Some input, please.

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: sukhwinder21
or u can just get linux for free, and scrap the $200 or so your spending on winxp

Mr. Fitty, you seem to be pretty smart, can you take a look at my computer list and offer some suggestions

$243 AMD® Athlon?XP 2400+(2.0GHz) w/266Mhz FSB Box
OR $163 AMD® Athlon?XP 2100+(1.73GHz) w/266Mhz FSB Box
OR $93 AMD® Athlon?XP 1700+(1.47GHz) w/266Mhz FSB OEM
$39 Volcano 9 CPU Fan 4800rpm (Up To XP2600+)
$225 Asus A7N8X-Deluex nForce2 Chipset 5PCI/1AGP8x/3DDR w/Sound Dual Lan SATA Raid USB 2.0 Socket A & ATA-133
$86 LiteOn 52x24x52 IDE int CD Writer w/Software OEM
$139 MS Wireless Optical Desktop Pro Keyboard & Mouse Combo (Retail)
$375 Samsung 19" 957MB .22(H) 1920x1440 Magic Bright

Those are all Canadian prices, about the same as newegg, but newegg doesnt ship to Canada so i cant buy from them.

Im still debating on which athlon xp to buy. A couple people have suggested to just get the 1700+ nd overclock that to the max. Which one would you sugguest? Ill be using this system for occasional gaming, but mostly just for regular application work in windows and linux. Also, I currently have a Radeon 7500, a maxtor 60gb ata/100 hdd, and i dont need a sound card, since the onboard on the asus a7n8x deluxe is quite good. I need suggestions on which case to get (and powersupply if its not included) and type and quantity of Ram(eg, should i get 2 sticks because of the dual ddr thing?)

Thanks

In reply to this i say go for the 1700+ provided it is a T-Bred " B B B B B B" revision as you should be able to oc it to 2400 or even more.
This way you are spending less than half of what a 2400 would cost you, and when the time comes for the higher processors to drop in price (i.e. the 1700 is replace by 2400 for $97) you can upgrade to a 2400+ and still be paying less than what you would for a 2400 right now

For the RAM go for 2 sticks of something decent (preferrably) or at least for what you can afford.

As for the Hard Drive you are ok there (Y)

Erm the graphics card....
...well...
...the graphics card....
...I would be banned again for saying what the 7500 is like for games.

Upgrade the graphics card!

Regards
Dan

 

[sukhwinder21]

what about the case? i was looking at the ANTEC 1080 PERFORMANCE PLUS CHASSIS 4X5.25IN 6X3.5IN 430W TRUEPOWER GREY

also, should i get pc 2100, 2700, or 3200 ddr ram ? How are Samsung/Infieneion Rams, any experience with those ?

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: subdismal
edited

I dont use AIM :| I will never use AIM :| or anything associated with AIM or AOL :|

have a pet hate for them

But you can contect me via E-Mail @: dan@emds.info
Or talk to me on MSN Messenger on: somefitbloke@hotmail.com
Or talk to me in a chat room @: EMDS Chat Room

Im in chat now

Dan

 

[subdismal]

I added your e-mail address to my address book in case I need to get in touch with you sometime.


Hrm. I've saw people talking about being banned frequently, is AnandTech pretty strict on the content in their forums?


Sidenote: It's sort of amazing how many replies I got on this post. I didn't expect this many. Thanks to everyone who posted.

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: subdismal
I added your e-mail address to my address book in case I need to get in touch with you sometime.


Hrm. I've saw people talking about being banned frequently, is AnandTech pretty strict on the content in their forums?


Sidenote: It's sort of amazing how many replies I got on this post. I didn't expect this many. Thanks to everyone who posted.

Hmm well i think the mods hold a grudge against me

Who knows, if they are actually "moderating" rather than just banning, they might read this and leave a message on this thread! (Im probably being kept a close eye on seeing as one of them MUST dislike me! and they prob think im here to post up endless stuff on war*z, which im not obviously )

Dan

 

[subdismal]

lol, that's funny. The concept of just one of the moderators holding a grudge on you, that is.

 

[DannyBoy]

I betcha whoever it is is sitting there right now looking at this, with a big smeeeeeerk on his/her face thinking how godly they are :|

 

[subdismal]

 

[subdismal]

I was just thinking, is there any kind of cabling I need to buy with my system or is all the necessary cabling included?

