Please help me build a new Windows XP PC. (Which Components?)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I’m looking to build a new Windows XP PC. It will be for a variety of purposes. Playing games like Age of Wonders, Shock Wave Games, Using a Light Auto-Cad type program, Internet Browsing, Some Audio editing, maybe some video editing but only very lightly.

What are some good motherboards and processor combos these days? I’ve had my best luck with Intel on an Intel board but my CPU is only a P4 2.6Ghz so things have changed a lot since then.
I plan of 4 Gigs of Ram, probably Corsair.
I think I want two high capacity SATA hard drives. What are good brands and reasonable sizes these days?
I need a new case with hopefully a quiet power supply. Are any companies particularly good? I’d like one with USB ports in the front.
Where should I look for components? I usually use Tigerdirect & NewEgg
What is a good video card and chip set that won’t be a giant heat engine? Should I be looking at a 512mb or higher?
For that matter what is the best slot type for Video these days? PCI Express 2.0? Is XFX GeForce any good? I see a 768mb card for only $79.99. TigerDirect Sunset
I’ll go with on board sound I believe and onboard NIC.
Who makes the best DVD burners that are reasonable?

I’m beginning my research and I thought I would run a thread to make it more fun.

Thanks in advance,
Jim

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XP (at least the 32-bit version, I don’t know about the 64-bit) cannot use 4 gigs of RAM. It can only use 3 gigs. Vista can make use of 4 gigs (and more), but XP can’t.

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I haven’t bought anything exciting in years but…

I still always shop at NewEgg. If nothing else, they have the best reviews.

I bought this PSU in April of 2005 and it ran 24/7 with 3 hard drives and a P4 and the case was always cool and quiet (granted, I had a roomy case). I just replaced it because it seemed like the bearings in the fan were just wearing out. Not sure if 480W is enough for you…I just replaced it with this one which got a lot of praise. One less fan, tho.

Oh, I see you want a whole case/PSU setup. I have this case and it’s not a recommendation per se (because it has a crap old PSU) but I think the airflow is phenomenal. I’ve got 2 DVD drives and 3 HDDs in there and the thing is just ROOMY. I put 2 80mm fans coming in from the front, one going out the back and one going out (i think out?) on the side. This is the machine that runs 24/7 and it’s just brilliant.

I highly recommend a roomy case with a side fan!

Drives and burners are on sale at Best Buy right now. I just picked up either a Sony or an LG DVD burner with LightScribe from there not too long ago. Very nice! I have replaced about 4 cheapo drives from NewEgg in the past, so I think you do get what you pay for in terms of drives. I paid I think $70 for it as opposed to the usual $30-40 I get from NewEgg.

As for HDDs I sort of just buy whatever is on sale at the time I run out of space, and so far have had no problems with WD, Seagate or Maxtor. But YMMV.

Ok, sorry for the long post. I geeked out for a minute :slight_smile:

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I don’t think this is true. I’ll have to set some switches in the boot.ini, but it should support 4 gigs fine.

**Found it: **
Windows XP Pro can use up to 4GB of RAM, but when you first install all of it you will only see 3 GB. this is caused by one or both of the following;

  1. There is a BIOS setting that uses a portion of the RAM ans a temp file backup solution, which can be disabled in the BIOS.
  2. Add the /PAE switch to the boot.ini file, this will access the full 4GB, but will limit 2GB to the OS and 2GB to other programs. If you add the /3GB switch after the /PAE it will allocate 1GB RAM to the OS, and 3GB to all other apps.
    Also this: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx
    Thanks ZipperJJ.
5

You might find the latest System Guide from Ars Technica a useful starting point. They have three systems, the Budget Box, the Hot Rod and the God Box. It is from September, so things will have moved on since then, but there will be another guide along soon, and in the meantime it might give you useful tips.

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You should buy with an eye towards Windows 7. Get a system that can take a lot more than 4 GB of memory, even if you now buy only 4 GB. Indeed, on a modern system, Vista is just fine.

