Hardware Guides

[japangreg]

Hey, everyone. I am in no way a techie; I have studied a lot about computers and programming, but I have never had any formal training or any experience in hardware.

Recently I've developed a desire to try to build my own system from scratch and I am quickly becoming confused with all of the component descriptions (numerical values, brand names, etc.)

Is there any good resource you know of for someone to start researching hardware? Where should I begin, and where can I find out what the descriptions of various components actually mean, especially when it comes to processor/motherboard figures?

Thanks!
japangreg

[mouse]

Hi there,

Myself and quite a few members build our own machines. I've not seen any decent web guides, stuff changes so quickly that a guide would probably be out of date pretty quick.

If you have any questions I'm sure myself, Oracleguy and others will be able to help and give advice on components.

:thumbsup:

[japangreg]

Hi, Mouse. Thanks! I'm sure I'll have a ton of questions as I get further into my research, so expect a lot of me ;)

When you started building systems, where did you turn for advice on parts, configurations etc? I'm guessing most people had a more experienced person they could consult, but surely those people must have had guidence themselves from somewhere... Is there a good magazine or something that deals with hardware that I could read through to try to get a handle on how current techs match up?

I guess I'll have to start at the beginning with motherboard/CPU questions... what's the important aspect to pay attention to? I don't need a blazing fast machine, but I like to do some graphics work and a little 3D animation, so I don't want a slug either. Do brand names really matter all that much when it comes to MBs?

Thanks again!

[mouse]

I'm happy to help with hardware questions, building your own machine is very fulfilling indeed.

Does motherboard manufacturer matter?

Yes and no. It depends what you're doing with it; personally I like to optimise my system through the bios, this is where quality brands take a lead as well as in the quality of components used. More important for your system is the chipset used; this is the motherboard's (I shall use 'mobo' in future to save typing :D) brain; it is the gobetween for cpu, ram and pci bus. A bad chipset will mean a poor performing and possibly unstable system. I'd recommend avoiding mobo's using Via chipsets to begin with (there, narrowed the field down already :)). Asus, Abit, Gigabyte, Epox, Soltek, MSI, all build decent motherboards.

What's the important aspect to pay attention to?

Personally I feel it's motherboard and ram choice. Today you can use SDR SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, 16bit RDRAM or 32bit RDRAM. SDR SDRAM is old and on its way out, forget it. This leaves DDR and the RDRAM pair. RDRAM is Intel only and its future is uncertain. This leaves DDR SDRAM. Is DDR the best memory out there? no, however - and this is important if you choose Intel - it can now be used in dual channel configuration; this means two sticks of ram operate together to give better performance than the same amount of ram on a single channel.

CPU, Chipsets and maths

The cpu type you choose is important, whether you choose AMD or Intel will determind the memory type you can use and so the motherboard, but also the memory speed. Either way you can build a very fast system; don't listen to the fools who preach one brand is far superior to the other.

The cpu communicates with the chipsets which in turn talks to the PCI bus and ram. This happens through various dividers and or multipliers, all stem from the system bus speed...

CPU speed = multiplier x system bus (example: 24x100=2.4GHz cpu)
memory speed = memory divider/ratio x system bus (example: a 3:4 ratio; 100x4/3=133)
pci bus speed = pci divider x system bus (example: 133/4=33MHz)

Intel cpu's come in two varieties; 400MHZ and 533MHz, this is the processor's front side bus speed (fsb) this is the system bus x4, so you have a system bus of either 100MHz or 133MHz. Now, the ram basically feeds the cpu when the cache runs out, bandwidth determinds how fast this happens so you want the maximum bandwidth possible.

bandwidth = bits / (latency[T] x frequency)

latency[T] = 1/frequency x whatever (total latency between fsb->ram->cpu, there are settings in the bios; 2-6-2-2 and so on, add 'em up and you have total latency)

Latency is a cycle, if you look at DDR ram you'll see some is CAS2 or CAS2.5, this is the number of cycles the stick of ram takes to complete a request. There are other latencies added at chipset, fsb and other places, these aren't important for now. I mention this so you can see that memory speed is important to performance; the faster the better in an Intel system, this means for a 533(4x133) chip you will want to run the memory at 166MHz for maximum bandwidth. This means using PC2700 memory, if you're using a 400(4x100) chip then you'll want PC2100 memory. I'm using DDR as an example here btw as it's the intelligent memory choice at the moment.

