Need Two New Comps. What do I get??

[Guest]

OK guys. I know you all are good with this. I need two new comps. The first one will be just a linux box eventually. I'm looking for the AMD XP chips but didnt know what was good and what would be most compatible with Linux. I may turn that into a server eventually, but for now I'll just run linux on that. If I can get motherboard/chipset specs and all that good stuff. The other one I thought I would use for personal use. Probably just going to run XP on it and that would be it. What cards/mobo/chipsets again. Also, Money is NOT an option on this. (I have private grants from my school) so I'm going to run with this one. I don't want to spend too much on the second one but the first one it doesn't matter at all. I hope to hear from what you guys think is the hot thing right now!

 

[girish]

Well, deciding the specs is not too difficult considering there are no cost constraints.

If you need a machine for a small to medium scale server and a solid performance, the Intel P3 1 GHz on a Asus TUSL2 or even the Intel D815EEA2U is good enough. You have the option of external graphics and support of server P3s with 512k L2 cache and speeds maybe upto 1.6 GHz (right now they are available till 1.26 GHz only) or even the lean mean Celeron 1.2 GHz with 256k L2 cache (OCed to 1.6 GHz @133 FSB) that makes it almost similar to the older P3. Bear in mind the i815 chipset supports only upto 512MB od memory, no more which might impede you ambitious plans if any with this "server"!

As for AthlonXP 1600+ is the best bang for the buck, the Asus A7V266-E board is good, it even has a onboard IDE-RAID controller, but I would personally prefer the Asus A7A266-E with ALi Magik rev C chipset.


For the personal system, you might go in with a slower processor like a Celeron 1 GHz or Athlon 1.1 GHz, if you dont have any specific performance requirements, you might as well go in for integrated display with the i810/i815 for P3/Celeron or the KL133/KM133/SiS730 for Athlon.Duron. Motherboard brand is not as important for that, but make sure you get a brand board like Asus, Jetway DFI and not a noname board that comes in a plain cardboard box and you have to look at the BIOS ID to get the manufacturer.

For all its worth the integrated displays, linux is not too kind for them, it takes some effort to configure those in Linux, especially for the server. The non-integrated boards like the TUSL2-C or D815EPEA2U are good.

If you are in India or in Pune I might be able to help you in person.

regards,
girish

girish


<font color=red>Nothing is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

 

[Guest]

Any other suggestions on this? I can step it up a little on the speeds but I wasn't sure what boards would be compatible with the new XP chips and what are the most stable? I've been a little out of the computer world and I have an Asus board right now that works just great with my Athlon but didn't know about the XP chips and what would be compatible most with Linux. Thanks.

 

[Phelk]

There main chipsets are:

VIA - KT266A (don't forget the 'A')
ALi - Magik 1 rev 'C'
nVidia - nForce 220 & 420
AMD - 761

The nForce is probably risky if you want to run linux as it is so new.

The most rated of these are the KT266A & AM1 rev C. The benches for these two are pretty similar so it is probably worth taking a good look at both of them.

The most important thing to check is the video/sound card compatibility with your Linux distribution, and always go with a high volume product to raise your chances of better support.

<font color=blue> Smoke me a Chip'er ... I'll be back in the Morgan </font color=blue>

 

[Stick_e_Mouse]

For your Linux box, take a look at Linux Hardware's "System of the Year 01" for some ideas. <A HREF="http://www.linuxhardware.org/features/02/01/07/169233.shtml" target="_new">http://www.linuxhardware.org/features/02/01/07/169233.shtml</A>
For your Windoze machine...errr....no comment.

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