Author Topic: what I think I might buy, what do you think? (Read 3288 times)

-ammo- · « **on:** October 08, 2001, 02:38:00 AM »

Enlight EN-7237 ATX Mid Tower 300W 4x5.25 3x3.5 $54.00

Creative Labs Blaster CD 52X IDE CD-ROM $31.00

Cooler Master DP5-6I31C Socket A/Athlon4/FCPGA upto 1.733GHz $19.00

WD Caviar WD200BB 20GB U/ATA100 8.9ms/2MB/7200rpm $90.00

SONY 1.44MB 3 1/2 inch Floppy Drive $17.00 $17.00

ASUS A7A266 ALiR-M1647 Socket A UDMA100 2DDR 3DIM 5PCI $129.00

Micron 256MB 184pins PC2100 DDR SDRAM DIMM $36.00

Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 PCI CT4815 Bulk $19.00

Inno3D Tornado GeForce2 GTS Pro 64MB DDR SGRAM AGP4X $118.00

AMD Athlon Thunderbird Socket A 1.4GHz FSB266 $124.00

so are these good choices?

Ghosth · « **Reply #1 on:** October 08, 2001, 07:13:00 AM »

They look good to me!

I don't see anything there that you should have any troubles with.

Defiance · « **Reply #2 on:** October 08, 2001, 08:32:00 AM »

Hiya's,
Creative Labs Blaster CD 52X IDE CD-ROM $31.00 :Noooooooooooooooo it's a POS trust me

I have the A7a266 : No get the ABIT KG7 Raid (or even the "light" none raid) or wait for a new revision

Though the A7a is stable and great for a upgrade without additional ram required (uses pc133 etc or DDR, Not at sametime though ! lol)
A KG7 runs rings around it from bios/stability (irq probs) and future proofing (pali support) for not too much more $$'s

If you want a better CD-Rom i can suggest some, Though what i am doing is ditching my CD-Rom for a DVD as these keep up with a CDRW better

My opinion about Creative may seem harsh but i have had the same 52x twice, Just last week i got yet another refund and vowed never again to buy Creative Cwap unless it had S-Blaster etched on it and it fitted a pci slot :d

Have Fun

Def

btw i had a inno banshee and she's still going after almost 4yrs abuse

Shamus · « **Reply #3 on:** October 08, 2001, 09:50:00 AM »

Ammo, you might want to think about kicking up the power supply some, 1.4's and gforce draw a lot of power and any upgrade will probably overstress a 300w

Shamus

SKurj · « **Reply #4 on:** October 08, 2001, 09:51:00 AM »

At that price buy 512mb of ram!

SKurj

Staga · « **Reply #5 on:** October 08, 2001, 10:08:00 AM »

Shamus is right.
350W power supply should be enough to feed mobo,vid-card, fans and couple hard-disks if needed.

Swager · « **Reply #6 on:** October 08, 2001, 10:48:00 AM »

Roger on the 350W PS.

Antec (SX 1030, I believe) makes a good case with the 350W, but the 7237 is a nice case also.

Also Ammo, I got a MSI GeForce 2 PRO 64M for $139, but I believe Newegg has them now for $124.

Oooppppss! 1 more thing. Crucial has great RAM and they are presently having FREE shipping. Check out their Website. I believe 256M DDR PC-2100 RAM is $34.

Good Luck and keep us updated!!

[ 10-08-2001: Message edited by: Swager ]

[ 10-08-2001: Message edited by: Swager ]

Sancho · « **Reply #7 on:** October 08, 2001, 11:26:00 AM »

I'd spend a few bucks more on the video card. Get a GeForce3 Ti200 for about $185.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #8 on:** October 08, 2001, 11:44:00 AM »

I would avoid the WD hard drive at all costs. They are highly inconsistent in quality. IBM's IDE drivers are a bit better.
But then, I am a SCSI kind of guy and prefer a Seagate Cheetah.

Rendar · « **Reply #9 on:** October 08, 2001, 11:53:00 AM »

Antec SX-1030 has 300 watts. SX-1040 is 400 watts.

Reschke · « **Reply #10 on:** October 08, 2001, 12:16:00 PM »

Since you are making the DDR memory jump get away from the A7A board and get the A7V266 that just came out from ASUS. So far so good and very stable as well. I got mine this morning and have it up and running now with a 512MB Micron DDR stick and a 1.4GHz T-bird. Make sure you get a power supply that is higher than 300W though.

-ammo- · « **Reply #11 on:** October 08, 2001, 01:58:00 PM »

OKJ great info guys.

Why a A7V board as opposed to a A7A board?

Also, I know what it is like to have a crappy CDrom, I have replaced 2 toshiba's. So what is a decent CDrom at a reasonable price? I am just buying a straight CDrOM, no DVD or R/W now, to save money.

As far as Case/powersupply I will look at the other ones mentioned here. I had no idea it made that much of a difference. Any other guys that have products they can reccomend from experience?

On the hard drive, I though WD was the way to go, again educate me

What is the advantage to a SCSI HD? I currently have one in my machine now, controlled by a Promise Ultra card. Recomendations please.

Thx fellas, this is kind of exciting.

-ammo- · « **Reply #12 on:** October 08, 2001, 01:59:00 PM »

is this a good HD? http://www.bunta.com/products/prodspec.asp?item=HDIBIC740

Skuzzy · « **Reply #13 on:** October 08, 2001, 02:40:00 PM »

Yep, that IBM is a pretty good one.

Well,... I like SCSI stuff as I can put in my HD, CD, and Scanner on one interrupt and not suffer any performance loss.
The Seagate Cheetah drives are some of the fastest HD's around. Very reliable too.
I use an Adaptec SCSI card, as that is where I used to work and helped design them. Heck, wrote all the UNIX drivers for Adaptec, so it is aproduct I know very well.

Another reason I like SCSI is for all the OS's I need to run. Under and UNIX, a good SCSI adapter will just kick IDE drives all over the place in performance.
Plus, if I need to have 4 or 5 hard drives in a system, a CD-ROM and tape, SCSI is the way to go.
Nothing particularly wrong with IDE, it just has some limitations I cannot live with.
It is cheaper than SCSI, and under Windows, it does okay for performance. I just have not found an IDE drive that is as durable as many of the SCSI drives I use.

My environment is a bit different from most though. My systems stay up 24/7, which helps alleviate a lot of problems with the power cycling of hard drives, so my hard drives tend to last longer than most peoples.

Gunthr · « **Reply #14 on:** October 08, 2001, 03:38:00 PM »

I can vouch for the Antec SX-1030b (B=Black in color), which has 300 watt ps, or the SX-1040 with 400 watt ps. They are the same except for color and ps.

The Antec SX-1030B is about 98 bucks I think. You would never regret buying this Mid Tower case. Its big. It's heavy, top quality, has a great latching door that comes of in .05 seconds, and on the same way, securely. GREAT airflow...Four 80mm fans... 2 sucking in front, 2 blowing out the back, plus the ps blowing out. And this case is upgrade proof for a long time, at least for me. Plenty of room.