some questions

[Headcrab Cakes]

sorry if i sound noobish, i don't really know much about building a computer.

1. i was wondering, is it generally cheaper to build your own computer rather than order one customized? (using mostly the same parts)

2. do most of the good modern mobos come with AGP 8X? cuz my graphics card supports 8X but my mobo don't

3. is there a significant performance increase between AGP 4X and 8X?

4. does a better mobo in general increase the speed of the computer? or does it not matter as long as it has all the need features?

thanks

 

[[Matt]]

1. In most cases its cheaper to build your own.

2. Yes as 8x AGP is an old standard now. Its soon to be replaced by PCI express which runs at 16x AGP speeds.

3. Hardly any. Most games nowadays struggle to even push 4x speeds.

4. Yes. If it has a faster bus speeds paired with faster ram then its nearly as good of an upgrade as a faster CPU.

 

[Headcrab Cakes]

thank you that helps a lot!

few more questions i thouhgt of

1. i've heard of dual channeling RAM. does that just mean the mobo uses to sticks at once instead of one?

2. how much would a good mobo cost with great speeds?

3. should i get a mobo with agp or wait for pci express? how long would agp hold the standard?

4 where can i get stuff for over clocking? i've OC'd my graphics card

 

[[Matt]]

1. Dual channel just uses 2 memory controllers to double the data transfer rate from the memory modules when in a dual module configuration. So yes 2 sticks of paired ram are better in this case!

2. Ive just bought a dual channel motherboard for £60! Its an Asus A7N8X-E Nforce 2 motherboard with 400MHz FSB. In short you dont have to pay that much at all for a reasonably fast mobo.

3. PCI express graphics cards will be quite expensive to begin with and benchmarks show they are currently no faster than AGP boards so go with AGP!

4. if you buy the right stuff to begin with its already supplied! Asus motherboards are great for overclocking as are AMD barton CPU's. Ive just combined the two so that im running a 2600+ at around 3500+ speeds by just going into the BIOS that came with the motherboard and changing the speeds.

 

[Headcrab Cakes]

thanks man!

more questions actually keep popping into my head though. do u mind if i e-mail you or something?

 

[[Matt]]

may aswell keep the questions here then everyone can read the answers... alternatively if you have IRC join the official hl2.net channel #halflife2 on quakenet as im op there