So, I want to build a dream computer, run Debian or Ubuntu on it. I figure I can build this myself for between $1000 and $1500.

Waht I'm looking for is advice from all you smart people, what is wrong with my design, how I can make it better, what I'm being foolish in because I've never built a computer from parts before...

Quad-core Intel Extreme Processor, 3.2GHz
Asus Mobo with Dual Channel Ram, built in Gigabit Ethernet
4G DDR2 (or DDR3) ram
512 MB NVIDIA video card
750GB SATA hard drive
SATA DVD burner
case with good cooling fan, ATX power supply
Wireless Keyboard/ Mouse

I'd love to have something powerful enough to go all out on desktop effects and eyecandy, compiz, etc.

I'd be a little concerned about the SATA DVD burner. I don't know where they stand with this stuff. Be sure your controller's driver supports it OK. Get an Antec power supply with the *big* fan.

That's pretty beastly. I'd go with a WD Velociraptor/Raptor for the OS hard drive (it really does make a difference) with the 7750GB for storage. And an ATI video card. I've been an NVIDIA fan, but the new ATIs are great, have good open source drivers with 3D that are always getting better, and have DirectX 10.1 for gaming in Wine or a VM.

OK, I have no affinity for NVIDIA, I'd just read that it was better for linux drivers. If that's not the case, then ATI's fine by me.

Thanks for the input! I might be wrong about the SATA dvd, I might go with IDE...
I'll check out the raptor drive, how much do they cost?

What else do you smart people ahve to offer? Thanks!

My experience is that IDE drives should be avoided at all cost. I have more than one lying around here, they just stop working every other kernel. SATA opticals on the other hand have never let me down.

I would say, don't bother with the raptors. If you get a 1TB Samsung spinpoint, you'll find that they are nearing raptor speed at a fraction of the price and at a fraction of the noise and heat production (in fact, the price is about the same, only the raptor is 74GB and the Samsung 1000GB...). Also, many 750GB drives are slower than 320GB or 1TB drives because of the number of platters. And I keep repeating that it is often better to have two drives rather than one (back-ups, flexibility, performance, ...).

Quad extreme? Aren't those ridiculously expensive? I would doubt that those will fit into a $1000 budget. Butif you are going to invest, you may as well hold off until i7 comes out. I know someone who has been able to testdrive them and from what I hear, the cheapest i7 (about $300) is about as fast as the most expensive penryn. Plus i7 will be making the move to triple-channel ddr3. I don't know whether it is a good idea to invest a lot of money into a ddr2 based platform at this time.

Anyway, if your only ambition is to run compiz and eye candy, any of the above will be massive overkill to be honest. All it takes is a decent dual core, a decent video card and 2GB of RAM.

I would certainly use two harddrives so that you may use softraid.

I agree, I assembled my computer last summer and I was gonna get a Quad Core Extreme, until I saw the prices of course, after which I opted for a regular Quad Core, I got the Q9300, although I would have wanted one with more L2 cache like a Q9450 or Q9550, I just couldn't find any in stock anywhere around here.

Whatever anyone tells you, if you want a graphics card that is well supported under Linux do NOT get an ATI card. Although I don't like it that I have to use proprietary nvidia drivers, they are way better than the $#*% ATI puts out. Since this is the non-nix forum this may not be relevant.

The motherboard you buy is very important, make sure to read some reviews of it before buying it, and if you plan to run Linux to look it up for compatibility and issues it might have.

Typically there are no problems, and if you do have problems use the ahci driver in AHCI mode, never had problems with it.

Good point about the PSU, try using this:
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/p...ulatorlite.jsp
Make sure to add 50 - 100 W to that value so you can safely add stuff to it later.

As for RAID, I recommend against RAID0/AID0 if you value your data.

I'd just say don't go *too* crazy. I have a single-core 2.6GHz Opteron252 from 2005 and it just mops the floor with my Core2 Duo 1.8GHz Pentium. My MoBo will take a second 252 (otherwise there wouldn't be a point in a 252 on a MoBo which will only take 1 CPU) - but the work I was hoping to do just didn't pull through so I never bought and installed that second CPU. This machine I've got is so good I suspect I won't look at buying another until this one actually fails. The graphics card was obsolete about a month after I got it though: NVidia GF6800GTX-256. It's still an awesome graphics card though, and rarely run to its limit. I see winduhs games though which claim they *require* a much better card (*gasp*). Damned games.

If you'll run programs that can take advantage of a quad-core CPU then great - otherwise a dual-core serves most home users very well.

