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New system...guidance seeked.

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  • CPUs
  • Intel
Last response: in CPUs
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November 22, 2002 11:09:52 AM

Hey all,

Building a new system, just wanted to use the folks here as a bit of a sounding board, get a few opinions, suggestions, etc.

Am upgrading from a Cyrix 133, so *anything* will be an improvement. However, I am undecided about a few things, such as... AMD or Intel? I intend to do a lot of music mixing and raw synthesis, the usual (office), and scarce little gaming.

If I go Intel, is RDRAM or DDR SDRAM the better way to do? I know RDRAM seems to be dead on Intel's roadmap for the home market, but I hear it's the best for squeezing every last drop of performance out of the P4 architecture, at least bandwidth-wise (have heard about the latency issues).

Mobo suggestions... need some. I see s**tloads of reviews and whatnot on the web, but gut instinct tells me those are hand-picked samples... I would appreciate input from people on personal experience, but I am mainly concerned with long-term reliability first, followed by speed, and don't really care at all for overclocking. Particularly with Intel/RDRAM combination systems, which is lingering as my preference at the moment.

I sincerely appreciate any input anyone has, be it just general experience to full tech-specs and so-forth. I get to do one upgrade every five years on my budget... hence, I'm taking this seriously. I don't want any BS posts about who produces the better processor and why... just reliability and stability, because both factions, as I can see, have their pros and cons.

Cheers,

Ozzie

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I plugged my ram into my motherboard, but unplugged it when I smelled cooked mutton.

More about : system guidance seeked

November 22, 2002 1:53:32 PM

seeked = sought =)

perhaps an nforce2 mobo with ddr 333 and the athlon xp of your choice? make sure to get the integrated graphics motherboard, that'll be a money saver
<A HREF="http://www6.tomshardware.com/mainboard/02q4/021111/inde..." target="_new">see this link</A>

to me this is a great setup for you, it's cheap and will perform well for what you need
November 22, 2002 2:01:25 PM

hi

On AMD side would recommend an Nforce 2 based mobo and (preferebly) a 2600+ with 333Mhz FSB, put in 2 sticks of ddr 333 cas 2 (same size and brand and so on to use the dual channel setup)

On the intel side its a little more difficult. WHY? RDRAM will probably be pushed out of the market, its replacement will be dual channel ddr, teh first mobo using this will his board will use ddr 266 (pc 2100) giving a memory badwidth of 4.2gb (same as rdram). Tests show that performance is as good as equal but these were based on prototype mobos so dual ddr seems promising. The intel roadmap on chipsets shows that rdram will be replaced permanently in Q4 2003 by the springdale chipset.

So i would like to ask you, what do you want to spend and when do you want to buy your system because 'for the moment' this is pretty important if you say that you buy a system every 5 years then you have to watch out for a tech that will keep support (rdram does not exactly seem to be one).

Remember the time You used 20Mb harddrives
November 22, 2002 11:11:54 PM

Thanks ITblue and Wschuerm, the input is appreciated. I have been looking at RDRAM, and have noticed that support for it has been dwindling away... I think I may have to look at the Nforce 2 chipsets, unless there are dual-channel options for P4 that are coming out sometime this December... in Australia. Will wait and see.

Thanks again.



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I plugged my ram into my motherboard, but unplugged it when I smelled cooked mutton.
!