new machine (need some suggestions)

[salsaparrilha]

Hey there...
First of all, I'm new here.

I'm buying a new machine next week. I really like to know what you guys think of.

Here's the one:

Athlon XP 2.7ghz / SOYO SY-KT400 Dragon Ultra / 1024 DDR PC2700 / 80gb IBM / ATI Radeon 9700 Pro / Creative Audigy.

I work with video editing, print work and of course... games. Any suggestions/opinions?

Thanks a lot.

 

[Spitfire_x86]

For mobo, go for ASUS A7N8X Deluxe. It's better than KT400 mobos. And you don't need to buy Audigy, because it's onboard audio is better than Audigy

512 MB Kingston PC2700 CL2.5 DDR's are going for very cheap. Single 512 MB Kingston PC2700 CL2.5 stick costs only $59.00

DON'T buy a IBM HDD. I would go for 80 GB Western Digital Special Edition (7200 rpm, 8 MB buffer)

Submit your opinion <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/community/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=28537#28537" target="_new"> Should Tom Fire Omid? </A>

 

[Twitch]

Here's a suggestion. Scrap the Soyo KT400. It's a VIA chipset, and it is just not as powerful as boards with nVidia's nForce 2 chipset. For video editing, you will need all the throughput you can get, and nForce2 memory controller is the fastest way to go with AMD processors--bar none. It's also much better for games. nForce2-based motherboards are also very stable and have mature drivers. There really is no reason to go VIA, since nForce2 boards are not that much more expensive. I don't think you could find a person on this forum who would prefer the KT400 to ANY of the nForce boards.

That being said, MSI currently has the highest-performing motherboard utilizing nForce2, and they give you a nice software bundle. The MSI K7N2-L would be a great choice. ASUS is feature-packed and has very good performance, but has certain random problems that keep me from wanting to recommend it. The Abit NF7-S also has a very good reputation.

The only other thing I see is that your 80 GIG harddrive might be too small--depending on how much video editing you plan on doing and storing. Video eats up hard-drive space like almost nothing else. You might want to spend a little more on a bigger hard drive, or buy a second hard drive to store files on. And like the previous poster said, I would avoid IBM hard drives. Western Digital, Maxtor, or Seagate would be better choices. I would probably go with the WD myself.

You choice of graphics cards is perfect. I think the Audigy is a good sound card, though there are Creative bashers who will tell you differently. You MIGHT consider Audigy 2, but I can see how the price difference may be prohibitive.


<-----Insert witty sig line here.


<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Twitch on 03/15/03 07:04 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Crashman]

I wouldn't buy anything from Soyo, I had 6 problems last year with the company not honoring their warranty, and that was 6 out of 7. The 7th one resulted in them telling me that I had to pay a $15 handling fee on my "free" warranty repair.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[Willamette_sucks]

First off just to let you know, that Athlon is not 2.7 ghz, its a 2700+ which runs at 2.17 ghz. The reason they call it a 2700+ is because, on average, it performs about as well as a 2.7ghz pentium 4. (id say its more like a 2.8 in most things).
neways, yes, definatley get an nForce 2 board. Brand dosnt matter too much, just make sure you get the SPP (northbridge) and MCP-T (southbridge) chipset combination. Having the SPP northbridge means there is not a built in graphics accelerator (lame), u just pop in ur radeon in the agp slot. and the mcp-t means you get dolby digital surround sound (1337) and serial ata and dual lan and junk.

Secondly i recommend you wait for the radeon 9800 pro.
Im not sure what brand 9700 you were planning on, or how much you were going to spend on it, but by the beginning of next month youll see 9800 pros for sale, and theyll be $399 (you can pre-order right now infact).
IBMs r fine, but i agree you might want to go with a 120gb if youre doing video editing/3d animation.
if you scrap the audigy and get an nforce 2 board that would pay for the 9800 pro difference and mobo difference right away, so go for it!

Long live ATI.

 

[salsaparrilha]

Thanks a lot for your help guys!

nForce 2 it is! =)
Oh, and I'm taking the 200gb Western Digital 7200 8mb too.

ps: I really would like to wait the Radeon 9800 but I really need a machine right now. I think ATI's gonna wait for me this time.

Thanks again!