Yeah, the only reason I wanted quad extreme is that it has a generally higher clock rate, I was looking up some tests and it seemed that a 3.0GHz Dual Core performed better than a 2.8GHz Quad, the extremes had the higher clock rate., so they looked good.

Part of why I want a quad core is that I want a lightning fast computer. Also, I do quite a bit of video work, so it would be useful for rendering/burning.

The other issue of it is I want a computer that will last for quite a while, both for cost reasons, and environmental reasons. I don't want to buy a computer every two years... so I'm trying to buy ahead of the curve.

If I were to buy an LGA 775 mobo, would that design be around for a while? The otehr reason I want to build my own computer is so that I can slowly upgrade it with time, instead of getting a whole new one. I could buy a 3.15GHz Dual Core, and then upgrade to Quad later.

If a program is specifically designed to run multi-threaded then the Quad should beat the Dual core. If not, then the Dual core will win. It's true, there's not that many programs that have support for multiple threads. Maybe we should benchmark using something like 'make -j4' or 'make -j2', and see the time it takes to compile something.

Why would you specify an Antec supply? What is special about Antec? That a manufacturer heavily advertises does not necessarily mean their product is any better than any other. This is particularly true with power supplies, and most specifically with Antec supplies.

The fact is that the only real way to find out how good a supply is is to purchase it and test it. For obvious reasons, this is not practical for most of us.

However, there is a good surrogate that most of us CAN take advantage of, and that is acceptance by certification agencies. There are maybe a dozen of these around the world, and their standards vary - and consider factors starting at basic electrical safety and proceeding through various performance standards.

I have done well over the years by picking the supply (regardless of brand name) that has the most rating agency acceptance certifications (which will always be displayed on the power supply case and, in the case of retail packaging, on the box).

Using this standard, you see that many Antec supplies are just not that good; only a few certs including UL (which is a minimal cert).

Ideally, you want a power supply, regardless of price that: (a) meets its specified ratings - and perhaps a bit more, (b) is stable at maximum output, (c) is efficient, and (d) tends to FAIL SAFE!!!

Many supplies, when they fail, will spike the system and this can destroy lots of things. A supply that is accepted by a lot of certification agencies is far more likely to shut down its outputs quickly when it fails, thus protecting everything downstream.

IIRC, the Raptor is Western Digital's enterprise grade SATA drive. The hardware is essentially a SCSI drive, with a SATA connection to the host. This would make the Raptor superior to most other SATA drives in terms of vibration tolerance, throughput, and life expectancy. But you do pay for them.

[QUOTE=jiml8;3330324]Why would you specify an Antec supply?[quote]

Because I have one, obviously. I pointed out that it has a large fan, because the OP was insisting on a good case fan. I'm sure there are other high quality supplies that have the same fan from the same manufacturer.

I haven't seen this, Jim, and in fact, a manufacturer doesn't gain enough pennies from the elimination of a basic crowbar circuit to make it worth their while. In my experience, there are two failure modes of switching supplies. The most common one is the gradual failure of the electrolytics. This causes a slow reduction in voltage until it's below the value that will run whatever is using it. You can usually trace the electrolytics in these supplies back to China. Replacing the electrolytics with good Japanese units is usually all it takes to rehabilitate these supplies.

The other failure mode I've seen is the traumatic failure. One supply I had on a machine literally blew up with a loud bang, due to the explosive failure of a switching transistor/mosfet. It didn't damage the computer, though, and that motherboard is still running.

I have a 5 year old Codegen supply that is still running just fine. I took a look at the caps, and didn't see any sign of leakage. Codegen is not generally considered at the top of the line in power supplies. And, it doesn't have a 120mm fan.

My point is that the certs are more important than the brand name, and price is not necessarily a good indicator of quality.

I think that if you check you'll find that most major manufacturers of electrolytics have put out bad batches at one time or another; I am not aware that there is a specific chinese connection, though given the many quality control revelations of the last couple of years I am willing to believe that in the current environment there might be.

As for catastrophic failures and crowbars, it is incorrect to state that it isn't worth it to build a supply without a crowbar. If the "design to cost" criterion is extreme enough, then you will find that the $0.02 that crowbar costs at production time DOES matter. I have seen power supply failures that destroyed computers.

This, again, is where the certification ratings come into play; a supply without a crowbar can obtain a UL rating if it doesn't present a safety hazard, but most of the other ratings agencies will refuse it.

Thus is my point made. How many acceptance stickers from cert agencies does it have?

And, yes, a 120mm fan is a good idea. Also, a thermal speed control on that fan is a wonderful idea.

the speck looks very good
apart from the wireles, i never like
wireless always go for wired