How to pick parts for a new computer
Original article by Dr. Fred, now maintained by Cidrick, The Gunslinger, and Crackbone1. Intel or AMD?
This is what you'll want to ask yourself before building anything. It'll determine performance orientation as well as motherboard choice.
I. Intel
Currently, Intel produces the best line of processors that an enthusiast can buy - Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad. These chips are faster than anything AMD puts out right now. Not only are they fast, but they tend to draw less power than most AMD processors since they use a 65nm process instead of the 90nm process that the Athlon X2s currently employ. Less power, of course, means less heat is generated as well.
While AMD chips have attempted to be competitive from a price standpoint, the prices on Intel processors have fallen to a point where, if you're building from scratch, there's no reason to go with anything other than one of these Intel processors.
II. AMD
AMD held the enthusiast CPU crown for several years with its AthlonXP and Athlon 64/X2 chip, which more or less dominated anything that Intel had put out in both performance and power usage. Of course, the Athlon X2 chips that are currently out are still excellent performers, especially considering their price. Right before Core 2 Duo launched, AMD furiously slashed prices on their already rather affordable Athlon X2 chips.
Generally, if you're buying a brand new setup, you'll want to avoid going the AMD route and just buy An Intel LGA775 processor. However, if you have a Socket AM2 board that you'd rather keep due to budget concerns, then AMD still offers some very competitive Socket AM2 processors that you can upgrade to.
Decent sources for benchmarks are:
http://techreport.com
http://anandtech.com
http://xbitlabs.com
2. The Future
Since the computer hardware market is constantly evolving, you should try to stay informed of upcoming product releases. It's generally preferable to upgrade anyway since waiting for new, better hardware is a never-ending cycle, but sometimes there is groundbreaking stuff very close to release.
3. Which CPU?
Unless you're on an extremely tight budget, there's really only two practical choices for your CPU - A Core 2 LGA775 Intel processor, or the Athlon Socket AM2 processor. I've outlined the differences between the two in the first section.
I. Single-core vs. dual-core vs. quad-core
If you haven't figured it out by now, "dual-core" refers to processors with two separate cores that work just like two separate processors, and "single-core" simply refers to the Pentium, Athlon 64, and pretty much all other desktop chips since the 8086. I'll let you figure out what quad-core implies.
There are virtually no processors that you can buy anymore that have only a single core. In the past couple of years, AMD and Intel have all but stopped production of single-core processors in favor of dual and quad-core chips. Having a dual-core processor doesn't mean you're going to get twice the processing power, however, multithreaded applications (such as Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, 3DSMax, even Folding@Home) and CPU-intensive multitasking (like if you were encoding a video while playing a game at the same time) display tremendous performance advantages over a single-core. Similarly, quad-core processors don't offer twice the power of dual-core processors. Multi-core processors will also offer increasingly better performance as time goes on, since future software and games will be written with multiple processors in mind.
Long story short, if you mostly want to do gaming, stick to a dual-core processor for now.
II. Price vs. Performance Scaling
(Performance numbers taken from The Tech Report's review of the Phenom X3. Prices taken from newegg.com. Relative price differences should be the same regardless of currency.)
Typically, processor speed has the largest impact on tasks such as 3D rendering and media Encoding, not on games. On this chart you can see the average performance increase between two games and one synthetic benchmark. Since games really don't take advantage of multiple cores, as we indicated above, the inclusion of a non-game related benchmark indicates how a quad-core processor stacks up against a dual-core processor if an application can take advantage of the extra cores.
Good picks for a processor would be the Intel E7200, E8400, or the quad-core Q9300, depending on your budget. If you're a heavy gamer, the first two would probably be a better bet. However, if you're interested in rendering, encoding, or other applications that can take advantage of unlimited cores, the Q9300 is an excellent deal for four cores.
If you're still using a Socket AM2 platform and are looking for a quick-fix upgrade, then the Athlon X2 6000+ is certainly a decently-performing and affordable choice.
If you're wondering about CPU performance relative to an older CPU not shown in recent benchmarks, have a look at the mother of all CPU charts on Tom's Hardware.
