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Opinions in this PC
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08-07-2003 9:36am#1
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Originally posted by Cyrus
that motherboard is awful
thats the type of crap that makes it worth ur while building ur own pc, ask them do they have an abit BH7/BE7/BD7II which would be a better choice
What's wrong with the motherboard? It's a mid level spec with reasonable features suited to someone who doesn't want to spend the money getting a top-of-the-line machine.
It will perform quite well (It is a P4 board with 533MHz bus) and within the next 2 years (time I predict it to start showing it's age) it can be quite easily upgraded to todays high spec boards at a much lower cost (they'll fit, it's an ATX case).
I just looked at the lnk for the case aswell and I think it's quite easy on the eyes
If you feel like bringing it more up to spec immediately then you could add an SB Audigy 1 sound card for approx. €100, Speakers (5.1 digital will cost about €200 to €500 depending on quality) and a DVD drive (about €60 on www.Komplett.ie for a Sony model)
If it were my choice I'd have very little quams going for a machine like that.0 -
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Originally posted by Cyrus
-Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz Boxed PC533
Socket PGA478, 512kB "Northwood"
-Abit IS7-E Mianboard for S478/800mhz
I865PE,SATA,ATX,Dual-DDR, LAN
-TwinMOS PC2700 DDR-DIMM 512MB CL2.5
RAM 184-P (for DDR-PC333MHz)
-NEC Floppy Drive 3,5" 1,44MB FD1231H
Floppy Drive Internal
-Maxtor IDE ATA-133 80GB 7200RPM
DiamondMax Plus 9
-LG CD recorder IDE 48x/24x/48x/16x Combo
"Super-Link" (GCC-4480B) Internal Retail
-Chieftec Dragon MidiTower, w/Door, Black
Case w/360W power, DX-01B-D, P4/AMD (UK)
Surcharges: 0,00
Total: 669,75
This spec that Cyrus posted is quite good but as he said it doesn't include a graphics card and the Motherboard doesn't seem to have anything in the way of on-board graphics so for games you'd need to get a GFX card. Depending on your tastes for quality you would be spending about €150 to €300 on it.
As an aside I'd get 2 sticks of 256MB RAM to take advantage of the dual DDR capability as opposed to 1 512MB stick.
Anyway, with the GFX card added in the price is umphed up to at least €850. Almost twice the price of the jaguar systems one!
I'd agree with Cyrus again about spending a bit extra on the motherboard, every upgrade you want to do depends on it. Other than the motherboard I might spend extra on the GFX card but other than that I'd watch my wallet.
But then would Jaguar let you specify what motherboard or GFX card you want in it?
Koneko has had bad experiences with the ECS boards so I'd take that into account. It's a first hand reference.
As for cases, i don't know that much about the different makes but what I'd look for is four 5 1/4 inch drive bays, two 3 1/2 inch external drive bays and at least three 3 1/2 inch internal drivebays.
If you can get one with a power supply in it all the better.
Personally I'd recommend building the PC yourself. It's not that difficult and you'd know exactly what parts are in your PC. There's no substitute for that.
The only part of it you may need help with is inserting the CPU. They can be delicate.
Let us know what you think.0 -
As an aside I'd get 2 sticks of 256MB RAM to take advantage of the dual DDR capability as opposed to 1 512MB stick.
ooops originally meant to spec a bh7 but the is7-e is so cheap i chose that and forgot about two sticks of ram!!!The only part of it you may need help with is inserting the CPU. They can be delicate.
true for amd cpus but its nigh on impossible to break a p4 in my experience
finally the jag sys with the ram and hd upgrades is e600 so i think the rig i specced for 650 is superior and for the gpu id really try get a G4 ti4200 which is still a decent card or if ur broke a s/h geforce 3 which isnt bad either0 -
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I've compiled a high spec system for you to look at on the premise that you have a Hard drive, Floppy drive, CD/DVD drive, monitor and Keyboard/mouse already. The parts are taken from www.Komplett.ie and www.Elara.ie
So here goes
From Komplett,
Asus P4P800 Mainboard for S478/800mhz €139,51
Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz Boxed PC800 €219,57
2x TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 256MB CL2 €122,78
Asus V9280 GeForce4 Ti4200-8X 128MB DDR €137,19
Shipping: €14,23
That totals up to;
Total: €633,28
From Elara;
Antec SLK2600/MT 300W 4x5.25 €75.98
(The manufacturers code is SLK2600AMB. Its the same case, I checked)
Shipping: €10.89
That totals up to;
Total: €86.87
Both together give you;
Grand Total: €720.15
So that's a system that would be worthy of any gamers admiration and it's around the level I'll be looking at to get myself in the next couple of months.
