AMD THUNDERBIRD 800

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I'm building my own computer and planning to use AMD 800 thunderbird socket a. Which motherboard is best, thinking of using Abit KT7-Raid or ASUS A7v KT133? I'm planning to use the computer for personal use,internet (DSL), and multimedia (ALL in Wonder video card). I'm new to this so I really don't have much of a clue to what I'm doing. Am I in over my head?
 

JOJO

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Dec 31, 2007
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Just make sure that you get a good heat sink/fan combo for your chip. Don't even think about firing it up without one (i saw a guy on this forum who did... now his chip is a very expensive keychain)

If you ask almost anyone here, they will recommend you both of those motherboards. THey are both great. I have the A7V with a tb 800@950.

But i'm giving it away and thinking about the kt7 raid (cause it has raid...cool), or maybe just wait a few months for the ddr mobo's to become availiable.

So go with kt7 raid if you want raid capabilities, or even if you don't...
And the A7V is just as good... minus the raid.
 

LTJLover

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Yeah you hit the nail on the head. Those are currently the two best boards for AMD. My friend has the Abit KT7 RAID and I fell in love with that board personally. Makes things nice and easy with the fancy bios. If you intend to do multimedia (large video transfers) I highly suggest the RAID board or getting a RAID controller for the Asus. Two IBMs RAIDed will get large video file transfers flying almost twice as fast.

Jon
"Water-Cooled CPU Runner"
 
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I was going to get the Cool Master DP5-6H51. I also need an ATX tower case. Would any do? 300W, dual fans(intake exhust). What exactly are the benefits of RAID?
 

JOJO

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there is a good review at anandtech.com of socket a coolers

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1361

Yes, you'll need a 300w power supply, especially if you get a better vid card, like a geforce..

as for cases, well, i don't know exactly which one...
i just bought a local one and rigged it with 3 fans, not including power supply fan.

basically, Raid (Redundant array of inexpensive disks)stripping, which is probably the form i'll end up using (as opposed to mirroring or mirroring/stripping) is when you set up 2 identical hd's and the raid controller allows the OS to see the 2 drives as 1 large hard drive. This allows writing/reading to/from both drives for greater speed.