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Advice on new system

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Anonymous
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I'm planning on building a new system in a month or so to serve as both a home system and for work (mainly math processing via maple, mathematica, mathcad etc.). Any recommendations or changes to what i'm planning would be appreciated.

Antec Plus 880 (case and psu)
Dual Athlon MP 1800+
Asus A7M266-D (AMD 762 chipset)
1024 MB PC2100 DDR (unbuffered)
Seagate Barracuda IV 80 gb hard drive
Pioneer 106S DVD drive
Liteon 32x12x40 CDRW drive
Generic floppy
Geforce 4 ti4200 (haven't decided 64mb or 128mb version)
Turtle beach santa cruz or Soundblaster Audigy (undecided)


Questions:

One thing I wanted to make sure of is functionality of SMP systems - as I understand it windows could allocate one cpu to doing my number crunching and keep the other cpu free for games/internet use/etc. even without SMP enabled programs. Is this correct? The only reason I am planning on dual processors is so I can still do normal home computing while my computer is doing computation that doesn't need anything other than my initial input - in short for multitasking, not for program speed.

Should I go with retail processors or OEM and get separate hsfs (and if so which ones)? I'm not planning on overclocking, and I know the dual board cuts out some possible HSFs

Advantages/Disadvantges of registered ECC RAM? I always thought of it as something for servers - mobo supports this and unbuffered.

Will the two case fans included provide enough cooling? Would it be better to move one of the rear fans to the front and have it blow in?

Thanks.

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i would swap the seagate 80 gig for the new western digital 80g with the 8mg cache and also, with those two processors pulling so much power, I would be leary of just any psu...try a high power enermax...you probably want over 365w but im not totally sure as I have never dealt with dual procesors.

Buy a good quality powersupply, preferably 400W+ for you. Buy quality memory. I'm not sure if ECC would be necessary so wait until somebody lets you know about that. You should consider the WD800JB which is an 80GB Western Digital 7200 RPM drive with 8MB of cache instead of 2MB.

Edit: The new Antec 880 comes with a 430W powersupply that I've never heard of, but that should be fine.

<font color=red>God</font color=red> <font color=blue>Bless</font color=blue> <font color=red>America!</font color=red><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by dhlucke on 04/23/02 00:25 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
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If you are not planning on OCing, retail procs would be best - you'll probably get a better deal with the 3yr warranty and included HSF. The retail HSF is even fine for mild OC'ing with ASII or ASIII instead of the stock pad.

I don't understand the trepidation people have with the stock HSF - AMD wouldn't sell it if it didn't work just fine. Overclocking is another story, but comparisons to P4's retail HSF are just bogus. The P4 actually runs HOTTER than the Athlon, it just has better overheat prevention circuitry. The larger and more efficient HSF shipped with the P4 is due to the Willamette's high heat output. Intel kept the HSF the same for the NW, which puts out less heat due to its lower voltage and .13 micron process. People are simply getting a better stock HSF with the P4 because it was necessary. It is very likely that the same situation will occur with the TBred and Barton - the stock HSF will stay the same with the lower voltage and .13 micron process - allowing higher (maybe, maybe not, equivalent) overclocks with the stock HSF.

If the thought I thought I thought had been the thought I thought, I wouldn't have thought so much.

<A HREF="http://www.dansdata.com/coolercomp.htm" target="_new">HSF reviews</A>

Check this site out, and consider going with an OEM processor and a better HSF. Then you might be able to get by with 2 80mm case fans, one in the front/bottom sucking air in, and one in the back/top blowing air out.

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

yeah, retail heatinks are fine...and will work within amd or intel or via (unless you run the via with no heatsink, which you COULD), but i always try and overengineer stuff. maybe it is the german side of me (points to VW, BMW, MERCEDES BENZ), but i like to have things running as cool as i can afford or as cool as i can make them run. i also like things to last...and when you have better than standard cooling, things tend to last longer. sure, you could run fine and dandy with a retail heatsink, but i would rather go with something beefier...and rest assured that i will not be overheating very easily.
i put retail athlon xp heatsinks on amd k6-2's. works great.

-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-
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