Low budget system

[ElchTzeasar]

My computer quit working the other day, so I took it as a sign to finally upgrade it. Im a european student, so the cash-flow isn't what I would like it to be... It seems to me that an Athlon is the way to go when hoping to save money (correct med if Im wrong), but what motherboard should I get? I was thinking something in the line of 200-300 dollars for the works...

 

[Scout]

You're really going to have to be frugal to keep the price that low! If that's all you really can afford, I'd go with the Asus A7N266-VM with integrated video for $60 at Newegg. Buy an Athlon XP1800+ for $52, 256 meg of Kingston PC2100 DDR for $41, and a 40 Gig Western Digital 7200 RPM Hard drive for $57 bucks and the rest generic parts (Floppy, CDROM, Case... although make sure you get a good Power Supply) and you'd have a reasonable system under your $300 mark.

Keep in mind though, these components are a bit behind the times and you couldn't do much with them next time you upgrade... like the PC2100 memory works fine for this rig, but not really what you want in most of today's motherboards.

Scout
700 Mflops in SETI!

 

[ElchTzeasar]

Oops. I wasn't clear enough, my bad... I first thought that it was the power supply, so I bought a new one. I tryd taking everything except the mobo, cpu and memory out, but it still doesn't work, so Im going to use it as a reason to upgrade those parts, but the rest I have. The 200-300 dollar margin was for those parts.

Also the 200-300 dollar margin was quickly calculated from my own currency, so it might not agree with the actuall prices. After writing the thread I read some post here and came up with this plan: MSI K7N2 DELTA-ILSR, Athlon 2500+, 512MB PC3200 memory. The question is if this can be made a better choice for a reasonable price. What components should be replaced for optimality? Also I was thinking about a Spire SPA04B4 fan. It seemed like toms thought it was good in their reveiw, but Im not shure. I was hoping on overclocking a bit, but still keeping the noise down...

Thanks in advance!

 

[neveroldmilk]

Remember this:Mobo is almost everything,so dont cut budget from it.I suggest ASUS A7N8X,and it will be ok for many years.Barton 2500+ is a good fighter--which can be easily OC to 3200+.Last but not leastower may be not enough for these new equipments,so when there is something wrong,dont forget to chech the power.

Truth is not somewhere out there!
--Movie 'X Files'

 

[ElchTzeasar]

I have 300W. Wont that be enough?

 

[frankandgail]

go on ebay and you can buy some pretty cheap bare bones sys.

frankie

 

[allanon1965]

yea right, i used to do that for reselling, guess what? they are all cheap crap! no name power supplies, generic ram, refurbished junk boards, cpu's that dont cut it, due to unknown problems...if you buy from ebay do it piece by piece, not a barebones....you will have a better chance to get good parts. and no, 300 is not enough, minimum i go now is 400 name brand, fortron comes to mind....

Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to go through life Son.

 

[Scout]

The MSI board is good, I use those without problems. You might also look into the ABIT board as well. Your XP2500 is a good bargain since you can put the FSB up to 200 MHz. and with maybe a slight bump to the CPU voltage, you have an XP3200+!

I'm not familiar with the cooler you mention, but it really is important to have a good one. Get a program like Motherboard Monitor to keep track of CPU temps as you overclock.

The only other thing is to ask what brand of memory you're buying? I'd stick with a good brand and get the lowest latencies you can on the RAM.

Scout
700 Mflops in SETI!

 

[ElchTzeasar]

Im not shure what a good brand is, I was thinking about twinmos of kingston. Some sticks say samsnung/*/* original. Is that good? Also Im wondering if it is better getting 256Mb good latency memory or 512 bad. I dont think I can afford the 512 at once. If I buy a 256, can I later buy another one and use it as a dual channel? What are the chances of the memory being "compatible", Ive got the sense that they dont always combine well because just because they are the same model..?

 

[pat]

I would get a Soltek sl-nv400-l64 with a 2500+ barton and 512 Megs of Ram, cas2 3200. This board is almost as fast as the Asus board, but it is not dual channel, wich is not really a big + with AMD cpu right now. I run my 2500+ at 200X10.5, which give me a 3000+ with stock cooler and a small (0.05V) voltage increase. This will serve you very well for many years. If you have some spare cash, get an ATI Radeon 9600 as a video card.

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[Scout]

I've never tried mixing dual channel memory... always bought two sticks at the same time. I don't bother with that expensive "matched" stuff, just two sticks of the same brand. It's a risk if you add a different brand later so if you can, you should buy your two sticks at the same time.

A manufacturer like Kingston will use all sorts of chips on their memory, so they really are just an integrator. I've always liked Micron chips, but others seem to work just fine.

Interesting question... 256 of low latency or 512 of slower latency. In reality, the latency doesn't add a tremendous speed advantage to your system as long as both are running at the same speed. You'll see a slight increase in your synthetic memory benchmarks, but probably won't notice a thing in real life. I'd vote for more memory.

Scout
700 Mflops in SETI!

 

[blah]

hey dude, you need JUST a PC, not a super dooper craper pooper. get an ALL in ONE mobo for cheap, 1700+, 1800+ CPU (vich ever is cheepar) and mem just enough to power up, rest of the components yo is having. Get real, save a buck or two.

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