Computer Upgrades -

[KatDiesel]

After being out of the "game" for a couple of years, I have decided I want a faster PC.



Theres the age ol debate... ... . Intel or AMD?



I am as of right now leaning towards an AMD Athlon XP 1900+ and still looking at motherboards.



I'll have at least 256meg of RAM most likely 512meg



Other plans are



Sound : Sound Blaster Audigy

Video : Raedon 8500 OR Geforce³ Ti 500

CD-RW : Plextor Plexwriter 24x/10x/40x

DVD/CD : Pioneer 16x/40x DVD/CDrom slot loading



Already have a Maxtor 45 gig 7200rpm ATA100 Hard drive laying here.



Any comments on my above choices? Any and all welcome

 

[JIM S.]

there are as many opinions as there are grains of sand... but the bench marks tell the story... an athlon is the real work horse. intel is into the selling game they have HIGH MHZ (= to horse power) and lower computeing power ( tourqe. . duramax ) the athlon is like the cummins, lower HP and high tourqe! that is why AMD is calling there chips XP1900+ because its only around 1433 MHZ actual, but is will run with and many benchmarks outrun the 1900 + intel chips. In my opinion AMD rocks! So my recomendation is get an ABIT motherboard (personal fav. ) KG7 with DDR ram and your puter will be a puller, you'll have 5 second 1/4 miles! ... ... ..... and now for the rest of the opinions! Jim

 

[Power Wagon]

If you are willing to wait a few months (release dates aren't set yet, but not long), there are new CPU bus speeds coming out, of 800 and 1 gighz. Presently, Intel P3's perform poorly in comparison, because of their laggardly 133Mhz bus speeds, and P4's are designed for 64 bit OS's (which don't exist), but still have poor bus speeds. 1 Gig Athlons can be had with a 266 Frontside Bus, which makes it run rings around a similar P3. In a few months, these speeds (memory to cpu, cpu to intefaces) will be dramatically increased, as well as new hard drive interfaces that will totally dwarf the present ATA in performance.



When these hit the scene, the new 2 gig cpu's will be out and reasonable in price, and the performance will be astoundingly better.



Of course, if you can't wait, go for the AMD, get the best bus speeds.



For Win98, use 384 megs of ram (no more), and for XP or Win2K, use 512. I prefer 98SE to anything newer. XP is still buggy, Microsloth can spy on you, and it's a hog in some ways. Win2K is not for games or odd hardware.

 

[LBTRS]

AMD Athlon XP 1900+

KatDiesel,



I've built more computers than I can count and have always been a die hard Intel guy. My latest computer I decided to see what all the hype is about and built a Athlon XP 1800+ system and I can say that I'll never have a P4 system. This Athlon box is a screamer and perfectly stable. I can highly recommend the Athlon XP processor. Stay away from a Thunderbird as you'll have to deal with all the heat issues of the Tbird. The system I just built includes the following:



MSI K7T266 Pro2 Motherboard

Athlon XP 1800+ CPU

Alpha PAL 8045 Heatsink

1. 25GB Corsair PC2100 DDR RAM

Two IBM 40GB deskstar 7200rpm Hard Drives

Soundblaster Audigy Soundcard

Gainward Geforce3 Video Card

CD, CDRW, etc.



Go for the Athlon XP.

 

[KatDiesel]

Re: AMD Athlon XP 1900+

Originally posted by Ray Trautman

KatDiesel,



I've built more computers than I can count and have always been a die hard Intel guy. My latest computer I decided to see what all the hype is about and built a Athlon XP 1800+ system and I can say that I'll never have a P4 system. This Athlon box is a screamer and perfectly stable. I can highly recommend the Athlon XP processor. Stay away from a Thunderbird as you'll have to deal with all the heat issues of the Tbird. The system I just built includes the following:



MSI K7T266 Pro2 Motherboard

Athlon XP 1800+ CPU

Alpha PAL 8045 Heatsink

1. 25GB Corsair PC2100 DDR RAM

Two IBM 40GB deskstar 7200rpm Hard Drives

Soundblaster Audigy Soundcard

Gainward Geforce3 Video Card

CD, CDRW, etc.



Go for the Athlon XP.

Can you give me an rough estimate on what that ran you? Do you get the parts at a discount somehow? If so would you like to build another?



