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Looking to build two mATX systems for my brother and dad

I

igowerf

Diamond Member
I'd like these to be decent, yet cheap systems so I'm looking towards AthlonXPs right now. I'm hoping for about $200-$300 each. My dad's system can be a little slower than my brother's since he just uses it for office work. I have some PC2100 RAM and a TBird 1.4 lying around so he can even use those parts.

I already have hard drives, CD-RW drives, DVD drives, video cards, and keyboards and mice.

I'd like to use this Lite-on TM203B-1 mATX case.

The Athlon XP 2500+ looks pretty good at about $75 on newegg. How's the performance of the mobile Athlons? If I overclock one and run at 1.6-1.7 volts, would it still be cooler than a regular AthlonXP?

Any suggestions for cooling? I could just get retail w/stock cooling for $5 more.

What about mATX motherboards? I'm not sure which chipset to get. nForce 2's seem good, but I vaguely remember something about nForces running hotter than other chipsets (maybe I'm thinking about nForce 1?).

Thanks.
 
With the xp2000 I used to have, I found a heatsink that could hold an 80mm fan seemed to work better. It was generally quiter than a 45mm fan or so screaming away at ungodly rpms. I had no stability issues either. The one thing I wouldn't reccommend is an Nforce2 chipset if you are using 6 channel sound.
 
No 6 channel sound. My brother has a 4.1 set and my dad has 2.1. Thanks for the tip about the heatsink. Any suggestions for 80mm heatsinks?
 
Cool case; never seen that one before.

I would imagine you'd have no problem fitting a HSF that will take an 80mm fan in there. The performance really IS "that much" better. 80mm fan is a lot quieter than a 60mm hairdryer, too.
 
Originally posted by: MichaelD
Originally posted by: igowerf
Hmm..... The newegg description shows the case to be 5.35" tall.
Click to expand...

I took this pic just for you 🙂

On the left is a typical 80mm Socket A HSF. It's a GC68 (no longer made) from SVC. On the right is the stock AMD HSF that came with my 2500 Barton. You be the judge.
Click to expand...


Hey! I think I actually have a GC68 running in my bro's computer right now! I vaguely remember buying that a year or two ago. I could probably resuse that then. The difference compared to the stock hsf seems pretty small. Thanks!
 
Originally posted by: igowerf
I have some PC2100 RAM and a TBird 1.4 lying around so he can even use those parts.

I already have drives and video cards so I don't need those.
Click to expand...

TBird 1.4's are hot as hell and draw a ton of power. I really don't think they're safe to use in most systems without underclocking.

And just make sure you're up-front about all the used parts you're putting in. You don't want to look like some kind of idiot who builds POS systems when you've got some slow old hard drive in there and it takes your dad 10 minutes to boot up and logon to AOL.

Originally posted by: igowerf
What about mATX motherboards? I'm not sure which chipset to get. nForce 2's seem good, but I vaguely remember something about nForces running hotter than other chipsets (maybe I'm thinking about nForce 1?).

Thanks.
Click to expand...

The $65 Biostar nForce2 Ultra micro-ATX is a very good board I've used. It's my top recommendation for a cheap system, whether or not you need micro-ATX.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-138-227&depa=0

If they're not going to be playing games, a crappy CPU is OK. Onboard video is OK. They'll think they've got the most badass system in the world as long as you give them 512MB and a fast hard drive.
 
Those Tbirds do run kinda hot. They were the top shelf when they came out though. I remember one of my friends had one when I still had my p3 500
 
I'm paying for both computer upgrades so I'm not planning to spend too much on stuff that I already have. I'm a poor college student. 🙂

Well, my dad has been using my old Celeron 566@850 system for a few years now. I made it back in my days of ricing up my computer. 🙂 The hard drive in it is a 20GB WD 7200 RPM drive. Not the fastest, but it'll work for him. Boot times with even the Celeron are pretty quick. He just uses Office and checks email on his computer. Later in the year, I'll get him a nice new hard drive.

My bro will get parts scrapped from his system. He has Radeon 8500 in his system along with a burner and a hard drive. I might get him a newer Radeon later this year too.

No AOL either. We're on a pretty fast cable connection (about 4000/400) split on a wireless network.

The Biostar board looks pretty good. I'll probably go with that. Thanks for the suggestion.

I guess the TBird 1.4 is out. I never really had heat problems with it, but it was in a full tower case so things will probably be different. I can use it for my server next year.
 
