Looking for Input before I build my new box

[DragonMasterAlex]

Here's my plan for a new box. I need something in a SMALL form factor so I can pop a handle on it and tote it to school and back, since the school PC's suck a fat butt. Now, I'm *considering* either the Shuttle SS51G (Pentium 4) or the upcoming SN41G2 (Nforce2 AthlonXP) but I'm a little torn. On the one hand, I really am interested in the higher clock speeds of the P4; on the other hand, the appeal of the 3 Firewire and 4 USB 2.0 ports, as well as the optical and all that crap outputs on the Nforce2, are also very appealing.

So what I'm really looking for is input on performance. Will I see a similar performance with, say, an Athlon XP 2100 as compared to a P4 2000? Also, on the P4's with the 400Mhz FSB, is there much luck in OC'ing? I'd like to get close to 3ghz if possible, but I also am realistic enough to know it's not a necessity; the 2.0 celeron at 2.67Ghz at home works fine.

I've already bought a Geforce4 ti4200 to pop into this box (meets all my needs and it's cheap) and I plan to put about a gig of RAM, prolly PC2700 or so, into this thing.

If there are other companies out there making similarly configured systems but with a better arrangement of options it would be great to get some links and advice!

thanks in advance, guys!

Jason

 

[ChampionAtTufshop]

well waht is this computer going to be used for?
athlon xp 2100 will peform better in some application than p4 2ghz, but p4 will perform better in some

with the 2.0a you wont have much luck in overclocking to 3ghz

a C1 stepping 2.4b seems to be best, along with 1.8a C1 stepping
2.26b C1 should also be good

also 2.53 C1 steping

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Good call, I definitely need to be more specific about my uses. I know I'll be doing some Photoshop and later in the term after next (so around March) I'll be doing some 3D Studio Max, as well. I'll certainly use it for gaming, which I think at 2+ Ghz I'll have no trouble with anything I want to play for awhile. If there is anything else more specific I can add, don't hesitate to jog my (admittedly tired) brain! 🙂

thanks bro!

Jason

 

[ChampionAtTufshop]

well just remember that athlon xp2100+ is not 2.1ghz

anyways those programs would probably need qutie a bit of memory bandwidth, which with dual channel ddr on nforce2 would definately provide

maybe look into a 333mhz fsb athlon xp2600 and nforce board with pc2700 ram
if you wish to overclock, perhaps a xp2400+ overclocked to 166mhz fsb would be better off, as they are pretty good overclockers
only thing is i dont think retail amd heatsinks for those cpu's would suffice when overclocking

higher clock speeds does not equal higher peformance

a p4 with 400mhz bus is actually a 100mhz fsb quad pumped (x4)
a p4 with 533mhz bus is actually a 133mhz fsb quad pumped (x4)

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Right, right, I understand the FSB and all that; just curious as to what will be the best bang for the buck! If I go with one of those shuttle kits it'll have the HeatPipe setup, so there'll be no switching out coolers. Mainly the tossup seems to be between P4 and Athlon. Anyone know if the Nforce2 will support the next AMD chip coming out?

Also, what kind of performance do those new P4's that are Dual CPU in one have? I'm curious about that, not for now, because they're so expensive, but for a future upgrade path 😉

jason

 

[DoctorBooze]

Go for the SB51G, the newer revision of the Shuttle thing, it has the USB 2 and Firewire, and some digital audio options. And you can buy it now.

The Dual CPU in One thing is Hyper-Threading, and is only available on P-4s of 3.06GHz and up. Read Anandtech's review on it.

 

[ChampionAtTufshop]

Originally posted by: DoctorBooze
Go for the SB51G, the newer revision of the Shuttle thing, it has the USB 2 and Firewire, and some digital audio options. And you can buy it now.

The Dual CPU in One thing is Hyper-Threading, and is only available on P-4s of 3.06GHz and up. Read Anandtech's review on it.

until intel decides to trickle it down to lower speed cpu's

however its not proving to be THAT much better for non smp capable apps

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Right, right; I plan to be using 3DS Max, which is SMP capable, so that could be a factor later on, though I expect to get into the 2 or so ghz range at this point, just to keep costs down.

One thing odd I notice on Shuttle's site: The SS51G states it has USB 2.0 and ATA133, but the SB51G shows only USB and ATA100; can anyone verify other than this? I suppose it won't matter that much anyway, since I'm thinking I'll pop in a RAID card and run a pair of drives in RAID 0, but still 😉

Jason