Or just price the parts for me? (if you got connections).



I want a Athlon XP 1900+ (highest available)

Abit mother board

at least 256meg DDR SDRAM

Sound Blaster Audigy

Plextor Plexwriter 24x/10x/40x

Pioneer DVD 16x/40x Slot load





The above things I am 99% sure thats what I want.



Still trying to decide on the video card.

 

[KatDiesel]

Originally posted by Power Wagon

If you are willing to wait a few months (release dates aren't set yet, but not long), there are new CPU bus speeds coming out, of 800 and 1 gighz. Presently, Intel P3's perform poorly in comparison, because of their laggardly 133Mhz bus speeds, and P4's are designed for 64 bit OS's (which don't exist), but still have poor bus speeds. 1 Gig Athlons can be had with a 266 Frontside Bus, which makes it run rings around a similar P3. In a few months, these speeds (memory to cpu, cpu to intefaces) will be dramatically increased, as well as new hard drive interfaces that will totally dwarf the present ATA in performance.



When these hit the scene, the new 2 gig cpu's will be out and reasonable in price, and the performance will be astoundingly better.



Of course, if you can't wait, go for the AMD, get the best bus speeds.



For Win98, use 384 megs of ram (no more), and for XP or Win2K, use 512. I prefer 98SE to anything newer. XP is still buggy, Microsloth can spy on you, and it's a hog in some ways. Win2K is not for games or odd hardware.

Whos releasing those PW?



The Athlon XP 1900+ which is a newer chip, will out run a P4 2 Ghz even tho its only 1. 6 GHz. And its only bout $250. And are you talking bout the ATA133 on the hard drives? I already have a brand new ATA100 hard drive sitting here new in box I have had for a couple of months.



Please elaborate. I would like to build this by the end of January.

 

[dmurdock]

Best bang for the buck is probably and athlonxp 1700



abit makes good boards, the kg7 is rock solid, and the kr7 is coming out soon (some are already showing up on the internet) and will feature a decent performance boost over the kg7. Also, take a look at the soyo dragon plus, it's a real nice board and has quality onboard sound and ethernet connection.





ps ray. . i've heard a lot of people having trouble with the msi pro2 board, did you have to fight it all??

 

[LBTRS]

Prices

My system cost right at $1600 but I went overboard on a lot of things like Hard Drive space, amount of RAM, cooling, etc. You can do it for less than that. I used to have a side business (five years ago) of building computers for people (tech support time for grandmas that didn't know how to install software drove me out) and had lots of connections but anymore I'm forced to purchase from Internet retailers. The ones I use exclusively are:



Mwave

newegg

compuplus

crucial (for RAM)



Between those I can get everything I need to build a system. They are reliable, have good stock and I've never had any trouble returning a defective item. Let me know if you need anything else.

 

[KatDiesel]

Re: Prices

Originally posted by Ray Trautman

You can do it for less than that. I used to have a side business (five years ago) of building computers for people (tech support time for grandmas that didn't know how to install software drove me out) and had lots of connections but anymore I'm forced to purchase from Internet retailers.

Thanks



I'll let ya know what I come up with when its all said and done. What OS do you run on your Athlon box? I've built 5 computers for myself, I just hate the software end of it. And up until now have had all Intel stuff. But been pondering a Athlon system every since they were introduced, and with the introduction of the XP well its a shoe in now, and cheaper.

 

[LBTRS]

Windows XP

KatDiesel,



Don't even think of messing with Windows 98 or Windows ME. Your only choices are Windows 2000 or Windows XP. If you have to buy the operating system then get Windows XP, if you already have Windows 2000 I don't think there is enough reason to spend extra money upgrading to Windows XP. I use Windows XP Professional and it runs perfectly on the Athlon box, never a crash. Make sure you get the new KT266A chipset motherboard as it perfroms much better than the old KT266 chipset. Let me know what you end up doing.

 

[KatDiesel]

Originally posted by dmurdock

Best bang for the buck is probably and athlonxp 1700



abit makes good boards, the kg7 is rock solid, and the kr7 is coming out soon (some are already showing up on the internet) and will feature a decent performance boost over the kg7.

KR7A-RAID Is this the one your refering to?



