first time builder.

[lacey69]

This is going to be my first attempt at building a computer so I need some feedback, First I'm thinking of starting off with a SOYO K7VTA-PRO V Motherboard that comes with a Athlon 2200+ cpu processor speed 1.8GHz, The motherboard has three slots for memory (SDRAM) up to 1.5 GB and five pci slots I'm keeping in mind that in the future I might want to upgrade. All this for $120.

My question concerns some things I have noticed such as DDR SDRAM memory and SDRAM, what type of memory is the best ?

Next I noticed that in some motherboards the bus speed reads 266MHz and another might say 266MHz FSB what's the difference?

My computer will be used to surf the net, Play video games, Download data from the net, And take over the world...
Any help will be appreciated, Thanks

[tony_j15]

No computer will be able to take over the world unless its using DDR. I would reccomend skipping that mobo for one that supports DDR. BTW, what is your total budget figure?

[John Prophet]

DDR is newer..it is "double data rate" as compared to sdram.

Dont even mess with sdram...it would be like driving with the parking brake on.


"bus speed" and fsb are the same thing. fsb= "front side bus"

Its rather complicated to talk about fsb and all that. I was looking for a link but cant find one.

look around at www.anandtech.com or www.tomshardware.com and they will have some nice articles explaining that stuff.

[lacey69]

I would say my budget is around $300. I have a computer now but I would like to gut it and rebuild using a new mobo. Now when you say DDR is that just plain DDR or DDR SDRAM?

[Martoch]

This is a no-brainer...one more vote for another board that supports DDR memory.

[John Prophet]

ddr IS the same as ddr sdram.

look at it like this..you have sdram then you have ddr sdram. DDR for short.

DDR is just a newer version of sdram.

[lacey69]

OK I will go with DDR I found a mobo that has DDR and can handle up to 3 GB of memory thats twice as much as the mobo I first had in mind with SDRAM, And it's the same price.
I just hope it will be powerfull enough

[washe]

post the new motherboard, to make sure you dont get a lemon.....

[Starfury_2260]

if you're going to use winxp get at least 512mb of ram. i'm not sure what else to suggest. i just built a system but i was working with a larger budget (~800)

[lacey69]