50/50 CPU and mobo question really...

[peteb]

but I'll thorw it into the CPU crowd and see if anyone nibbles....


Looking at my next system - and taking the step from PIII to Athlon.

I am in the fortunate position of cash not really being an issue - but I don't want to wad big lumps of it together and flush it either...

My opinion right now - P4 great platform if all you do is FLASK but for gaming etc. an Athlon will still kick a$$.

With this in mind I'm thinking...

AthlonC 1333/266 with Silverado hsf
Asus A7V133
3 x Corsair 256MB PC150 CAS2

For the heart of the beast.

Now the Silverado looks cool, and was REALLY quiet - but is it going to handle 1.3-1.6GHz Athlons (bear in mind I intend to house this in a Coolermaster ATC200 case) or should I be looking at a Swiftech 462 straight off?

Also - with the DDR boards becoming more mature and featured - should I hold for DDR - even though the equivalent memory will be ~ 3x cost for ~10% performance.

What do you lot think - in fact does the 1333 make sense, or should I rely on more o/cand lower the cpu spec? I figured that a 1333 running at ~ 1500 would be more stable than 1200 running at 1500. Of course they are probably the same CPU...

For that matter is it better to use the PIII trick and use a 200FSB Athlon and run it at 266 on a 266 board to get the speed up? It seems option 1 is more stable...

Let me know what you all think - it will take me a month or two to gather the bits anyway so this will be my May project I think...

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[Guest]

I purchased my system about a month ago, and wrestled with the same issues. I could wait for the 266 chips and ddr, or pick up a 200 / sdram right now. I was upgrading from a 333 PII.

originally, I ordered the same ASUS mobo as you did, and then after some reading, I changed it to a KT7A-RAID. I also bought a 1 gig/200 tbird and some corsair 222 pc133 ram. I then went out and got a couple of 30gig ata100 IBM drives, and went home for the weekend and a few beers.

I am very happy I changed the mobo to the abit. There is simply SO MUCH information online about using it, and I simply cant imagine anything better than SofMenu. I did the same cooler-dance that you did. The tbird came with a CoolerMaster. That's a nice quiet, cool hsf. I also ordered a Chrome Orb, but when it showed up, it didn't inspire confidence (hard to explain) and didn't feel like drememling the damn thing, especially since this is the first computer I've ever built. I ordered a Core (WAY TOO LOUD) and ThermalTake Volcano II. I've since come to really love my Volcano. It's super quiet and cools very well.

I then found out that Mushkin was located right around the corner from where I live, and took adavantage of their rev 1.5 sale. I picked up 512mgs of RAM for 200 bucks. SWEEEET.

I must say that price was also no object for me. I'm very well off, and would have had no problem spending more for a p4. But in the end, my 1gig is blazing (and I run it at 133), the raid setup is smooth, fast, and painless (like my girlfriend,) and there is a ton of support (like these forums.)

Frankly, you wont go wrong with your system. It will be fine. But my humble recommendation for a new system is the KT7A-RAID, a pair of IBM Deskstars, a 1.2 tbird (200, oc'd to 266 - VERY EASY), a Volcano II, and the Mushkin rev 1.5 ram (on sale). This system is upgradable ( I plan to swap my 1ghz for a 1.3 or better later this year), affordable without being excessive, in stock, tested, supported, and VERY VERY fast.

good luck...

p.s. don't skimp... get arctic silver II.....

 

[peteb]

Cool - thanks for your input and long post - good to get some experience.

I'm glad I've read around a bit - the Orbs do _look_ like they should be good, but from what I've read they are at best poor coolers and worst excellent AMD crushers...

Yeah - I'm a bit tied on the mobo. I use an ASUS at present and to be honest when I don't fiddle with it it is ROCK solid. I'm running PIII 733 @ 148FSB/815CPU for 48hrs straight now (with seti fulltime). Also a few 3dmarks as well.

I have a pretty good system to migrate, 1 x 45GB deskstar 7200 being retired and a twin maxtor 80GB 5400rpm/UATA100 raid0 array (150GB usable). The new array in the 'beast' will be a raid 5 (4x80GB maxtor)... I do need the space for editing video and imaging work...

Well - we'll see how it goes!

Thanks,

Pete.

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