Opinions on new Computer Hardware

[legendboy]

This is what I'm thinking:

Intel Celeron 2.50 GHz 128K 139.95

Asus P4S800 DDR 400 w/Audio,SPDIF,Lan,USB 2.0,AGP 8X 119.95

Micron Original 512MB PC3200 DDR400 139.95

Maxtor 120GB 7200rpm ATA133 Fluid Dynamic Bearing 144.95

Total Cost: $ 582.94 tax in

[sml]

I'd go for this instead:

AMD Athlon XP2500+ 512K Barton (RetailBox) = $134.95

Gigabyte GA-7N400-L wDualDDR400, Audio, Lan, AGP8X = $119.95

plus the remaining of the above listed parts

here's the reason why I choose AMD over Intel:
http://www17.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030217/cpu_charts-32.html#comparison_table

Celeron 2.0 = 126, $105
XP 2000+ = 154, $102

AMD is cheaper and gives you more performance.

[benyl]

what about a Vid card?

AMD is about half the price of Intel.

[legendboy]

I don't play games :GASP!!: haha so onboard should be fine.

[benyl]

I am a noob, but doesn't "AGP8X" just mean it has an AGP port that supports 8x? or do all mobos come with onboard video now?

[kaput]

.

[googe]

Yeah, that refers to the agp slot, which you can fill if you so desire. It is independent of the onboard video, just because alot of people like the flexibility of being able to add another (better) card.

[Dj_Stylz]

Originally posted by legendboy
This is what I'm thinking:

Intel Celeron 2.50 GHz 128K 139.95

Asus P4S800 DDR 400 w/Audio,SPDIF,Lan,USB 2.0,AGP 8X 119.95

Micron Original 512MB PC3200 DDR400 139.95

Maxtor 120GB 7200rpm ATA133 Fluid Dynamic Bearing 144.95

Total Cost: $ 582.94 tax in



Where did you get the price for the HD thats a real good price

[benyl]

Originally posted by Dj_Stylz




Where did you get the price for the HD thats a real good price

Costco has a 160GB 7200rpm drive for $145.99. But they are out of stock... bastiges.

[Dj_Stylz]

damn thats a wicked price!!

[eur0]

id go p4p800 and P4 2.66 ...the mobo is most important imo cause its the base off of which everything runs...asus is a good choice, personally i got this...

Asus A7N8x $149
AMD 2500 w/ Barton $130
2x256mb dual channel ddr kit $180

pretty cheap too and runs very well, oc'd to 2.2 right now and runs smooth

[MerfBall]

I recently got a Asus P4P800-Deluxe, P4 2.4C, and 2x512MB PC3200 (picked it up at inifinet PC (www.infinetpc.com) for a good price) with an ATI 9500 pro.

AMD is cheaper if you go low end, as you get to the higher end of the spectrum, Intel outperforms AMD and what's funny is that AMD's pricing is not that much cheaper on the higher end. But $260 for a P42.4C to get hyperthreading and 800MHz FSB is a damn good deal.

AMD cannot beat the 800 MHz FSB and Hyperthreading on almost any level. That and AMD's synthetic proc's speed is getting annoying, esp. when you look at the barton and thoroughbred.

[hampstor]

Originally posted by MerfBall
I recently got a Asus P4P800-Deluxe, P4 2.4C, and 2x512MB PC3200 (picked it up at inifinet PC (www.infinetpc.com) for a good price) with an ATI 9500 pro.

AMD is cheaper if you go low end, as you get to the higher end of the spectrum, Intel outperforms AMD and what's funny is that AMD's pricing is not that much cheaper on the higher end. But $260 for a P42.4C to get hyperthreading and 800MHz FSB is a damn good deal.

AMD cannot beat the 800 MHz FSB and Hyperthreading on almost any level. That and AMD's synthetic proc's speed is getting annoying, esp. when you look at the barton and thoroughbred.

AMD defeated the 800MHz FSB by internalizing the memory controller, basically eliminating the FSB. in effect, you get a 1600MHz FSB in the Athlon64 :)

Anyway, Legendboy, no matter if you buy AMD or Intel, only buy motherboards that are proven to be good and reliable, not purely by the brand name. The motherboard is by far the most important thing in your computer, it connects every device you have together and if you have a problem with the computer quite often it is a motherboard :)

That being said, the northbridge on motherboards (exepct amd64's, cause they dont really have one) is the key. On a P4S800 the northbridge is an SiS648FX. SiS makes fairly.. crappy northbridges on average when it comes to long term durability so you might want to stay away. For intel systems, purchase only boards with Intel northbridges and for AMD, VIA's KT series and nVidia's nForce (2) series.