Support AMD Athlon XP 1500+ ~1900+/AMD Athlon 700MHz~1. 4GHz or future Socket A Processors based on 200/266 MHz(100MHz/133MHz Double Data Rate)

Support AMD Duron 600MHz ~ 950 MHz or future Socket A Processors based on 200 MHz

(100MHz Double Data Rate)

Chipset

VIA KT266A / VIA VT8233



Memory

Four 184-pin DIMM sockets support up to 4 GB PC1600/PC2100 DDR SDRAM module

BIOS

SoftMenu™III Technology to set CPU parameters



Functions

Four channels of Bus Master IDE Ports supporting up to 8 Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133( RAID 0 /1/0+1).

Miscellaneous

1 AGP slot, 6 PCI slots.

Ultra DMA 100/RAID

High Point HPT372 IDE Controller

Ultra DMA 133MB/sec data transfer rate



#ad






Do you have to use the RAID? Or can you run a "regular" IDE ATA100 mhz hard drive? I have a Maxtor 7200RPM ATA100 45 gig HD sitting here. Someone clue me in here please?

 

[Todd G]

Why not go all out and get a motherboard that will support dual Athlons? This place has the best prices I've found so far:



http://www.colfax-intl.com/

 

[KatDiesel]

Originally posted by Todd G

Why not go all out and get a motherboard that will support dual Athlons? This place has the best prices I've found so far

Well even tho the word "budget" is not in my vocabulary, I am trying to do my best to stay under $1300 for this system. Dual Athlons would be a bit of an overkill for what I do... for now.



I am partial to Abit motherboards anyhow, so kinda happy they just released the one above.

 

[LBTRS]

MSI K7T266 Pro2

dmurdock,



No, I've not had a single issue with this motherboard. It's worked flawless. It's the first MSI motherboard I've used, I've always used ASUS motherboards but MSI was the only one with a KT266A motherboard out when I built this system. I've been impressed with it so far (had it for about a month). If you goto www.msihardware.com and read the forum all the trouble seems to be from the people who are soldering thier cpu's to try and unlock the multiplier or doing other wacky things that it wasn't designed for. I'm building a system for my father now and I've ordered the same motherboard for him even though there are lots of choices now for KT266A motherboards.

 

[KatDiesel]

It appears as tho I can get the Athlon XP 1900+, the above Abit motherboard, and 256meg DDR SDRAM PC2100 for $500.



Sounds like a winner to me?



Now getting all exctied... ... . thanks Ray.

 

[dmurdock]

ray, i was referring to post's i saw on www.athlonmb.com , people having a lot of trouble from the git go (before modding it). The motherboard is probably the only thing i'll buy local, so if it screws up I can take it back without waiting on the mail, rma, etc...





kat, yes the kr7 will have the 266a chipset

 

[johnrv4]

If the KR7A-Raid is like the rest of Abit's motherboards with a raid controller, you do not have to use the raid configuration. It sounds like the motherboard is like the rest of Abit's raid boards. They have 4 ide ports- ide3 and 4 are used with the highpoint raid controller. This feature allows for having regular ultra dma 100 device ports, or a raid array in the combination of raid 0, raid 1, or raid 0+1 mode using the ide3 and 4 connector.

 

[KatDiesel]

What else should I add?



Someone wanna explain PC1600 and PC2100 memory to me? Thats a new one on me

 

[Cooker]

I will add that I have had excellent luck with ordering from www.mwave.com I've ordered many parts from them for custom built PC's and have never had a problem with a return or an exchange. Their prices are very good too.



FWIW - My vote if for Intel.



As mentioned you might consider a RAID setup, and not a duplicating setup (I don't remember if it RAID 1 or 2???) It does have a dramatic affect on the access speed of the hard drive(s).



Congrats on the new PC,

Ryan

 

[johnrv4]

I have to agree with purchasing from Mwave. I have gotten good prices and excellent warranty service from them. The RAID configurations are: RAID 0=striping(uses 2 hard drives in parallel for faster performance), RAID 1= mirror(uses 2 hard drives, one as a copy of the other), and RAID 0+1 striping and mirroring(Combination of both). I have a Abit TH-7 RAID motherboard and it is very stable. I have it set up in the striping configuration for added performance.

Go with the 2100 memory. If you want to check some good computer information websites check these out:http://www.anandtech.com/ www.tomshardware.com