Ideally you aim to at least match the processor's bandwidth, PC2700 indicates a maximum bandwidth of 2700mb/s, a Pentium 4 400MHz chip has a throughput of 3.2gb/s, a 533MHz chip someting like 4gb/s. This is where dual channel motherboards/chipsets come into play, they basically double the bits, which if you see the equation above, doubles bandwidth available to the cpu.

If you go the DDR route dual channel is still a possibility however the previously mentioned latency comes into play :eek: {still reading?} by running the memory faster than the system bus you add a few cycles of latency, this matters in an AMD system as the fsb speed is lower and only a system bus multiple of two rather than four for the Pentium. These extra latency cycles actually mean it's better to run the memory at a 1:1 ratio with the system bus. AMD chips use a variety of fsb's and need different memory types accordingly for best performance:
266(2x133) = PC2100x2
333(2x166) = PC2700x2
Soon 400(2x200) = PC3200x2
Memory in dual configuration of course.

Then all you've to worry about is minimising the latency which is easy; pick the lowest settings available in the bios.

^^^ This is about as complicated as it gets really and even then the above isn't to worry about if you don't get it.

Do you have a preference, AMD or Intel?

[oracleguy]

As far as the actual process of building the computer, there was a issue of PC Gamer that had a pretty good guide... I'll try and look through my old issues to find it for ya.

Mouse covered those questions you had pretty thoughrly, if you are looking for reviews on hardware, you can try www.anandtech.com

As far as magazines go, PC Magazine is a good one, I'd stay away from PC World they tend to be inaccurate and behind in the times.

Building your own computer is not as hard as most people think and its a good experience. Windows practically installs itself these days and the bigger motherboard brands usually have excellent documentation. And installing devices is easy, you just match pin 1 on the cable to the pin 1 on the device or the motherboard. Its all clearly labeled, and expansion cards, CPUs, and RAM can only go in one way so its not hard :)

Some motherboards I'd recommend you'd look at are:
For RIMM, ASUS P4T533-C and the P4T533-R. I've used several of these and they are quite nice.

For DDR, the Gigabyte 8PE667 is an excellent motherboard too.

Another aspect to selecting a motherboard is the chipset it utilizes, for the intel side the 845PE is a good one, it has a lot of good features on it. The 845G chipset has Intel's integrated graphics although it still comes with an AGP slot to accomadate future upgrades. I built 2 computers three weeks ago with it... I'd only recommend it if you are just doing like email, as a network admin workstation, or anything that isn't graphics intensive. It only has support for up to 8MB of video ram that is shared with the main RAM.

For RIMM, the Intel 850E is the best and the latest chipset for that.

On the AMD side, there is the KT400 chipset and I've heard some good things about it but I've never used it.

Also concerning hard drives, I'd get one with 8MB of cache on it and one that runs at 7200RPMs. Like I perfer the Western Digital ones that have it, they are great drives and run really fast. The cache is just like the cache on your CPU, it gives it some fast working memory. Most commonly though HDs come with 2megs of cache on them and its usually not too much more for 8meg ones.

If you have anymore questions please ask.

[Mhtml]

www.anandtech.com Just what I was after :) Thanks OracleGuy!

[oracleguy]

:thumbsup:

[japangreg]

:eek:

Wow, thanks Mouse & OracleGuy! Now I have a starting point (*cheering*)

I'm printing this thread out as a ref. for future study.

OracleGuy, I'll spend some time on that site and absorb as much as I can.

Thanks again! You guys rock! :thumbsup: