Author Topic: Any flaws with this system  (Read 365 times)

Offline Ripsnort

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Any flaws with this system
« on: September 03, 2002, 07:01:56 PM »
Intel Pentium 4 400MHz FSB 2.0GHz
Infineon 512Meg. PC-133 SDRAM
IBM 7200RPM 40GB Ultra DMA Hard Drive
GeForce2 MX 64MB Video (Will be replaced with my current Geforce 3 128 meg card)
AC97 Sound
D-Link 10/100 LAN
56K V.90 Modem I live in the stix, no DSL, IDSN, just phone lines
Samsung 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Samsung 24x10x40 CDRW
Altec Lansing AVS 200 Speakers (Replaced with my Cambridge's)
Logitech Wheel Mouse
Soft Touch Keyboard
P4 300W Case

$675

No monitor,(Ordered a 17" Flatscreen, BLAME ACID for that! ;) ) 3 years labor, 1 year parts from a local guy I've bought 2 'Puters from in the past.

Offline Animal

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Any flaws with this system
« Reply #1 on: September 03, 2002, 07:15:42 PM »
thas a pretty good price. was there no option to remove the parts you were going to replace, to save money?

Offline Ripsnort

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Any flaws with this system
« Reply #2 on: September 03, 2002, 07:41:14 PM »
Thks for reply Animal, I'll use the "spares" for upgrades to my 450 and 800 coal burners... :)

Offline Ripsnort

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Any flaws with this system
« Reply #3 on: September 04, 2002, 09:45:23 AM »
:)

Offline Hussein

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Any flaws with this system
« Reply #4 on: September 04, 2002, 04:53:07 PM »
Three things come to mind.

First of all - Do NOT buy a pentium4 with SDRAM board.. It will cut a big chunk of its performance. Buy DDR or RDRAM based motherboards / ram. SDRAM boards are cool for office but not optimal for gaming by any means.

Secondly, IBM harddrives have been notorious recently for failures. I'd take Western Digital or Maxtor any day instead of IBM.

Third, if you live in the stix where do you need the 10/100 lan? Do you have a home network? If not, lose that.

Offline bloom25

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Any flaws with this system
« Reply #5 on: September 04, 2002, 11:19:53 PM »
That's a terrible system!  That system would be undesirable for quite a few reasons:

1.  P4s and SDRAM are not a good match.  Using PC133 Sdram with a P4 will cause a monumental performance decrease compared with DDR Sdram or Rambus RDRAM.  (15 - 40% depending on application)

2.  They don't mention whether or not this is a Northwood or Willamette P4.  A Willamette P4 2 GHz CPU (256 kB L2 cache vs 512 kB) is not a good performer.  A Northwood 2 GHz P4 is a better performer, but would still be crippled with SDRAM.

3.  That board will not take the newer 533 MHz FSB P4s and thus lacks upgradability.

4.  Software based onboard sound will consume system resources and has inferior sound quality to other available solutions.

5.  Very cheap CD Writer.  (Plextor is the best.  Liteon is a good budget brand.)  LOL, they even saved a buck on the floppy drive.

6.  That isn't really a good price for what you are getting.

I realize you probably aren't considering AMD here, but even if you are dead set on going with a P4 do yourself a big favor:

1.  Get a 533 MHz FSB supporting i845e (or i845g) based board.  These use DDR Sdram and are fully backward compatible with the 400 MHz FSB P4 types.

2.  Make sure you are getting a Northwood core P4.  These have the letter 'A' at 2 GHz and below to denote the Northwood core.

I sure hope you didn't buy that system... :(

Offline bloom25

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Any flaws with this system
« Reply #6 on: September 04, 2002, 11:37:04 PM »
Ripsnort, I'm not even going to be able to sleep tonight because I'll be thinking you bought that system.  Did you know that a group of P4 owners have even filed a class action suit against Intel because the Willamette P4s on i845 SDRAM boards perform so poorly??? :eek:

Ripsnort, my system was about the same cost as that:

Athlon XP 1900+ (retail box)
Asus A7N266-C (has hardware based Dolby Digital 5.1 sound onboard)
MSI GeForce 4 Ti 4200 64 MB card
512 MB PC 2100 Kingston DDR Sdram
Liteon 16x DVD drive
Liteon 40x-12x-48x CDRW drive
Teac Floppy drive
IBM 75GXP 45 GB drive (carry over from previous system)
Enlight case w/ 340W power supply

After I was done tweaking with the video card and a minor OC to 1680 MHz (2012+) I scored a 11339 on 3dMark 2001.  That's equal to what most P4 2.533 GHz systems with GeForce 4 Ti 4600 cards get at stock speeds (i.e. non overclocked video cards).

If you really want a P4 system, I'd get a 2.26 GHz 'B' type CPU (533 MHz FSB) and put it on an Asus brand MB using the Intel 845e chipset and couple that with 512 MB of PC2100 or PC2700 DDR Sdram.  It would cost more than my system, but would certainly be MUCH MUCH faster than what you are looking at getting.

Offline bloom25

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« Reply #7 on: September 05, 2002, 12:08:15 AM »
Take a look at this:

http://www.activewin.com/reviews/hardware/processors/intel/p422ghz/benchmarks.shtml

It's the only benchmark I could find that compared the Willamette and Northwood 2 Ghz P4s with i845, i845D (DDR Sdram), and i850 chipsets all in the same review.  They also include the 2.2 GHz P4 (only made as Northwood), 1.7 GHz P4, 1.2 GHz Celeron, and a Celeron 1.3 GHz system.

Offline Roscoroo

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Any flaws with this system
« Reply #8 on: September 05, 2002, 12:14:43 AM »
I have to agree with Bloom here . I admit its a great price for all that in a P-4 but I doubt its a northwood cpu .(Dont buy a P-4 without a northwood in it !!! (ive been there done that )

For right now Pricewise and perfomance for the dollar in a gamming PC ... I have to recommend an AMD cpu and DDR ram. the AMD XP  cpu's have droped almost half in price this last month.
Roscoroo ,
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Offline Ripsnort

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Any flaws with this system
« Reply #9 on: September 05, 2002, 07:39:39 AM »
No, haven't purchased it yet, thks for the input Bloom, please check This Thread for my other option.
« Last Edit: September 05, 2002, 07:59:21 AM by Ripsnort »