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: subdismal
I was just thinking, is there any kind of cabling I need to buy with my system or is all the necessary cabling included?

Well you can choose. Your motherboard should come with the necessary cables.

If it doesnt (I dont see why it wouldnt) then you need a ATA100 cable for your hard drive (Which should almost definately be included with your mobo) and an ATA33 for your Optical (CD/DVD) Drives. (This should also be included unless you have one)

The floppy drive is a standard FDD cable, which might also be included with the mobo. EIther that or you should have your old one, which will be perfectly compatible with your new mobo.

On the other hand if you wanna give that windowed case an xtra bit a jazzin up Then get yourself some rounded ATA100 cables and a rounded FDD cable. THese not only look nice through the window, but also help airflow around the inside of the case

Dan

 

[chizow]

Since you're going with an nForce2 board, which XP you go for depends on how much effort you want to put into OC'ing and how much you want in guaranteed mhz. There is a pretty good user base of the 3 chips you are considering that suggests they all have about the same total mhz overhead. I've seen some very good results with the 1700+ T-bred B's, but I also think they have less overhead than either the 2100+ or the 2400+ and require a bit more effort to achieve similar clockspeeds (cooling, RAM, Vcore adjustments etc.) I would certainly rule out the 2400+, as it seems the 2400+ are an earlier stepping of the same core you'll find on a 2100+ (which theoretically gives the 2100+ more headroom). If you have quality PC2700, I think you should be able to hit 2.1ghz with the 2100+ sure, however, you may not be able to reach that speed with a 1700+ w/out extra effort and there's a chance it won't be the preferred JIUHB stepping of that chip. If 200mhz or so isn't that important to you, go with a 1700+ and spend 1/2 as much. If you think hitting 2.167ghz easily with a chance to go to 2.3ghz is worth it, pay the extra and go with the 2100+. If you still want a fast chip in case your OC'ing efforts don't go well (b/c some component doesn't take to it), then pay the extra and go with the 2400+.

Chiz

 

[subdismal]

Wow, Chiz that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I read over it pretty quickly and didn't quite catch a lot of it. I don't know if you read in an earlier thread, but I'm no hardware guru. I'm not too worried with OC'ing right now, since all this hardware stuff is pretty new to me. I think what Dan fixed me up with should do just fine. Thanks anyway, I've saved your reply in a text document with other noteable things I've collected about hardware and whatnot and I'll definitely refer back to it at a later time. So, thanks.

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: chizow
Since you're going with an nForce2 board, which XP you go for depends on how much effort you want to put into OC'ing and how much you want in guaranteed mhz. There is a pretty good user base of the 3 chips you are considering that suggests they all have about the same total mhz overhead. I've seen some very good results with the 1700+ T-bred B's, but I also think they have less overhead than either the 2100+ or the 2400+ and require a bit more effort to achieve similar clockspeeds (cooling, RAM, Vcore adjustments etc.) I would certainly rule out the 2400+, as it seems the 2400+ are an earlier stepping of the same core you'll find on a 2100+ (which theoretically gives the 2100+ more headroom). If you have quality PC2700, I think you should be able to hit 2.1ghz with the 2100+ sure, however, you may not be able to reach that speed with a 1700+ w/out extra effort and there's a chance it won't be the preferred JIUHB stepping of that chip. If 200mhz or so isn't that important to you, go with a 1700+ and spend 1/2 as much. If you think hitting 2.167ghz easily with a chance to go to 2.3ghz is worth it, pay the extra and go with the 2100+. If you still want a fast chip in case your OC'ing efforts don't go well (b/c some component doesn't take to it), then pay the extra and go with the 2400+.

Chiz

What i was wondering chiz, is will the nForce2 automatically unlcok a B rev T-Bred 2100+? Because i know the 2100+'s had different settings for changing the multiplier etc?

 

[DannyBoy]

One article i read on PCStats showed a 2100 palamino and how difficult it was to unlock.

Here is the article on PCStats.

I know the nForce2 boards unlock the multipliers without you having to modify the L1 bridges but I was not sure if this was the case for the 2100 T-Bred.

Is the 2100+ T-Bred B the same as the 2100+ Palamino in terms of the bridge placement?

