Help pick my CPU

[Guest]

This question may be a LITTLE out of place, but this is probably the crowd to answer my question.

I'm trying to decide what to buy. At the moment, I'm wavering between an Athlon 650 (slot A) and a Duron 650 (socket A). It'll be great to have an AMD in the house.

Anyway, I'm concerned about the noise. I know that AMDs have cooling problems and MUST have a fan of some sort. I don't plan on overclocking, in fact I'd consider underclocking to quiet the system. Laugh all you want it's still faster than the Pentium 60 I'm using to type this message. :-O

Am I more likely to have a quiet system with a SlotA Athlon or a SocketA Duron? (Standard sink&fan)

What's the quietest CPU fan for either under $30?

 

[flavio321]

you don't need to get a large heatsink. athlon's heatsinks should do the job. you should get the socket motherboard and the duron. the classic slot athlons are no longer being made, although you can still find them. duron's have a 1 to 1 cache, which means it's much faster than the 1/2 cache speed of the classic athlon. plus the motherboards and chipsets are better for the durons and t-birds. you only need the extra cooling for overclocking. don't worry too much about the heat... some of the morons in this forum make it sound like it is.

If you can't beat 'em kill 'em
athlon "SLOTA" thunderbird 700@1050mhz

 

[girish]

go for a socket A cpu, slots wont be around for long. i guess a duron 750 is good place to start with, and you can then go upto athlon tbird 1.2g, or even faster in near future. a good sock a motherboard (Asus A7V or Abit KT7) might be a good choice, but there are cheaper boards out there if you are low on cash.

girish

 

[Guest]

This whole upgrade is an excercise in cheap...

I figured I'd just buy a barebones Duron and move over all my equipment. Most likely, I'll get one that has onboard video and audio. Most of those I've seen only have two PCI slots, but I don't expect to go this long before my next upgrade, so something like that would probably be sufficient for a year or so.

So that I don't get offtopic too much I guess I'll post my next question in another forum.

 

[Grizely1]

I have some advice: Stay away from Slot A.

----------------------
I don't hate Intel............ Do I?

 

[Guest]

Do not take the slot A version of the Athlon. Go for the Duron in that case or if your budget does allow it, take the Athlon Thunderbird-version. Those socket A mainboards also make it possible to upgrade to an Athlon T-bird-system. Slot A is dead, let's keep it that way .

BTW, the AMD's do not have a cooling problem as long as you use a decent cooler. (BTW the Intels also need a cooler).

For the noise problem, i don't think it makes any difference in noise between the duron or slot a athlon.

Good luck.

 

[Guest]

It's funny that you say

Slot A is dead, let's keep it that way

. You see, the system I'm using right now... get this...

is a Pentium 60 with a bastardized mobo that has ISA/PCI <b>AND</b> VLB slots.

Does anyone know where I can get a good price on a barebones Duron system? Obviously, it doesn't need to squeeze every ounce of performance for me to be satisfied.

 

[dhlucke]

When you say budget, how little is it?

A motherboard that will keep your processor running can be bought for around 75 bucks, and then the 750 duron is less than 90 bucks I think now. But don't forget that you need memory, and I would get pc133 since it is the same as pc100 pricewise nowadays. That is another 40 bucks or so. Plus shipping on all this stuff. Go to pricewatch.com. Regarding one of the above statements though, don't let them fool you. These processors require adequate cooling, so that's another 15 bucks or so since you aren't overclocking. I tried to go cheap on the cooling with my Duron 800 and it wouldn't run. Also, make sure you've got a 300 W power supply. If you have a P60, your case probably doesn't have an adequate PS, so you'll have to buy one. I'd probably make sure your case had at least one fan (80mm or so), but that's where some noise comes in.

Regarding noise, I have no idea why you bring this up. These computers don't make THAT much noise so I wouldn't worry about it.

Underclock? That's lame since these processors are basically made to overclock. Leave them the way they are at the very least.

Stay away from the old athlons..."Slot A IS dead"

 

[flavio321]

you don't have to shout out "stay away from slot a" i would recomend a socket a but my slot a is standing tall with the big boys. my slot a will kick most of the socket computers out there. remember i got 10078 3dmark with may slot a. so lay off my slot a.

...and to the guy who needs a mobo. try to stay away from a mobo with integrated video. integraded audio/ethernet card is acceptable. but an onboard video is not recommended.
get yourself a vodoo3 2000 pci. i hear some dude in this forum is selling it for only 50bucks!!! now that's a deal.
but seriously, don't get a video intergrated mobo.

If you can't beat 'em kill 'em
athlon "SLOTA" thunderbird 700@1050mhz

 

[Guest]

That's simple.....go with socket A. You'll have an upgrade path if you want to move up in a year. There are plenty of quiet fans out there that will adequately cool your Duron.

 

[camieabz]

This is a nice little system. Bearing in mind, the prices are in British Pounds Sterling (I think 1.5 approx for convertion), and parts may be cheaper across the Atlantic.

AMD Duron 800MHz socket A £70.50
Abit KT7 (socket A, via KT133, udma66, AGP 4x, ATX, 3x DIMM) £111.63
128Mb PC-133 £40.20
Fujitsu MPE3102 AH 10.2 Gb (UDMA66, 7200rpm, 8.5ms, 2mb) £88.13
ATI Xpert 2000 Pro - 32Mb AGP 4x £45.44
Midi Tower ATX 300W £34.00

Total : £389.90

 

[mpjesse]

Since no one really answered your question as to best HSF combination- i'll give it a whirl. I'd suggest going to www.inflowdirect.com or www.coldcpu.com and purchasing an Alpha PAL6035 heatsink with a sunon 60mm fan- that's a quite fan.

-MP Jesse