PCTech Forums

Well after a week of suffering because I could not get IE to work right so I could Post to the Forums I made IT.


Ok here is the first problem which CPU to get (AMD vs Intel)?
Second item a Graphics card? (Compatabilty with CPC)
Maybe a Mobo should be first?

I have Enermax ATX/Server case with a 480 watt pwr supply ready to go.
With enough fans to keep it cool (I hope )

I have allways been an Intel fan but i want to explore every option out there. Now i looked at a Gigabyte Mobo (GA-8INXP) looks alright but some say it is not to stable because of the secondary pwr supply.

So let's put are heads together and build this thing and give it LIFE.

I usually always go with Intel. Why? I don't know, I get the cheap enough to warrant it I guess. I just bought a 2.66 with an Asus board. I love it. It performs extremely well. I also have a GeForce 4 4400. I love it. My buddy just bought an ATI 9800 and he loves it. I think either way you go you will be ok.

Looks like that motherboard only supports pc2100 ram.... you can put faster ram in, but that would effectively underclock your ram. PC3200 ram will work in the machine, but will only run at PC2100 speeds.

If you plan on overclocking your FSB (front side bus) at all, it would help to have faster ram, but PC2700 would be plenty fast.

It also looks like that motherboard supports Dual channel ram (which means you should buy 2 ram sticks - not one) Dual channel ram baisically means it can write to two memory sticks at the same time. So buy 2 256 meg chips if you want a total of 512 ram

Firewire is fast, 1394B is faster, but your devices also have to be 1394b or else it will just default to the slower speed

Serial ATA is a nice solution and the drives are getting easy to find/buy now. I'd personally go with 2 drives and raid them for my main partition, keep only programs on the C: drive and keep data elsewhere. I back up regularly with Symantec Ghost in case one of my drives goes bad.

I agree with restek, AMD chips/chipsets are better, cheaper, faster for your money. I'd buy a NFORCE2 board if the boss (wife) would let me.

After doing a little home work I found that PC2700 RAM is the best way to go.
So I agree with you on that. I had planned to buy 2x512MB chips for the Mobo (now just which ones). The Firewire devices I've looked at are 1394B compliante.

Getting 2 Drives from Seagate 120MB & 80MB that are SATA. Will put windows OS & all MS programs on one and all other software on the other. which stills leaves me with a ATA133 40MB HDD for data, and a old ATA100 HDD for other stuff.

Have Norton Ghost but backup to a DVD right now looking at getting a Firewire drive for backup and stroage.

Still out there looking at Graphics boards (with wife screaming in the background about my toys)