CPU decision

200 for the motherboard AND cpu?


If you want to use sdram your best option is the following.

http://www.pricewatch.com/1/306/4210-1.htm

1900+ with an ecsk7s5a.


If you want ddr then you can get the same, OR,

you can grab a 1700+ cpu for 88 bucks and grab a kt266a motherboard for around 120, thus making 200 bucks.

Up to you.



:wink: The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark :wink:

Get a ECS K7S5A and the best AMD XP that will make up the difference in price.

However, what current system do you have and do you have a good powersupply and memory for a new system?

<font color=red>God</font color=red> <font color=blue>Bless</font color=blue> <font color=red>America!</font color=red>

This is why I tell people, in the low cash situations such as these, no Intel system with reasonable performance can be made of, and thus AMD will always succeed here.

--
For the first time, Hookers are hooked on Phonics!!

What do you have now? mobo? CPU? video card? and the rest?

<b>I have so many cookies I now have a FAT problem!</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 04/17/02 05:16 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

I've got an athlon 700, asus k7v, voodoo 5 (please dont laugh, it was a freebie), and 512 of 133 memory. I do realize I will need new memory, I am just alotting 200 for the cpu and motherboard

What I am looking at is the ECS K7S5A mobo with an XP 1900. You'll have to excuse me, but I fall off the hardware scene whenever I get a new setup. I don't know what the new XP chip is like and how much better it would be than a 1.4 tbird.

However, I priced out a P4, and with either MSI's 645 Ultra or Soltek's SL-85DRS2 I can drop a P4 1.7. Would this be a better alternative?

Thanks

I've got a 300w power supply

The 1900+ will outperform the 1700 willamette p4 HANDILY.


The 1900+ is the best buy of the two. By far.

:wink: The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark :wink:

Also, what kind of DDR memory should I get with either system

I think I answered my own question - ddr 2100, correct?

yes. DDR2100
just make sure you buy decent brand name stuff, not the generic.
more reliable overall & it should be possible to run it at Cas2 and hard memory timings, giving you more performance.

one of the most respected names around is Crucial.


My tech advice here is not free. Email your credit card detials to mynic@hotmail.com :smile: :wink:

what about samsung or zeus?

Samsung is pretty decent, but Crucial is better.

How much of an overclocker are you? If you're up for it, the 1.6A is a good buy, but probably still out of your range.

<font color=blue>If you don't buy Windows, then the terrorists have already won!</font color=blue> - Microsoft

Add the 150 for the 1.6a+ 150 for a good rdram mobo+ 100 for rdram, and you get well out of his range IMO.

:wink: The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark :wink:

You can pickup a P4 1.6A and motherboard combo for $208 listed price on pricewatch. Gives you a choice of Biostar, Gigabyte, ECS or Tyan on a mix of SiS645 and P4X266 chipsets (all PC2100 DDR)

Just throwing in some other options.

-* <font color=red> !! S O L D !! </font color=red> *-
To the gentleman in the pink Tutu

P4+ddr=no so good.

For 208 you can have a 1700+ a motherboard, an alphapal8045 hsf, and 256 megs ddr ram, and with the good hsf you can overclock the cpu to a 2000+, which is a FAR greater deal IMO, than a 1.6a and a ddr mobo.

:wink: The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark :wink:

Yep, you can - however I'm just trying to give some options. There is also nothing wrong with P4 and DDR, sure it may not be the absolute fastest, but this seemed like a budet solution - so I wanted the person to know there were options.

Sure, the XP1700+ solution is good, but to realise it you need something to compare right?

-* <font color=red> !! S O L D !! </font color=red> *-
To the gentleman in the pink Tutu

I was thinking the same thing, but he mentioned the 1.7, so I wasn't sure.

<font color=blue>If you don't buy Windows, then the terrorists have already won!</font color=blue> - Microsoft

Yes, but you can't really compare an XP1700+ to a P4 1.6 at stock w/ DDR. The guy might as well get a 1.2 Celery or Duron. Budget = AMD, unless you're overclocking. If you want the fastest, go Intel, but pay for it (no 2.4 RDRAM for 200 bucks methinks).

