Solprovider's Hardware Recommendations

October 2003

This guide is for people who want to build their own computer system, and expect to still be happy with it in 3 years. I use the same criteria I have always used: buy the earliest and least expensive example of the latest technology. Hardware typically is available for a year before software takes advantage of it, so this system will be able to run the latest software for at least 2 years, and for most uses, it will valid for several more years. A Pentium133 I built was retired last year; the hard drive was the only part upgraded, and a CD writer was added when that technology became available. A Pentium500 is still in use as it was built in 1999, and should be usable for another 2 years, although a DVD writer may be added soon. In the last year, I have built 1 Pentium1900, and 2 Pentium2400s; I expect them to keep their owners happy for at least 4 years.

Note that I am a corporate consultant, not a hobbyist, and not a PC manufacturer. The PCs I build (and support) are for friends and family. These recommendations were compiled because a friend asked for my advice. They will only be updated when I need to do this research again.

This guide is recommending the most economic and stable system. Economic means that I recommend the lowest Ghz CPU, because you would not notice the speed increase from buying a faster CPU. Stable means I am recommending PC3200 RAM, since the faster RAM is only useful if you are overclocking the bus, which would reduce the stability.

I do not understand how AMD chips are comparable to Intel, since today they run at much slower bus speeds, and you will not save $100 by using them. Many of the hardware sites recommend AMD, so there must be something good about them. This could be residual fondness from when AMDs had a 200Mhz bus and Intel was stuck at 133Mhz. Then Intel leapfrogged to 400Mhz. If you want an AMD-based computer, you are reading the wrong person's recommendations.

So you do not need to jump to the bottom, the system I recommend is about $1400 without keyboard, mouse, or monitor. The prices listed are the best I could find on the web while I was researching the parts. I recommend buying the motherboard, CPU, RAM and maybe the case from a single vendor so if there is a problem, there is only one vendor for the base system. Many of the best prices came from ZipZoomFly.com, formerly GoogleGear.com. I am a satisfied customer who has not needed to return anything yet, but I have no other affiliation with them. But I keep recommending them, and have not heard any complaints. The owner of the WindowsXP system discussed below did return a motherboard to them without any hassles.

Operating System

MSWindowsXP has driver issues, virus issues, runs slower and requires more memory. Oh, and that activation thing where you let Microsoft have full access to your PC, and if you upgrade too much, you need to call them. I am trying to set up a WindowsXP PC for a friend. Microsoft's "WindowsUpdate" just errors, and it received a virus while we were connecting to WindowsUpdate. Running ZoneAlarm 3.7 killed all internet access, so he bought Norton's Firewall. After over a week of attempting to keep it running virus-free and stable, he wiped the drive. He did reinstall MSWindowsXP, but is afraid to connect it to the internet. He plays too many MSWindows-based games to switch to Linux.

For my gaming systems, I still use MSWindows98SE. If you are not a gamer, get a real operating system. Linux is the inexpensive option, because most software you would want is free. If you need commercial software, then consider an Apple. If you want an Apple, you can stop reading this page.

For corporate users, use Apples. If your users do not require the ease of Apple, or if you want to lower costs, then use Linux. Mandrake and SuSE have good versions for desktops. Do not use Lindows; it is almost as insecure as MSWindows.

The system listed here is overkill for corporate users. They do not need the sound, video, hard drive space, or ability to plug in many USB and Firewire devices that this system offers. If you need assistance, please contact me. I am a corporate technology consultant, and spend most of my work time planning infrastructure and designing applications to make businesses run better. I can help you.

Motherboard

Motherboards using the Intel87P chipset start around $120

Motherboards using the Intel865PE chipset start at $66 (No IDE133, Sound, or LAN), or $90 with decent features.
Motherboards using the Intel865G chipset steal 64MB of RAM for use as integrated video. These are good for corporate systems, and for people who do not care about good graphics. If you are using an LCD monitor, they can be a good choice, since LCD monitors cannot take advantage of modern video boards anyway.

The 875 chipset adds PAT (Performance Acceleration Technology). This helps memory speeds reach their full potential. There is only one 875 chipset (the 875P), so there are none with integrated graphics yet.

Non-Intel chipsets may not have the ability to Hyper-Thread, which speeds the computer when many tasks are running. And only the 875 has PAT, so that is my recommendation for the best of today's technology.

Intel brand motherboards are not listed because they do not have FireWire or IDE133. FireWire is an Apple invention, and Intel does not want it to be popular. I do not know why their motherboards do not support IDE133. If you get a motherboard with SATA, you probably will not miss the IDE133. If you are buying a soundcard with FireWire, then you may not want it on the motherboard.