What’s your budget?

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That looks extremely helpful. Thank you for it. I used to be 100% up to speed on all of this but when I built my last new box PCI-X was bleeding edge tech. I have not kept up.

I’m not sure, but I’m thinking between $600 and $1000. Keep in mind I already have a copy of Windows XP Pro from a machine I plan to retire. So that part is free. I will not buy Vista nor do I like Vista. I use it on my Dell Laptop from work.

Are there any requirements out for Win7 yet? When do they think they will have it ready to ship?

ETA: I won’t need a monitor either.

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Windows 7 is expected towards the end of the year, but I’d hold off for 6 months afterwards anyway. From reports, W7 is shaping up to be a revision of Vista in the same way that XP was a revision of Windows 2000. Unless you’re going to dump your PC when you upgrade, I’d suggest buying W7-capable hardware now where possible. A motherboard that can take 8 GB or 16 GB of memory and a quad core processor should be on your list. For graphics, I’d suggest a Geforce 260 (216 core) or a Radeon 4850. Expect to replace the graphics card when DX11 games become available at the end of next year.

With regards to monitors, if you’ve not got two, I strongly suggest you take the opportunity to buy a second.

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It sounds like I should up my MoBo requirements as you said. I always assume the Video Card will be replaces in 18-24 months when I build. Just the nature of the Tech. What MB do you recommend on the cards? Any drawbacks to the Radeons? I use to love ATI cards but nVidia won me over with better game support.

I’m found this using several sites and articles:
Windows 7 Requirements: They call for a 1GHz processor (32- or 64-bit), 1GB of main memory, 16GB of available disk space, support for DX9 graphics with 128MB of memory (for the Aero interface), and a DVD-R/W drive. Microsoft noted that the Windows 7 requirements are for the beta version only and subject to change. But it has also said the beta is “feature complete,” suggesting the requirements will not increase by much if the beta tests go smoothly.
It also looks like the most realistic release date is early 2010 with a chance of 2009.

I use dual at work and I have for over 10 years now. At home, my PC uses a single wide screen 24" LCD which I actually prefer. The 24" is perfect for side by side editing. It displays two portrait docs at full size. My family room/mulit-media PC is hooked up dual to a 17" LCD and a 37" Westinghouse LCD monitor that is also our main TV screen.

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Obligatory Tom’s Hardware charts page. Should give you some help deciding on graphics card performance and such.

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Yes, but you’re going to be running games. Games are resource hogs. Games are starting to take advantage of multiple cores (q.v. Far Cry 2), and I see this trend only increasing. Games are memory hogs - Crucial did some research which showed quantifiable benefits of 4 GB.

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If you’re doing 4GB of RAM, you absolutely must go with Vista 64 instead of XP 64. TRUST ME on this one, you will never find a worse gaming drivers experience than XP 64 and most of your USB crap will work. (Granted with Vista 64 only about 2/3 of your USB crap will work)

Obviously XP32 (which it sounds like you’re planning on) doesn’t have these problems.

Video, I concur with the Radeon 4850, it blows the doors off anything NVidia in the $115 price range and will play anything probably until 2010.

Motherboards, I’ve had REALLY good luck with the latest DFI and Gigabyte (for middle and low range respectively) and Intel chipsets.

The choice of higher clock speed dual core or lower clock speed quad core should be determined by what games you intend to play. But even a 3.13Ghz Woodcrest Dual-core from Intel will play the most CPU-intensive games with little problems (I’m using Supreme Commander as my benchmark, which is kinda like taking Age of Whatever and upping the unit counts by a few orders of magnitude).

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Hard drives, I recommend mirrored RAID just on general principles, and Seagates have been treating me very well lately.

Cases, Antec and Cooler Master are both very good. If you’re looking for a case and separate power supply, Rosewill and Sparkle are two very good mid-range bargain power supply manufacturers.

