I'm looking at putting together a computer using one of tigerdirect's barebone kits, everyone let me know how i've done and what i'm missing or what i could improve upon.

the barebone kit
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...062&CatId=1916

the video card
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...2&body=REVIEWS

the hard drive
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...1954&CatId=139

and the cd drive
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...205935&CatId=4

I'm planning to use two memory sticks from another computer and its moniter/keyboard/mouse.

Does all this suck or not? I'm kinda new to understanding computers so yeah any help would be great.

John

 

You should be able to find a DVD burner (Samsung or something) for about the same price as that DVD/CDRW drive you have listed.

 

The last computer I built I used an Asus M2N-E SLI board with a AMD Athlon X2 3600+, 1gb of Patriot value line ram which works perfect, and a eVGA brand 7600GS passive heatsink video card which I tossed the heatsink and put a nice Zalman fan on. Total with Hanns-G 19" widescreen monitor was about $600 shipped.

edit: I forgot to put the HD on there too, I got a 320 Western Digital SATA drive, I recycled my old HP DVD burner from the computer I was replacing.

 

not too worried about burning dvd's, since my laptop will probably be more for media, the pc is going to primarily be for games, so i figured i'd only need a cd one..... for now. Did i forget any essentials or is it all covered?

john

 

sound card? make sure you print out the entire manual for the mother board before you do anything.

 

i'm pretty sure the sound card is built into the motherbord, fortunately the video card is not integrated. Any reason to pre-download the manual other then detailed specs?

john

 

Your certain the ram that your looking to swap is the same clock speed and voltage?

You didnt list what your goals are with the PC...aka .. budget... and most importantly WHY.

Decision tree:
1> Decide what you need the PC for
If gaming: build
a) Do not use the old series of AMD dual cores that your looking at. The intels are better at the moment (I hate saying that as I'm an AMD fan). I would personally use a clocked intel dual core if you can't wait for the AMDs w/ the new architecture.
b) Do not use a 7200 RPM harddrive.. that ***** slow. 10k rpm ftw.

If any other reasons besides gaming: Dell pre-build - you can get a hell of a system w/ a 20-22" LCD for like 700

 

Well i already have a lcd from my gateway. I'm a big AMD fan and my AMD 64 mobile athlon (just read straight off the sticker while typing) in my laptop works pretty well for most of my games and situations so i figured that the CPU i chose would be better, but i suspect my video card (ATI mobility radeon x600) is whats holding me back. I've got no clue about the ram, i was just gonna plug and see and if not get some more down the road. Goal is a budget pc for games, my gateway has eatin a turd sandwich. It won't even recognize that it has a cd-drive no matter how many times i reload the drivers. And yeah i'm not 100% on the harddrive yet, i'm still searching for the parts i really want.

 

AMD mobile 64s are nice chips for what they are, I used to have one also. The fact is benchmarking shows that the dual core intels are better at the moment.

 

then how does this look?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...6499&CatId=333

 

If it is for games, get a DVD drive, most of the new games are moving in that direction.

 

aha, well thats the kind of info i need. I'd have been SOL when HL2 episode 2 finally arrived

 

Thats a shitty processor. Get a 6300 core 2 duo on the cheap, and overclock it. Use proper cooling

 

whoops i didn't realize it had that processor. i'm planning to run as many intake fans on the back as i can and a few exhaust on the top (heat rises right?). Would that be adequite for an overclocked 6300???

john

 

Yes spend the extra money and buy the extreme fans.. especially when heatsinking the processor.

 

nah, just use STEAM (search steam powered) and download/buy everything from them. HL series cames can't be played without activation online and I haven't seen a way to do it without getting your account banned...(ie, you gotta pay for it :()

On that note, I preordered and Team Fortress 2 is pretty cool.

 

LOL unless you 'locate' a RapidShare of it.....
<cough> I myself ALWAYS buy ALL HL games, I have the original 1st game from when it was released.
Just like all the Delta Force games, I got most of them but not the crappy latest ones.

 

So, if somebody had lets say $300 to spend on a Graphics card (and not on the Miata ?) what would be the BEST buy out there ?
I've kind of gotten lost with all the AGP PCI bundles now-a-days and dunno which is better.

 

Buy from Newegg.com. Fast, affordable shipping, and always within spitting distance of the best possible price.

-Mike

 

run two of these

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...2&body=REVIEWS

its what i hope to do someday when i can get another. They come pre-overclocked from the factory (as long as it says XXX) and two would still save you some money over the 8800 GTX