If you can manage to stretch the budget that extra bit further you'd be kicking ass
("PLEEEAAASSSEEE Mom! I'll cut the grass for a year!!!"
I might end up doing some of that myself too )
PS. Has anyone else found Elaras site really slow? I'm on a very high speed Broadband connection and I may as well be on a 28Kbps line!
PPS Their delivery charge of €9 doesn't include VAT when added it's more like €10.890 -
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Most definitely not regular. I have a very similar PC at my desk here in work. You won't be fitting any normal motherboards in that case.Originally posted by TimAy
Also, the mother board on this computer is L shaped, the PCI slots, are on a seperate panel that slot in perpendicular to the main motherboard. Is this regular?
You won't need to get power cables, ribbons ect. All cables needed for connecting the motherboard (eg. IDE) will come with the motherboard.Originally posted by TimAy
Edit: Yeah, im now seeing that i will need a new box. The smaller items shouldn't be a problem to get.(eg. Power, ribbons etc)
Yeah the RAM is SDRAM (128mb) so you're right.
I decided to make this a "project"!! So i'll start from scratch
If you get a case with a power supply then the Kettle Lead (big black power lead) should come with it plus any other cables necessary to use extended functions of the case eg. front mounted USB.
You'll only need cables if you need to replace some.
As you've noted the SDRAM won't work in that motherboard I pointed out. DDR RAM only.
Deffinitely make a project out of it And when you have it built and you're bored again you could then start modding it 
Make it a real Modders project
It really depends who you end up buying off. New PC parts is in no way a must.Originally posted by TimAy
Im thinking of looking in Buyandsell for parts. Is that i good or bad idea. Is buying new a must with PC parts?
If you buy second hand make sure you get to see the component working. You should also make sure you get any driver CDs and manuals that came with the component, a box would be nice if they still had it.
When someone appears to be listening to my opinion I tend to go all outOriginally posted by TimAy
wow, thanks for that. I wasn't expecting so much help!
With Elara you can collect the goods but with Komplett, being that they ship from Norway, I think you'd be better getting them to deliverOriginally posted by TimAy
Can you collect the goods or do they have to be shipped? Will i be able to install a new processor on my own do you think? Unless you want a holiday!!!
As for installing a processor. I've no doubt you'd be able to do it. A bit of care and patience is all it takes.
The Intel CPUs are sturdy buggers while the AMD ones are a bit delicate. The core can be broken on them easily enough.
AMD processors are good, stables pieces of work. Their main weakness in comparison with the intel chips is their lower FSB (Front Side Bus) speed. The FSB is used by the processor to talk to the chipset (northbridge and southbridge) and the RAM. That's how I understand it anywayOriginally posted by TimAy
What about AMD processors, are they any use?!
Fastest intel speed is 800MHz and the fastest AMD speed is 400MHz
To compare AMDs and intels look at the names.
AMD convention;
XP3200+ 2.2GHz
Intel convention;
P4 3.2Ghz
Although the AMD has a clock speed of 2.2GHz it's comparable to the the P4. You can see it in the names, XP3200 - P4 3.2GHz
3200-3.2 ...hmmmm... I smell something fishy!!!
Anyway that's about it (only that much!?!?!)
Questions always welcome 0 -
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What website is that from? Note that the price is excluding VAT.
Would the buyer have to pay the English or Irish VAT rates?
With Irish rates it's €614. It does include everything though, 80GB HDD, CD/DVD drives, floppy drive, case and a case fan.
You'd want to find out where they're from though and what time frame you can expect delivery in. You do get some bad stories of folks waiting months for stuff from places like Dabs or Overclockers (I'm not sure of the full web addresses).
That set up gives a good idea of an AMD setup.
As DDR and RD RAM.
Basically RD RAM is really fast (1GHz-ish) but isn't very efficient in it's usage. With RD RAM when the computer wants to get to a particular piece of info held in the RAM the signal has to travel all the way through preceeding info in the chip, ie. it's in series. You also can't have free slots with RD RAM. If you get one stick you then would need "dummy" sticks to fill the other slots on the board.
DDR RAM works like SD RAM except it's faster (450MHz so far).
Techy bit RAM works on a clock signal like this (it's meant to look like a square wave),
.._..._
_| |_| |_|
1 2 3 4 5
(please ignore the dots, they're just to get the spacing right. Look at the straight lines)
It's a clock signal where for second number 1 the signal is at the bottom. Then for second number 2 the signal is at the top then back to the bottom for the third second.
