's been a fair number -- both Intel and AMD. It's good you are asking questions.

The power supply and case are very important. Generally, there will be a power supply included with the case. If you get a better case, it will generally have a better power supply. Avoid the ultra cheap cases with generic power supplies. I would recommend 400W as the minimum power supply rating needed. If you have a high end video card and multiple drives and DVD burners, you may want to up that to 450W or even 500W depending on what you have in the case.

Don't cut corners on the power supply. An inadequately sized power supply will lead to problems, if it can't supply the necessary amperage under load, your system can reboot unexpectedly or you'll see other strange errors. Make sure it has a name brand and internal cooling. My Antec power supply has two internal fans thermostatically controlled. Off brands and generics often inflate their power ratings.

The case has to have adequate cooling. Intel publishes a list of cases and power supplies that meet their cooling requirements at http://www3.intel.com/cd/channel/resell ... go_chassis (click on the launch tool button near the bottom of the page).

Besides the power supply fans, I use three fans -- a case exhaust fan, a inlet fan which cools the hard drives, and an aux fan that directs outside air to the cpu (thats in addition to the cpu cooler). The cpu cooler that comes with the boxed cpu is minimally adequate. It wouldn't hurt to replace that with a better cooler. If you do, make sure your case can accomodate the new cooler -- they can project quite a bit.

As to RAM, avoid the cheap generic brands. They just aren't up to the job. Get decent name brand memory -- Kingston or Crucial for example. Memory bandwidth is going to be a bottle neck so get dual channel memory if your motherboard supports it (consider getting a better motherboard if it doesn't).

Unless you are into games, you don't need a high end video card. eVGA makes some reliable inexpensive boards based on the NVIDEA GEForce chips. I'd get a video card with 256MB onboard memory. The video card is not important with regard to rendering unless you are using a gpu transition effect. If you are thinking about getting dual monitors at some time, look for a card with dual dvi connectors. The cheaper ones often come with 1 dvi and 1 analog connector.

Have fun putting it together.

[Clayton]

John wrote: I have today received an ASUS P5N32-E mobo, an Intel Q6600 and 2Gb RAM. To ensure good cooling I am replacing the standard, supplied processor fan with an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro. So for me, quad core and Arctic is the way I have gone. The PC case has two 120mm diameter fans for case cooling.

Discs are SATA II Western Digital 7,200 RPM with 16Mb cache - one 250Gb the other 500Gb. Graphics card is fairly middle of the road (I am not interested in PC games) and is a 256Mb nVidia GeForce 8600GT, PSU is Thermaltake 550w, memory is four A-Data 1Gb DDR2 800 sticks.

John I have also picked the Intel Q6600. The mother board I was looking at was the ASUS P5NE-SLE. I will look at the one you selected. The case I selected is an Antec 900 mid tower case. It has three 120 mm fans and a top mounted 200 mm fan. I did talk with the service man about adding more. The graphic card I looked at is a EVGA e-GeForce 7900GS 256mb PCI express graphic card. It also supports dual monitors.

Bob wrote

The power supply and case are very important. Generally, there will be a power supply included with the case. If you get a better case, it will generally have a better power supply. Avoid the ultra cheap cases with generic power supplies. I would recommend 400W as the minimum power supply rating needed. If you have a high end video card and multiple drives and DVD burners, you may want to up that to 450W or even 500W depending on what you have in the case.

Bob, see the case I selected above. The power supply I looked at was a Therma;take 700w, This should be adequate right? Thanks for the link to Intel for info on power needs.

Bob wrote

As to RAM, avoid the cheap generic brands. They just aren't up to the job. Get decent name brand memory -- Kingston or Crucial for example. Memory bandwidth is going to be a bottle neck so get dual channel memory if your motherboard supports it (consider getting a better motherboard if it doesn't).

I selected a Patriot DDR2 2GB PC6400. I am not into games either.

