Duron or Tbird? Mobo? PC-100 or 133?

[bluemax]

GAH!!! :| I just wrote a huge message only to have the board poot on me and lose the whole thing. I'll start again... :|

I'm sooooo close to moving to a Duron or Tbird setup, but I'm not sure which to choose.

I can get a Duron 600 for $60 Canadian up to a Duron 800 for $110C.
Tbird 700 for $120C, 750 for $130C.

For mobos, I can go for MSI K7T Pro2 for $195-20 ($175C)
or a Gigabyte GA-7ZX for the same price. ABIT costs more and has a worse reputation... :Q No thanks...

I don't need the full power of this Voodoo5-5500 AGP... I can definately justify selling it to replace it with a lesser-expensive Radeon LE or Geforce1 SDR (if I can stand the fuzzy text...) Any compatibility issues with Durons and those cards?

Should I bother upgrading my memory from PC-100 to 133?

Your recommendations will really help here. Dollars are very tight while I'm at school... Thanks!

 

[arod324]

Personally I have the ABIT KT7, and it has been running fine for me. I know that they have a higher RMA rate than any other mobo manufacturer, but oh well. You should get a KT133A chipset, since there is not that much of a price difference. Personally, I always buy the chips that have the most headroom, (cheaper), and try to overclock it more. I have a Duron 600@1050 right now with the Taisol CGK742092 HS/F. I think you should buy 128MB PC133 ram, since it is less than $50 shipped now. This will give you a fairly large performance increase in the memory bandwidth and FSB when you get it to 133. Also, I think you should get the Radeon DDR LE ( unless you're running Win2K. This card performs beautifully for me, (3000 in 3dmark2k1 compared to 2200 for a G2MX on my friend's computer which is similarly configured.

I would reccomend whatever mobo you want, the Iwill and the epox are good. The Duron 600 would be a good choice, and cheap at that. Radeon LE is THE BEST PRICE/PERFORMANCE ratio for a video card around (after a few minor tweaks).

 

[Thump553]

Geforce 1 is a power hog that can cause problems on Athlon MBs.

I use a Radeon 32MB retail and am very happy with it (Win98SE, not running Win2k at time because of other problems).

 

[bluemax]

Thanks for that warning! When is cheap not a good deal? How about when it fries your PS then everything else?

 

[Dark4ng3l]

I would get the msi board and the 750 tbird. personally i jst ordered an asus A7V133 and tbird 900 2 days ago. I would get generic pc133 ram it's realy cheap right now(cas2 is nice but far from vital)

 

[bluemax]

Any reason to go Tbird over Duron?

 

[shepherdofchaos]

Get a Duron 600 or 650 if you want to overclock and don't want to mess with unlocking the clock multiplier. The Durons seem to top out between 850 and 980. 6 X 133= 798 (most every Duron will make this). 6.5 X 133= 865 (and this). 7 X 133= 931 (but not necessarily this). 7.5 X 133= 998 (and usually not this).

Also, a lot of the early Durons came off the assembly line multiplier unlocked.

 

[SerraYX]

I can get a Duron 600 for $60 Canadian up to a Duron 800 for $110C.
Tbird 700 for $120C, 750 for $130C.

Go for the Tbird 700, you can get it up to 900 most likely. Much better than a Duron, arod's results are rather lucky, most Durons go to 900 at most. But then again, a Duron 900 = Thunderbird 700 in performance. If you have the money, get the thunderbird 700, if not the Duron 600. Duron 800's are more expensive for less overclocking headroom.

The MSI K7T Pro2 has been experiencing a lot of problems as well. I'd honestly risk Abit instead of going for a Gigabyte anyday, much better board.

Go for the regular Radeon 32mb DDR, $75 + shipping on pricewatch, but you'd have to find a Canadian dealer, right?

You already have PC100 memory? Nah, don't bother, chances are you can get the memory to run at 133 mhz without much problem.

 

[bluemax]

Anyone agree with this guy? His opinions seem to be RADICALLY different from others'. :Q

Tbird 700 = Duron 900?
MSI board = bad??

Whoa...

 

[KevinH]

Thump 553 - I think you're talking about athlons @april 2000. This is a year later dude, there's NO problem with Geforces and Athlons. I've been using athlons since the they came out and after the initial teething process they're rock solid.

 

[cowpoos]

HI i have a gigabyte ga-z7m with kt133 chipset and duron 800@930 [easy]
using fsb overclocking that is apparently can't be done [over 110mhz]
using easytune software avalible on driver disc i have a fop38 winbond fan
and cpu temp is 6 degrees celsius above ambient temp most of the time
its rock solid and will run higher MHz [max of 1064MHz] its a dirt cheap board compared to asus and abit it has an option to run pc100 or pc133
ram in the bios so at higher fsb speeds u can turn it down and means u can upgrade to pc 133 later when u can afford it.also u can turn down the agp bus at higher fsb speeds.

my sisoft sandra for cpu is: ALU 2563 MIPS
: FPU 1266 MFLOPS

not far of 1000MHz athlon and thats at 918MHz not 930 I'm running right now
I hope i help u and as for graphics card wait to Geforce 3 is established
and get a gts2 32 or 64 ddr ram [if on the cheap look at powercolor cards as they r not as nasty as most people think]

cowpoos

Email:cowpoos@xtra.co.nz
icq:93986037