Building a new system, got some questions..

GryphN

Junior Member
Nov 3, 2002
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I'm in the process of trying to decide what hardware I'm going to use, and I've come up with a bunch of questions.. Feel free to answer 1, or all of them :) .. Anyway, enough talk, heres the questions:

AMD Athlon XP 2400+ or Intel 2.53ghz? I plan on overclocking as far as an Alpha PAL8045 HSF will let me. (Not sure what the limits of either chip will be)

What motherboard do you recommend for your preferred cpu, and why?

What do you think of the Nforce2 motherboards? I may try running the Radeon 9700 pro, so would the 8x AGP and other features be worth it?

If you think P4 is the way to go, what memory would be better? 512megs of 1066mhz RDRAM? Or DDR400?

Is the extra money for a Radeon 9700 worth it, compared to an overclocked Geforce4 4600ti?

Are there any ATA-133 HD?s with an 8meg buffer, or are all the 8meg buffered drives ATA-100?

If the only 8meg buffered drives are ATA-100, am I better off going with one of them, or a good ATA-133 drive? Which specific model drive do you recommend? (I?m looking for a quiet drive with fast performance)


Thats all for now :) ... Thanks in advance for your opinions!

--Joe
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
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How soon will you be building, and what will you use the system for?

Maxtor will be releasing a new line of ATA133 drives with fluid bearings (low noise) and 8Mb buffers, plus 3-year warranties, for starters. ATA133 is not going to make a perceptible change in performance over ATA100, however. If you want crazy performance levels with low noise, Seagate Cheetah X15-36LP's might be an option if you have the money and don't need lots of HDD capacity. With fluid bearings, 15000rpm and 3.9ms seek, they are good on everything but raw capacity and cost (got to factor in a SCSI card too). If you go SCSI, stick with Windows2000, since WinXP has nasty performance problems with SCSI. :(

A YSTech adjustable-rpm 80mm fan for your heatsink might be good, so you can experiment with your CPU's limits, then crank the noise down to what you like. On the overclocking front, I would veer toward DDR400 on either platform. I wouldn't expect too big an OC from the 2400+, and if you intend to OC a P4, I think there are better starting points than a 2.53GHz, maybe someone with more experience will divulge that.

Regarding platform choice, if you're holding on to see nForce2, then also be aware that 1) Intel has a big price drop planned for Nov. 10th, and 2) it sounds like the motherboards using the Granite Bay chipset, aka E7205, will be hot stuff. So that's my 2c worth, hope it helps :)
 

GryphN

Junior Member
Nov 3, 2002
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I plan on putting the system together at the beginning of December. I'm aware things will be changing between now and then (they always do :) ). I wanted to give myself a good month to figure out EXACTLY what hardware I'm going to use, and then find the best place to order it from.

The system is going to be used for mostly hardcore gaming :) ... As far as drives are concerned, I've been doing more reading, and your right, it looks like theres basically no real advantage to ATA133 vs ATA100 right now. I think I'll just go with the Western Digital ATA-100 8meg buffer drives (probably 2 80gig drives)..

--Joe
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
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Be aware that some WD Special-Edition 80Mb drives put out a pretty pronounce "zzzzziiing!" from the motor. If those fluid-bearing Maxtors are available by the time you build, it might be worth getting them for the assurance that you won't have lots of bearing noise.
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
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Aha, here we go: PDF file on Maxtor Maxline drives I see mwave.com has the smallest one (200Gb! :Q) in stock at $350. Newegg.com lists it as ETA 11/4/2002. IBM has their 180GXP models coming out soon and I believe they will all have fluid-bearing motors too.

Counterpoint: with gaming, you are not going to get tons of benefit from a fast HDD, are you? Fast game launches, maybe... you might want to consider Seagate Barracuda ATA IV's, at about $110 for an 80Gb drive. Very quiet units, although not as fast in HDD-intensive stuff.