Hello all.

Basically Im about to sell my computer to a friend and buy a new one. Of course I am gonna build it myself, but I havent been paying much attention to hardware for the past few months and now Im checkin this all out again and boom, everything has changed. (ah, the technological world)

Anyways, I would like some advice on what to buy and what not to buy. I'll give you an idea of what I am looking for.

First and foremost, I am a gamer. So, performance, performance, stability, performance. In that order.

I want an AMD system, but I hate VIA chipsets. I heard something about AMD designing a new chipset that is supposed to rock. I dunno, maybe a fairytale, I havent checked enough. Anyways, I want an amd cpu, probably a 1800 xp, but again, I havent done enough checking to truely understand what the xp has to offer as opposed to an athlon.
I am not sure what mobo to get. I prefer Asus, I don't like aBit, and I have heard lots of good stuff about ePox. Any suggestions and explanations there would be greatly appreciated.
Sound Card... I plan on making my computer into a small at home recording studio, I am saving up for a Karma Synthesizer, I have butt loads of audio software, and I dont know squat about soundcards. Again, suggestions and advice more then welcome.

Video, is there types of geForce3 cards, or is there only 1? I have a GeForce DDR right now, when I bought it I was told it was a geforce2 card, but now I am finding that it's not, I dunno. Suggestions, explanations, u know the drill.

Case. I want a full tower. it doesnt have to be colored, I plan on painting it up myself. but it has to be big, spacious, and nicely shaped.

PSU. I want the best. I am willing to pay good money for a high end PSU as I have a crap one now and I have realized how very important they are. So pls, point me in the direction of THE psu.

RAM. Micron DDR. Top end. Don't know the specs. I know how to install hardware, and I know how most stuff works, but I suck at the names and the specs and deciphering what they mean. So again, whats the best Micron DDR ram?

Cooling, I am all but sold on the Swiftech water cooling system. Dunno the name, but I like what I see, not to mention my system is SO loud now, I have 4 fans, The cpu fan and heatsink being an Alpha, and my box is open. I think stealth would be cool.

Anyways, while I have a ton more questions, Ill save those. I think this post has been long enough. Any more questions and no one will read long enough to respond.

Anyways, thx in advance.

BTW, my budget is in the area of 1000$, but that is negotiable if need be.

Thx

Jeff

"He not busy being born is busy dying."
-Dylan

1. MOBO: Two fastest chipsets on the street right now are the Via KT266A (don't forget the A - big peformance jump from KT266) and SiS735. The only board right now with the SiS735 is Elitegroup (ECS) model K7S5A and it goes for around $55 online. Well tested, very stable, and almost everybody that's using the board is happy. KT266A boards have been on the streets less than a month, so there hasn't been a whole lot of time to hear about stability issues or complaints from people in the forum. Because the KT266A is basically a revision of a tested chipset, there may not be a lot of issues. There are currently 4 boards on the street with the KT266a:
Shuttle: AK31A - $89
ePox: 8KHA+ - $113
MSI: K7T266 Pro2 - $117
Gigbyte: GA-7VTXH - $101
Check out the manufacturers sites for features that you are looking for in your mobo. Any of these options will give you great performance with the AMD XP processors.

Video card: There are multiple types of GF3 cards now - nVidia just released the Titanium series. There is an article on Tom's site under the graphics card section. The fastest GF3 right now is the GF3 Ti500. There is considerable debate on whether or not it is faster than ATI's Radeon 8500. Ti500 will cost you $320 and up and the 8500 is expected to cost around $250.

Enermax makes a great PSU.

Micron RAM from Crucial.com is great RAM. The PC2100 is DDR, $33 for 256MB CAS2, and has free 2nd day shipping.

hello, here is a link that will give you the best places to check on I hope you will go their before you do anything
http://www.upgradingandrepairingpc [...] /index.asp

thx guys

So far, what I have decided on is...

mobo- Epox 8kha+ I checked the website, seems to have everything Im lookin for, and I have heard lots of great things about them and it's about half the pirce of an asus.
113$

cpu- still undecided as to which amd xp to go for

Video Card- With have to do some more research into the ATI card, however, I imagine with NVidia being as big as they are, that Ti500 will have better support. But still undecided although leaning towards the Ti500

PSU- I have heard about enermax, however my dad was showing me a PSU that friggin rocked! Ill have to get the name from him and check that out again.

RAM- 2 sticks of Micron 256 Meg DDR 2100
67$

Case- ?

