New box, looking for suggestions.

[CavemanJ]

I'm looking to build a new box sometime in the coming month.  But as the twins have grown I've had less time to keep up with all the comings and goings in this electronic universe we populate

So I'd like to ask you real techno-geeks (and that's meant in a nice way!) for suggestions.  Gonna be basically a general home use/gaming rig.
Wanna get around the 2gig mark on the chip, and I prefer AMD to Intel here.

Which boards/chipsets give ya the best bang for the buck?  Is the nForce2 set a huge improvement on the first nForce?  What others are worth looking at?  And which boards take which RAM etc.

Vid cards: no preference between nVidia and ATI, so let's hear from the proponents of both.  I'm especially interested to hear Skuzzy on this one.  This will be the most expensive piece in the new rig.

These are the biggest question marks.  Gotta try to stay reasonable with cost to keep the ball and chain happy (of course, her getting my current box will help grease the wheels a little ).

[beet1e]

Hi Caveman!  

I have come to realise that questions like yours are like questions about income tax or questions about what route to take to get from A to B, both questions asked in a room of 20 people. You are likely to get 20 different answers! It's all subjective, but here's what I would do. I've found a combination I like - AMD processors on Asus motherboards. You have already settled on the AMD CPU, so it's just the mobo you need to choose. I choose Asus because I like the board features and the excellent support in the form of a website from which you can obtain .PDF files on all their mobos, and BIOS updates.

As for chipset, well Funked might disagree with me <;)> but I have found that the VIA chipset etc. works fine. I never had any problems with VIA drivers, so I choose the A7Vxxx mobos. My next one is likely to be the A7V8X, which supports DDR400 memory, amongst other useful attributes. The NForce chipset looks OK, but it's still quite new, and some people would baulk because of that. The onboard audio seemed OK with the last PC I built (A7V333), but I don't know whether onboard audio for any board is OK with Aces High.

A7V8X Summary: http://www.asus.com/products/mb/socketa/a7v8x/overview.htm

I'll get the Athlon XP2100 - I know that they go up to XP2700, but the prices rise sharply after the XP2100, and I would have thought the 2100 would be quite adequate. Heck, I even get 60fps with my Athlon 1200 MHz T-bird. BTW, I take it you know that those figures are designed to confuse - eg. the Athlon XP1800 is actually 1.53GHz, and the XP2100 is actually about 1.73GHz - something to do with comparison between AMD and Intel.

As for video cards, I think you have a good point in waiting for Skuzzy to advise. And that's because with a new graphics engine planned for AH, you'll want to get one that's the most compatible - especially as that card is likely to be the most expensive component in your case.  I always remember how iEN introduced a new graphics engine for WB3, and then issued a list of vid cards that were compatible. My old Voodoo 3500TV was not on the list, and I had to upgrade. That said, I don't think HTC would pull a stroke like that, but it's still worth waiting to hear from Skuzzy.

[eddiek]

Am waiting to build another system, told the wife I was gonna hand my current one off to her, which entirely suits her needs.

I know I wanna go with an AMD CPU, probably an Abit or Asus mobo, not sure what sound card (Audigy??  Anyone have problems with those?).
Am thinking about the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro for the video card, tired of the BIG hits anytime I get near smoke or a lot of planes.  Have seen a GF4 Ti4200 on a squaddie's system, awesome (compared to my current setup) graphics and framerates, might go with a GF4 if I hear too many bad things about the 9700.

Am waiting to see more responses from other AH players...........

[Skuzzy]

Video cards are really a personal preference and based on a lot of factors.

Here are some things to consider.

If you run an AMD based system, there is a good chance a NVidia card will perform better than an ATI card.
If you run an Intel based system, then ATI runs better than NVidia.
Now, the above two statements are based on the case where the two cards are of equal features/performance.

Overall, ATI seems to optimize for Intel and NVidia for AMD, but they both work fine regardless of the CPU/chipset.

If you are looking for a video card that you want to keep around for more than a year, today it would be the ATI 9700Pro.  However, in the next couple of months that may change as ATI is slated to release a higher performance chip (R350) in the latter part of February.
Then again, ATI may not release this chip due to the poor showing the NVidia FX (NV30) is having.

