component suggestions

[Donkey]

hi folks!

Not been here much recently (too busy at work) but i knew that you guys would answer a few questions so i am making time to post this.

ANyway, have been asked by my girlfriends boss (so needs to be good advice) to suggest bits for a new PC. He was wanting a P4 so i have already persuaded him to go athlon but i've not done one before so am not 100# sure of the best bits etc.

Wanted around a 1-1.2 Ghz athlon, should i go 266Mhz FSB or 200? if 266 does that just take normal ram or does it need DDR? and ayone suggest a good mobo, want stability instead of overclockability, nothing on board and not necessary to be the top of the range doesn't want to spend a fortune?

any suggestiong welcomed.
Rod

[Thud]

If he's going AMD, he should probably go with the newer XP processors. The lower range (1500+ to 1700+) are not much more than the T-Birds they replaced, and are faster and cooler running. They all run at 266, btw.

I'd recommend a board based on the VIA KT266A chipset. It's stable, fast, and is quite overclockable. Here's a selection of 266A boards form Newegg to check out: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...it=motherboard

Hopefully that'll get you started. Any more questions, just ask!

[lost]

I agree with what Thud said. I like msi motherboards, they work well for me.

[newbie~wan]

No, you dont have to use ddr ram w/ athlon processors. The fsb of the processor (133 at ddr = 266) operates independently of the memory bus (133 at single rate or ddr) so the slower memory will not "hamper" the cpu per se.

If you really want to impress him w/ a high performance PC at a dirt cheap price, you might want to go with the sdram insted of the ddr. I think sdram boards are cheaper and the ddr ram only boots performance 10-20% on average. So I suppose if it were a question of 512mb sdram vs. 256mb ddr ram, choose the larger quantity of sdram hands down.

[Thud]

Newbie~wan has a point. RAM prices have gone up a lot here recently, especially on DDR. You ought to do some price comparisons between a DDR system and a SDRAM system, and see which would be more to his wallet's liking.

Even though DDR is still more pricey, most DDR boards still offer greater upgrade overhead than the ones using SDRAM. Actually, it seems to me that support for most SDRAM based AMD boards has gone the way of the dodo, with emphasis now being placed on the DDR based boards. But that's just MHO.

Are you building the entire system, or does he already have some legacy stuff he's going to use? I'd go with a new XP chip and an ABIT KR7 board if you want to go DDR. Very versatile and seemingly stable board. I haven't read many reviews on the other VIA boards though. My 2 bits.

-Whir

[ryogenetic]

Just to plus up some more options. The Epox 8KHA+ is a good board and it has the VIA KT266a for DDR @1600 or 2100. The mobo is a stable platform and can be tweaked easily. For expandibility 6 PCI and 1 AGP also has on board ac97,1p, 2s, ps2 ms and kd, a game and midi port. The kicker is 3 dimms only support 1.5gb of ram.

RYO

[DanU]

Before you run out and buy stuff, you need to ask your GF's boss what he wants to do with the computer? I'm guessing that 99% of the time he's going to run office apps (please correct me if I'm wrong, since most bosses aren't heavily into computer games). For these computers, a fast hard drive will make the most impact. Get at least a 7200RPM HD. If he can afford it, get a mobo with IDE RAID and a pair of 7200RPM HD's (I'm bending your "nothing on-board" rule).

RAM is going up in price, but it's still not that bad. A 512MB DDR DIMM is $40 more expensive than an SDR DIMM at newegg. Hmmm.... most bosses can afford a $40 difference so I'd go with DDR.

The EPOX 8K7A+ has got both DDR and RAID and only cost $105 at newegg. The downside is only two DDR slots. If you don't want RAID, then ryogenetic's recommendation, the 8KHA+, is good.

[storm2k]

dan... i disagree. if all he is going to do is work in office apps or surf the net, a single 5400 rpm drive will fit the bill just fine... the performance drop is not large enough when doing basic computer stuff to really justify a totally fast drive or a raid setup.

Indeed. The only time I notice my RAID performance increase is when I'm doing some serious crunching in AutoCAD. Day to day stuff is still normal. Sometimes slower since the controller has to rebuild all your data before you get it. Not noticebly though.


-Whir