need opinion!

[dewabo]

OK, this one is for the builders out there. Have just about had it with this HP pavilion desktop, thinking about building one like I want. Price range for mobe and processor around 200$. Like the Apevia micro ATX case, so lets start there. What mobo and processor would you guys and gails go with? I need one with good documention,for bios which I have little knowledge on so lets kiss ( keep it simple -----), would like to reuse my Hdd, CD\DVD burner, BTW my HDD is SATA, burners are ide. Could I use my present CPU cooler on a Pentium 4 Prescott or Celeron D processor? It seems to be working fine as I write this.Basicly I just want to replace this computer for home use, no power user here.

[joshSCH]

Check out newegg, they have the best prices and very fast shipping.. Products are reliable too. I don't think it really matters what type of mobo or processor you get.. However, I prefer amd over intel. ASUS motherboards are reliable.. Make sure the processor socket and ram matches.. you can usually check your CPU cooler's manufacturer and check what cpus you can adequately cool.

[Infarction]

I just built a cheap box to run Vista on a couple weeks ago. I was on a tight budget so I stuck with a AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+, 2GB of RAM, and an ASUS M2NPV-VM motherboard. Don't know how the mobo shapes up on reviews, but it's working just fine. I've even got mine just using shared memory for video, which saves the cost of a graphics card, and the mobo has 2 IDE buses and 4 SATA ports. It's also got an AM2 socket, so there's room can upgrade the processor later if you feel like it, and a PCI-E x16 if you want to throw a GPU in. I put a 400W power supply in, just to be on the save side. For the case, PSU, mobo, CPU, and RAM I spent under $500, and carried over two HDDs and a DVD-burner from another computer.

If you're not concerned with cost, look into getting an Intel Core 2 Duo, but I've not looked into parts for those at all (like I said, I was on a budget).

As to CPU cooling, you'll want to use whatever comes with your new processor. Usually different sockets have the fan mount differently, and most processors come with the proper fan, so why not use the proper piece?

[joshSCH]

Sounds like a decent build, what did you pay for that? I just upgraded my processor to a 4400+ 2.64 ghz and 2 gigs of ram, and it was about $200

[Infarction]

My total was right about $450

[joshSCH]

wow, thats a pretty good value.. something like his build would be great for you

[TT4Titans]

Buy the CPU as a boxed and it comes with the cooling fan.A post Josh made about AMD's the newer ones run alot cooler than a P4.All the Hardware you mentioned you will be able to reuse without buying that.you can even get a new case with power supply real reasonable.What ever motherboard you go with make sure it will fit that pavilion case.but you would be better off buying a new case also you can get one with a 430 watt power supply pretty cheap at new egg.that HP propably has a 190 watt.

[dewabo]

All sounds great. Here is what I'm looking at, at Newegg.
Case: Apevia w\500w psu micro ATX price 98$
mobo: Intel micro atx Bkdq965gfekr lga775 intel q965 express, it's sata and ide so I can use the cd\dvd burner and floppy disc drive and my newly purchased sata hdd.
memery: Patriot extreme perfprmance 2gb 240 pin ddr2 sdram dde2 800 (pc2 6400)
Processor: Pentium 4 cedar mill 3.2 ghz lga775 em64t
The mobo is 119$ ,memery will cost 89$ after rebates and the processor is 77$. with an extended warranty on processor and mobo all came to 450$ plus shipping.
Could have went with one of Apevia's 420w case but then I saw the 500w one for about 20$ more so why not get the bigger psu. It won't pull any more current than it needs to and I would have power to spare for up grades later.
The reason I went with a pentium processor is that every computer I've had in the past had intel inside and they all gave great service.
We started out with a Tandy and dos, when windows 95 came out, we got a Micron and when the Hdd ch\rashed on that one after about 4yrs, we ordered another Micron w\98 on it, the next one was this HP because micron had stoped making pcs and had went to sotfware only for business'. This HP lasted about 2 yrs before it started giving us heartburn, so we replaced it with a Gateway. This HP sat in the closet for about 2yrs,and after I retired I got it out and started messing with it, did a recovery and got it up and running for about a year when the Hdd crashed and burned. Now I find out that the intel 82801 chip has crashed and there is no help for it that I can find. No one wants to sell just a tower and they are all coming with Vista on them and from what I have read I don't Vista just yet. When Bill Gates says that Vista isn't for everyone it makes you wonder about it.
Looks like AMD has a lot of fans here.I thank all who responed to this thread for your opinions, I asked and I got. Thank you all.

