Topic: Understanding pc's and how they work?

[cerebus]

O.K I will get this case
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=56133( I hope thats right)

[cerebus]

And before i tell you which mother board i will get can anyone one tell me what this says Pcchips KT266A SKT A DDR AGP Sound LAN USB 2.0 Retail Box
Or this
PcChips M848ALU SKT A SIS 748 400 DDR AGPx8 ATA133 6CH Sound/lAN/USB 2.0 Upto a 3.2+ CPU Motherboard in Retail Box
OR... Or... this?
PcChips SiS650GX SKT478 Onboard VGA/Sound/USB2.0/LAN Retail Box

[Dack]

O.K I will get this case
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=56133( I hope thats right)

As it says at the top of that page - thats just the panel for the side

Start here for cases with power supply
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd3N1YmNhdGVnb3J5X3BhZ2U=&subcat_uid=337

[Dack]

And before i tell you which mother board i will get can anyone one tell me what this says Pcchips KT266A SKT A DDR AGP Sound LAN USB 2.0 Retail Box
Or this
PcChips M848ALU SKT A SIS 748 400 DDR AGPx8 ATA133 6CH Sound/lAN/USB 2.0 Upto a 3.2+ CPU Motherboard in Retail Box
OR... Or... this?
PcChips SiS650GX SKT478 Onboard VGA/Sound/USB2.0/LAN Retail Box

PC chips used to have a very bad reputation (one of their infamous tricks was putting fake ram chips in boards to make it seem as if you had more  ). These days they have a slightly better reputation though still not brilliant. - the first board you have there only supports the 266 bus speed and so would not work with any of the modern Athlon processors. e.g. XP2500.

The 848 is good though and has some decent reviews - the first review post on the ebuyer site also says what else he used to build a system.

You will of course need a graphics card to go with it.

[cerebus]

Yeah i know.
So would you say that the 848 is the best out of those few?
Oh no! > That case looked nice too.
Oh well the ones on the link you gave me look cool too.
So do the cases on the link you gave me come with power supplies?? oh well seems i have tochange my mind for this one

And also the 848

Well Eventualy i should be able to start building
.
Yeah well you know what they say "Good things come to those who wait."(Well not to sure about those who haveto wait! )

[Dack]

The 848 is a very good board for the price and a system built around it should last you for a good few months.

As to the cases - some come with power supply while some others don't. When you see the description if it mentions something like "300W" or "400W" PSU (which stands for power supply unit) then it should contain the power supply. Usually the higher power supply the better but anything from 300 upwards would be OK for the system you are going to build.

[cerebus]

A FEW MONTHS!!!!!!! :damn: >
No ofence but i was thinking a bit longr than a few months!

[cerebus]

from another topic i made i asked "what components are the best" Well i've had some answers (but not many)and Ketamininja told me he never had a problem with either AMD Athlon XP vs Intel Pent 4, he said (if he's right he said he's not sure but he thinks he's right) that Intel Pent 4 has DOUBLE the cache! and i was wondering what is cache? it sounds like the better it is the better the processor but i'm not sure.
Next about memory. Ketamininja said memory is crucial now thats a bit obvious but then he said he would also go for DDR 333 now this i dont know about? so erm... if you dont mind a bit of translation please.
There are more questions but i won't bother you with them anymore you will probably have had enough of them by now anyways. (especialy from me.You probably all think i'm thick.

[Sandra]

Cache (or L2 cache to give it its full name), is part of the CPU, the earlier CPUs didnt have much but the later ones are getting bigger and as K said the Intels have a larger cache at the moment than AMD, I think.
I think that cache in this circumstance works like a buffer so it speeds up the processing of data, so the bigger the cache the better  
I think K was referring to memory from Crucial as being reliable and reasonably priced not that it was crucial in that sense  
The 333 is the speed of the memory dictated by the motherboards FSB, the usual ones around now are 266, 333 and 400, also known as PC 2100, PC 2700 and PC 3200 respectively.
The higher the speed the better  

[cerebus]

So do you think the PC i'm makin' will last a few months or longer.

And if it lasts a few months what should i change to make it last longer?(More 1 year standard)

And if intel pent have a better cache than AMD would you reccomend pent 4 Or AMD for a games/Music/internet/e-mail type PC?
Thnx.
cerebus! 8)

[Sandra]

When Dack said "Last a few months" he was meaning that it would play any games and run any programmes that were likely to come out in the next few months, not that your pc would break down and need replacing after a few months  
PCs are "old" technology the day after they are built as there is always something newer, faster, bigger, better just around the corner and unless youre very rich its impossible to always have the latest one  

[Simon]

My home built PC is now nearly two years old, and even though I didn't use the highest spec components, it still does everything I want it to do, and plays the latest games.  I don't think you need to spend £300 on a graphics card, or have the biggest hard drive in the world, but that's just me.  Memory is important, as is the CPU and Motherboard, but in my opinion you don't need to spend more than £100 at the most for a good graphics card, and you will never need much more than a 60Gb or 80Gb hard drive, unless you are intending to store the entire Lord Of The Rings trilogy, or whatever, on your computer, without putting it onto discs.

This is just my opinion, it might be claptrap, and others may say different, so don't take too much notice of me!  

[Dack]

I was being a little tongue in cheek when I said it would last a few months

I meant it would keep you happy for a good few months until you want to upgrade again (as newer more demanding games etc. appear).

Of the four machines I've got here at the moment - all are similar spec to the one you are looking at building and I don't forsee a need to upgrade any of them in the near future (though an extra wireless network card could be useful ) Two machines are Pentium 4 based while the other are Athlon XP2500 based. The major difference in performance is due to the graphics card these days.

A good graphics card that would last you for about 18months+ is any of the Radeon 9800XT (or PRO) that are around at the moment. Cost is about £120. They were the top of the range cards until about 2 months ago when the new Radeon 800 and NVidia Geforce 6000 came out.

There are two types of cache - L1 and L2. L1 is built into the chip and L2 is in a seperate chip (but usually attached directly to the processor these days)

Cache is just memory that is attached to the processor and is used to store the program as it's running. This is fast memory that runs at the same speed as the processor in most cases and so the processor can then get the next instruction as quickly as it can without having to wait for the (usually slower) external RAM. As your program is running, it is taken into the internal cache memory - if you have 512K then this means you can have 512K of program  ready to run. Unfortunately programs tend not to run like that and so if it needs a bit of memory that is outside the 512K then it has to wait for the external memory anyway.

Athlons and Pentiums have the same amount of L2 cache these days (512K).

I'd go for the Athlon system.

[cerebus]

Phew! thats good to hear.
Right so if AMD and pent are both (literaly) the same then i assume it would be o.k if i bought the cheapest of the two?
And with the L1 cache and L2 cache if L2 is not built in is the external memory? If it is would it be better to go for a processor with the L1 built in chip rather than the L2 seperate chip?
If its alright (as in if it runs well enough and fast enogh without crashing) i'll build a Quite cheap one use it for a while then sell it make some profit on it with the money i already earn and build a more expensive on then. 8)
This way i can keep building 'n' selling till i have one thats not too O.O.D.

[cerebus]

yes yes its me (again) all that i sed in my last reply scrap it all.

i have finaly got round to ordering my components to build my pc   (yay) this is how the price stands (bearing in mind it's not modded and its just basic standard so far. ie. everything i need to get using it)

the price:£148 (i think that includes shipping and stuff too)
so i think not a bad price to start my fist pc and i think i got some pretty good stuff too.
  8)
yes well thnx again and i'll be back again soon for more info or opinion's c ya all