I have built computers with ASUS motherboards, and had some issues that were easily corrected since I had access to the internet.

Recently, I have been very happy with Gigabyte motherboards. The only issue was that one of the driver CDs was unusable due to the surface peeling off. I had bought several of this motherboard, so I had another copy of the CD.

All of the motherboards listed have these features, unless noted otherwise:

RAM	4 sockets
LAN	Gigabit for all.
Bus speed	800Mhz for all.
AUDIO	6 channel

I recommend using 512MB PC3200 DDR400 DIMMs. 1GB DIMMs are very expensive.
For MSWindows98SE, use 1 512MB DIMM.
For MSWindowsXP, use a matched pair. MSWindowsXP does not run full speed without at least 1GB of RAM. More than 1GB will not affect much.
This should be plenty of memory for any tasks other than creating or editing movies.
Linux users can stay with 512MB. Linux can run well with less, but 512MB is $52, so why get less?

Each IDE can have 2 devices, either hard drives (HDDs) or DVD/CDROMs. I believe each SATA handle one hard drive. So if the specs say: 2xIDE100 2xSATA, that means you can attach 4 IDE devices plus 2 SATA hard drives. SATA runs at 150Mhz, so it is faster than IDE133. SATA hard drives are almost always $10 more than an identical IDE hard drive. For best results, boot from a SATA drive, and use any IDE100 ports for DVD/CDROMs.

If you will not use all the ports and drives, then you can get decent motherboard for under $100.

$204	Gigabyte GA-8KNXP
	RAM	6 [Slots 5 & 6 can only be used if all RAM is single-sided.]
	VIDEO	AGP4,8,PRO
	HDD	2xIDE100 2xSATA RAID0 2xIDE133 2xSATA RAID0,1,0+1 [Can use connector so one SATA drive can be external for hot swapping with the case closed.]
	8 USB2, 3FW, 1 IrDA
$180	ASUS Intel 875P Chipset P4C800-E DELUXE
	VIDEO	AGP8,PRO [Not 4x]
	HDD	2xIDE100 2xSATA RAID0 1xIDE133, 2xSATA RAID0,1,0+1
	8 USB2, 2FW
[I do not know Tyan, but FiringSquad mentioned this one.]
$183	Tyan Trinity S5101 S5101ANNRF
	VIDEO	AGP4,8,Pro
	HDD	2xIDE100 4xSATA RAID
	NIC	Gigabit + 10/100 [2 NICs. Very useful if you want this system to act like a firewall. Other motherboards would require a PCI NIC.]
	8 USB2, 2FW, IrDA
$142	Tyan Trinity S5101 S5101ANF
	VIDEO	AGP4,8,Pro
	HDD	2xIDE100 4xSATA
	8 USB2, 2FW, IrDA
[I do not like MSI, but these received good reviews.]
$180	MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R (MS-6758)
	VIDEO	AGP4,8 [Not PRO]
	HDD	2xIDE100 RAID 0 1xIDE133, 2xSATA RAID0,1,0+1
	8 USB2, 3 FW
$135	MSI 865PE Neo 2-FIS2R (MS-6728) [Uses Intel865PE chipset.]
	VIDEO	AGP4,8 [Not PRO]
	HDD	2xIDE100 2xSATA RAID 0
	8 USB2, 3 FW
[Here are some cheap boards. I recently used Gigabyte motherboards in a couple of computers and like them.]
$121	Gigabyte GA-8iG1000 Pro [Uses i865G]
	VIDEO	AGP8x [Not 4x] [Integrated video! The i865G chipset steals 64MB of RAM for video.]
	HDD	2xIDE100 2xSATA
	2 USB2, 2FW
$109	Gigabyte GA-8iPE1000 Pro [Uses i865PE]
	VIDEO	AGP8x [Not 4x]
	HDD	2xIDE100 2xSATA
	2 USB2, 2FW
$ 77	Gigabyte GA-8S648FX-L [Uses SiS 648FX chipset.]
	RAM	Only 3 DIMMs
	VIDEO	AGP4,8
	HDD	2xIDE133 [No SATA!]
	2 USB2, 1FW

CPU

P4-#.#CGHz/800 Sock 478 Northwood (Retail)
Intel "C" versions are for the 800Mhz bus.

