About to buy new rig - any advice/comments

daveg

I'm about to buy this rig from Komplett. Any comments or suggestions would be much appriciated. Thanks in advance.

Maxtor IDE ATA-133 120GB 7200RPM DiamondMax Plus 9

Asus P4S8X Motherboard (With serial ATA/6 channel sound/SPDIF - OP & LAN)

P4 2.0

Creative 3DBlaster GeForce4 Ti4200 64MB (thanks for the advice koneko)

256K DDR RAM PC2700

Any comments on my choice of motherboard or P4 vrs AMD athlon ? Also I use the PC for surfing and some games.
One other question can any advise me on a modem (internal 56K). Should I go for a hardware or software ?

hussey

You already have a 80Gb HD
why dont ya keep it??
I mean if your just surfing and games then 80Gb would suffice no??
you could prob sell your pc for 600 if ya took the 80Gb hd away

the non-tech ppl, dont need a 80Gb hd, and 600 looks more appealing than 680

daveg

Hussay - If you want to offer €600 for the PC at this stage I'll take it. Problem is I already have the 120GB drive. I bought it on the Komplett specials last week. I wanted to have 1 drive instead of 2.

hussey

nah UR allright
i think it was over-priced for boards.ie!!

daveg

You think €600 for that PC is overpriced :rolleyes: Anyway... back on topic before a flame war starts.

hussey

no I think 680 was .. 600 is a nice price

BabyEater

If it was me i would go for an XP2000 instead of the P42Ghz as it is half the price with the same performance.

RicardoSmith

....but twice the heat, noise and problems....

BabyEater

They aren't really that hot you can keep it cool and yery quiet with a good heatsink and a low noise fan.
I havn't had any problems with mine .
I would go for a hardware modem as well

halfab

I am a bit worried about your choice in motherboards..
The P4S8X was plagued with stability issues especially with
PC2700 (DDR333).

Asus released a BIOS upgrade to address the instability issues on PC2700 but in fact all they did was loosen the memory timings and infact during tests PC2700 was actually slower that PC2100. Now that is just wrong on a P4 system.

Also the P4S8X had some voltage issues. The CPU voltage after a length of time would drop to below spec.. this was suprisingly common.

In fact I have a P4S8X and have noticed all the issues that I mentioned.
The PSUs I tested it on were Enermax 430Ws, Antec 400W , AOPEN 300W, Chieftec 350W all gave the same result.

Its a pity because the P4S8X is one sweet board on Paper.

I can give more info if needed.

Check http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum&f=30&hardset=60&start_point=25

For more info on this.. you may have to search for P4S8X.

zAbbo

Yeh look out for the db value on the heatsink/fan, good ones are around 25, loud ones are 40-50. But then theres the speed of the fans thats compensated.

Your planning to get a S-ATA HDD in the future?

Im buying a combo myself soon

Just noticed the new xp 1700 and 1800 tbreds (maybe you can explain more on these Babyeater - as opposed to polomino based AMD`s)

Im also convinced on the ti4200

If i went the P4 route the cost of my rig would double, so theres that end to think about as well.

daveg

guys thanks for all the advice so far. If I was to go for an AMD what would you recommend and what motherboard. halfab I know where your coming from as I read loads of reviews to choose this MB but I understood these issues were completely resolved with the bios upgrade. Which MB would you recommend ?

BabyEater - what rig did you go for the loose the AMD noise & heat issues ?

Your planning to get a S-ATA HDD in the future?

No the 120GB is it... for a long time.

po0k

You can get IDE-SATA converters anyways afaik.
(shouldn't be two bad to convert a parallel connection into astreamed serial one)

halfab

If you are going the AMD route then choose an nForce2 board.
From personal experience the Asus A7N8X Deluxe is an excellent example. Its onboard audio is excellent.
KT333s and KT400s add nothing new, but are also not bad performers.

Noisey coolers on AMD Athlons are a thing of the past. As BazH mentioned anything aroud 25/26dB is quite.
This Coolermaster http://www.coolermaster.com/products/cpucooler/silent/cp5-7jd1b-0l.html

is very quite and cheap also .. definitely under 20 euro anyway.
I


If you are going Intel P4 then I would really suggest sticking to an intel chipset based board. Anything with the 845PE (Official support for PC2700) is good and from experience the MSI 845PE MAX2 is another good example of this type of board. (Supports P4 HyperThreading)

The Asus P4B533-E is another wonderful example of a board.
With the ICH4 it allows unofficial DDR333 support and is also feature rich. It is based on the 845E however. But it does support P4 HT with a BIOS update.

Also watch out for the new Granite Bay based boards. This will allow Dual Channel DDR memory support and may be one of the better chipsets for the P4.

leeroybrown

Although, converter overheating might be a possibility. Seen mention of it in a review using Serial ATA Drives with a 3ware ATA Raid5 controller.

daveg

so maybe I should go AMD route instead of a P4 which may free up some of the budget to afford a new DVD recordable drive.

You can get IDE-SATA converters anyways afaik

Although, converter overheating might be a possibility. Seen mention of it in a review using Serial ATA Drives with a 3ware ATA Raid5 controller.

Are you saying my HD is not compatible with this motherboard ? Do I need a RAID contoller ???

halfab

leeroybrown , you have a point there,
I was testing an onboard SATA Raid with 2 x ABIT parallel-to-SATA Serrilel converters, and the resultant RAID was un-formatable.. but on their own in non raid mode they worked fine.

