I'm going to build a computer in the near future (within a month or so). I would appreciate any advice. I am on an old P4 3.2 ghz and not much is salvageable. Specifically, I don't want to reuse my case/power supply because they're old and loud.

I will be reusing:
Keyboard
Mouse
Monitor
Speakers
Sound Card (if needed, I don't mind onboard sound but this card is fairly new)
DVD/CD Drive/Burner

I need:
Case (prefer quiet)
Power supply (if not included with the case, prefer quiet)
Motherboard (want: onboard ethernet, possibly onboard sound, have historically had really good luck with "real" Intel boards)
Processor (prefer Intel, need multiple cores, not sure how many)
Memory (is 4GB enough? prefer kits so multiple channels work)
Hard Drive
DVD/CD Drive/Burner
Graphics Card (want: nVidia, prefer quiet if fast enough)

Here is the catch: I use Linux as my main OS so components should be linux compatible. This typically doesn't matter for most components, but for the graphics card I really like nVidia because they have awesome linux drivers. This typically affects sound cards, wireless cards, etc., which I don't care about because the motherboard should have onboard ethernet, and if the onboard sound doesn't work I have a backup card.

I *will* be using this eventually for windows-based games, so I would want it to run new games fairly well. I don't need the newest/fastest, I'm more looking for a great price/performance ratio with some cushion for the future (if possible).

I prefer "retail" box processors/motherboards/case because they include everything I need (fans, mounting hardware, etc.), but I am okay with OEM memory, drives, graphics card, etc. I am open to be convinced otherwise if arguments have merit (better cooling, etc.).

I typically order from Newegg since I don't pay tax there, but I am open to other retailers that have good reputations and good prices. I *hate* mail-in rebates so I always consider the price BEFORE rebate if they're not "instant" rebates.

All help is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance. (I'll thank you later, too.)

The only real catch is your choice for nVidia. Right now is not a good time to go nVidia, mostly because ATI is much faster at the midrange and even high range now. But if you must have decent linux drivers for linux gaming, then you've got no real choice.

Is nVidia releasing anything good in the near-future (~ 6 months)? I could pick up an el-cheapo nvidia card and upgrade later.

I would think something like this would serve you well:



Intel just debuted additional i3/i5 CPU's and chipsets for 1156, I dont know if they will hit the retail channels by the time you are looking to build. If you think HyperThreading is something you will take advantage of then you might want to consider the i7 860 also. If you have a Microcenter nearby you should price their CPU's they always have great CPU deals, it's their gimmick to get you instore.

Might want to visit sites like silentpcreview.com and see what they recommend for quietest components.

It's rumored Nvidia's nextgen stuff will be released March 2 (benchmarks should be available SOON), You might want to wait for that. If you can't then I would recommend a GTX260 or better.

You listed DVD/CD/Burner under something plan to reuse AND something you need to buy new, you want 2 drives? Is the one you have IDE or SATA. Some motherboards, like the example I picked, no longer have IDE connections onboard.

nVidia has been sitting on their asses as far as updating their cards to DX11, and the speed has suffered. I would imagine their next series in 6 months should be better though, hopefully.

EAH_TRISCUIT thanks for your post. Good point about the drive, yes, I want two, and yes, my old one is IDE. So I guess I have to buy 2. Blargh.

What's the difference between i3, i5, and i7? What is hyperthreading and why would I want it? Looking for very general information here For example, if I get it, do I get a 10% increase in framerate?

Gaming won't be affected much by hyperthreading. Most all games are GPU limited.

Hyperthreading is a system through which one core is divided into two virtual cores, allowing the core to be used to its maximum potential by having two instructions run through the core at the same time (at different stages). As one instruction is finishing, another can start. It's not a significant boost of speed, especially when your system is not being completely maxed out, but it does help.

i3's are budget chips, 1-2 cores, small L2. i5's are midrange, 2-4 cores, sort of like the E7x00 series of Core 2 Duos. The i7's are the high end, with larger L2, 4-6 cores, and hyperthreading. Clock speed also varies between them.

You can look for another motherboard that does support IDE, I just picked the cheapest Intel 1156.

Actually HyperThreading has been shown to hurt game performance but so little its insignificant. Hyperthreading does help alot in tasks that are hugely parallel and predicitable like Video Encoding and Ray Tracing.

I don't do either of those.

it's weird your choice of sticking with Nvidia because of their drivers for linux, my system admin at work swears by ATI for their linux drivers for about the past year or so....

and as the others have said, you won't notice Hyperthreading in games at all and only if you are doing lots of CPU intensive tasks at once for which Hyperthreading was really designed for.

Don't get an Antec 300.
I hate mine, the cheap side panel has already broke and it just feels flimsy as all hell.

Boo, I love mine.

Hrm, they used to be terrible. Still have trouble with the mobility radeon linux driver for my laptop. I suppose they may be good now, but it's hard to risk all that $$ when I'm not sure. A year isn't that long, nvidia has been supporting linux for what, more than a decade now?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021

The Antec Nine Hundred is a really good case, it looks like a monster with those fans but it's super quiet and cools really well, it just gets dusty fast. I'd give it a 10/10

So nobody else has stated that EAH_TRISCUIT's choices for processor, memory, power supply, etc., are not good -- so is the consensus that this is a decent deal on decent components?

in my opinion go with a gigabyte brand motherboard and corsair brand ram, but the processor looks good

In my opinion never go Gigabyte and OCZ is fine, although I'd probably go with cheaper.