4. The motherboard
Motherboards should be picked by socket type, so you should have a decent idea of what CPU you're going to go with at this point. Again, I'll be focusing on LGA775 for Intel and Socket AM2 for AMD.
The second criterion you should worry about is the chipset. Frankly, VIA/SIS/ULI offerings are okay, but if you have $100 to spend on a motherboard, you should really only bother with nVidia nForce and Intel chipsets. You'll have more, better quality motherboards to choose from, and features that you might not get otherwise. Note that nForce chipsets obviously don't restrict you to nVidia graphics cards; they'll run ATI video cards like any other chipset.
You should also know about PCI Express (or PCIe for short). PCIe is a very fast serial interconnect that is replacing both AGP and 32-bit PCI with new types of slots. PCIe is not backwards-compatible with either PCI or AGP, and it is currently being offered on all new nForce and Intel motherboards. AGP is all but phased out on the graphics side, and PCI will also be slowly replaced over time.
With all that in mind, here are some good motherboards at different price points. Main variations between price points are SLI support, number of SATA connectors, RAID support, extra gigabit LAN controllers, Firewire support, overclocking potential, etc. Do have a look at each board's featureset before making your purchase, though, to make sure you don't miss anything. Performance differences between motherboards are incredibly minimal so a 0.2% increase in performance probably shouldn't be factored into your decision.
LGA 775 Boards
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L ($95)
EVGA 122-CK-NF66-T1 ($100)
ABit IP35-E ($120)
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R ($130)
MSI P6N SLI Platinum ($140)
(Prices are from newegg)
I. SLI & Crossfire
In short, don't bother. Most graphics card manufacturers are beginning to incorporate dual-video cards into a single card - most notably the HD3870 X2 and the 9800GX2. The excessive price and diminishing returns from going with an SLI setup just aren't worth it. If you want the highest performance possible, pick up one of these "dual-core" graphics cards and stick with it. Save the money you want to spend on a second card and put it towards something else in your system.
5. RAM
There are two types of RAM in circulation right now: DDR and DDR2. DDR2 is required on all Core 2 and Socket AM2 motherboards. DDR has been phased out in favor of DDR2, and only older Socket 939 and Pentium 4 systems still use ordinary DDR. If you've been following this article, then you'll be wanting DDR2.
The speed of the RAM to buy is generally left up to whether or not you want to overclock. For most people, DDR2-800 (aka PC2-6400) will be adequate. Of course, you can buy faster RAM like PC2-8000, which is supposedly "better" for overclocking. Generally, any RAM faster than DDR2-800 is overkill and best left to people who want to spend hundreds of dollars extra on their system to get a higher overclock than the other gentlemen on [H]ardOCP.
Both Intel and AMD systems also use dual-channel RAM. This basically means using pairs of sticks to theoretically double memory bandwidth. If you're going to buy 2GB of RAM for instance, you should purchase two 1GB sticks, otherwise performance will be mildly decreased. Check your motherboard manual for how to arrange the sticks in a dual-channel configuration. Note that since you can buy two sticks of the same type (they don't even need to be the same brand) and they'll work fine in dual-channel mode, "dual-channel kits" are largely a marketing thing.
As for which sticks to buy, it's really pretty straightforward: unless you intend on overclocking big time, go with ordinary Value RAM from a major brand (Corsair, Crucial, Kingston, OCZ, Patriot, etc) and make sure it carries a lifetime warranty. At stock speed, high-end low-latency stuff (e.g. Corsair XMS) doesn't really affect performance noticeably, and it's not an absolute necessity for overclocking - although it helps.
6. Graphics cards
The two current lines of video cards from ATI and NVIDIA are the Radeon HD3000 series and GeForce 8 and 9 series. All of these lines offer DirectX 10 support. The newer Radeon HD3850 and HD3870 are extremely competitively priced and offer very nice alternatives to the current NVIDIA line. However, most people right now will agree that your best option for a new video card is an NVIDIA 8 or 9-series graphics card. There's not really a middle-ground option in the 9-series yet, but the 8800GT and 8800GTS 512mb are still very strong performers and can be found for pretty cheap.