Mmmm... <font color=red>Red Hot</font color=red>

Sorry, I thought your total budget for upgrading was $200.

I wanted to know your system because sometimes just a new video card is a good choice for an upgrade. It's usually the best starting point. Sometimes a new CPU is next.

Athlon 700/slotA is couple of years old but it's still good enough to get plenty of benefit from a newer graphics card but it's just a thought.

Normally, I'd worry about power supply issues when adding a modern graphics card to an old rig like yours but if you have a Voodoo5 running now, and it's stable, I doubt you would have problems. Voodoo5's use a huge amount of power.

Moving on, with $200 you have some pretty good options for a CPU and and motherboard. I wouldn't skimp on a motherboard. There a lot of good choices out there. You should decide whether or not you want to overclock.

Many people hate Via chipsets but I think Via got their act together with the KT266A chipset, at least in terms of stability. (PCI bus performance is another issue). The prices of these should be dropping now that the KT333 boards are available. Good KT266A boards include Abit's KR7A, Asus' A7V266-E, and Epox's 8KHA+. The Epox one does have an issue. Some Geforce4 cards don't fit the board. It's only a few and Epox has a list of which ones do not work. All of the above boards are good quality and have great overclocking features. I think the blemish on the 8KHA+ reputation is part of the reason it is a little cheaper than the other boards but it still is an excellent board (and it's only $89 at Newegg.com. It doesn't have RAID).

The Athlon XP 1500, 1600, 1700, 1800 are all about the same price, about $115, for the retail versions. I'd go with the 1800 Retail if not overclocking or the 1800 OEM (about $105, about $90 for the others) if you are overclocking and choose your own heatsink.

An Epox 8KHA+, Athlon XP 1800+, and heatsink would probably run you a little over your budget, maybe $230 including shipping.

<b>I have so many cookies I now have a FAT problem!</b>

I'd say just get something like an OEM Tbird-C (133MHz FSB) @ 1.2 or 1.33GHz. (Or if you really want the waranty and want to save money, go for a retail 1.3MHz Duron.) Use the RAM that you have, and take the money that you were going to use for RAM to get a new video card (like a retail Radeon 8500 for $128 + S&H).

I can't find any real data on an Asus k7v, so I can't promise that you will be able to continue using your old motherboard. It would be nice to save money that way, but if you can't, go for something like a KT133A chipset as it supports single-rate SDRAM.

(Or, if you prefer, the Intel Celeron at 1.3GHz and an 815E motherboard both compare to the Duron 1.3GHz and a KT133A motherboard. They are pretty much the same price.)

Basically, I think you would get a lot more out of a new video card than you would out of DDR SDRAM. Plus, going from a 700MHz system, even 1.2GHz is going to be a noticable improvement.

Going for an AXP and DDR SDRAM would be nice, but if you use the system mostly for gaming, the video card will be the major performance and wow factor. (Especially if you play new games which use DX8.)

Of course, these are just my views. Heed them or ignore them as you wish.  

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Sure you can compare - that is something you can completely compare to. He has a budget of $200 for mobo and cpu, and this sort of fitted in. The 1.6A gives him a lot of headroom in the future if he chooses to overclock, and is the entry point of choice for most on the Northwood.

The point is that for the same cash, you can buy a motherboard and 1900+.

-* <font color=red> !! S O L D !! </font color=red> *-
To the gentleman in the pink Tutu

Here is what I wanna do. I want to overclock. So would the Epox 8KHA+ be a good option with a XP 1800?

What about cooling. Will I need anything special.

Thanks.

Paul

If you're gonna do some serious o/cing, get a ThermalTake Volcano 7+. They are great HSFs and they have a fan speed regulator so if you're not o/cing you can slow it down to lower the noise, and when you o/c, crank her up again!

Dont get a volcano 7, get an alphapal8045 and an 80mm sunon, and have better cooling ALL the time, and have it quiet ALL the time.

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but arent sunon fans loud?...
the 3 sunons i had were loud....i had to rewire them so they would be spin slower...thus making them quieter...

