Building new PC and need advice on processor/MB/video

[jspenc3]

Ok, I'm looking to build a new system and need a few q's answered. This has probably been answered before but will be good to get it in one spot...

Which processor to use? (Celery or Duron)
Which motherboard to use?
Which vidcard? (need good DVD support...Stay with matrox G400 or go to NVida)

Looking to keep the costs down but need stability and compatibility too...(Naturally)

Thanks for any help!


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-Jay

[ayoub_ibrahim]

will you be starting from scratch ie with a clean sheet or do you intend to use some of your "old gear" in new rig thus narrowing your options?

[SteveC]

personally, I'd say go for an Abit mainboard with a Celeron II. And for DVD, there is no choice but a G400MAX. (Or buy a proper standalone DVD player - I recommend Sony)

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Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[Pace]

I'm building a couple of PCs at the moment - one for a friend and hopefully one for me!

My friend is looking for a fast, yet reliable home-multimedia system. So I've went with a Super Micro 370SSM board (i815e chipset) and Celeron 633. The full system along with HP 710c, HP 4300c Scanner and high quality software budle came to £950. Excluding the software, printer and scanner bundle I think would bring this under £600. The rest of the system was a 15" monitor, 64Mb, 15Gb, reasonable speakers, intellimouse and a CD drive.

My system is probably going to be an Abit BX133 RAID, P3-700@933, 256Mb PC133 and another 30Gb IBM. This will go well with my Pioneer 16x DVD, 19" Iiyama VM-Pro 450, TNT2 , 30Gb IBM 75GXP, 20Gb IBM 25GP, SBLive! and Yamaha 16x6x4x CDRW. After that it'll be a G800 leaving me with a cracking system for another couple of years (I've had my P2-350 for just over 2 years now - some upgrades including upto 256Mb PC100 and the 2 hard drives and I've also bought a TNT2 to replace my G200 ).

A Duron will offer much lower costs along with a SoA motherboard will offer high performance - but I'd personally never buy a VIA motherboard! Rags will disagree though but we all have our opinions!

Paul.

Edit: I certainly wouldn't replace the G400 if you plan on using DVDs though - DO NOT go with NVIDIA! Listen to me and Steve! (as well as every other person on this board )

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[This message has been edited by Pace (edited 22 September 2000).]

[DentyCracker]

IN-Win Q500 Case
Abit KT7 RAID
Duron 700
ATTech CM25 NEW
Solid Copper heatsink and a tube of the silver heat sink paste for small contact areas
128 MB of Crucial 7E spec SDRAM (7.5 ns CAS2)
G400 32 MB DH
(hehe I have all that except for the HSF and heat sink compound, and a KT7 no RAID )
I have my Duron running at 800 MHz stably for a little while now at stock voltage. It's a week 32 "pencil unlocked" Duron with a POS HSF. Getting the above HSF and ailver heat sink compound soon, going to go for 900. Have run at 850 with current setup for short periods of time, seems stable enuff

[This message has been edited by DentyCracker (edited 23 September 2000).]

[paulcs]

I like Denty's platform choices, although if you don't need the RAID function, the non-RAID board is cheaper. I've found Crucial/Micron to be a very good company to deal with, and they just despise Rambus.

I think the G400 is a solid DVD board, although we all know Matrox has something up their sleeves. The G800 could be a big all around improvement. ATI does DVD particularly well--I think better than anyone--although the driver support has been terrible in the past. I don't think this is NVIDIA's strong suit, so I'm going to echo what people are saying here.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 23 September 2000).]

[jspenc3]

Thanks for all the advise guys. I've been watching this board since I got my G400 7 months ago and it's kept me current on what's happening in the hardware world...

As for my system, it's from scratch (for my Dad). I was leaning toward the Duron 700 or 750 (better price) but knew the VIA stuff could be a problem. Was hoping they had pretty much ironed it out... I don't need RAID or anything, just a stable system. Probably won't OC unless it is easy and foolproof...

For the video guess it's down to G400 or an ATI Radon. He's not a hard core gamer and price is very important so it's probably the G400, just don't want to buy something that is on the way out...


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-Jay

[Grego]

I have been running my system rock solid for more than a month now, not one little problem, so if you were to buy the ASUS a7v with a via chipset u would get a very good mobo with no problems attached

Jesper

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System:
Asus A7V rev. 1.01b
AMD Thunderbird 800@800
SBLive retail with liveware 3.0
Matrox g400 MAX
LG Flatron 795FT 17# monitor
IBM 13.5 GB 7200 hdd
Pioneer 103-s dvdrom
Win98 2nd edition
directx 7.0a
128mb pc133 cas2 Memory Card Technology

[birdy]

If you are starting from scratch then i would try an overclockers uk duron 750 garanteed to 1ghz. they also do a 950 and cellys to 900. I have used them alot and found them to be good to their word. My 600 was gteed to 800 and it runs fine at 860+. Check them out
www.overclockers.co.uk

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1st system

Coppermine 600E @ 828mhz (138mhz FSB). Globalwin HSF (the hooge one with the air duct set to blow cold air in)Abit Bf6.256mb Winbond pc133, USR Message Modem external, SB Live!, Maxtor Diamond Max 30GB!!@ 7200rpm, Quantum 850mb HDD, Promise UDMA66, G400 @ max settings,Hitachi GD5000 DVD (region locked, what a bitch)3Com 10/100 PCI NIC. Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer USB. Win98/w2k Dual boot. All wrapped up in Songcheer Super wide with loads of fans and 2 PSUs. Belinea 10 30 40 17" monitor, FPS100 sound system, Cyborg 2000 joystick, Genius Netmouse Pro and generic keyboard.


8 Port hub

2nd system

Celly 333 @ 500mhz, Abit BX6r2 @100mhz, 192mb pc133, 10GB fujitsu HDD, Adaptec 2940 SCSI card, Plextor 40 speed SCSI CD, Yamaha 8x4x24 SCSI CDRW, pioneer dvd104s, hollywood plus dvd card, All In Wonder pro 4MB, 2xVoodoo 2 12MB SLI, SB16 pro, 3Com 10/100 PCI NIC, 15in Dell Monitor, epson 460 stylus printer, genius vivid pro 2 scanner. Generic keyboard, 3d program pad, A4 cordless mouse, unnamed super midi tower ATX,300Watt PSU (original went bang)

[Alfie]

Duron 600@945mhz
Asus A7v motherboard.
The Duron is by far a better cpu than the Celeron,and is cheaper to boot!
The Socket A motherboards with the kt133 chipset are pretty solid.
The Asus A7V motherboard and the Abit Socket A head the list.
If you plan to overclock these 2 are the # 1
choices.
If you plan to run at stock speed,all the major players (MSI,Soltek,Fic Soyo,etc.)are producing decent Socket A boards.
The Via kt133 chipset is solid,it all comes down to who is building the motherboard!