Upgradeable budget system

[Oni]

You should have considered the Geforce 4 MX 440 video cards. If you search <A HREF="http://www.pricewatch.com" target="_new">pricewatch</A> you can find them for around $80-85 so add in some shipping and for $90-95 you'll be getting extremely better FPS than a Kyro II. Especially if you overclock the video card a bit. Also I've heard good and bad things about that Iwill, hopefully you'll get the revision that works flawless and has no problems, but most of those boards get beat by AMD 761 chipset based boards, and Via KT266a boards unless the CPU is overclocked running 166 FSB.
I think its kinda silly that Athlon XPs are dropping in price so much they can compete with the value CPUs

If my response is brief and vague its because the info you provided is too!

 

[SammyBoy]

Yeah, I thought about the MX440, but after learning that they don't have full DX8 compatibility (such as the pixel and vertex shaders) I figured that it wasn't worth it. Anandtech on the GF4MX:

A significant disappointment is the GeForce4 MX which fails to even outperform the GeForce2 Ti 200. This is exactly why we recommend either going for the GeForce3 Ti 200, the Radeon 8500LE or waiting for the GeForce4 Ti 4200; and this is only at 1024 x 768.

That is refering to the Unreal Performance Test 2002. And after looking further, it seems that under that test, according to Anandtech, the KyroII scores a 25.2 FPS in 1024x768x32 and the MX440 a 25.8. Both theoretically unplayable (though, I have played at that and worse in my long gaming career), but they are equal performers. But, I did seriously consider it, but Anandtech's refusal to recommend it made me think otherwise.

In the future, I would definately consider a different video card that supports DX8, but since I'm more than happy with the support I've revceived from PowerVR and the high quality drivers, I'm loath to jump ship until I see what the KyroII SE and the soon-to-be-announced KyroIII have to offer.

As to the IWill board, I too have heard good and bad. But, I'm certain that the board rev. I'll get is the 2.1, which is supposedly the flawless version that supports the latest CPUs. It's a retail version, and unless they haven't sold any at All-Star Components, I'd think that it was a more recent revision. Time will tell. And performance is not the greatest factor of mine, but rather the price, the chipset (Magik rev. C), and stability.

-SammyBoy

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by SammyBoy on 04/11/02 12:30 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Oni]

I just figured I'd warn you about the Iwill board, I remember reading a review about it and the reviewer removed a sticker that was on the PCB and underneath was the model number for another Iwill motherboard!
I can't remember what it was, either amd or intel based board, but it was not a specific PCB for the Iwill board. Eventually he got a newer revision and proved that the older PCB has many problems but the newer one was a good overclocker and ran just fine.

If my response is brief and vague its because the info you provided is too!

 

[SammyBoy]

I saw a similar review, and it was about the XP333. It might have been the same one even. But, the latest revisions, latest being a few months old, has it silkscreened onto the PCB, so I hope thats what I get. If not, I'll have issues with IWill.

Thanks for the heads up, though.

-SammyBoy

 

[Crashman]

You only need PC2700 if you overclock to 166MHz FSB. That applies to both the XP333 and KT333 boards. As well as the Leadtek Winfast 7350KDA.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?