Graphics cards in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Call of Duty 4, and Half-Life 2: Episode 2
(Performance numbers taken from The Tech Report's review of the GeForce 9800 GX2. Prices taken from newegg.com. Relative price differences should be the same regardless of currency.)
As you can see, the first four cards on the chart scale nicely with performance vs. dollar value, so among them, your best bet is to just purchase whatever you can afford. The 9800GX2 is an interesting pick - video manufacturers are beginning to go the "SLI on a single card" route, which is exactly what the 9800GX2 is. It's priced more cheaply than getting two discrete cards and running them in SLI, while eliminating many of the headaches that come with SLI. It's a rare instance of where you actually see more than slight margins in peformance increases for an over-$300 card. Still, at $500 as of this writing, it's more than likely out of most people's budgets.
Again, if you're wondering about graphics performance relative to an old card, check out Tom's VGA Charts. Not all benchmarks there might be accurate, however.
As for which card manufacturer to pick, eVGA makes nVidia reference boards, offer a lifetime warranty, and also include a very nice trade-up program, so they're a good bet for nVidia cards. XFX and BFG are also relatively well-respected manufacturers. On the ATI side, either Sapphire or ATI is fine - they're both manufactured by Sapphire, although they don't all have the same warranty.
I. A Word on AGP
AGP has gone the way of the ISA bus. There aren't any new AGP-based graphics cards coming out any more, and haven't for quite some time. If you still have an AGP card that you want to keep, don't bother upgrading to something new until you can budget for a new PCI-express video card as well. We're well aware that there are a couple of motherboards that will support both AGP and PCI-express, but they're not of the greatest quality to begin with. Trust us when we say that it's not worth it to go that route.
7. Sound cards
Note: This part is rather dated. If anyone has suggestions on updates for this portion, please let me know on the forums or email me at matt@cidrick.org
Most people will be happy with onboard sound these days, but if you have expensive speakers/headphones then onboard just isn't going to cut it. Most good consumer cards use either VIA's Envy24 sound chip or Creative's emu10k2 (basically Audigy 2/Audigy 2 ZS). For standard multimedia use, you should be looking at the following cards:
Stereo listening: Chaintech AV-710 (~$30)
Games: Audigy 2 ZS ($75)
Multichannel listening: M-Audio Revolution 5.1/7.1 ($75/$90)
Multichannel listening and games: Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic ($115)
The Audigy cards will have poorer analog sound quality than the Envy24 ones, but they offer hardware sound acceleration support in most games as well as EAX DSP effects. In contrast, you'll be doing sound processing in software with an Envy24 card. This isn't as big a deal as it sounds, however, since most games today offer software DSP effects that sound just as good as Creative's EAX stuff, and the performance hit from letting the CPU do the work is reasonably small on modern systems. Overall, the M-Audio Revolution 5.1 is probably the most versatile, considering the good multichannel DAC and reduced CPU usage in games compared to other Envy24 cards. The X-Fi has a nice DAC and offers harware acceleration in games, but it's the most expensive solution.
For entry-level production/recording use, have a look at these cards:
M-Audio Audiophile 2496 ($130)
E-MU 0404 ($99)
The Audiophile line is more geared toward software production and mastering, while the Delta line is more of a "full studio" and recording solution - the E-MU cards tend to cover both. Don't worry, you'll still be able to play all your games and stuff on them too, but you won't have the home theater-type features like 7.1 surround, as they tend to be stereo-only. (Thanks to Ubik for this part)
8. CD/DVD drives
Since SATA optical drives are rapidly becoming more commonplace, I highly suggest going that route, mostly just for cable management and eliminating irrititating IDE ribbon cables from cluttering up your case internals. Sony, Lite-On, Pioneer, and LG all make DVD±R drives that will be similarly priced and offer similar performance. Just pick one that matches the color of your case and go about your day. Paying any more than $40 on your optical drive is a waste of money, unless you're planning on buying a Blu-Ray burner or something silly like that.
9. Hard drives
There's no real way to assess failure rate for consumer hard drives, so you should be picking something based on four factors: cost per GB, warranty, performance, and noise output. The following drive lines come standard with 5-year warranties:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.*
Western Digital Caviar RE and Raptor
These drives come with 3-year warranties:
Samsung Spinpoint
Western Digital Caviar SE
Hitachi Deskstar
Pretty much anything else will only have a 1-year warranty, so you'll be better off with the listed drives. As far as performance and noise goes, it's hard to suggest a single one since prices fall so rapidly. A good place to start is at Storage Review.
