If Volvo made a PC?

January 18, 2006 4:42 PM

New PC system build, nearly new builder seeks the Volvo 240 of machines.

I haven't built a new computer for 5+ years, and that one time I had help as well as with all the hardware upgrades since. This time it's just me. I've been busy reading reviews and comparison shopping, but need feedback and suggestions on the components, compatibility, and best bang for the buck, please. Some of the parts I have purchased recently, some I will cannibalize from my existing machine, and some are in my shopping cart now (TK). The machine will be used for pretty much all home uses but gaming, unless you count backgammon. It doesn't need to be ultra-fast; ultra-stable and "upgradable" is more important to me.

Case: Antec Sonata Lifestyle II (purchased) w/450w Truepower
Motherboard: ASUS A8N5X (purchased)
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 (TK)
RAM: CORSAIR ValueSelect 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) (TK)
Hard drives: (2) Seagate 160 GB SATA (purchased)
Audio: Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (existing)

Other components (optical drives, network cards etc.) will be part of the package, and mostly recycled from my current machine as they are not that old. I will be keeping my old machine running at a very basic level.

One thing I am hung up on; I have an ATI Radeon 8500DV graphics card I like and could re-use, but it is an AGP card, and the motherboard has no AGP slots AFAIK. Is there any way to adapt an AGP card to this motherboard? (common sense says no). If not, I'm open to recommendations for graphics cards that will handle DVDs with aplomb.

The new machine will be running on Windows 2000 Pro at least until some time after Vista is released - I would like to make it as adaptable as possible to an OS transition, and it may become at some point a dual-boot machine.

posted by vers to computers & internet (13 comments total)

I would make sure you have 1GB of RAM and that those HDs are running in RAID1 - yes, you lose 50% of your space, but trust me when I say drives fail and you'll be thankful you did it. Drives are cheap these days.

Other than that, search AxMe for the *other* hardware rec threads.
posted by kcm at 5:04 PM on January 18, 2006

No way to use the agp card, I would just grab a cheap pci-e card. Really if you are not gaming, there is no reason to buy an expensive card.

When vista comes out you will probably need more ram and a video card with more ram. I don't think anyone really knows the minimum requirements at this point.

Good luck!
posted by meta87 at 5:06 PM on January 18, 2006

If this info can be trusted to not change (?!), here are the hardware requirements for Vista.

I'm planning on (2) 512 sticks of RAM to start with. Thank you both for your input.
posted by vers at 5:16 PM on January 18, 2006

My general advice is that computers nowadays are overkilling performance monsters and you don't need to buy something expensive. Actually, for people like some of my relatives, I suggest just building a computer that roughly comes around 350$ canadian. Yes, that sounds really "cheap", but look back a few years and that would have been a top of the line bomb. For general use (that means Office + web + chat + music/movies), that is by far enough. The specs come around the cheapest CPU around (who needs those billion gigaherts, unless you are running Gentoo?), 512mb of RAM, the cheapest Nvidia card around (that way you don't cry a few weeks later when you are already outdated for that very expensive card), and there you go (hard drive being dependent on the usage).

But that's only a strange advice coming from an ubuntu user :) if you are aiming to run Vista in a few (years?), then yes, you'd better be prepared to have a beefy computer.
posted by a007r at 5:41 PM on January 18, 2006

Wow, I'm surprised you can get away with running ubuntu with 512 megs of ram. I'd recommend upgrading to a gig. Believe me, you will certainly notice the difference!
posted by meta87 at 6:00 PM on January 18, 2006

who needs those billion gigaherts, unless you are running Gentoo?

Not to derail, but one of the reasons that I *heart* Gentoo is the fact that when properly optimized, it can squeeze every last drop of performance out of older hardware. I'm running it on a general purpose machine that was originally one of the front-end web servers for the 2000 Sydney Olympics -- few of my users believe that they're using a machine that's clock speed is measured in Megahertz.
posted by toxic at 6:14 PM on January 18, 2006

You have almost the exact same setup as I do, except for I have an A8N-E mobo and a NVidia 6600 graphics card. I'm sure you'll be satisfied with your setup.

I was going for a 'quiet PC' when I got the Sonata case, but it wasn't that way out-of-the-box. I have:

- Swapped out the power supply for a Seasonic S12
- Swapped out the stock CPU cooler for a Zalman sunflower
- Swapped out the stock GPU cooler for another Zalman sunflower (though I should have just stuck a big passive heatsink on it)
- Replaced the northbridge fan on the motherboard with a big passive heatsink
- Removed the 'cpu cooling' duct and HVAC-taped over the rear duct inlet grille

After that little bit of modification it is quite quiet and still looks and feels rock-solid. The CPU fan doesn't even spin when the machine is idling thanks to ASUS's 'Q-Fan' automatic fan speed control.

Good luck.
posted by anthill at 6:38 PM on January 18, 2006

Silent PC Review has more.
posted by anthill at 6:39 PM on January 18, 2006

You can definitely get a modern motherboards with both PCI-E and AGP slots - for intel and AMD. I'm on the fence about how good an idea they are though... I've never tried one.
posted by Chuckles at 7:38 PM on January 18, 2006

When someone asks me for recommendations on parts for building a PC, my first step is always to refer them to ArsTechnica's Buyers Guides, in particular their three system price points: the God Box, the Hot Rod, and the Budget Box. Updated every couple months, those configurations give you a great snapshot of the market.

Definitely get a gig of RAM.

I'm running Ubuntu on:
small form factor Shuttle SN95G5 V2 with 130nm Athlon 64 3500+ (no OC)
RAM: Corsair 1024MB TwinX XMS 3200C2
MSI FX5200 DVI card (quiet, passive, even a fanned FX5600 was too loud for me!)
Two non-SATA 2.5-inch (not 3.5) HDD in a HW RAID config, fits into ONE 3.5-inch bay, thank you ARCO MicroRAID
Mitsumi FDD+Flash card reader combo, Plextor DVD burner

Not that much of this is relevant to you, but you might get some ideas from the above (especially the Mitsumi combo thing and the cruelly underappreciated hardware RAID -- most RAID setups are in fact software RAID).
posted by intermod at 8:25 PM on January 18, 2006

get more ram, 2x1g kits are cheap and it makes a big difference

graphics card:
cheapest card would be a geforce 6600 (brand name uncrippled models in the usa start at 90$, that would be the msi 128mb version, uncrippled generic/no-name cards start at 70$)
a little more future-proof are the radeon x1600 cards (starting at ~125$)

vista runs on every nvidia geforce since the fx series and every ati card since the 9x00 (9500 i guess), that's official so don't worry
posted by suni at 4:41 AM on January 19, 2006

hardware raid under a certain price is in fact software raid too and worse than real software raid in performance and data safety

vers, if you want to run raid for data safety purposes then a software raid is much easier to rebuild and allows you to take out one of the drives and use it on another machine without problems
posted by suni at 4:56 AM on January 19, 2006

Thank you all for providng useful information, especially the point made about RAID, and the confirmation of compatible graphics cards with Vista - much appreciated!
posted by vers at 2:42 PM on January 19, 2006