Building a computer: Have a few questions.

dudemanjack · May 6, 2003, 21:19

My almost 5 year old Pentium II 450 mhz with 128 MB of ram has served me well, but it is time for a new PC.

Here is what I am getting:

Athlon XP 2200
Asus A7S333-E SIS745 Chipset 266/200MHz FSB Motherboard with CMI 6 Channel Sound RETAIL
512 MB PC2700 DDR Ram
Gforce4 Ti4200 128 MB DDR
CHIEFTEC Beige Chasis (Mini-Mid Tower) Model DH-01W 450W (second from the top)
Total cost: $386+ shipping

I already have a hard drive, DVD rom, CD-R drive, monitor, sound card, and speakers. I might get a new hard drive but I don't really need help picking it out.

I'm buying this computer to play games. I want it to last about 2 years without worrying about upgrading (except maybe for same more ram, bigger hard drive, and possibly a video card). After that point I'll either (A) Not be playing computer games anymore

or (B) Have the money to not skimp and buy a better system with more upgradability (is that a word?).

Questions: Is the motherboard good enough? Is a good brand. I don't really know much about motherboards. I thought I remember ASUS being okay, but if it's crap, let me know so I can avoid it.

What is the difference between the brands of RAM? What is a decent brand to get?

How much powersupply do I need? The case I picked comes with 450W. That should be enough, right? Also, what kind of fans should I purchase to keep this thing cool?

Any help would be very much appreciated. Thank you in advance.

DanS · May 6, 2003, 21:24

Is the motherboard good enough? Is a good brand.

Yes, Asus is a good brand. I don't know whether the chipset is good. Somebody else will have to discuss that.

One thing that concerns me is that you have two sound devices. A sound card and the on-motherboard sound. This sometimes causes conflicts. If you can get a motherboard without the built-in sound, do so.

Skanky Burns · May 6, 2003, 22:01

The 450W should be plenty for the forseeable future.

Promethus · May 6, 2003, 22:51

If you put the sound card in go into the BIOS and disable the onboard sound chip and you will have no problems ( I hav an ASUS A7V8X MoBo with the same chip and I use my Soundblaster Live card and have no problems).

Cossiar make the best memory cards. PNY makes the worst. Micron and Samsung are both good. You can go to the ASUS web site for a list of memory cards that work with your MoBo.

Put in as many exhaust fans as you have possitions for and put a "Slot Cooler Fan" in the PCI slot next to the video card. Intake fans are less efective than exhaust fans and you don't have a big load so you can skip them if you like. Also for a few $'s more per fan you can get them with thermo controls that vary the speed of the fan according to the heat load in the case. This is nice because the fans run quiter when there is not a big heat load in the case.

Power Supply rating are a crock! But one rated at 450 Watts should run your system fine, your configuration will need aprox. 250 watts of power to run with stability.

Asher · May 6, 2003, 22:55

Never buy SiS (motherboard chipset).

dudemanjack · May 6, 2003, 23:12

What's wrong with SiS? I think I found a motherboard I like even more anyway. It's a little more money, but looks like a better value.

ASUS A7V8X-X AMD Athlon/Athlon XP/Duron Socket A, Processor Mother Board

Same link as above, it's the one that cost $78.99

Another RAM question: Do you need to have two 256 RAM chips, or just one 512 MB ram chip..or does it matter?

Asher · May 6, 2003, 23:19

SiS' chipsets are notorious for bugs and incompatibilities.

The A7V8X-X is better, since Via did it.

And you don't need to have two 256 RAM chips unless it's a dual-channel motherboard (A7V8X-X is not). So a single 512MB would be better, since it frees up slots for future expansion.

Promethus · May 6, 2003, 23:24

Depends on the speed of the DDR RAM chips, if you go with PC3200 or PC 3500 RAM on this MoBo you can only use one RAM slot so get one stick of 512MB. Allways go for the bigist stick of RAM (i.e. one 512MB not 2 256MB) you can get until you get to the point where it cost a lot more per MB. In the case of this MoBo I did not buy a 1GB stick because it was way to expensive.

