Help with pc build

I'm thinking of building myself a new pc as soon as I can save up some cash, and I was wondering if some of you could help answer a few questions since I'm a little behind on tech. First about the Pentium 4 prescot cpu's, the ones I've looked at on new egg say they have 64bit support. Does this mean I'll need a 64bit version of winxp to use them? Second I need some recomendations for cooling it. What's a good fan to use?

Thanks

1)No
2)If you buy the retail package you get a fan with it. Otherwise any heavy duty fan will say if its compatable with the CPU you buy.

1) Don't get a Prescott. They still run rediculously hot and require large ammounts of power, for little extra gain in performance. Get a dual core instead (and possibly switch to AMD).

2) The Prescott 6xx do have 64-bit extensions (SSE3 ?) but are not true 64-bit processors (they are still x86 architechture) so they won't need an x64 OS (in fact they won't even run on one). You'll have to get a regular WindowsXP for it.

3) As for cooling, don't use Intels stock fan - it's useless. Get the in-a-box version for the extra warranty (if you want it), and then slap a high-end Zalman heatsink on it. In my own case this almost eliminated fan noise, and the CPU temp dropped from 60 to 37 degrees C.

In short, I'd go to a site like Falcon Northwest or Alienware and look at their top models for inspiration. Then try and build something similar.

The AMD's are a lot more optimized than the Intel ones, use less power, and also run cooler... Unfortunately the basic intel dual core offerings are quite a bit cheaper than the AMD ones at the moment. Tough choice. :-?



That's the way to go, especially if you get a dual core chip, there's more going on, = more heat = more noise.

AMD retail packs are good value. The fan is quiet and more than capable of keeping the processor cool. Not forgetting that the retail pack comes with a long warranty.

Couple that with AMD's recent announcement of up to 19% price decreases for its processor line and you've got yourself a bargain.

Whether you go for dual-core is up to you and can only be decided by assessing the likely applications you'll be using. If you want all-round great performance, and you can afford it, the X2 4400 is probably the best (you get 1M of cache, not found on slower X2's). If you play the odd game and spend the rest of your time coding, just get the fastest Athlon64 you can afford.

As previously mentioned, only AMD's chips are true 64-bit (capable of running 64 bit OS's). Intel's 64-bit comprises a few extensions that allow you to use more than 4GB of RAM.

Windows XP x64 is all well and good, if you can find compatible drivers for it. Owners of Canon printers need not apply (in most cases). Most other modern hardware has 64-bit drivers. Most, if not all, Creative soundcards, Nvidia and ATI graphics cards and a good selection of network adapters have the appropriate drivers available. More importantly, 64-bit motherboard drivers are also readily available.

Should you run a 64-bit OS? Maybe. I could, but I don't. When Vista hits the shelves, I will.

I went from an FX55 single core to a "slower" 4800+ X2 dual core and I realy can't imagine going back. Windows is just so much snappier than it was before. It's well worth it to go dual core.

Don't think I'll bother self building again, although I have built about 5 systems it is a real nightmare avoiding all of the compatibility pitfalls.

These look tempting ;) http://www.gladiatorcomputers.com/ProductList.aspx?CategoryId=5.1&Link=BrowseSubCategory

As Flameduck says, Intel cooling sucks. IMHO they're designed to wear your cpu out quicker.

I'm using a Thermaltake Big Typhoon on P4 3.2Ghz. Idle's at 24C and peaks to around 34C under load. Apparently it beats a few water cooling solutions. It's a massive/heavy cooler though, so you'll want good mobo mounting and a wide case. I was a bit concerned about the stress this cooler puts on the mobo, so I fabricated a bracket that runs from the top of the cooler to the power unit shelf. Very quiet (20db) because of 120mm fan running at low speeds. Other things are helping with the cooling here: aluminium full height tower, 6*80mm thermally controlled case fans, rounded ide leads etc.. Also all leads are firmly fixed and most are hidden, i.e. not floating wherever they like in front of fans.

My gfx card runs hotter than the cpu, although there's not much I can do about that.

Thanks everbody.
@vinylpusher thanks, I wasn't planning to switch to a 64bit os though, I just wanted to know if I would need a new one if I got one of these processors. If I did, it would have been scratched off the list, but since so many people are bumping AMD I may do that anyway.

The PC I'm wanting to build doesn't have to be a super machine, but I would like to use it to play some newer games like Painkiller (newer to me anyway). Any suggestions for a "best bang for the buck" AMD processor? I'm only building one because I've got half the stuff I need already (i.e. HD, GFX card, keyboard, mouse etc.) I was going to get a case and board combo, a good processor, and some fast DDR memory and let that be it.

If you already have a GFX card is may limit your choices a little bit, since we're right at the point of another platform change... From AGP -> PCI Express.

I assume your current card is AGP, so that will rule out some of the higher end options anyway, since the 'latest and greatest' pretty much assume you have a PCI Express 16x card...

If you do have AGP: Make sure you know what type, is it AGP 1-2, or 4-8? Few of the current motherboard still support the AGP1 & 2 cards, so if you have one of those you may be looking at a different video adapter as well.

@SMC: The Athlon 3700 was the best bang-for-buck when I bought it, and it probably still is. You get a 1MB cache, which is nice, and it overclocks well (if you're into that sort of thing). A few months ago, the 3800 was touted as the best bang-for-buck. It's not going to be much different now.

A 3700 can equal an FX55 without really pushing overclocking too far. I did it for a while but then just gave up faffing around, a plain 3700 is fast enough for what I do (Painkiller included).

Painkiller runs fairly well (at 800x600) on a GeForce FX5900XT, so pretty much anything you buy for more then £50 in the way of graphics cards will be able to impress you.

If this upgrade is going to last you a while, I would suggest 2GB of Mushkin RAM. Even if it's the 'slow' stuff (no DDR RAM is really very slow). 2GB of slower RAM will be better than 1GB of super low latency stuff when Vista is around.

There's a cheap dual core intel cpu that can be overclocked to silly levels. see tomshardware for details.

So 64bit Athlons will still run a regular version of winxp?

Yes.