PC Build

[David Rysdam]

"Greg Rundlett (freephile)" <greg at freephile.com> writes:
> I hardly know anything about hardware and mostly buy from newegg or
> tigerdirect.  It's been years since I built my first linux box from
> scratch.  Any comments, advice from regular or recent builders?

I know just enough about hardware to realize I know nothing. Matching
speeds and buffers and voltages and pinouts--even if I knew how it all
worked it would still be a vast combinatorics game.

What I've done with great success is:

    1) Browse through Newegg's bundled "build your own" page and find
       one that is as powerful as you want, but a little too
       expensive. This gets you a list of things that work together to
       do what you want to do.
       
    2) Remove/downgrade parts you don't want. (Mine is usually the video
       card, his might be a smaller HD or no monitor or a smaller case
       or something.)

    2b) After removing parts, you may also be able to downsize the power
        supply (although in his case, maybe not).

     3) Price all those parts separately, not as the bundle, and see
        what it comes to.

Alternatively, you could look for something just under the right price
but not powerful enough and then upgrade the video card.