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Here's my situation looking to add a second computer to the house built for about $2000 before taxes (Canadian) $1300 American. I can show you what i got so far if you could suggest something better or something that would improve it a great deal for the money. Used primarily for gaming mainly to kick ass in rogue speare Age of Kings, Diablo 2 and some good sports games no that i'll have some damn space for them, I listen to tons of music looking for heavy bass and surround sound.

ATX Mid tower

AMD Thunderbird 900 - standard fan (better fan?)

256 SDRAM PC133 DIMM (don't know the brand as of yet does it matter? i'm not gonna o/c yet at least untill i learn a bit more or save enough to buy a new cpu if all does not go well. I did find some new 128 SDRAM PC133 for 100 per stick Canadian.

Asus A7V - i don't know jack [censored] about mobo's but seems to be the best.

Asus v7100 Geforce 2mx 32 meg - Was thinking about ATI Radeon 64 meg DDR but it's alomost double at $420

17" samsung DF753 .20 flat screen - I really prefer a flat screen always liked 17" Viewsonic EF70 .25 $40 more

Altec ACS54 surround with sub - Can I hook up a home speakers to my computer, 12" towers speakers?

SB live! II value

52x Creative EIDE - Can't see why i need DVD yet. I do have a burner on the other computer it is 2 years old now drains a lot of power though.

30 gig maxtor 7200 rpm EIDE

any mouse with no ball damn i hate cleaning them.

total is about $2300 after tax, $1500 American give or take a dollar i know its not very much to work with but I would rather upgrade later then spend more now and have it lose so much value so damn quick I got DSL so the connection is quick, looking in to Wireless internet.

Thanks a lot guys
 
that system is really similar to mine, a7v is definitely a good choice.
but i recommend a good hsf for the chip, not a generic one, as the athlons get quite hot (mine is running at 36C idle with a ton of case cooling too). maybe the hedgehog? i heard that one is good.

I have the viewsonic flat moniter and it's pretty good,
My vid card is a little old, but it keeps up nicely, voodoo 3 2000 agp. Other than that our systems are almost identicle.
I'm sure you'll like it, i paid about 1800 cad for mine afer tax w/o moniter.

good luck!

oh yeah, make sure that you get at least a 300w power supply, that is essental, and get a name brand ram, like micron :)

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by jojo on 11/11/00 11:19 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
Thanks. I see that crucial.com (http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.asp) has 256 ram for $189 Canadian is that good RAM?
 
Yeah Crucial, Kingston, Mushkin etc... go to AMD's web site <A HREF="http://www1.amd.com/athlon/config" target="_new">(here)</A> if you want information on getting AMD certified products... or some sort.

Morgan 1.6Ghz + 256DDR = Dream on
However dreams are approacable :wink:
 
Crucial (micron) memory is excellent. And a good price also. You can get generic ram for less but I would not recommend it. Having problems because of poor quality ram is not fun. Nothing makes you want to pound the keyboard with a hammer more than lockups and blue screens of death. I would recommend going to www.amd.com and check out their recommended hardware for building a system. You must have a good power supply for the Athlon. Asus and Abit make excellent motherboards. I know abit has a t-bird board with built in RAID. RAID allows two hard drives to run at the same time basically doubling speed. I am not sure if asus has a RAID board. You could get two 15 gig HD's. Although I am not sure if two 15 gigs running together would be much faster than one 30 gig, but it probably would be faster.
 
I recently purchased a very similar system. GeForce2MX card works well for me (I don't game) and I purchased a Samsung 700NF monitor which I am very happy with. I have ACS33 speakers - far better than any computer speakers I have had before, but still doesn't match a stereo (lacking in mid-range frequencies). My Shuttle 50X CD player skips when playing music occasionally - I haven't figured out the problem - I suspect it is not the CD drive. After installing a CD-RW a few months ago (different machine), I realized that the flow of data is a very sensitive process. I have a Biostar motherboard which is inexpensive and seems to work fine, although since I haven't solved the CD skip problem, I suppose I can't be sure.
 
Thanks guys I needed that info. Helps me in my decision now i got to haggle the price down, this is where my door to door experience comes in to play.

OBTW is that Cable/DSL router what I need to share my connection with both computers?
 
Well, You system sounds nice indeed but I would get the Creative 3D Blaster Annihilator 2 w/ Geforce 2 GTS chipset for best price/performance... IF your a gamer. It sells I think for $289... OR you can "SAVE" (boy thats a big word) your money and get the best performing PC on the planet for sale at www.micronpc.com which would be the 1.2Ghz Thunderbird with everything you could dream of plus 256MB of 266MHZ DDR Memory and FSB and a 19" Micron and a Geforce 2 Ultra for about $3000. And by the time you save that money it will go down in cost. Trust me, I made the mistake of buying the Classic Athlon 850Mhz at $390 bux... now it is merely $140 a month and a half later. WAIT and save, you will praise me. I pray to Jesus Christ that he influences you in doing this. You will be the happiest man alive... AND have a SLAMMIN machine! Hope you use the force well (as I didn't) in doing this!

Good luck from a fellow friend... :)

Michael LoPinto / LoPinto Designs
 
I hope thats $3000 Canadian because with our exchange rates and high tax I could buy a 2 year old Hyundia or Kia for that much ($5000 American). But their systems look damn good though, good reviews too.
 
You can't buy a PC in New York and bring it back up? How does that work? And yes, it is American... sorry 🙁

Michael LoPinto / LoPinto Designs
 
No mather what you buy the price will go down, so the question is buyng the best performance / price ratio so that you the something good and wont cry in a month. I would probably get a guillemot Geforce MX its about 50$ less and I would buy a larger fast hard disk, or make a ide raid with 20 gigs. You can also consider changing the thunderbird for a duron and the videocard for an GTS if you want better gamming solution, cause the video card influences more the perfermance then the cpu at these rates.
Its all question of personnal taste, I mean an duron 750 will play music with out trouble, and play all games pretty good. A duron 750 with a Geforce 2 GTS as probably better frame rates then a Thunderbird 900 with MX. and its a lot easyer to upgrade... In a year you change the duron 750 for a thunderbird 1.3gHz and the cost will probably be very low.

(c) DarkGuard 2000
 
I suggest you wait just a tiny bit for DDR. It's almost here and it won't cost pretty much more than PC133. DDR memory modules are already available at Crucial (which are most excellent) but only PC1600 modules for now. You can still upgrade in a few months to PC2100. I also suggest MSI's MS-6341 K7 Master mobo or the upcoming ASUS A7M266 (don't mix it up with the A7A266).
 
Since it will be a 2nd system used primarily for gaming I would recommend a better video card such as a Geforce 2 GTS, Pro, or Ultra. If you have to save some money go with a Duron 700-800. The gains in video performance will far outweigh the slight drop in CPU performance. (If you need a little more you can also overclock the Duron but it probably won't be necessary). If you can afford the Ultra card you can play at 1600x1200 on that new monitor.

Always go with a better cooler than the stock units.
 
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