EDIT: Typo's

dudemanjack · May 6, 2003, 23:25

How about that case I saw? I liked it because it's cheap, but I want to know if it's going to have ventillation problems. I don't really know how to check for that.

EDIT: The link on the first post isn't working, so http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...tby=14&order=1

It is towards the bottom. The $50 one that includes the power supply.

Promethus · May 6, 2003, 23:53

Did a Google search and could not find this case. But in general Chieftec makes good stuff. I have a Chieftek MX-01WD w/side intake fan and it has space for 2 front intake fans + 2 exhaust fans. Works great - looks a lot nices than the Beige Box you are looking at. Costs $48USD without power supply.

tinyp3nis · May 7, 2003, 00:11

Quote:

Gforce4 Ti4200 128 MB DDR

Can you get radeon 9500 pro for the same price?

Promethus · May 7, 2003, 00:11

Followed your link to Newegg - this case is not in stock and may be discontinued. Also checkout Directron.com, they have a great selection of cases and power supplies. Get a case wit 2 exhaust fan spaces (power supply fan does not count).

Urban Ranger · May 7, 2003, 00:46

No idea on the case. You need to be careful about the power supply ratings though because a lot of them aren't up to standards. If you want heavy duty power supplies check out Enermax and Antec. They also make cases.

As for the mobo doesn't the XP2200 uses 333MHz FSB?

Promethus · May 7, 2003, 00:50

UR

The ASUS A7V8X can run at 333Mhz.

Urban Ranger · May 7, 2003, 00:57

But not the A7S333-E...

faded glory · May 7, 2003, 01:11

Dude. Just a heads up. Your HD OS wont work with your new system.

"512 MB PC2700 DDR Ram"

Sounds good. But stay away from Kingston

"Asus A7S333-E SIS745 Chipset 266/200MHz FSB Motherboard with CMI 6 Channel Sound RETAIL "

I would Just go ahead and get the A7N8x with Nvidia Nforce2 chipsets (no IGP but w/ SS)

"Gforce4 Ti4200 128 MB DDR"

Love this card. Handles well on my MSI-K7N2L. Just make sure you get the 8x bus slot

"Athlon XP 2200"

Good choice

. And actually...you are in for a suprise. If you order now...RIGHT now. They have 2700+ Bartons in the 2200 bin. But thats our secret

! Yes imagine my suprise when I RMA'ed my 2200 after a burn out OverClock try (I got my 2200 to 144 fsb before it died...it was running cool tho. Tried to reset to 200fsb, no go) and got a 2700 back

! (I wasnt the only one!)

Just make sure you get the Heatsink and stuff on properly. (I hate wrestling with AMD heatsinks...grr..nutdriver..pressure...oops..RMA time

)

newegg is da shiznit. Ive built 6 systems with them and only got one bad Maxtor Drive. You probably can read my reviews if you look hard enough

http://secure.newegg.com/app/Custrat...tem=14-128-116

Zopperoni · May 7, 2003, 02:52

Get a Radeon 9500 (non pro!). With that one, you have a chance of using the drivers to upgrade to a Radeon 9700!

Wraith · May 7, 2003, 08:02

--"Is the motherboard good enough?"

It's a good brand, but I'd be a little wary of the SiS chipsets. They seem to have more problems than even the Via ones do. For preference, I'd go with one of the nForce 2 chipsets -- no integrated graphics, but with SoundStorm. That'll get you better quality sound than a SoundBlaster Audigy and a very solid chipset.

I'm not familiar with the case, but as long as they've got a reputable brand power supply in there that should be more than enough.

There isn't going to be a whole lot of difference in the RAM vendors unless you're planning on some extreme overclocking. For basic non-overclocked operation, any of the big name vendors will be pretty similar.

As far as fans go, I'd try to get away with as few as possible. No point in having a good soundcard if you can't hear it over the noise coming from your case.
Again, unless you're planning on overclocking, don't bother adding fans. The PS fan and CPU fan should be enough.

