Help! Rate My System

[BigBiggist]

I posted my system specs earlier on the motherboard forum and a guy by the name of fatburger saved me from alot of frustration of a audigy card. I just want to double check though. Ive come across some other motherboards though and I would like to know if they are decent or not. Well here they are:

AMD Athlon XP 2100+
Asus A7V333 (VIA KT333), Epox EP-8K3A+, Enmic 8TTX2+, or Gigabyte GA-7VRXP?
Seagate Barracuda 60 GB HD (7200 RPM)
Samsung PC 2700 DDR 512 Mb CAS 2.0
VisionTek Xtasy Ti-4600
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Klipch Promedia 4.1
Toshiba DVD_ROM (16X/48X)
Generic Floppy Drive
Lian Li PC-65 or Cooler Master ATC-200
Antec 400W Power Supply
Ethernet Card for Wireless Cable Modem Network?
Logitech Mouseman Dual Optical and Cordless Keyboard
Windows XP Home ED.

Well any more input would be great. Thanx alot. Also are the vendors at pricewatch viable, can they be reliable or not.
Laterz

 

[chuck232]

I basically know zip about AMD mobos so I won't comment on that. One thing could be that Visiontek Ti4600. They are not the greatest cards for the price. I'd much prefer Leadtek. Also you may want a CD-RW. They are extremely useful I find.

My firewall tastes like burning.

 

[Toejam31]

I'd switch that Antec 400W out for an <A HREF="http://www.enermax.com.tw/products/switch-main.htm" target="_new">Enermax EG465P-VE FCA</A> without even thinking. The 400W from Antec is possibly the worse name brand PSU I have ever installed in a system. Even the 300W Antec is better than the 400W, in terms of failure rates.

Compare the specs between the Antec and the Enermax, and you'll see the difference. I can also tell you that between the two, the Antec much more lightly constructed, and you'll need a fairly heavy-duty power supply for this new system ... especially if you intend to add devices at a later date, like a second hard drive, additional cooling, or another optical drive. Having dual-fans and gold heatsinks on the power transistors for better heat dissipation within the PSU on an AMD system is also something I would encourage ... and this the Enermax has, while the Antec does not.

The Enermax costs more, but you'll be glad you made the change, later on. Having a decent power plant for your new system is an important item ... more so than many people seem to realize.

Toejam31

<font color=red>First Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=17935" target="_new"><font color=green>Toejam31's Devastating Dalek Destroyer</font color=green></A>
<font color=red>Second Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=15942" target="_new"><font color=green>Toey's Dynamite DDR Duron</font color=green></A>
__________________________________________________________

<font color=purple>"Some push the envelope. Some just lick it. And some can't find the flap."</font color=purple>

 

[Guest]

I make computers on the side. I love Pricewatch. I find that they have the best prices by FAR.Also very reliable. Sorry PriceGrabber

Um Im a moron I need HELLLLLLLLP (mIRC newbie)

 

[mbetea]

no, pricewatch vendors are not reliable. that is why pricewatch has been around for 3-4 years now. that system sucks.

[insert philosophical statement here]

 

[pr497]

not all pricewatch vendors are bad....that is why you use pricewatch and resellerratings at the same time.

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

 

[BigBiggist]

Alright, I looked into the leadtek. It looks like I could overclock it quite a bit. Thanx for recommending it. I read reviews on it as well, looks like a great card, thanx.

I also will consider getting a CD-RW. Ive heard that Plextor is one of the best.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by BigBiggist on 05/18/02 08:48 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[BigBiggist]

The enermax looks great. I havent heard about the antec. It just sounded good because it would have been bundled with one of my cases. Hopefully the enermax is a pretty quiet powersupply.
Thanx alot.

Also, thanx for your guys' input on pricewatch, i will be sure to use resellerratings while i use pricewatch.

I have also been told to stick with the ASUS motherboard. Does anyone have any experience with an asus mobo. Are they good?

Oh, and nice rigs toejam.
Thanx alot for your help guys.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by BigBiggist on 05/18/02 08:49 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[BigBiggist]

NOOOOOOOO!!!!

Omg, i have absolutely no idea what motherboard to get now. Ive heard horror stories about the asus, thats great. Ive also heard horror stories about the gigabyte and the epox. Cant find anything about the enmic though. Jeez, i love AMD but this is crazy, it makes me want to go with intel. If anyone has any good motherboard recommendations for my specs I would really like to know. I want a very stable system that can get very high frame rates. I have a max budget of around 1400. Ive already got a monitor so i dont have to worry about that. If there are mobos that support PC 3000 ram that run great i would really like to know about them. Please help.
Thanx

 

[Rebe7254]

Where have you heard "horror stories" about that Asus board? I'd kinda like to know because I just put it on my system!

