Totally Confused about AMD systems:

[userpete]

Athlon, T-Bird, Duron cpu's, MoBo's (maybe a half dozen), PC2100, PC133, sdram, ddr (all kinds), and a ton of cpu cooling fans and which video card for this system.
Frankly, (for my next project build), I want to try a AMD system but i'm so D** totally confused about what to buy,,,,,Gads.

Sorry, but i've been watching and reading all the posts about whats best and is this ok and is that ok till I don't have the slightest idea what to buy.

Why can't there be a page where dumb butts like me can go to and see whats the dream AMD machine parts to buy and maybe have a few cheaper choices systems and then get on with a purchase

Regards
Pete

 

[ksallen]

AMD is the way to go. No doubt about that. First, do you want DDR boards or SDR? If building a new system, I'd go with a DDR system. Of course, you won't be able to buy 16GB of SDRAM for the price of a pair of socks, but it'll be faster.

 

[loosbrew]

via makes most of the chipsets for AMD cpus. Both Durons and Thunderbirds(Athlons) are the same socket format, socket A. Via came out with the KT133 chipset which boasted the 686a(ata66) southbridge. this was limited to only a 100 MHZ fsb, though some have hadt he luck of getting to 110-115. AMD durons and athlons run DDR technology. it basically means that it can read & write to the memory on the same clock cycle. this increases efficiency a bit. so whenever you see a duron that boasts 200mhz ddr, in all actuality its running 100mhz double pumped to 200. same goes for the 266 fsb athlons, 133 fsb, 266 effective fsb ddr. VIA has since released the KT133A chipset which boasts the 686B southbridge for ata 100 support. the kt133 can now officially support pc133 sdram, which "effectively" is 266 to an amd cpu. Now....AMD, ALI, and SiS have thier own DDR chipsets out that support true DDR ram which increases memory bandwisth by a few percent or so...i think 10-20 is what i have read on the net. you have a slew of choices at brands for Motherboards, but these are the basic components that will be the same between them all. oh yeah...the difference between the durons and athlons is that durons hold a less amount of L2 cache on die. so durons have 192k L2, while athlons have 256.

hope this helps.

loosbrew


please correct me if i was wrong on anything in there, i want to make sure i get things straight as well

 

[NelsonMuntz]

Okay, T-bird is just an update of the Athlon. T-birds are Athlon-b and Atlon-c (Athlon-b is at 200 MHz FSB while Athlon-c is at 266 MHz FSB). They are all still under the Athlon umbrella. In fact the new Palomino has the Athlon 4 designation (Athlon-d). Also, Athlon-a is the oldest and was on the Slot A platform. Duron is the lower tier processor and costs less. It was to replace the Super 7 platform processors that AMD kept around for so long (I have one myself). DDR ram is broken into three designations that I have seen: PC1600, PC2100, and PC2400. These equate to PC100, PC133, and PC150 respectively except they are Double Data Rate instead of SD. As far as DDR mobo solutions currently, I would say avoid VIA and Ali Northbridge chipsets and stick with AMD 761 Northbridges. The SiS 735 and NVIDIA NForce chipsets are showing great promise but are not really available yet. An example of the AMD 761 chipset is the Epox EP-K7A that everyone is promoting in this forum. It is a great board and makes a great system. Sorry I don't have a good place for you to go with questions, but I hope this helps.

 

[Gruhaminmuffin]

bah see what happens when i take 10 minutes to type up a reply? EVERYthing i said gets posted before i hit that dumb button

 

[skace]

Ok, here is a rundown of some of the things you listed and maybe after you read this it will be less confusing (I hope).

Athelon was the first generation chip, it then broke off into ThunderBird and Duron. Basically, Duron is to Thunderbird as Celeron is to Pentium3. (Yes I realize this is very vague)
So if you plan to buy an Athelon from AMD you will most likely base your choices on either a Thunderbird or a Duron, depending on how much you are willing to pay.

Most of the other buzzwords you mentioned revolved around Ram. Basically if you are going with an Athelon, you have 2 choices.
SDRAM(which includes pc100, pc133, pc150) and DDR(which includes PC2100,PC1600)
Since ram is pretty cheap right now your choice would probably be better defined as pc133 SDRAM or pc2100 DDR. Meaning you wouldn't even consider PC100 or PC1600. (I havn't done my research on PC150 SDRAM)

So once all that is simplified you are making 2 major decisions: Whether you want a Duron or a T-bird and whether you want a DDR or an SDRAM system.

Well, I TRIED to make it simple

 

[loosbrew]

oh yeah, and if you are interested in overclocking, but dont want to spend too much, many people will suggest going with a duron since they run much cooler than thier counterparts(athlon(tbirds)) this is because of the less amount of L2 cache. less on die cache less voltage needed to run that bad boy, less heat! many peoplp have been able to get 750mhz durons upto and over 1ghz, all for a measly $35 cpu.


loosbrew

 

[TruculentTucan]

I think the folks before me have summed up the processor and RAM pretty well. As for graphics cards; honestly it depends on how much you want to spend. If you are looking for incredible performance and have a big budget then the GeForce is the way to go. If you are looking for a good deal, and pretty darn good performance I would recommend the Radeon LE. You can download a tweak that unlocks all the features on the board and makes it a Radeon. It is a 32 meg DDR card and I have had no trouble with it.

As for motherboards, just take a look around on this site. Many people ask 'which mobo to get?' etc. Just look at what people have told them. Generally you first have decide if you want to use DDR ram or not. Then you should decide if you want to overclock or not (some boards are better then others for this). Then you should decide if you want a RAID array (allows you to run multiple HDs effectively).

For CPU cooling, I would look at the Taisol CGK760092 w/copper base insert. It's pretty good and priced very resonably.

Here are a list of good online vendors too

Newegg
Mwave
Compuwiz1's site- very good prices on chips, ram and coolers


Hope this helps.

Good Luck!!

Beau

 

[Gruhaminmuffin]

Not, trying to crap, but I'd suggest staying away from any Orb's especially if you plan on Overclocking.

 

[Methusela]

i have a price list available for what i bought recently, right here. That's been used by several friends and family members as a rough draft of what to buy. I would imagine that prices on those various components have decreased in price in the 3 months since my purchase by about $100 total, bringing the price down to around $850 delivered ( no monitor included ).

Good luck! Pmsg me if you need anything else.