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building first AMD system -- need gurus stamp of approval:

O

Omer

Senior member
Hi all:

I got a pretty old PC at home that is in dire need of being tossed out/scrapped for something better -- it's been running for over 3 yrs ! :

Intel P2-400 mhz
256 MB PC100 RAM
21" Viewsonic P815
Nvidia TNT2 Ultra
Creative Labs - SB Live Value
Plextor SCSI external Plexwriter 8/20 CD-R
External SCSI Zip-100
Old creative DVD-ROM
NIC - netgear fa310TX Fast ethernet PCI
2 8GIG Old IDE HardDrives

Would like to obviously keep some of the components and build a new system.

I'm tired of the Intel dead-end upgrade system they use and want to give AMD a shot.

So I'm thinking of getting the following -- borrowing heavily from the anadtech buying guide 🙂 :

AMD Athalon Thunderbird 1.4 ghz - $185
msi k7 master motherboard - $148
pc2100 - 256mb - $60
gforce2 pro 64mb - $135
Supermicro SC760-A Full Tower ATX - $139
deskstart 60gig HD -- $85 <-- TYPO should be 40gig 7200 RPM for $119
hd controller - Promise FastTrak 100 - $75
SB Live - original
netgeat NIC - original
p815 monitor - original
Plexwriter - original
zip100 - original
1.44 floppy - original

total: ~ $859

Am i missing anything ? Anywhere to save a little $ -- would ideally like to to spend around $700.

I've rebuilt a few systems and feel pretty comfortable working inside the case, but I've NEVER actually built a system from scratch -- and I look forward to it.

A few quick questions before I make any purchases:

RAM: I assume I can't use my old PC100, right ? What if I used both to get 512mb -- would that force the system to run at the pc100 speed -- defeating the whole DDR setup ?

Motherboard: Will it support future chips and/or just faster athalon 4's ? Looking to future-proof this sytem as much as possible.

Full tower CASE: Been reading how it's worth investing in a good case. I really am just looking for something that will be easy to build with, must be quiet ( studio apartment in NYC ), and easy to open up -- no screws ! any other suggestions in a lower price ? And is 300W enough these days ? And the prices vary so much -- $30 seems to get you a good one, but this one listed is $140.

And just in general -- will all my parts work ? sblive and netgear cards are pretty standard. And the perverbial -- should I wait a few weeks ? any major price cuts on the horizon ? I'm not in any major hurry.

thanks for any feedback !

------------------------

with all the feedback my revised system looks like this:

MOTHERBOARD: EPOX EP-8K7A $130.00
CPU: AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.4GHz 266MHz Bus Socket A PGA Processor-OEM Version $184.00
CASE: Antec SX1040 Full-tower Case, 400W $112.00
HS: taisol cgk760092 $34.95
HD: IBM Deskstar 40gig 7200 RPM $114.00
VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce2 PRO 64MB $140.00
RAM: DDR PC2100 CL=2.5 256MB RAM $59.00

total:$773.95
 
Yeah why the fasttrak?

Other than that it looks good.
If you want to shave a few bucks you might go for the Epox 8K7A. But the K7 Master is also a good board.
 
>Yeah why the fasttrak?

no special reason-- just looking for quality parts.

any suggestions ?
 
Well the fasttrak is a RAID controller....you only have one hard drive so there's not much point in paying more for a RAID controller.

Just get an Ultra100 if you don't like the onboard IDE...
 
Doh !

good point. originally I thought of getting 2 HD's and maybe using my old ones -- but no real need.

Any real performance difference between the on-board IDE and an Ultra100 ?

thanks !
 
I think the K7 Master has onboard ATA-100, right? And if I were you, I wouldn't buy a 1.4GHz T-Bird, I'd buy a 1+GHz AXIA and overclock the hell out of it.
 
I you are running only one hard drive, the fast trak will just work as any other ide controller. So either buy another identical hard drive and run a raid array, or ditch the fast track.

There are better motherboards for overclocking, if that is your cup o tea.
Gigabyte GA-7DX, Epox EP-8K7A, MSI K7T266(VIA Chipset).
The K7 master is fine if you don't OC though.

I would suggest a Power supply upgrade to feed that power hungry CPU.
Enermax 431W?

There is a 46 dollar Full Tower at webuildpcs. It has a pull out mobo tray among other features. At that price, you could afford a better power supply.
 


