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General Questions

V

ViperMagic

Platinum Member
Alright, I'm about to build my first system. I've settled on a 1.4GHz Atlon barebones kit. I plan to install 128 or 265 (or a gig, if i have the cash) RAM, a GF2 MX, and a pretty large hard drive (again, with enough funds, a RAID 0). Now we get into the questions....

1) Where is a good place to buy computer parts, that work, cheap. I don't have a silo ful of cash to build this thing. And don't say Pricewatch. I know that one already. 😀

2) I've heard alot about stability issues with large capacity drives. Is there any truth to this? If so, how high can I go before I begin to crash alot?

3) When someone says they set their computer to run at, say 6x133, what does that mean? I know its an expression of overclocking, but thats about as far as my knowledge extends.

4) How fast could I safley overclock this computer? How WOULD I overclock it?

Thats all I can think of at the moment, and if anyone knows any way to speed this thing up or make it more gameable, or make it *cheaper* they would be appreciated. Thanks all. Viper.
 
1. Mwave or Newegg. MWave seems to have a wider selection and quicker shipping. Newegg seems to have slightly better prices on most things.

2. Never heard of stability problems with larger drives in current systems. Some people are reporting alot of failures with the IBM 7200RPM drives, however.

3. 6x133 means your CPU bus is running at 133MHZ and the chip is multiplying that by 6 internally giving you 800MHZ in this example.

4. Overclocking depends on a number of things - specific motherboard, how overclockable your RAM is, how well the rest of your components stand up to running faster than they are designed to, and probably most of all, how well that specific processor will overclock. Some chips tend of overclock better than others.


 
bozo1 basically answered your questions but i'll back him up to assure you...

1. i (and many others here) have had great experiences with newegg...mwave is also very reputable. i'm sure there are others...if you find a place, check it out at reseller ratings

2. never heard of this one. ibm seems to have had issues with the 75gxp series, specifically the 45gig (i think) version. the 60gxp series seems better... otherwise, i have used maxtor, quantum, and western digital with success. out of those, i think the maxtors perform the best.

3. to get the clock speed (as in 1000 mhz) you multiply the front side bus (fsb) and the multiplier (the small number) in your example, a cpu with a multiplier of 6 and a fsb of 133mhz would run at 800mhz. it is not necessarily an expression of overclocking, but it is commonly used to describe the exact way a cpu is overclocked. for example, lets say the factory speed of a cpu is 1000mhz, using a fsb of 133mhz and a multiplier of 7.5, you can overclock it to 1400mhz using a bus speed of 140mhz and a multiplier of 10, or a bus speed of 133 and a multiplier of 10.5, or other combinations.

4. as for how...it is complicated to explain (but not necessarily to do if you have the right motherboard) but there is a ton of info on this. also, the "how much" varies since there are no guarantees of how much faster than it "factory sold as" speed it will run
 
just adding a little bit to #4:

Intel CPUs have the multiplier locked, so the only way to overclock is by increasing the FSB. For example, if you have a P3 700mhz (7x100mhz), you have to change the FSB but keep the same multiplier. (you could get 7x133mhz)

AMD CPUs are different since you can change the multiplier. (this can be done by connecting the L1 bridges on the CPU with a mechanical pencil, conductive ink, etc.) Most likely your 1.4ghz will be already unlocked when you get it though, but if it isn't you'd have to unlock it. The 1.4ghz runs 10.5x133mhz (the 133mhz is DDR so it's effectively 266mhz), and you can overclock it by changing either the multiplier or FSB (or both). I'd start with changing the multiplier because it doesn't affect the speeds your ram, AGP and PCI devices will run. The 1.4ghz should do 1.5ghz without too much trouble, maybe 1.6ghz+ if you're lucky. Of course you'll need good cooling.
 
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