Ghz	ZipZoomFly (NOV11)	SharkyExtreme (NOV5)
2.4	$185	$178
2.6	$175	$174
2.8	$213	$211
3.0	$272	$270
3.2	$396	$394

The bus speed is more important than the CPU speed. Slower bus speeds will not save $10. Paying anything extra for CPU speed is a waste.
- That said, this page originally said it was not worth $30 to upgrade from 2.4Ghz to 2.6Ghz. The promised October price drop happened. For some reason, the 2.6 is now cheaper than the 2.4, so get the 2.6.

RAM

DDR400 PC3200 (minimum, also PC3500 or PC3700) matched set, at least 1 GB. 1GB RAM is the the minimum recommendation for WinXP.
If using Win98SE, use 512MB, since the swap routines have trouble if more than 512MB is installed. If you do use more memory, disable virtual memory.

About the specifications:
The numbers relate to the number of clock cycles used for various operations, so lower numbers are better. You can have halves, because the RAM runs on both the up and down withing each clock cycle. The first number is the CL; it is sometimes listed separately, so "CL2 3-4-5" is the same as "2-3-4-5". For buying purposes, the first number is the most important, and can be 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3 or more. I did not see any RAM at CL1.5.

$ 52	PC3200 400Mhz 512MB
$ 82	Kingston PC3200 512MB DDR400 Kingston Original Memory D512M400KI

$???	PC3200 400Mhz 1GB (2x512 Matched)
$168	PC3200 Corsair VS1GBKIT400C3 1GB Kit CAS3 Value Select
$176	PC3200 Corsair VS1GBKIT400 1GB Kit CAS2.5 ValueSelect

$100	PC3500 433Mhz 512MB
$212	PC3500 433Mhz 1GB (2x512 Matched)
$420	Kingston HyperX 1024-PC3500 (2 x 512MB) Dual Channel DDR Kit KHX3500K2/1G CL2-4-4-8.

$125	PC3700 466Mhz 512MB
$310	PC3700 466Mhz 1GB (2x512 Matched)

Kingston 2x512MB MATCHED PAIRS DDR

$179	KVR400X64C3AK2/1G	3-3-3-3
$231	KHX3200AK2/1G	2-3-2-6-1	HyperX w/Aluminum HeatSpreader
$265	KHX3200K2/1G	2-2-2-6-1	HyperX w/Aluminum HeatSpreader
$398	KRX3200K2/1G	3-3-3	HyperX, RegisteredECC
$572	KVR400X64C3A/1G	3-3-3

$1143	KVR400X64C3AK2/2G	3-3-3	2GB

Corsair 2x512MB MATCHED PAIRS DDR

Corsair brand gets great reviews, but the Kingston matched pairs above have better numbers.
(Black/Platinum column is heatsink)

$???	TwinX1024-3200LLPRO	XMS3200	2-3-2-6	Black	XMS ProSeries
$325	TwinX1024RE-3200LL	XMS3200	2-3-2-6-T1	Black
$???	TwinX1024RE-3200LLPT	XMS3200	2-3-2-6-T1	Platinum
$285	TWINX1024-3200C2PRO	XMS3200	2-3-3-7-T1	Black	XMS ProSeries
$298	TwinX1024-3200LL	XMS3200	2-3-2-6-T1	Black
$283	TwinX1024-3200LLPT	XMS3200	2-3-2-6-T1	Platinum
$277	TwinX1024R-3200C2	XMS3200	2-3-3-7-T1	Black
$245	TwinX1024R-3200C2PT	XMS3200	2-3-3-7-T1	Platinum
$245	TwinX1024-3200C2	XMS3200	2-3-3-7-T1	Black
$???	TwinX1024-3200C2PT	XMS3200	2-3-3-7-T1	Platinum

$279	TwinX1024-3700	XMS3700	3-4-4-8	Black
$308	TwinX1024-3700PT	XMS3700	3-4-4-8	Platinum

$369	TWINX1024-4000PRO	XMS4000	3-4-4-8	Black	XMS ProSeries
$350	TWINX1024-4000	XMS4000	3-4-4-8	Black
$350	TWINX1024-4000PT	XMS4000	3-4-4-8	Platinum
You may want to use the 3700 or 4000 (DDR500) if you will be overclocking, otherwise the 3200 is fine. If you are overclocking the bus, you probably want faster than the 2.4Ghz CPU, so this guide may not be for you.

Hard drives

I try not to list any drives that are more than $1 per 1GB, except there are new Western Digital Raptor drives that run at 10,000rpm. The only model is 36GB SATA for $102. This is probably the fastest drive on the market for consumers. If you get it for your boot drive, you will want another drive to store data.

In case it is not obvious, I really like Maxtor.

