Any Computer Gurus here?
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
Good Choice On the IC7, I've had the IC7-G for over a year now and absolutely love it. I get most of my stuff through ZipZoomFly. On the memory You really should get Dual sticks of the same type like lemon said. and I would look into geting a 9800pro/xt instead of the 9600xt.
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
The xp naming convention relates to comparable of an intel chip. My barton 2800 xp runs around 2.1 ghz and is quite fast. AMD on Asus A7NX2 board. Nforce 3 is out. Don't be so quick to discount AMDs because of the naming covention. Nvidia boards onboard sound is quite good. Sound cards, Some games have problems with Audigy from Creative. I like Santa Cruz from Turtle Beach. Intels do NOT blow them out of the water on benchmarking. Video cards. Avoid any nvida MX or the 4200 series. They are based on the Geforce 2 GTS chipset. Get at least 1 gig of memory. Crucial.com is a good site to look. Kingston or Muskin memory is great. Get a 7200 rpm HD, as many gigs as you can afford. XP for an OS.
www.pricewatch.com is good for pricing
www.resellerratings.com is good to check out a vendor
Newegg.com is good vendor. No trouble ever.
www.pricewatch.com is good for pricing
www.resellerratings.com is good to check out a vendor
Newegg.com is good vendor. No trouble ever.
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
Thanks for all the help guys.
I dont think intel blows amd away.. but for my price range..the performance seems the same.. I dont want to shell out 2grand on this system cause now I have education costs.
problem is a lot of these places are american, and living in canada, I want to order from canada.. avoid border problems and such.
do you guys know anythign about either of these sites
https://pc11.flashecom.com
http://www.mysterybyte.com/
primier computers was good, but they didnt have all the parts, i'm getting a new case+keyboard and ps plus some cooling stuff, idl ike to try to get it all from the same place.
I dont think intel blows amd away.. but for my price range..the performance seems the same.. I dont want to shell out 2grand on this system cause now I have education costs.
problem is a lot of these places are american, and living in canada, I want to order from canada.. avoid border problems and such.
do you guys know anythign about either of these sites
https://pc11.flashecom.com
http://www.mysterybyte.com/
primier computers was good, but they didnt have all the parts, i'm getting a new case+keyboard and ps plus some cooling stuff, idl ike to try to get it all from the same place.
Jason Blaz
Way to much to list here!
Way to much to list here!
-
Incendiary Lemon
- Posts: 137
- Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 3:54 pm
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
www.resellerratings.com is a decent spot for shop reviews.
Try this thread at Anandtech for other Canadian stores.
Fortron is a good choice for a power supply. They are cheap but its no dodge on quality, you really can't buy better. Shouldn't need any extra cooling though, the case should come fitted and the CPU ships with a more than reasonable heatsink/fan.
But a last provisor on Intel/AMD
With an 865 or 875 motherboard it is dead end tech, an upgrade is a new board. The new Athlons are more flexible, you will be able to swap a faster processor in. The best question is what are you using the rig for? If your playing Doom3 an entry level Athlon 64 outperforms a top of the line PIV Extreme Edition. This page gives the comparison
PIV 3.2 800mhz Extreme Edition at 305 (CAD)
Athlon 64 3000+ at 219 (CAD)
But if your playing solitare thats not terribly relevant.[;)]
Anyway, talk to the guys at the local shop and don't forget that surge protector. My recomendation would be an 865 with the 2.8 northwood or the Athlon 64 at 3000. The first is reliable, inexpensive, and is still considered quite fast even a year after release. The 64 is also fast, no more expensive, and does very well in memory intensive applications and games. It also has the better upgrade path.
Try this thread at Anandtech for other Canadian stores.
Fortron is a good choice for a power supply. They are cheap but its no dodge on quality, you really can't buy better. Shouldn't need any extra cooling though, the case should come fitted and the CPU ships with a more than reasonable heatsink/fan.
