Upgrading..Advice needed...

[LordGorzul]

I am planning to get an AMD CPU (correct me if I'm wrong)
I decided to go for the Athlon XP 1800+ for no particular reason.
What I wanted to know is first what you htink and secodn, if you agree, what motherboard and RAM go with it?
please be specific since I'll probably go to pricewatch (or a better place that you suggest) plug them in and hit BUY, soon after I get your input.
Thanks.

Keep in mind, I'm trying to get some of the best stuff, without hurting too much financially.


LG.

 

[hausdave]

Go to www.mwave.com and look for an athlon motherboard bundle. Motherboard purchases are highly slanted by personal preference.

 

[LordGorzul]

yes thank you, I realize that, but the point of asking the question here was to get your personal opinions and weight them.
Going to Mwave myself defeats the purpose of me asking for your opinion.
So.. specific advice is highly appreaciated, thanks.

LG.

 

[WhoDeeny]

<< Go to www.mwave.com and look for an athlon motherboard bundle. Motherboard purchases are highly slanted by personal preference. >>



I agree, with so many options out there its mostly left to personal prefernce. What you should do is with that great CPU you're getting (no joke, I want one!) look on pricewatch for motherboard/cpu combo's. See the one's that fall into your price range and then do research on those to find out ones that fit your needs. Ie. do you want scsi, or raid? on board LAN or sound etc...

 

[WhoDeeny]

Personally, I love my new Abit KR7A-Raid, but you may not want to pay almost 200 for just the mobo (which is still one of the best prices you'd find) and may not even need the Raid, 4g's of DDR Ram or 6 PCI slots, etc...

 

[hausdave]

Asking which motherboard to buy is similar to asking what car to buy or what house to buy. What features do you want/need? i.e. raid, on-board sound, etc. How much are you willing to pay?

Right now I would lean towards soyo k7v dragon+ or MSI KT266 PRO 2RU but you may have other desires.

 

[WhoDeeny]

Yeah, what he said...

When you find out what you want, come back and ask us if its a good buy...

 

[microAmp]

<< Keep in mind, I'm trying to get some of the best stuff, without hurting too much financially. >>



I have the Epox 8KHA+ and like it, it uses the KT266A chipset. I have no experience with other boards with DDR chipsets. The board is about $105 from NewEgg and doesn't have a whole lot big features like RAID. It does have the onboard audio but I disabled that. The only thing about the Epox board is you'll have to go into the BIOS and configure a few things to get the correct performance out of it which can be found in the forums over at AMDMB.

Memory..... Crucial has been my only route of perference, good price (but rising now ) and they are very good quality memory.

 

[LordGorzul]

what about RAM, PC1600, 2100 2400 or 2700?
what's the diff anyways? and are they all compatible with say the soyo k7v dragon+ ?

 

[Ausm]

I would go with PC2100

Difference is speed

YES


and to answer your earlier question go with a mobo which uses the KT266A chipset. I personalize use the shuttle AK31A an excellent mobo in regards to stability and performance but a little lacking in extras such as RAID,additional USB Ports on Mobo

Ausm

 

[WhoDeeny]

Basically that's an indication of theorectial through put, so the higher the number the fasrt the, my suggestions would be nothing less than PC2100 DDR Ram, preferably something with a CAS of 2 or 2.5 (I'm not sure which is the lowest possible setting), that's the good stuff. As for compatiblity, I doubt the Soyo can handle 2700 can handle it, but check with the manfucturer's website to confirm.

 

[t4t3r]

good choice on proc. here are my recommendations:

Athlon XP 1800
EPoX 8kha+ motherboard
256/512 mb Crucial DDR 2100 RAM (however much you can afford)

those three components will give you a start to an awesome system. o myself run the 8kha+ and 512 mb Crucial DDR RAM. this combo is flawless. i have had no problems with it at all. Now not everyone is so lucky, but the epox boards are very stable and fast. good luck deciding, because these are the hardest decisions to make...




t4t3r

 

[Jen]

how about this

Athlon 1800 MP.......reason for MP you ask well its factory unlocked.........good for overclocking fun
Epox 8K7A.........i love this board ......Rev 1.1
Pc2400 or Pc2700 memory..........i know more expensive. Then there is some generic Pc2400 which I use
Video card i say Radeon 7500 - 8500..........or a Geforce 3 Ti200 ........


Jen