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Building first AMD PC

D

Daytrader889

Member
I hope this is in the correct fourm, I just found this site and from what I have read so far this is a great fourm for people that love PC's. This is my first time building an AMD PC and would like some advice/opinions on the items I have choosen for this first AMD build of mine. My primary use of this PC will be to web browse, download music files, and burn DVD back-ups. Not much of a gamer so I'm thinking of maybe a motherboard with built-in graphics or a cheap GF4 MX card.

Items that I have/bought recently or will recycle from my old Dell if I need to:
Trinitron 17" CRT (Dell)
Diamond Viper 770 32MB Video Card (Dell)
AMD 1700+ T-bred
NEC 1100AD DVD+R Drive
Toshiba 16x DVD
Logitech Keyboard and mouse

Plan on buying items:
Soltek SL-75MRN-L mobo
GLACIALTECH Igloo Silent Breeze 462 HSF
Artic Silver 3
Antec SLK 3700 Case AMB
Kingston 512MB PC2700 DDR RAM
 
Originally posted by: sandorski
The video card sucks. 🙂
Click to expand...
Yes, it does.

Daytrader889, does that motherboard have integrated video? If so, then why do you need that horribly ancient add-in video card? An integrated GF4MX would suck (by my standards of 2D IQ and performance), but it would suck 1000 times less than that card you have from the Dell.
 
Originally posted by: jliechty
Originally posted by: sandorski
The video card sucks. 🙂
Click to expand...
Yes, it does.

Daytrader889, does that motherboard have integrated video? If so, then why do you need that horribly ancient add-in video card? An integrated GF4MX would suck (by my standards of 2D IQ and performance), but it would suck 1000 times less than that card you have from the Dell.
Click to expand...

I think he meant he would only use it if he needed to.

Items that I have/bought recently or will recycle from my old Dell if I need to:
Click to expand...

🙂
 
For your needs, I don't see anything wrong with re-using all of those components listed from your Dell (Athlon XP?). Good start! Now buy these:

ASUS nForce2 motherboard ($115)
Thermaltake Volcano6 HSF ($8)
Any Antec case, such as the one you listed ($65)
(2x) Crucial 256MB PC2100 DDR RAM (512MB total) for the nForce2's TwinBank performance (you don't need PC2700 for an Athlon 1700+) ($70)

Good luck!
 
I would buy PC3200 ram, for overclockign your Tbred, and also future usability. Also, I don't know if the solteck is a good mobo or not, but it may be safer to get a big name brand board, such as Epox, Asus, Abit, MSI, etc...
 
Well if he will do no overclocking (though it is mighty tempting especially if he gets a nice one) then getting pc2100 ram would be better.

This is what I would do if I were in your shoes:


Overclocking:
-Asus A7n8x Deluxe
-2x256 pc2700 RAM
-New Videocard (Literally that TNT2 is an OLD OLD card 🙂 So like that guy said it would suck, but infinitely less than what you are planning)


That is if you were overclocking mildly by pushing up the T-Bred.

What you might want to consider though to save money is moving to a Asus A7N266-VM for cheaper (69.99 vs 96 for the soltek) and this one has VGA built in...and its cheap. Though true the soltek(it does have videoout - or so newegg says so) will be a better option for the future since you could toss in a 3000+ in the future and know it'll work or something. But if you are not going to overclock then get pc2100 ram unless you KNOW that you will be upgrading in the future to where you are going to have a 333mhz FSB processor.

But please...the videocard
 
hi,
i would get the soltek over the asus A7N266-VM (and, for the money, over the a7n8x as well)
the asus A7N266-VM is a nforce 1 chipset board and the built in video (and other performance) is much inferior.
 
Thanks for all the replies to this post!! From what everyone is saying I should NOT install the old video card from my Dell and stick to the on-board video since I don't really play games.

The processor I got was the T-bred "B" DUT3C JIUHB so I guess it's pretty good for a little overclocking? Staying on that subject does the cooler I picked seem a little weak if I did OC? If it is can one someone can guide me to that is not too noisy but does a decent job of cooling with a reasonable price. I'm trying to keep this build between $450 to $550 range.

I think I will stick with the Soltek since it seems to have everything I need, has some great reviews, and seems ready if I plan on further upgrades later.
 
The old Viper may be hazardous to the health of your motherboard :Q Seriously, if it's not a 1.5V AGP card, you could nuke a motherboard that way. Get yourself something newer.

Incidentally, the A7N266-VM isn't that bad. In business usage it isn't a lot different from my A7N8X-Deluxe (other than being able to take three DIMMs and having more features), and believe it or not, I can play UT2003 Demo using the onboard video at 800 x 600 x 16. Yeah. 😎
 
I think I have all the components that I want in my system down. So here goes and wish me luck on my first AMD build. I'm going to stick with the Soltek board and use the on-board video for now since I'm not going to do any gaming on this PC. I'm going to try to find some Samsung PC2700 DDR on sale, I don't think I need PC3200 for the PC just yet.

So here is the slightly revised version:

Items that I have/bought recently or will recycle from my old Dell if I need to:
Trinitron 17" CRT (Dell)
Diamond Viper 770 32MB Video Card (Dell)
AMD 1700+ T-bred "B" DUT3C JIUHB
NEC 1100AD DVD+R Drive
Toshiba 16x DVD
Logitech Keyboard and mouse

Plan on buying items:
Soltek SL-75MRN-L mobo
Thermalright SK-7 (revised)
Artic Silver 3
Antec SLK 3700 Case AMB
Samsung 2x256MB PC2700 DDR RAM (revised)

Anyone recommend a good fan for the Thermalright SK-7??

And thanks agian for everyone's help.
 
Since you got a nice 1700+, for sure get PC2700 This stick of Corsair (scroll down) should work out nicely for $68 shipped.

My MIL was using a Diamond Viper V330 PCI up until a week ago. 😀
 
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