For NVidia, I would go with the GF4 Ti4600.  However, this card has a somewhat limited life as it is not DX9 compliant and the ATI 9700Pro is DX9 compliant.
Price wise, the two cards are pretty close.

As far as AH is concerned, either of the high end offerings from ATI or NVidia is more than adequate and will continue to be so.

[Hajo]

Just rebuilt my system a few months ago

ASUSA7V333 board:  I've built nine systems to this point.  The documentation and the ease of setup makes ASUS number one in my book.  A7V333 comes with the viaKT333 chip....does very very well.  When again I upgrade it will be with an ASUS board and an AMD cpu

System:
ASUS A7V333 mobo (via Kt333 chip)
Windows 98SE why?  More user friendly to anyone upgrading their system.  Just uplug drives and wires...take out old mobo, install new mobo, plug in the equipment...turn on, load mobo driver cd that came with ASUS mobo, and reinstall win98SE so that it sees new mobo instructions. Might take a total of 2 hours.

AMD AthlonXP2400......get a good thermaltake heatsink and fan.
preferably the  Thermaltake 6CU copper bases or the Volcano7.
Make sure you have a good case fan.  With this setup my AthlonXP runs at a constant 47C

The above mobo takes PC2100 or PC2700 DDR memory, works great with a Geforce 3 or 4 card, which run DDR memory also.
I'm using 256mhz of ram........Framerates constantly in the 80 range with monitor refresh rate set to 90.  Make sure your monitor can handle that refresh rate.  Using Sony Multisync 420GS 19" monitor.....very happy with it running 1280X1024 32 bit color settings.

Also the ASUSA7V333 board can handle XP2700.  And prolly future XP CPUS.

Good luck with anything you chose to build your new box

[CavemanJ]

Yep beet1e, I expect alot of different answers.  In fact, that's exactly what I'm looking for.  I'll sort through'em, read links to recommended gear, check reviews, and eventually boil it down and find my best bang for the buck point.

Now, my current box is a 1g duron on an MSI k7n420 board.  nForce chipset with the onboard video (use a gf2 ultra though).  I like the board/chipset, it works great.  Specially like the dbracket that came with it with the 4 LEDs that help ya trouble shoot where ya lock up during boot up  Was originally built with an XP1600+ but fried chip cause we set the heat sink wrong and best I could do to replace it at the time was a 1g duron.

Chipsets:  I tend to shy away from Via.  Granted it's been a few years, but my one experience with Via was pure toejam.  Even with all the drivers and updates et al I was impressed if the box booted up.  Since then I've heard Via got thier act together, so they aren't totally out, just starting behind the pack
One board I that made running is the MSI K7N2 .
I'll give the asus boards a closer look, seems lots of folks around here swear by'em.

Skuzzy with a vid card I'm lookin for the best picture/performance for the price.  Upgrading the vid card in a year or so isn't that big of a deal (the wife would so happy I'm just changing a card instead of building a whole new system ).  And an upgrade to my box means an upgrade to hers, passing her the one I replace.
Are the nVidia and ATI cards really just 6 of one, half-dozen of the other with the exception of the dx9 issue?  Already knew about that one, but how many games coming out in the next 12 months are actually gonna use dx9?  Any one card maker better than others, or is that just comparing features?

[ebgb]

Note from Microsoft:

Sidewinder joysticks are not compatible with Via chipsets.

I'll be researching an Nforce2 board.

[Skuzzy]

Best picture is almost always ATI.  I thought NVidia was going to address that with the FX board, but apparently it did not happen.

If you are looking at an AMD processor, go with NVidia.  The Ti4600 is fast enough for todays games.  Towards the end of 2003 NVidia will release the NV35 (according to them) and you can look at an upgrade sometime after that.  I would avoid the FX card (NV30) like the plague.

Bang for the buck is the ATI 9500 card, but I think someone got one for some AMD system and had problems with it.  Then again, there are a couple of guys who got one and have not had any troubles.

