Recommendations for AMD system needed

Duracell

Duracell

1
in the earlier january weeks i like to set up a new system in mid price range; it will be a Innovatec watercooled system in a Chieftec Dragon BigTower;
so i like to list the questionable parts here, to get a recommendation from you mates;

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the heart shall be:
AMD Athlon XP Barton 2,6 GHz, 166/333 MHz FSB (to run at 200/400 MHz FSB)

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about the board i'm not sure, nForce chipset/drivers seem to are problematic like VIA in early days;
and the benefit from RAM in Dual Channel mode is not as huge as expected when system is running at 200/400 MHz FSB; (source Tom's Hardware)

ASUS A7N8X Deluxe (nForce2 Ultra400) Dual Channel DDR400 Support ==> 104 €
or
ASUS A7V600 (VIA KT600) Single Channel DDR400 Support ==> 74 €

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RAM: 2 modules SDRAM-DDR 400 (PC3200) 512 MB

i don't know if TwinMos or Corsair; and i don't know if CL2 is perceptible or CL3 is fast enough;

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SATA-HDD: 7200 rpm, 120-160 GB

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grahic card should be ATI based; i like to spend 250 € maximum;

i don't have a plan about their rating, numbering XT, SE, SX ???; the only purpose of their product placement seems to be confusing us custumers; :confused:

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so please give me feedback, recommendations/warnings and reasons for that;
Your judgement is welcome! :)

Greetings from
Duracell
 
A

AZImmortal

1
if u're only considering those two motherboards, i'd go with the A7N8X. my favorite nf2 board would have to be the Abit NF7-S though if u would consider that as an option. performance is much better with nf2 chipsets over any other amd chipset, and most of the driver issues are with the ide drivers, which seem to have cleared up over the last driver release, although u can choose not to install the ide drivers at all (and go with the default MS ide drivers).

for ram, if u're planning on overclocking but don't want to spend a lot of money, i'd get some pc3200 with winbond chips. if u have a lot of money to spend, corsair is a good choice, and i believe twinmos uses the winbond chips as well. u probably won't see a huge performance difference between CL2 and CL3 at higher frequencies.

in most reviews i've seen western digital and maxtor sata drives come pretty close in performance, with wd edging maxtor out. i've heard that the maxtor drives are quieter though.

for every numerical level of ATI cards, XT > Pro > non-Pro > SE, so a 9800XT would be much better than a 9800SE. a 9800 non-pro can be easily modded to become a 9800 Pro, so u might want to consider that as an option.
 
roadworker

roadworker

1
I just ordered this board a few days ago......should be one of the best out there for now,although the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe comes pretty close....
If you don't wanna spend more than 250$ for an ATI videocard,get a 9600 XT....however,if you can still can find a 9500,you can prefer that 1,as you can overclock it to a 9700 pro....
Dunno about the 2600XP,but I had a few readings lately about a 2500 XP Barton that can be easily overclocked to a 3000XP..... :eek:
 
Duracell

Duracell

1
thanks for replying; :)

board: about nForce vs VIA i had found this, but i don't know somebody with personally experience: http://www20.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20031107/index.html

RAM: yes, TwinMos using Winbond chips, good to hear CL2 is not really needed;

graphic gard: thanks, it's a little bit clearer now; have to choose between 9600 XT or 9800 SE (9700 and a real 9800 is to expensive)
also found this survey: http://www.hwhunpage.hu/gvt_e.htm
but i don't comprehend why 9600 XT is cheaper than 9800 SE; according the above linked GPU table the 9600 XT should be the better card; :confused:
And which ATI resellers are reliable, Sapphire, Powercolor, ASUS again?
 
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bionic

1
I have had no problems at all with 4 sapphire cards. Excellent 2 and 3d quality and good overclockers(my 9700 hits pro speeds with a zalman heatpipe cooler). So i feel i can safely recommend them.
Since your considering sata i would look into the sata controller issues with the nforce chipsets. Might have been fixed in later revisions though. Also being an abit "fan" id go for a mobo from them.
Also be aware that(rumours will have it)the newer bartons are locked.