Sound card- ?

so right now the 2 decideds are the epox and the ram, totaling 180$ Pls keep the suggesions coming, not only is this exciting and helpfull, but Im learning alot. Thx

Damn I love this website

Jeff

"He not busy being born is busy dying."
-Dylan

oh yeah, also forgot.

cooling- leaning towards the swiftech watercooling system, but still not sure. Any suggestions? Also, if u use water cooling on your rig, can ya offer me some opinions? I have never had nor ever seen watercooling in action, would like to know pros and cons

also, would 2 sticks of 256 ddr ram be better, worse, or the same as 1 stick of 512?

thx in advance

"He not busy being born is busy dying."
-Dylan

i think that the watercooling is good, dont have one myself, but have seen one...and i have to say that the one i saw was awesome, and cooled the cpu well...and was a cool looking one...
a blue waterblock, and a radiator...
made almost no noise whatsoever...
another option that you might look into as far as near silent cpu cooling goes is the zalman cpu cooler...
<A HREF="http:// http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/cnpsma.htm " target="_new">http:// http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/cnpsma.htm </A>
it has a fan, but the fan runs slower, so quieter, and as far as the athlon xp goes, you might be able to run with no fan...but i would check in on that if i was you, because i am not sure about that...i do know that these coolers dont transfer vibration to the cpu, and that is better for the cpu life, and the thing looks friggin awesome!
either way, you will be running near silence...
and as far as the ram goes, get it from crucial, but as far as the 1 stick or 2 sticks goes, i dont know...i would personally get one if you want 512 because it would leave the other ram slots open for expansion in the future, like if you need more ram for a certain program...
i hope that you have fun choosing the stuff, and then building it...
also, as far as cases go, check out enlight...their full towers, seem quite full, and look nice, and i dont know but i am pretty sure that they dont have colored cases...
i myself am getting a mid sized en-7237...i like that case bezel design, simple, and i can do some dremel cut-outs on the side when i feel like it...


-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

If you hate VIA, then why aren't you considering the ECS K7S5A? Especially since you want a "budget" system and you can get the board for $55-60?

"There's no such thing as gravity, the Earth just sucks"

Leadtek has just released its mobo with the SIS 735 chipset, and it's better than the ECS board. There's a review of it on anandtech.com. Highlights: Overclockable (yeah!), performance equal to or greater than the Via kt266a reference board (and defiantly better than the ECS mobo performance). Disadvantages: It's new, so stability issues are unknown. Limited availability. More expensive than the ECS board.

You might want to wait until the new nVidia chipset mobo's hit the streets at the end of this month/early next month. I would recommend the nVidia 220-d chipset. It's got great onboard sound (Dolby digital anyone?) and performance roughly equal to the kt266a chipset, just don't use the on-board video. The main advantage would be that you could use the on-board sound until you get your high-end soundcard. The main disadvantage is that this is a new chipset with unknown stability/compatability issues.

As for the RAM, I would probably go with 1 stick of 512 megs, and I would also make it pc2700 or pc2800 (using a 166 mHz system bus, also known as pc333).

Video card: either GF3 ti500, GF3 Ultra or ATI Radeon 8500. Be aware that ATI's drivers are not good right now. Also according to Tom, they don't work well with Win XP. If they sort out the drivers, the Radeon will likely outperform the GF3 ti500, but ATI has a bad rep when it comes to drivers. It's a gamble.

If you go with GeForce, the brand name doesn't matter. GF cards from different manufacturers all perform with 1% of each other. Get the cheapest card that has the features that you require, and ignore the brand name on it.

New ATI drivers are supposed to be out at the end of the month. It might be a good idea to wait until then. Read Tom's review that was just posted today.

CPU: Although the Athlon XP 1800 is very good, and will out perform all current P4 CPU's, I would still go with the older Athlon 1.4 simply because it's cheaper and almost as good (just slightly outclassed by the P4 2.0G). Don't forget that the XP 1800 is actually running at 1.523 gHz, so a 1.4 ain't too far behind, and is less than half the cost.

Case: Can't go wrong with an Antec case. I recommend the Antec SX1030 or SX1040 'cause their frogging huge. The Antec SX830 or SX840 would also be a good choice.

Power Supply: Enermax is the best, but Antec is a close second. If you get one of the above cases you'll also get a butt-kicking Antec PS included.

Soundcard: SB Audology (I may have mis-spelled that). Was there ever any doubt? If you're planning on replacing it then go for a SB Live until you can afford the new card.

Anyway, that'sjust my $0.02.

--------------
Knowan likes you. Knowan is your friend. Knowan thinks you're great.

