Well, I've been struggling with what to do. Just picking the right parts is more complicated than I thought it would be. So, I was looking online and saw that Dell is having a sale.
Inspiron 531
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400 Dual Core
2GB 667MHz RAM
320GB HD
16x DVD Burner
Samsung 941BW 19" Widescreen Monitor
$650
Now, that's not quite like the system I spec'd out. It comes with Vista, which I'm not thrilled about, and uses AMD instead of intel. But, it would cost about half as much and comes with a 19" WS Monitor.
Does this seem like a good deal? Would this system be adequate to do home recording projects?
Sorry about the longest post on TB but here it is.
We use literally thousands of dell desktops and servers and they are very well made machines as are HP's.
In businesses we only and always use Dells or HP, IBM etc.
At home no way. Build your own. You will get a heap better system, one that you can upgrade as you need without as many hassles.
It's really not that hard. You can do it, maybe the approach you take can be a little stressful and making your mind go all haywire.
Everyone has their opinion and a lot of recommendations will clash for different reasons. Buying something because someone else has it isn't a great idea. Their objectives may be totally different.
Assembling a PC is all about "combination". There is some parts that totally rely on others and some part are just simple and no fuss buy it, use it, done.
IMO, the first thing to do is completely understand what you goals are. The most important things YOU are going to use your system for. Once you do that, you can design a plan around the goal.
I think your original post was very good and clear. Making it easy to understand your goal and perspective. The original spec I still believe is a good one other than the discovery that the board didn't support quad core. (or is that simply a firmware upgrade)
One thing to understand is that 32b operating systems don't support more than 4GB RAM. There is ways of fudging this with software but it involves mapping memory in and out of an addressable space and therefore being counter productive because of the load it places on the system.
Maybe 2GB is plenty of memory for now but buy it at least as 1GB modules and make sure you can always expand later. eg. make sure the motherboard can address say 8 or 16 GB etc.
Today using all 64bit gear and o/s is the way imo. Because of the internal architecture of the AMD CPU's they are my personal preference. For a long time the AMD's have been able to run and convert code to x86 and still outperform an Intel.
Don't be fooled at all by clock speed. eg. AMD runs at 2.0 GHz and Intel runs at 3.0GHz. The two CPU's are not comparable in that manner. The AMD running at the same clock as Intel will win by a huge margin. Therefore the AMD's running at slower clocks do not require such demand on memory being so cut throat fast to achieve the same. They also don't make the same heat. They also use less power. I'm comparing two of the same grade cpu's here not apples and oranges. New Intels are getting far better with power and heat now.
Once you know what CPU you would like to run, you can then select a board that supports it. When you do this you will need to consider numerous things at once. They are,
Disk controller
Video
Bus slots
Memory support and expansion
I/O ports such as serial, ethernet, USB & firewire etc.
Reputation of reliability
Form factor (shape of board to correctly select a case)
RAID?
Selecting your board can be a head ache and time consuming. It's a combination thing. Gigabyte & ASUS make really good boards that you could look to first. (excellent in home market)
Personally I have had such a good run with gigabyte that naturally i've become bias. Can't remember one that's failed.
Once you select your board the memory could be next. No rocket science just common sense. The right speed RAM, the right brand again with a reputation of reliability and the cost is ok. Here you will most likely find that Intel cpu often dictate faster speed memory than AMD's yet the speed of the machine could be equal. The board will tell you what speed memory is supported. These days 677, 800 or 1066 is common.
Video is next, what slots does the board support? do you need to look at a different board to get the slot support to run the video card? etc etc. The reality is there is so much BS hype here that it has become a huge fad. If your into gaming, you could spend $1000US just on video cards. Me, I'd just buy a PS2 or 3 or Xbox.
Or if you using the computer for video editing an music production you could buy a PCI-E 7300 or 7600 that has heaps of grunt to do what you want and then some for peanuts. You can always upgrade this later if you wish. Balance here may be a good idea.
The disk or disks is simple. The disk you already selected in your original plan is a very good disk. Out of all the HD's over the last 20 years I've watched seagates always be the most consistent reliable and fast drives. Western digital would be next choice but we have had a few of them fail over the last few years more than others as well as firmware issues and no support. I'd stick with exactly what you picked.
DVD, again everyone will say tomaaatoe and tomarrrrto. It's really a trivial part. Your samsung or a pioneer 112 are both really good drives.
Yes, put a FDD in it. If you use RAID and your running windows your going to need a FD with the driver on it.
Monitor. IMO the best monitor right now is a 24" wide screen with 1920x1080 native. Problem is they are expensive. Unless your happy to spend the money a 22" wide screen is the best bang for buck right now. Samsung or Viewsonic make awesome panels. Make sure it has DVI. Hard to imagine it wouldn't.
Keyboard and mouse = personal preference.
Case, the case must accommodate all the devices that you have just chosen and then some room for you to expand another disk or three later. There are a lot of stupid cases out now with lights and massive cooling systems that can snap freeze molten steel. More marketing BS again.
Try to get a case that is precision. All the drives fit properly. The motherboard lines up, the cards slot in without stress. The case has decent cooling. It has front panel connectors for USB, audio and firewire etc. It can run the power supply you need.
Now that you know all the gear that will run in your system you can "calculate" the power supply you NEED instead of guessing.
Add all the current draw of each part. Multiply it by your guess of expansion. eg another disk etc etc. and then multiply it by a comfortable head room. 20-30% for example.
300W + 50W X 30% = 455W (buy a 500 just to be sure)
Again everyone say one brand is better than another. You'll never ever get a real answer here. I spend my first year fixing switch mode power supplies for pc's and monitors and it may be different now but it was funny to see exactly the same circuit used in three brands and people swear that one was great and the other bad.
Take your time, don't believe everything you hear and you'll do fine. Once you have you're spec list together double check everything again and get started. If you buy your gear from a local shop with good service and you make a mistake on the selection of a part, they should change it for you anyway.