:)
Btw i have an xp2400(266)@xp3200+ on a abit at7 max 2(will go higher when my new radiator arrives)
 
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roadworker

roadworker

1
@ Duracell:
Tomshardware compares Via KT600 and low budget Nforce 2 boards,but IMHO,the "expensive" Nforce 2 Ultra costs only 35-40$ more than a Via KT600 ......I mean,is this price difference important when building your new system?
@bionic:I'm getting the Abit N7-S in a few days,and have the same CPU as you,can you tell me if I can get my Athlon to that level?
 
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Mr Snatcher

New member
I will throw my 2 cents in, Have you considered the Athlon 64? its a little more, but probably worth it.(Actually they just came out with the Athlon 64 3000+) which is cheaper then Athlon xp 3200. I have a P4 2.6 oc'ed to 3ghz and replacing it with the 64 next month, I built one for a friend and the performance is the best I've seen. We both have the same amount of ram and video card, and games on his machine do better on his than on mine, and dvd encoding takes half the resources on his than mine.

His is 2ghz oc'ed at 2.17ghz, (cant get much out of it). The temp is is around 37 -41 degress with only a fan and heatsink. I must say i am jealous.
Specs - Athlon 64, Asus k8v deluxe, 512 mb ram Corsair twinx platinum. Also the 64 has 1mb cache, rather than 512kb.

I would go ATI 9800 and flash the bios and oc to a 9800 pro as suggested.
I dont mean to stear away from what you were looking at, I just thought I would give my opinion on it and maybe have another option.
 
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bionic

1
@ Roadworker
Actually you should be able to go higher, since the nf7-s is known as one of the best overclocking boards to date(250 fsb), also im just clocking the multiplier (because of some quirk with the max2 i have not allowing fsb speeds at 166 or higher).
I think im running on 1.725 or 1.75 v. Im not at home and i cant really remember, but that should leave good leverage to crank it higher, mind you it does get hot though.

:)
 
Duracell

Duracell

1
bionic said:
Also be aware that(rumours will have it)the newer bartons are locked.
Click to expand...
for sure the clock multiplicator is locked, so the only way to speed up is switching the FSB to 200 MHz; and i think AMD can not block these tries; :D


roadworker said:
Tomshardware compares Via KT600 and low budget Nforce 2 boards
Click to expand...
not only: We were shocked to discover that the performance gap between the two single-channel platforms and the nForce2 Ultra 400 with dual-channel DDR400 is a lot less than you might expect. Tests conducted a year ago with the nForce2, 166 MHz FSB and only one DIMM demonstrated that dual-channel mode is bound up with definite advantages. This time, we used an Athlon XP 3200+ with a Barton core and a 200 MHz system clock. The results show that fast FSB clock is more important than sheer memory bandwidth.
http://www20.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20031107/nforce2-400-11.html


but IMHO,the "expensive" Nforce 2 Ultra costs only 35-40$ more than a Via KT600 ......I mean,is this price difference important when building your new system?
Click to expand...
it's not only the money, it is much more the fear about nForce drivers; :D
also i think the biggest bottle-neck is reading/writing to HDD, so i consider to spend saved money for a SATA RAID 0 system:
2 x 160GB IDE Western Digital 1600JD 7200rpm ==> 2 x 116 €
or
2 x Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 120GB (HDS722512VLAS80) ==> 2 x 110 €
are my ideas; Any experiences?


@ Mr Snatcher: thanks for your suggestion; :) Athlon 64 was my first thought, but CPU cost, a Socket 754 board and a real Redeon 9800 are to heavy for my bank account;
i know a socket 754 is much more an investment in futures, i'm able to upgrade the CPU some day; but that's not the way i go; after 3 or 4 years i sell the whole system and set up a new one;
computing is not the main part of my life and not the main hobby, i rather like driving fast than computing fast; :D
 
S

slippery

1
My 2 cents worth:

I just built a system with the Asus A7N8X-Deluxe - a gig of dual channel pc3200 DDR (matched pair) Seagate SATA 120 gig HDD's, and a XP3000+ cpu, all I can say is saweeeeeeeeet!!
 
