T-Bird vs Athlon vs Duron

[Guest]

What CPU should I buy?? I am in the market for an upgrade. I have a celeron 533 and feel like I need more. I am big into DVD and other video files along with simple programs. I'm not a big gamer so a 64 MB video card is unreasonable. I was wonder what the best system would be for around $600- $700. I was thinking Abit KT7 with a 750 T bird with an ATI 32mb XPert 2000 card that has dvd decoding on it, but was recently told to go with a different video card and a decoder card, I'm not really sure. Could i do something cheaper? Thanks

 

[Grizely1]

The motherboard and CPU look Ok... or you could get a Duron 800 instead of the TBird 750

Go with a GeForce 2 MX AGP graphics card, they're better than the ATI cards.

 

[khha4113]

I agree with Grizely1, buy Geforce 2 MX card instead of ATI. You won't need decoder card, your CPU would be fast enough to decode DVD by software.
I've been using TB 700 on ASUS A7V and Asus V7100 MX card with my PowerDVD software, and it works great.

 

[Guest]

Yes, the Duron and GeForce II should do ya good. I'd suggest getting a 7200RPM or higher Hard Drive and some PC-133 SDRAM also. DVD and video files can be some serious bandwidth hogs. I have a Duron 600/MSI K7T Pro/IBM Deskstar ATA66 7200 RPM 20GB/128MB PC-100 SDRAM running at 110Mhz/CL TNT2 32MB AGP and I ran the Divx of 'Gladiator' on it and it ran nice and smooth at 59.9 FPS which was what it was recorded at. I believe that it maxed out on FPS because it was moving between 59.91 and 59.97 during the movie. Not bad for a $700 computer, if I do say so myself.

 

[Guest]

Go with the duron and put any extra money you have into RAM , but hurry it's going up.... and don't worry about hardware for the DVD the CPU will handle that no probs

M

one of the first UK T-Bird users....

 

[rcf84]

All you people know ati dvd decoders are best in the business. Just keep the celeron. Beside a p2 350 will give 30fps with the ati decoder. i was going to buy a duron but WOW ram prices are low i got (2)128mb pc100 sticks for $160. Dont upgrade the cpu.

Get:
1. 12x dvd (if you dont have it)
2. 128mb or 256mb sdram
3. Soundblaster Live! Value (if you dont have a soundblaster)
4. ATI All in Wonder 128 32MB AGP (comes w/ tv tuner and dvd decoder)

 

[Grizely1]

That doesnt make sense. In essence your saying:

"Buy this for the same amount and get 30fps, or buy <i>this</i> for the same amount and get 60fps"

Stick with the GeForce 2 MX and the Duron

 

[Raistlin]

actually he said a p2-350 gives 30fps
not a celeron 533mhz which is what jedast has.
Personally i would go with the duron 800mhz and gforcemx
but ati does have best dvd decoder, you could just add memory and a ati radion card for under 300 and get a huge boost or, i would just keep the current computer and build a second one if you are going to put new ram hdd video card processor Mobo into it hell have 2 computers.

if that looks a little funny well i have been up 23hours

Bored, Certified Tech

 

[Guest]

Something does have to be said for hardware decoding. Soft is fine, but you don't want to compleatly choke the CPU. I'd say go Duron, ATI all in Wonder-128 (the Rage Fury is still compitent if not used in too many games and has every possible 'EXTRA' anyone could want) and 128MB RAM. I first got my Athlon 600 in the very early days of the Athlon (remember Irongate) and had 64MB RAM at the time. Windows uses quite a bit of that in normal operation! 96 or 128 MB RAM is almost a MUST!!