But a last provisor on Intel/AMD
With an 865 or 875 motherboard it is dead end tech, an upgrade is a new board. The new Athlons are more flexible, you will be able to swap a faster processor in. The best question is what are you using the rig for? If your playing Doom3 an entry level Athlon 64 outperforms a top of the line PIV Extreme Edition. This page gives the comparison
PIV 3.2 800mhz Extreme Edition at 305 (CAD)
Athlon 64 3000+ at 219 (CAD)
But if your playing solitare thats not terribly relevant.[;)]
Anyway, talk to the guys at the local shop and don't forget that surge protector. My recomendation would be an 865 with the 2.8 northwood or the Athlon 64 at 3000. The first is reliable, inexpensive, and is still considered quite fast even a year after release. The 64 is also fast, no more expensive, and does very well in memory intensive applications and games. It also has the better upgrade path.
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
My next upgrade will be 64 bit and also have PCI express.
Maybe next year sometime.
Maybe next year sometime.
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
With an 865 or 875 motherboard it is dead end tech, an upgrade is a new board. The new Athlons are more flexible, you will be able to swap a faster processor in. The best question is what are you using the rig for?
Nothing personal, but those types of comments make me laugh. Every single time I have gone down the upgrade path, I have ended up with finding it cheaper to sell my old machine as a working machine and simply build a new machine with the *right* parts.
my life:
Asus duel lx board ... worked great *but* couldn't handle 2x agp properly. scrapped.
Asus duel bx board ... worked great *but* could not go beyond 750mhz cpus, scrapped.
Msi with amd 1.44c ... worked great *but* problems with 4x sideband video, scrapped.
Finally completely fed up ... no real need to upgrade as the systems were just not that *big* of a difference. Left money in the bank and waited a while.
next (I'm quite happy): Asus p4c800-e & intel 3.2-800 + ati 9800xt + audigy2 + raid 0 SATA + 1 Gig DDR combo
At no time did I ever find it worth the effort to try and reuse parts from old systems. Memory never works, power supply never works, hard drives are so cheap it's not worth it, cd's tend to get to the point you might as well replace, etc.
The next standards will be PCI Express replacing AGP and will once again make the current set of toys completely obsolete with no saving anything.
Upgrades are generally pointless ... build what you can afford then be happy with it. Do it again in a couple of years instead of falling into the perpetual upgrade trap where you just keep sinking money in and end up with a room full of parts that serve no purpose. [;)]
The industry deliberately *changes* things like socket type and slot type and interface types to stay in business. Never assume the stuff you buy today will work tomorrow. Buy it because it does what you want *today*
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
Okay, DamoclesX, I'll give you a few pointers at least. Since I can't convince you that not only was AMD not the source of your problems (that photo is clearly the result of electrical overload), I won't bother explaining AMDs naming strategy. Instead I'll start with these statements:
#1: Your last board was ECS, Elitegroup. They sell their reference designs to a number of companies, including Amptron, PC Chips, and MSI. MSI doesn't only make ECS references, but if you buy their board search on ECS for similar names or just by the chipset and features. If the board looks highly similar, chances are it's identical. Why is this important? ECS (and their subsidiary PC Chips, and subsequently Amptron) has an RMA rate of around 55-65%. Meaning that 55-65 out of 100 boards are sent back to manufacturer for replacement. This means your board WILL Fail 55-65% of the time. Some of the common failures I've seen in all 35 ECS boards I've dealt with (through customers, or once through my own misguided stupidity): IDE Channel Failed/Faulty, Power circuit draws wrong wattage down 3.3 Rail, Power supply fried due to 12V rail being drawn NEGATIVE (killed four PSUs, determined to be board-fault), Memory Incompatibility (Somehow the board decided that seven separate Crucial PC2700 sticks weren't good enough), three AGP cards toasted, a CPU catching fire due to bad overclock routines (and I mean catching fire, you raise a CPU by 3MHz FSB and keep the multiplier the same, the CPU don't catch fire except in that board), and seventeen different occurrances of mislabeled chipsets. Eight where the chipset name was PAINTED OVER and remarked with printing. Moral of the story: Avoid ECS.
