Anybody out there actually build their own computers?
I build my own and have done so for friends of mine.
AMD vs Pentium and why?

Personally I have found AMD to be a little too middle of the road and not as cost effective as Pentium. I have found the cost vs features and speed to be different. Also I am curious if anyone out there has Overclocked their puter.

So who out there knows their way around the insides of their puter?

Always have, always will =p I've been building my own computers since I was about 8, so I've worked with many generations of hardware, and even chanced it in the birth of vista era.

AMD are good processors but they run a lot hotter then Pentium, so I never buy them...
I dont believe in overclocking, though I know a lot of people who do, I just see it as straining your hardware to run faster which will shorten its life when you could just buy a better cpu (or go dual/quad core!)

what kind of system are you setting up?

BUILD MY OWN WIRELESS FREE INTERNET ACCESS ,CANT BE SHUT DOWN ,ALWAYS ON THE MOVE..........

Ive been in the IT field for about 9 years, also free lance contract work and running my own small business building and servicing computers. As far as Pents vs AMD I go with AMD as its cheaper and I perfer them due to what I typically use them for.

Mine was built by my brother and it's still going pretty good. The next one I buy will be from a guy that builds computers here in my town. I feel like I can trust the product more when someone takes the time building it and making sure it's about the quality, as opposed to store bought where it's built on an assembly line where it's more about quantity. JMO

I've built all of my computers since 1995. In fact, the one I'm presently using was lovingly hand-built by me as well. I'll probably continue hand-building my computers for the foreseeable future, a the commercial alternatives just don't quite cut it for what you're paying for.

Here is a list of computers I own
Wonderbox:
Pentium 3.2GHz P630 Socket 775 CPU w/ Hyperthread
Asrock 775V88+ MOBO
2GHZ of PC 3200 non ECC RAM Gigram brand
ASUS x850 8X AGP
2X Western Digital 120GB HDDs
1 400GB WD SATA HDD
Sony NEC OPTIARC DVD RW w/ HD Support.
Thermaltake watercooling.
Clear side case, black.
Windows XP 64X
Built for Graphics Grinding


Thunderbox
Pentium 3.0 GHz P620 Socket 775 CPU w/ Hyperthread
Asrock 775V88+ MOBO
2GHZ of PC 3200 non ECC RAM Corsair Value Select
Radeon 9600 Ultra 8X AGP
2X Western Digital 80 GB HDDs
1 Western Digital 250 GB external HDD
Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Soundblaster
Turtle Beach Video Advantage PCI Video Capture
Sony NEC OPTIARC DVD RW w/ HD Support.
Evercool Watercooling.
Windows XP pro
Same case as above computer.
Another graphics Grinder BUT this is my main work horse

TIVOPuter
Pentium P4 2.66 GHz socket 478 Non HT
ASUS NB72 REV B Motherboard
512 MB of PC 100 RAM
Sony NEC OPTIARC DVD RW w/ HD Support.
Audigy Soundblaster LIVE 5.1
ATI All In Wonder 8600
Windows XP pro
I built the case for this one. It is 13 1/2 inches SQUARE and it is completely see through and lit up inside. I made this one from spare parts!!! It has a Sony 21 inch monitor for its main screen but it also drives a projection system I made and a Sony 36 inch TV. The cordless keyboard and mouse I have on it really make this a lazy man's computer since I can sit on my couch and watch a movie and be on the internet at the same time in totally COZY comfort.

Psycodell
This is a good one!!!
I had a Dimension 4550 handed to me and it had a burned out MOBO. Throw the computer away? Pay $350 for a new MOBO from Dell?
WHAT???
NO FRIKKEN WAY!!!
I hit up eBay and got a Asrock P4M800 MOBO for $35 used.
P4 3 GHz socket 478 CPU w/ Hyperthread
1G PC 3200 non ECC RAM
MSI GT6600 8X AGP
Audigy Soundblaster
Windows XP Pro
Being a proprietary case I had to tweak it a lot to make the parts I got for it to work. The PSU was replaced with a larger one to handle the higher power needs for this one. I also went psycho on the case and customized it so the side badges light up. Outside it still does look like a Dell Dimension but it is defiantly a LOT cooler to look at since the side badges change color!!! this is my office machine and backup Graphics Grinder.

Frankenputer.
This one has been through three incarnations but wound up with a ASUS slot 1 MOBO BUT And I KNOW you are going to say "Why have you still got that old dinosaur?"
It is 1.5 GHz!!!!
It also has a dock for swapping hard drives and a switch to select for the main HDD to be Master Sole Drive and Master w/ Slave Drive. It was purpose made to work on hard drives and do data recovery.

