Lily’s Blog, Dragon Absconded!
Baking Until I Drop

Ow my head hurts.

Should I get onboard video because of less things I will have to install or not and then I won’t have it sharing my oodles of RAM and it might be a better solution?

So, I need a Socket 754 motherboard and onboard video, onboard audio, onboard NIC, (modem not necessary)…what else?

I don’t know whether I want ATX or MicroATX or whatever.

Well, here is one option:
BIOSTAR TForce6100 Socket 754 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard – Retail for $68.99

It is MicroATX I think. No modem.

Gah! Some reviews say the onboard video, audio and lan don’t work with linux.
EEEEP

Will have to come back to this.

Well, I guess my mom doesn’t need me to spend so much money on her processor.
And maybe she’d be happy with a Sempron processor and can do without an Athlon.

So, here are some cheaper processors:

• AMD Sempron 64 2600+ Palermo 1600MHz HT Socket 754 Processor Model SDA2600BXBOX – Retail for US$68
• AMD Sempron 64 2800+ Palermo 1600MHz HT Socket 754 Processor Model SDA2800BXBOX – Retail for US$73
• AMD Sempron 64 3000+ Palermo 1600MHz HT Socket 754 Processor Model SDA3000BXBOX – Retail for US$84
• AMD Sempron 64 3100+ Palermo 1600MHz HT Socket 754 Processor Model SDA3100BXBOX – Retail for US$96
• AMD Sempron 64 3300+ Palermo 1600MHz HT Socket 754 Processor Model SDA3300BXBOX – Retail for US$108
• AMD Sempron 64 3400+ Palermo 1600MHz HT Socket 754 Processor Model SDA3400BXBOX – Retail for US$120

So, I’m thinking maybe this one: AMD Sempron 64 3000+ Palermo 1600MHz HT Socket 754 Processor Model SDA3000BXBOX – Retail which costs US$84.

Or even one of the cheaper ones. But this sounds good to me. Will now go find out more about it. *sigh*

Well, now that mom is getting my built computer…yay!.

So, I need to choose a processor.
Should I choose the motherboard first or the processor first?
I don’t know.

I know I’m going AMD 64 bit.
I also know I don’t need dual-core.
And I’m not spending more than US$200 on my mom’s processor that will hopefully last her a good while.

So, which should it be?? Socket 754 or Socket 939.
So, using one of those elimination search things, I found these (yes, at Newegg. I’m just using them for prices and reviews). Wish me luck, k?

Here they are:

Continue reading Building my PC: Choosing a Processor

Well, for a few days we were going to buy mom an HP and I would build a nice little PC anywayz for experience and it would be my dad’s.

This is mostly because of silly yahoo voice chatting on Windows but I think I will try WINE or this thing, GYach which claims to be a linux yahoo messenger clone that does voice chatting.

Before this decision was made however, I tried pricing components here and in the US. I used The Wizz‘s prices because it’s online. I wasn’t sure where else I could get prices. And if they’re more expensive, or cheaper or if their service is poor…well the price list should at least give me an idea.

I have a DVD burner so I was choosing all the other parts. It wasn’t a nice system, I guess I could include the specs here at some point and it cost about TT$ 4800 (over US$ 750). Then I went to Newegg and tried to find the exact same parts. This was kind of hard because The Wizz isn’t necessarily very verbose. And then maybe some things were older and I couldn’t find it.

But it was basically the same cheap system. It came up to about US$ 480 plus US$ 50 (for shipping from Newegg). This is US$ 530. Then I figured, I’d add 5% duty on all the parts (tho we don’t pay duty on all the parts but I figured higher estimate always better) and then add 15% VAT on top of all that. This came up to US$ 640.

Now, I don’t know how much a whole PC weighs. Built ones on Amazon say about 33 pounds (packaged weight). My stuff will have lots of packaging. Oh, I don’t really intend to buy the case and ship it but I was considering it in this comparison. So, I figured maybe 40 lbs to ship to T&T. And the shippers I hope to use cost US$ 3/pound (less if the item is more than 10 lbs but I can’t guarantee that everything will come at the same time and save me money!) Thus this is US$ 120 in shipping.
Which is about US$ 760.

It’s practically the same thing.
What to do!
I will get greater selection away.
But…I can probably return things here.

/me sighs

Here follows the parts I quickly chose. Don’t tell me it won’t work. Or that it’s stupid. Please. Helpful criticism is okay. Remember, this is the first time I’m doing this. And this was purely for comparison of prices. Not for the system I will get!

Continue reading Building my PC: Comparison