[joshSCH]

Great. Sounds like an awesome build.. enjoy.

[Infarction]

I'm not a fan at all of Pentium 4 chips. They had high clock speeds but relatively poor performance and high energy usage. Get a newer chip, and one with 2 cores. An Athlon X2 3800+ is also about $75 on newegg and you can find a comparable motherboard to fit it.

[joshSCH]

Yea, the amd chips are much more reliable, run cooler, and are more efficient than intel. You can overclock most amd chips fairly high also.. However, I do like the p4 feature(Thermal Throttling) that slows the processor down as it becomes too hot... in theory, these chips would never overhead.. hopefully amd develops this technology soon.

Your build should work fine though.. don't worry about changing anything unless you do want to go with amd (I'm sure it would be cheaper if you did)

[Infarction]

almost all mobos have thermal cutoffs now, so the temperature throttling shouldn't be a big deal. And most OSs also use dynamic throttling to keep pace with actualy CPU usage, so having a heat problem would probably mean you need to fix your ventilation.

[Sturm]

to keep price down you could just overclock your graphics and cpu really really high (im told that intel core 2 duos are good to overclock)

I was an AMD man but after the intel core 2 duo was released, AMD got blown away.

[joshSCH]

to keep price down you could just overclock your graphics and cpu really really high (im told that intel core 2 duos are good to overclock)

I was an AMD man but after the intel core 2 duo was released, AMD got blown away.

aw, heck no.. AMD is still better than intel.. AMD is a lot easier to overclock, a lot cheaper, and they run a lot cooler than intel. And besides the quad core, AMD processors are very competitive with all the intel

[Infarction]

On 32-bit stuff (which is most everything still) the Core 2 blows AMD out of the water last I checked. It also comes with a price tag to match. There aren't a lot of 64-bit benchmarks, so comparing the two at that level is tough; easier to say that they're probably about equal. Power consumption (and thus heat) for each brand is now comparable (early Athlons were very hot, and then Pentium 4 chips were pretty bad as well).

AMD has a reputation for being more friendly for over-clocking, but that's your call. The Core 2 Extreme (which is priced at like $1000?) is supposed to be one of the best CPUs for overclocking, but it costs as much as an entire system. Personally, I don't overclock my stuff. I like to get as much life out of 'em as possible...

[Sturm]

call me weird but I prefer 32 bit to 64 bit for compatability problems. Adobe has not even released a 64 bit flash player :-(. (now my friend thinks that linux sucks). Most linux distro's do not support 64 bit or amd so its not very good for linux. Virtually your only choice is gentoo!

my friend got a amd based hp laptop and I got the intel equivalent. On basic benchmark tests (that is my program I wrote ;-) my computers beats his at both float points and normal integer calculations. btw, they are both dual core and both clocked at 2.0 ghz.

[joshSCH]

Well, considering 32-bit, intel may be better than amd.. But all my operating systems are 64-bit.. and I personally think amd is doing much better in this field than anywhere else..

As for compatibility problems, yea, maybe. But, every program or driver I have ever wanted has been available in 64-bit (I might have had to search through driverguide or used 3rd party, but everything works pretty smoothly!)

[Sturm]

but everything works pretty smoothly!

Than you must not use linux! ;-p

[joshSCH]

Yes, sir.. Ubuntu linux x64

No problems whatsoever :)

[dewabo]

Everyone here seems to want to "over clock" their cpu. How and why do you overclock? The cpu that I have picked out runs at 3.2 ghz, I don't think I would want it any faster if it means a shorter life span. A duo core cpu would jax the price up a bit from what I was looking at.With the mail in rebate on the ram my price before shiping is 398.98$ Speaking about the case for this build, look at Newegg under micro atx motherboards and on about the last page you will an Apevia mirco atx case with a 500w power supply for 98.$, that's the one I'm going with.This is a new offer from Apevia. WWW.Apevia.com will show all theis cases. You'll love some of the wild colours they have.