A sketch of my new pc

Alwysgmng · Sep 20, 2001

Alright, ive been doing alot of lookin around, and this is
pretty much what my final system is gonna look like, any
input or comments would be gladly appreciated. BTW: I
decided to buy parts seperate and figure out how to build
it on my own, although it may take sometime, im definitely
up to the challenge)

MoBo= Abit KG7-Raid AMD761 @ Newegg.com Price: $173
CPU= Athlon (t-bird) 1.4ghz Socket-A (266mghz FSB) $103
Video Card= Gainward, Cardexpert geforce3 agp 2x/4x 64mb
DDR w/tv-out no DVI $280
Hard Drive= Barracuda ata IV 60gb ultra ata/100 $149.00
PowerSupply= Enermax 450W $80.00
Sound Card= Soundblaster Live x-gamer $83.00
Speakers= Klipsch Media 4.1 $299
Monitor= Optiquest Q115 "21 $482
Case= Lian Li pc-60 $180
HSF= Millenium Glacier $40

Im still lookin for a nice cd-rom, is there any speed above

the 52x ? possibly a dumb question, but plz enlighten me.

If anybody knows of a better deal on any parts mentioned
plz speak up

-Alwysgmng

Guest · Sep 20, 2001

Get a Kenwood TrueX 72x

njeske · Sep 20, 2001

Why go with a CD-ROM when you can get a 16X DVD which reads cds at 48X for only $15-$20 more? In reality, any CD-ROM drive over 32X is limited by the IDE bus anyways, so going with a very fast (expensive) CD-ROM drive isn't going to offer much of a performance increase over a 16X DVD/48X CD-ROM.

- God Bless America

Stick_e_Mouse · Sep 20, 2001

Unless you want to have some DATA CORRUPTION because of that crappy sound card paired with the crappy VIA 686b southbridge, change it to the Philips Acoustics Edge.

See a real naked pic of Britney Spears <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/stick_e_mouse" target="_new">here</A>!!!

BunnyStroker · Sep 20, 2001

Unless you want to have ENDLESS PROBLEMS WITH POOR DRIVERS, HARDWARE DETECTION, AND SOUND QUALITY do not get a Philips card.

SB sucks too.

I vote for a turtle beach or hercules card.

ßunn¥§troker 0wn§ j00!

FatBurger · Sep 20, 2001

A CD-ROM going at 4.8 MB/s is going to be limited by a 100MB/s IDE bus?

In memory of all the Americans that died 9/11/01
Rest in peace

BunnyStroker · Sep 20, 2001

Also, very nice system.

Mine is very similar. Make sure to get at least 512 meg RAM - it's cheap now, and frankly, whoever dies with the most RAM wins.

I know kenwood makes CD-ROMs that go up to like 72x - but when is the CD-ROM ever the bottleneck? DVD-ROM is ok - I have one, but never use it for anything but CD apps.

If you've never built a PC before, make sure you pay special attention to seating the heatsink - Even 1 sec without proper cooling will torch a T-bird. The best directions for installing the CPU and heatsink that I've seen actually were on AMDs website - lots of nice pictures and they don't assume you have any knowledge of computers.

Also, If you have to pick an OS, pick win2k. Running win98 on that system would be like using a Ferrari to tow a trailer home.

ßunn¥§troker 0wn§ j00!

Alwysgmng · Sep 20, 2001

Okay im changing the SB X-gamer live 5.1 for a hercules
gametheatre xp...

what else do i need to change for better hardware
detection..and more stability with drivers.

also ive heard that if you have more then 384mb's of ram
then it slows down your pc dramatically..

i also am going with the pioneer 106s instead of lookin for

a fast cdrom..

thx for the input fellas.

-Alwysgmng

njeske · Sep 20, 2001

If you can show me a CD-ROM that operates at anything better than DMA33, I will believe that argument. Secondly, even though a drive is rated at DMA33 or DMA100 or whatever, you are never going to get that much throughput. My argument was that an expensive 72X cd-rom will offer minimal performance increase over a 48X CD-ROM, and that for a price in between the two you can get the added bonus of DVD reading. I think I have a pretty valid argument.

- God Bless America

Raystonn · Sep 20, 2001

A single speed CD-ROM drive gets 150KB/s of bandwidth. All multipliers are based off this number. A 72X CD-ROM drive will get 10.546875 MB/s of bandwidth, far below the maximum bus speed of 33MB/s. Thus, a 72X CD-ROM drive will be 1.5 times faster than a 48X CD-ROM drive. No bus limitations will be reached for either one.

-Raystonn

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

njeske · Sep 20, 2001

I understand how the mulitpliers work. My argument is that while they may be capable of that output, they probably don't have a sustained output of that much which is why they all say 72X MAX, or 48X MAX or whatever. That is their maximum output, not sustained. And on top of that, while the bus they use may be DMA33, you are definitely not going to get full capacity out of that either.

I agree, the 72X will perform better than a 48X. However, I don't think you will get the 50% performance increase you theoretically are supposed to get. Therefore, in my opinion, it would be best to just stick with a DVD drive that has 48X CD-ROM read capability so that you save money and get a decent ammount of performance.

- God Bless America

Raystonn · Sep 20, 2001

As long as there are no other drives on that controller that require more than about 22.5MB/s of bandwidth, then it will never be limited by the bus speed. As the 72X CD-ROM drive spins 1.5 times faster than the 48X CD-ROM drive, it will be 1.5 times faster when measuring peak transfer rates and effective (average) transfer rates.

If you do not need a DVD reader, then getting one at the cost of CD-ROM performance is not such a good idea.

-Raystonn

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

Stick_e_Mouse · Sep 20, 2001

Oh...it looks like you're still mad about your Seismic Edge, eh?

