[lug] box building 101 - the bp6

[Kevin Fenzi]

Put this together for some friends of mine that are looking to build a
new computer. Thought it might be of interest to some here on the
lists. 

enjoy...

kevin
--
Ok, So here are some links and prices for a newish good priced pc. 

More than just the prices and links tho, I will try and explain how I
go about figuring them out. In the words of Sean: "price out a system
for a man and he'll get a computer, but teach him to use pricewatch
and he'll be able to upgrade for life..." 

So, the first thing to do is to realize the good price comparision
places on the net...I use two:

http://www.pricewatch.com/

and 

http://www.shopper.com/

It's good to compair them, as sometimes one has a much better deal
than the other for some reason. ;)

ok, the first thing we probibly want to do is get a vuage idea of what
sort of system we want to put together. The best place to start is to
determine what kind(s) of processors we want to use (this will dictate
such things as the mothboard, the kind of memory, etc..)

Since so many people seem interested in them, I will use a BP-6 system
for my example. The BP6 is a dual celeron motherboard. 

ok, so check pricewatch for bp6 mb's...
Look under motherboards, then dual celeron motherboards with cpu (it's
often easier/cheaper to get the MB and cpu at the same place...more on
this below)...

Here's where a little art work comes into play. The low price is $181
from a place called bzboyz.com. Thats with one celeron 366 and the
MB. Typically I will look for the first 5 to 10 entries and see if
there is anyone I have heard of and had good dealings with before. No
dice on this one. Next, I would go to the web pages of the top 5 or so
and see if they have a coherent site, I can get to the item I want,
etc..

bzboyz.com doesn't seem like that bad a web site. I was able to get to
the motherboard page and see a selection of bp6's. A bp6 with 2
celeron 366's is $230.22.

The next thing I would do is check and see if any of the other
components are avail from this same vendor. If they are not too much
higher priced than the compitention I would just get them here to
avoid dealing with more companies and to save a bit on shipping. 

Lets look at cases. The bp6 is made by abit, so we venture over to
their site to see what kind of MB the bp6 is. It's a ATX according to
http://www.abit-usa.com/english/product/index.htm.

The Enlight Case EN-7200AL looks pretty good. $73.84. 

So what all do we need to have a real system:

- cdrom
- memory
- hard drive
- keyboard/mouse
- floppy
- monitor
- ethernet 
- video
- sound

cdrom drive: There are 78x ones out now, but it really really doesn't
matter. Anything over 40 is pretty moot unless you are always reading
in cdrom data in bulk. (Most people will use their cdrom to install
the os, and then to play music cd's. You don't need speed). The bzboyz
cdrom is pretty pricy...44$ for a 44x cdrom. Lets check back on
pricewatch... We can get a 40x for about $27 at several places. 

memory: Memory is a good thing to splurge on, since you will be using
it all the time. Most new machines take PC100 SDRAM. I reccomend the
CAS2 ECC type. ECC is more expensive, but it's well worth it to avoid
memory hassles. 128 is a good amount for most machines these days. You
can get by with 64, but if you are planning on running staroffice or
the like, you will wish for more. pricewatch doesn't have a good
catigory for this, so we do a search for "pc100 128 ecc cas2" Looks
like 128mb dimms are running about $190 right now. Memory prices vary
all the time tho, so it's good to check just before ordering. ;) 

hard drive: IDE drives have gotten pretty good and SCSI drives are
still pretty pricy. For home/small numbers of users use, IDE should be
great. I would reccomend ibm drives. They have been pretty good to me
and ibm is good about support. bzboyz only seems to have SCSI drives,
so we go back and check pricewatch. Here it's good to look and see
where the good price break is. They have up to 40GB ide drives, but
that is more than most people need. ;) The best bet right now looks
like the 20.3 GB Ibm for $146. 

keyboard and mouse are pretty incidental. I usually order them from
one of the places I am ordering other items from already. bzboyz has a
intellemouse/keyboard combo for $60. 

floppies are significanty cheaper mail order than from a local
store. ;) Refurb ones are looking to be $7 from a variety of
places. Since the only thing I ever use a floppy for is installing
os'es or running tripwire on, they are not that important. In fact,
since most cd's are bootable these days, you can just avoid the floppy
entirely.

monitor is likely to be the most expensive part of your computer
purchase. A good monitor can be a godsend. A crummy one can ruin
everything. A 17" is good for most uses. If you do a lot with your
machine, a 19" can be worth it. Looks like a low end 17" monitor is
about ~$160. a 19" is running ~$280. Thats for no-name types. It might
well be worth it to splurge and get a good name brand
monitor...hitachi, sony, nec. 

ethernet cards are pretty cheap and easy. The thing to be carefull
here is to make sure they are supported under linux. Realtek cards
work fine and are very cheap (~$7/ea). 

You will want to choose a video card that of course works with your
monitor. You want to be able to do the best your monitor can do. 8MB
SGRAM cards should be good for most non gaming uses...There are a
number to choose from under $40. 

sound cards have also plummeted in price in recent times...You will
want to get a PCI card to avoid anoying ISA issues. I have had good
luck with the ensonic 1371 card. It's about $20. 

So, for a total we have:

Abit BP6 MB with 2 celeron 366's:  $230.22
enlight case                               $073.84
cdrom drive                               $030.00
128m memory                            $190.00
20.3GB ibm HD                           $146.00
keybord and mouse                     $060.00
floppy                                       $007.00
17" monitor                               $200.00
ethernet card                            $007.00
vid card                                    $040.00
ensonic 1371 card                       $020.00
------------------------------------------------
                                               1004.06

It's going to end up being more than that with shipping and the
like. You could get a cheaper mouse/keyboard, smaller HD, less memory,
or a single cpu system and get it cheaper. Just check pricewatch. ;)