 

[BigBiggist]

Aint it great.

I have just read user reviews and stuff. Although it has gotten great benchmarks, I have heard that it is a pain to get those benchmarks to perform.
Im lookin at the A7V333 board and people are saying that they are having trouble with the RAID detection on some boards and they are also saying not to go with any creative sound card.
I read a review on pricegrabber and a guy said he lost 600 pts on his benchmarks when he upgraded to a A7V333. He also said he cant change the IRQ's. Another guy said he had serious power problems with a recommended power supply. He used recommened everything and it was very slow. He switched to gigabyte and it was fine.
ANother guy who gave it good reviews said he hasnt had any "real" problems yet. Yeah right, he said he had sound issues with configuring the onboard audio. He said that it could be easily fixed. I dont know though. I am new at building comps so I am probably being over cautious. I was recommended to use this board or an Epox board.
I hope they were right.

 

[SammyBoy]

Hrm... I personally would rather go with any other chipset solution than a VIA. The VIA+SBAudigy is currently being blamed for frequent Morrowind crashes, as that is the only common thread for anything more than the bad coding. While that in itself doesn't incriminate VIA of anything, since it's still happening with later chipset revisions and the newest SB line, one can assume that either there is something going wrong in the pipeline. I personally use the ALi chipset, its rock stable, and the IWill XP333 rev 2.1 that's in the system I built for my friend is problem-free. That and I like to root for the underdog!

-SammyBoy

 

[BigBiggist]

Thanx,

Maybe an audigy would be better with an ali chipset. My old comp is a thunderbird 1133 built around an Iwill KT266, whatever that is, VIA? I have a sound blaster live and the stupid thing is a pain. THe damned drivers get corrupt like there is no tommorrow and it sometimes decides it would like to crash. I am impressed with the rest of the Iwill, it is very stable. I just want a very fast and stable comp. Mainly for online gaming with high graphics, my old Voodoo 3 isnt cuttin it.and burning MP3's and listening to music. ALso for a school comp for college and stuff.

 

[Rebe7254]

Well, I don't know what any of that stuff means. Oh well, it's working fine for me so far so I'll just wait and see. By the way, I have a question in the Graphics Cards forum if anybody would like to go over there and help. Thx, later!

 

[Matisaro]

Get the abit-kr7 raid, best mobo for the amd chip imo.

The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark

 

[slickstaa]

i thot u were using the turtle beach santa cruz....so you wouldn't have to deal with the headaches of an audigy

 

[AMD_Man]

The EPOX 8K3A+ is currently the best overclocker if anyone is interested.

<b><i>"A penny saved is a penny earned!"</i></b>

 

[juin]

personnaly

bad cpu
bad gpu
bad HHD
bad mobo anyway all mobo suck on amd platform

cheap, cheap. Think cheap, and you'll always be cheap.AMD version of semi conducteur industrie

 

[chuck232]

OoOoOoOoO..... That's pretty harsh. I personnally like AMD systems and I'm sure a lot of people here do also. Just cause you prefer Intel more, you don't have to go around beating people over the head for no reason.

My firewall tastes like burning.

 

[juin]

yes i prefer intel

But at lease dont buy a overclock cpu like XP 2100+.

A xp 1700 or 1800 offer good stock cpu performnace and a average overclocking.

geforce 4600 is big lose of cash.

cheap, cheap. Think cheap, and you'll always be cheap.AMD version of semi conducteur industrie

 

[lhgpoobaa]

ive got the epox 8k3a+
very nice board.
very fast with LOTS of overclocking options.

My Next Performance System!!! - P4 Celleron, 128k cache, SDRAM, Integrated graphics, 5400rpm HDD!

 

[rcj187]

the issues with the gigabyte have been addressed now. the 7vrxp is a nice board, a decent performer and gigabyte are known for being absolutely rock solid stable. also the dual bios may save your ass during a bad bios flash...
ive run 4 different gigabyte mobos so far with no real problems. ive had trouble with asus boards but no experience with the epox. the epox is supposedly a great overclocker but seeing as you are running an axp2100 i dont see you being able to overclock very much so i would stick with the gigabyte for stability and the dual bios. also you get onboard raid with the 7vrxp

I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message.

 

[chuck232]

Juin made a good point. Do you really need that GF4 Ti4600? It is basically pointless right now. An overclocked GF4 Ti4400 would do the trick nicely. Some people may say that a Ti4600 overclocked would do even better, but I have to say not by too much. With that extra ~$100 you could get some more RAM or just save it for your next video card.

My firewall tastes like burning.

 

[FatBurger]

Who is this "fatburger" guy I keep hearing about?

<font color=blue>Hi mom!</font color=blue>

 

[chuck232]

Yeah, I know. He's just so very helpful.

My firewall tastes like burning.