[PLUG] New Hardware Recommendations

Carla Schroder carla at bratgrrl.com
Thu Sep 7 16:49:44 UTC 2006


On Thursday 07 September 2006 09:25, Richard C. Steffens wrote:
>  From my other post, you should understand the reason for this one!
> 
> I'm starting to seriously think about building a new computer. I'm sure 
> everyone has their own "best" idea of what to get, and where. What I'd 
> like are recommendations on how to think about that.
> 
> I'd like a machine that has sufficient horsepower and memory to handle 
> the usual everyday stuff like T-bird and Firefox, The GIMP, and a few 
> games. I'd also like to retire my old Win98 machine and run the few 
> programs I need to under VMware. Plus, I'll want to be able to try out 
> some Linux CAD tools, and one or two games.
> 
> I'm guessing that almost any ordinary box will probably handle that, but 
> I'd like to hear what the collective wisdom has to say.
> 
> This time, I'd like to take the time to go get the various parts and 
> build the box from scratch - get a quiet case, a motherboard, etc. At 
> least, I'd like to look at the difference in cost doing it that way vs. 
> buying a box at a local outlet, such as Pacific Solutions. I'm willing 
> to order from reliable web stores, since I'm not in a big hurry.
> 
> Thanks for any recommendations.
> 
>

Hardware is fun! Here are the bits I've been using the last couple years and 
liking a lot:

-Antec Sonata case. love them. They're big, but you can't beat their cooling, 
quietness, and ease of access
-Thermaltake power supplies are very good and nicely-priced. Of course PC 
Power & Cooling are the top-of-the-line, if you can afford them.
-SATA hard drive or drives
-Crucial and Kingston RAM are affordable and good-quality
-Don't go cheap on the motherboard because this will hurt you over the long 
run. Check the reviews on Newegg.com and Anandtech. Tom's Hardware used to be 
helpful, but who has the time or patience to click through twenty ad-laden 
pages just to read a single article?
-AMD processors. Semprons are great buys, though I suppose if you can find a 
deal on an Athlon that would be a good choice. AMD 64 has native 32-bit 
support, so you can use either 32- or 64-bit Linux. It looks like socket AM2 
is the new kewl socket, and 754 is being phased out

Gotchas to look out for:

-RAM comes in all kinds of speeds now. You must get the correct speed
-PCI comes in multiple flavors:
	
	3.3 volt
	5 volt
	PCI-Express

If you have the budget, go for PCI-E. This uses dedicated buses instead of a 
shared bus for all devices, so it's very fast, and it's backwards-compatible, 
so you can still use your old PCI adapters.
 
Voltage incompatibility can bite you. 5 volt is the old stuff, 3.3 is new. 
Some mobos support both. 

Start your research at Newegg.com. Their prices are great, lots of customer 
reviews, and their shipping is almost instant. It's a good place to do your 
homework before talking to a local vendor.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Carla Schroder
 check out my "Linux Cookbook", the ultimate Linux user's
 and sysadmin's guide! http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxckbk/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



More information about the PLUG mailing list