For just brute power with outstanding image quality, the ATI 9700 Pro is the card today.  But, it performs best in an Intel based system.
Keep in mind, ATI is releasing a new chip (R350) in February, which should be faster than the 9700Pro (R300) board.

You cannot really go by my experience here.  I can make any hardware work with almost anything, but I spend a lot of time matching components to get a well balanced system.
I will not use AMD, simply due to the surrounding chipsets being almost as compatible as Intel, but not quite there yet.

I know, I know,..there will be 100 guys in here to say there are no problems.  But I deal with them everyday.  Some people cannot recognize a software bug from a hardware bug.

[715]

The ATI Radeon 9500 Pro is apparently out now.  Its nearly as fast as a 9700 Pro (and sometimes faster than even a GF 4600) but retails at less than $200.  Anandtech.com has a review.  (Note- their benchmarks show that the 9500 Pro is much better than the 9500)

[CavemanJ]

Thanks Skuzzy.  Looks like it's gonna be between the ti4600 (saw a Ti 4800?? on MSI's site) and the 9700 Pro.  Does maker make any difference? like MSI vs Leadtek vs whomever?

You mention AMD chipsets being almost as compatible as Intel ones.  I've been around long enough to know better than doubt you when you say that  In your opinion what's the best AMD chipset out today?  Biggest reason I'm looking at AMD is cost.  They're less expensive than the Intel chips, and save my screw up and a stick of RAM going bad on me I've had no problems with my current box (save those I create myself ).

Ebgb I use a TM rig for flying.  The micro$haft twisty sticks are for f... erm.. those who follow an alternative lifestyle

[Chairboy]

I've got an A7n8x motherboard (Asus, with the nforce2 chipset) and it has some amazing features and is working great.

It supports the onboard temp sensor on the CPU (most modern motherboards still use a diode beneath the chip), has 5.1 onboard sound (actually decoded and everything.  It gives you 3xstereo line-outs), Firewire, USB2, Serial ATA (as well as fast IDE), and more.

[Pfunk]

A GF4Ti4800 is nothing more than a Ti4600 with AGP 8X, which will do nothing, no game utilizes it and it has no real significant performance advantage.  I have no idea why all these so called computer guru's have problems with VIA chipsets, I have had several computers all with VIA, and have not had a single problem.  The Nforce2 chipset seems to be the latest and greatest, not because of the onboard sound, video etc,  but because of the dual channel ram.  Now this definetly has some performance advantages.  EPOX motherboards are very good, and can be tweaked to the nth degree, ASUS are also nice boards however they tend to be pricey.  If you got the $$$ by all means go for the 9700 PRO, it is the best card on the market and is on par and even better than the newly released GForce MX.  I am a big fan of my $155 9500 128MB non pro that with the new Rivatuner drivers performs like a 9700, I overclocked it and it has the same performance as a 9700 Pro.  But some people dont like to tweak stuff and would rather spend the $300 for a retail 9700 Pro.  If you plan on going the AMD route, which I highly recommend due to the performance/cost ratio, you should go to http://WWW.AMDMB.COM and read the motherboard reviews there.  Also you might want to visit there forums and see what the users are saying.

[mrsid2]

You can't go wrong with the nforce2..

I'm currently thinking of getting the Shuttle SN41G .. that small breadbox of wonders rocks.

[beet1e]

Originally posted by ebgb
Note from Microsoft:

Sidewinder joysticks are not compatible with Via chipsets.

I'll be researching an Nforce2 board.

Were you serious about that?  I have a Microsoft Sidewinder (1) joystick with a VIA mobo, and it works fine.

[Skuzzy]

Caveman, bloom25 has a better knowledge of the AMD side of things than I do.

For ATI cards, the built-by-ATI cards are the best bet, however, Sapphire seems to be doing a good job as well.

For NVidia, I am not sure who is making the better boards.  There are differences as some manufacturers skimp on the RAMDAC's which directly effect pixel clarity.
If the manufacturer lists the RAMDAC specs, look for 300Mhz or faster to get the clearest image.