New Mobo/CPU Advice (Old SMP for sale...)

[Gurm]

Folks,

In order to preserve family harmony, I'm downgrading (!) from SMP to single-chip... to solve audio problems, as well as enable all our Sony accessories (camera stuff, etc.) which UTTERLY fails to run in SMP.

At any rate, I'm ditching the MSI 694DPro-AIR with Full RAID mod, and the twin retail 700's (that WILL run at 933 with better fans, hehe)... and don't know what to go with.

I'm thinking Athlon, just because I can get a hella fast one cheaper than a P4 (and P4's suck). But what chipset, what board, and what chip to put on the board? I don't know anything about Athlon cores... or Athlons in general.

HELP ME!

- Gurm

[2Whyzzi]

Ugh... how to decide?

I agree with you on the Athlon platform, the P4 (although priced competitively) just doesn't fit as a nice solution...

Unless (since you talked about cameras 'n all) your main plan is to do video editing (ie mpeg 4) where memory bandwith is key.

Using a SoundBlaster? I'm sure you're familiar with VIA's well reported issues with thier chipsets. Anyone know if there are any with the others? SiS, AMD 76x, and ALI?

Then there is the AGP compatibility, specific to the manufacturer of the chipset.

Me? I would wait until maybe christmas, and investigate new chipsets from VIA (reports on the net about the KT266A looks good), nvidia and who knows maybe even ATi.

Best of luck in whatever you choose.

[Gurm]

Ahh, thank you.

However, you're kind of missing the "want to make the machine usable ASAP" concept here. No offense intended.

Sound Blaster? Well, no. Not at the moment. Right now I have a TB Santa Cruz and a Hercules Game Theater XP. Neither performs adequately in SMP mode (games warble).

So yeah, I might head back to the SB Live!, or the Audigy. But... the problems with VIA are easily rectified.

- Gurm

[Reverend Maynard]

I would recommend a T-Bird over a P4 any day. But if you go Athlon you have to decide whether you want a DDR board or an SDRAM board.

I personally opted for an SDRAM board because I had ALOT of SDRAM lying about the house.

As far as the whole VIA/SB issue, I never ran into a problem. I only had my SBLive gamer in there for a couple weeks, but it never caused any harm.

If you decide to go with SDRAM, all I can say is my IWILL KK266-R is a fantastic board. As far as DDR boards go, I haven't used any first hand, but I wouldn't hesitate to go with a board using the AMD 760 chipset (I have heard tell the VIA DDR boards are ever so slightly slower at this point).

[DentyCracker]

EPOX EP-8K7A AMD 761 CHIPSET ULTRA ATA100 ATX FORM FACTOR 1xAGP(4X)/6xPCI/2xDDR W/AC97 AUDIO Detail Specs (CPU TYPE:AMD DURON, ATHLON) $120.00 (mwave.com)

AMD THUNDERBIRD K7 1400MHZ(1.4GHZ) 266MHZ 3D OEM W/O COOLING FAN (1 YEAR WARRANTY) Detail Specs | Important Installation Info $125.00 (mwave.com)

256MB DDR PC2100, 184-pin DIMM More info $35.99 (Crucial.com)

Millennium Glaciator
99.99% Pure Copper Socket A Heatsink, Out-perform most Socket A Heatsink on the Market today without the noise!! $32.00 (pcnut.com)

[SteveC]

Yep - I have the Epox 8K7A+ (RAIDy version) and I highly recommend it!

[The PIT]

Via problems easily solved. Not if you've got a very bad board.
I've got a Epox 8kha and this is very nice no crashes as yet but then after my experiances with the Abit I had I could be waiting for weeks before it goes belly up.
Depending on whos doing the testing, the problems seem just related to Via and sblive or the sblive and any motherboard chipset. It's worth having a dig around the viahardware forums.

[Technoid]

I can only recomend the MSI K7T Turbo -R at the moment. (ViaKT133A)
Built in Promise raid.
Not the fastest (dif is les than 1%) but definitly the most stable....

and: MSI actualy states that it suports the Palomino!

And no problems whatsoever with the SBlive and W2K...

So your turtle beach would probably thrive...

[PeTe]

Why settle anything less than a DUAL AMD. =)

Read about the test with dual 1G Durons in here:

http://www.amdworld.co.uk/tytiger.htm

No Via problems, AMD allthe way.

PeTe

[Gurm]

Pete,

Nice thought, but I can't have SMP any more... too many driver hassles.

- Gurm

[Jammrock]

What you need is a Tyan Tiger MP and an 1.4 GHz Athlon. This way you get a fast CPU and have the option of upgrading to SMP in the future, should you decide to play with again. In addition you'll get the new AMD 760 chipset on both the north and south bridge, to reduce any incompatibility problems. Load it up with 1 GB of Crucial DDR2100, it'll only run you $145.

Since you'll have 4 x 64-bit PCI slots, you can have some real fun. Slap in an Adaptec SCSI RAID 3140S. Then slap in 2 x 73 GB Seagate Cheetah 73LP, 10000 RPM drives in a RAID 1 mirror set for the OS and applications, and 3 x 36 GB Seagate Cheetah x15, 15000 RPM, Ultra 160 SCSI drives in a nice RAID 5. You can put your games, video editing and FTP stuff on this set.

Then throw in a couple of 3COM 3CR990-SVR97's. Each card will offload quite a bit of your TCP/excryption work off the CPU, so you can play games online with minimal hit due to network traffic generation from your NIC, FTP and proxy (for the rest of your computers). Then throw in SOund Blaster Audigy Platinum eX. Now I know you're thinking, "I've got 3 other cards..." but with the PeX you get 2 IEEE 1394 firewaire ports, easy access to your connectors for you Sony stuff and remote control.

To compliment your new high end consumer sound card, you can pick up a set of Klipsch ProMedia 5.1's. Since the Audigy has 5.1 outputs, there's no need for an external decoder and you don't haft to lug your computer to you home theater to get killer sound.

Now for the big problem...paying for it.

Jammrock

[Gurm]

Compromise...

The Tiger MP board, at least one MP chip...

I'll keep my Altec 880's, go for the Audigy MP3+ for starters, and keep the IBM hard drives.

Whaddya think?

- Gurm

P.S. 'Course, still need to find someone to take my old rig off my hands.

[KvHagedorn]

Hold out for a bit.. the 1.53GHz Athlon MP is gonna be out in a couple of weeks.