rec.autos.simulators

I am looking to have a new rig for Sim Racing and I am trying to
decide whether to build it or buy it, or possibly go with a bare bones
unit  (I guess a half way house).I have never built a PC before and
would like to give it a try but as I am looking to go for a pretty
high spec. P4 3.0 800, with corresponding components I wonder if as a
newbie I will be able to build a good machine?  Never Oc'd either but
kinda interested in that too!

Any thoughts on the best way to go? i am prettty confident UI could
put all the bits together but whether it would run as well as it could
is another question?

Thanks

Andrew

Anyways, if you feel you have the skills to do it yourself, then there's
no question I'd advice you to build your own, even if you never enter
the BIOS setup and just run with *absolutely* stock, it will most likely
perform very well, it may not set new speed records, but it will perform

The big problem however is not actually assembling it, just about anyone
with a bit of common sense and a tiny bit of knowledge can do that bit,
don't wear nylon clothing and stuff like that, the mechanics bit isn't
difficult, just remember not to attach the mainboard directly to the
backplate in the cabinet and things like that

The difficult bit comes when something *isn't* working properly and you
have to troubleshoot....that's when the fun starts, basically you're on
your own and have to rely on your own skills or the dubious help you get
from "friends with computer knowledge", if you have a local shop
assemble it for you, it's their responsibility to make sure the thing is
in basic working order before you take delivery of it, not saying they
will test every game they know under the sun to make sure it works, but
most likely they will do a "burn in" test to make sure the thing is in
basic working order, and if stops working, you can just drop it off at
their place and tell them to ***y fix it

Overclocking....if you're a "newbie" and you're building a high end
computer, why would you want to Overclock it ? :-)

Don't get me wrong, OCing is fun and I do it all the time, but OC'ing a
high end computer doesn't really make much "sense" since you already
have a PC capable of performing most tasks, it makes much more sense to
OC a 2.4 than a 3.0 since it's likely to be more responsive to OC'ing in
the first place, my 2.4 will run at 3.1 if I ask nicely, my 2.8 runs at
3.5, but at the time of purchase the 2.8 cost more than 50% more than
the 2.4 and it doesn't make a huge difference in performance, but hey,
it's fun :-)

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy
"goyl at nettx dot no"

http://www.racesimcentral.net/

"A man is only as old as the woman he feels........"
--Groucho Marx--

If you don't know how to do it, there are tons of articles online to do it.
You'll save tons,  and you'll actually know a bit about computers when
you're done.

Mike
http://mikebeauchamp.com

Any more??

Note: if the person does not think they can handle this, then they should
find a friend to help them.  I honestly feel that this is _so_ worth it it's
ok to swaller your pride for 2 hours and trade the next-door-kid some pizza
for their help :)

First, save up until you can buy the best possible.

Then build the thing yourself.  Period.  The experience gained by building
your own PC simply cannot be overstated.  You'll have insite into the
machine that will pay dividends for years to come, and it will also make
learning 'new' things as time goes on much easier because you will have a
baseline of knowledge to work from.

Will it be cheaper than buying pre-built?  Probably not.  But that's not
really the point.

And keep this in mind.  While building your own machine may not be cheaper,
there is one benifit that cannot be overlooked.  You will have absolute,
total control of _every_ component that goes into that machine.  No worries
about shitty WinModems, third-rate NIC cards, 5400 RPM hard drives,
Motherboards with brain-dead BIOS's, etc...

Now, if _I_ were building a machine today, and I actually might start on
this in January to replace my current 2.5Ghz P4 system, this is what I would
assemble:

1.  ABIT IT7-Max3 Motherboard.
2.  1GB of the best RAM I could find.
3.  Intel Pentium 4 3.2Ghz Extreme.
4.  The new Plextor CDRW/DVD Recorder (I forget the model number).
5.  A Second CDRW Drive only Drive rated for the best burn and ripping times
(I would need to research this).
6.  Antec 500+ watt TruePower Power Supply.
7.  Lian-Li PC70 series case.
8.  Intel 10/100/1000 NIC Card.
9.  Floppy Drive, of course.
10.Western Digital 250GB SATA Hard Drive.

My Mitsubishi DiamandPro 2060u 22" Monitor would transfer over.

Now, as for the Sound Card, that's a tough one for me right now.  I still
feel the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz is one of the best, most trouble-free sound
cards ever sold, but Turtle Beach seems to be losing interest in Sound Cards
these days.  The latest drivers, which suck (really, especially for NR2003),
are Release Candidates that haven't been updated since June.  The "61s"
drivers are the best for NR2003 right now.  Though I have a personal, deep
disdain for Creative, at this point I may just have to cross back over the
fence and get a new Audigy 2.  I just can't shake the feeling that I would
be sorry if I did because of some lame engineering short-cut they took, or
something about thier drivers pissing me off again.  I would also have to
research out the latest Hercules Theater-XP box before making a decision,
but Hercules pissed me off over the whole Windows XP driver thing a few
years ago and I haven't quite forgiven them yet either :)

As for the keyboard, well, IMHO a truly great keyboard hasn't been made in
about 8 years so I'd probably just stick with the MS Office Keyboard for
now.