Wraith
Deterministic chaotic physicist

Giancarlo · May 7, 2003, 08:21

I think the A7N8X would be a better motherboard ot buy... afterall it is runned on the NForce2 chipset, which is at times typically 20% faster than the KT-400 chipset.

Worthingtons · May 7, 2003, 10:12

Ok , about the RAM
I have just got a new PC with very simular spec to yours, and i went for DDR Ram.

However, While in theory the lowest speed of DDR (266mhz) should be twice as fast as SD, that doesnt always seem to be realised, and as SD ram is considerably cheaper, some people would prefer to have MORE SD Ram rather than less slightly faster.

When you bear in mind that the price gap between them is being closed every day you're probably better off with your DDR, and if need more later it should be cheap by then.

dudemanjack · May 7, 2003, 12:04

The A7N8X costs $116. Is it worth it to put down another $35 for this motherboard over A7V8X-X for a motherboard. Basically it's VIA vs. NFORCE (the chipsets).

I don't plan on overclocking anything, if that matters.

Is there a noticable difference between the GFORCE4 and RADEON (at the same price lavel)?

Urban Ranger · May 7, 2003, 12:08

Depends. The Radeon 9700/9700 are definitely better than nVidia FX, for now.

Wraith · May 7, 2003, 20:10

--"While in theory the lowest speed of DDR (266mhz) should be twice as fast as SD"

Actually, no, it's not supposed to be twice as fast even in theory. There's other things that will keep it from even achieving a true theoretical doubling.

In any case, do not buy SDRAM for a modern processor. The DDR really is necessary if you're doing the kinds of things people do on their desktops. The only place you'd want more SDRAM instead of DDR SDRAM is if you're running a server app that wants bigger memory space more than it wants faster memory accesses. This is pretty rare.

--"Basically it's VIA vs. NFORCE (the chipsets)."

I would say so, assuming the nForce was the more expensive one ^_^

Wraith
"I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring."
-- Richard Feynman's last words

faded glory · May 7, 2003, 20:58

FYI your 9500 non pro runs slower than a Ti4200. However the PRO version is faster

CyberGnu · May 7, 2003, 21:02

Since we're on the subject of graphics cards: If I want a 128MB card with a TV Tuner, does that mean I have to get the 9700 All-in-Wonder, or are there better/cheaper alternatives?

faded glory · May 7, 2003, 21:14

no. There are many products with TV out.

3dlabs and german Matrox make very good cards for this.

tinyp3nis · May 7, 2003, 22:07

Quote:

Originally posted by Zopperoni
Get a Radeon 9500 (non pro!). With that one, you have a chance of using the drivers to upgrade to a Radeon 9700!

Only works on some 9500 non pros. My friend infact has one, but they are rare so don't bother unless you know your 9500 is actually 9700... So 9500 pro is better than 9500, unless you know what you are doing. If you can get cheap 9700 pro or not think about it.

CyberGnu · May 7, 2003, 22:31

Faded, not TV-out, TV in

I'm trying to decide whether to buy a 19" or 21" monitor. One of weighing factors would be if I could use the monitor as a TV, that way I could justify spending a little extra on it. Then again, if the cost of the graphics card is going to be as much as a TV, there isn't much point... Except for the DVR function, I guess.

dudemanjack · May 7, 2003, 23:01

Here is what I've decided to go with:

Athlon XP 2200 - $83
ASUS A7N8X (nforce chipset) - $116
MICRON 512 MB DDR - $72
GFORCE4 Ti4200 128 MB DDR - $120
Case - Antec Model #SLK2600 AMB w/ Antec SmartPower 300W P/S. - $55 (300W should be sufficient right?)
Maxtor 30GB 7200 RPM HardDrive - $60

Total Cost - $506

Question about video cards. A lot of companies make a GFORCE4 video card. Are there any particular BAD ones I should avoid?

Items I already have: DVD-Rom, external CD-R drive, speakers. I'll try the onboard sound the mobo has, or the sound card from my old PC. I also have a monitor - the one I'm looking at right now.

I wish I could buy it now instead of towards the end of the month! Thanks for all your help!