<b><font color=red>ATI</font color=red>'s drivers are like a broken faucet, they both keep on leaking...</b> :cool:

That depends on which Sunon fans you're talking about. Sunon makes fans from 27CFM to 50CFM+.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor

Well actually I have the V7, I agree it CAN be noisy. But, personally I'd rather have a fan that can control drastic heat situations in case an Alpha PAL won't or is always at its limit. But that's what we both have of our opinions.

--
Thunderbirds in wintertime, Northwoods in summertime!  

You can't slow it down, it regulates by itself. The Volcano 7+ is the personal 3-speed configuration one, which is HIGHLY effective in OCing since you control its max speed, as well as having new better heatsink fins, which improve cooling.

--
Thunderbirds in wintertime, Northwoods in summertime!  

The Asus K7V is a SlotA motherboard with the KX-133 chipset (pre-KT133)

<b>I have so many cookies I now have a FAT problem!</b>

An 80mm sunon or pabst fan is silent.


:wink: The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark :wink:

Perhaps you didnt hear me ;-).

MY 1700+ OVERCLOCKED to 2000+ tops out at 104f, with a silent fan, the alphapal8045 cools better than the volcano 7 and is much quieter. Why choose a more expensive louder hsf when a cheaper quieter one cools as good or better?

:wink: The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark :wink:

Let's not forget that the V7 (not the +) costs about half as the Alpha.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor

Well in a way, there's a tradeoff in both ways. Perhaps if I had the money I would take the Alpha PAL since I want a silent system, but I got this one for now.
If at all, the V7 is an entryway to a new era of cooling methods, which the V7+ takes off with.

--
Thunderbirds in wintertime, Northwoods in summertime!  

If I'm gonna overclock, is the Epox 8KHA a good Mobo to use for the price? Also, is Mushkin memory good.

I got my alphapal8045 for 29 bucks, how much was the volcano you have?

:wink: The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark :wink:

I got my V7 for $29 CDN which is ~$18US.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor

not quite half as much.


Better and quieter cooling for 11 more....I know what I would choose, but it all comes down to the value of 11 bucks.

:wink: The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark :wink:

and the fact that i don't know where to get one (not a website...)

(bb || !bb) - Shakespeare

Go to pricewatch and search for pal 8045

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Well after some researching and experimenting, I can only respond to this: Actually the Volcano 7's performance all depends on your case flow and temp. If your case flow is very good like AMD_Man, this cooler will not only be silent, but its CPU temps will be very very low, therefore making the 11$ +\- difference worth it. His temps are low especially with an OCed Tbird! Mine is 66MHZ above his heat CPU, and yet I get bad temps compared to him.

--
Thunderbirds in wintertime, Northwoods in summertime!  

My point is this eden, for 11 more you can have a cooler which cools better under ALL circumstances, and is ALWAYS quieter.

Nothing more, nothing less.

:wink: The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark :wink:

I hear ya! I mean if I had more money and the PAL was on sale in Ottawa, I would get it, but even then, this V7 is just so sexy, I just can't resist not looking at it!
To each his own choices, but I can clearly tell you AMD_Man's experience has been the most satisfying for his buck. The Volcano 7+ is another story, since it has advanced fins and manual speed control, all for the price near a PAL. I haven't seen them coolers out around, but I think they are something worth investing on, after seeing some reviews.

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Thunderbirds in wintertime, Northwoods in summertime!   <P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Eden on 04/20/02 05:56 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Lol, it's not exactly a quiet cooler at 4500RPM. :tongue: But at 3000RPM, it's a winner! Quiet in the winter, loud in the summer... Hmm, well, I guess I have a seasonal HSF. :wink:

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor

do most of those places ship to canada, and except money orders?

(bb || !bb) - Shakespeare

Same here, except it's always been over 4000 RPM in Winter too, but yeah it is a seasonal thing! You can imagine at my temps of 53º CPU with over 5000RPM spin, how noisy it can get!

--
Thunderbirds in wintertime, Northwoods in summertime!  

I dont know about most, but you can find something that does if you wade through all the hits.

:wink: The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark :wink: