Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: FT_Animal on May 17, 2004, 05:06:50 PM
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I was referred to you by Horn in the illusive BW NG that you were the man to talk to about MBs.
I think the older I get the lazier I get to dig into things the way I used too.
I've got a good idea of what I am going to build. But I need to get some response on the MB & Video Card.
For now I've decided on the Raidon products. The new Geforce that could compete with Raidon is going to be too expensive for a while yet.
What I am looking for is some good solid advise on what MB to use with this card. I know, from a mistake my Bro-in-Law made, that some MBs have conflicts with Raidon that can not be fixed.
The only things I really need to buy are the CPU, MB, Vid Card, Memory.
I've been partial to Gigabyte MBs, but open minded on this one.
(damn , sounds like I'm shopping for a woman )
This is what I want to build on
Windows XP Pro
Sony Tritintron E200 17" Monitor
Intel Pent 2+ GB CPU
Raidon 9800+
1 GB Memory
2 HDDs WD 80+ GB ea.
1 CD-ROM
1 CD Recorder
? 1 Zip Drive
Saitek X45
Linksy Wireless
DFE 530TX+ Eithernet Card
What is the best MB for this, priced within reason?
Any suggestions??
Thanks in Advance ;-)
Animal
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(Sorry for the delay in responding, I've been working 50+ hour weeks for the past couple months...)
Before I make any recommendations, I'd highly advise waiting for a month or two if you can. Both Intel and AMD are making some major changes to their CPUs. None of the current motherboards make for either the Athlon 64 or the Pentium 4 have any newer CPUs planned for their corresponding sockets. (I.E. There is no CPU upgrade path for any existing motherboards.) There's a lot of other reasons to wait, but unfortunately I don't have time to list them all at the moment.
If you really want to buy something now, and you want a Pentium 4, I'd have to recommend using the Asus P4P800 line of motherboards. (The P4P800 Deluxe is excellent.)
For the Pentium 4 itself, make sure you go with a 'C' type Pentium 4 (Northwood type). Avoid the newer 'E' type Pentium 4s (Prescott core). Even though they have a 1 MB cache, they are actually slower overall and run MUCH hotter than the Northwood type Pentium 4s. (I have some doubts about their long term reliability given the amount of heat they produce as well.) For memory, you really have no choice other than 2 sticks of DDR400 memory. (2 x 512 MB sticks = 1 GB of ram for example.)
On video cards, the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro is a very good bang for the buck card at the moment. It's worth mentioning that the new Radeon X800 cards are now available, and 2x as fast as the 9800 XT, but they also cost at least $150 more than you can get a 9800 Pro for these days.