Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: flakbait on March 20, 2002, 12:55:05 PM

Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: flakbait on March 20, 2002, 12:55:05 PM
Since I'm slapping a new rig together here in about a month I need some help with my list. Here's what I'm currently after...

SB Audigy
Western Digital 30 gig 7,200 RPM
256 meg stick of PC2100 DDR from an offline dealer


The only two things I'm not sure about are the RAM (board only takes DDR) and a good vid card. While the GF4 seems like the best buy, I really don't need more driver headaches. I'll be running Win98SE on the thing if that makes any diff. Any opinions on RAM and vid cards?


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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School (http://www.worldaccessnet.com/~delta6)
Put the P-61B in Aces High
"For yay did the sky darken, and split open and spew forth fire, and
through the smoke rode the Four Wurgers of the Apocalypse.
And on their canopies was tattooed the number of the Beast, and the
number was 190." Jedi, Verse Five, Capter Two, The Book of Dweeb

(http://www.worldaccessnet.com/~delta6/sig/life_modem.gif)
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: 2Late4U on March 20, 2002, 01:16:46 PM
I'd either get a good GF3 once the new 4's become more available they should be nice and cheap, or a Radeon 8500, the new drivers are rock solid.

Either way you get an outstanding card, with terrific preformance at 1/2 (or less) the price of a GF4.  If you have extra $$$ laying around a GF4 would be real nice, but its overkill at this point.
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: Defiance on March 20, 2002, 04:36:45 PM
Hiya,
As above (gf3-4 not MX i suggest)
As for the DDR you really can't go wrong with Crucial cas 2.5 (i believe pc 1600 cas 2 and pc 2100 cas 2.5 are exactly the same) i have had 176 fsb outa my crucial at cas 2 (kr7a-raid mobo ram slots 1 n 3 and 2 n 3)
Luckily for overclocking my sticks have had the good chips on em

Also their replacement and guarantee are second to none not to mention their service is real helpful n fast

(no i don't work for crucial but i push all their ram to the max and it still keeps going and has never let me down) :)

Have Fun

Def

btw:Win98se is good for gaming
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: flakbait on March 21, 2002, 09:19:55 AM
Thanks guys!

2Late4U,
I settled on a Radeon 8500. I'm only going through local dealers for parts so price is a BIG thing. While a GF4 would indeed be nice, I can't afford $440 to get one.

Defiance,
Crucial is out. It's one of the problems with only getting parts locally; no one has any. I'm thinkin about getting a 256 meg stick of DDR by Kingston. Currently I've got a 128 meg stick by Samsung, but I don't trust 'em. To me it feels like trying to run a home stereo with Panasonic batteries.


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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School (http://www.worldaccessnet.com/~delta6)
Put the P-61B in Aces High
"With all due respect Chaplian, I don't think my maker wants to hear from me right now. I'm gonna go out there and remove one of His creations from this universe.
And when I get back I'm gonna drink a bottle of Scotch like it was Chiggy von
Richthofen's blood and celebrate his death."
Col. McQueen, Space: Above and Beyond

(http://www.worldaccessnet.com/~delta6/sig/delta6.jpg)
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: Defiance on March 21, 2002, 12:18:11 PM
Hiya,
As far as i have found from reading about Kingston ram it's decent and runs stable at spec
No idea of it running passed its spec but it seems ok ram

Have Fun

Def
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: Sox62 on March 21, 2002, 12:47:25 PM
What motherboard are you going to buy?Some people have had issues with the Audigy on KT266a motherboards.
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: flakbait on March 21, 2002, 03:01:08 PM
I've got an MSI K7T266 Pro2 based on the KT266a chipset. I'm open for either an Audigy (preferably) or a Live 5.1 card. But given the past hiccups with the Live 5.1 I'd rather go Audigy. Unless there's another sound card out there that works better than either of those.


Defiance,
I won't be overclocking the ram, just the processor. My Tbird 900MHz can hit a gig safely, and I've got the right heatsink/fan combo, so that's not a problem. Thanks for the info though!


------------------------
Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School (http://www.worldaccessnet.com/~delta6)
Put the P-61B in Aces High
"I wanted to go back for another 50 missions, but they ruled it out
because I had a case of malaria that kept recurring. So I had to stay
in the States and teach combat flying. I was shot down by a mosquito!"
Frank Hurlbut, P-38 pilot

(http://www.worldaccessnet.com/~delta6/sig/behappy.jpg)
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: Defiance on March 21, 2002, 04:04:49 PM
Hiya,
Abit KR7A-Raid here (KT266a chipset) SB-Live 5.1 on it runs 100% fine
I have heard some live/audigy's can sometimes be a pain but if you check here if you do have any such future problems it's really great for help
http://www.amdmb.com/vb/index.php

Have Fun

Def
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: flakbait on March 21, 2002, 05:26:52 PM
Defiance, would you be terribly annoyed if I threw a beer party in your honor? Not only does that link have LOADS of help, one guy there posted a complete setup guide for my mobo!
 
