Disclaimer Will start this out by strutting my nerd prowes by saying I have been building PCs for 10 years. I have done extensive (to the point that its obsessive) research on the matter and really don't need much more than an honest, guy to guy (or girl to be completely PC) opinion.
I am thinking I am going to finally belly up to the bar and put my main rig to rest. I used to be a real bad upgrader. I would pretty much make a major change to the hardware (video, ram, cpu, hard drive) every 6 months. Now that Uncle Sam is no longer giving me money to go to college (aka buying me computer parts) and I don't want any more credit card debt, its hard to blow 3 or 4 hundred bucks without wondering if I am going to pay bills. Still, my ole celeron 366 (OC'd to 453) is starting to cough and weeze and I had to drop it down to actual specs to get it to run. Yeah, I know...blasphemy. So, I have cast my lonely eyes towards some upgrades and probably will go with a Duron ghz or better. May even drop the little extra cash down and spring for a Thunderbird or a low end XP if i get real froggy, but I wanna keep ahold of my RAM now that prices have shot up on DDR. I still kick myself for giving away my stick of DDR i was saving to my little sister's build I was doing. Sigh, but I digress...
Which Motherboard should I go with? I wanna stick with Non-DDR mobos and use my ram over again. My 2 canidates are the KT133a chipset or the SIS735 chipset. Both have their strong points and weaknesses. The KT133a i can score in some really nice refurb prices on newegg and get some nice overclocking features for my new unlocked Duron that I will be obtaining. But, there has been multiple moans and wails about conflicts and issues with VIA chipsets and there is no room for upgrade. I buy a new mobo if i want any CPU passed 1600 or so and DDR. The SIS735 is super cheap, and I have done a build with it before. It can be a bit finiky with getting it up and running, but alot of the posts I have read on OCWorkbench have given me new hope of its overclocking abilities. Its not like I am going to try to water cool and push the thing passed 1.5, but I might bump it up a little to give me that little bit of self satisfaction of stickin it to the man. Not to mention it makes the girls go crazy and want your bod. Plus, it has the best chance of being bios upgraded to allow higher CPUs and DDR. Not to mention it hangs with the best of them in benchmarks.
Extras like Raid dont matter (I dont have that kinda money to buy double hard disks, even though it would be cool), audio (I really dont want to add to my collection of parts lying around by ditching my Santa Cruz, but if i get real good audio onboard, what's the point of keeping it in and using an IRQ), or LAN. It would be nice to have LAN onboard to get rid of my nic.
Anyway, what do you think?
I am thinking I am going to finally belly up to the bar and put my main rig to rest. I used to be a real bad upgrader. I would pretty much make a major change to the hardware (video, ram, cpu, hard drive) every 6 months. Now that Uncle Sam is no longer giving me money to go to college (aka buying me computer parts) and I don't want any more credit card debt, its hard to blow 3 or 4 hundred bucks without wondering if I am going to pay bills. Still, my ole celeron 366 (OC'd to 453) is starting to cough and weeze and I had to drop it down to actual specs to get it to run. Yeah, I know...blasphemy. So, I have cast my lonely eyes towards some upgrades and probably will go with a Duron ghz or better. May even drop the little extra cash down and spring for a Thunderbird or a low end XP if i get real froggy, but I wanna keep ahold of my RAM now that prices have shot up on DDR. I still kick myself for giving away my stick of DDR i was saving to my little sister's build I was doing. Sigh, but I digress...
Which Motherboard should I go with? I wanna stick with Non-DDR mobos and use my ram over again. My 2 canidates are the KT133a chipset or the SIS735 chipset. Both have their strong points and weaknesses. The KT133a i can score in some really nice refurb prices on newegg and get some nice overclocking features for my new unlocked Duron that I will be obtaining. But, there has been multiple moans and wails about conflicts and issues with VIA chipsets and there is no room for upgrade. I buy a new mobo if i want any CPU passed 1600 or so and DDR. The SIS735 is super cheap, and I have done a build with it before. It can be a bit finiky with getting it up and running, but alot of the posts I have read on OCWorkbench have given me new hope of its overclocking abilities. Its not like I am going to try to water cool and push the thing passed 1.5, but I might bump it up a little to give me that little bit of self satisfaction of stickin it to the man. Not to mention it makes the girls go crazy and want your bod. Plus, it has the best chance of being bios upgraded to allow higher CPUs and DDR. Not to mention it hangs with the best of them in benchmarks.
Extras like Raid dont matter (I dont have that kinda money to buy double hard disks, even though it would be cool), audio (I really dont want to add to my collection of parts lying around by ditching my Santa Cruz, but if i get real good audio onboard, what's the point of keeping it in and using an IRQ), or LAN. It would be nice to have LAN onboard to get rid of my nic.
Anyway, what do you think?
