Motherboard
There are a wide range of motherboards available on the market. As
with all components purchased with you system I recommend staying with
brand names. The motherboard choice will vary with your choice of CPU.
There are several kinds to choose but the two most used are Slot
1 and Socket 7. Slot 1 will provide you with greater support up into Intel's
high-end Pentium II line of chips while Socket 7 (or super 7) will open
up possibilities with non-Intel chips such as AMD or Cyrix which are usually
less expensive. A slot 1 motherboard comes with the Intel 440BX chipset.
The motherboard should also support 4-5 PCI slots, 2 ISA slots, USB, 2
COM ports, LPT port, PS/2 Mouse, and Keyboard. On most motherboards you
will have to change the jumper settings to select your CPU. I chose the
ABIT VA6 because it has a jumperless motherboard that handles the
CPU and bus settings in the system BIOS. The VA6 is very easy to work with
and can be purchased for under $100.
Case
First thing is to make sure that your case is compatible with your
motherboard. They must support the ATX form factor standard. I recommend
a mid-tower with at least two fans, and 250 watt power supply. I have used
Enlight cases and prefer the 250 watt EN-7237. It has 4-5.25" bays and
2-3.5" bays. The power supply is located in the top back corner of the
case. The lower fan blows cool air into the bottom of the case and the
upper fan, located in the power supply case, blows hot air out of the case.
Your motherboard and case should also come with the correct plate to fit
the external ports on your motherboard. Verify this before you purchase.
CPU
The CPU is of course one of the most important components in your system.
Your choice of CPU will effect system performance more than any other component
(perhaps the exception being the graphics card). Today there are several
vendors offering x86 compatible CPUs. They include AMD, Cyrix and Intel.
Your choice of CPU must be compatible with the motherboard architecture
as well. A slot 1 CPU must use a slot 1 motherboard. Although there are
some options for adapters. Also, when considering your CPU the same questions
should be asked. What programs will I run? What is my budget? etc.
For the low cost alternative I recommend going with the Celeron PPGA. If you've got more money to play with consider going for a PIII 500MHz or better. In general, the Celerons with 128K L2 cache are an excellent choice for 3D gaming as they offer good floating point performance at a reasonably low cost.
Heatsink & CPU Fan
Intel retail CPU's come with a fan, but if you buy an OEM version you'll
need to purchase a heatsink with fan. I chose to use the Intel heasink and
fan for a first pass at this system. Later on I converted the GlobalWIN 25603-32
heatsink to fit the FC-PGA chip and it provide far superior cooling.
The fan should blow onto the CPU chip so that it has first crack at the
cool air.
Hard Disk Drive
The drive should support
Ultra DMA 33/66, EIDE and come with an IDE cable, mounting kit and installation
disk. Windows 95a supports only FAT16 and has a 2048MB limitation per partition.
This means that any one drive letter can be a maximum of 2048MB. A 6GB
drive would then be partioned into several drive letters. Retail drives
come with an EZ-BIOS extension that gets around this limitation and newer
versions of Windows (i.e.,Windows 95b (OSR2) and Windows 98) support FAT32.
You'll need to set the jumper settings on your drive to be master. Usually
this is the default setting for a new drive. Also, note the location of
pin 1 on the drive. This is usually located next to the power connector.
Windows9X CD/Windows9X Startup Disk
You'll need the original CD-ROM for Windows 9X as well as a boot diskette.
This should be supplied with your CD-ROM or it can be downloaded from the
web. I obtained my original Windows 98 boot disk when
I purchased a bare bones system.
3.5" Floppy Disk Drive
I chose the Mitsumi floppy drive for both systems I've built. It hasn't
disappointed. Note the position of pin1 on your floppy drive. It's usually
located next to the power. A cable should be supplied with the drive.
Graphics Card
The graphics card is probably going to be one of the most expensive
components you put in your case depending on your requirements. If you
want to play high-end games that require 3-D hardware accelerated graphics
then you'll need a graphics card that is cable of doing Direct3d or OpenGL
in hardware. Thankfully, most manufactures support good 3D accelerated
graphics today. I chose the Matrox G400 which is a 32MB AGP card. Other 2D/3D alternatives include cards made with the Banshee
chipset from 3DFx, Leadtek, ASUS, and ATI Rage Pro. Some 2D/3D cards come
in AGP or PCI configurations. If you have an AGP slot on your motherboard
use it. If you're going to be overclocking your system front side bus beyone
133MHz you should consider getting a PCI card. I chose the Matrox G400 since it
has proven to be stable at a 100MHz setting on the AGP bus.
RAM
The kind of RAM required again depend on your needs and
also the motherboard you have chosen. RAM comes in several types ; SIMMs, DIMMs,
RDRAM. RAM ranges is size from 1MB to 256MB per card. SIMMs (single in-line
memory modules) must be installed in identical pairs (i.e., two, four).
DIMMs can be installed individually. If you have a system that runs at
or over 350MHz PC100/8ns/168-pin SDRAM is recommended. For systems with
the 440LX chipset regular 10ns SDRAM will do. For overclock system I chose 64MBs
Enhanced Memory Systems PC133 HSDRAM for its stability beyond 133MHz.
Windows9x systems should be configured with a minimum of 32MBs. 64MBs is required for more demanding applications and most 3D games. The VA6 motherboard uses PC133MHz 168-pin SDRAMs.
CD-ROM
A 32x CD-ROM is more than adequate for most applications. Optionally,
you can substitute DVD-ROM. The CD-ROM should be IDE compatable and come
with an installation floppy disk that has the required DOS and Windows
drivers.
Sound Card
For the low end a 16-bit ISA sound card. For high-end, the Create Labs
Live! 32-bit sound card is considered an excellent choice.
Modem
56 Kbs or faster, ISA or PCI. I recommend getting a good quality
modem. 3Com US Robotics is a great source although you may pay more.
Monitor
A 17" monitor is really today's standard. Your should support multiple
resolutions and frequencies. I decided to go with the Optiquest 19"
monitor. Shop around. You'll probably find your
best buys for monitors on the web.
Speakers
If your into gaming spend a few bucks to get good speakers. Otherwise,
don't spend more than $50 bucks unless you plan to use other multimedia
software.
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