SD RAM did what ever work it need on the upward part of the clock cycle (the red bit). DDR (double data rate) RAM does it's work on both the upward and downward parts of the clock cycle (both the red and blue bits). So DDR does twice as much as SD in the same amount of time ie. it's twice as fast.
Let me know if that made any sense
Where RD RAM works in series, DDR RAM works in parrallel so if it wants a piece of data it goes straight to it ignoring the rest of the data in the chip, unlike RD RAM.
So DDR and RD RAM can't be compared by clock speeds, you would need to do benchmark tests with similar spec'ed systems to get a proper picture.
AFAIK DDR is close to, if not better than, RD RAM at this stage.
I guess that should answer the RD v DDR question for you
As for 2x512MB modules, that is definitely possible. I think the board I mentioned had an upper limit of 4GB of RAM (4x1GB modules :eek:)0 -
Originally posted by TimAy
What sort of specs whould i be looking for in the parts? I've been looking around other sites using the parts you found for me (thanks again) to maybe find it cheaper and its difficult to compare. It would make it easier if i understood what i needed.lol
Is there a good site that explains the difference in all the componants.
RAM
First off there's clock speeds and MegaByte sizes. These are pretty obvious. The motherboard specifications will tell you what limits it can accept.
PC2100 = 266MHz
PC2700 = 333MHz
PC3200 = 400MHz
PC3500 = 434MHz
PC3700 = 466MHz
Another point is the CAS Latency or CL as it's abbreviated.
This is the amount of time (in clock cycles) it takes to get the required data from the chip. For this a lower number is better. Best at this time is a CL of 2 (CL2). Sometimes written like
CL2-2-2-5
CPU
With pentiums and AMDs alike you're going to be looking at clock speed - 2.4Ghz, 2.21GHz etc.
Also you'll want to note FSB speeds,
Intel - 400MHz, 533MHz, 800MHz
AMD - 266MHz, 333MHz, 400MHz
Motherboard
This is the big one!!
Main things to look for are FSB speeds, Hyper Threading (intel), RAM speeds, AGP speed, ATA speed, S-ATA speed.
FSB speeds are as above. Hyper Threading is supported or it's not. It will say if it is.
RAM speeds.
Make sure it supports the speed of RAM you want to get. Speeds as above.
AGP speed.
This has recently improved to 8x
older types are
2x (ran at 3.3Volts)
4x (ran at 1.5Volts)
8x (runs at 0.8-ish Volts)
Motherboards supporting 8x are generally backwards compatible with 4x
ATA speed.
This is the speed that the IDE devices (harddrives CD/DVD drives etc.) can work at. I think it's in MB per second but I'm not sure. Anyway bigger number equals better.
ATA 33
ATA 66
ATA 100
ATA 133
S-ATA speed
This is another recent developement for device connectivity. It only comes at one speed so far AFAIK but it will probably get faster soon.
S-ATA 150
Features, Have it or not basis.
USB 2.0
LAN (network connection speeds 10/100MBs or newer 100/1000MBs)
IEEE 1394 (firewire)
Bluetooth (wireless connectivity. MSI boards mainly)
RAID (faster or backup harddrive connection)
Graphics
Buying a graphics card is a bit of a tremulous area to go into at the moment. There have just been a bunch of new releases by nVidia and I'd expect ATI will be outmatching them shortly enough so watch what price you're paying, it will drop substantially in the next 6 months if you go high end.
RAM size;
64MB
128MB
256MB
256MB cards arn't necessary yet.
RAMDAC speeds (speed of the GFX cards RAM);
the higher the better pretty much.
GPU Clock speeds. (graphics processing unit)
Again the higher the better.
AGP speed.
8x is fast becoming the standard
Features,
Anti Aliasing
Anti anisotropic (spelling??)
DVI
TV out
Each of these is on a supported or not basis or not.
The latest nVidia (FX) and ATI (9800) cards are Directx 9 cards.
The nVidia TI4x00 series and the ATI 9000 series (excluding the 9800 of course) are Directx 8 cards.
That's all I'll put up at the moment. (this is way too long!!!) 0 -
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I like the case. Looks good and has everything you need. I get the feeling it's made by Codegen who made my own case. Apparently the powersupplies that come with them arn't too good but I havn't the parts in mine to test it I did for a few days though and it was fine
TBH I wouldn't go for the board below. It's RD RAM based which I'm just biased against for some reason
and the chipset is the intel 850 which only supports up to a 400MHz FSB. Considering they have reached 800 MHz now it's at the bottom of the pile.
You should read the sticky about where to buy stuff (Although from your comment on scan you might have already, and the fact you were looking up on marx ... I think the clues are building up here!!!)