<< Any real performance difference between the on-board IDE and an Ultra100 ? >>

Not significant. I saw Via 686B vs Promise Ultra100 vs HighPoint 370. It was a very small spread...like <5% between 1st and 3rd (I don't remember where the comparision was though).
 
forget the promise and just use the onboard IDE. Buy some more ram or something with the money you were gonna spend on that. Also I'd get your memory from crucial. Good stuff
 
1. I'd go with a RAID mobo versus getting a controller if you are still thinkin gof adding more IDE devices, should save more headache.

2. Don't know the case but I've researched along similiar guidelines and chose the Antec SX1040 which you can get at that price you listed or less. It has lots of expansion room, good cooling, good structure, really nice looking and is supposed to be A JOY working with from everyone I've talked to who owns one. From a soon to be owner.

Think that's all.

PS. Looking back over it if you scrap everything in the old to add to the new I think you'll need a RAID mobo or controller if you add those old IDE drives as seperate or RAID. Well, that's what i'd do with them anyways. unless you want 2 boxes.
 
Nice setup. If you're looking to save some money and hit your ~$700, you might wanna think about dropping down to a 1GHz Athlon that'll only run you about $100.

Personally, that's what I would do. But then I'm one of those people who doesn't need the latest processor, so you may be different. (It also depends on what you plan on doing with this machine too.)

As for the case, I just built my system with the Antec SX-840. It was a pleasure to work with (and it looks cool too). Check out the Hot Deals forum for posts regarding the SX-830 (same as mine, but with a 300-watt vs a 400-watt PSU). You can pick one up for about $110. Note that it's a mid-size tower, not full (I simply do not want a monster on or below my desk).
 
Your harddrive seems to be underpriced. I think you might be hardpressed to find a 60gig for $85. If you don't mind overclocking, going with an o/c axia could you save you a little money but maybe not as much as you would think after the whopping heatsink you need. I know you can find a better price on a case that would meet your needs to save you a few bucks. I have also heard really good things about the Epox 8k7A which is cheaper than the MSI. Drop the FastTrak card and buy it when/if you ever need it.
 
Are you going to do a lot of gaming? With the geforce 2 pro, I heard some of them have real bad resolution at higher than 1024x768 so maybe you want possibly something like a radeon because of the better image quality at higher resolutions. You have a 21&quot; monitor so I say that. I dont see anything wrong with a 1.4 ghz, athlon besides they are ayhja I think which overclocks higher than axia. Do you have a heatsink/fan for it though? And also I would ditch the fasttrak since your not going raid. That 60gb hard drive is 5400 rpm or 7200? Looking at the price it seems like 5400 maybe you should check out the maxtor in the hot deals forums, and get the 7200 one with the ultra 100 card. That way you have extra ide controllers and they end up being free after rebate. I hear lots of people like the epox motherboard like many people said.
 
thanks for all the feedbck:

compucaineaddict: not really looking to overclock this time around. i want a super stable system with no extra fans, heatsink stuff, etc. Maybe on my next machine when i feel more comfortable with all this stuff.

Noriaki: so the onboard IDE is almost as fast -- only down side is that it's limited to 2 devices, right ?

GremlinHater: Why is it better to get a RAID motherboard instead of a controller ? I'm not sure if it's worth adding my old 2 8 gig HD's -- and they are kinda old and make noises that tell me there life expectancy can't be that much longer. But in &quot;future proofing&quot; this system -- assuming I'll add some devices in the future why go with a raid mobo vs a controller ? just curious, and which mobo would u recommend. And ya, the Antec SX1040:
link
looks good -- let me know how it works out for you.
 
ya...i am no guru, however i can offer a few sugestions. I would go with a 1 or a 1.2 GHz from newegg, seeing as they are very cheap. also, get some ASII and a good HSF.....on my fisrt system i bought a retail proc, because it came with a hs....bad plan. i recently bought a new hs and some ASII so that i could overclock....now, with a %20 overclock and .2 more volts running through my duron, i am getting the exact temps that i was getting with my stock hsf...


agg123456789
 
You could also save a little by getting a Radeon LE and overclocking it. It is around $80 shipped from newegg. I have mine stable at 202/202 with HyperZ enabled and a 486-cpu fan screwed onto the heatsink. Works like a champ.. 3DMark in the 3300 range @ 1024x32 with a 800Tbird.
 
lastig21: you are right about the HD price. Didn't realize the IBM uses the same model number for different size HDs' -- so $85 was for the 20 gig, and it's $185 for the 60 gig even though they are both called Deskstar 60GXP - go figure.

ya -- in general I'll use this rig for some fps gaming, flash dev work, and web browsing, mp3 playing. Is the gforce2 pro really that bad in higher resolutions ? i thought they upped the ramdac and now 2D is good ...

the Epox 8K7A looks awesome. Comes with ultra dma 100 which is nice, and 6 real PCI slots is good.

karmasalad: ya, maybe the tower is over kill -- and not sure it will fit under my desk either. Did it bother u that the SX840 has no motherboard tray ? and i think the 400W is the way to go.

and looks like newegg.com is the choice for most of what I'm looking for.

