Buying a new computer

[Kaine]

Hi all,

I am in the market for a new PC. My friend recommended I get the following parts.

Pentium IV 2.0Ghz Northwood 512K, 478-pin
Abit BD7-RAID Motherboard
Corsair 512MB DDR RAM, PC 2100, ECC + Registered

I play alot of online games so performance and stability are my main issues. Does this look like a good combination?

thanks for your help,

Edit: Also if possible could you recommend a good performance CPU cooler.

[WesM63]

Kaine,
May i suggest the thermaltake volcano 7+. Excellent cooler. A little loud when fan is set to high but quite other than that. They can be had for $29 at harddrive.com

[Neo]

Hey Kaine,

Might I sujest the new 2.26 512k piv on a 533 bus. it is only about 50 dollars more and really cleans how.

[Speedo]

Originally posted by Kaine
Hi all,

I am in the market for a new PC. My friend recommended I get the following parts.

Pentium IV 2.0Ghz Northwood 512K, 478-pin
Abit BD7-RAID Motherboard
Corsair 512MB DDR RAM, PC 2100, ECC + Registered

I play alot of online games so performance and stability are my main issues. Does this look like a good combination?

thanks for your help,

Edit: Also if possible could you recommend a good performance CPU cooler.

how much money are you looking to spend ? If you have a little i'd recommend the following:
Motherboard: Abit IT7
CPU: P4 2.26 (with 533 Mhz FSB)
RAM: 512Mb Winbond PC2700
HSF: Alpha PAL8942 T with slow YS-Tech/Evercool

[mackerel]

What's the difference between the BD7, BD7-II and IT7? I'm about to go for a P4 system too and the BD7 was on my shortlist, but I hadn't realised there have been more recently...

[mackerel]

It's done! I've just put in orders for an IT7, P4 2.0A, and 2x256 PC2100 Crucial as it's much cheeper than 1x512! Placed via the ad banner on the marsjupiter site of course :cool:

Expect to see my old bits for sale later to pay for it... :D

As for mobos, after some random reading, looks like the difference from BD7 to the second version is the addition of 133 MHz fsb support. The IT7 features the same chipset, but the amount of stuff onboard is massive that I don't think I'll need anything else in the PCI slots. Multi-channel sound, USB2, firewire... the list is endless. And it's legacy free too, so I'll now have to find a USB keyboard from somewhere. Then again... the PS2 Linux kit I got yesterday has one... :)

BTW the boxed retail P4 comes with a heatsink/fan, doesn't it?

[Speedo]

yup the boxed set will include a hsf :)
you might find you want to use a different sound card in the IT7, it uses multi-channel AC97, which is um.. pants :(
Wish you'd asked before ordering, nm tho, tis done :rolleyes:

[mackerel]

I can still change the order at any time until it's packaged :cool:

Speedo... Um... what else is there to ask about? It's not so different from your earlier post suggestion. I went for the 2 gig P4 "A" as it seemed best VFM. I hope to jump to 133 fsb effectively turning it into a P4 "B" at about 2.6 GHz.

Crucial ram has served me well in the past for the money. I can get 3x256 for the cost of 1x512 even if I use up another slot. My current system has 512 MB total too, and I never get near that during normal use.

I like Abit mobos, still owning a BP6 and the KT7A-Raid was a very nice t-bird board while I had it. Even with 5 leaking caps it worked flawlessly and stably :D

I might consider a sound card upgrade but that's not a priority. My best video card at the mo is a GF2 which I hope to replace with a GF4 later. As long as it can get a few mp3s out, any sound card is fine.

[Speedo]

AC97 = poor of the poor im afraid
main thing i was thinking about was fsb, and the RAM speed, best to have the highest speed you can get out of your memory with DDR, which is by using the 1:1 or 3:4 settings, if you take your fsb to 133 the 3:4 setting will take it to 177, which not many sticks of pc2100 are going to handle, especially @ decent timings.
I presume you're in the UK, so you would be able to get the 512Mb Winbond PC2700 memory from CCL (£104.05inc VAT) which would most likely do up to and above 200Mhz @ decent timings, (costing an additional £20 over 2x 256mb Crucial PC2100 and saving £40 from 2x 256Mb Crucial PC2700 sticks), whats £20 for better performance :)
If you're not going to use 512 then how about 256Mb of Winbond PC2700 (if you can find it) or Original Samsung PC2700 (taken mine to 220Mhz stable :o)
Looking @ CPU prices I can see what you mean, 2.26 would be best if you could afford it, else sticking with that 2.0 seems the best option :)

[mackerel]

What's so bad about the onboard sound? Is it quality? Or some CPU resource issue? I notice it has an optical output so I can connect it to my home cinema setup :D Myabe I'll replace it later, but there are no sound cards out now that I feel worth paying for.

As for the P4 CPUs, the lower end ones most tempted me as I was going for VFM rather than all out performance. Originally I was only going to get the 1.6 or 1.8 to overclock to 133 fsb. But I now feel lucky and am getting the 2.0. Both mobo and CPU are now in stock so hopefully they'll post it soon. Since it's on free 3 day delivery I should get it by middle of next week.

Unfortunately the ram which was ordered seperately has already been shipped, so it's a bit late to change that now.

[Speedo]

thing with AC97 audio is quality, even my £11 Hercules Muse XL sound cards are far superior in quality :rolleyes:

[mackerel]

Is that because of the analog components being as cheep as possible? I'm planning on using the optical output to connect up to my surround decoder once I fork out for yet another optical cable. I hope I have an input left :D

Considering I ordered the bits on Wednesday, and they were not all in stock then, I received everything this morning! I'm going to have to butcher my current main machine to build it up, but I'll let you all know how it goes when I'm back.

I'm quite surprised at the size of the intel cooler, having seen the ones they used on earlier porocessors. Nice bit of bulk to it, wonder how far I can push the GHz...

[Speedo]

im sure you'll tell us :p

[Speedo]

oh and AC97 is just a **** chip, its not the outputs :(