Scan really do get the worst responses of all, I'd stay away. I think they're based in England aswell. (Well duh! Look at the price Raz!! *SLAP* "Ow my forehead!!") 0 -
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I've never had any dealings with American companies though I know a few guys who would get their Nike Basketball shoes from American stockists!! Not sure if there's a comparison there
The motherboard looks good. It doesn't support Hyper Threading or Dual DDR but appart from that it has everything you'd need.
It uses a VIA chipset for the north and south bridge and I don't know how they are for reliability or stability, maybe one of the other guys know about these chipsets.
I didn't see anything that suggests it's refurbished as Col_Loki mentioned.
The Graphics card looks good aswell. You're right it is a DX9 card.
When nVidia initially released their FX range of cards they released the 5200, 5600 and 5800 versions. The 5600 was apparently the best of the three. I'm not sure why it was better than the 5800 though, maybe something to do with stability
The Hard Drive seems pretty good too. It's a UDMA 133 device which would match up nicely with the motherboard. Drive only means it doesn't have any manuals or software CDs with it and I get the feeling it'll come in an unmarked brown box. A bulk buy item sold singly.
I don't think they give enough information on the RAM. It's most likely Generic RAM (that's not a brand name) this kinda RAM most likely won't have any warranty or guarantee past what the seller offers and will quite possibly be of a lower build quality and be less stable.
You don't have a processor with those parts though and that seems to me the reason it seems cheaper. The other bundles for E700 ish that you checked on English and Irish sites had a processor in them, did they not?
As for the VAT, I believe American don't display VAT on items. I think it's seen as a government tax and not part of the price of the product. So I'd take it that those prices are VAT excluded and if it turned out that it was included then at least it'd be a pleasent surprise 0 -
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Consider all options! I have to say that I don't know much about the ATI cards. I've been running an nVidia Riva TNT2 32MB GFX card for the past 3 or 4 years now and only last year did it start to really lag behind with games like Unreal Tourney 2003. It was a pretty high spec card at the time so that gives you an idea of the lifetime of the card.Originally posted by TimAy
I was just reading some reviews of the GF FX 5600 and apparently it is crap. Maybe i should look for some ATI's, apparently the 9600 pro is good.
If you go for an AMD chip then Dual DDR isn't really available (Some boards might have it but it's not as effective with the AMD chip)Originally posted by TimAy
"It doesn't support Hyper Threading or Dual DDR"
i would want those specs if i was to get x2 DDR 256 RAM slots right? They wouldn't work as well i gather (or at all). What does hyper threading do again?
Can i use an AMD on a P4 board?
Hyper Threading is specific to P4 Chips. It means that the processor is effectively seen as two chips. It can simultaneously execute two threads of code at once. This couldn't be done before.
Unfortunately it's impossible to use an AMD chip on an Intel board The chips are completely different sizes (the AMDs a good bit bigger)
They have different sockets for each because of this. The intel has the Socket 478 type and the AMD has the Socket A type.
The AMD is indeed a good quality chip and it's cheaper than it's Intel counterparts. You'll find that a lot of folks around the boards here will champion the AMD causeOriginally posted by TimAy
Also i am starting to think that i should look for a AMD 2600 instead of a P4? Will that do the job? . My main concern is money. im trying to keep it as cheap as possible,but good quality!
In fact you could get the AMD 2800+ for about the same price as the 2.4GHz P4s. If you're Adamant about keeping the price as low as possible then an AMD will further this cause.
I wouldn't worry about the cables, you should get those with the motherboard. Yes you pretty much just plug it in. A CD may come into play if there is some specific monitoring software that the manufacturer supplies. Also when you get a product in "bulk" form like that it usually means you don't get any warranty. If the it screws up you're left high and dry.Originally posted by TimAy
"Is the fact the HD comes Drive only a problem. I can get ribbon cables and power connector. I thought you just needed to plug it in? Why would you need a CD?
Well it is "just like the other big names but without the brand" but there's the lack of warranty again, and if the manufacturer knows you're not going to be able to come back at him he may then cut corners.Originally posted by TimAy
"Are you sure the ram isn't just black label? Just like the other big names but without the brand? So you wouldn't recommend it. I like the big PC speed
I just never trust them
Edit: you can ignore the bit about the Hard Drive. Mister Anarchy is right, they generally come as a bulk sale so you shouldn't really expect to be getting anything else with. I was thinking of getting an item from "Bulk" when it also comes as "Retail" (Retail will have a box and a few snazzy extras).0 -
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i have a pentium 4 mobile that will sit at 12*200 (2.4 gigs) in a springdale mobo in the fs section of the boards 
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