ComputerBB

Firstly, sorry if you guys see this choosing a MOBO subject alot, but I would just like point in the right direction. OK im fairly adept at using comps and I've come to that point where I want to build my own. The PC im using right now is a getting old and has some serious cooling problems so instead of buying a ready-made one I've decided I'd like to buy the separates online and build it myself. Im in my 2nd year of a computing degree so it'd be a nice project to get stuck into me thinks. The budget I want to spend on my tower is around £300 (I could push to 4 :/). I know what I want in the tower in terms extras (burners, NIC's etc) but I'm just unsure of what MOBO and PROCESSOR to get. I know I'd probably be happy with most of the stuff out there and could pick up something fairly cheaply but I want something that I know thats gonna last and has scope for imrpovement later if needed. So, first step would be to say what I want to do with it: - First off, this PC is not gaming orientated. I have halo2 on my xbox and I'm happy with that until the 360 comes out this christmas. So if this PC runs half life, great - but if don't, it's no biggie. - 2. I'm a heavy downloader so I'm looking at around 120GB harddrive with good access speeds (I'm always using explorer). - 3. I like to convert and encode movies like VCDS etc, so I'd like my baby to fairly capable/stable/fast in that department. In the future I would probably looking to get a capture card as well, but for the time being I need to be sure this PC is comfortable doing like a 6hour conversion. (I'll be making sure this ones cooled properly) - 4. I burn alot of cd's and will be getting a separate DVD burner for this PC. - 5. The usual browsing, and playing music, etc. - 6. Graphics Card. Although I'm not really bothered about graphics in terms of gaming I will be watching alot of rich content on this PC such as DVDs and stuff downloaded so I'm unsure how this affects my choice of mobo and indeed what kind of graphics/3D cards I should be looking at. - 7. I will be buying a mod case with all the perspex and blue lights hoohaa. These cases tend to have the 2 usb and firewire at the front so I'd like my mobo to accomodate these fairly easily. This is fairly important since I use a connect my flash pen and digicam to my PC regurlarly. So the above is what I have in mind for my PC, but as I said the choice of MOBO and CPU is giving me some problems; probably because since I'm building the whole thing from scratch my choice is fairly wide since im not trying to match mobo to any existing equipment. I've googled all over the place and seen many recommendations but I'm still no closer to a definate decision. As for the Intel / AMD debate - while I do like my brand names I'd probly go for an AMD since it would hopefully bring the cost down. So, if any one can recommend a specific model / brand / chipset or even just what I should be looking at with the above in mind, it would be much appreciated. TIA. (So far I like the look of Athlon XP's and MSI motherboards but obviously open to suggestion)

If you are a heavy downloader, and like to encode movies and burn cds and dvds, I would recomend getting a dual AMD motherboard. Tyan makes great motherboards. I have a Tyan Tiger MPX motherboard running dual Athlon MP 1800's and it runs very smooth. Having dual cpu's will allow you to encode video on one, while downloading and burning on the other. Multitasking with dual cpu's is much smoother and faster than multitasking with a single cpu. I would also recomend getting two hard drives (80 GB each) and raid 0 (stripping) them together.

Cheers for reply. Yes that would be tasty indeed. Usually I set my movie conversions for when I hit the sack since they're so processor exhaustive, having two would be nice way round that. Though having said that, I've just seen the prices of these boards - whoah! When you add the 2 cpu's after that, thats some price for multitasking [ I'm a student remember ]. Definately a consideration later on though. Can you elaborate on the benefits of having 2 hard drives? Is that better than having 1 big one? And lastly by raid'ing them does that mean they would appear as one drive instead of two?

There are 2 common types of raid, raid 0 and raid 1. Raid 0 will combine two hard drives, making them act as 1 hard drive. This virtual drive will be 2x as large, and 2x as fast as a single hard drive. When you write/read from a raid 0 array, 1/2 the info is taken from 1 hard drive, and 1/2 the info is taken from the other, it is then combined at the raid controller card. Raid 1 is a backup raid, all the data on one disk is automatically sent to the other disk. Newer dual cpu setups are expensive, but I was able to buy my motherboard, two cpus, and ram on ebay for $250. http://search.ebay.com/Tyan-Tiger-MPX_W ... 40QQsojsZ1

If then, you were using a RAID 0 where your data was split accross the two drives, what would happen if one failed? Would the OS still run and would your data not be corrupt?

If your hard drive failed, you could not boot into windows and your data would be lost