Also note that the Raptor is more of a high-end workstation type drive because of its high spindle speed (10,000RPM), so it doesn't really fit in with the 7200RPM drives. Some comparisons of the Raptor against 7200RPM drives are available in this article.
Lastly, you should know about SATA. Like, PCIe, SATA is a new high-speed serial interconnect which has replaced the old parallel one (in this case IDE/PATA). It offers longer, narrower and more flexible cables, as well as a new power connector design that allows compatible drives to be hot-swapped. It is preferable to get new drives in this format, as IDE is pretty much phased out, but installing Windows XP on a SATA drive may require a floppy disk with the SATA controller drivers.
That's pretty much all there is to it. Make backups often, don't do something dumb like run a 600GB RAID0, and your data will be safe.
(noise estimates are from silentpcreview.com reviews & forums; performance estimates are from Storagereview, Anandtech, silentpcreview.com and X-bit labs)
10. What about a case and power supply?
GET A GOOD POWER SUPPLY. I cannot stress this enough. Read this, and price out an adequate PSU for your system:
http://shsc.info/PowerSupplyGuide/
Note: While this is somewhat dated, the information about amperage vs. watts is still very important to know when buying a power supply.
If you're on a budget, you'll probably want to cut down expenses by getting a case/PSU bundle, however. This pretty much restricts you to Antec if you want a decent PSU, since most other case manufacturers bundle low quality PSUs with their cases in order to cut costs. A good pick for a Case+PSU combo is anything in the Antec Sonata line - all the power supplies that come with the Sonata series should be more than adequate for any mid-range parts you purchase. If you're buying just a PSU, any of the Corsair PSUs will work great, and again, Antec PSUs are also generally pretty favored. Just make sure you get one with enough amperage for all your parts.
Whenever possible, I generally recommend buying a case from a brick and mortar store in person for two reasons:
1. Being able to open the case, look around, feel the case material, and looking at it in person can guarantee that you'll be satisfied with your purchase.
2. While cases are a little cheaper online, you also pay upwards of $15-30 for shipping, which usually makes the case just as expensive as ordering online anyway.
2. While cases are a little cheaper online, you also pay upwards of $15-30 for shipping, which usually makes the case just as expensive as ordering online anyway.
Of course, not everyone has a Fry's, Microcenter, or Future Shop around that sells cases, and their selection will never be as good as Newegg or NCIX.
11. How do I put everything together?
Read this:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/13671
Building a PC from scratch is really pretty straightforward: just take it slow, do some reading beforehand, and you'll be very unlikely to screw up. Even if that happens, most decent on-line stores and manufacturers offer good warranties, so you definitely have a safety net if you get a bad part or break something.
Lastly, if you're pricing out something and want to examine it at a later date, use sirchode's C4. You can save configurations there, link them, and it'll compute total prices for you.
12. How do I install Windows?
Pop the Windows CD in your drive. Now you need to ensure your computer can boot off the CD. If your motherboard has a boot menu you can access (usually by pressing F12), you can tell it to boot off the CD this way. Otherwise, enter your BIOS (usually be pressing DEL) and find the menu where it has the boot order. Set the first boot device to CDROM and second to HDD-0. Once you begin to boot up, your computer will see the CD is bootable, and start booting off of it. Typically you'll get a prompt saying "Press any key to boot off CD." Do so.
13. How do I keep my old Windows installation?
There's a whole article on that:
http://shsc.info/MovingWindowsToNewHardware
14. Changes
2008-05-23 - Updated video and processor sections with new charts and performance benchmarks, and of course, recommendations.
2007-11-30 - Added the Tech Report system assembly guide.
2007-11-16 - Updated the graphics section with information on the new 8800GT and ATI 3000 series.
2007-09-17 - Updated virtually the whole guide with new info, with the exception of the sound card section.
2007-02-19 - Updated the graphics section with the latest prices and benchmarks, and removed the old 7600GT. Added the two flavors of 8800GTSes, and revised brand recommendations for processors.
