Need help selecting hardware for homebuilt computer

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a little bit of money coming my way soon, and have decided it’s finally time to replace my aging HP Pavillion desktop PC.

After looking around at various budget computers on sites such as HP and Dell, I’m thinking that I might like to put the computer together myself and perhaps get something more tailored to my requirements. Also it will allow me to get just what I need.

I have tinkered with my current computer a few times, and it still works so I feel comfortable puting a PC together provided I’m smart with the hardware I get. Which brings me to the topic of this post.

What is the best method to use to select hardware for my PC? I figure, the first thing I should do is figure out what I want to use it for. Then I need to have a budget. Then I need to find hardware that is compatible and that suits my requirements. This is where I get stuck.

What should I be choosing first? From reading a bit on the net it seems that choosing a CPU comes first, then a compatible motherboard, and then other stuff.

How do I choose between the various different brands? Are there brands to steer clear of? Is there a website that helps with this kind of thing? Should I try to use the same brand for the different components? How do I know that a power supply is adequate for the job without being over powered and therefore a waste of money?

I guess my bigest problem is going to a online computer hardware store, clicking on “memory” or some other component, and then being confronted with a list of 20 brands to choose from. It is difficult making an intelligent purchase when the first step is a random click on one of a number of unknown (to me) brands.

Specific advice and links to online resources would be most welcome!

If it’s any use, the PC will be used for standard office stuff (Word, Excel, Outlook etc,) surfing the net, storing our music CDs, very basic video editing, and some casual gaming. The gaming is the least important as I have an Xbox360.

My budget is around $1000 Australian and I already have a nice monitor, 250 GB hard drive (new), keyboard/mouse, wireless card, and an ethernet card. The only software I will need to get is Windows XP.

2

This is somewhere to start, at least, although some of the entries are a bit old:

http://www.hardwareguys.com/picks/picks.html

3

You should be chosing the CPU first, since your choice of CPU determines your choice of motherboard (socket type), and your choice of motherboard determines your choice of ram (DDR/DDR2), expansion slots(# pci/AGP/pci express), case size (ATX, mini-ATX, etc), and power supply (type of mobo connector). The last one isn’t critical, since there are adapters that will turn one connector type into another.

For your requirements, and power supply by a decent brand should do. You can’t really pay extra for more power, as long as you stay within reason. Power supplies usually have a 3-5 year warranty, so you’ll likely be able to re-use it in a future computer if you buy a bigger one. From what you’ve said, something from 350-450 watts should be good, depending on your gfx card and future expansion requirements. (Do you plan to add a new gfx card later?) Watch out for power supplies that are ‘too cheap’ for their watt rating, chances are they suck. If you decide to buy a, say, 350watt power supply, don’t get the cheapest one around, and don’t buy a 450watt because it’s the same price.

As an aside, the reason I caution against a cheap power supply is that lower quality power supplies generally combine their rails, and provide less-clean power. Less clean power is power that fluctuates frequently under load. This is bad for components, since your 12v rail might go from 11v to 13v(under and overpowering your components). Combining rails means that you may have a max +12v rail mobo to be underpowered.output of, say, 12 amps, and two 12v connectors. Both of those connectors, however, share the 12 amps, so a gfx card drawing lots of power could cause your mobo to be underpowered.

Most likely you can find a case on sale with an included power supply. Normally I wouldn’t recommend one of them, but for browsing the web/some light gaming it doesn’t really matter.
Crucial has good, cheap, ram with a lifetime warranty. Their “memory advisor” tool should make it fairly easy to find ram compatible with your mobo. For your requirements, unless you plan to do some photoshopping, you can ignore the ram timings and go for the cheapest. The timings are only really important if you plan to overclock or do some work that requires serious performance. The “Xgb kits” offer no advantage over buying two single sticks of ram, provided the single sticks have the same timings, so buy whichever is cheaper.
With your requirements the brand of motherboard doesn’t really matter, though I’d stick with well-known companies. Asus, Abit, Intel, Gigabyte, MSI (I’m sure I missed a few). One other thing to check on is what kind of HD you have…If it’s SATA then you’ll need to make sure your mobo supports SATA (almost all do nowadays). Once you pick a mobo do a google search for reviews of that specific model and make sure there aren’t any that are really negative. Even well known mobo manufacturers have duds now and then.

Case brand doesn’t really matter, though some models have features to make installation easier. (removable mobo tray, ‘screwless’ design, etc)

4

I found Extreme Tech’s Build It! section helpful when I was looking for recommendations on good computer parts. I just helped my sister in law figure out which of the myriad options available at a custom shop were worth it, which components were worth the price vs. performance and such. I used ET’s recs as a starting point and did my research from there.

5

I, too, like ExtremeTech, and Anandtech.

Here’s the current budget build at Anandtech:



AMD Entry Level System
Hardware 	Component 	Price
Processor 	Athlon 64 X2 3600+ AM2 (Brisbane 1.9GHz 2x512K) - Retail 	$72 	 
Motherboard 	ASUS M2A-VM (Socket AM2 AMD 690G) 	$77 	 
Memory 	WINTEC AMPO 2x512MB DDR2-800 (5-5-5-12 3AMD2800-1G1K-R) 	$65 	 
Hard Drive 	Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 16MB 	$70 	 
Optical Drive 	Lite-On 20X DVD+R LH-20A1P-185 	$34 	 
Case 	RAIDMAX APEX ATX-802BP with 450W PSU 	$65 	 
Display 	Hanns-G JC-199DPB 19" 8ms (1280x1024) 	$184 
Speakers 	Cyber Acoustics CA3001WB 14 watts 2.1 Speakers 	$24 	 
Keyboard and Mouse 	Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 B2L-00047 	$28 	 
Operating System 	Windows MCE 2005 or Vista Home Premium (OEM) 	$115 	 
Bottom Line 	  	$734

For items you own, you can upgrade the amount of RAM and add a graphics card.

6

Thanks for the help people, that is what I was looking for.

The building plans have been put on hold though. A new CMOS battery seems to have fixed most of the problems the old PC was having. It gets to live another day, for now.