New computer

[Guest]

Hi, Planning on purchasing a new computer soon, having gotten out of the business for a while, and wanting to get back into I'm trying to make sure what i'm planning on building is a decent idea or not... let me know what you think.

AMD Athlon XP 1700+
Soyo SY-K7V
Geforce 3 TI 200
Audigy Value
512 Ram PC2100 DDR
Win XP (most likely)

Is there anything with this config/setup that I should
have to worry about or expect problems with.

 

[Cstew77]

It looks like you're going to build a rather mid-to-high end system. There's a couple of things I would change. If you're going to go AMD XP, wait for the VIA KT333 chipset motherboards to come out. For motherboards, I've had really good luck with Asus and Abit (I've build 6 PC's using boards from these two companies with very few problems - and those problems arose from faulty or cheap heatsinks.) If you don't want to wait, Abit has a really good board - KR7A-133. If you're going for gusto, up the RAM to PC2700 DDR. I've found Mushkin RAM to be extremely reliable - and reasonably priced.

I would wait a few weeks on the graphics card - the GeForce4 series is coming out in early March.

My general advise is to buy quality components. Especially the heatsink, power supply, and RAM. Tom has put out some really good review on heat sinks. I tend to prefer Enermax power supplies - mostly because I've never had a problem with them. A good 450W should work fine.

The sound card is a good choice, as is WinXP - even though it has a lot of extra little stupid pop-ups...

 

[FatBurger]

Isn't that motherboard the KT266 chipset? Not the best choice if so, the KT266a is a much better board. The KT333 is a decent chipset, but doesn't really give any better performance for the (assumedly) higher cost relative to KT266a boards.

I always recommend against Creative cards, as they have such buggy drivers. But your choice.

Crucial RAM is good. PC2700 isn't needed unless you're going to be overclocking.
The Ti200 is a good card price/performance wise, and WinXP is great.

<font color=orange>Quarter</font color=orange> <font color=blue>Pounder</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Inside</font color=orange>

 

[flamethrower205]

the newest creative labs drivers work wonderfully w/ XP.

Only if you let me see the Umpa Lumpa- Homer Simpson.

 

[Lonemagi]

Creative's drivers have they're probs, like for a DXr3 card, you have to get hollywood plus drivers for in XP. Creative's just make the system crash or the program go kaput..

Crashing takes a whole new meaning at 9.8 m/s.