Board, case, vid, combo help?????

[Rhodent]

I am planning on buying the Abit K7T Board. I noticed that the board has verticle RAm slots that willl be in the front near the drive bays. I have seen before where boards with verticle ram slots near the front conflict with fitting the CD drives in all the bays. Does anyone know a good case to use with this board? Either one where the drive bays are above the ram or the board sits deep enough to miss the drives? Also, what is the best video card you can buy for between 80 and 100 bucks? thanks for any suggestions

 

[Syborg1211]

Are you really planning to fill all the slots so that you cant have a cd rom drive there? You can use the slot farthest to the left anf most likely have no conflict. I am not sure about the cdrom you are looking at but mine is pretty short and barely justs out of the drive bay. I am pretty sure most new drives are this small too.

 

[Rhodent]

Well. I will likely be using two sticks of 64 megs each. And I have a CD RW which are deeper than CD ROMS

 

[LXi]

Why dont you replace that Abit KT7 with the MSI K7T Pro2?

 

[StickHead]

I have an In-Win s500 and my ram slots are a ways away from my CD-Burner. I think you will be fine with any case.

 

[Syborg1211]

Also, if you put your burner at the top of your case, chances are that your burner wont com near the ram slots in eitehr direction

 

[Rhodent]

Well...I never thought of such an issue until I put a board in a case very close to an Enlight but imitation. The case had the board slide out feature. Maybe that had soemthing to do with it. But..havng verticle ram slots near the front causes the CDRW to stick out farther than it should. This is why I am asking. I was thinking I might need a full tower. Maybe not. Any one got opinion on the best vid card for 80 - 100 bucks. Thinking 16 megs.or something. Don't play games. Just need something decent for this new board. Kind of want to get soemthng off amazon.com cause I have some certs to there and the vid cards seemt o be the only thing in reasonable price range with ther est of the world. Their chips are outrageous.

 

[Syborg1211]

Get a voodoo3. Maybe something with a geforce 2 mx. I would tell you more if amazon had their sites up right now.

 

[Rhodent]

Any new suggestions anyone?

 

[Modeps]

Ive got a kt7-raid and i have no problems with drives coming close to my memory at all... my case? tornado1000 from 3dcool.com.

 

[Rhodent]

That looks like a very good case (the tornado 1000) ANy more video card suggestions? What is the diff between VooDoo3 -1000/2000/3000?

 

[vi edit]

What is the diff between VooDoo3 -1000/2000/3000

Clock speed of chip.

1000= ~120mhz(and only has one TMU enabled by software, can be changed via registry hack)
2000= ~143mhz
3000= ~166mhz and a TV-Out
3500= ~183mhz w/ TV-In/out, and TV/FM tuner

It is very easy to get a V3-2k and overclock it to V3-3k specs. Just drop a couple dollar fan on it and you have a chance of hitting V3-3.5k specs.

 

[vi edit]

For your use, I'd suggest the V3-2k. It offers great 2d, and acceptable 3d just in case you do have an urge to play a game.

As far as cases go, I'd nab an Enlight 7237 w/ the 300 watt power supply. It's very roomy case with great standard cooling. You should be able to pick it up for around $60 or so. Plus, it is also Athlon Approved.

Also, you may want to look at a Matrox G400 for you video card as well. Has the best 2d image in it's price range.

 

[Rhodent]

I checked out that enlight case and it looks pretty good. Maybe the key is not the height of the case, but the width or depth of the case to where the ram can find behind the drives. I am liking the VooDoo3 idea. For not much more I can get a 32 meg matrox g400 card. Are these cards equal or better?