Western Digital does weird things with jumpers. The jumper settings for "Single" (only one drive) and "Master" (2 drives, but boot from this one) should be the same. WD made them different, so you must change the jumpers if you add or remove a second drive. Jumpers are very easy to drop, and very difficult to put on correctly while the drive is in the case. It upset me to do this extra step when it is not necessary with any other brand because WD ignored the industry standards.

I had difficulties exchanging Seagate drives in the mid 90s. They repeatedly sent us refurbished replacement drives that did not work. After 5 replacements, they still refused to send a new drive. We finally used it as a paperweight and bought a Maxtor.

Many IBM drives were guaranteed to fail within 6 months. The average life was about 2 months, but one failed in less than 48 hours. One office with 40 IBM computers bought 5 spares so they would be covered while the broken systems were being exchanged constantly. The good side was that the users were trained to constantly back up anything important.
I recently read that some of them can last almost 2 years, so I guess they are improving.
Also, IBM does not want to talk to consumers, so you must work with the company that sold the drive to you. Given how often you need to replace the drives, these people can get as frustrated as you will be about replacing the drives.

I have only had one Maxtor drive fail. It failed just as the 3 year warranty was expiring. Maxtor sent me a replacement without hassles, and I used the box from the replacement to send back the dead drive.

I should research Seagate again, but they seem to be priced higher than the others.

Warranties

There have recently been changes to many hard drive warranty policies.

Maxtor claims the Diamondmax Plus 9 drives will last 5 years with less than 1% failing.
The Maxtor Maxline Plus line is supposed to be twice the normal reliability.
Maxtor still has advance replacement in 2 business days.

Starting May 12, 2003,
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus ATA drives that have an 8MB cache buffer AND capacities of 120GB or greater, and all MAXLine� ATA drives are under warranty for 3 years.
All other DiamondMax Plus drives, Maxtor Fireball�, DiamondMax� ATA drives are under warranty for only 1 year. This is a great reason to only buy drives at least 120GB.

Starting October 1, 2003 for Western Digital:
Raptor� Enterprise SATA drives are under warranty for 5 years.
Caviar� SE drives are under warranty for 3 years. (SE = Special Edition)
Caviar� and Prot�g� EIDE drives are under warranty for 1 year.
After careful research, I realized Western Digital does not have IDE133 drives, and its only SATA drive is the 36GB Raptor, so they have been removed from these lists (leaving only Maxtor.)

7200rpm IDE133 HDD

$ 88	120GB	Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 2MB
$104	120GB	Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 8MB
$124	160GB	Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 2MB
$134	160GB	Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 8MB
$175	200GB	Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 8MB
$235	250GB	Maxtor Maxline Plus II

Make certain you have the correct cables for IDE133. The cable has twice (80) the number of wires of IDE100 (40). (Half of the wires in either cable are buffers, but IDE133 uses all 40 pins.)

SATA HDD

$102	36GB	Western Digital Raptor 10,000rpm
$105	120GB	Maxtor� 120GB Diamondmax Plus 9-Hard Drive 8MB Cache 7200rpm
$134	160GB	Maxtor� 160GB Diamondmax Plus 9-Hard Drive 8MB Cache 7200rpm
$185	200GB	Maxtor� 200GB Diamondmax Plus 9-Hard Drive 8MB Cache 7200rpm
$265	250GB	Maxtor Maxline Plus II

If you only get 1 drive, use a SATA since they transfer at 150Mhz.
SATA drives are hot-swappable, but not recommended if it is the boot device.

My friend did buy the Gigabyte GA-8KNXP motherboard and the 160GB Maxtor 8MB SATA hard drive. After installation, we told the BIOS to treat the SATA drive as the master IDE (C:), made the CDROM the slave, and told it to boot from the CDROM. Everything looked good until it looked for the OS when it decided there were no hard drives. I moved the CDROM to the 2nd IDE Master. Same thing. We rebooted a few times, moving the hard drive to different SATA ports with the same symptoms. We finally shut down and took a break. When we came back, everything worked perfectly. So remember to cold boot if the SATA drive has trouble being recognized after setting the BIOS.

The Gigabyte motherboard could handle:
8 x Maxtor160IDE133 = 1280GB @ $1000
4 x Maxtor200SATA = 800GB @ $740
Gonna spend $1800 on HDDs to have over 2TB of HDD space with no CDROM/DVD? Or get 3GB for about $3,000 by using the 250GB MaxLines.
But not if you want to boot from a SATA drive!
Experience talking: If you want to boot from a SATA drive, then you lose one of the IDE drives since the SATA drive replaces the IDE drive in the BIOS. I think this is necessary since MSWindows requires the boot device to be the C: drive. I do not know if this limitation would affect a Linux system, or a system that runs GRUB as the boot loader. I would expect that if GRUB is installed on the C: drive, then the OS files could be located on any drive, but I do not have the hardware or time to prove it.