For $600 you can get some serious game power. Off the top I’d get a DFI Intel X38-chipset motherboard, a Woodcrest dual-core in the 2.6+ Ghz range, dual hard drives in the 500GB range, a Radeon 4850, and the RAM from Corsair or GSkill. That roughly describes my last computer build, except I also got a Blu-Ray player (which are only about $90 if you look for sales for internal PC players) and top-range components in the same family as the mid-range ones I’ve suggested (3.3 Woodcrest, Radeon 4870, Cooler Master Cosmos case) which you won’t need. Send me a PM if you want any specifics.

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I will stay away from Vista and wait for Win7 before upgrading. So I will ensure my motherboard is Win7 ready and spend a little extra now as Quartz recommneded. The XP Pro is already in house and thus what I will start with and I already know the trick for using 4 gigs.

From all the advice and what I have read the Radeon 4850 sounds like a winner and I will probably look for the 512mb version.

I have used and liked Gigabyte before and I will probably be picking one up for this build.

I’m still investigating the Processor and hard drive of course.

My gaming is nothing intensive, Age of Wonders Shadow Magic, HOMM4 and simpler stuff. The Ram is actually for applications I use where more memory is generally just better.

Thank you.

I just your second post on preview. Antec looks like a good case and power supply combo. Corsair Ram is what I almost always buy for myself. Kingston for work. I’ll send you that PM, thanks again.

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It’s slow going but do to shipping and tax issues so far I find Tiger is winning.

G452-2714 :: Gigabyte EP43-DS3R - Intel P43 Socket 775, ATX, Audio, PCI Express 2.0, Gigabit LAN, USB 2.0, SATA (3.4 lbs) $119.99

CP1-DUO-E7300 :: Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 Processor BX80571E7300 - 2.66GHz, 3MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB, Wolfdale-3M, Dual-Core, Retail, Socket 775, Processor with Fan (0.65 lbs) $119.99

C283-1086 :: Cooler Master Centurion 5 - Blue ATX Mid-Tower Case with Front USB, Firewire and Audio Ports (20.6 lbs) 49.99

C13-2022 :: Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 2048MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz E.P.P. Memory (2 x 1024) (0.15 lbs) $44.99 (-$30.00 rebate)
P227-1008 :: PC Power PPCS500 Silencer 500-Watt Power Supply - PCI-Ex-Ready, SATA-Ready, **80PLUS **(5.55 lbs) 69.99

A271-4650 :: Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 - 512MB DDR2, PCI Express 2.0, CrossFireX, Dual-Link DVI, VGA, (0.45 lbs) 69.99 (-$10.00 rebate)

TSD-750AYPS :: Western Digital Cavair Green Hard Drive - 750GB, 16MB Cache, 7200 RPM, SATA, 3.5" (1 lbs) 79.99

S203-8510 :: Samsung 20X IDE DVD Burner - 20x DVD±R, 16x DVD±R DL, 12x DVD-RAM, Black (5.1 lbs) 29.99

So far shipping is only $4.99 so the cost is $589.91 and then less rebates of $40.00 for $549.91

Notes:
PSU: I like that it is extremely quiet, 80plus certified and has the PCI-Ex plug.

I decided to start with only 2 gigs for now, I added more later.

I’m leaning towards a Radeon 4650 currently. I’m trying to decide is I should go 512mb or 1gb. The 4650 is getting good reviews as a high powered bargain.
I’m going with the 512MB, In 12-18 months I may want to upgrade it anyway.

The HD got the second best heat rating on Tom’s and a solid speed rating though not top end. It is also energy efficient.

The Motherboardlooks great. It can handle up to 16GB of DDR2 from 667 to 1200mhz speed. Loads of connections, 8 USB 2.0 in the rear. Also an energy miser. No onboard graphics being paid for and not used. 6 SATA & plenty of PCIx & PCI slots. Still supports a floppy if I ever want to load one and will handle 2 IDE devices which is enough. The Audio will be fine for me and the LAN chipset is a good one.

The CD-Rom came highly recommned from several places including Ars Technica. It will burn dual layer.

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This is not my experience: it all works just fine.