Well I got to get a new desktop pc, mostly because i was sharing the bf's computer with him but now he has lots of work to do on it. Anyway, I did have my own that I left at my mother's but my little brother I think either fried the hard-drive and mobo (i bet he tried over clocking the poor little Celeron). So generally all I have is a ATX case and a CD-RW drive and power supply that's in it; and the case is not very open, so it will need a lot of fans.

As far as what i use my pc for: photo editing, graphic design, surfing the internet, music, website making, and that's about it. I don't play games, so a decent video card is all i need IMO.

I was looking into getting a Cyber Power PC since that's what my bf uses, but i've read on some 'serious' gamer forums that they are of subpar quality and have crappy tech help.

I tried pricing out some stuff on NewEgg (luv 'em) and it wasn't much cheaper building vs buying. (I've never built a pc from scratch)

So are there any other pc-building sites out there that are much better than CyberPower and still cost-effective? I'd rather not go w/ a name-brand, i've had better experiences with custom built pc's IMO.

Its quite easy to build your own pc. Plus the personal satisfaction of "I did it" The hardest part is screwing the motherboard into the chassis of the case.

Then it depends on what kind of case you want to get. I tend to stick with Antec, because alot of their cases make it easy as hell to mount and unmount various drives.

If you want to use your current case, you say you will need alot of fans. Lots of fans can make that tower quite loud. I built my pc from newegg. You may be able to find some good package deals on newegg

Actually what I did was found my stuff on new egg and then pricematched at best buy, comp usa, circuit city. Good luck, sorry I cant help with the custom pc sites.

That's cool. After building up a list on NewEgg and then comparing it to CyberPower, i pretty much arrive at the same cost if not more for the latter.

So i've decided to build my own. Only thing I have to consider 'extra' is the fact that this ATX case i have needs more fans. Nothing crazy, but a big one in the back and a drive-bay fan in the front. Plus it needs a new power supply since it's old and i'm going to run some higher end stuff in it. We'll see... I may just end up getting a new case w/ some crazy led's yo!

now you will have better comp than your bf, surely he will get jealous. I'd rock a decent card in there, just to one up him.

if your worried about noise just get larger fans with an adjustable speed.

I'm rocking 120mm fans(as opposed to the "normal" 80mm). On low speed i can barely hear them, but they still flow enough air to keep everything cool.

n00b240 wrote:now you will have better comp than your bf, surely he will get jealous. I'd rock a decent card in there, just to one up him.

oh that won't happen, his comp has dual video cards, it's liquid cooled,amongst other things... screw that! I'm just focusing on having a top of the line cpu, lots of ram, and good harddrives.

If you need an OS, I'd go withhttp://www.gentoo.org/Orhttp://www.ubuntu.com/

I thought i was getting in over my head when I started ordering parts to build my first PC. Once I actually starting building it, it was a breeze. It's kind of like building a big erector set. Everything has its own place so it's pretty hard to screw up, especially since I know you have a mechanical background working on your car. I had it all together within an hour and a half, with everything I needed installed in about 3 hours. That computer, which I am still using now, is about 5 years old now and still running fine. It runs most new games pretty well too, only replacing the video card 2 years ago. Not to mention that I built it for about $1000 including the monitor, keyboard, etc. Its really a win/win situation. You save money and you get a much better computer that wont be obsolete in a year.

JimmyMethod wrote:If you need an OS, I'd go withhttp://www.gentoo.org/Orhttp://www.ubuntu.com/

Thanks, actually we have Ubuntu on a old Compaq laptop that was having hardware failures, as soon as my bf put Ubuntu on it they stopped!

However I have to put Windows on my computer because I use Adobe programs such as Lightroom and CS3. The bf has Vista on his fancy schmancy computer and IMO, i think it sucks. So i'm putting XP professional on my computer.

The mobo looks schweet, it has all these copper heat pipes on it n' stuff and the southbridge has little snowflakes on it. I felt that I've done a good job picking stuff on Newegg. My bf actually put the computer together for me when I was at work Tuesday. I was looking forward to doing it myself because he can be rough w/ delicate pieces of equipment but it fired up the 1st time w/ the bios screen indicating no errors so i'm lucky i guess.

Oh, the fan i got for my case (aptly named 'tornado') sounds like a handheld vacumn cleaner... so i got to get a fan speed regulator i think. It's louder than our room fan and the tv combined!

skydragoness wrote:Oh, the fan i got for my case (aptly named 'tornado') sounds like a handheld vacumn cleaner... so i got to get a fan speed regulator i think. It's louder than our room fan and the tv combined!

I know what you mean. I have 5 fans in my case, but for the last 2 or 3 years only two have been running. My computer is in my room, and its just so loud that I cant sleep. Of course I could just turn the computer off...but I like listening to Sirius while I'm going to sleep so I just leave it on. The other 3 fans are still in there, and get hooked up on the very odd chance that I might take it with me to a LAN or something, but thats only happened I think once in the past 3 years. Basically, they are useless.

my old computer used to be so noisy it drove me crazy.My new build i used the 120mm fans i mentioned before, and a zalman heatsink on the cpu. With the fan speeds set to low you can't even tell my computer is running.

On the other side though when i gamed the fan on my vid card would sound like a hair blower. So i put a zalman heatsink/fan combo on that... can't hear it anymore and card temps dropped like 30* F.

skydragoness wrote:The mobo looks schweet, it has all these copper heat pipes on it n' stuff and the southbridge has little snowflakes on it.

sounds like an Asus, they have the real nice passive cooling for the motherboard. I have this one.http://www.newegg.com/Product/...31011overclocking option wise.. it's the best board i ever bought.

skydragoness wrote:
Thanks, actually we have Ubuntu on a old Compaq laptop that was having hardware failures, as soon as my bf put Ubuntu on it they stopped!

However I have to put Windows on my computer because I use Adobe programs such as Lightroom and CS3. The bf has Vista on his fancy schmancy computer and IMO, i think it sucks. So i'm putting XP professional on my computer.

1.) Use Wine and you can run Adobe stuff without a problem.2.) If you're running Ubuntu on a laptop, you need to fix something, or your harddrive will die soon... here's the link for the fix https://launchpad.net/bug59695.html

krazydriver wrote:
sounds like an Asus, they have the real nice passive cooling for the motherboard. I have this one.http://www.newegg.com/Product/...31011overclocking option wise.. it's the best board i ever bought.

Hells yeah that's what I got!!

JimmyMethod wrote:1.) Use Wine and you can run Adobe stuff without a problem.2.) If you're running Ubuntu on a laptop, you need to fix something, or your harddrive will die soon... here's the link for the fix https://launchpad.net/bug59695.html

Thanks, I'll pass that info along.

And this Wine that you speak of, is it a PITA? In other words, do i have to set it up everytime I want to run a Adobe program? Lightroom takes up a lot of RAM so I don't want it to crash on me like it did on the bf's Vista desktop. Bleh. Aggravating.