MB: Get a good SiS735. MSI, maybe?
Sound card: Hercules Game Theater XP. I love <A HREF="http://www.impactsites2000.com/tekreview/audioxp.htm" target="_new">mine</A>.
Video: GeForce 3 (original, Ti200 or Ti500), or Radeon 8500
Case: Antec SX1030 (I think that's the right model) ~$100
PSU: Enermax, high wattage
RAM: Crucial
Cooling: You can get water cooling kits for around $100

<font color=green>I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP</font color=green>

RAM: I would look at the Corsair DDR Ram as they have some 2400 speed RAM at CAS 2 as opposed to most others that only run at 2.5 (slower). The CAS rating can make a lot of differnce in performance in gaming and other applications.
The PC2400 CAS2 memory from Corsair isn't that much more than the 2100 CAS2.5 from Micron, and has as good of a reputation as Micron.
VIDEO: Take a look at the GF2 Ti Xstasy 6564 from visiontek for 138 bucks, has some very good memory bandwidth, kinda like an Ultra but at half the price.
My 2 cents. Good Luck, Take-Out

God Bless New York<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Take_Out on 10/16/01 04:41 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Wow, lots of replies, thx alot guys, you have no idea how encredibly helpful this is, and I know u guys get alot of "building new system. HELP!" type posts, so thx for goin through the routine again 4 me. Im havin fun! Hope your feelin half my excitment. never had the $ to buy and build a complete system before. Only pieces at a time.

Anyways, I have several questions.

1) Can someone give me a link to a websight that really explains the difference (or the lack of) between the athlons and the xp's? Id appreciate it because if other then running slightly cooler, there is no real difference with the xp, Ill save big $ and get the 1.4 Ghz athlon as was suggested.

2) Mobo's. Before I came to this post I was reading crashman's post about fvck VIA. I never liked Sis, but apparently they are makin better chips now. Only problem is, I have experience with Asus and Abit, asus I like, abit I dont, and I have heard LOTS of great things about epox. Havent heard much about ECS or MSI. Granted, as I said before, I havent been doing much paying attention to hardware in the past few months, so maybe Im out of the loop. HOWEVER, I have heard great things about the Nvidia chipset, and especially if I get the Geforce3, that chipset would prolly be the way to go. Again, if someone could direct me to a website explaining Nvidia chipsets a little more, who will be using them on their mobo's and when they plan on coming out, Id appreciate it. I dont like to spend my hard earned money to be a guinea pig for new products. I learned that gaming. When things go public, that is usually the final beta test in my eyes. So Im a little worried to be buying a new technology like nvidia chipsets, but man I hate via.

Case, I checked out those antec cases. They seemed pretty nice, but I would like to find one w/o a PSU so I can buy my own. I am currently VERY pumped on the importance of top end PSU's, and Im only runnin an old cele 366 @550. I can only imagine the importance when I run a powerhog like the athlon.

Sound cards, I checked out the Hercules, That looks SWEET. however I havent checked in to that SB that was mentioned. (sorry for not droppin ur name guys, but unfortunalty I cant reply to the whole thread, so I cant go back and check names. my appologies.)

Video, I did more research today, seems that ATi is renowned for terrible drivers to terrific cards. So Im sold on the GeForce3 Ti800. Thats the right name right? I want THE best vid card. I have never had a high class machine. I have always had machines that were top of the line 3 years ago. I want people at MadOnion.com to drool a little.

Anyways, again, I REALLY REALLY appreciate all this help, input and advice. Im glad you guys take time out of your day to help newb's like myself. I know a lot about a little and a little about alot. I get the main ideas and understand the generals, but details Im not sure of and names and specs I suck with. Put a FPS before a number, Im right with ya.

And oh yeah, thank you for reading my long ass posts. My friends call me Chief Long Wind. hehe. For good reason.

as always,
thx in advance

"He not busy being born is busy dying."
-Dylan

BTW, I didn't mention this before, but I have a passionate dislike for Creative. Their speakers and MP3 players are good, but the sound cards have caused me more problems, and been worse quality than any other brand I've tried (even Philips, and they were pretty bad).
High CPU usage, bad drivers, poor sound, etc.
Ask around, plenty of people share my distaste.

<font color=green>I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP</font color=green>

Just one thing to say MSI boards are about the most stable overclockers I've ever seen or used. I highly recommend them to everyone.

When I go into a computer store I lose all means of reason for some reason.

I can't find any CAS2 DDR from Micron.... I got an e-mail on Oct. 1 from Crucial/Micron about DDR2100 CAS2. Said they were not expecting any soon but CAS2.5 was fine. But if performance is a key issue you could wait for some or bug the crap out of them to see if they could get you some. CAS2 is faster but only on the burst side. But every bit helps.

I like to take my wife out for a romantic dinner…Sometimes I even let her Supersize it!!

Ok, here's what you do. Take all of the money you were going to spend on your system. then go and buy a bunch of scratchers tickets. You should come out ahead. Then you can buy a real dream system.

Nice <b><font color=green>Lizards</b></font color=green> <b>crunch</b> Trolls cookies....... Yummy!!