Sensible First Time Purchasing

[dom9inic]

Hi all,

as my post count can attest, I'm very new here. I've been stalking the threads as I'd like to get into building my own gaming rig.

I'm of the frugal variety and I'm hoping some of you wise veterans of system building can confirm that perhaps the first system is always the most expensive. The rationelle being that after that, you can do upgrades on single components for a few years before your motherboard just has to be upgraded for that juicy new CPU. Does that ring true?

I'm in the process of saving roughly £1,000 for said Conroe system, to buy all components at once. Seems to me, picking the right motherboard is the key to being able to upgrade to Quad Core and SLI in the future.

Any advice would be gratefully received. And I have to say, the depth of knowledge here is wondefully staggering. I'm a sys admin and the level of detail displayed here is reassuringly brilliant.

Cheers.

Oh, and I've just purchased a Dell 2407WFP for my old PowerBook G4 ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB. Can't wait.

 

[dom9inic]

Hi,

I have the keyboard and mouse, speakers I thought could come later, when my funds have had a chance to crawl back out of the gutter.

 

[dom9inic]

My 2c:
It can sometimes be helpful to go with just what you need. For example, 680i mobos are £200 and upwards. If you're not upgrading to quad-core/sli for another 6-9 months, you'll pick up a significant discount on the same board then. Plus the discount on your cards/cpu at the same time.
You also avoid locking yourself into current technology by overspending now.
Good luck with your build

That's good logic that I hadn't really considered. I suppose I've been very immersed in the ins and outs of single components to really take a step back and remind myself that buying tech invariably bites you on the behind if you're not careful.

Thanks.

 

[dom9inic]

Thanks for all the various input.

This is my first foray into sys building myself, and my motives are somewhat murky.

Here's a list (not in order of priority):

Gaming.
Linux Experimentation.
Windows Server Experimentation.
Learn the black art of Overclocking.

I understand that this likely puts my price up as gaming always kills the wallet on GPU(s) and multiple OS installs I like to run on separate HDs. And overclocking requires cooling and components that are prone to overclock.

As I said upthread, I'm saving at present, so I imagine summer to be a good time to buy. It's hot, and perhaps those 680i boards will be stable and cheaper.

But as I said, all input appreciated, I'm learning.