VIDEO

64MB	$35-$1940
128MB	$77-$ 990
256MB	$90-$1100

What are you looking for? What price?
Many cards handle 2 monitors. Matrox Parhelia handles 3.
ATI AIW for TV capabilities.
RADEON (or NVidia) for gaming
If you want best DirectX9 support, use Radeon 9500, 9600, 9700, or 9800.
NVidia has been having driver issues, and image quality is not up to Radeons. (If you want another opinion, read a different website.)

Video cards for CRTs

$ 81	128MB	ATI Technologies RADEON 9000 Pro
$114	128MB	POWERCOLOR RADEON R96-C3	[Radeon 9600]
$120	64MB	ATI Technologies All-In-Wonder 9000 Pro
$152	128MB	Sapphire Radeon 9600 Atlantis Pro
$202	128MB	ATI Technologies RADEON 9500 Pro
$217	128MB	ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 PRO AGP 8X 128MB DDR
$219	128MB	PowerColor RADEON R98SE-C3	[Radeon 9800 SE]
$291	128MB	ATI Technologies RADEON 9800 PRO
$300	128MB	ATI Technologies All-In-Wonder Radeon 9700 Pro
$370	256MB	MATROX Parhelia MA-PA_256R
$388	256MB	Asus V9950 Ultra GeForce FX 5900 Ultra AGP 8X	[NVidia, top card]
$493	256MB	ATI Radeon 9800 XT	[Radeon, top card]
$573	256MB	Matrox Parhelia PH-A256R

Video cards for LCDs

(See reasoning in next section.)

$ 41	64MB	PowerColor Radeon 7000 AGP 4X 64MB DDR Video Card w/TV-Out & DVI
$ 49	32MB	ATI Radeon VE (32MB DDR AGP DUAL HEADS w/TV&DVI)
$ 51	64MB	Hightech Excalibur Radeon 7500 AGP 4X 64MB DDR Video Card w/TV-Out & DVI
$ 55	64MB	Jaton GeForce4 MX440 8X 64MB DDR W/TV&DVI Dual Head AGP Video Card
$ 76	128MB	PowerColor Radeon 9200 AGP 8X 128MB DDR Video Card w/TV-Out, DVI & CRT
$ 86	128MB	Gainward FX PowerPack! Pro/660 TV/DVI GeForce FX 5200 AGP 8X 128MB DDR Video Card w/TV-Out & DVI
$100	32MB	Matrox G550 AGP 4X 32MB DDR Video Card w/TV-Out, DVI & Dual Head
$117	256MB	PowerColor Radeon 9200 AGP 8X 256MB DDR Video Card w/TV-Out & DVI

Watch out if using the ASUS motherboard, since some of these cards are AGP4x.

The friend who instigated the writing of this page followed most of the recommendations, except:
He is using an LCD monitor. He wanted the capabilities of the ATI All-in-Wonder. To get DirectX9 support, he wanted at least a 9500, but there is no ATI AIW 9500, so he bought the ATI AIW 9600 (highlighted green). It does not have DVI out, but he considered the other features to be more important, and it is working very well.

Monitor

CRT or LCD?

LCDs suck. They have one resolution. They can have very annoying dead pixels. They are expensive. OTOH, they save space.

If you get a LCD, change your video card selection. You probably want DVI (digital) output, and you should not spend money to get great image quality or refresh rates since your monitor will destroy both.

CRTs have better picture quality, can run at a variety of resolutions, and are much cheaper. I am still using a few PrincetonGraphics EO2010, but PrincetonGraphics does not currently make 21" CRT monitors. I do not like the lines across the screen on the Trinitrons. Look at the monitor while the screen is mostly white before purchasing.

19" CRTs run from $100 to $200, so there is no reason to buy a smaller screen. But a low quality 21" may be better than a high quality 19". I have not actually researched any of these monitors. Dot pitches over .25mm bother me. Refreshes at 75hz are fine for games, but I like 85hz when there is much white on the screen such as when writing.

