Building a comp - Confirm parts and suggest motherboard

Factual Questions
1

Well as the OP says I’m building a new computer. About 4 years ago I got a Dell P3 600mhz, which has been getting cranky and is about to be retired. I figured for my 3rd computer it would be fun to piece together a real monster from parts I’ve coveted over the years. I’m basically putting together a ‘media’ oriented system with functionality I don’t use, but may need sometime down the road.

I record and edit music, do some pretty intensive graphic including rendering 3d images, so I’ll need lots of juice. :smiley:

**Lian Li PC - 7 **

I was going with the side window, but read up and had a good thread here about EMI, so I’ll go with closed case instead. The PC- 7 is a good-looking aluminum case with 3 fans and lots of slots.

Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz, 800mhz fsb

Did a lot of research of AMD Vs P4, looked like AMD isn’t as much of a value as it once was. I was going to go with a 2.6 GHz, but the 2.8 800fsb just dropped to $260 on Newegg. Next step up is 3.0 800fsb at almost $400, which isn’t worth it to me.

I hope I don’t snap the die in half when I’m putting in the mobo. :smiley:

Radeon All in wonder 9700 Pro

The Cadillac of video cards, this has everything I need and don’t need. DVI output (for that plasma screen in a few years :p) and S-video output, video capture, a more then enough muscle for Quake. The 9800 doesn’t seem to be much of a performance jump, and the AIW 9700 seems to be more flexible in the multimedia category.

Memory

I plan on making this a dual boot 98/XP. I have a lot of programs and some hardware (my Lexicon soundcard) that I need to run on 98, plus I like 98 anyway. I know I may have problems with more then 512 under 98, I’ll need to edit the vcache I think, but what about XP? 1GB, too much? Not enough?

Motherboard

This is where I need some help. Finding a mobo that is 8X AGP and 800 Mhz FSB capable for a decent price is pretty damn tricky, but the **Gigabyte GA-8KNXP ** looks pretty nice at $219. Any suggestions?

Other then the power supply, (I was thinking 400 W) I have the rest of the stuff I need sitting around.

2

Btw, I just double checked the specs on the Gigabyte and it’s 4X AGP.

Damn.

3

At this point, the Abit IC7-G is the cream of P4 motherboards. It features the Intel i875P Canterwood chipset, as well as a Gigabit Ethernet. Both it and the motherboard you mentioned do indeed support AGP8X.

As for RAM, I suggest 512MB to 1GB of Corsair TWINX3200LL (It comes in matched sticks, so if you buy 1GB of TWINX3200LL, you get two 512MB sticks packaged together). This is the fastest RAM money can buy, and the price shows it, coming it at slightly under $300 for a full gig. Windows 98 doesn’t support, and indeed has issues with, more than 512MB of RAM, but XP will run quite happily. XP’s maximum is 4GB, though I think you may have trouble actually consuming a full GB. I have 512MB, and even during the most intense multitasking I usually have 300MB or so free. I really only went up to 512MB because Battlefield 1942 required it.

4

I’d pick a board with onboard video and sound, if I were you… that might limit you to an nVidia chipset though…

5

Why onboard?

My problem is I know a lot, and I know nothing, so any point, no matter how obvious, is helpful.

6

Onboard sound and video offers an advantage in price, but even if you were to go AMD you’ll find that the nForce boards still rely on obsolete NVIDIA MX-style video technology which will prevent you from getting acceptable framerates in modern games.

I’m in the process of creating a similar system, which I intend to massively overclock. I’ve narrowed it down to three or four motherboards: the Abit IC7-G, and the Asus P4C800 Deluxe for top of the line solutions, or the Abit IS7 or the Soltek SL-86SPE-L if I feel the need to go for a more inexpensive solution.

You might find overclocking boards to be a bit of overkill, but one thing they guarantee is rock solid stability at normal specifications, as well as a broad enthusiast base which will help you navigate any hardware problems you may experience down the line.

The hardly unexpected death of my old system (which began as a Celeron 300A @464 on an Abit BX6r2 and eventually died as a Celeron 533 @892 on a piece of shit BX133 no-namer board) forced me to make this move now. Otherwise I would continue waiting until the release of Doom ]I[ to see what’s needed to run the next crop of 3D games.

If you want my frank opinion, now is an okay time to buy because I don’t think Intel CPUs are going to exceed about 3.6 G (stock) before this time next year, so if you can flog a P4 2.4C with a very high front side bus you’ll have a top of the line system for a long time, with a limited but attractive upgrade path. AMD is, unfortunately, in trouble again speed-wise and I feel I’ve missed my window of opportunity to have a bad-ass AMD system.

One thing I’m not excited about is the current crop of video cards. I think only the very best and most expensive ones will be able to handle this fall’s release of Doom ]I[, which I think will be the hallmark example of the next generation of games.

I’m going to keep my crappy old Matrox or buy a mid-line placeholder card and wait for a fall refresh from NVIDIA and ATI to see if any newer video cards out there become affordable.

7

From what I’ve heard actually the P5 is rolling out sometime in December. The 3.2 Ghz will be the last P4.

8

I think you’re right, World Eater, and that’s something you might want to keep an eye on. Many of the Canterwood and Springdale-based board manufacturers have begun moving away from previous claims that the Prescott chip will work on the current crop of motherboards.

That would be a real shame.

9

I’m keeping my fingers crossed they’ll be looking to dump some stuff on the cheap before all the P5 hubub. :smiley:

Well, back to motherboard compairing.

The difference between AGP and AGP PRO seems to be PRO delivers additional power through the pins, right?