Just my 2c

halfab

Sisoft Sandra 2003 Pro.

Maxtor Fireball 3 benched as standard on Onboard Intel IDE controller and also on an ABIT SATA-PARALLEL converter



You dont loose much on conversion..

daveg

okay so I maybe considering changing the P4 and the Asus P4S8X Motherboard to:

AMD Athlon XP2400+ 2.0 GHz 266 MHz bus

Asus A7N8X Deluxe Socket A Motherboard

This setup will cost approx 40 euro more than the P4 setup. Is it justified ?

(Thanks halfab for the advice).

Also will my Maxtor 120GB HD be compatible or will I need a IDE-SATA converter (whatever that is... serial convertor perhaps
)

halfab

Yea the Harddrive will have no problem..
The board has 2 standard IDE ATA133 , and 2 SATA ports.

BabyEater

Bazh- those are tbred A's they should overclock better than the palominos you might get up to 2GHz with some very good air cooling e.g slk800 + delta the palominoes wouldn't get as far . Altho the tbreds will be hotter than the palominos there wattage is lower but the die size is smaller with the .13 process.
I would go for the 1800 tbed as it would overclock better than the 1700's pair that with an nForce and some good RAM and you will have a hell of a system.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by BabyEater
They aren't really that hot you can keep it cool and yery quiet with a good heatsink and a low noise fan.

They are the hotest chips you can get! Turn of the fan (or it fails) and the cpu's fry within a second. Where I live thats hot. Were you born on the sun or something?

Ok you need a big HS and a large quiet fan to keep the thing quiet and cool. Any of the shelf combo won't do that. I'm using a AX7 with a Papst 19dba fan on it. Now it not silent but its very quiet. Temps of about 50 with a 1ghz athlon at 1.4ghz. You'll have to pick something similar for the XP. Lots of help and info on the OcUK forums

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=1

daveg

mmm I thought the whole idea in buying the athlon over a P4 was the saving in cost. I woiuld have presumed that theP4 would out perform an AMD athlon XP (P4 2.0 vrs AMD 2200/2400XP). The AMD with a good MB and fan/heatsink is going to push the cost over 100 euros more than the P4 and MB.

halfab - what cooling have you on the Asus A7N8X and 2400XP ?

halfab

I use the Cooler Master CP5-7 JD1B-OL .. VERY quite and costs about 20 euro.

http://www.coolermaster.com/products/cpucooler/silent/cp5-7jd1b-0l.html

But I also use the ThermalTake dragon Orb 3

http://www.thermaltake.com/products/orbs/dragon3.htm

Not so quite.

BabyEater

daveg - the P4 2GHz and the 2000XP perform the same very little difference between them . I can't see how a good MB and a fan/heatsink is going to push the cost over 100 euros more than the P4 and MB as a 2000XP is only 98euro's and the heatsink that halfab recomended is only 20 euro's a good board like the Asus nForce costs 185 .So thats €303.
I don't think you are going to get a P4 setup for 200 as the P4 2GHz cost €222

RicardoSmith - halfab has shown an example of quiet AMD cooling assuming his version of quiet is the same as your own . The P4 isn't too cool itself with the 3.06 consumming 82watts altho it has very good protection which is what AMD is missing

RicardoSmith

Sorry but 24 dba isn't quiet. Has to be around 20 IMO.

Yes the v.fastests P4's are as hot the AMD's (I mean come on -3ghz!) but they all have a big heatspreader and they can be cooled much better than a AMD chip. My own 1.8a is overclocked to 2.4 and runs at 32 at idle and 40 under load. I'm running a flower HS and a very low speed fan on it. Theres no way you'd get a Athlon to do that. (and I've tried) What this means is I can get away with a less cooling, which mean less noise.

The AMD chips are cheaper, but they do run hotter and it this stage theres little between then in terms of performance. Personally after a number of AMD machines I've switched to Intel rigs. They may be more but I have had absolutely no problems them. 100% stable. I couldn't say the same for my AMD machines which all had hiccups along the way.

BabyEater

I agree with you that the P4's are easier to cool due to there lower wattage per milimeter squared.The P4 at 82watts will be easier to cool than an Athlon that puts out 82 watts. I don't see why a heatspreader is called a heatspreader as it cant spread the heat to much since it is so thin .
It depend on what you what cheaper and hotter or dearer and cooler.

RicardoSmith

All I can say is I have had all the problems with creative sound cards and amd systems, I burnt out one Athlon, even though the HS was fitted perfectly, to this day I have no idea how it happened. I have had a fan fail on the cpu, but luckily I had a cpu temp alarm set up and didn't damage it. I had lots of problems with a couple of socket A boards and I have spent hours getting my AMD systems to run quiet and cool.

As a comparision I have not had any issues with any of the Intel rigs I put together ever. They run quiet and cool and are very reliable. I wouldn't say they are the quickest but these days even a middle of the range PC is plenty fast.

If you are into tinkering around then go the AMD route, its cheaper and probably slightly quicker. However if you want a machine that easy to put together and trouble free then I'd suggest looking at the P4's.

I also like to keep an eye on the resale of my gear as I change it about often. The P4 will be worth more when I come to sell it too. So thats something else to think about.