I need to replace my daughter's 350 mHz PII with my 1 gHz Athlon, so that means I get to build myself a new computer . I've never built one from scratch, but I've upgraded these systems quite a bit.
First, what I use my machine for: no gaming, normal stuff (internet, e-mail, and Office), and also CD ripping to mp3 (have done about 70% of my 400+ collection), DVD burning, small amounts of photo editing. My 1 gHz works fine for this stuff, but I would like the audio and video extraction to be faster.
I think I've decided on the Athon XP processor based on price. Most likely the XP 2500+ w/333 mhz FSB and 512 kb cache. That is still under $100 on newegg and I like the 512 cache over the 256 on some of the other chips.
The problem is the motherboard. It needs to have onboard video (remember no games) to keep the price down. I may add a video card in the future, but at this point I see no need. Other than that, I would like to have 3 DIMM slots for future upgradeability, but I guess I could live with 2. I would also like the ATX size as opposed to the micro (the biggest difference I see is that the ATX has more PCI slots, so I would like that for the future, but if you tell me I would be fine with the micro, I might consider it).
One question: Do I need onboard SATA/RAID (I don't really understand what that is - I know it's for hard drives and it replaces the IDE, but is there a benefit? Can I get an upgrade card later if it doesn't have it onboard?)?
The two I'm leaning towards are the Biostar Biostar M7NCG 400 ($61) or the Abit NF7-M ($92). They both have onboard video, have 3 DIMM slots, but no RAID. Is the Abit worth $31 more than the Biostar?
Another question: on the Abit website, on their CPU compatibility site it doesn't list any 512 kb cache processors. Does that mean it won't work with this motherboard?
Sorry so long, but like I said, this is my first time building a PC from scratch.
Matt
First, what I use my machine for: no gaming, normal stuff (internet, e-mail, and Office), and also CD ripping to mp3 (have done about 70% of my 400+ collection), DVD burning, small amounts of photo editing. My 1 gHz works fine for this stuff, but I would like the audio and video extraction to be faster.
I think I've decided on the Athon XP processor based on price. Most likely the XP 2500+ w/333 mhz FSB and 512 kb cache. That is still under $100 on newegg and I like the 512 cache over the 256 on some of the other chips.
The problem is the motherboard. It needs to have onboard video (remember no games) to keep the price down. I may add a video card in the future, but at this point I see no need. Other than that, I would like to have 3 DIMM slots for future upgradeability, but I guess I could live with 2. I would also like the ATX size as opposed to the micro (the biggest difference I see is that the ATX has more PCI slots, so I would like that for the future, but if you tell me I would be fine with the micro, I might consider it).
One question: Do I need onboard SATA/RAID (I don't really understand what that is - I know it's for hard drives and it replaces the IDE, but is there a benefit? Can I get an upgrade card later if it doesn't have it onboard?)?
The two I'm leaning towards are the Biostar Biostar M7NCG 400 ($61) or the Abit NF7-M ($92). They both have onboard video, have 3 DIMM slots, but no RAID. Is the Abit worth $31 more than the Biostar?
Another question: on the Abit website, on their CPU compatibility site it doesn't list any 512 kb cache processors. Does that mean it won't work with this motherboard?
Sorry so long, but like I said, this is my first time building a PC from scratch.
Matt