Thread: Newbie(s)

Hey guys, my older brother and I have been reading the forums for a while now, and I are pretty convinced that we're going to build carputers. We're gonna build one in my 1994 Civic before we do one in his WRX (When he finally gets it :P)

I know computers inside and out and have gone to school for them. I kinda know car audio, but not a whole lot. Enough to wire up an amp/sub for the most part. My brother knows computers sorta well, but he makes up for what I don't know in Car audio. He knows his stuff. So, in a way, we make a pretty team, no?

We're probably going to be building [nearly] identical carputers, and our audio systems may differ quite a bit.

So, starting with the car audio, we're going to be going with 5 channel amps - 4 channels for components and the fifth channel for the sub. Easy enough. We MAY go with a 4 channel for the components and a smaller mono-block for the sub... kinda depends on power draws and such.

Moving along. The computer part. I've always been an AMD guy from the beginning. I don't know much about the difference in power draws, but we'll be using a 1.4V AMD sempron 2800+ on a DFI micro-ATX motherboard. Toss in 512MB RAM and an Audigy SE low-pro sound card. We'll probably be going with an M2-ATX powersupply.

The computer components I'm not too worried about, but if you see anything that throws up a red flag let me know!

Here's where I'm a little bit un-sure about things.

My car only has a single DIN slot for a head unit, and I'm no good at fiberglassing/bondoing to do some heavy modification to my dash. So I'm thinking about this motorized unit, because it seems to be one of the more affordable ones. http://www.short-circuit.com/details...rs/vmi70a.html

My brother will be using a Lilliput touchscreen in his double DIN slot in his dash.

We'll be using an RF keyboard with a built in joystick mouse thingy. GPS receiver, Wifi receiver and an FM receiver if we can find it.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Most of it is pretty self explanatory. What do you all think? Are there many AMD builds here? I have seen a lot of VIA and a few intel builds. And would it be worth it to go for an Athlon over the Sempron because of the huge processing power advantage... or is it better to just stay with the simple sempron?

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I look forward to some great input! I'll be starting to piece everything together once I get my Compustar alarm installed :P Thanks again.