$ 95	19"	Nec MultiSync E950	[.25 1600x1200]
$ 99	19"	Hitachi SuperScan 776	[.22 1600x1200]
$125	21"	Nec MultiSync E1100	[.28]
$142	19"	Samsung SyncMaster 955DF	[.20 1600x1200]
$179	21"	ViewSonic P810-4	[.25 1800x1440]
$199	19"	Philips SoHo 109S20	[.27 1920x1440]
$211	19"	Hewlett Packard HP P920	[.24 1920x1440]
$228	18"	ViewSonic P90F	[.24 1920x1440]
$259	21"	ViewSonic 815	[.25]
$259	22"	Nec MultiSync FE1250	[.25 1920x1440]
$485	22"	ViewSonic P220F-2	[.27 1920x1440]
$529	22"	ViewSonic 220f	[.25 1600x1200]
$561	22"	ViewSonic 225f	[.24 2048x1536]

AUDIO

If you do not want the on-board sound, then buy the latest from the CreativeLabs Audigy series:

$ 72	Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2
$ 91	Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS [no "drive"]
$162	Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum [Internal "drive" & remote]
$202	Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro [External "drive" & remote]

Why did you spend that?

The mother boards can handle 6 speakers for surround sound, so here are some speaker sets:

$ 37	Logitech Z-640	[ 51W] <-Recommended
$ 61	Creative Labs Inspire 5.1 5200	[ 75W]
$ 73	Creative Labs Inspire 6.1 6600	[120W]
$157	Creative Inspire 5.1 Digital 5500
$???	Creative Inspire 5.1 Digital 5700
$149	Creative Inspire T7700 [125W]
$185	Creative Labs Megaworks 550	[500W]

I use the Cambridge Soundworks FourPointSurround FPS2000 Digital which are 4.1 "Digital" speakers from Creative Labs. I believe the Inspire series replaced them for much less cost. Creative Labs also has the MegaWorks series of speakers, that are better quality at higher costs. If you will be playing CDs, DVDs and games, then they may be worth it. If you are playing quality-challenged MP3s, then stay cheap. Truthfully, the Live series of sound cards is good enough for most people, and any Audigy is great. The Audigy 2 series is attempting to give gamers an excuse to upgrade by providing 7.1 surround sound, but humans only have 2 ears, so 4 speakers (and a subwoofer?) are already beyond the limits of human input.

If you are going to buy an Audigy sound card, then make certain your speakers are "Digital", meaning they have a digital input. It does sound better.

If you are going to buy a soundcard and speakers, check out this deal: SB Audigy 2 ZS and Inspire 7.1 T7700 for $250 minus $50 rebate = $200. The speakers are $150. The soundcard is $100. If you want the "drive" and remote control, then you need to order the card and speakers separately.

I would buy the Platinum Pro version because it allows an electric guitar to plug into the external drive, if my current internal Live Drive did not already have that ability. Both the internal and external drives add a FireWire port, but you should have plenty from the motherboard.

Case

I spent $45 for a mid-tower case with 400W power supply and 2 USB ports in the center of the front.

SharkyExtreme recommends Lian Li, Cooler Master, or Antec cases. Price with power supply may be close to $200.

The important considerations:

Front ports

USB? FireWire? Location? One case had the ports in the center of the top; this could be bad if you hide the computer in a desk. Most cases put the ports along the bottom edge; this is bad if you put your computer on the floor. The optimal location would be on the front at the top edge, but I have not seen any cases like this, so the center of the front panel is the best choice.

3.5" drives

How many 3.5" internal drives can fit? Most allow 4 to 8 plus a floppy drive.
How easy is it to install drives? Do you need to remove the other cover to screw them in? Many cases use removable cages which makes installing drives much easier. One case allowed 6 drives to be installed sideways, plus a cage with the floppy and 2 more drives.

The one I bought had room for 6 3.5" drives along the front; they were fixed to the case, but rested on tabs that made shelves and had room betweeen them. Make certain that there is room between the drives. We lost half the slots in one case because the slots were so close that you had to skip every other one.
Drives last much longer if they are kept cool, so having room between them can really extend their life. A little room and an intake fan blowing across the drives will keep them running for a very long time.

Check the screw holes. Some cases appear great until you attempt to install a hard drive and realize that there is 2" in front of the drive and the drive sticks out so far it is touching the RAM. I do not know how the case manufacturers can forget to test this since the drive bays are one of the most important features. This mistake is survivable if you have a drill and there is a removable drive cage. Be certain to measure carefully, then drill far away from any computer components, wash the cage to remove any metal filings, and let it dry thoroughly before using it.