Mouse - No contest.  Logitec MX-700 until something better comes along.

After it's all built, I'd replace one of my older servers with the current
system's guts (keeping the servers Lian-Li PC-70 case, of course).

That's what I'd do, yes sir... :)

-Larry

Build is the only way to go. I have built and upgraded my own pc's for years
now.
Nice thing about it, you get exactly what you want - upgrade individual
components as you see fit, etc.
Seems like I am constantly upgrading something, I just don't seem happy
unless I am replacing something every 6 months or so :).
I will be dropping a new Athlon XP2600+ Barton core processer with SLK900
heat sink in my current Nforce2 mb hopefully sometime today, at a cost to me
of app 120 bucks for both.

If you've ever replaced a hard drive, pci card, power supply - building
won't be that difficult for you. Just take your time on the first build,
read all info carefully, and you will be successfull. And the satisfying
feeling when you boot that puppy up the first time - well, it is great!

--
Don Burnette

But your right, overclocking a high end system certainly is not necessary
for the little gain - more for the hobbyist than anything.

--
Don Burnette

Next big decision would be Athlon verus Pentium based system.
I have been running Athlon for a while now, and have been quite happy with
the bang for the buck.
I currently run an Athlon XP processor on an Nforce2 motherboard ( Asus
A7N8X Deluxe), rock solid and great performance. In my opinion, there are
only 2 really great Nforce 2 motherboards, the Asus board, and the Abit NF7.
Both are very stable, and offer many bios options should you need them - as
well as good onboard sound if you don't want the added expense of a good
sound card. I run an Audigy2 ZS soundcard, but I hear the onboard AC97 sound
is fairly close in quality - but it does put a little more load on the cpu.
Unless you have a really good speaker system, you would probably be very
happy with the onboard sound.

I also run an ATI 9700 Pro video card, excellent card - runs aa and as very
well with little performance hit. Although I believe they are probably hard
to find now as the 9800 Pro has pretty much displaced it at this point, and
even better card - but not by a lot. If you don't want to go to the expense
of a 9800 Pro, the 9600 is getting good reviews as well, and can be
overclocked some. Currrently ATI has the leg up on Nvidia though.

Main thing - if you build your own - buy quality components - the little
extra up front will pay off in the long run. Don't skimp on memory quality,
and don't skimp on power supply - nothing can create more grief than a cheap
power supply, or low quality ram.

My current system:

Asus A7N8X Deluxe mb
Antec True Power 430w power supply
Athlon XP2400+ processor ( have a 2600+ Athlon Barton core with Thermalrite
SLK900 hs waiting to be dropped in)
Thermalrite SLK 800 heatsink with 80mm Delta fan
1gb Corsair Low Latency matched ( 2x512) ddr ram.
ATI 9700 Pro 128 mb vid card
2 ea WD 7200 rpm  120 gb hard drives
1 ea Buslink 80gb external usb2 hard drive ( for backup imaging)
Lite On 52X CDRW
Sony 52X CD rom
Audigy2 ZS soundcard
Klipsch Pro Media 5.1 Speaker system
D Link 4 port powered ubs 2.0 hub ( all my periphs are usb now) - having the
powered hub helps relieve power requirements put on the mb.

Granted , I didn't spend the money to put all this together at one time, it
was done over time, so the expense came gradually.

--
Don Burnette

        ??
        Why? I took out my FD. This only use resources (and can produce
possible mess). -- Mario

A few other q.s, I am becoming more and more atracted to the small
form factor, Shuttle Biostar and perhaps the Monarch Hornet, any one
using any of these out there?

As far as CPU more peope are sayimg go with the Athlon64 (can't or
will not stretch to the 64FX!) even though OS aren't optimised for 64
yet, any opinions or thoughts?

Finally is it worth going for 1 gig ram as opposed to 512?

   I don't have the Hornet, but I have purchased two motherboard/cpu combos
from Monarch this past fall.  No complaints as far as price/shipping and
getting what I ordered.  THe motherboards arrived with the AMD cpu/heatsink
already installed and tested.  So I didn't have to sweat the 'too little-
too much' thermal paste application.

dave henrie

Don't forget non-existant cooling.
Come on Gateway, surely you could afford to put a fan in the computers you
build...

I honestly don't know, but I'm assuming they have the room since the boxes
are aimed at Gamers.  Wouldn't do much good to target gamers then tell them
they had to use 'onboard' video and shared memory.

dave henrie

Deon

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy
"goyl at nettx dot no"

http://www.theuspits.com

"A man is only as old as the woman he feels........"
--Groucho Marx--