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Opinions in this PC
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08-07-2003 10:36am#1
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Originally posted by Cyrus
that motherboard is awful
thats the type of crap that makes it worth ur while building ur own pc, ask them do they have an abit BH7/BE7/BD7II which would be a better choice
What's wrong with the motherboard? It's a mid level spec with reasonable features suited to someone who doesn't want to spend the money getting a top-of-the-line machine.
It will perform quite well (It is a P4 board with 533MHz bus) and within the next 2 years (time I predict it to start showing it's age) it can be quite easily upgraded to todays high spec boards at a much lower cost (they'll fit, it's an ATX case).
I just looked at the lnk for the case aswell and I think it's quite easy on the eyes
If you feel like bringing it more up to spec immediately then you could add an SB Audigy 1 sound card for approx. €100, Speakers (5.1 digital will cost about €200 to €500 depending on quality) and a DVD drive (about €60 on www.Komplett.ie for a Sony model)
If it were my choice I'd have very little quams going for a machine like that.0 -
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Originally posted by Cyrus
-Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz Boxed PC533
Socket PGA478, 512kB "Northwood"
-Abit IS7-E Mianboard for S478/800mhz
I865PE,SATA,ATX,Dual-DDR, LAN
-TwinMOS PC2700 DDR-DIMM 512MB CL2.5
RAM 184-P (for DDR-PC333MHz)
-NEC Floppy Drive 3,5" 1,44MB FD1231H
Floppy Drive Internal
-Maxtor IDE ATA-133 80GB 7200RPM
DiamondMax Plus 9
-LG CD recorder IDE 48x/24x/48x/16x Combo
"Super-Link" (GCC-4480B) Internal Retail
-Chieftec Dragon MidiTower, w/Door, Black
Case w/360W power, DX-01B-D, P4/AMD (UK)
Surcharges: 0,00
Total: 669,75
This spec that Cyrus posted is quite good but as he said it doesn't include a graphics card and the Motherboard doesn't seem to have anything in the way of on-board graphics so for games you'd need to get a GFX card. Depending on your tastes for quality you would be spending about €150 to €300 on it.
As an aside I'd get 2 sticks of 256MB RAM to take advantage of the dual DDR capability as opposed to 1 512MB stick.
Anyway, with the GFX card added in the price is umphed up to at least €850. Almost twice the price of the jaguar systems one!
I'd agree with Cyrus again about spending a bit extra on the motherboard, every upgrade you want to do depends on it. Other than the motherboard I might spend extra on the GFX card but other than that I'd watch my wallet.
But then would Jaguar let you specify what motherboard or GFX card you want in it?
Koneko has had bad experiences with the ECS boards so I'd take that into account. It's a first hand reference.
As for cases, i don't know that much about the different makes but what I'd look for is four 5 1/4 inch drive bays, two 3 1/2 inch external drive bays and at least three 3 1/2 inch internal drivebays.
If you can get one with a power supply in it all the better.
Personally I'd recommend building the PC yourself. It's not that difficult and you'd know exactly what parts are in your PC. There's no substitute for that.
The only part of it you may need help with is inserting the CPU. They can be delicate.
Let us know what you think.0 -
As an aside I'd get 2 sticks of 256MB RAM to take advantage of the dual DDR capability as opposed to 1 512MB stick.
ooops originally meant to spec a bh7 but the is7-e is so cheap i chose that and forgot about two sticks of ram!!!The only part of it you may need help with is inserting the CPU. They can be delicate.
true for amd cpus but its nigh on impossible to break a p4 in my experience
finally the jag sys with the ram and hd upgrades is e600 so i think the rig i specced for 650 is superior and for the gpu id really try get a G4 ti4200 which is still a decent card or if ur broke a s/h geforce 3 which isnt bad either0 -
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I've compiled a high spec system for you to look at on the premise that you have a Hard drive, Floppy drive, CD/DVD drive, monitor and Keyboard/mouse already. The parts are taken from www.Komplett.ie and www.Elara.ie
So here goes
From Komplett,
Asus P4P800 Mainboard for S478/800mhz €139,51
Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz Boxed PC800 €219,57
2x TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 256MB CL2 €122,78
Asus V9280 GeForce4 Ti4200-8X 128MB DDR €137,19
Shipping: €14,23
That totals up to;
Total: €633,28
From Elara;
Antec SLK2600/MT 300W 4x5.25 €75.98
(The manufacturers code is SLK2600AMB. Its the same case, I checked)
Shipping: €10.89
That totals up to;
Total: €86.87
Both together give you;
Grand Total: €720.15
So that's a system that would be worthy of any gamers admiration and it's around the level I'll be looking at to get myself in the next couple of months.
If you can manage to stretch the budget that extra bit further you'd be kicking ass
("PLEEEAAASSSEEE Mom! I'll cut the grass for a year!!!"
I might end up doing some of that myself too )
PS. Has anyone else found Elaras site really slow? I'm on a very high speed Broadband connection and I may as well be on a 28Kbps line!