Don't let your bad experience discourage others from trying the great Philips Acoustics Edge. Too bad for YOU and your WDM + WIN2K, you had a bad experience. Everything you said about the Acoustics Edge (I know you didn't mention it explicitly) is total B.S. Poor sound quality?--HAH! Try again! Poor Hardware Detection and drivers?--only to those people that don't know what they are doing!!! Try doing some first hand testing before you start posting B.S. about a great sound card (doing some research on the web would help a great deal also). Just because you had one bad experience with a low-end model Philips card you think all their cards suck (which is definitly not true).

See a real naked pic of Britney Spears <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/stick_e_mouse" target="_new">here</A>!!!

njeske · Sep 20, 2001

I still disagree, but I am going to quit debating. Mostly because neither one of us has said anything new. We just keep spouting our own opinion on which is better.

I am right though...

- God Bless America

FatBurger · Sep 21, 2001

I'm wrong. I miscalculated in a big way, and forgot CD-ROMs are only ATA33. I'll stay out of this thread for a while.

In memory of all the Americans that died 9/11/01
Rest in peace

Matisaro · Sep 21, 2001

Fat, even thought its ata 33 your query is still valid,72x is no where near filling up the bandwidth.

~Matisaro~
"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
~Tbird1.3@1.5~

lhgpoobaa · Sep 21, 2001

yes, the pioneer 106S is a nice drive.

as for the ram, what operating system will you use?

98 has alwyas had problems effectivly managing ram.
i use 512 with 2k very nicely.

Religious wars are 2 groups of people fighting over who has the best imaginary friend.

Crashman · Sep 21, 2001

The fact of limmited performance on many high speed CD drives is not caused by the IDE interface but the low quality/poor design of the drive. Many BTC drives for instance take SEVERAL SECONDS to spin up! So long in fact that when I tried to install Windows with them, I would get "File not found" errors. And I would have to hurry up and click "Try Again" before the drive spun down!
Couple that poor response time with low precision reading (even a finger print slows the drive down), and you end up with a 52x MAX drive that has only a 20x steady throughput. These problems are far less severe with quality name brand drives, especially Teac, Sony, and Toshiba offer far better performance. In fact my TEAC 32x drive far outperformed my BTC 52x drive.

Back to you Tom...

Red_Zealot · Sep 21, 2001

Don't listen to sticky mouse...He's a Phillips [-peep-]. I would stick with the Hercules Gametheater XP. The breakout box will look good with that Aluminum case, too.

"If you teach a child to read, then he or her will be able to pass a literacy test" - George W.Edited by Fredi on 09/20/01 10:09 PM.

Guest · Sep 21, 2001

A very good drive that was! The 72x had a 7 laser pickup system which performed at a real speed of 100x at very low speeds which provided for a very quiet drive.

The only problem is i've tried scouring the internet for one, but they don't exist anymore. They just fell off the face of the earth. He11 i want one but they just don't sell them anymore.

so thats that...

I for one run Quake 3 on a P133(No MMX)I have no affiliatioin w/ Intel

silverpig · Sep 21, 2001

[nitpick]You probably mean channel, not controller...[/nitpick]

Yeah, I'd definitely suggest a DVD drive. I mean, why not? You are already getting a video card with TV out...

As for ram, well 256 MB is enough for now if you're using win98/ME, but if you're gonna use win2k/XP or linux(<--- definitely should play around with this here... especially on a 60 GB drive

), then you might as well go for 512 MB or more.

One thing to consider with ram too, is that because it's so cheap, you may want to get a gig of ram, and then make 512 or 768 MB of it into a ramdrive.

Lyrics. Wasted time between solos.

Guest · Sep 21, 2001

Umm yeah where are you getting your case from? Go to www.mpcparts.com, their prices for lian-li cases are the best I've seen.

BunnyStroker · Sep 21, 2001

Sorry Mouse

I'm not trying to start a flame war here, really I'm not.

Yes, I've had bad experience with the Philips Seismic Edge. I know others that have also.

The Philips Seismic Edge has the exact same chip as the Philips Acoustic Edge. I posted the link for you.

As for me not knowing what I'm doing? Hmmm....I guess I have no way of actually proving that I do, but I would rather have no idea what I'm doing than be a schill for Philips.

Again - I challenge you to show me any evidence that the Philips Cards differ at all in anything besides output jacks.

And yes, I've used both an SBLive!Value and a Philips card in my current config. The SB was bad; the Philips worse. I'm not deaf. When a soundcard cracks and pops during music, I hear it. And I correctly deem it garbage.

What does bother me is that every time someone posts anything remotely related to a sound card, you jump in with "The Philips Card is ONE MILLION times better than SLICED BREAD!" It's simply not true.

ßunn¥§troker 0wn§ j00!

BigD · Sep 21, 2001

For the CDROM, get the Lite-On 16X/48X DVD-ROM. Check it out at www.storagereview.com. It can do close to 48X DAE!!!. The fastest DAE right now...

Stick_e_Mouse · Sep 21, 2001

Yeah, in your other post, I also mentioned that I did not know Philips recently changed the chips to their lower-end models...I forgot the names of the chips, but you remember the post.

Actually, whenver I post about sound cards, I mention that the Philips (IMO, as well as many 'proffesional' users and reviewers) think that Acoustics Edge is better than any of the current sound cards out there. I'm not working for Philips or anything, but thats how I see, or rather, hear it. I also like the Hercules XP especially with the extra features and outputs/inputs that comes with the external rack--but I usually only reccommend that for the hard core gamers, the Acoustics Edge for everything else. Both the cards surely beats the SoundBlaster.

See a real naked pic of Britney Spears <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/stick_e_mouse" target="_new">here</A>!!!

A sketch of my new pc

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