[LotusGT69]

i'm in process of buy a new computer. before i have bought from dell and gateway. this time i want to build my own. i'm looking for recommendation for a motherboard/cpu combo. my friend said p4's are sluggish??? i was looking at the athlon xp 2000 1.66ghz. is there anything faster other than a dual setup? what do u guy recommend for a brand name board with more than 3 pci, 4x agp, usb 2.0, ultra ata100 or 133 support for at least 512meg sdram or ddr (i don't know which is better). what else should i be looking for? please advise me.

thanks
lotus :p

[thymios]

It all depends on what you're indending to do with the new machine. You have to decide mainly between the three memory types(SDRAM, DDR, RDRAM) where there's a big difference in price.

I can't really advice you on a Athlon mobo since i never had one and i really don't know what to tell you, but if you're looking for a P4 CPU/mobo then you should really go for DDR or RDRAM solution.
Gigabyte's GA-8IDX and Intel's D850GB (both uses RDRAM) are mobo's that i tested and they are perfect.Stable and fast, they really worth their money.
I haven't tested a DDR memory based mobo for P4, but i am sure that other people that have already tried them will let you know of the good ones.

[Four and Twenty]

well here is my 2 cents
aviod amd/via like the plague
if you want a workstation get a dual p3 with the 840 or 815 or a server works chipset.
if you want a p4 get an 845d or 850

i rebuilt my computer in november and i opted for dual p3 over single p4. (both were about the same price) I have to say i am extremely happy with my decision. I do alot of photoshop and multitasking so a dual proc sys is much beter suited to me. I also play games from time to time. Games would run faster on a single p4 but they run plenty fast on my dual so i am happy.

as for motherboards here are the vendors i would recomend.
tyan
supermicro
asus

stay far far away from abit cause they suck.

[ThC 129]

Dont listen to Four and Twenty :p

If your looking for Athlon XP then go with the Abit-KR7a-133RAID, this is a sweet board for AMD systems

If your looking for P4 then go with the Asus DDR ram P4 chipset board. You can't go wrong with the stability of a P4 and Intel chipset. However you will end up paying for the Intel name, over the cheapness of the AMD systems.

As for DDR Ram, it is high now and will stay high for a while, all RAM is actually quite high right now, and might be going up so since this is a major system component, i would hold off on the system purchase until RAM starts coming down again. Also if your going to buy RAM make sure that all the RAM in the system is all from the same vendor. Ive tried mixing Kingston and Crucial and my board didnt like it much. I recommend Kingston and Crucial for RAM though, Kingston likes to overclock more than Crucial does though unless your getting CAS2 RAM.


Companies to go with:

Intel:
Asus
Kingston or Crucial

AMD:
Abit
Kingston or Crucial

I recommend abit because ive never had a single problem with my Kt7a. Ive also never had a problem with an Asus board.

[Brian Frank]

Abit's okay, but they have pretty shaky reliablility in my experience. Some work, some don't. I love Asus, but MSI and AOpen are good too. Tyan makes some pretty solid single CPU boards too, so long as you aren't looking to overclock.

My recommendations:
-For AMD: Asus A7V266-E, MSI K7T266 Pro2 (RU for RAID and USB 2.0), or the AOpen AK77 Pro/Plus(A).
-For the P4: Asus P4B266. Asus 0wn3rz j00!, Tyan Trinity 510.

I've had good luck with Via and would recommend them to you.
I hear that EPoX and Iwill are pretty good, but I can't speak from experience right now.

The one company I would steer clear of is FIC. I've never seen a solid board from them.

Samsung, Kingston, Crucial or Infineon memories: All good to me. I've had some trouble with PNY before. I haven't had them personally, but every user that's used OCZ memory, or other products in general, has been mightily pissed-off at the company.

[Klark]

LotusGT69, I'll first ask a very important question that everyone seems to have forgotten: Which OS are you planning on using ?? ...just because someone stumbled into this forum doesn't automatically make them a user of XP or 2000. If you're in love with Win9X, a recommendation to move into a dual-proc system is quite silly.

Also, for Mr.Four and Twenty to recommend you a dual-proc system without even having the slightest idea what you're going to do with this system, or what OS that you're familiar with...is a completely senseless recommendation. Not to mention his advice to stay away from amd/via/abit...I would expect more from a guy with 922 posts.

Just do what eveyrone else does: Which is purchase a board/cpu/ram combo from a well known company with a good reputation and you will be fine. Instead of spending countless hours listening to opinionated mumbo-jumbo, I would purchase something that you feel will work for you after a slight amount of research....Then, spend time researching and learning how to put it together properly. To base your purchases purely on someone elses bad experience isn't always the wisest thing to do. Far too many people with limited experience will purchase a combo and then bad mouth one of the manufacturers...merely because they were too lazy to figure out the exact problem with their hardware/software combination....Bad mouthing the manufacturer is much easier. To further that, I once spent WEEKS on and off the phone with Compaq engineers....only to find out that a specific server-level Compaq NIC we had purchased was TOTALLY incompatible with a certain combination of hardware and software that we were using. Nothing short of purchasing a new NIC would correct the problem....but we didn't bash Compaq because of the problem.

Anyway...sorry for the rant...but hopefully you get the point.

Good luck....

[Brian Frank]

Klark: 4&20 might be assuming about dual processors as this section of the forums is about Windows NT4/2K.;)

Dual CPU's are fun to have, but it's not something I'd be recommending if you want as least complex setup as possible.

