please critique my system

[MouseODanger]

hey everyone. I'm building a new system, and I would appreciate some thoughts or ways to improve it. I'm at about the top of my spending limit. Everything is from newegg.com except the RAM which will be from crucial.

ENLIGHT EN-72370X3C4 MEDIUM ATX TOWER CASE with 1 Internal CaseFan

ECS K7S5A SiS® 735 SOCKET A MOTHERBOARD - RETAIL

Gainward/Cardexpet GeForce 3 Ti200 (NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200 GPU), Power Pack Golden Sample, 4ns 64MB DDR

AMD 1700+/266 FSB Athlon XP PROCESSOR CPU- OEM

MITSUMI D359M3 FDD 1.44MB 3.5INCH

IBM EIDE HARD DRIVE 60GB 7200RPM MODEL # IC35L060AVER07, PART# 07N6655 - OEM

Creative Modem Blaster V.90 PCI 56k Modem OEM

Lite On 52x Cd Rom - Model LTN-526

LITE-ON LTR-24102B-02 24x10x40 CDRW

VOYETRA TURTLE BEACH SANTA CRUZ

GLOBALWIN's WBK68 CPU Heatsink & Dual Ball +sleeve bearing Fan, Approved for Athlon XP 1800+.

and I'll get 256 of DDR PC2100 RAM

How does that look? Am I forgetting anything? I'll be doing a fair amount of gaming and all the usual stuff. I'm planning on running Win XP pro.

Thanks a lot everyone.

 

[HereThereandEverywhere]

Not too bad, except I'd drop the IBM and go for a Western Digital HD, simply because IBMs and their history aren't too highly praised. Otherwise, pretty nice. Get some PC2700 DDR RAM if you can. Also, if you plan on gaming with a modem, maybe you should get an ethernet card in case one day your modem decides to irritate you and you go broadband.

 

[scoobydooby]

Looks good except for the ECS mobo. I don't think you can do any overclocking with that one. Even if you're weren't going to OC, still seems worth it to get more of a name brand like MSI or Soyo etc. Just my opinion.
Scoob

 

[MouseODanger]

that mobo has integrated LAN, so I didn't think I'd need a networking card. (I do use a cable modem for internet etc.) I was also thinking of the

EPOX EP-8KHA+ VIA Apollo KT266A (VT8366A) 200/266 MHz Motherboard - For AMD
>XP, Athlon & Duron Socket A. Retail Box. Accepts DDRAM, 3 DDR Slots,1X / 2X
>/ 4X AGP FSB,1 AGP Slot, 6 PCI Slots. Support ATA 33/66/100, 2 USB, Ver:
>2.0, with Sound $105

for a mobo. would that be worth the extra $50 or so?

 

[cleverhandle]

You might want to consider Soyo's Dragon Plus mobo instead of the ECS. It performs a bit better, having a KT266A chipset, has onboard LAN, and decent overclocking options - not the very best, but a lot better than the ECS. Also, it has (reportedly) fairly good onboard sound - so it's $150 cost might not be much of an increase if you drop the Santa Cruz and go onboard.

 

[splice]

<< more of a name brand like MSI or Soyo >>



ECS is the #1 supplier of Mobo's, they beat out Asus this year. I don't know if you can get anymore name brand than that.

The ECS board is fine. I just build a system last week with the K7S5A board, it's great so far.

The only thing I would change is the IBM drive to a Maxtor or Western Digital.

 

[SleepyGuy]

Same here... Duron 750 @ 1 Ghz on a ECS K7S5A... no probs in Windows 2000. Follow ocworkbench.com forums instruction guides. Later... nice setup.

 

[CStroman]

I have a Duron 750 at 1050 on an EPOX 8KHA+. I had a WBK-68, it's an ok heatsink. It kept my idle temps down near ambient, but it couldn't hold them down when I had the cpu on load. The temperature could go about 15° higher when it was on load. Now I have an SK-6, and there is only about a 3° difference between my idle and load temps.

 

[TheWart]

keep the ECS dude, it rocks.

 

[CraigRT]

I'd keep it all except the ECS, (yak) and the LiteOn stuff. (yak)

 

[human2k]

your 1700+ should hit 1900+ speeds easily by raising voltage to 1.85 and fsb to 152. BUT you must get a KT266A mobo, its faster! Get the shuttle Ak31A, only $80 from newegg.com. Everything else looks gr8t!

 

[saltedeggman]

let the IBM hd go
remember to get corsair or crucial ram (preferrably crucial)