Building a new med budget AMD system ! recommendations pls !

[Mohammad]

Okay i currently have a AMD athlon 1700+ XP on ECS. I want to build another system for my kid brother but have not been following the mobo / processor market and daels lately. I am looking not to spend too much but at the same get a good system that can last him some time with decent performance. What are some of the good board out there based ya'alls experience building systems that give u the best bang for buck. I am also researching boards but i guess it might be better to ask for advice from people who have built more systems ! Thanks .

 

[Vette73]

Well have you thought about giving him you computer and build you one???

How big is your budget?

If really low and on-board graphics are OK look for a KM266. Cheap, but stable. Supports the 100 and 133Mhz Athlons.

A little more budget get a MN31N shuttle board. It has on-board GF4 mx video card and support the 100, 133, and 166Mhz athlons. Very fast and a great soundcard.

But get a Athlon 1700+ from newegg.com as they have T-Bred B chips that run cool and can overclock very fast if you have a board that supports it. I have my 1700+ running at 2600+, stable and cool.

 

[Mohammad]

Well i NEVER thought of that ... yeah i can give him my comp and can build myself one but there are a few issues here ...
1) i got my borad with nothing on board except LAN ( which he wont need as he in pakistan and no ethernet over there or high speed )
2) I am thinking of making life easier for him by giving him a board with most of the stuff built into it.

So i am thinking of a decent budget board with :
1) sound
2) good video ( 64 onwards)
3) AMD with both DDR and SDRAM support

any suggestions .... come on guys help me out here

 

[batmanuel]

Give up on supporting both SDRAM and DDR. Most of the chipsets that support both are not so great (the first ALi DDR chipset comes to mind), and right now DDR memory is cheaper than SDRAM so you really aren't saving any money by going for the much lower performance of SDRAM. Heck, right now OfficeMax has some KByte PC2700 DDR RAM free after rebate, so even if you have lots of PC133 RAM sitting around, it still isn't worth going with dual RAM support.

If you want the best all around get one of the nForce 2 IGP boards. They can be a bit picky as far as RAM, but they are nice performers as far as graphics and sound goes, plus you get lots of room to upgrade as most of the newer NF2 boards support 400MHz FSB Bartons. If you want to save a few bucks, the Asus A7N266-VM is a great little board for $69 at newegg. It is the original nForce chipset (with slower onboard video), but it isn't a bad board if you want a simple system that doesn't totally suck for games and music.

 

[pspada]

Don't bother getting a board with video. Buy a cheap video card, at least he can then upgrade if he needs to, whereas the cheap boards that have video don't have an AGP slot, so you are SOL. Besides, on-board video will slow the machine down, no doubt.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: batmanuel
Give up on supporting both SDRAM and DDR. Most of the chipsets that support both are not so great (the first ALi DDR chipset comes to mind), and right now DDR memory is cheaper than SDRAM so you really aren't saving any money by going for the much lower performance of SDRAM. Heck, right now OfficeMax has some KByte PC2700 DDR RAM free after rebate, so even if you have lots of PC133 RAM sitting around, it still isn't worth going with dual RAM support.

If you want the best all around get one of the nForce 2 IGP boards. They can be a bit picky as far as RAM, but they are nice performers as far as graphics and sound goes, plus you get lots of room to upgrade as most of the newer NF2 boards support 400MHz FSB Bartons. If you want to save a few bucks, the Asus A7N266-VM is a great little board for $69 at newegg. It is the original nForce chipset (with slower onboard video), but it isn't a bad board if you want a simple system that doesn't totally suck for games and music.

I agree. If you want DDR and SDRAM then the really only good chipset that does both is SOME Km266's and SOME KT266a's, and they are past their prime.

Get a nForce2 IGP board. It does have a AGP slot so it can be upgraded when you want, and supports at least a 166Mhz chip and maybe a 200Mhz FSB chip.

 

[batmanuel]

Originally posted by: pspada
Don't bother getting a board with video. Buy a cheap video card, at least he can then upgrade if he needs to, whereas the cheap boards that have video don't have an AGP slot, so you are SOL. Besides, on-board video will slow the machine down, no doubt.

Prior to the nForce line, I would tend to agree. The nForce 2 IGP is pretty impressive, however. I have a friend at work who needed to get gaming on a budget and we put together an MSI NF2 IGP based system, and the onboard video didn't do all that bad. (It came as a bit of a shock, as both he and I have been used to Intel Extreme on board graphics - which are only extreme in the sense that the graphics chip is extremely SLOW). You could easily spend $80 for a GF4MX and get performance that is only a bit better than the NF2 IGP. His system scored around 4000 in 3d Mark 2001 SE (better than my old GF2 MX). With two sticks of RAM running dual channel, there is memory bandwidth to spare for all but the most demanding games (He still likes playing the original UT, so he's fine). Plus with all the NF boards, you get an AGP slot (as you would expect from a chipset designed by a graphics card company).

The IGP certainly doesn't add much cost to the board, so you might as well go with it. If you are going with an AMD processor, I'd only consider getting a SPP NF2 and a discrete video card if you are going to put in at LEAST a GFFX 5200 Ultra or a Radeon 9600. Otherwise, you don't get much benefit.

 

[pspada]

So if you decide to buy something that is completely intergrated like these boards, why not just go whole hog and buy one of the cheapa$$ systems from Dell or Gateway? That way you get an entire system that has quite a few compromises built in, instead of just the motherboard?

 

[Peter]

The word is INTEGRATED, for whoever's sake.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: pspada
So if you decide to buy something that is completely intergrated like these boards, why not just go whole hog and buy one of the cheapa$$ systems from Dell or Gateway? That way you get an entire system that has quite a few compromises built in, instead of just the motherboard?

Because most of those systems are like the ones pspada was talking about. Very little chance of ugrading and maybe not even a AGP port like the nForce2 IGP boards.

Also a lot of dells parts are protitery(sp) means if the power supply goes out, you have to buy a dell one. Board goes out, you have to buy a dell one. Esp. if it is a Intel type system. A lot of those cheap ones do not have a AGP port. At least with a HP or Compaq AMD system, it will be upgradable and have a AGP port.

Build your own system....

1. Cheaper
2. Better parts
3. If something breaks you can replace it with any industry part
4. Can be upgraded, again any industry part
5. etc................

 

[lobadobadingdong]

Originally posted by: Marlin1975

Originally posted by: pspada
So if you decide to buy something that is completely intergrated like these boards, why not just go whole hog and buy one of the cheapa$$ systems from Dell or Gateway? That way you get an entire system that has quite a few compromises built in, instead of just the motherboard?

Because most of those systems are like the ones pspada was talking about. Very little chance of ugrading and maybe not even a AGP port like the nForce2 IGP boards.

Also a lot of dells parts are protitery(sp) means if the power supply goes out, you have to buy a dell one. Board goes out, you have to buy a dell one. Esp. if it is a Intel type system. A lot of those cheap ones do not have a AGP port. At least with a HP or Compaq AMD system, it will be upgradable and have a AGP port.

Build your own system....

1. Cheaper
2. Better parts
3. If something breaks you can replace it with any industry part
4. Can be upgraded, again any industry part
5. etc................

dito #3 being very important, plus dell warranty support is not as good outside the states or western europe.