Thank You! :D



-----------------------
Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School (http://www.worldaccessnet.com/~delta6)
Put the P-61B in Aces High
"For yay did the sky darken, and split open and spew forth fire, and
through the smoke rode the Four Wurgers of the Apocalypse.
And on their canopies was tattooed the number of the Beast, and the
number was 190." Jedi, Verse Five, Capter Two, The Book of Dweeb

(http://www.worldaccessnet.com/~delta6/sig/lie.gif)
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: Defiance on March 21, 2002, 06:19:39 PM
Hiya,
No problemo
Glad you find that site good i sure do
My nick there is Titanium btw

As for the party just don't tell blame me if ya get a hangover   ;)

Have Fun

Def
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: capt. apathy on March 21, 2002, 07:59:52 PM
i don't know if i just got a bad stick on a fluke (never heard anyone else complain) but when i bought a 128 stick of kingston ram my pc wouldn't boot, after removing it my system booted up but my sb live card quit working.  seems more than a coinsidence so I don't think i'd buy kingston again.

i went with 2 512 sticks of crucial, if i remember right it was $85 per stick at best buy (was a couple moths ago so i'm not sure exactly what i paid)
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: kkierste on March 22, 2002, 10:43:02 AM
Defiance,
       Any reason you don't suggest mx? ("(gf3-4 not MX i suggest)
"

Just wondering cuz I saved some money ordering that in my new system next week (GEFORCE2 MX-400 (128BIT) 64MB AGP )

Also getting the gigabyte KT333 with 256 MB PC333 PC2700 DDR and the xp1800; any forseeable issues?

Thanks in advance
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: Lephturn on March 22, 2002, 12:50:44 PM
Basically the MX level cards are not "real" Geforce X cards.  What I mean is, all of the MX cards are basically re-hashed GeForce cards.  THey will be much cheaper, but also quite a bit slower than the same named card without the MX on the name.  The GeForce 4MX cards specifically are nowhere near the GeForce 4 Ti series in terms of performance, and are much closer to being a GeForce 2 in terms of performance.
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: Defiance on March 22, 2002, 04:34:24 PM
Hiya's,
Yeah as Leph says above

Just imagine a MX card is castrated compared to the standard card (crude but it's easier to understand put like that)

Have Fun

Def
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: Tumor on March 22, 2002, 10:03:11 PM
wazzamatta with Samsung Ram?  I've been using it for years, PC100/133 and now RDRam and have never had any problems.  As a matter of fact, in the PC100/133 market I all kinds of problems with Micron (in comparison). It might not be a first choice for overclocking (which I do with no problems) but it's definatley good stable quality Ram.
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: Skuzzy on March 23, 2002, 07:45:30 AM
With all the computers/servers I run, I have had only one RAM failure and it happen to be a Samsung stick that failed.  Really odd thing was that it failed after about a year of use.

Going on 7 years and never had a Crucial stick fail.  The original server I used when I started AppLink is still chugging along today, albeit relagated to monitoring the network (what else ya gonna do with a 133Mhz Pentium with 64MB of RAM :)).

The nice thing about Crucial is they do stand behind thier product.  Try returning a stick of RAM to Best Buy for warranty replacement.
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: capt. apathy on March 23, 2002, 10:05:22 AM
actually i had no problem returning the kingston ram to best buy.
and when i replaced it with the crucial and replaced the sound card that burned out when i put the kingston in, they installed all the new hardware for free since the ram i bought from them seemed to be the cause of my problems.

i've never had any problem with warrenty replacement at best buy.
Title: Oh how I love shopping
Post by: Skuzzy on March 23, 2002, 10:09:57 AM
Could be a store by store issue then capt. apathy and that is a risk one avoids when getting the part from one source.

I made the error of buying some RAM at a Best Buy once (yes, it was the Samsung chips and I was in panic mode to get a new server online).  They gave me the wrong parts and when I went back they told me they could not take them back and I would have to buy new ones.  I wrote a letter to Best Buy corporate and they finally gave me credit, but that is just too much to go through over a simple error.