#2: Value RAM, of any kind, is to be avoided. In my experience, Value RAM has developed bad sections 35% of the time. If it has Value in the name, or is the "lower-end" line by the manufacturer, spend more money. If it's unbranded or House Brand memory, avoid it. You will save far more money in the long run doing this. Crucial (Micron), Kingston, Corsair, all those are good. Costly, but good. My advice, if you wanna save memory, use Crucial.com to determine the speed and size of the RAM you want. Now, go to a seller's website, such as Newegg, Tigerdirect, any other, and obtain the Crucial brand at OEM rate. This means that you're paying for the stick of RAM only, and a white cardboard box, along with the antistatic bag. Why, oh Oracle, would he recommend getting something without a warranty? Because Crucial's lifetime warranty applies and is transferred no matter HOW you obtained the stick. If it's a dead stick in a 50-cent bin at the local crap-o-mart, they'll replace it. It just has to be made by them. That lifetime warranty says as long as the stick exists and isn't PHYSICALLY damaged (you didn't crack it in half in a fit of Hulk-rage), it's good by them.
#3: AGP vs. PCI-Express. If you can wait a while to build your new computer, save up the cash-o-lotta and buy PCI-Express board and video card and parts. Why? PCI-Express is far better (different architecture, look it up I don't know the details) than PCI /and/ AGP. With PCI-Express and Serial ATA, you've got two SEPARATE busses. No longer is your hard drive limited by the bandwidth of your expansion bus (IDE is on the PCI bus, normally). It's a far better combination.
#4: Some onboard sounds rule. Others don't. If the words "CMI" or "C-Media" are involved, you're looking at the budget version of onboard sound. Obtain a sound card separately. Anything with a Crystal Logic or Cirrus soundchip on the other hand is pretty decent quality. The nVidia Soundstorm is considered higher quality than an Audigy, and just a bit lower than Audigy2. SB Audigy, however, has a LOT of "fun flaws". If you trust Creative, go ahead. But I can't guarantee it'll work.
#5: Hard Drives: Bigger buffer (most have 8 megs on the SATA drives) = faster and better performance, less hard drive thrashing, far longer lifespan. On that note, defrag monthly at the least.
#6: OS: Your choice between Windows 2000, and Windows XP. XP has security "Features" which I reject, because an Operating System telling me that I can no longer use the antivirus program I choose (See SP2's list of Broken Software and Features) is not Kosher by me. I use 2k. As a little hint, every game made in the last 4 or even 5 years will run on 2k, most very stably. Anything made in the last 3 years will run perfectly well on 2k. 2k also requires less RAM than XP. XP's main bonus: Lots of pretty interface changes. I don't need those, thank you.
This has been a little reality check. The filing fee has been waived.
#1: Your last board was ECS, Elitegroup. They sell their reference designs to a number of companies, including Amptron, PC Chips, and MSI. MSI doesn't only make ECS references, but if you buy their board search on ECS for similar names or just by the chipset and features. If the board looks highly similar, chances are it's identical. Why is this important? ECS (and their subsidiary PC Chips, and subsequently Amptron) has an RMA rate of around 55-65%. Meaning that 55-65 out of 100 boards are sent back to manufacturer for replacement. This means your board WILL Fail 55-65% of the time. Some of the common failures I've seen in all 35 ECS boards I've dealt with (through customers, or once through my own misguided stupidity): IDE Channel Failed/Faulty, Power circuit draws wrong wattage down 3.3 Rail, Power supply fried due to 12V rail being drawn NEGATIVE (killed four PSUs, determined to be board-fault), Memory Incompatibility (Somehow the board decided that seven separate Crucial PC2700 sticks weren't good enough), three AGP cards toasted, a CPU catching fire due to bad overclock routines (and I mean catching fire, you raise a CPU by 3MHz FSB and keep the multiplier the same, the CPU don't catch fire except in that board), and seventeen different occurrances of mislabeled chipsets. Eight where the chipset name was PAINTED OVER and remarked with printing. Moral of the story: Avoid ECS.
