Recent purchase

Hello Toms Hardware users,

I wanted to get your opinion of a recent purchase I made. By the initial look at what it is you would think I haven't read Tom's articles over the past year or so. I'd still like your opinion though.

Before we get to it I'd like to go over a little background information. This is upgrading from an Intel P233MMX, 256MG PC133 SDRAM, GForce2 MX400 64MG, Some old AT Motherboard that I can't remember who makes it, Some 48X CDrom, floppy, etc. but altogether runs better than some AMD 400 machines I've seen.

I haven't had a major system upgrade in about 5 years excluding the video card which crapped out a couple years back, but I only spent $36 plus shipping on that one. Being married with 5 children presents it's problems in system upgrades ya know.

In any case, based on that information and also the fact I was going for cost savings and I don't do any major gaming, I'd like your opinion on this new setup.

I'll cover with some closing remarks at the end of the list.

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Purchase from www.compugeeks.com

$33.65 10-Bay Black ATX Window Case w/400W Power Supply
$29.00 Abit TH7-RAID Socket 423 ATX MBB w/RAID, Audio
$89.00 Intel Pentium 4 1.3GHz Socket 423 CPU
$46.00 128MB Rambus DRAM 1066MHz Non-ECC
$46.00 128MB Rambus DRAM 1066MHz Non-ECC

$243.65 Subtotal
$15.00 Shipping
$264.65 Total from compugeeks.com
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Purchase from www.googlegear.com

$42.00 Artec WSM-52X 52x24x52 EIDE/ATAPI CD-RW
$30.00 Artec DHM-G48 16X IDE DVD w/Software Retail
$62.50 Western Digital Caviar WD400BB 40GB ATA/100 7200RPM
$62.50 Western Digital Caviar WD400BB 40GB ATA/100 7200RPM
$45.50 Abit Siluro GF4 MX 440SE GeForce4 MX440 AGP 4X 64MB DDR Video Card w/TV-Out

$242.50 Subtotal
$0.00 Shipping
$242.50 Total from googlegear.com
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Purchase from www.componentsdirect.com

$80.00 Windows XP Home Edition OEM

$80.00 Subtotal
$6.83 Shipping
$86.83 Total from componentsdirect.com
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Local Purchase
$20.00 Heat Sink/Fan for Socket 423

$20.00 Subtotal
$1.20 Tax
$21.20 Total from Local purchase

------------------------------------------------------------
$615.18 Grand Total


Ok, From top to bottom...

The Case - It was rather cheap, allot of expandability 3 additionally spaces for cooling fans (only 1 included other than PS fan) Wasn't a bad deal at all. The downfall, it gives so much room, but not enough power cables. I had to add a splitter to accomodate the zip drive I brought over from my old PC.

The Motherboard - Ok Ok Ok, I bought a socket 423 with RDRAM, What was I thinking? Oh yeah $29.00 plus shipping, THAT'S IT! The cost. That's one up side the other is RAID. The down side is obviously the Socket 423 and RDRAM.

CPU - P4 1300MHZ, had to throw something in that 423 socket and it was the cheapest. You probably figured out by now, I was going for the best I could get for the least amount of money, if they come down to the cost of what the AMD 550's are right now, then I may upgrade it. The MB claims to go to 2 gig, but the most I've seen yet for 423 is 1.9ghz.

Memory - Ok, so I got the 1066mhz, in hind sight I could have gotten more for the money if I went 800mhz and got 256's instead of 128's. Rambus is just so darn expensive in comparision to the others. I still would have preferred the DDR, but that motherboard went for $158 instead.

CD Drives - The Arctec drives were cheap and they came with the software I didn't have. Came with PowerDVD and NERO. At other sites for the same price I didn't get the software and they also charge for shipping.

Hard Drives - Western Digital, need I say more? Seriously, WD has always been my favorite manufacturer. It's more for their customer service than quality of the product. Primarily because if there is a hardware problem western digital goes out of their way time and time again to resolve the problem or replace the drive. Trying getting Conner, er I mean Seagate to do that is like pulling your own teeth out. (Maybe they've gotten better since the last time I owned a connergate drive.) As for IBM, Fugitsu and the others, they'd be better off as frisbee's. No, I'm just partial toward WD.

Video Card - Geforce 4 MX440, well, it was cheap and my Geforce 2 MX400 served it's purpose. Since I don't do any high performance gaming or CAD design, I don't think I really need a high performance card. I do do some graphic design with Paint Shop Pro and some web design, but since I never had a problem doing that with the G2 MX400 card, the G4 MX440 card can't be worse. Even looking at Tom's somewhat recent article on Video cards it looks to be somewhere in the middle on Bench tests, so it can't be all that bad. And again, I didn't have allot of cash to put up for the good stuff.

Windows XP Home Edition OEM - Not much to say there, I could have used 98, but I need to come up to date on how XP is setup, configured, and all that. Since I have experience with all the other OS's, XP was the natural progression of things and so far I like it pretty well, other than the default "skin" I converted everything back to Classic. Can't teach an old dog new tricks or something like that. I'm working on changing all the desktop icons back to the 98/NT icons. Additionally, Yes, components direct did sell me an XP OEM with CD and COA without a hardware purchase. I was glad to, it was the cheapest I could find it and I did just put together a new pc, just not purchased through them.

The heatsink - Well what can I say, I forgot all about it and instead of paying another shipping charge I thought I would buy it locally. In hind sight I shoulda paid the shipping charges. I found them much cheaper online that would have made up for the shipping charges.


Well, that's all I have to say about that. Let me know what you think about it, the good, the bad, the ugly. Oh wait, I think I have the ugly covered.

Take Care,

RJ

Take Care,
RJ

First, WOW thats a long post.

Second its hard to get much more out of such a low budget but you could have done better. I probably would have gone AMD cause a p4 1.3GHz is beat by any XP and for $90 you can get a 2400-2500XP (~$45 1700XP!). (2 sticks because nforce can use duel channel memory and they cost the same per MB as a single stick)

RAID was just never ment to be at this cost. I would have got 1 80GB WD800JB for ~$80.

Eliminating RAID opens up your motherboard choices and since I suggested AMD it goes w/o saying you better damn well put that XP in a nforce board. A low end nforce2 board can be ~$60 but I would get a better one with integrated gfx (=geforce4 440mx) for ~$90ish.

RDRAM is definately not what you want in a low end system (or any system for that matter). You will be hurting (not horribly) with only 256RAM in WinXP (I have run WinXP w/256 so I know). 512 is definately the way to go. 2x256MB DDR266 or DDR333 can run you as low as $50 but I would pay a little more for a decent brand which would be somewhere between $60-70 for two 256MB PC2700 sticks.

For the heatsink, going extremely cheap, I would just get retail and use the one that comes with that. Retail processors are only a few dollors more and you get a year or maybe its 3 year warrenty on your processor.

Pretty much impossible to do better on the case for that cost as well as the CDROMs and WinXP.

All in all the parts I described cost about the same and you would have got a much better computer.

Sorry I didn't mean to rip you appart but your system is what I would be upgrading from not to. Hopefully your next purchase will be more informed.

And to wrap up <b>THIS IS NOT A POLL</b>.