Help me buy a computer

[kickster]

I have decided to buy a new PC. I am a little confused about the new systems out there. I have checked many web sites and
talked to people however, I have not received any worthy advise.

I have decided to buy a
P III 600
Asus BX Mother board
128 ram
20 Gig (7200) IBM HD
52 x creative CD
Live 256 sound card
ATI 128 16 video card.

My concern is with the latest CPU and mother boards. It seems that Both Intel and AMD have released their CPU without any
reliable chip set
for the MB. BX is old technology but it is stable. The new VIA chip set is
not recommended by "tomshardware" and the Asus 2000 mother board with intel 820 CS is extremely unstable.

K7 CPUs also dont have any reliable mother boards.

What do you think I should do? Get a reliable old BX MB that can only support up to 600. Or get a unreliable intel 820 MB or
get a K7 CPU
(I am not sure how good they are.)

Any advise is most appreciated.

[Justin]

Go with BX - I have an Asus P3B-F board that supports up to an 850 with up to a gig of RAM (not sure where you heard the 600 rule at)... It's currently running my 450 clocked to 558 and it's as stable as I could possible ask :)[nbsp][nbsp]It's been a few weeks since I've rebooted...

Athlons themselves aren't stable unless you put some serious cooling on them (anything > 500 MHz). We made an Athlon 800 overheat by playing Unreal Tournament - and this was a stock system, with no modifications, overclocking, or anything... This is why an Athlon system requires a 300 Watt power supply...

At any rate, the ability to go as high as 850 should do for a while - I won't be upgrading for quite some time I hope... I have enough junk computers (that were each the best I could afford at the time) and I already have one PIII board in the closet... ;)

Anyway, I'd go with Asus or Abit for the board, Intel for the CPU, and any good PC_100 or PC_133 RAM (128 megs minimum), Windows 2000, and a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus (7200 RPM), Quantum, or IBM Deskstar drive. Oh, I'd also stay away from any Creative product (sound blaster, CD drive, etc) but that's just me...

------------------
Justin Nelson
FutureQuest (http://www.FutureQuest.net/index.php) Support

[SonnetCelestial]

lol, Seems like you're an unreal fanatic...err I mean FAN.[nbsp][nbsp]If you see the name Azhrei anytime on the web it's my boyfriend.[nbsp][nbsp]Right after work, almost like clockwork, he would plop[nbsp][nbsp]himself in front of the computer and start blowing things up.[nbsp][nbsp]He *really* should feel lucky I'm much more lenient than other girls about men's addictive gaming habits...[nbsp][nbsp]And by the way, how on EARTH do any of you gamers not get motion sickness?[nbsp][nbsp]I like playing games too but the way they make 3d games today are way too realistic for me.[nbsp][nbsp]I turn around to blow off someone's head but after that I only feel like blowing chunks.[nbsp][nbsp]I can't believe he and his roommate lasted 7 hours one night...[nbsp][nbsp]I literally had to peel him away from his seat so he wouldn't puke from his dizziness.[nbsp][nbsp]*sigh*

In any case, I have got to go to bed now.[nbsp][nbsp]My latest achievement was finding out more about mugu.org and other java based RPG muck/mud clients.[nbsp][nbsp]My bf's achievement...[nbsp][nbsp]beating xam to a pulp and getting to bed before 2am.[nbsp][nbsp]Are all programmers like this??

[kickster]

Thanks Justin for the reply.

I was wondering, Is it possible to add a 133 ram in a BX mother board?
P3B F is running at 100 bus speed!!

My other question:[nbsp][nbsp]Is VIA boards at 133 with a 533 intel CPU any faster than regular 550 CPU at 100 MHZ?

thanks

[Justin]

The P3B-F will run at 133 MHz bus or faster. You can also run 133 MHz ram slower (in fact I think you can run it as slow as you like). The reason I would go with 133 is for overclocking. I'm running my 100 MHz RAM at 124, which gives me the 558 clock speed (the P3B-F is basically an overclocker's board - no jumpers necessary. You can bump the FSB and the CPU voltage from the BIOS :))

As far as running 133 vs 100, I doubt you will see any real performance difference for a given CPU speed. I prefer CPUs which use a 100 MHz bus only because they are really easy to overclock (provided you have enough fans - I have a total of seven fans in my PIII system).

For the non-overclocker, I'd go with a CPU that runs 100 MHz bus, and use 100 MHz RAM only because it's less expensive and unnecessary to go any higher. For the overclocker, get a 100 MHz bus CPU, 133 MHz RAM, and a board that will let you overclock :)

All in all I've been extremely happy with the Asus board. I've overclocked systems before, but I've never had this much stability out of one... Intel CPUs can almost always be overclocked (where AMDs are rated and sold at close to their absolute limits - always has been like that).