Watch out for floppy drive "slots". Many cases have shaped plastic to hide the floppy drive. This is annoying for several reasons:
- The first is that the floppy drive must be lined up perfectly to be usable. If it is off by even 1/4", then the button may not allow a floppy to be ejected. I once spent half an hour trying to replace a floppy drive because of this "feature".
- The second reason is that floppy drives are disappearing. With Linux or MSWindowsXP, you can install directly from the CDROM. You may still want to install a floppy drive to reformat after your MSWindowsXP is completely destroyed by viruses, but you can remove the floppy drive once the system is usable. Then the external 3.5" bay can be used for a card reader, unless there is plastic blocking it.

Fans

How many? Standard is just the power supply. Most cases have an extra below the power supply to pull hot air from the CPU. Others have a fan on the side to pull hot air from the CPU and the video card, although this is useless if you are hding the computer in a desk. A few have an intake fan on the front. Very few have a washable air filter along the front in-take, although I believe this is an incredible invention for cases.

Some sites believe that fan size makes a huge difference. Fans come in 3 sizes, and must fit the screw holes in the case.

Transparent side panels have become popular. If you hide your computer in a desk, they are useless. I dislike them, since they allow more noise and radiation to leak. I do not believe any cases that have see-through sides meet Intel's standard tolerances for cases.

Power Supply

Make certain the power supply is for a Pentium 4. Intel changed the plugs, so older power supplies will not work.

Power supplies should be rated at least 350W, although 400+ would be better, especially if you plan to have many hard drives. Power supplies never meet their ratings, but a higher number is usually better than a lower number. Never use a power supply labelled CompUSA; their 300W power supplies will struggle to boot the computer and may ruin the motherboard and other hardware. Under-powered power supplies are the main reason for hardware failures, and one reason for intermittent crashes. If you have problems installing from CDROM (when the CDROM and a hard drive are both working hard), your power supply is not doing its job.

Power strips are one of the leading causes for computer failures, but very few people think about them. They are why problems disappear when you bring a computer to be repaired. Cheap power strips have a 2 to 3 year life, and even good ones should be replaced at 5 years. If you have computer problems, try plugging the power cord directly into the wall. If the problems disappear, buy a new power strip.

FiringSquad recommends this one as the ultimate power supply, if you can afford it:
$190 PC Power and Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 ATX power supply

Input devices

Pick what you like. Do you want wireless? Mouse or trackball? How many buttons and do you want a roller?
Keyboards start at $8. Mice start at $2. Plan to spend $100 combined.

Make certain any mouse is "optical". This greatly reduces maintenance and improves the experience. Do not try to use an optical mouse on a mirrored surface or even glass; they use light to detect movement and do not work if the surface is too shiny. (A friend had a really cool mirror mouse pad that was fantastic for his rollerball mouse. I had to visit his house to troubleshoot why his new optical mouse would not work.)

I like Logitech. Any of their products will make you happy. Their cordless keyboard and mouse combos are $80 to $100.

Microsoft makes good hardware, but they are very heavy. Using a Microsoft mouse will build muscles in your wrists, or just tire you. I do not like them.

4xDVD RW

I like Plextor, and have been waiting for them to release a drive that does DVD+RW and DVD-RW. The only choice until recently was the Sony, and it was $280 until Plextor released their drive. I do like Sony, but that was too expensive when you could buy a single format write for half the price. The wait was worth it: the Plextor can be twice as fast as the Sony, and the price is only $50 more than the new price for the Sony.

About the standards:
DVD-R was the more popular standard, and is slower. DVD+R had more limited support, but it was supported by the heavyweights Sony and Plextor. Plextor's drive can do DVD+R at 8x, which is not planned for DVD-R until at least next Summer. The media for both is less than $1.50 each for 4.7GB. Since most drives can read both types of media, and the prices for drive and media are close, there is a good chance the techologically superior DVD+R will win. DVD-RAM is still $10 each, so it will probably disappear soon.

Media: Some media will write at a slower speed than your drive is capable. Do some research before buying DVDRs if you want to record at 4x or 8x.

$130	TDK 420N Indi DVD	<- Only if you are certain you don't want DVD-R
	Cannot write DVD-R
	read 40X CD 12X DVD
	write 16X CD 4x DVD+R
	rewrite 10X CD 2.4X DVD+R
$153	Plextor PX-504A DVD+RW	<-- Why bother when the Sony is a couple of bucks more?
	Cannot write DVD-R.
	read 40x (CD) 12x (DVD+-)
	write 16x (CD) 4x (DVD+)
	rewrite 10x (CD) 2.4x (DVD)
$157	Sony DRU-510A	<-- If you want both formats and are cheap.
	The standard until Plextor's new model. Now considered slow.
	read 32x (CD) / 12x (DVD)
	write 24x (CD) / 4x (DVD+-)
	rewrite 16x (CD) / 2x (DVD-RW) / 4x (DVD+RW)
$168	HP DVD300i	<- Why bother when the Sony is a couple of bucks less?
	Cannot write DVD-R
	read 40x (CD) / 8x (DVD)
	write 16x (CD) / 4x (DVD+)
	rewrite 10x (CD) / 2.4x (DVD+)
$215	Plextor PX-708A	<-- BUY THIS ONE!
	read 40xCD 12xDVD
	write 40xCDR 8xDVD+ 4xDVD-
	rewrite 24xCDRW 4xDVD+-RW