Thanks
Dan

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: MrFiTTy

Originally posted by: chizow
Since you're going with an nForce2 board, which XP you go for depends on how much effort you want to put into OC'ing and how much you want in guaranteed mhz. There is a pretty good user base of the 3 chips you are considering that suggests they all have about the same total mhz overhead. I've seen some very good results with the 1700+ T-bred B's, but I also think they have less overhead than either the 2100+ or the 2400+ and require a bit more effort to achieve similar clockspeeds (cooling, RAM, Vcore adjustments etc.) I would certainly rule out the 2400+, as it seems the 2400+ are an earlier stepping of the same core you'll find on a 2100+ (which theoretically gives the 2100+ more headroom). If you have quality PC2700, I think you should be able to hit 2.1ghz with the 2100+ sure, however, you may not be able to reach that speed with a 1700+ w/out extra effort and there's a chance it won't be the preferred JIUHB stepping of that chip. If 200mhz or so isn't that important to you, go with a 1700+ and spend 1/2 as much. If you think hitting 2.167ghz easily with a chance to go to 2.3ghz is worth it, pay the extra and go with the 2100+. If you still want a fast chip in case your OC'ing efforts don't go well (b/c some component doesn't take to it), then pay the extra and go with the 2400+.

Chiz

What i was wondering chiz, is will the nForce2 automatically unlcok a B rev T-Bred 2100+? Because i know the 2100+'s had different settings for changing the multiplier etc?

Yep, my nForc2 totally unlocks my 2100+, but the 2100+ has an interesting multiplier of 13. I'm still not totally sure whether it gets the high (13.5+) or the low multis (12.5-) by default; so the different workarounds for 200+FSB don't really apply to my chip Thanks for the reminder though, I may have to revisit those 2100+ T-bred A's for a refresher on which set of bridges does what on a 2100+.

subdismal I'm sure whatever advice you were offered is sound, I scanned through the thread and all the advice given seemed to be goodstuff. After you put everything together, you'll probably wanna check out the CPU/OC'ing threads for whichever CPU you choose to get an idea of the settings/tweaks to get the best performance.

Chiz

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: MrFiTTy

Originally posted by: chizow
Since you're going with an nForce2 board, which XP you go for depends on how much effort you want to put into OC'ing and how much you want in guaranteed mhz. There is a pretty good user base of the 3 chips you are considering that suggests they all have about the same total mhz overhead. I've seen some very good results with the 1700+ T-bred B's, but I also think they have less overhead than either the 2100+ or the 2400+ and require a bit more effort to achieve similar clockspeeds (cooling, RAM, Vcore adjustments etc.) I would certainly rule out the 2400+, as it seems the 2400+ are an earlier stepping of the same core you'll find on a 2100+ (which theoretically gives the 2100+ more headroom). If you have quality PC2700, I think you should be able to hit 2.1ghz with the 2100+ sure, however, you may not be able to reach that speed with a 1700+ w/out extra effort and there's a chance it won't be the preferred JIUHB stepping of that chip. If 200mhz or so isn't that important to you, go with a 1700+ and spend 1/2 as much. If you think hitting 2.167ghz easily with a chance to go to 2.3ghz is worth it, pay the extra and go with the 2100+. If you still want a fast chip in case your OC'ing efforts don't go well (b/c some component doesn't take to it), then pay the extra and go with the 2400+.

Chiz

What i was wondering chiz, is will the nForce2 automatically unlcok a B rev T-Bred 2100+? Because i know the 2100+'s had different settings for changing the multiplier etc?

Yep, my nForc2 totally unlocks my 2100+, but the 2100+ has an interesting multiplier of 13. I'm still not totally sure whether it gets the high (13.5+) or the low multis (12.5-) by default; so the different workarounds for 200+FSB don't really apply to my chip Thanks for the reminder though, I may have to revisit those 2100+ T-bred A's for a refresher on which set of bridges does what on a 2100+.

subdismal I'm sure whatever advice you were offered is sound, I scanned through the thread and all the advice given seemed to be goodstuff. After you put everything together, you'll probably wanna check out the CPU/OC'ing threads for whichever CPU you choose to get an idea of the settings/tweaks to get the best performance.

Chiz

Sounds good chiz, like i sad check out this article on unlocking the XP2100+, even if it does not apply to you its still pretty interesting

Thanks
Dan