Mines an ASUS (P7P55D), and it survived 5 months with RAM that had the wrong voltage, so the thing is obviously built well. It's not high-end i7 though so w/e. I've used OCZ and Kingston with no problems.
As far as I know, i3 is low end, i5 is mainstream, i7 is high-end/server. Got an i5 750 myself and I've been annoying everyone with how much I love it :).

That OCZ is the cheapest 2x2gb DDR3 kit on newegg at the moment.

Also, I would normally recommend a Corsair PSU but after searching for quiet PSU's the Nexus name came up a few times.

From the reviews it sounds like that case is pretty small and is difficult to fit a newer card in. Any alternatives?

Gigabyte has been fantastic for me over the years. Often, Gigabyte boards offer more features for your money than most other brands. I've used Asus, eVGA, MSI and Gigabyte over the years for my systems and loved all of them.

(Wife just said "yes" so I will be ordering within a couple of days.)

I like the Antec 300 haha

This is a good case but is HUGE and also expensive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129061&Tpk=antec%20p183

I have the smaller (mATX) version, the P180, and it is fairly quiet, although not inaudible. A friend of mine has the P183 and I can't hear it when I'm using his computer at his place.

The Sonata series are supposed to be designed for quietness:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129057&cm_re=antec_sonata-_-11-129-057-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129024&cm_re=antec_sonata-_-11-129-024-_-Product This one comes with a pretty decent Antec EarthWatts PSU.

Triscuit's proc and mobo suggestions are good, I think, given your specifications.

In my opinion, Gigabyte is awesome and I would generally go with them unless they did not have a board to fit my needs (in my build, they did not have an mATX 1366 board so I could not go with them, but if they did, I would have gone with them).

I would recommend this HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319&cm_re=wd_black_640-_-22-136-319-_-Product

I can't believe how expensive RAM has gotten .. it used to be 6GB of DDR3 for ~100 and now it's 4GB (probably due to the release and prevalence of dual channel in 1156 rather than triple channel for 1366). I like G.Skill, though the OCZ ram Triscuit posted is fine too. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231180 (these are more expensive atm and only slightly faster w/ slightly tighter timings so you should probably go w/ the OCZ ones unless these go on sale ... which they might)

As for vid card ... I would recommend a GTX 260 but it's at a ridiculous price right now (around 200, whereas 7 months ago it was 135ish). If you don't need to game in the near future, maybe you can pick up a very cheap 8600GT or something on clearance and wait for the GT300 series. Or, if you can settle for high mainstream level performance, try to find a 9800GT at Best Buy (they've been on clearance) for ~$69.

Video card prices overall seem to have gone up -- I bought a 4890 months ago for $160 and they're $190+ now. It might be worth compromising on a budget card to hold you over until nVidia's new cards come out (if they ever get around to releasing them :P).

I have a Radeon HD 4650 collecting dust around here...could make you a deal if you want.

The Antec 300 is definately large enough to fit everything up to a 5870, but it's super ventilated which also means any internal noise has a clear path out.

That P183 does look large enough to hold most videocards, if Brian can justify spending $130 on a case that might be a good fit.

if youre refering to the antec nine hundred, it is a little tight between the mobo and case but other than that its spacey as hell

I've built 2 computers with this case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129024&cm_re=antec_sonata-_-11-129-024-_-Product

Its extremely quiet, and well built. There is a 3 speed fan on the back, so you can turn it up if necessary.

I'm only mentioning the ATI route as the nvidia cards at the moment are so out-dated and "clunky" in comparison to the new ATI range.

From what I can figure the big change with the ATI drivers came towards the end of 2007 when ATI finally made the drivers open source for linux. Think there was some pressure from Dell on ATI somewhere in there as well to get stuff working.

Anyways, I haven't had any experience myself with them so this is all second hand information, if you're at all worried I'd get a cheap *** Nvidia card and wait it out till they finally release the new Fermi cards, hopefully in the first half of this year...although that's getting to look more and more unlikely as time goes on.

Will that mb/processor support this memory: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10600CL8D-4GBHK - Retail

Seems faster (1333 instead of 1066) ??

Interesting -- intel says use no memory over 1.65v, so that one I just said will supposedly damage the processor. Going to look at other 1333 (instead of 1066).

Thoughts? I changed the RAM because the voltage was too high. I changed the hd to a bit bigger one for only $5 more. I added a burner.

I would get a 1TB drive, you pay $20 more for almost twice as much.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227346 <- this is the Kit I was referring too, it is 1.5-1.6V for $75.99

But DDR3 1333 is fine too, might get like 2-3% better performance, and more room for overclocking.

Also, I agree with what you said- You probably will have trouble fitting a highend videocard in that case. If you have an idea of what you want videocard-wise maybe look at see if people have successfully fit it in there.

Yeah... Not sure it's worth it. I have a 160gb drive or something and I don't use even a quarter of it. I'm not big into media/movies/music/photos/etc. Hrm.

The 640GB Black is slightly faster than the 1TB Black and the 500GB black, which is why I recommended it. You could get the 640 Black as the OS drive and then a huge 2TB Caviar Green storage drive or something if you're concerned about storage.

1.65V is okay but anything over is bad but I think the one I linked you to is a 1.65V part

The one I'm looking at is: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231189

That one looks good

FYI, btw, looks like eWiz is having a sale on the WD hard drives we've been discussing so you might wanna go ahead and buy them ahead of time:

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1792659

You have beaten me once again!

If you struggle to use 1/4 of a 160GB HDD, it might be worth considering an SSD. Big jump in performance, although this comes with a big jump in price.

The Kingston SSDNow V+ 64GB isn't crazy-expensive and is much faster than even a 300GB VelociRaptor: http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=815652