Building an Athlon System

[GottaVoodoo2]

I would like to build an Athlon System. My plan is to cannibalize my present K-6III 450. The transferrable parts, as I see it, are the Voodoo 3 3000 vid card, 128 PC100 RAM stick (which I know is not ideal), Aureal Vortex 2 soundcard, US Robotics 56K voice modem, hard drives, CD-ROM.

I intend on using the FongKai 603 mid-tower case that comes highly regarded by this forum. That will likely cost around $75 delivered.

Bottom line, I need a recommendation on the motherboard and would prefer the processor speed at not less than 700 Mhz. Adding in a good fan, do you think it's possible to get this done at less than $500? Should I consider the Duron, or do you think I can get a full fledged Athlon at this price level?

 

[Ulysses]

I think you have the makings of a very nice system. Having only PC100 memory is not that bad - the mobos for Thunderbird and Duron chips (which are interchangeable chips, you know) have an asynchronous memory bus to accomodate that. Also, with the Tbird or Duron you may be able to o'clock maybe 110-115% max anyway, without adjusting the CPU multiplier, and your RAM will probably handle that OK. That would put a 700 MHz CPU close to 800, which is nice.

Take a look at the new review at http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.html?i=1286. The conclusion to that review is exactly right as far as mobos go at this time.

You might also want to look at
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=203112
or
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=28&threadid=199398

Also take a look at AnandTech's monthly Buyer's Guides. Each month they have a High End Systems Guide and a Value Systems Guide outlining numerous configurations for different purposes and budgets. Note that the Guides won't rec-ommend components that are not yet quite on the market, although they may mention them. Here are the latest Guides that I?ve seen:

AnandTech Buyer?s Guide - Value Systems ? July, 2000:
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.html?i=1269

AnandTech Buyer?s Guide - High End Systems ? July, 2000:
http:// [url]http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1283 [/url]

Check prices at:
http:// [url]http://www.pricewatch.com/ [/url]
or
http:// [url]http://ibuyer.net/ [/url]

Check vendors at:
http:// [url]http://www.resellerratings.com/ [/url]

 

[Howard]

Assuming you live in the US, you could probably get a Thunderbird 750 for about $210, an ASUS K7V for about $150, and the fan (Alpha K73125, overkill ) for about $50-60 online. Your case is $75, so that leaves about $20 left.

IMO, the Duron is much better than the Athlon, because it is much cheaper, and performs almost as well, and in some cases, beats the original Athlon. The Thunderbird is around the price of the original Athlon, but has much better performance.


Also, if you would be willing to spend a little more money, you should consider getting a 128MB stick of PC133 SDRAM.

 

[GottaVoodoo2]

Thanks for the responses.

Another question. From what I've seen most of the highly regarded boards...ABIT..ASUS..Gigabyte...have on-board sound. Which I personally abhor.

Is disabling the onboard sound a big deal, or should I look at some of the older Athlon (Slot A) boards that don't have on-board sound?

 

[403Forbidden]

you can get the ASUS K7V w/o the sound. I have it with no integrated sound

 

[Electric Amish]

I have the Abit KA7 with a 700 Athlon. I, too, have the Aureal Vortex 2 Card.

I haven't had any motherboard trouble with this set-up running win98.

amish

 

[DaddyG]

Yucky,

You should not receommend the K7V with any Thunderbird !!. The results are very unpredictable due to timing issues with the KX133 chipset. For Slot-A TBIRDS, AMD IRONGATE boards are the only ones with the correct timing. Socket A mobos such as FIC AZ11 and ASUS A7V are available and a much better choice.

 

[Sugadaddy]

Get a socketA t-bird and an Asus A7V (if it has sound, you can disable it via a jumper, which is easy) I wouldn't recommend a slot mobo, since it'll be disappearing, and kx133 boards may have problems with t-birds. Also get a good socket cooler.