[MerfBall]

Yes and the Intel P4 EE still beat out the Athlon 64 :D

[legendboy]

i pretty pissed. I just missed a P4P800-uay and P4 2.6C for $300 bux used.

[Dj_Stylz]

When i fired my comp over summer Somehow i got this one.

System:
AMD Athlon XP 2600+ 333FSB (Retail Box not OEM)
Gigabyte 7N400-L1 SocketA NForce2 Dual DDR400 AGP 5PCI >ATA133 w/Sound, Lan(Retail Box
not OEM)
Kingston 512mb PC3200 DDR400( or 2 x 256MB DDR 400)
ATI Radeon 9200 128mb Pro , 8X AGP

System = $569 + tax
Setup = $35 + tax(1 >year warranty covered by wholesaler)

Case = $59 + tax
Total w/tax = $709.41



I got it custom made :)
But i took some parts out of my old pc
Like Hd
CD Rom
3 1/2
Modem
Was not a bad price

[legendboy]

Ok, how about this:

Asus P4C800 Deluxe
P4 2.4C HT
512 Micron DDR400
Western Digital 120gig 8mb Cashe

[teknical]

Athlon XP 2600+ Thoroughbred (Retail Box) 333FSB
GA-7VM400M-P w/ Video, Audio, Lan, SATA, AGP8X
512mb Micron or OCZ Pc3200 DDR
Maxtor 120GB 7200rpm ATA133 Fluid Dynamic Bearing

[MerfBall]

Originally posted by legendboy
Ok, how about this:

Asus P4C800 Deluxe
P4 2.4C HT
512 Micron DDR400
Western Digital 120gig 8mb Cashe

It depends the only difference between P4C800 Deluxe and P4P800 Deluxe is that PAT is enabled and it has a AGP pro slot (vs regular AGP). But ASUS has managed to unlock the PAT technology on the 865 chip, but names it something else (forget the name). So really the only difference between the two is the AGP pro (whoopee).

If your gonna go with an 875 chip I would go either Asus P4C800-e Deluxe or GigaByte 8KNXP. The difference between the P4C800-e deluxe and the P4C800 deluxe is that the P4C800 does not have the CSA Lan (uses a 3Com using the southbridge) and does not use ICHR for the SATA raid. They really cheaped out on the original P4C800.

If I were you I would go P4P800. And depending on whether you need a ata raid or not go with P4P800 Deluxe (for raid) or P4P800-UAY if you don't. The reason being is that the P4P800 performs very close to both the GB 8KNXP and P4C800 (because of the unlocking of PAT on the P4P) and it costs almost $100 less. CSA Lan is no big deal unless you are planning on running on a gigabit network, which nobody really does, not even large corporations. AGP Pro, whoopee, unless u plan on runinng a Fire GL card or other professional graphics card.

Also, make sure u get the RAM in pairs so that you can run dual channel.

[atomic]

http://atomic.digitalcreation.net/retro/images/wall.jpg

you need a pdp 8 cluster with a few ptr paper tape readers and punches, ... maybe a rk8 cartridge disk .. and the cute spinny ts11 magnetic tapes .. and you can print out all your beyond.ca on your brand new line printer!

[w3apon]

I did lots of research on the parts, and this will get you a system that will compete with the best for a great price. Locally memoryexpress.com and techtronics.ca have great prices.
www.tigerdirect.ca has great deals for canadaian dollars, don't order from the US unless you have a really good deal as you always get screwed with brokerage fees.


ASUS P4P800 Deluxe or UAY mobo (depending if you want RAID)
$209.95 or $179
P4C800 is not worth the extra money, the P4P800 performs just as well especially with some o/c'ing.

Intel Pentium 4 2.40C GHz 512K 800FSB w/ Hyper-Threading
http://www.memoryexpress.com/
$269
You can easily o/c this CPU to 3.2GHz+ with proper cooling(see next item)

Thermaltake P4 Spark 7 CPU cooler
http://www.thermaltake.com/products/spark/spark7.htm
~$45

OCZ 512MB PC3200 EL Dual Channel DDR Kit Platinum Edition (2 x 256MB) - $229
http://www.memoryexpress.com/

Asus 9600 Pro 128
$239 at memoryexpress.com (Saphire)
The vid card is one of the most important things you can get for your pc. I would stay away from the GeForce brands as they really do not compare in performance and are having lots of problems with their latest cards. In some tests the 9600Pro beats their top of the line 5900.
Some people say that the 9600Pro is not as good as the 9500pro, but the 9600Pro does have DX9 support and yes they are slower on the older dx8 games, but they perform better on the next gen dx9 games and you can o/c these cards like crazy!

