My quest to build a computer

[David J.]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811144138

I'm looking at this case... are the rear slots fullprofile or lowprofile?

[Benjamin]

It has four low profile slots. That you are asking about them tells me you have need for more standardize PCI slots, but if you're looking for a small PC, I suggest a miniPC.

http://minipc.aopen.com/Global/

I just built mine and love it. The thing is smaller than a Dreamcast. Only real issue is the one PCI express mini slot, which would be a turn off if you're looking for a good gaming PC.

Anyway, that's a nice looking case, but note that it is aluminum and several reviewers report dents on arrival. I bought a nice media center-looking steel micro-ATX case from Newegg for $60 or so, and I think it'd be worth looking for something sturdier if possible.

[MN12BIRD]

The Q-Pack2 has full profile expansion slots NOT low profile! It also has a 120mm fan in the rear and an 80mm fan up front, the 500W PSU also has a 120mm fan and has been vastly improved over the original Q-Pack PSU. I sell them at work and overall they seem like nice cases except what Benjamin said is true; they often show up with slightly bent aluminum panels that require some fighting with to get back together. Dents aren't uncommon either.

[David J.]

Just wondering since I plan on pretty much using this for a rom and emu box, maybe add a Bluray drive, and a decent cheap video card.

I have no use for a computer, but I really want to build one.... I dunno why

[MN12BIRD]

LOL yeah it would make a nice box!

I say throw an AMD 780G board in it with built in ATi HD3200 Graphics. They have VGA, DVI and HDMI right on the board with 8ch Audio, HDCP compliance and the same ATi UDV HD Video decoding used on the full video cards! These are the king of HTPC and integrated graphic performance motherboards right now. They were the first chipset to be based on a 55nm architecture so they use little wattage too! The first review I read on a 780G setup they ran 1080 H.264 video on a Sempron 3000 just to show how good the onboard video's decoding was!

For a full sized gaming rig Intel is the king of performance but for their small, efficient boards with loaded features and the best onboard video on the market... AMD 780G is a winner! Plus these boards only run about $100-130, are AM2+ will support most Phenom Quad Core CPUs and 8GB of DDR2 1066 and run PCI-E 2.0!

check out the Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-DS2H

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...ProductID=2859

It costs about $120 has all the stuff I mentioned above plus built in 128MB of DDR3 dedicated to the onboard video (holds the 3D Mark record for onboard video!), rear optical SPDIF, E-SATA, Firewire and more! Killer little mATX board loaded to the teeth with features and this model will handle higher wattage CPUs like the top end Phenom 9950 Quad (not all 780G boards support CPU's over 95W, this one does)

If you don't plan on playing modern games with high settings, this board will do it ALL! If you do it still has a proper PCI-E 2.0 X16 slot to add any new video card you wish! It can even do Hybrid Crossfire with new ATi Video cards!

DO IT! It would make a sweet Media/Emu box!

[David J.]

I don't really watch movies... nor have much in the way of media, but it's a desire. Kind of like how one wants a Ferrari, when their current POS is fine.

[Benjamin]

The Q-Pack2 has full profile expansion slots NOT low profile!

Bah, sorry about the misinformation. Just did a quick Google search, and all of the specs I found stated low profile slots. Then again, my PC model is stated to have two RAM slots throughout the Internet when it only has one.

[Rusty Venture]

Just remember to top your system out at 2-3 gig Ram max as only the 64-bit versions of Windows Vista (maybe XP?) will see a full 4 gig.

[MN12BIRD]

Yes ALL 32-BIT OS's (XP and Vista) are capped to 4GB of total addressable memory. This includes any memory on your motherboard and other hardware like your video card! Generally about 3-3.5GB of RAM is usable.

There was a 64-bit version of XP but its support has been officially canned so its not recommended as you may never find drivers or updates for it. Vista 64-bit is the way to go IF you want a 64 bit MS OS.

With XP I don't usually recommend more than 2GB of RAM anyway as the OS even with heavy games like CoD4 won't even push the full 2GB (I checked while playing CoD4 at high resolution and all settings on extra high and only 1.78GB was being used!) Its soo efficient you will almost never see any difference from 2 to 3.

