02-18-2004, 01:00 AM
Just some quickie notes.
Back when I still asked customers about the 'puters they were going to buy, I told them that it came down to three questions:
-What do you NEED it to do
-What do you WANT it to do
-How much are you going to spend
Most noobie buyers weren't sure about the first two questions, so it often came down to working with the question of how much they would budget for the system. That still applies today.
It's pretty easy today to build something for around $500. If you make it a "has everything" box, that looks good on paper, it will be crap, because you'll need to use cheapo components to hit that price point. If you stick with quality components, $500 won't let you build anything more than a VERY basic box.
On the other end of the scale, $4,000 will let you go pretty darned deluxe, without going totally stupid. Of course, there is really no limit to how much you COULD dump into a box, but you hit a point where large chunks of money won't give you huge gains in capability.
In the mid-range, $1,500 is comfortable. You won't be on the bleeding edge of anything, which means that the kiddies at school will think it suxxors, but it will have a far better price/performance ratio than the bleeding edge machines.
Where to spend the money? First, figure on a GOOD motherboard. Although there are pretty good boards coming out of the second-string manufacturers, I've never seen a really valid reason to go to anyone but Asus. The few bucks extra that you may pay for an Asus board is worth it, if only that you can save a lot of time in researching boards from other manufacturers. As far as I've seen, everything that Asus makes is pretty darned good.
One place where you can save a few bucks today is on sound. I've always used Sound Blasters, for years, but the on-board sound available on some of the Asus boards is good enough for most people today. Unless you're really going to need the feature on an Audigy 2, I would figure on going with the on-board sound. You could always stick in a high-end sound card later, if you change your mind. The on-board sound doesn't add much to the price of the board.
While we are on the topic of on-board stuff, on-board networking is pretty good. The Asus P4P-800 (+Deluxe) is very good.
Gamers won't want a board with on-board video, although the Intel Extreme 2 video on the Asus P4P-800VM doesn't suck too badly. That board still comes with an AGP slot, so a "real" video card can always be added later.
RAM-wise, if you go with the P4P/P4C boards from Asus, you should figure on getting a matched pair of the 400 MHz stuff. There shouldn't be much price difference between one stick of 512Meg and two sticks of 256Meg, and there is a bit of a performance benefit. A pair of 512Meg sticks is even cooler, of course.
If you think I sound like I'm a bit Intel-centric at this point, you're probably right. I really don't feel that there is enough of a price spread between the mid-range chips from Intel and AMD to warrant going to the AMD. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against AMD. They made the best chips for the 386, and their 486 chips were just as good as the Intel. But, I see some uncomfortable, glitchy stuff going on with the current AMD chips (nothing that most people will likely ever see), and the AMD chips dissipate a lot more heat than the Intel, which is something that WILL become an issue for folks who tend to hang on to their 'puters for 3+ years.
Last point, regarding hard drives. Maxtor sucks. Take my word for that. Seagate, Western Digital, and Fujitsu all have lower failure rates. At this point, you would probably use SATA drives. The performance on SATA is NOT that great right now, but there isn't much of a price premium on SATA. The only problem with SATA is that the selection is not great. Seagate has SATA drives as small as 120 Gig, Western Digital SATA drives start at 250 Gig.
-rcv-
Back when I still asked customers about the 'puters they were going to buy, I told them that it came down to three questions:
-What do you NEED it to do
-What do you WANT it to do
-How much are you going to spend
Most noobie buyers weren't sure about the first two questions, so it often came down to working with the question of how much they would budget for the system. That still applies today.
It's pretty easy today to build something for around $500. If you make it a "has everything" box, that looks good on paper, it will be crap, because you'll need to use cheapo components to hit that price point. If you stick with quality components, $500 won't let you build anything more than a VERY basic box.
On the other end of the scale, $4,000 will let you go pretty darned deluxe, without going totally stupid. Of course, there is really no limit to how much you COULD dump into a box, but you hit a point where large chunks of money won't give you huge gains in capability.
In the mid-range, $1,500 is comfortable. You won't be on the bleeding edge of anything, which means that the kiddies at school will think it suxxors, but it will have a far better price/performance ratio than the bleeding edge machines.
Where to spend the money? First, figure on a GOOD motherboard. Although there are pretty good boards coming out of the second-string manufacturers, I've never seen a really valid reason to go to anyone but Asus. The few bucks extra that you may pay for an Asus board is worth it, if only that you can save a lot of time in researching boards from other manufacturers. As far as I've seen, everything that Asus makes is pretty darned good.
One place where you can save a few bucks today is on sound. I've always used Sound Blasters, for years, but the on-board sound available on some of the Asus boards is good enough for most people today. Unless you're really going to need the feature on an Audigy 2, I would figure on going with the on-board sound. You could always stick in a high-end sound card later, if you change your mind. The on-board sound doesn't add much to the price of the board.
While we are on the topic of on-board stuff, on-board networking is pretty good. The Asus P4P-800 (+Deluxe) is very good.
Gamers won't want a board with on-board video, although the Intel Extreme 2 video on the Asus P4P-800VM doesn't suck too badly. That board still comes with an AGP slot, so a "real" video card can always be added later.
RAM-wise, if you go with the P4P/P4C boards from Asus, you should figure on getting a matched pair of the 400 MHz stuff. There shouldn't be much price difference between one stick of 512Meg and two sticks of 256Meg, and there is a bit of a performance benefit. A pair of 512Meg sticks is even cooler, of course.
If you think I sound like I'm a bit Intel-centric at this point, you're probably right. I really don't feel that there is enough of a price spread between the mid-range chips from Intel and AMD to warrant going to the AMD. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against AMD. They made the best chips for the 386, and their 486 chips were just as good as the Intel. But, I see some uncomfortable, glitchy stuff going on with the current AMD chips (nothing that most people will likely ever see), and the AMD chips dissipate a lot more heat than the Intel, which is something that WILL become an issue for folks who tend to hang on to their 'puters for 3+ years.
Last point, regarding hard drives. Maxtor sucks. Take my word for that. Seagate, Western Digital, and Fujitsu all have lower failure rates. At this point, you would probably use SATA drives. The performance on SATA is NOT that great right now, but there isn't much of a price premium on SATA. The only problem with SATA is that the selection is not great. Seagate has SATA drives as small as 120 Gig, Western Digital SATA drives start at 250 Gig.
-rcv-