Building My First: Two Options and I Need Your Opinions

[Moonshine]

The system is going to be running Win2k and stability is the primary concern. It will be used primarily for games, Internet, MP3s.

The budget is $1600.

System 1: Intel

P4 1.4 GHZ $180
ASUS P4T $200
256 MB RDRAM $260 (not sure yet which brand is best)
IBM 60GXP 40GB $125
Plextor CDRW 16 or 12 $180/$125
Elsa GeForce 2 GTS $200
Turtle Beach DSP $80
Antec SX840 $130

Total: $1355/$1300 (depending on the CDRW)

The CDRW is an issue because I read on the forums that there are problems with i850 and Plextors 12x CDRW, has anyone else heard of this?

System 2: AMD

Athlon 1.33 GHZ $150
MSI K7 Master $175
256 MB Cas 2.5 PC2100 DDR SDRAM $75 (Corsair or Crucial?)
IBM 60GXP 40GB $125
Plextor CDRW 16 or 12 $180/$125
Elsa GeForce 2 GTS $200
Turtle Beach DSP $80
Fong Kai Fk-320 ATX $100

Total: $1065/$1020

Although the CDRW is not an issue with this system, the 16x doesn't, IMO, offer enough performance increase to justify the price.


What I'm most concerned with is the issue of stability. I've read many, many posts on this forum about troubles with AMD. A majority of those posts seem to be VIA-related, but this system has to have rock-solid stability. So, for those of you who have followed the AMD issue closely, is it a VIA issue? Since I'm not using a VIA chipset, can I expect the AMD-based system to offer the same stability with Win2k as the Intel?


Any suggestions or critcism are much appreciated.


Is the elsa a good choice? Or can I get a cheaper GTS that still is an excellent performer?


In particular, I know absolutely nothing about cases and made the choices based on reading other posts about case and cooling, so feedback there is apprecaited.


Note: I've got a nice iiyama waiting, so I don't need a monitor. Or a mouse or keyboard.

Thanks!

 

[acexg1]

I'll vote for the AMD system, and I think many others will too. I would imagine your Amd system would be stable, but a can't speak from first hand experience there. The only really widespread Via issue I've seen has been using SB Lives with Via chipsets.

 

[Boonesmi]

another AMD vote

 

[MCS]

Nothing wrong with your choice of case, in either "case"

I don't know what it will take to dispell the "AMD is unstable" BS. I perfectly understand, I went from a P3 to a TBird and I felt exactly the same. That was nearly 6 months ago and I have nothing but good things to say about AMD now. IMHO my system is as stable if not MORE stable than my P3/BX system. Not to offend anyone but there ARE a lot of people out there who are just useless at setting up systems and don't do the necessary research before hand.

I mean, how many times have we seen the reply in these forums "Have you installed the VIA AGP driver?"

 

[AMDPwred]

I vote for the AMD setup.

 

[compucaineaddict]

Better peformance, reliablility, future-proofing, and price.
No doubt, go with the AMD.

 

[NelsonMuntz]

I vote for the AMD system too. It is cheaper and it gives you a viable upgrade path for the future whereas that P4 system leaves you hanging out to dry in not too long. As far as the stability, I say as long as oyu take the MSI K7 Master MB, you shouldn't have any problems since the northbridge is AMD 761 chipset.

 

[Moonshine]

MCS:



<< I don't know what it will take to dispell the &quot;AMD is unstable&quot; BS. I perfectly understand, I went from a P3 to a TBird and I felt exactly the same. That was nearly 6 months ago and I have nothing but good things to say about AMD now. IMHO my system is as stable if not MORE stable than my P3/BX system. Not to offend anyone but there ARE a lot of people out there who are just useless at setting up systems and don't do the necessary research before hand.

I mean, how many times have we seen the reply in these forums &quot;Have you installed the VIA AGP driver?&quot; >>



Considering the amount of posts I've read I disagree that stability is a non-issue with AMD systems. From what I've read, however, a lot of the problem are related to the SB Live! and VIA chipset, but since neither of those are present in my system I'm hoping to avoid the problems.

Thanks for your replies!

 

[Boonesmi]

i agree totally with mcs

most of the time when people have stability problems with amd systems its not cause of the hardware but because of the person putting it together

i have 4 systems running as we speak in this room with me, each is an amd and all are totally stable


one thing about setting up an amd system it does take a little work before you start, it takes some research.