Vista on the other hand I recommend 4 GB. Many systems are shipping with 3GB of RAM for Vista as like I said only 3-3.5 tops will be used. The problem with that is you won't be in "Dual Channel" mode. All motherboards today have DC support even the cheap $60 boards! DC mode basically doubles the bandwidth of your memory and in a way can be looked at as free performance! As long as you have an even number of matching DIMMs you can run DC mode!! Matching is the key you should buy it all at once. If you buy one type of RAM and later get more you may not be able to get the exact same type or spec and there is no guarantee it will work in DC mode! So even if you figure only ~3GB is going to be used... buy 4 anyway just to keep it even and run DC mode! It may not be a substantial performance gain... buts it IS a gain... and in some cases (say you're going to run 2 or 4GB anyway) its FREE!

Its good advice because many people have it in their heads that more RAM = faster performance and of course it does up to a point. People come in all the time running basic XP machines and pay big bucks to up from 2 to 4GB of RAM, then they come in next time and admit they got no boost in performance! RAM is cheap but that money could have been better spent!

[David J.]

OK, I want to put ram in it, but I'll stick with 4GB, but I'm puzzled with ram also.

I used to know a lot about specs on computers, but not anymore.

This is what I have for specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor Model ADO5000DOBOX - Retail

LG Blu-ray/HD DVD-ROM & 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model GGC-H20L - Retail

Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-DS2H

2x Western Digital Caviar GP WD10EACS 1TB 5400 to 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (do I need a raid card for two harddrives?)

Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model KVR1066D3N7K2/4G - Retail

What else do I need?

I want a remote, what is the best thing to do?

[MN12BIRD]

Well there are different types of RAM. Today its either going to be DDR2 or DDR3. DDR3 costs many times the price for a REALLY small performance gain. Latency is so high on DDR3 that even at double the clock is gives such small increases in performance. Toms Hardware tested two simular systems, one with DDR2 @ 800MHZ and one with DDR3 @ 1800 MHZ. Despite paying 4 times the price for the 2GB of DDR3 they used they saw a MAXIMUM %5 increase in performance benchmarks. That was production work like Photoshop scripts too. In games they only saw a MAXIMUM of %3 increase!!

So I still don't recommend DDR3 to anyone! Unless your Richie Rich or something anyway!

AMD hasn't got DDR3 yet as their memory controllers are built into the CPU die and they would have to make new CPUs just for DDR3! Intel has the memory controller on the Motherboard and therefor you can buy a board that runs either DDR2 or DDR3... or in some cases both. These "Combo" boards usually have worse DDR3 performance than motherboards and chipsets built strictly for DDR3. So once again I don't recommend them!

Within the type of RAM, there are speed variances.

So with DDR2 you will have most commonly 667MHZ, 800MHZ and 1066MHZ. The motherboard and CPU you use may determine the max speed you can run so keep that in mind!!

The name of the RAM determines the type AND speed. IE PC2-6400 means DDR2 (PC2) and 800MHZ (6400 bandwidth). Multiply the clock by 8 and you get 6400.

PC2-5300 = DDR2-667MHZ
PC2-6400 = DDR2-800MHZ
PC2-8500 = DDR2-1066MHZ

See?

667 x 8 = 5400
800 x 8 = 6400
1066 x 8 = 8500

The fact they have two ways of naming RAM speeds does make things confusing for someone just getting into this!

I once again recomend DDR2 @ 800MHZ or PC2-6400 as its the happy middle road. Its super affordable, and has a higher compatibility than the pickier 1066MHZ PC2-8500.

For you either a 2GB or 4GB kit of 800MHZ PC2-6400 is what you should look for.

[David J.]

Thanks again. I see there are a lot cases with front monunted USB and even media reader bays with USB ports. Where do they hook up to on the motherboard?

[MN12BIRD]

These case mounted 3.5" card readers or media readers connect to the motherboard with a 9-pin USB header the same as the front mounted USB plugs on any case. Your motherboard should have 3 or more of these as thats common now a days. Some media readers also have firewire, that will also require its own firewire header to be connected to the motherboard and some also have front audio (headphone/mic) witch will also require front panel audio header to be connected. The motherboards manual will show all these header locations.

BUT you bought Kingston DDR3. You CAN'T run DDR3 with that setup. DDR2 and DDR3 are NOT interchangeable, the voltages are different as are the amount of pins! You can run DDR2 @ 1066 but NOT DDR3 @ 1066. Look for PC2-8500 NOT PC3-8500!

Not bad looking otherwise. I'm also running an AMD Brisbane 5000.

[David J.]

I didn't buy anything.... as I dont have the $$$

But I am going to prolly build it, but slowly build it.