Building budget PC, needing NF2 advice.

[MrGamer7934]

Building a computer for relative that doesn't want to spend mucho bucks because they don?t require much PC power

Usage will consist of:
- Internet, E-mail
- Some 3d Games, nothing graphically intensive.
- Listening to and burning CD's
- Maybe watching DVD's
- All with a $500-600 budget, I can do it!

I have been all Intel as of late and I really don?t want to pay a price premium in this build for the CPU when I can apply it towards better speakers, monitor, whatever. So in AMD land the talk of the town is the Nforce2 and I really am attracted to this chipset due to its wealth of features included and its overall performance. I am slightly confused about the different N&S-Bridge combinations but I think I know what?s going on. On the north end IGP (integrated video) or SPP (no integrated video) and south side MCP, MCP2, MCP-T.... confused here, I think MCP-T means premium integrated sound but then I hear about Soundstorm certification, should I concern myself with this? Since I don't want to buy a graphics card or a soundcard would an Nforce2 with IGP and MCP-T be the best all-in-one?!? Another thing I'm hearing about NF2 is getting the best performance w/ dual channel and 1:1 ratio. If I buy a Standard XP 2000+, Should I buy PC2700 over PC2100 because the graphics will use the extra bandwidth? Lastly, what is the Thoroughbred?

OK, I feel like a newbie now... I'm done.

Thanks Alot,
Gamer

 

[human2k]

Asus A7N8X Deluxe and Abit NF7-S both have Soundstorm with 5.1 Digital Decoding. The asus has official certfication, but Abit's cheaper. YOu can get both from excaliberpc.com with guaranteed Revision 2.0 which support 200MHZ fsb.

 

[MrGamer7934]

Thanks for the soundstorm info Human2k, unfortunately both boards don't have integrated graphics.

 

[human2k]

Originally posted by: MrGamer7934
Thanks for the soundstorm info Human2k, unfortunately both boards don't have integrated graphics.

The Abig NF7-M does.

 

[yhelothar]

if you wanna get onboard video.. then you would want fast ram... but i don't think any nf2 boards has both soundstorm and onboard video...

plus with your budget.. you can easily get a good video card...

 

[AnAndAustin]

Yeah do consider if they even need nForce2 as KT400 and SiS746FX are not far behind esp to the less technical among us. The onboard sound of the non-nForce and non-SS (MCP instead of MCP-T) nForce2 mobos are obviously inferior but still far more than many users need. Since GF3 and Rad8500/9000PRO/9100 are way better than the suped up GF2 gfx the nForce2 mobos sport, I'd consider a seperate rather than integrated solution too. Even with PC3200 in Dual Channel you'll be struggling to hit GF4MX440 (GF2TI) type speeds and of course will never have DX8 hw unlike the GF3/Rads mentioned above. If you get a mobo with multiplier support you can look to a TbredB XP1700+ as these seem to always get at least XP2600+ (mobo and RAM permitting) otherwise if stock perf is what you want use the XP rating to cost ratio as a guide ... just rem all Tbred (basicly the CPU core revision) run much cooler than Polly and the TbredB are wicked o/c'ers and always unlocked (though above 13x mult you may get probs). PC2700 is well worth getting even if you just run it as PC2100 for the mo, SktA really doesn;t need anything more than PC2700 with 333FSB to give pretty much optimal perf.