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Rolling my own

J

jasrich

Junior Member
I am in the process of identifying the parts that I want to use to build my own PC. It will primarily be used for Web and personal finance but also PC gaming (games like Unreal Tournament and Quake3). I have already collected the video card, sound card and hard drive (GeForce2 GTS 64MB DDR, Sound Blaster Live Value Digital, and IBM 20GB, 7200 RPM) but now I need to figure out what to do about the guts.

I am thinking about either the ASUS A7V Socket-A KT133 ATX, or Abit KT7-Raid Socket A KT133 ATX. I was looking at Enlight cases but they only seem to come with 200 or 250 watt power supplies and I understand that I probably need 300w to power the Athlon. Which brings me to my next question: what is the best processor in terms of value and performance? Athlon 850, 900 or 1GHz now that they have their faster chips out?

TIA for any suggestions.

Jason
 
I don't know about price/performance ratio but I just say 1 gig T-Birds on Pricewatch for around $270. This was just a few minutes ago. BTW the retail giggers were about $295. I don't think you can go wrong at this price.
 
A one gig athlon tbird is nice since they are under $300 now.

I would get an Abit KT7 and drop the raid. I am not a big fan of IDE software Raid and it is doubtfull you will need the ata-100 and extra channels. If you feel you do need those features then go for it. You could also consider other brands of motherboards if you will not be overclocking. If you have an old ISA device make sure you get one with an ISA slot 🙂

As far as case goes - I recommend an Antec Sx830. It is a large mid tower that comes with a 300w supply and 4 places to mount 80mm case fans right out of the box (comes with 2 fans, have to buy 2 more). It has drive rails and an easy pop out hard drive cage. It is the highest quality case I have worked in considering most of my previous cases were generic. It is about $80 shipped from onvia.com
 
Seriously though, either mobo should be good. I don't think you need those higher end CPUs. Get a Duron 750 if you don't plan to overclock, a Duron 600 if you do. You'll be very happy, trust me.

-mosdef
 
You get a piii 800eb or faster and the new Abit SA6R. Now that is one smokin system. I really wish i knew this board was comin out, would have gotten it over my bx133-raid board! Anyways, Intel > AMD 😉
 

Here's one config that I came up with for a barebones system. Anyone heard of this vendor - http://www.unitedmicro.com/

Cases Mid-Tower 300 Watt Enlight 7237 ATX 7 Bay
Motherboards/Kits Abit KT7-RAID KT-133 Socket A ATX
CPU AMD T Bird 1.1 GHz
Cooling Fans Global Win FOP32al high speed fan for AMD T Bird/Duron
Memory PC-133 256MB 32x64 SDRAM 168PIN 8ns
Floppy/Zip Drives 1.44 3.5 FLOPPY INT
Total Price $895.00
 


<< drop the raid. I am not a big fan of IDE software Raid >>



The KT7-RAID has an onboard RAID chip. Who says it's software?
 
AMD Thunderbird 800 - $150
ABIT KT7 - $150

AMD systems do work on 250W power supplies, just check if it's AMD approved. sebfrost (a member on this board) has a Duron @ 9xx system on a 235W power supply, I think.
 
Get an Enlight 7237 without a power supply, and then get an Enermax 300W. The Enermax can be found at a number of places, and it's one of the best power supplies. It'll last you years.

The 7237 has lots of ventilation holes in the bottom front that you can enlarge with a drill if you put a fan there (done that to my friend's 7237 2 weeks ago) and case mods for the 7237 far outnumber any other kind of mid-tower.
 
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