PPS Their delivery charge of €9 doesn't include VAT when added it's more like €10.890 -
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Most definitely not regular. I have a very similar PC at my desk here in work. You won't be fitting any normal motherboards in that case.Originally posted by TimAy
Also, the mother board on this computer is L shaped, the PCI slots, are on a seperate panel that slot in perpendicular to the main motherboard. Is this regular?
You won't need to get power cables, ribbons ect. All cables needed for connecting the motherboard (eg. IDE) will come with the motherboard.Originally posted by TimAy
Edit: Yeah, im now seeing that i will need a new box. The smaller items shouldn't be a problem to get.(eg. Power, ribbons etc)
Yeah the RAM is SDRAM (128mb) so you're right.
I decided to make this a "project"!! So i'll start from scratch
If you get a case with a power supply then the Kettle Lead (big black power lead) should come with it plus any other cables necessary to use extended functions of the case eg. front mounted USB.
You'll only need cables if you need to replace some.
As you've noted the SDRAM won't work in that motherboard I pointed out. DDR RAM only.
Deffinitely make a project out of it And when you have it built and you're bored again you could then start modding it 
Make it a real Modders project
It really depends who you end up buying off. New PC parts is in no way a must.Originally posted by TimAy
Im thinking of looking in Buyandsell for parts. Is that i good or bad idea. Is buying new a must with PC parts?
If you buy second hand make sure you get to see the component working. You should also make sure you get any driver CDs and manuals that came with the component, a box would be nice if they still had it.
When someone appears to be listening to my opinion I tend to go all outOriginally posted by TimAy
wow, thanks for that. I wasn't expecting so much help!
With Elara you can collect the goods but with Komplett, being that they ship from Norway, I think you'd be better getting them to deliverOriginally posted by TimAy
Can you collect the goods or do they have to be shipped? Will i be able to install a new processor on my own do you think? Unless you want a holiday!!!
As for installing a processor. I've no doubt you'd be able to do it. A bit of care and patience is all it takes.
The Intel CPUs are sturdy buggers while the AMD ones are a bit delicate. The core can be broken on them easily enough.
AMD processors are good, stables pieces of work. Their main weakness in comparison with the intel chips is their lower FSB (Front Side Bus) speed. The FSB is used by the processor to talk to the chipset (northbridge and southbridge) and the RAM. That's how I understand it anywayOriginally posted by TimAy
What about AMD processors, are they any use?!
Fastest intel speed is 800MHz and the fastest AMD speed is 400MHz
To compare AMDs and intels look at the names.
AMD convention;
XP3200+ 2.2GHz
Intel convention;
P4 3.2Ghz
Although the AMD has a clock speed of 2.2GHz it's comparable to the the P4. You can see it in the names, XP3200 - P4 3.2GHz
3200-3.2 ...hmmmm... I smell something fishy!!!
Anyway that's about it (only that much!?!?!)
Questions always welcome 0 -
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What website is that from? Note that the price is excluding VAT.
Would the buyer have to pay the English or Irish VAT rates?
With Irish rates it's €614. It does include everything though, 80GB HDD, CD/DVD drives, floppy drive, case and a case fan.
You'd want to find out where they're from though and what time frame you can expect delivery in. You do get some bad stories of folks waiting months for stuff from places like Dabs or Overclockers (I'm not sure of the full web addresses).
That set up gives a good idea of an AMD setup.
As DDR and RD RAM.
Basically RD RAM is really fast (1GHz-ish) but isn't very efficient in it's usage. With RD RAM when the computer wants to get to a particular piece of info held in the RAM the signal has to travel all the way through preceeding info in the chip, ie. it's in series. You also can't have free slots with RD RAM. If you get one stick you then would need "dummy" sticks to fill the other slots on the board.
DDR RAM works like SD RAM except it's faster (450MHz so far).
Techy bit RAM works on a clock signal like this (it's meant to look like a square wave),
.._..._
_| |_| |_|
1 2 3 4 5
(please ignore the dots, they're just to get the spacing right. Look at the straight lines)
It's a clock signal where for second number 1 the signal is at the bottom. Then for second number 2 the signal is at the top then back to the bottom for the third second.
SD RAM did what ever work it need on the upward part of the clock cycle (the red bit). DDR (double data rate) RAM does it's work on both the upward and downward parts of the clock cycle (both the red and blue bits). So DDR does twice as much as SD in the same amount of time ie. it's twice as fast.
Let me know if that made any sense
Where RD RAM works in series, DDR RAM works in parrallel so if it wants a piece of data it goes straight to it ignoring the rest of the data in the chip, unlike RD RAM.
So DDR and RD RAM can't be compared by clock speeds, you would need to do benchmark tests with similar spec'ed systems to get a proper picture.
AFAIK DDR is close to, if not better than, RD RAM at this stage.
I guess that should answer the RD v DDR question for you
As for 2x512MB modules, that is definitely possible. I think the board I mentioned had an upper limit of 4GB of RAM (4x1GB modules :eek:)0
i have a pentium 4 mobile that will sit at 12*200 (2.4 gigs) in a springdale mobo in the fs section of the boards 
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