Anyone here build pc's?

I am looking around for a new computer to get and was wondering if anyone on the board here built PC's.

Also I was wondering, what do you all think is a nice video card for 2d and video editing? Or any type of PC's in mind?

well, really any video card will do for image editing, but some folks, like myself, enjoy having a lot of desktop space...a resolution like 1600x1200 is pretty damn nice when you are working with images with large dimensions...or going dual video and getting 2 nice monitors is great.

Here are my tips.

If you play alot of video games, get a decent Nvidia or ATI Radeon card. You don't need to spend a fortune on them, just search the net (pricewatch.com) and find yourself a good deal. Unless you really care, don't worry about all that crap about pixel shaders and verticies blah blah. Just get one that will do what you need it to do. Personally, im still using a Geforce 2 i bought 3 years ago. It plays my games fine and does what I need it to do on the desktop.

If you want to splurge on a video card, get a Radeon 9800 pro...they're very nice.

For cpu...my personal experiences make me lean toward Intel. It's what I've always used. Im not an intel nazi and if I built a new machine, I would probably go with AMD...but anything that is modern these days, is going to be fast enough to do your work. I still use dual p3 733's and photoshop 7 runs very well on it...of course...I have a gig of pc133 ram as well.

The most important thing is to come up with a budget for your new pc. Then, with that budget find the things you can afford to buy, while still making a decent pc. A 1+ghz cpu should do you well, but some folks like lots of power...whatever suits your fancy.

If I was going to recommend a brand of PC to buy, I would have to say Alienware right now...I have never heard any of my friends complain about their customer service or the system they bought from them. I have heard many complaints about Dell...because their tech support is off-shore...which some folks don't really like.

Now, if you dont play games when you aren't doing design work and you are serious about design, get a mac. www.macwarehouse.com has some really nice deals...talk to deker or pank or u23...they can give you some great mac advice.

A friend of mine just bought a case/mobo/ram from www.monarchcomputer.com then put in his own hard drive, video card, power supply, etc that he got cheaper from www.newegg.com. I helped him build it and it was very easy. I don't know about the mobo and seating the processor though, so maybe buying one with that part done would be a good idea. He had a very good experience with monarch though. They built it in a few days and shipped it for free. He worked with one sales guy the whole time so the service was very personable and you don't have to talk to someone from india who you can't even understand.

a better question is probably who DOESN't build pc's on here

and yeah, get a geforce fx 5600 with at least 128mb or one of the faster 128mb radeon cards and you'll be fine. loading with ram (at least 512mb, preferably a gig) will also GREATLY speed up your editing.

chris

As far as installing your motherboard, CPU, etc. etc., don't even be intimidated by it. It's cake, really it is. Even if you don't know what you're doing, as long as you're intelligent enough to take it slow and methodically and not bash things around like an ape then you'll be fine.

I've been building my own rigs since 1994.

Regarding the amount of ram: Considering you are here I'm assuming you're a Photoshop junkie to at least some degree. ;) That being the case I'd strongly recommend at least 768MB of RAM. I myself thought I was getting by just fine with only 512MB RAM for the past couple years. However just a couple weeks ago I bumped myself up to 768MB and I have definitely noticed the improved performance in Photoshop. I think 1GB of RAM is not unreasonable at all for any Photoshop user.

I would agree with the other's assessments of video cards. I'm still using a GeForce 2 as well and it still functions well for my needs.

random video card thought...the comments in general are right on (i've got a 64mb geforce 3 that i have no issues with) but stay away from the lower end models of the geforce lines (geforce4 mx, geforce fx 5200) and spend just a few more bucks for the mid-range models, from what i've read there's a significant performance difference.

chris

I don't build PCs, it's a whole lot cheaper to buy pre-built, you get an integrated warranty, customer support, and no worries about incompatibility.

if you play video games, get an ati radeon 9x00

[QUOTE=mattboy_slim]I don't build PCs, it's a whole lot cheaper to buy pre-built, you get an integrated warranty, customer support, and no worries about incompatibility.[/QUOTE]

If you build it yourself it won't necessarily be cheaper (used to be that way but not now-a-days) but it will be a better quality machine. Even if you buy the cheapest parts you can get you will rarely get stuff thats as low quality as what you'd find in an Emachines or similar pre-built rigs. They cut every corner they can.

Customer support? lol. Unless you get a Dell customer support is virtually non existint and even Dell has been slipping lately. And when you do reach someone they often don't know squat.

Incompatibility? You talking about hardware incompatibilities? That's not a major concern...not even a minor one really.

[QUOTE=mattboy_slim]I don't build PCs, it's a whole lot cheaper to buy pre-built, you get an integrated warranty, customer support, and no worries about incompatibility.[/QUOTE]

:o Blasphemy!

Nos.