That case looks nice - similar to the Athenatech A100 series which I like a lot. Can be used either horizontal or vertical - ~6" high when horizontal. If you plan to use it in vertical orientation, be sure to get optical drive that will work that way.
. Check out the Thermal Integration V77L HSF - not as tall as many other high perf heatsinks. The GC68/69, Speeze WhisperRock and similar are a bit over 80mm (3"~76mm) in all directions including the 25mm (1") thick fan, so check for clearance - the V77L is a bit under 3" square and under 2" tall with the normal fan (15mm ~ 0.6").
. I would get the DFI KM400-MLV mobo Linkage it has the P4 12V power connector that will allow power hogs like that 1.4 to run on the puny PSUs (nice to see the case you chose has a 250 Watter - allows a bit of leeway - most have 200 Watters - the A100 I have has 230W) that normally come in that type of case, and has all the modern amenities (SATA, USB 2, LAN etc.) to boot. Plus it has an AGP 8x slot in case the integrated video doesn't cut it down the road.
. On whatever you consider, be sure to check the location and orientation of the CPU socket and front panel connection header for clearance and distance - I could barely reach the header on my MSI KM2M with the wires in an A100. You want the CPU socket as much toward the rear and center of the mobo as possible and the front panel header as far to the front and center (push to shove, you can always cut and splice 😉 ).
. Those look pretty good on the DFI. Even a too tall memory module could cause clearance problems with a drive or the drive bay brackets...
. Good luck!
.bh.

There's the :sun: !
 
That's a nice case but I'm afaid it's diificut to come in under $300 with it: Which is why I recoomed this one: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-164-011&depa=0


Here's a complete comp which may give you a good starting point depending what you have.

Case: Linkworld Silver ATX Mini-Tower Case ""617-C8828-P4" $24.00
CD- LG Electronics Black 52X $14.50
HSF- Speeze "WhisperRock II" $9.99
Floppy- SONY Black 1.44MB $9.99
Hard Drive- Maxtor 40GB 7200RPM IDE $51.00
Keyboard and mouse- Logitech BLACK Optical Desktop $24.00
Memory 512MB- Samsung Original 184 Pin 2 x 256MB DDR PC-3200 - $80.00
Motherboard -BIOSTAR "M7NCG 400" nForce2 IGP graphics/sound/network $64.00
Processor - AMD Duron 1.8 Ghz $40.00

TOTAL = $304

Set FSB to 166 and you're smoking. All Durons I've seen are easily capable of 2250Mhz which is why I recommended the good HSF above to cool it. It's very quiet and very good.

If you have drives or whatever else you can mix and match to get each comp to less than $200.
 
Originally posted by: Zebo
That's a nice case but I'm afaid it's diificut to come in under $300 with it: Which is why I recoomed this one: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-164-011&depa=0


Here's a complete comp which may give you a good starting point depending what you have.

Case: Linkworld Silver ATX Mini-Tower Case ""617-C8828-P4" $24.00
CD- LG Electronics Black 52X $14.50
HSF- Speeze "WhisperRock II" $9.99
Floppy- SONY Black 1.44MB $9.99
Hard Drive- Maxtor 40GB 7200RPM IDE $51.00
Keyboard and mouse- Logitech BLACK Optical Desktop $24.00
Memory 512MB- Samsung Original 184 Pin 2 x 256MB DDR PC-3200 - $80.00
Motherboard -BIOSTAR "M7NCG 400" nForce2 IGP graphics/sound/network $64.00
Processor - AMD Duron 1.8 Ghz $40.00

TOTAL = $304

Set FSB to 166 and you're smoking. All Durons I've seen are easily capable of 2250Mhz which is why I recommended the good HSF above to cool it. It's very quiet and very good.

If you have drives or whatever else you can mix and match to get each comp to less than $200.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the list! I don't need a hard drive, floppy drive, CD-ROM drive, or keyboard/mouse so that'll save me quite a bit. I'll take a look at that HSF.
 
Wow. It looks like the Whisperrock is only about 70mm tall so that's only about 2.8 inches. That'll have plenty of clearance in the case. Thanks!
 
Well, I just want quiet cooling that'll get the job done. I don't plan to overclock. I'm concerned about the height of the HSF because the case I'm getting is only about 5.4" wide (or tall, depending on how I orient it). I think I'll go with an 80mm to keep the noise down. Thanks!
 
The Dynatron isn't very quiet whereas the WhisperRock is...but you may be able to adapt it to an 80mm fan.
.bh.
 
Originally posted by: Anonemous
Originally posted by: Zebo
Well then easy less than $200 each system. 🙂 Just look at the reviews at newegg for this HS. All 5's over 200 reviews and many overclcokers.😉

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=35-150-010&depa=0
Click to expand...

what about the falconrock? It has a copper center for 1$ more.



http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=35-150-023&depa=0
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. I added two to my cart and for some reason, they came out to only $9.49 each. I guess I got a "bulk" discount. 🙂 I ordered them along with the rest of the stuff.
 
Originally posted by: igowerf
I guess the TBird 1.4 is out. I never really had heat problems with it, but it was in a full tower case so things will probably be different. I can use it for my server next year.
Click to expand...

Well, you might as well give the TBird a try since you've already got it. I would just clock it down to 1050 MHz and make sure the case temp was under 95F. I had a TBird 1.5 that I even overclocked a little bit, but I had several case fans and a good Thermaltake copper HS. I put it in my sister-in-law's computer with an average Cooler Master HS and one case fan, and about 6 months later it started rebooting a lot. The ambient case temp was 107F and the clock generator chips on the motherboard actually cracked and melted a little. I replaced the motherboard, underclocked it to 700MHz and improved the ventilation by cutting a hole in the back of her desk, and now it's fine. The clock speed really doesn't matter when all she does is browse the web and email people.
 
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