As for Unreal, I wouldn't say I'm a fanatic - I just got it a few days ago... but I do love my Voodoo3 3000 video card, coupled with the PIII and the Turtle Beach Monego II sound card... I suppose this system would make a suitable gaming system, but I rarely find the time to sit and play games... The only thing I need is more RAM (128 is simply not enough)...

PS - if I had 133 MHz RAM, I could most likely get this thing up to 600 MHz - but I doubt there would be enough difference to even notice (it would only be a 42 MHz jump), plus it may not be quite as stable as it is now...

------------------
Justin Nelson
FutureQuest (http://www.FutureQuest.net/index.php) Support
[This message has been edited by Justin (edited 05-05-00@2:46 pm)]

[kickster]

Justin

What about the short coming of BX mother board when it comes to
IDE control and AGP.[nbsp][nbsp]Asus BX board has 2x AGP and accepts u33 HD.

Is there a big speed gain by using a 4x AGP and u66 compare to u33?

[Justin]

Hm, I wasn't really aware of those shortcomings - I don't use AGP in my Windows box at the moment - running a Voodoo3 2000 and a Voodoo3 3000 card, both PCI. Thus far I haven't seen a need to go AGP (the AGP card in my car box is a waste of an AGP port IMO - would probably do just as well as an ISA card)...

But besides that, I have a slot fan (4" squirrel cage fan) in the AGP opening, mainly because it's directly under the CPU. Without it, the CPU can get quite hot, so I'd rather use PCI video and keep the fan there :)[nbsp][nbsp]Playing Unreal Tournament or Quake III, I have yet to see any need for AGP - I get upwards of 50 to 70 FPS, at 1024 x 768 True Color, and I have yet to notice any (perceptable) dropped frames... On top of that, the Voodoo3 cards in PCI and AGP types are pretty much identical in performance (except the AGP 3000 has a composite video out).

As for the UDMA, I do agree, but I'm running a Maxtor DiamondMax 5400 RPM drive, so I don't think I'd notice the difference. Oddly enough, the car system has a Maxtor 7200 RPM drive, which is ATA66, and the Gigabyte board in it (Super Socket-7) fully supports it, though it's AGP port is also 2x...

I guess it depends on what features you need - for me the Asus is perfect, as the (unused) AGP slot happens to be in the perfect location for a fan right under the CPU (and there's another identical fan under the video cards), and I've found it to be extremely stable. Going on almost a month without a reboot...

------------------
Justin Nelson
FutureQuest (http://www.FutureQuest.net/index.php) Support

[Daniel]

If you want agp 4x and ata66 check out the Via133a boards, check more reviews, I'm not too keen on Tom's to begin with, www.anandtech.com (http://www.anandtech.com) has a load of motherboard reviews.
Abit boards of the past have been real good, I had a bh6 for awhile and overclocked everything under the sun on it but I'm hearing many of the new ones are having quality issues, and abit charges you 25 dollars to rma a damaged board even under warrenty.
If you want a Bx board, check out the MSI BxMaster, and other msi boards are real good, the Soyo 6ba +IV has onboard ata66 I believe too, although ata33 to ata66 isn't really a big deal at all. Asus is high quality too.
With the p3-600, you can get either a katmai or coppermine chip, and 2 flavors of coppermine too so see what what you want and make sure you get the right one.
good luck,
Daniel

[Daniel]

I was under the impression you were building it, if you are planning on buying one just let me know I have contacts with a few real good system builders I can put you in contact with if you are interested.
thanks,
Daniel
daniel@soho-news.com

[kickster]

I am buying the parts and build it up myself. I just have problem deciding on the board.

The new mother boards such as 810 chipset and 820 have problems. I have two real choices. BX or VIA[nbsp][nbsp]BX is old technology but a proven one so I am sure it will be stable. VIA mother boards such as Asus 133A have U66 and 4x AGP but tomshardware bench mark shows that BX (100) with
2X AGP out perform the VIA (133)[nbsp][nbsp]board. and the U66 proved to be slower than BX u33!!!
So I dont think I have any choice than going with BX board.

[Daniel]

Well then it seems like you have made up your mind to go with a BX anyway, I would check the newer tests of the via133a and some places other than tomshardware, but if you aren't planning on overclocking or anything then there really isn't anything wrong with a BX, a via starts to shine more in the higher extremes of overclocking with a 1/2 agp divider and the asynch memory timing but that would be irrelevant.