HOW TO BUILD A COMPUTER 101
Date: 10/8/00
By: Rice

Monitor:

Monitor purchases are usually pretty straightforward. 15", 17", 19", or 21". Monitor technology hasn't changed much (not counting flat-screen LCD's that is way out of our budget), so you can pretty much expect the prices to stay static for a while to come. I don't recommend online purchases for monitors either, for the same reasons you shouldn't order your case.

The only alien spec you may come up against is dot pitch. It's usually measured in 'mm', and the lower the better. A good, high quality monitor would be rated at .23 or .25 mm. These come at a premium, but if you sit in front of the 'puter all day, you will be wise to invest in a good monitor to sooth your aching eyes. Average monitors rate from .26 to .28 mm. I don't think it's wise to get anything higher than that.

I personally use a 17" Sony 200ES w/ .25mm dot pitch that set me back $329. For a 17", that's a lot of dough, but from my experiences so far, it's worth it. The display is crisp and clear, the colors are vibrant, and the screen is FLAT! After checking out other people's lower quality 17"-ers, it only reaffirms my faith on Sony's Trinitron technology.

Hard Disk Drive:

Hard disk technology, on the other hand, has been ramping up almost as fast as CPUs and Graphics Cards. This guide will focus purely on IDE hard drives. SCSI is beyond the scope of this article, not to mention I've only had minimal experiences with it.

I think we're all familiar on the size rating of hard drives, so I won't delve too much into that. Go for at least 10 gigs, more if necessary. Never underestimate the need for more HD space. You'll be smacking yourself upside the head the day your 5 gig HD fills up just to save a few pennies. Okay, onto the specs!

ATA-33, 66, or 100: ATA-33 is the defacto minimum for IDE hard drives these days and allows for a max burst transfer rate of 33 MB/s. I'm sure you can figure out the transfer rates of ATA-66 and 100 yourself now. The important thing to note here is that as of now, there are no noticable differences between ATA-33, 66 or even 100! Software these days barely stress the 33 MB/s mark, but of course, it may be different in the future.
Revolutions Per Minute (RPM): The term is self-explainatory. There are two different RPM grades in HD's... 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM. Obviously, the faster the better, but also the hotter and noisier it operates at. It'd be wise to go 7200 now, because the tech has evolved to the point where the latter heat and noise issues I brought up are moot.

There are a few brands of HD's you will want to be aware of:

IBM Deskstar
Western Digital Caviar or Expert
Maxtor DiamondMax
Seagate Barracuda
Quantum Fireball
Samsung SpinPoint

All of the above are prominant HD manufacturers and their products all perform with negligable difference. If you are really into the nitty gritty, check out StorageReview.com.... the #1 source for HD reviews. Don't look at their price, though... it's supposed to be the HD's debut price.

Other Accessories:

3.5" Floppy Drive
-- No need to say anything about this. Just pick up any ol' floppy drive. I'm still using the one that came with my old 386!
-- Buy online or local. Don't matter. $10 bucks around.
CD-ROM Drive
-- Nothing to say about this either. If you're crazy about CD-ROM performance, get the Kenwood TrueX series. If not, just go down to Best Buys and pick up any ol' 40x or something.
-- Can get one online too.
Sound Card
-- The only soundcard worth purchasing now is Creative's SoundBlaster Live! Value OEM. You can get this for $50 bucks online. If you're gonna go the super cheap route, go to CompUSA and pick up a $15 generic soundcard.
-- Online for SBLive! Value OEM, local for cheap generic
Speakers
-- Best way to judge which speaker to buy is to go down to the shops and test listen for yourself. If you want to go with a 4 speaker + woofer setup, then you'll need the SoundBlaster Live!
-- Local is better.
Network Card
-- Don't underestimate the value of network cards. Cheap 20 dollar network cards may bring a lot of compatibility problems. I made the mistake in buying a generic Linksys Network Everywhere only to find out it wasn't compatible with my Cable Modem at home. I had to swap it for a Netgear FA310TX which, at $35 or so, is the best bang for buck in my opinion.
-- Online or local, don't matter.
Modem
-- When you're shopping for a modem, you can get either a (Soft) Winmodem or a regular hardware modem. The former utilizes CPU cycles and so may not be a good choice for gamers that need all the CPU power they can get. A regular hardware modem is more expensive... > $50 to be exact. However, it's pure hardware, so it won't rob CPU power.
-- Easy choice for most people... if you're an online gamer, stick with a hardware modem. I recommend 3Com US Robotics 56k or Diamond SupraExpress. Else, go with the cheap $30 software winmodems.
-- Online or local, don't matter.
Keyboard and Mouse
-- This is the least technical peripheral. Just get one, okay? Everyone has their own personal preference... you can get a cheap $5 mouse, an expensive optical mouse, or a handy dandy cordless mouse. Rather have a wheel? No wheel? Etc etc... Same with keyboard. I personally swear by Logitech for both.
-- Online or local, don't matter.

If there's something else that you want but I didn't include in this list, like CD-Burners, DVD-ROM, Zip Drive, etc... then you gotta go research for yourself. Sorry, can't spoon feed you everything!

That about covers the products section. Take a breather, and come back here to refresh your memory if needed to be. Once you have all your products in hand, and are ready to put them together, let's head onto the next section!

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