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Building a new computer .. any hardware advice?

T

thirtythree

Diamond Member
Just curious about a few things. Has anyone had good or bad experiences with the ECS K7VTA3 w/ onboard LAN and audio or the ATI Radeon 8500LE? Is it worth the extra money to get a 128MB video card instead of 64MB? I would also like some recommendations on a good, cheap case and RAM .. I'm thinking I'll get 256 or 512MB DDR PC2100. I'm not looking for a top of the line computer or anything. I'm on a 900MHz Duron, GEForce2 MX, 256MB PC133 RAM machine right now and mostly just need another computer (of course it won't hurt if it's a little faster 😛). Too many people trying to use this one and it has .. some issues.

Thanks for any help.
 
I've had good experience with the ECS K7VTA3. Its fast, its cheap and it has onboard LAN/Audio and even RAID. It is, however, not an overclockers board, so don't get it if you intend to do any hardcore overclocking. Basic FSB overclocking can still be done, though it is limited. On my dad's 1800+ XP system I'm able to hit up to 1612MHz with the BIOS settings or 1630+MHz with SoftFSB.

The Radeon 8500LEs are the best cards in their price range the last I checked, and depending on your usage 64MB might or might not be enough. Benchmarks don't show much of a difference in low to medium resolutions, but with newer games, or at higher resolutions/graphical settings there's quite a bit of difference.

RAM wise, I'd suggest 256MB of PC2700 if you're on a budget, rather than 512MB PC2100. You could always add another 256MB of PC2700 in the future, but you'll be stuck with PC2100 if you use it now.
 
Thanks for the replies. I'm not a big overclocker so the mobo should be fine. Also, does brand make a big difference in RAM? .. and would it be cheaper to buy that case and the ps separately ($46 w/ ps @ newegg)?

Thanks again.
 
I have a Radeon 8500LE 128. It's a stellar performer that's served me well. Outperforms the GF3 line (and costs less) and competitive with the GF4 Ti4200 (especially when overclocked). The drivers are great (now). You can't go wrong with it.
 
I see that you're not overclocking, but you should still spend a few more dollars on quality RAM. Go with RAM that is rated CAS 2, that should give a slight boost to gaming and other memory intensive task. Also, stick with reputable companies like Corsair, Samsung, et. al. Good luck. Peace.
 
Originally posted by: Deslocke
Ok, one more question. Has anyone ever used the Samsung CDRW/DVD combo drive?
Click to expand...

Why not pick up a dvd rom drive and a separate cd-rw drive?

$60 for a retail lite on 48x24x48
$46 for pioneer dvd-117

While the combo drive is $92 (making it $14 less than what I mentioned), IMO, it's just easier to have 2 drives -- makes cd copying easier 🙂
 
I am having trouble finding a good price from a reliable vendor for the K7VTA3 V3.X. Newegg no longer sells it 🙁. If anyone knows where I can find this please tell me. If not, what are some other recommended boards? .. preferably with onboard LAN and audio.

EDIT: An XP 1700 or 1800+ combo would work too.
 
Has anyone had good or bad experiences with the ECS K7VTA3 w/ onboard LAN
Click to expand...
Just check the support forums at ocworkbench. 80,000 posts / year about problems with ECS boards. The nearest other OEM is asus with about 5,000 posts/ year.

Does that tell you something about frequency of problems?
 
Yes, but those are also very popular motherboards, thus there would be more posts about them. And I'm talking about a specific motherboard, no ECS motherboards as a whole. Well anyway .. thanks for the replies. Any other suggestions (possibly a little cheaper?).
 
ECS is just as popular as Asus. So 20 times more posts is definitely not justified by the amount of mobo's they sell.

Looking at this, I recommend Asus A7N266-VM, or Shuttle AK32L. Both are a much better value for the money. At least you get real tech support instead of threats to sue you.
 
Ok, you are right .. I read the numbers wrong. I think I will go with the ASUS A7N266-VM. Thanks for the replies and suggestions everyone.
 
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