I'm trying to talk a buddy into upgrading his K6/3-450 system and have spec'd the following for him. Tell me what you think and what you would change in the line up....
The machine will be for mild gaming, home office, lght web work, and light graphics work. I've tried to spec enough horsepower for other things if he needs it in the future.
What do you think? Any changes that you would make, please post. Or, feel free to spec out something totally different keeping the needs in mind of couorse. He doesn't need or want the top parts on the market, but I think he should have close to some of the best so that the life of the system is long. As you can see from him still running his K6/3-450, he likes to stretch things out a bit!
If you are going to run Windows XP, I would change Radeon 8500 LE to something else. Maybe nVidia (don't flame me for this, it's my own preference). The rest seems quite nice.
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Real_Men_Do_Not_Use_Space
Athlon XP 1700+ AXDA1700DUT3C @2004 Mhz (166x12), TT Volcano 7+, Arctic Silver 3
Abit KX7-333R
512 Mushkin PC2700 + 512 OCSystem PC3200 CL2
Sapphire Radeon 9800 non-pro flashed to pro 128MB 430/370
Creative Audigy
Western Digital Caviar 2000JB 200GB
Western Digital Caviar 1000BB 100GB
IBM Deathstar 60GXP 60GB 3DMark 2003
Does he overclock? If he doesn't I would get a different board. Maybe like a Shuttle AK31 rev 3 or ECS K7S6A. You can usually find some really cheap DFI boards that are usually extremely stable but come without any overclocking features at all. As for the hard drive, if you could get a Seagate Barracuda IV 60gb for close to the same price, that would be faster and quieter than the Maxtor.
Also, what are those Vantec 6035's rated. I've heard of them used on Celerons. I mean, I don't know if that's just to be safe with their Celeron or what because I heatsinks aren't really my area...
Other than that, this looks like a nice setup! Board is a good solid one. I don't know the price on it now but if it is under $90, then I would just ignore the advice I gave above.
Just me, but I'd get a GeForce4 4400 (or 4600, but don't touch the new GeForce4 MX, they suck), dump the zip drive (ick), add a nic (get cable modem or DSL), get an AthlonXP 1700+ (within $10 of 1600+ price). I'd also use a differant cooler. All the good Antec one use screamer fans. There are some better ones out there that won't drive you nuts with the noise. The epox board is nice, but if overclocking I'd get some KingMax PC2700 memory. It will set you back about an extra $50 or so for 512MB. I like the SoundBlaster Audigy, but thats just me.
AMD Phenom II x4 945 3Ghz | ASUS M4A77TD | 2X WD 1TB SATA 2 hard drive | 2x2GB Corsair XMS3 | nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS | ATI TV Wonder Theater Pro 550 | Antec P-160 case | Antec 650w Earth Watts | LG Blu-ray Super Drive | LG DVD RW | Windows 7 Pro
Hmmm,
theres only one thing I would change, and I guess it is a matter of personal preferance, but I'd get an Asus motherboard. I know they are more expensive, and that the guy probably isn't going to overclock, but that expense covers support for a long time to come, and I've never had cause to complain.
I'm not totally happy with Radeon drivers right now, but the 8500LE doesn't really have any alternatives from a price/performance point of view, at least not until GeForce 4's are released. Maybe a GeForce 3 Ti 200, but I don't know how good driver support is for these either.
ris - His monitor is a newer Samsung 17" Dynaflat. Also, I've been seriously considering cutting the CDRW back to a 16x or 20x TDK VeloCD as I have read they are quite good. A possibility!
redsolar - Does the Radeon 8500 have issues with WinXP? He has Win98SE right now, but XP may be in his future.....
DC - He won't be overclocking right from the start, but I want to give him the option. I'll look at the Seagate, but the Maxtors have always been good to me. A lot of people will disagree, but Maxtor has performed time and time again for me on several systems throught the years so I stick with tried and true, but the Seagate sounds interesting....
Todd a - Thanks for the tip on the 1700+, I'll go that route. We use Zip drives to ttransfer files to and from work a lot so he will want to keep it for that purpose. Also, the Kingmax sounds good, I'll look into that too. What other fan would you go with instead of the Vantec? I want to avoid the Alpha 8045 or Swiftech that mounts to the board. I want to stick with clips for now...
Bladerunner - I haven't really looked at nForce stuff yet, I will do a little research on them....
Fallguy - What's up? Got your shades on? How's the Dark Side been treating you? The Asus board sounds nice, but I haven't been a fan of Asus for a while. The price is steep for what you get, but the new board with RAID looks good, but a little more than I want to spend.
I personnally like the Volcano 6Cu. Good performance and quiet fan. It is not much for a high end overclcoking rig. The SK-6 is nice, but the fan is too loud. You could drop a slow fan on it (Same with the Alpha 8045). Soem others include the CoolerMaster HHC-001, the CAK-II (either 38 with slower fan or the 68), or Thermal Integration TI-V77L (there is another cooler just like this one ... Akara 7228 possibly with a better clip).
I really hate loud fans. I use GlobalWin FOP32-1's on my main 2 computers. One I left with the YS-Tech 26CFM fan and the other I spread the fins out to fit a Top Motor 80mm lower RPM fan on top (30db is very nice). If they had a copper insert, they would be nice coolers. The Volcano6 Cu is very similar and has the copper base. If I got a cooler it would be this one. I'd then mod it like my FOP32-1 to fit an 80mm fan. I'd probably use an a better fan then the Top motor (it only cost $3 though), possibly a Sanyo Denki fan.
As for the GeForce4. They are supposed to be launched in two days. I don't know aboput avaluability, but several companies are supposed to have them avaluable at launch or shortly after. Just do not get a GeForce4 MX. It is actually slower and a=has less features than the GeForce3. It is based on the laptop chipset from the GeForce2 Go. It is a GeForce2 MX (2 pixel pipelines and 2nd generation T&L) with a partial vertex shader added. It clocks pretty good though (250-300Mhz) and the 440 and 460 use pretty good memory. The GeForce4 4400 and 4600 should be nice.
AMD Phenom II x4 945 3Ghz | ASUS M4A77TD | 2X WD 1TB SATA 2 hard drive | 2x2GB Corsair XMS3 | nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS | ATI TV Wonder Theater Pro 550 | Antec P-160 case | Antec 650w Earth Watts | LG Blu-ray Super Drive | LG DVD RW | Windows 7 Pro
Maybe a Pioneer 16X DVD. Would make copying disks a bit easier (all legal of course), even if he isn't into watching movies on his PC. Also could take some stress off of the CDRW drive by using the DVD for installing software and such.
Hey AMDNut,
you're damn right I have my shades on.....
Either that or I'm typing blind! lol
This white background can really hurt the old eyes after a night out, let me tell ya!
As for Asus being expensive, I can't argue with that.
Just an addendum, the price of XP1700+'s is only $2 higher than the 1600+ according to the latest price check at Anandtech, might be an option there?
Also if overclocking isn't a problem, I'd look for the quietest fan/heatsink around, even if it means the chip runs at around 50C. I also hate loud fans, to the extent that I am actually running my Duron 1G and Celeron 1.2 on Cooler Masters (ack!) just cos they are both quiet (both systems run in the 40's, the Duron 48 to 49, and the Celeron at 4 to 41).
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How's the Dark Side been treating you? The Asus board sounds nice, but I haven't been a fan of Asus for a while. The price is steep for what you get, but the new board with RAID looks good, but a little more than I want to spend. 
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