 

[Moonshine]

Well, I'm leaning toward the AMD system.

But, first, I wanted to ask if anyone has any other recommendations beside the MSI K7 Master.

The system probably won't be overclocked and the board I need has to offer rock-solid stability and excellent performance, in that order. IOW, I'd be willing to sacrifice some performance for better stability.

 

[eshtog]

I have heard the EPOX 8K7A is good

 

[Duvie]

That GTS seems a bit high...64mb ddr??? I would get the geforce pro 64mb ddr...look around many places that it is under 200 plus it is faster then the gts model...

Also don't fall for all that plextor fan crap...check out aopen full retail at newegg for 100.00 dollars shipped (nero software upgradeable to 5.5 for free)then check out www.storagereview.com and see it beats the plextor 12x and teac 12x in competition for 12x cdrws. If you go 16x newegg has a nice price for the plextor as well...It has a burnproof technology called justlink (read about its slight superiority to burnproof tech.)

 

[Sugadaddy]

AMD.

Also consider the Epox 8K7A motherboard, and look around a little more for the video card. You can get a Geforce 2 Pro 64MB for ~150$.

 

[Garion]

One thing to keep in mind is that this is a very AMD-centric hardcore computing community. We push our rigs pretty hard, constantly adding new hardware, messing drivers, and going as far as we can to get the max performance possible. This leads to a lot of instability. For typical computing, AMD will be just as stable as an Intel box. Obviously, I think you should go AMD, simply for bang-for-the-buck.

If you can ante up $200 for a graphics card you might as well spend another $40 and get a GF2 Ultra. Otherwise, stick with a $140 MSI GeForce GF2 Pro 64 MB.

No DVD? I've always recommended to get a DVD player as your main CD and keep your more expensive CDRW for burning and secondary use - No need to listen to your audio and put hours on your burner.

One last thing that's missing from your AMD system is a good heatsink. Your $150 Athlon might come with something that will work, but you'd be a LOT happier with something that performs a bit better. Look on the cooling board for recommendations, but people seem to like the Taisol 760092 - Good cooling, not much noise and not too expensive ($35).

- G

 

[Moonshine]

At AMDzone.com there is a significant consensus against the MSI K7 Master.

I'm also still extremely wary of the 686B southbridge.

I'm going to investigate the GA-7DX and Epox 8k7a, I've heard a lot of good stuff about the Epox. Also, amdmb.com gave the epox the editor's choice award.

Any opinions?

 

[CovertCow]

I believe that you should get the plextor 12x, I have a 16x and notice that I burn at 12x, because, even with the burn-proof technology, I get buffer underruns. With that $65 in price difference, get a 16x pioneer slot loading drive from www.mwave.com. Even if you don't watch dvds a ton, you might want to get it so you can copy cds on the fly, and also i think it uses less of your system resources than the plextor

 

[Sephy]

Not only will it be stable, but it will kick the pants off the intel machine.

 

[UglyCasanova]

WHat do you mean research? I am going to be putting together my first system as well soon with an Athlon. Is there something about AMD I should know about?

 

[Moonshine]

dparker,

There have been a lot of problems relating to VIA drivers, VIA northbridge and southbridge (although, the 686B seems better than the rest), SB Live!, and some models of CDRW/DVD. Most of the problems appear with Windows OSs, so if you're building a GNU/Linux system you *should* be okay.

E.g., the 686B has the following known problems &quot;incompatibility with certain components with low timing tolerances (e.g. the Aureal Vortex2 and the SB Live!) and the I/O controller has problems with correctness of disk-to-disk transfers.&quot;


Browse the forums at Amdzone.com, Arstechnica.com, and other tech websites to see what I mean.

Anand is very AMD-centric, which is not necessarily a Bad Thing. There are, however, problems with Anand's testing methods and several of the reports *in the past* have contained significant mistakes/inaccuracies, which might lead one to develop a false sense of the stability of AMD/VIA platforms. Of course, some proportions of the problems reported with AMD/VIA are due to user error, poor componenet research, e.g., buying SB Live!, etc. Furthermore, you also need to realize that the people with problems tend to be the most vocal.

As in all things, before making a decision, get as much information as you can *from as many different sources as you can*.

My own research, as I wrote above, has lead to me to re-evaluate my choice of the MSI K7 Master, despite the glowing recommendation at Anand's, and choose another motherboard.