How to watch for incompatibility issues

From TheBestCaseScenario

[edit] Intro

When your going to shell out £££$$$ for a new machine you don't want to find that you have ordered the wrong parts, this generally ends in hair being pulled out by lots of &^%&^%$&* words.

Using the following general guide you can avoid most if not all incompatibility issues.

[edit] What to watch out for

When you decide what system you want to build you need to check for part specs, IE: DDR, DDR2, DDR3

Once you have decided Intel or AMD you can then decide where to go from there.

[edit] Intel

Intel generally use Socket 478PGA (Pin Grid Array - Pins are on chips) and 775LGA (Land Grid Array - Pins are on motherboard). Once you have found your new chip, check the pin layout, its very hard to find a 478 CPU now unless you're in the secondhand market.

Intel Chipsets are known to blank some chips, to avoid this always try and find the latest chipset you can, Generally at the present the best about is the "Intel P35, GX33 and Nvidia 680i" these three chipsets are all future proof to the extent thay can accept the upcomming Intel 45NM CPU's. Check the latest chipset reviews before you decide what chipset to use.

Also check what memory type your board your thinking about uses DDR, DDR2 & DDR3

[edit] AMD

AMD generally use AM2PGA (And soon to be AM2+PGA, AM3LGA) AMD chipsets unlike intel's will accept near enough any CPU you throw at it, the only exception was the original chipset from a few years ago with using sempron chips, this has however been fixed.

Currently the best Chipset on the market is "Nvidia Nforce 5XX Series" there are other chipset manufactures though including but not limited to VIA, SIS & AMD

Also check what memory type your board your thinking about uses DDR, DDR2 & DDR3

[edit] Memory

Now you can decide what memory to use, There are two main standards at present: DDR2 and DDR3. DDR2 has a slower clock speed (MHz) than DDR3 but it has lower latencies also. High end DDR2 chips will keep up with DDR3 with no problem. DDR3 is massively over priced at the moment

Always by the rite chips though, if your board says DDR3, its obvious, buy DDR3 memory.

[edit] HDD/Optical

If your board is a new Intel then you will only find one IDE connector on the board, this is left purly for the optical drives, theres no excuse for using IDE drives anymore, SATA has surpassed IDE in every aspect, and price wise, is about the same.

SATA drives are backwards compatible, so you don't need to worry about using SATA 3.0Gbps drives with a SATA 1.5Gbps motherboard. The drive automatically falls back to the slower speed if the motherboard does not support the higher speed.

[edit] Floppy

I don't care what anyone says, it still a good idea to have a floppy drive, some boards won't let windows see the hard drives until you load the sata driver, this is where a floppy drive comes in handy, its the only way to load sata drivers when you install windows/Linux.

[edit] GFX

When you decide what to use: ATI, Nvidia. you then need to decide whether to use Single setup or dual setup:

• Crossfire (ATI):

If using crossfire you can't use a board that is using an Nvidia Chipset, it just doesn't work. You need a crossfire board, the best ones have a second ship called "Crosslink" installed, this can boost the performance of Crossfire

• SLI (Nvidia)

If using SLI you need an SLI board, these normally have the word SLI in their title, Currently the best boards out there feature the Nforce 590 chipset.

[edit] PSU

The PSU supplies power to all your devices, critical parts like CPU and GFX always need a stable power supply. check the power requirements needed for your system, then add about 1/3 for overhead, try to get a power supply with an energy efficiency rating of 80% or higher

Check what revision you need, some come with 20pin ATX power, others with 24pin power, check which your boards needs you need not worry too much about this as there are plenty of converters about.

[edit] Case

The standard is ATX, so long as you use ATX you shouldn't hit any problems unless you use an EATX board. The other thing to watch is the depth of the case, newer graphics cards need loads of space. Always check the space from the back of the case to the HDD holders to ensure your card will fit. Good air flow is somthing else to be considered.