Anandtech should get some discount for all the business they push there way ...

thanks !
 
you should get the epox 8k7a like everybody elsa is saying, the msi k7master has given quite a few people here a lot of headaches, so just a thought
 
Yup, that's the case alright, don't know anything about the dealer so you'd have to research their's other places to get it to, just make sure to go with a dealer with a good reputation.

As far as the mobo goes, personally I'd go with SDRAM mobo as it will save you bucks even going with RAID on it and you can use your old RAM. The performance gain I think is only noticeable by benchmarking people and I don't think it's real world effects are great. I am pretty sure SDRAM will be around for awhile even with the intro of DDR becoming cheaper. SDRAM has a lot of marketshare, perhaps not to box builders but to OEM manufacturers, sure.

Choices? Well in anandtech's roundup of mobo's the top 3 in stability were MSI K7T Turbo(-R?), Asus A7V133, and Iwill KK266. I am building my first PC as well and got the IWill KK266-R as it's stable, the company seems to stand behing it's product, it has RAID, and that RAID is supposed to be supported better which is why they went with AMI. The layout is better too, you can search for reviews on this stuff for more info.

As for the raid mobo vs. controller, i think it will be cheaper to go with a raid mobo, the chipset for that RAID and motherboard work together obviously, and it's AMI I notice a lot of your stuff is scsi so maybe you won't need it for extra ide hard drives but if you had say a ide zip, 2 hdd, cd-rw, dvd then you'd need a raid mobo or controller

Depending on your time I'll be recieving the parts to my system in few days and post on here how it all goes if you want to wait until then.
 
I am right in the middle of my first system build, so I just went through all this. If you don't mind Maxtor instead of IBM check out &quot;well known coupon sites&quot; (wink wink) for Staples coupons. OEM drives might be cheaper, though. I found the case was the biggest hassle, since if you want anything but the stock power supply you almost have to buy through the mail and the shipping is a fortune. I got an Antec SX-830 with an Enermax 365 for $117 delivered from Directron, which I thought was pretty good. I had it shipped UPS, which scared me but it arrived undamaged. Look under &quot;discounts&quot; for their deal where if you order on a weekend but let them ship Tuesday you save 10 bucks. Also do a web search for &quot;directron&quot; and &quot;coupon&quot; and see what you find. I don't think I'm allowed to post the code here.

EGJ
 
I'm currently running my geforce2 GTS at some high resolution (I forget which one, and that pc is at home), with no problems on my IBM 21&quot; monitor. I'd stick with it for sure
 
A few comments..

If you can afford to pay for the 1.4Ghz CPU, go for it - You're guaranteed to get 1.4 out of it. If you get a 1.0 or a 1.2, there's a chance it won't go much faster than the rated speed.

Be sure to get PC2100 CAS2 - You'll get a tiny bit better performance, worth the extra couple of bucks. AMD 761 motherboards have only DDR memory slots - You wouldn't be able to use your old RAM.

The price on that hard drive seems too cheap - Make sure you get a 7200 RPM ATA100 drive - A 60GB drive usually goes for around $200. If you can find one for $80, great, and tell us where!

Don't forget to add a good heatsink fan. The ones that come with the retail CPU's aren't too hot. A good Taisol 760092 will serve you well, but read through the Cases/Cooling and the CPU/Overclocking boards for details.

If you're thinking that IDE RAID is in your future pick a motherboard that has it built in, like the EPOX EP-8K7A ($130 from Newegg). Either that, or pick up the K7 MASTER with SCSI built in. Save those PCI slots!

I'd second the recommendation for the Antec SX-1040 - I've got the 1030 and love it! Should be around the same price as the one you've got spec'ed.

Lastly, I'd consider waiting just a bit for the SIS735 motherboards. Early tests show it being a higher-performing option than the other DDR motherboards at this time. We'll likely start to see boards on this chipset in the next month or so. Check out some reviews, see if you think it's worth the wait.

- G
 
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