Donkeyputer was handed to me as a dead computer missing its Hard Drive. It is one of two AMD machines I own. Nothing special about it. It is going to be my eBay work computer once I can fight my way back into my garage.

X-10 is a project computer I am working on as I can get the parts I need for it. It is intended to be an automated house automization and security control computer and it also is AMD. it uses an older MSI mobo.

Lastly is a real blast from the past.
I have a working Lazer 486DXII computer at a whopping 200MHz! I keep it around just in case I run into the need to recover data from a ...
5 1/2 inch floppy.
It has Windows 3.1 as an OS with DOS 6.

So far I have about ten computers I built for friends of mine for various purposes. My most expensive one not counting monitors or peripherals was about 4,500 smackers but it was top of the line! The quad core CPU was over 1000 bucks alone. Dual SLI graphics cards also costs as does a 1/2 TB of HDD. It drives FOUR monitors and handles two sets of controls for REAL head to head action!

The least expensive machine I put together capable of playing ANY video game available (using DOOM III as the benchmark) 350 bucks not counting monitor.

I am no programmer but I love customizing computers!

Computers are like cars in a lot of ways. It is good you did it with love and not some mechanical sense of it being "Just a damn computer!" It makes it so personalized to your needs and feel when you make what you want. You know what you have then and it "fits" you better.

A Road 'WAR'rior huh?

If you were going to build a power machine or a really serious work horse (ie. Graphics Grinder) what platform would you opt for?
It has been in my past shopping and price comparison that AMD for the speed and cache verses Pentium the AMD dollar for dollar was the lesser of the two with a couple of exceptions, both appear to handle primary and secondary bit caching differently.
P4s with Hyper Threading seem to be much faster Gig for Gig in clocking speed unless you spend more on the equivalent AMD but then you start to sacrifice cache. Unless something has changed with AMD is not their L2 Cache still only 512M where the P4 630 775 at 3.0 GHZ has an L2 Cache of 2M? The P4 630 is about $75 at Newegg. That is an older HT chip. It may not be a true dual core but HT was what Dual core evolved from and HT is in essence like having two CPUS in one chip like a Dual Core Computer has.

I think you will agree that the leadership position between AMD and Intel changes. Currently, It looks like my next build will be Intel. (I am running X2 3800 for now). It was a blast, but looking at newest specs, I have to admit that the dark side wins again...

It sort of the same with GPUs, at's always Nvid vs. ATI... (unless you do a lot of pixelwork, then it's a Matrox).

I say too bad laptops are as interchangeable as desktops, part and components/cases wise.

I wholly agree. These days instead of AGP the new video standard is PCI-Express. Still, the ATI x850 Platinumn is still the hands down fastest vid card period. PCI-E is getting close though.
I have word on the grape vine that AMD is trying to perfect a new generation chip that is supposed to be a massive leap over Pentium and exceed 5ghz without over clocking but if it does come out I have to imagine the cost will be horrendous like the Quad Core Pentiums.
Now way back in the day there was a CPU maker called Evergreen who had the hottest chips on the market before SLOT 1. I thought for sure they had stay power. What ever happened to Evergreen? They had the first Ferofluid cooled CPU on the market and it was HOT HOT HOT for its day.

I build my own personal one and I also build PC from parts of older ones (gifts & garbage pickups) and sell them cheap to people who can't afford new and expensive ones.

I have built 3 computers of my own and built a couple for friends. I think if you are preety good at trouble shooting computers you should build your own. As far as pentium vs AMD I belive that AMD is better for gaming and pentium is better for multi tasking.

I built mine a long time ago and need to build a new one an I like AMD it's cost effective.

While technically, I prefer the current the Intel/nvidia chipsets, I did refuse to buy their products for close to a decade because they sued http://www.x86.org. There's really not much difference in buying vs assembling my own, and the last half dozen or so computers in the past few months I've purchased assembled, removed the crappy Microsoft product it came with and installed linux onto them. In particular, most of my purchases are from http://www.tigerdirect.com, whether it's a laptop or Desktop model. The ATI chipset sucks and has an oddity when it comes to switching into and out of text mode that is fatal, at least for svgalib.

always build my own, although that may change if the prices keep dropping like they have been on pre-built ones. I have always gone with AMD's also, my current setup looks like some cheesy lan party rig, I've got the plexi window on the side and blue cooling fans scattered everywhere, I'm using an Aspire case

The problem I have with pre-built PCs is all the junk that they come with.

Been doing it for a living for at least 15 years.... god knows how long before that... just didn't make a living doin it

Not a problem with a volume (or not actually) copy of your preferred OS , just wipe whatever drive it came with and start fresh.