Serious help needed in Building a system

[coldfuzion6]

I am building a system and I need recommendations on what I should get. System is mainly to play games and price and stability are an issue.

This is what I had in mind!

Chip: Celeron 2 566mhz @ 850mhz
Board: I don't know what to get
Ram: Please recommend the best ram (256MB)

Please suggest the best Chip+Mobo+Ram combo to me and possibly where I could buy it online.

Also can someone please recommend sites that sell guaranteed overclockable barebones.

Thanks in advance

 

[amphefreak]

I'm getting a Duron 650/700, asus A7V mobo and PC133 RAM. I think this system is exactly what you're looking for.
Get the cpu and mobo from a reputable vendor on http://www.resellerratings.com and the RAM from http://www.crucial.com

 

[Ulysses]

I'd recommend something different.

You probably don't need 256 MB of RAM - 128 MB of PC133 CAS2 SDRAM from www.mushkin.com will do. Put the money saved into a P3 Coppermine - maybe a 600E or a 650 or 700 if you are going to overclock. Or a 600EB or 667 or 733 if you won't overclock. In either case get a P3 in the more versatile FC-PGA format. If you are going to o'clock then be sure you're getting a cB0 stepping P3 by checking the table at:
http://support.intel.com/support/processors/sspec/p3p.htm.

Compare the chips S-spec on the box to the table to be sure it's a cB0 before you buy.

There are many good mobos out there. Good ones for you, whether you will be overclocking or not would be:

ASUS CUV4X

GIGA-BYTE 6VX7-4X

ASUS CUSL2 (very new)


There are a lot of good vendors - I've used mwave.com - they have good prices and the service is honest. You can check vendors at resellerratings.com


P.S.
The reason I don't recommend the Celeron is that you'll get better performance with a P3 Coppermine. The overclocked MHz of the Celeron is deceiving. When you look at benchmarks, not MHz, a Celeron at 850/100 is about the same as a stock Coppermine at 600/100 or an Athlon 600/133, in general terms - but the P3 or Athlon can still be o'clocked.

 

[Gammanator]

IMHO, I'd say go with the Celeron if your watching your budget. Although the PIII 600 is a superior CPU and will overclock, they are about twice the price of a Celeron 566. I agree with Ulysses about only needing 128MB of ram. Basically, anything after 120 MB just sits there for multitasking. You won't see any difference in games. But don't go below 128 MB of ram. Again, if you wanna be cheap, get good PC100 Ram. If your only going to go to a FSB of 100 and not beyond, you don't really need PC 133 ram. That'll save you a few bucks! I got some good Toshiba ram the other day for about 70 bucks...premium stuff..hehe. Board wise, I'd say go with an ABIT BE6-II and an ABIT Slocket III. They seem to do well with overclocked celerons. I'm going under the assumption that you're probably upgrading your system. If you are, this would be the cheaper way to go. If you going for a whole new system, you might want to look into the Durons. They are faster than the Celeron and do overclock. I don't suggest upgrading to a Duron though, speaking budget wise. In order to do that, you would need to get good ram that works with AMD boards and probably a 300W power supply that aren't cheap!

Hopefully this will help you out a bit!