One final question, I went to Wikipedia to try to understand front side bus. Understand a little more but not much. This may seem dumb, but does the higher FSB have to do with the motherboard or the CPU you select?

Thanks agin for all the info.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Clayton, it looks like we might be looking at the same mobo(?). The full product code for the one I have is P5N32-E SLI.

[Paul LS]

"One final question, I went to Wikipedia to try to understand front side bus. Understand a little more but not much. This may seem dumb, but does the higher FSB have to do with the motherboard or the CPU you select?"

The FSB for your system will be determined by your CPU... so your motherboards FSB capability must match or exceed that of the CPU.

[Clayton]

John, I found your board on Fry's website (about $90 more expensive than the one I was looking at. I will check some more.

Paul, thanks for the info. The board John has says FSB of 1066/600/533 mhz in the detailed description, but the other one doesn't say. I will check more.

[Ken Jarstad]

I certainly appreciate the "need for speed" but I always recommend a conservative approach for a video editing machine. You could end up with a combination of expensive components that don't perform as expected. My best recommendation is follow the DIY (do it yourself) projects on the Videoguys website.

Find a combination of components that are proven for video editing. Living on the "cutting edge" of technology can sometimes leave you bleeding. The latest DIY project is DIY5 which is a Core 2 Duo. The OS and video editing apps have really not been optimized for two cores/cpus/threads, much less four! So......, I think this is a fair warning. Save yourself some headaches, from doing more troubleshooting than editing. And save yourself some money, too.

My ASUS rig was the one rcommended in DIY2 article two years ago. I was able to build mine for $800 usd plus some parts on hand. And once I got a decent after market cpu fan I was able to use the automatic overclocking feature of the premium ASUS board to push my 3 GHz 530J HT processor to 3.9 GHz under load with no problems. The only thing I wished I had done differently was to buy premium RAM instead of bargain RAM. I now think about 200 dollars more for high performance RAM would have been worth it.

I hope my experiences are useful. I can browse the web and do a number of other things while PrEl is rendering without causing a crash or any problems. This rig has been trouble-free.

[Clayton]

Thanks Ken for the input. I will look at videoguys website for ideas. My past experience has been to go middle of the road (all my past machines were off the shelf), but after about 2 years I was unable to keep up. The last Dell I bought was in January 2001. I bought top of the line at the time. So here it is 6 1/2 years later and after some improvements it is still a very good machine for most all my needs. It has been very dependable (lost a hard drive once). Problem is now that I have Adobe CS3 creative suite, I have reached the end of upgrades to it, to properly use the software features available. So buying big was a good experience for me this time. One thing favorable, it looks like buying big this time will be cheaper than buying big 6+ years ago by a 1/3 to 1/2 and with more goodies. Besides the Mrs. doesn't like it if I buy a computer more often than I do her a new car. She doesn't consider the price difference relevant.

[Chuck Engels]

She doesn't consider the price difference relevant

I am still laughing, that is the most humorous statement of the day so far Clayton

[Clayton]

I bet a good many of the spouses feel that way

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Believe me guys, this is a posting from Mrs Twosheds:-

Once upon a time a man built a new, ultra fast PC for his cherished wife. 'Twas an act of love indeed.

Upon completion of the build the man felt honour bound to undertake tests to ensure that the said machine was working properly.

The man duly installed PrEl and copied the entire hard disk drive from his PC to the new one. A task that caused the man significant work and incovenience but then a man has to do what a man has to do - right?

Was the wife happy about the choice of benchmark? Of course not - in her opinion the new machine had been hijacked and she believed that the PC was never really intended for her at all.

In the ensuing 'words' the wife said that the husband might as well keep the new PC. The husband, not wishing to upset his wife further, reluctantly agreed - after an agonising 2 second pause to think it through. Job done!!!!!

(Needless to state Mrs Twosheds has demanded compensation which, in her words, will be very painful upon my person and even more painful on my pocket.)

Edit by Twosheds - I'm ignoring the pain - but watch this space for a performance benchmark!!"