Case - Get a good, easy to work on case that has at least 350watt power supply, and has good case fan ventilation to keep your whole system cool. I find that memoryexpress cases are really expensive for whatever reason. Techtronics on 32nd have good 350 watt cases for $75 range.

Seagate 80GB Serial ATA HD 7200 / 8MB / 8.5 / S-ATA-150
It is faster than the 120GB models, so I wouldn't get a larger one unless you absolutely need it for all your pr0n :)
$129 at www.tigerdirect.ca

[hampstor]

When buying a power supply, not only look at the peak rating (ie: 350w) but also look at power distribution across the rails. Cheapy 350w power supplies (ie: techtronics) put out enough power to minimally run your processor (12v rail) compared to a 300W Enermax unit which will put out more power where it's required.

Also, the voltages may not be as stable on the cheaper ones vs higher end ones such as enermax/antec/tt. How this affects you is with overclocking. If your power supply can not keep the 12v rail close to 12v, your system is not going to be stable.

Lastly, warranty warranty warranty! Ask what the warranty is before your buy it, and ask HOW the warranty is taken care of. If they say 1 year warranty then ask if it is repair, over the counter replacement or if you have to do it yourself. You may save 5 bucks from buying from one store, but if you have a problem and you have to ship a hard drive to ontario, suddenly that 5 bucks you saved is gone. In addition, the hassle of shipping and waiting for the product (some manufacturer's do NOT have advance replacement) is not going to be worth the 5 or 10 bucks saved.

[MerfBall]

Originally posted by w3apon

Asus 9600 Pro 128
$239 at memoryexpress.com (Saphire)
The vid card is one of the most important things you can get for your pc. I would stay away from the GeForce brands as they really do not compare in performance and are having lots of problems with their latest cards. In some tests the 9600Pro beats their top of the line 5900.
Some people say that the 9600Pro is not as good as the 9500pro, but the 9600Pro does have DX9 support and yes they are slower on the older dx8 games, but they perform better on the next gen dx9 games and you can o/c these cards like crazy!


The 9500 pro is a DX9 native card. The reason the 9500 pro is better is because of the 4 extra rendering pipelines that the 9600 doesn't have. The increased clockspeed of the 9600 pro has yet to be able to outperform the 4 extra pipelines in the 9500 pro in most cases. But this point is moot as it is near impossible to find a 9500 pro.

Also at the very least check out infinetpc.com they are local as well and will try their very best to beat any price in the city, just give them a call it doesn't hurt. And cpu wise always buy a retail intel cpu, u can't beat the warranty Intel Channel offers (instant exchange).

[w3apon]

Yeah the 9600 vs 9500 pro is pretty much a moot point since it's very hard to buy a 9500 Pro from a store these days, but the 9600, especially once you start o/c'ing them are very good cards despite the missing 4 pipelines

Here is a good overall comparison of an o/c 9500 pro vs an o/c 9600 pro using 3dMark2003 (yeah I know it's not a "real" test, but it does have some good info).
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/print_article.asp?current_section=Hardware&fs_article_id=1229

Also, in TomsHardwares latest review of the 9800 XT (nice), they have some comparrisons against the 9500 and 9600 pro:
http://www20.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030930/index.html

Basically for a mid range card, this is your best bet if you buy from a store.

[legendboy]

So I ended up getting:

Celeron 2.5Ghz

Asus P4P800-uay

OCZ 512 DDR400 (dual)

MSI FX5200-T128 128MB DDR w/TV-Out

Western Digital 40GB Caviar 7200rpm ATA100 8MB Cache

Samsung 955DF Pure Flat CRT, 19in, Black

For $1064 tax in. Not too bad. If I ever want a better system just throw in a P4C chip :)

[speedracer]

Originally posted by atomic
http://atomic.digitalcreation.net/retro/images/wall.jpg

you need a pdp 8 cluster with a few ptr paper tape readers and punches, ...
PDP -8? yuck
PDP-11 is where it's at :D



Originally posted by legendboy
So I ended up getting:

Celeron 2.5Ghz
Asus P4P800-uay
OCZ 512 DDR400 (dual)
MSI FX5200-T128 128MB DDR w/TV-Out
Western Digital 40GB Caviar 7200rpm ATA100 8MB Cache
Samsung 955DF Pure Flat CRT, 19in, Black


Not too bad (I would have shelled a bit more for a seagate hard drive)

[teknical]

nice setup, OCZ ram is amazing, its very easy to overclock, and runs very well once o/c'd.