Opinions on new computer

In My Humble Opinion
21

The Intel P4 2.4 g is not much more than the AMD 2400 + and it has a 533 mhz FSB. It’s a thought. Also you can get a MB with a lot of good features for less than some of the full featured AMD boards like Gigabyte and others. AMD’s run HOT! That’s another reason I’ll be going with a P4 in my next build. I keep mine in my bedroom and if I close the door the room heats up way too much from my AMD and it’s only a 1700+ with no overclocking.

Is the PC for gaming? Check out www.motherboards.org has product reviews on many things.
and read some of their forums: http://www.motherboards.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=13761

arstechnica.com is good as well. Very good info to be had explaining everything from the basic CPU architecture to indepth analysis. arstecnica has forums too. They can get quite technical.
As far as the the nforce2 chipset vs. VIA goes…
from what I’ve read the KT400 doesn,t benchmark as well with DDR400 as it does with DDR333. That’s suposedly going to change as the KT400a has been released. Sadly no MB’s have it on them as far as I know. Can you flash the BIOS? I don’t know, I would think so but…
I don’t think KT400 doesn’t support dual channel DDR either. If you scroll down the arstechnica page you’ll see something about the comparison between nForce2 dual channel and the new KT400a. KT seems to be the new top dog as far as memory thru-put goes .

These are very good info sources.

From what I’ve read some of the newer ATI’s have compatability issues with certain games and maybe Directx 9. Freelancer being one (it asks for Directx 9 but works fine with 8.1). I’ve got a Gforce and I love it, it’s not even a fancy one, a GF4 MX 440. Next machine will have the 128MB 4200 or better and now there’s the GF5 5200/5600 series.

so much information to digest it makes the choice fun. (or as the Chinese say “interesting”)

22

Decent thought on the memory. For the ‘far more expensive’, I was thinking of the 400MHz CL2 memory that www.tomshardware.com is so fond of lately, the 400Mhz you’re suggesting likely has CL2.5. (If it’s CL3, that extra latency will likely eat up the difference in clock frequency between it and CL2.5 333MHz.)

As for the cpu prices, I was thinking of the difference in american dollars. boy, being canadian must suck :slight_smile:

-lv

23

I’m not sure you can overclock 333mhz ram to 400 mhz(almost sure you can’t) so if you want ram to run at 400 mhz you won’t be able to mix the two. Go with what you want to end up with (mhz wize) from the beginning.

go to those sites I recomended and compare benchmarks on the video cards, I think you’ll see the 4200 is quicker. They also have benchmark/reviews of many MB’s. You may be surprised to find an MSI board with the features/performance you need at a good price.
Sorry, one of those sites should have been motherboards.org
ATI RADEON 7500 Review (didn’t see the 7000)

http://www.motherboards.org/article...iews/986_1.html

Video Card: MSI Ti4200 VTD8X (MS-8894) Review

http://www.motherboards.org/article...ews/1222_4.html

this compares the 4200 to the ATI 9000, 4200 looks good. Not a lot of difference between the 64MB and 128 MB ti-4200.

When ordering consider the vendors ratings and shipping costs. I’ve found NewEgg competatively priced and often shipping is free.

24

NewEgg doesn’t ship north of the border. So far my first question has been unanswered - anyone know of any place to get really good prices, either in Canada, or that ship to Canada at rates that don’t wipe out any savings?