#2: Value RAM, of any kind, is to be avoided. In my experience, Value RAM has developed bad sections 35% of the time. If it has Value in the name, or is the "lower-end" line by the manufacturer, spend more money. If it's unbranded or House Brand memory, avoid it. You will save far more money in the long run doing this. Crucial (Micron), Kingston, Corsair, all those are good. Costly, but good. My advice, if you wanna save memory, use Crucial.com to determine the speed and size of the RAM you want. Now, go to a seller's website, such as Newegg, Tigerdirect, any other, and obtain the Crucial brand at OEM rate. This means that you're paying for the stick of RAM only, and a white cardboard box, along with the antistatic bag. Why, oh Oracle, would he recommend getting something without a warranty? Because Crucial's lifetime warranty applies and is transferred no matter HOW you obtained the stick. If it's a dead stick in a 50-cent bin at the local crap-o-mart, they'll replace it. It just has to be made by them. That lifetime warranty says as long as the stick exists and isn't PHYSICALLY damaged (you didn't crack it in half in a fit of Hulk-rage), it's good by them.
#3: AGP vs. PCI-Express. If you can wait a while to build your new computer, save up the cash-o-lotta and buy PCI-Express board and video card and parts. Why? PCI-Express is far better (different architecture, look it up I don't know the details) than PCI /and/ AGP. With PCI-Express and Serial ATA, you've got two SEPARATE busses. No longer is your hard drive limited by the bandwidth of your expansion bus (IDE is on the PCI bus, normally). It's a far better combination.
#4: Some onboard sounds rule. Others don't. If the words "CMI" or "C-Media" are involved, you're looking at the budget version of onboard sound. Obtain a sound card separately. Anything with a Crystal Logic or Cirrus soundchip on the other hand is pretty decent quality. The nVidia Soundstorm is considered higher quality than an Audigy, and just a bit lower than Audigy2. SB Audigy, however, has a LOT of "fun flaws". If you trust Creative, go ahead. But I can't guarantee it'll work.
#5: Hard Drives: Bigger buffer (most have 8 megs on the SATA drives) = faster and better performance, less hard drive thrashing, far longer lifespan. On that note, defrag monthly at the least.
#6: OS: Your choice between Windows 2000, and Windows XP. XP has security "Features" which I reject, because an Operating System telling me that I can no longer use the antivirus program I choose (See SP2's list of Broken Software and Features) is not Kosher by me. I use 2k. As a little hint, every game made in the last 4 or even 5 years will run on 2k, most very stably. Anything made in the last 3 years will run perfectly well on 2k. 2k also requires less RAM than XP. XP's main bonus: Lots of pretty interface changes. I don't need those, thank you.
This has been a little reality check. The filing fee has been waived.
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
Okay.
I read through that, and it made sence, I know the amd didnt fry my mb, but... In my personal opinion I like intel better.
Actually. I was really bending towards getting one of those amd 64bit chips, but my buddy in town owns the local computer store, and he got me a REALLY good deal on the p4 2.8E + mb.... 200$ for the chip AND board... he said they wanted to dump them lol...... that might be bad... lol but he DID say everone of his guru friends had clocked them 500mhz to 1gig over spec and above the performance level of amd's at the same price(non clocked) so thats good news.
And since I saved money on that, I"m grabbing 2 256meg ddrs at 400, I"m going to have to run... 200(or 266 I cant remember what I have now) for a few weeks until the new ram gets in but thats okay.
I also got a ATI Radeon9800PRO, very happy about this, all the benchamrks I checked from toms hardware had this card REALLY close to top.
Got a new case and keyboard, I linked them at the bottom of the post, and a 420watt powersupply with auto shut off and 2 internal fans.
The good thing out of all this, is I saved a lot more on these parts then I thought, so I might be able to upgrade my server(running the b5 mod website and that stuff) and from all the info you guys have posted here I"ll be in a lot better position to pick out those parts... and since I dont have to buy a vid card for that computer.. thats more money for processing power!
my case
http://www.thermaltake.com/xaserCase/la ... m2000a.htm
and my keyboard
http://www.thermaltake.com/keyboardMouse/1st/a1806.htm
heheh I like them, I have a grey box.. and grey keyboard.. and grey mouse.. very nice to have a change.. .they had some insane cases too, right out of scifi lol
I'll post some dig pics once I get it built and setup, i"m gonna go offline until it comes here, I need to clean up this entire sweet(its an entire basement, very very large in 3 rooms that have not been cleaned since I moved in lol)
see you guys later
I read through that, and it made sence, I know the amd didnt fry my mb, but... In my personal opinion I like intel better.
