Hi everyone,
It's been nearly two years since I built my last PC (Intel P2.4C, 865Perl, 9800 Pro). It's time to upgrade and since I didn't really keep up, the choices are killing me. I want to primarily build a gaming machine that will also be used for regular student work (mainly writing essays, etc). I do *not* intend to OC, and I would like it to run as cool as possible.
Looked at the Intel 5xx and 6xx series. Was interested in the 5xx series since I could run them in the 915 chipset and use DDR ram, but apparently they run very hot, and aren't that much faster than Prescotts. The 6xx series run a bit cooler (not that much), force me to use expensive DDR2, and have longer latency to boot. Seems the only reason to stick with Intel here is the stability of the chipset, which I considered to some extent: this has to be balanced against the fact that the Athlon Winchesters are cooler, faster, less expensive and use DDR.
The only thing that worries me then is the chipset stability with AMD. I have no intention of using SLI, which seems to leave the NF4 Ultra as the best option. The top three boards here, as far as I can determine, are the DFI-D Ultra, MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum and Asus A8N-SLI/Asus A8N-E. Using one of these, my component listing is below:
Motherboard: One of the 3 above
Athlon 64 - 3200 90nm w/stock HSF
Corsair Value Select Dual Channel 2x512MB PC3200 (unless there's any benefit with going faster RAM when not oc-ing?)
Seagate 120GB
Antec Sonata w/ Truepower 380S (Is this sufficient?)
ATI Radeon X800XL (MSI for the bundle)
17 inch 16ms LCD (any recommendations?)
MS Multimedia Keyboard
Logitech MX518 mouse
Altec Lansing ATP3W
DVD-RW (NEC or Plextor)
I would appreciate any comments on the above configuration. The only thing that concerns me is driver stability and maturity for the chipset. After reading all the reviews and benefits regarding the A64s I?m willing to give them a shot. Thanks everyone!
It's been nearly two years since I built my last PC (Intel P2.4C, 865Perl, 9800 Pro). It's time to upgrade and since I didn't really keep up, the choices are killing me. I want to primarily build a gaming machine that will also be used for regular student work (mainly writing essays, etc). I do *not* intend to OC, and I would like it to run as cool as possible.
Looked at the Intel 5xx and 6xx series. Was interested in the 5xx series since I could run them in the 915 chipset and use DDR ram, but apparently they run very hot, and aren't that much faster than Prescotts. The 6xx series run a bit cooler (not that much), force me to use expensive DDR2, and have longer latency to boot. Seems the only reason to stick with Intel here is the stability of the chipset, which I considered to some extent: this has to be balanced against the fact that the Athlon Winchesters are cooler, faster, less expensive and use DDR.
The only thing that worries me then is the chipset stability with AMD. I have no intention of using SLI, which seems to leave the NF4 Ultra as the best option. The top three boards here, as far as I can determine, are the DFI-D Ultra, MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum and Asus A8N-SLI/Asus A8N-E. Using one of these, my component listing is below:
Motherboard: One of the 3 above
Athlon 64 - 3200 90nm w/stock HSF
Corsair Value Select Dual Channel 2x512MB PC3200 (unless there's any benefit with going faster RAM when not oc-ing?)
Seagate 120GB
Antec Sonata w/ Truepower 380S (Is this sufficient?)
ATI Radeon X800XL (MSI for the bundle)
17 inch 16ms LCD (any recommendations?)
MS Multimedia Keyboard
Logitech MX518 mouse
Altec Lansing ATP3W
DVD-RW (NEC or Plextor)
I would appreciate any comments on the above configuration. The only thing that concerns me is driver stability and maturity for the chipset. After reading all the reviews and benefits regarding the A64s I?m willing to give them a shot. Thanks everyone!