Author Topic: Some Advice Please (Read 972 times)

Flit · « **Reply #15 on:** March 01, 2004, 12:25:03 PM »

Did this for $500
just got a new M/B, Video card and ram, everything else was in my old box

humble · « **Reply #16 on:** March 01, 2004, 01:51:33 PM »

Morph...

All advice above is pretty solid...the real key is what you want out of the system. you can build a great AH2 system for about ~$650 including video (assuming you have ok monitor now).

ASUS/ABIT/Gigabyte all make good high quality MB's that are good if you want to overclock. If your not the OC type a bunch of "2nd tier" MB's also would work DFI Shuttle ECS MSI IWILL SOYO all have decent products (ECS is very spotty on quality but they're great if they work:)).

You can get a decent 2500-2800+XP combo a bunch of places on line or from fry's.

you'll want to get 2 x 256 2700DDR (or 3200 if you get agood deal) instead of 1 x 512 if you get a barton core AMD XP+ (2500 and above)...

I'm running a Ti 4200 MSI card...still whups on most of the "new" cards...Ti 4600 is even better.

Any case with a good power supply (350W or better) is OK...400W is better in long run. If your really just buying for AH2 then "go low" and save the coin. You'll have it if you need to upgrade for AH3

in a couple of years...

LSJ · « **Reply #17 on:** March 01, 2004, 05:33:03 PM »

Yeah some good advice here but i wouldnt call the DFI a 2nd tier motherboard specially if you like to over-clock. If thats what you wanna achieve i really think you cant go past a DFI and a Mobile 2400+. I know a freind who has reached 285 fsb on that combo, And dual channel ram is good but can limit some overclocks. I can only do 11X210 with dual 512's and 11X228 with one, my barton is locked however the mobiles are not. And the mobiles use less Vcore

humble · « **Reply #18 on:** March 02, 2004, 10:23:18 AM »

I just but a DFI board in one of my systems over the weekend. It certainly seems like a decent board but I wouldnt recomend it to anyone specifically as an OC board unless they have a lot of experience. Overall the documentation is pretty sketchy. I'm not really an OC'er...I'll tweak em up a bit but haven't really bothered to push the edge with anything. Obviously the budget in question here limits things to "stock" OC'ing anyway...can't see adding the cooling capacity.

You can overclock a barton core cpu pretty easily with the stock fan and still keep temp in the ~45-48C range. I thought you needed the twin sticks to maximize dual channel thruput...certainly not an expert however. Even if you get faster CPU speed I think your memory bottlenecks with a single stick...but I may be wrong.

AH2 isnt going to tax any stock XP2600+ or higher board with a decent video card and 512 onboard eitherway. Only thing I'd add is to make sure you but in a low end sound card and disable the onboard sound...big frame rate diff in most systems.

Roscoroo · « **Reply #19 on:** March 02, 2004, 11:44:35 AM »

With the Asus A7N8X- deluxe your dont need to disable the sound it works great (just get the Asus updated driver for it )

I have great sound and my Vox hasnt gone out yet at all .

It fades out transmiting on my old AC97 sound mainboard though every now and then but its never stopped receiving most of the garbely gook we get .

With my 2500+ running at a shy 2.2ghz my idle temp is 45-48c and heavy gamming temp is 50-52c at most . (52c after playing C&C generals zero hour <-- this game is a heavy hitter cranked all the way up )

And Dual sticks of ddr is a must to get the most out of it.

One thing to pay attention to is the 2500+ bartons though they are supposed to have locked cores on the new ones ...
I myself havent seen one yet ( last one I perchased was in Dec)

ChasR · « **Reply #20 on:** March 02, 2004, 02:32:43 PM »

I agree with Bloom, wait. AH2 is months away. If you simply can't wait, as in current machine is dead, my recommendation is as below. I've built 3 of these and they work well, overclock well and give 3200+ performance for around $1100 including monitor, keyboard, mouse, and MS XP Pro.

Hot Athlon XP 2500+

I don't recommend spending the money to buy the XT cards but oc the pro's to XT+ speeds.

Building your own is cheaper than buying from a tier one supplier such as Dell if you compare them with identical components. Thing is you won't be able to oc the Dell.

humble · « **Reply #21 on:** March 02, 2004, 05:25:02 PM »

Chasr...

Where did you pull those prices from...nice price on the XP Pro?

ChasR · « **Reply #22 on:** March 02, 2004, 05:51:58 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by humble
Chasr...

Where did you pull those prices from...nice price on the XP Pro?

New Egg

XP Pro is OEM, no documentation or Microsoft support

WhiteHawk · « **Reply #23 on:** March 08, 2004, 02:03:02 PM »

system below cost me about 1300 bucks, that includes the 199 I spent on windows XP. Ive heard there is a way to get that cheaper tho.
And by the way, My motherboard has problems if your interested in some wild overclocking, but other than that, it smokes.

ChasR · « **Reply #24 on:** March 08, 2004, 03:59:26 PM »

WhiteHawk,
I also can't get as much out of my IC7-Max3 as the hype at its introduction would have one believe. 240 FSB (960 effective) is maximum stable speed now. It ran for months @ 245 and ran prime 95 for 24 hours but lately just won't do it. Temperature isn't the issue as the cpu is watercooled and the case has 7 80mm fans. I'd hoped to hit 250 FSB, w/memory @ 1:1 @ 2.5-4-3-5 timings. I got close but I think the Abit voltage bug is the limiting factor. It still screams.