2006-11-13 - Updated the CPU section with latest prices and benchmarks. Also updated graphics card section with latest prices and benchmarks, as well as including info on the GeForce 8 series.
2006-09-06 - Majorly updated the CPU, motherboard, and RAM sections due to the newly-released Core 2 Duo.
2006-06-09 - Updated "The Future" section with a note about Conroe and AM2.
2006-05-15 - Updated CPU section with a note on the Opteron 165s.
2006-03-21 - Updated graphics section: eliminated X800GTO and X800GTO2, and replaced them with the 6800GS and 7600GT. Also replaced the 7800GT with the 7900GT, and the X1800XT with the X1900XT.
2006-02-10 - Reworked dual-core section, added graph.
2006-02-02 - Reworked graphics section: replaced 6600GT with X800GTO, added X800GTO2, replaced 7800GTX with X1800XT, added word about 6800GS/X800GTO2.
2006-01-31 - Added "how to install Windows" bit.
2006-01-16 - Took out the MSI K8N Neo4 boards, since people are complaining about QA issues with them lately.
2006-01-09 - Added Corsair PC build guide.
2005-12-13 - Updated memory section.
2005-12-04 - Updated CPU charts: removed a64 3000+, since it's now discontinued, and switched chart benchmarks to tom's hardware 2005 cpu chart as it's the only one with 3700+ numbers.
2005-12-01 - Updated graphics section: refreshed prices, added X800GTO, replaced 6800GT with X800XL as bad $250-300 card example.
2005-11-29 - Cleaned up single-core vs. dual-core section.
2005-11-21 - Revised SLI section.
2005-11-18 - Revised prices in CPU section. Switched Intel chart from 5xx to 6xx, since the 6xx chips are a bit cheaper.
2005-11-08 - Revised graphics section, replaced X800XL with 6800GS, added word about ATI's current lineup, changed benchmarks sources and settings.
2005-10-25 - Revised dual-core section with new AMD prices, revised future section since new ATI cards are out, revised graphics section prices.
2005-10-08 - Replaced motherboard product page links with review links (thanks Epicenter).
2005-10-03 - Fixed motherboard links.
2005-10-02 - Reworked bits about 64-bit P4s, added ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 and Chaintech VNF4-Ultra, changed bit about next-gen AGP cards (ATI mid/low-end only).
2005-09-29 - Added ND-3540A in CD/DVD section.
2005-09-19 - Updated prices in dual-core section.
2005-08-13 - Revised prices in graphics charts, updated graphics section text.
2005-08-12 - Added 3800+ info in dual-core CPU section. Reworked graphics section following 7800GT release: replaced X850XT PE with 7800GT, switched first chart from 1600x1200 noAA/noAF to 1024x768 4xAA/8xAF since I don't have enough numbers for the former. Made average from just D3 and FC instead of D3, FC and HL2, since the TR benchmarks with the 7800GT don't have any HL2 numbers.
2005-08-03 - Updated prices in CPU section following AMD/Intel cuts.
2005-08-02 - Updated graphics charts with current prices.
2005-07-30 - Major update: reworked sections 1, 2, 3, and 4 with dual-core info, added next-gen ATI/nVidia info in section 2, and removed the DFI nF4 Ultra-D board from the recommended list since some people seem to have problems with it.
2005-07-22 - Added Caviar RE to recommended HDD list, since they now have 5-year warranties. Also added bit about AAM in there, since most drives need it to really be quiet these days.
2005-06-29 - Added brand-picking advice in graphics section.
2005-06-26 - Added sources in hard drive section.
2005-06-24 - Added 7800GTX benchmarks in second graphics chart, expanded SLI paragraph in motherboard section.
2005-06-21 - Added "DDR2 doesn't work on AMD systems" bit in bold in the memory section.
2005-05-26 - Added link to SLI article to motherboard section.
2005-05-25 - Added X700 Pro as a cheap graphics card recommendation, since these can now be had for around $130. Reworded last paragraph in memory section for clarity.
2005-05-23 - Updated prices for graphics performance charts (prices have lowered a lot lately, sorry if I can't keep up).
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