New computer choices... help me decide.

[SinfulWeeper]

OC'ing of course will be the main goal and my budget looks like I will be able to afford $600 +/- $120 this month. My SL6S2 P4 came to a unexpected death after a non house-trained dog urinated on the PSU while the rig was running (the computer took the dog with it,... lucky mutt).

Here are the new parts I have still boxed up.
19" LCD
2 * 120GB SATA Seagate's
16X DVD-Rom (Samsung)
48X CD-RW
Logitech Cordless Keyboard/Mouse (was new, I just opened them after a slight problem
RAIDMAX case 11 bay case

Here is the list of parts that were salvaged and I kept from the old computer, the rest were unusable.

40GB 60GXP (to be encased in a external USB2.0 case)
Rounded floppy cable
Internal USB 2.0 cables
Audigy 2
GF4 Ti4400 ViVo card (fanless, clocked slightly faster than the Ti4600's via Zalman's heatpipe cooler )
Swifty heatsink (forgot the model)

Here is what I have ordered to get the rest of the main system to have my nit-picks.

7 80mm Panaflo L1A's. Two blowing out the back of the case and for two blowing out the PSU exhaust/intake. Two blowing in front by the hard drives to keep them er and one blowing near the CPU via the side cover.
1 92mm L1A for the heatsink.

Here is basically what I need:


WinXP Pro SP1

PSU... Who makes the best high wattage one that compliments a strong 12v rail for future drives (high amperage)? Obviously the fans will come out for the Panaflo's

Photo Printer. This is most likely the wrong forum to ask... but hey, I just got a 4MP digital camera

Scanner. See above, only I want to digitize my current photo's.

Memory. I am thinking a GB of Black Level II would be a wise choice unless somebody knows of better memory in terms of performance (budget not really a factor, though cheaper the better.)

Motherboard and CPU:
This months budget does not look promising for affording either AMD or Intel to get both based on what I still need to order. So I'll have to get either the CPU, or motherboard first.
Here is my current activities on my temporary 1.1GHz PIII that I had to throw together in a emergency.

DivX Encoding
MP3 Encoding
Light duty games (UT, StarCraft, MOH, and Unreal)
Some StarOffice work (soon to be M$2000 pro)
Photoshop... if I can ever learn to use it...

What I need to know since I have been out of the newer technology gap since last year because of a dog is should I go with AMD or Intel?

Should I get myself a IC7-Max3 and throw in a prescott or northwood? (forgive my ignorance, I do not know how the prescotts perform.)
Or should I go with a FX? If so, what board is the best out there?

 

[Corporate Thug]

IC7
2.4c m0 stepping
ram is fine
antec truepower PSU

i think the P4 will shine in the divx encoding

 

[THUGSROOK]

wait a minute here ~ your PSU killed your dog? :Q

youre gonna hafta call mythbusters for that one

 

[myocardia]

I think you should probably either get a 2.8C or a 3.0C. And for either of those procs., you won't need a 875-chipset board, because they don't usually go above 250mhz fsb, anyway. Well, if you wanted to get a 3.0 above 3.75ghz, then you'd need an Abit IC7-Max 3, but an IS7 will get you to 250fsb, for just a little over half the price of an IC7-Max3. And 250fsb is 3.5ghz for a 2.8C, and 3.75ghz for a 3.0C. Now, if you want to go with an Athlon64, I would recommend not getting an FX, unless you are wanting an extreme overclock. They are the only A64's with an unlocked multi, but man are they expensive!

 

[SinfulWeeper]

Kinda noticed that on the price tag. But are you certain about only the multipler? They come in two completely different pin packages... one is 700 something while the FX is a 900 something. Guess I'll have to double check that one.

I have never had outstanding luck in extreme overclocking, just decent results (an exception of a 1.6 Willy that went further than any on the CPU database, 138FSB)

Shady, are you certain the P4 will out perform the FX in DivX? I thought with the integrated memory controller that the FX will smoke the P4? Also from what I can see, the Truepower might slack a little on the 12V rail @ only 24a.

Thugs, I do not understand it either... perhaps the mutt was unlucky enough to nail the wires before the AC power gets converted to low power DC

 

[smahoney]

ditto Shady, But I would see if you can get the 2.8C M0 stepping SL6Z5 - 3.5GHz easy.

 

[Shimmishim]

For your power supply, get an antec truepower 430W, 480W but not the 550W. If you want to be extreme, you can mod this psu to give you the rails you want.

When I was using my p4p800, i modded it so that my 3.3 ran at 3.6, 5 @ 5.25 and 12 @ 12.4.


For your ram, kingston hyperX pc3200 part # khx3200/XXXX (no a after the 3200). these are bh-5's and will serve you VERY well, assuming you wanna push lots of volts through your ram.

if you go intel, which i think you should, the NW 3.0C will be fine with the Asus P4C800-E or the Abit IC7-MAX 3

the only thing is that with the asus board, in order to get it to work the way it should, you'll have to do a vdroop mod to the board (prevents the vcore voltage from dropping like a mother when you use higher voltages).

with the abit ic7max3.... depending on if you want to run 1:1 or 5:4, you will have to volt mod that board like crazy!!! vdd mod, vtt mod, agp mod, and some others... but MAN... if you get all those mods done, that board will FLY...

okay... maybe this is a bit too extreme for ya but volt modding is SOOOOO fun and so worth it when it works properly!!!



in terms of perf/price ratio, the fx-51 isn't worht it. it's like a 600+ dollar chip... compared to a $225 chip that will serve your purposes well.

and yes there are two sockets out for the 64-bit extensions of the amd processor

fx series uses socket 939 or 940, can't remember
a64 series uses socket 754

 

[SinfulWeeper]

Decided on at P4 route.

Thanks guys