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AZImmortal

1
getting a socket 754 board now would not be a good move. amd is going to quickly make socket 754 its "value" socket and make socket 939 its "mainstream" and "performance" socket. socket 754 is also going to be phased out fairly quickly.
 
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scarecrow

1
I could suggest going Intel instead...
The last trend is SiS 655TX -based boards, which cost way less than 875 ones, and so far have passed all tests with flying colors. Add to that the fact they are 100% Pentium 5 ready... The only slight cons are some fussiness about the used RAM modules (unbuffered DDR is supported though...) and some hiccups with SATA drives, which are largely a BIOS issue, expected to be cured soon.
Asus has made a great board around the $100 tag- http://www.asus.com/products/mb/socket478/p4s800d-e-d/overview.htm
Considering that AMD's flagship Athlon XP 3200+ costs a lot and in fact it's of similar performance with an Intel P4/2800 with 800-bus which costs almost half, I wouldn't bother too much about an AMD system currently, unless you see a future for the 64-bit series of the AMD processors.
 
FortiTude

FortiTude

1
slippery said:
My 2 cents worth:
I just built a system with the Asus A7N8X-Deluxe - a gig of dual channel pc3200 DDR (matched pair) Seagate SATA 120 gig HDD's, and a XP3000+ cpu, all I can say is saweeeeeeeeet!!
Click to expand...
thx for the info, thats exactly the system i'm about to buy :)
i first wanted the 2800+ but there is no fsb 400 version, so 60 euros more for the 3000+, to make the sys run synchronous
will place the order in a few days
four times faster (bus, cpu, ram) than my current sys ...
(except i already got a maxtor 80 gig hdd (ata133), which is enough at the moment)
forti
 
Master

Master

Gold Member
roadworker said:
Aren't these Hitachi's the successors of IBM's Deathstar series??
Click to expand...

yes they are..but the warranty is working...rma request at hitachi :D

After on year of working my deathstar raid 0 system died lately.

It lasted 4 weeks to get a new 80gb hd :(

IBM/Hitachi is not recommended !!
 
Duracell

Duracell

1
FortiTude said:
i first wanted the 2800+ but there is no fsb 400 version, so 60 euros more for the 3000+, to make the sys run synchronous
will place the order in a few days
Click to expand...
no really need for a 400 MHz FSB CPU; according to the net stories you can easily run each 333 MHz Barton at 400 MHz (proper cooling presupposed);



roadworker said:
2 x Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 120GB (HDS722512VLAS80) ==> 2 x 110 €
Aren't these Hitachi's the successors of IBM's Deathstar series??
Click to expand...
i'm not sure if they still have problems, the safe way seems to be going for WD drives;


@ scarecrow: it should still be a midprice system, that's why i want to buy an Barton 2,6 98 € (to overclock at FSB400) instead a P4 2,8 285 €; :D
 
Duracell

Duracell

1
Duracell said:
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe (nForce2 Ultra400) Dual Channel DDR400 Support ==> 104 €
or
ASUS A7V600 (VIA KT600) Single Channel DDR400 Support ==> 74 €
Click to expand...
O.K. decision goes for ASUS A7N8X Deluxe;

VIA's KT600 seems to have problems with nearly all common 512 MB sticks; 512 MB sticks are generally double sided and adressed as 2 rows; VIA's KT600 can only handle 2 rows of DDR400(PC3200) RAM;
i planed to fit 1 GB in it ==> no practicable way;


@ Roady: please report your experiences when you got your Abit running; :)
 
FortiTude

FortiTude

1
Duracell said:
no really need for a 400 MHz FSB CPU; according to the net stories you can easily run each 333 MHz Barton at 400 MHz (proper cooling presupposed);
Click to expand...
thats exactly the point :) i dont wanna add a lot of cooling, just an Spire Whisper Rock IV for 13.5 euros
for water cooling i needed a new case, the watercooling system and time to get it working ...
ordered today ....
forti
 
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