Budget Upgrade

[Glasses]

I'm looking for what mobo CPu combos with RAm I can get for $300 or maybe a bit more,from what I currently have an AMD 900mhz.

Thank you EL cuatro ojos.

[Tarmac]

Just bought an Asus A7N8X deluxe, Athlon 2200+, and 2-256 mb sticks of crucial PC2700 memory for $356 altogether.  Loving the system.

Take it down to PC2100 memory (all you need anyhow if you don't plan to swap CPUs later), maybe shave a couple mhz off the cpu speed, or go down to just an A7N8X (not deluxe, if you already have a sound card and LAN card), and you'd be right in the $300 ballpark.  

If you don't have a sound card/lan card, get the deluxe... it's $30 more for highly-rated sound and 2 lan ports.

[Glasses]

How about a case a cheap case to go aswell to run this system.

[Tarmac]

http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=82923


The case I bought didn't come with a power supply though.  I bought an Antec truepower 430W seperately.

[Glasses]

Would a Thunderbird Heat sink/fan work with the Athlon XP slots or would I need to buy another one entirely new? Also is corsair a good brand name of Memory in the  ase site there's a 512mb ddr stick of corsair PC2700 for $88 dunno if that's a good price for this type .

Thanks for the help.

[CavemanJ]

If you get an nForce2 board (the A7N8X is one) you need to sticks of RAM to take full advantage of the board.  MSI also has nice nForce2 boards and, when I bought mine, tended be a little less expensive than the Asus boards.

[straffo]

Originally posted by Glasses
Would a Thunderbird Heat sink/fan work with the Athlon XP slots or would I need to buy another one entirely new? Also is corsair a good brand name of Memory in the  ase site there's a 512mb ddr stick of corsair PC2700 for $88 dunno if that's a good price for this type .

Thanks for the help.

Mine work perfectly on my new barton you can keep it if it's good enought (check the temp° after 1st boot).
In case the temp increase to a dangerous value  the board (if you go for a A7N8X) will shutdown automaticly.

Personnaly I recommand a A7N8X + 2 stick of PC3200 memory (I got a lot of troubles with a PC2700)

[Glasses]

Ok OK Ok and What model MSI mobo is it? this is getting complicated!!! SO 2 sticks is better for the ASus board than 1 eeek!.

Keep it coming thanks

[Tarmac]

2 sticks of memory is the way to go in any Nforce2 board, whether it's Asus or MSI or Abit or whoever.  And right now, if you're going AMD, Nforce2 is the chipset to go with.

[Pfunk]

The ASUS Nforce2 board everyone is refering to has many features you will probably never use in a "budget" computer including RAID, Serial ATA, Firewire etc and the price reflects this $142.99 for this board.  I would recommend either an Epox 8rda or 8rda+ the + board gives you 6 channel soundstream sound and that is the only difference the non + is $88 and the + is $102.  Lots of folks have been having issues with the ASUS boards and memory.  My suggestion would be the EPOX 8rda with 2 sticks of Kingston HyperX PC3000 or pc2700 which runs around $50 per stick.  This memory flat out flies and runs very tight timings, this memory is just as good if not better than the COrsair XMS that everyone loves so much.  I have the 8rda+ and PC3000 and it runs flawlessly even with my overclocked XP1600 running at 1.9ghz.

[maddog]

The deluxe board has all those things.... but the other choice is the none deeluxe board which has sound and lan.... and was approx $118 at newegg.......  highly reccomended.....

by the way I do have a swiftech overkill heasink but temp never gets over 35........ if I recall correctly the Bartons have more real estate to disapate heat and actually run cooler then my AMD2000.. is that right skuzz.......

[DAVENRINO]

Only real downside to non-deluxe Asus is third party sound chip.  Deluxe uses Nforce sound chip.
DJ229 - AIR MAFIA

[g00b]

Take a look here

http://www.accessmicro.com/bundle/indexamd.phtml?kitid=KTAXPDDR400#product

For a good deal on mobo combos. Pre-assembled, burned-in, with a two year warranty. Super good prices too.

[Glasses]

oooh Muchas Thanks everyone lots of help

But how about the K7 thunderbird Heat sink fan will it work with the Athlon XPs and keep them cool?

[Pfunk]

http://www.resellerratings.com


AcessMicro has horrible reviews from those who ordered there.  IMHO newegg.com is the best way to go.  You have up to 1 year to RMA your stuff back to them if for some reason it fails.  I had a ECS K7s5a board that wouldnt boot after 8 months of use.  RMA'ed it and they sent me out a replacement.  If not newegg mwave, googlegear have good reseller ratings.