You might also want to check out the NForce boards from Asus and MSI.

[Klark]

Agreed...

[ConQueso]

Quote:

You might also want to check out the NForce boards from Asus and MSI.

I agree. Integrated LAN, very impressive integrated sound, integrated GeForce2MX, it's a mobo with integrated components that don't suck (and if you want more, it's still got an AGP port).

If you want to know more, check out this link.

[LotusGT69]

yes sorry i forgot to mention. i only run NT OS's. i have three computers here at work running nt4 2000 and xp pro. this is going to be my home computer. mainly for games some graphics website stuff and cad, mastercam.

thanks
lotus

i currently have a dell 933 p3 with 512 ram and a geforce 2 gts 64meg ata 100. i like it but ghost recon plays a bit choppy when you crank all the settings to high.

Quote:

LotusGT69, I'll first ask a very important question that everyone seems to have forgotten: Which OS are you planning on using ?? ...just because someone stumbled into this forum doesn't automatically make them a user of XP or 2000. If you're in love with Win9X, a recommendation to move into a dual-proc system is quite silly.

Also, for Mr.Four and Twenty to recommend you a dual-proc system without even having the slightest idea what you're going to do with this system, or what OS that you're familiar with...is a completely senseless recommendation. Not to mention his advice to stay away from amd/via/abit...I would expect more from a guy with 922 posts.

Just do what eveyrone else does: Which is purchase a board/cpu/ram combo from a well known company with a good reputation and you will be fine. Instead of spending countless hours listening to opinionated mumbo-jumbo, I would purchase something that you feel will work for you after a slight amount of research....Then, spend time researching and learning how to put it together properly. To base your purchases purely on someone elses bad experience isn't always the wisest thing to do. Far too many people with limited experience will purchase a combo and then bad mouth one of the manufacturers...merely because they were too lazy to figure out the exact problem with their hardware/software combination....Bad mouthing the manufacturer is much easier. To further that, I once spent WEEKS on and off the phone with Compaq engineers....only to find out that a specific server-level Compaq NIC we had purchased was TOTALLY incompatible with a certain combination of hardware and software that we were using. Nothing short of purchasing a new NIC would correct the problem....but we didn't bash Compaq because of the problem.

Anyway...sorry for the rant...but hopefully you get the point.

Good luck....

:p

[Brian Frank]

I'd seriously just upgrade my video card instead of a new CPU/MB combo. The Radeon 8500 can be had for around $200, and it is a freakin' awesome card. I've used it before, and ATI has done a major turnaround in the driver development area.

[Palos]

Epox make good boards as well...rockstable, good features and can be overclocked to hell as well

As far as the whole combo, I would choose P4 (Northwood) + DDR Mobo.
I heard a good deal is the 1.6 GHz Northwood, it can be taken to 2 GHz easily, it's cheap and runs stable too.

As far as videocards, a good deal would be a GeForce 3 Ti200 with highspeed RAM (around 5ns, but no more). It can be overclocked from 175 (core) to 220 MHz, bringing it close to a Ti500 in performance.
The GF4 is too expensive at the moment, plus there are no games to make it shine yet. Even the GF3 still has support for DX7 and OGL 1.2, the only advanced core is the ATI Radeon 8500 with full DX8.1 and OGL 1.3 ICD support out of the box.

[ConQueso]

Quote:

...Even the GF3 still has support for DX7 and OGL 1.2, the only advanced core is the ATI Radeon 8500 with full DX8.1 and OGL 1.3 ICD support out of the box.

Of course the GeForce3 has support for DX7. So does the Radeon 8500. But the way it's stated above is slightly misleading. The GeForce3 core is advanced enough for Full DirectX 8.0 support. And which of the two's different features will be utilized most in future gaming? We'll have to wait and see.

[sapiens74]

Go Intel.

[videobruce]

Hell with Wintell........

Stop supporting a monopoly!

For the guy that said avoid Amd & Via, look around at all the enthusists sites, AMD and the Via KT266A chipset boards are the overclockers choice.

http://www.anandtech.com/searchresults.html?topic=2&action=listarticles

http://www6.tomshardware.com/mainboard/index.html

Those are probably the best sites for reviews.

[Brian Frank]

I'm not trying to start a war, but Anand and Tom are not the best anymore. There's a lot better sites out there, such as www.amdmb.com , www.2cpu.com , www.tbreak.com , and www.dansdata.com . For very indepth reviews, sure, Anand and Tom's are good, but Tom's especially has been sliding downhill.

I like Via and AMD, but I don't think at this point AMD is server-class material. Home and enthusiast material, yes, just not something for a server or other business-related stuff.

Currently, Intel is back for the overclocking with the 1.6A P4. People are hitting 2.1 to 2.4GHz easy with this chip. I know clutch is running his 1.6A at 2.4GHz. Intel isn't a monopoly. They still have to compete with AMD and the likes of Sun. Intel is a dominate force in the CPU market, but it's been because they've always done a quality job with their chips and chipsets---well for the most part.

For gaming and overclocking, I do prefer AMD. I understand that people don't like Via: Via has had major issues that affected a lot of people. Via's worked out well for me, but that doesn't mean the next guy is going to have a rosy experience with them.

[clutch]

AMD processors are nice, and I am just waiting for the nForce and SiS chipsets to mature a bit before picking up one. I have been burned too many times both directly and indirectly by Via to fiddle around with their chipsets anymore.