UPDATE 20030104: I just bought the Plextor PX-708A for $198. It is still the best drive available, but I saw another brand with similar specifications in a store (although it was $220.) If you do not need a drive immediately, then you may want to wait for the 8.5GB dual-layer drives. They are expected this Spring, but may be delayed as there are still no product details, and there is usually a few months between the announcement and availability. The stores do not have any media available that is rated at 8x, and nobody knows when dual-layer media will be available, so the PX-708A is still my choice.

CDROM player

I no longer think having a second CD drive is necessary. We did worry about wearing out the more expensive writers, but technology moves fast enough that if you were able to wear out a drive, you would be ready to buy a faster one. The DVD drives are fast enough, and you can use the large hard drive for temporary storage while making copies. Yes, it might be faster to burn using a CD Reader and a CD Writer, but if you are making more than one copy, you should burn to the hard drive first, and it might reduce the number of coasters made. (It helps to have a 10GB partition that is used for temporary files and can be wiped/reformatted separately.)

My recommendation for a DVD writer can read CDs at 40x, and the best that any CD device can do is 52x (since the media will destruct if spun faster.) If you do get a CD Reader, use it for loading software, since it wil be that tiny bit faster, and saves some wear on your more expensive DVD writer.

The only real reason for having a second CD drive is if you want to listen to music CDs while using the computer. Using the bypass cable to hook the CDROM directly to the sound card means that the music can play while you are using the DVD drive. This may not be true if the sound card is integrated into the motherboard. But for $40, you could buy a dedicated radio/CD player. It would probably have better speakers than your computer, and you could use the computer for computing.

Stay away from LG brand. The firmware has known problems where software can destroy the drive. Good brands are the usual Sony, Plextor, HP (usually expensive), TEAC. Creative usually relabels another company's drive; depending on the year it might be a Sony or something else.

$33	Artec DHM-G48	[48xCD 16xDVD] [DVD+-]
$35	BenQ 5224P	[52xCD 52xCDR 24xCDRW]
$37	Sony DDU1621/DDU1612/DDU1611	[40xCD 16xDVD]
$38	Samsung SD-816B	[48xCD 16xDVD]
$50	TEAC DV516E/KIT	[48xCD 16xDVD]
$55	MEMOREX 32023254	[48xCD 16xDVD]
$58	Liteon LTC48161H DVD-ROM	[48xCD 48xCDR 24xCDRW 16xDVD]
$59	Sony CRX300E	[48xCD 48xCDR 24xCDRW 16xDVD]
$66	Samsung SM352	[52xCD 52xCDR 24xCDRW 16xDVD ]

Some of these drives may not be able to read DVD+Rs. Check the specifications before buying. You can usually spend a few dollars and get the drive with the bezel (front) the color of your case, if that matters to you.

RECOMMENDATION

$ 45	Case w/400W PS
$204	Gigabyte GA-8KNXP Motherboard
$174	CPU=Pentium4 2.6C Ghz 800MhzFSB
$231	RAM=Kingston KHX3200AK2/1G
$185	HDD=Maxtor� 200GB Diamondmax Plus 9-Hard Drive SATA 8MB Cache 7200RPM
$291	VIDEO=128MB ATI Technologies RADEON 9800 PRO
$215	DVD=Plextor PX-708A
$ 37	Logitech Z-640 Speakers

$1376

Then add keyboard, mouse, monitor for $100 to $1100 depending on your requirements.
I do not include them because they are usually replaced separate from the computer system. Keyboards, mice, and monitors tend to be used until they die. The exception are the people who want to switch to LCD monitors, but I never recommend those. Speakers should match the capabilities of the sound card; most of my friends have 2.1 speakers, so buying this system is a good time to upgrade. I have been telling everybody to wait for this Plextor DVD writer, so nobody had one yet. If you already had an AGPx8 video card, then you could wait for a new one, but most of the last generation were AGPx2 or AGPx4.

I hope you enjoyed reading this. And I hope you enjoy your new computer for many years.