Actually. I was really bending towards getting one of those amd 64bit chips, but my buddy in town owns the local computer store, and he got me a REALLY good deal on the p4 2.8E + mb.... 200$ for the chip AND board... he said they wanted to dump them lol...... that might be bad... lol but he DID say everone of his guru friends had clocked them 500mhz to 1gig over spec and above the performance level of amd's at the same price(non clocked) so thats good news.
And since I saved money on that, I"m grabbing 2 256meg ddrs at 400, I"m going to have to run... 200(or 266 I cant remember what I have now) for a few weeks until the new ram gets in but thats okay.
I also got a ATI Radeon9800PRO, very happy about this, all the benchamrks I checked from toms hardware had this card REALLY close to top.
Got a new case and keyboard, I linked them at the bottom of the post, and a 420watt powersupply with auto shut off and 2 internal fans.
The good thing out of all this, is I saved a lot more on these parts then I thought, so I might be able to upgrade my server(running the b5 mod website and that stuff) and from all the info you guys have posted here I"ll be in a lot better position to pick out those parts... and since I dont have to buy a vid card for that computer.. thats more money for processing power!
my case
http://www.thermaltake.com/xaserCase/la ... m2000a.htm
and my keyboard
http://www.thermaltake.com/keyboardMouse/1st/a1806.htm
heheh I like them, I have a grey box.. and grey keyboard.. and grey mouse.. very nice to have a change.. .they had some insane cases too, right out of scifi lol
I'll post some dig pics once I get it built and setup, i"m gonna go offline until it comes here, I need to clean up this entire sweet(its an entire basement, very very large in 3 rooms that have not been cleaned since I moved in lol)
see you guys later
Jason Blaz
Way to much to list here!
Way to much to list here!
-
Incendiary Lemon
- Posts: 137
- Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 3:54 pm
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
200 chip and board? Good lord... that is a killer deal.
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
speaking of cases..I got tired of the nasty off white I had. So I took it apart and painted it chalkboard black. Now I can leave mysefl notes..ON the computer..hehe..
Ok, who's running a mchaine under 1GHz here?
Me....
Ok, who's running a mchaine under 1GHz here?
Me....
blaa.
-
CAPT SABER
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Sat Sep 04, 2004 1:09 am
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
Any Computer Gurus here?
The only way to go is build your own!!! You save money!! And end up with a beeter system!! Better than any off the shelf system...
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
ya
I did after I Got the parts
right nwo its a 2.8E with a p4p800 delux mb
radeon 9800 pro
and 256 megs of ddr266:(
I have 1 gig off ddr400 in the mail along with a special vga cooler and some zalman 7000 supercooler
I tested the oc abilits for a bit, and got the card up to 440mhz over the 370 it comes stock, and booted the chip at 3.06 gigs with no trouble, I suspect with the new heatsink it could go a lot higher
is there any good benchmarks out there to test? right now I just use ait tool for the vid and sandra for the processor, I hate 3dmark, it takes so bloody long
Just for kicks
I oc'ed it, running at 44-52c at the chip, so thats not bad, its suppose to run near 65
anyways, its running at
3.36ghz
and the memory is running at 320 mhz!!!
at this point.. I dont see what would be so great about 400mhz memery.. 1024 megs of 320 seems better then 512 megs of 400
anyways
I ran cpu arithmetic benchmarks in sisoftware
it took a P4-E 580 4GH 1ML2 to beat this system in the dhrystone ALU benchamr
in the Whetstone FPU/iSSE2 I walked on it,
9792MIPS and 3871/6931 MFLOPS
The max I hear this can go is 250mhz overclock... or 3.5 gigs
question is, why is this beating p4 4 gigs, they should be killing me they are prescot chips as well
and for the "all powerfull" amd chips.. lmao.. mine is walking on them... badly,
any thoughts? or forums I could post this to get some feedback?
I did after I Got the parts
right nwo its a 2.8E with a p4p800 delux mb
radeon 9800 pro
and 256 megs of ddr266:(
I have 1 gig off ddr400 in the mail along with a special vga cooler and some zalman 7000 supercooler
I tested the oc abilits for a bit, and got the card up to 440mhz over the 370 it comes stock, and booted the chip at 3.06 gigs with no trouble, I suspect with the new heatsink it could go a lot higher
is there any good benchmarks out there to test? right now I just use ait tool for the vid and sandra for the processor, I hate 3dmark, it takes so bloody long
Just for kicks
I oc'ed it, running at 44-52c at the chip, so thats not bad, its suppose to run near 65
anyways, its running at
3.36ghz
and the memory is running at 320 mhz!!!
at this point.. I dont see what would be so great about 400mhz memery.. 1024 megs of 320 seems better then 512 megs of 400
anyways
I ran cpu arithmetic benchmarks in sisoftware
it took a P4-E 580 4GH 1ML2 to beat this system in the dhrystone ALU benchamr
in the Whetstone FPU/iSSE2 I walked on it,
9792MIPS and 3871/6931 MFLOPS
The max I hear this can go is 250mhz overclock... or 3.5 gigs
question is, why is this beating p4 4 gigs, they should be killing me they are prescot chips as well
and for the "all powerfull" amd chips.. lmao.. mine is walking on them... badly,
any thoughts? or forums I could post this to get some feedback?
Jason Blaz
Way to much to list here!
Way to much to list here!
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
Right, because the P4 is good at running code that fits in it's cache; it's very deep pipeline, high cost of stalls and the slower system memory are less of an issue when it's running a simple arithmetic test which mostly runs on-chip. I dare say a similarly specced AMD64 will beat your system on pretty much anything else, and run a lot cooler to boot.and for the "all powerfull" amd chips.. lmao.. mine is walking on them... badly,
But.. you've got it now, never mind
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
Hmm
do you know any benchmarks that would test everything? not just what this chip is good at.. that seems kind of.. usless lol!
I hear the cooler, this E chip runs hot, when I overclocked it to 3.2 it ran near 60C, normally runs at 51 when gamming.. not impressed, bought an aftermarket heatsink to help fix that.
do you know any benchmarks that would test everything? not just what this chip is good at.. that seems kind of.. usless lol!
I hear the cooler, this E chip runs hot, when I overclocked it to 3.2 it ran near 60C, normally runs at 51 when gamming.. not impressed, bought an aftermarket heatsink to help fix that.
Jason Blaz
Way to much to list here!
Way to much to list here!
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
well
I ran a bunch of different benches, and I just dont see that, to buy an amd chip that would consistantly beat this one more then a sliver would cost more(Www.ncix.com) and not to mention I can clock this chip up to 3600mhz now without any overheating or stability problems.
Those fx chips seem bigtime, but they cost like 1000$ or something.
I ran a bunch of different benches, and I just dont see that, to buy an amd chip that would consistantly beat this one more then a sliver would cost more(Www.ncix.com) and not to mention I can clock this chip up to 3600mhz now without any overheating or stability problems.
Those fx chips seem bigtime, but they cost like 1000$ or something.
Jason Blaz
Way to much to list here!
Way to much to list here!
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=683&pageID=959
nm
some new intel 550 chip just stomped on amd lol
nm
some new intel 550 chip just stomped on amd lol
Jason Blaz
Way to much to list here!
Way to much to list here!
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
Meh, on Sandra, king of the unreliable benchmark. Also comparing a dual channel system with a single channel one; let's see a comparison with an S939 AMD64 3500+ running 200Mhz "slower" than this 3400+
RE: Any Computer Gurus here?
arg
to many benchmarks
ive spent the last 2 days reading sites and trying to figure this stuff out lol
I just hope this new ram comming does duel channel at 400mhz.. then I can see how much that effects things
to many benchmarks
ive spent the last 2 days reading sites and trying to figure this stuff out lol
I just hope this new ram comming does duel channel at 400mhz.. then I can see how much that effects things
Jason Blaz
Way to much to list here!
Way to much to list here!