Buying New PC

tHE vAGGABOND

After getting slagged by the lads in London about the state of my PC over the weekned I have decided to invest in a new one.

Out of all of you who read this board surely someone sells PC's or can give me a number of a guy who is selling a ninja pc for cash if you get my drift.

---

The Vaggabond of the Western World
Electric Mayhem
www.planet-tribes.com/em
The Real UK Tribes Champs

Brit

Well, PII's are now dirt cheap, and the performance increase on a PIII is negligible. I would suggest:

PII 400 or 450
128MB SDRAM
V3 2000, or 3000

--Brit--

Dr_Teeth

Ah Vag, get yer credit card and order the stuff from the UK. There's nothing quite like putting your own box together.. brings me back to when I was a lego addict, years ago.

Look for good prices, but think about ordering the bigger stuff here in Ireland - posting a faulty monitor back to the UK is rather nasty.

It's a good feeling to boot up for the first time!!

I suggest:

Chip:

Intel Celeron 433

Mobo:

AOpen AX6BC Pro or
Abit BX6 Rev 2

Memory:

a single 100Mhz 128MB SDRAM module

Disk:

13.8GB Ultra ATA

Graphics Card:

Guillemot Xentor Ultra TNT2

Sound Card:

Creative Sound Blaster Live

Network:

External 56K and a decent 10/100 ethernet card

Removable media:

Internal IDE zip drive, a floppy drive, decent 32X or faster CD-ROM, a 4x4x16 CD writer if ya like.

Input:

Microsoft Intellimouse pro, a decent keyboard.

Case:

Any decent ATX mini-tower will do, some have nice pull-out mobo trays though. Look for one with an extra fan blowing over the PCI slots.

Lump in a decent 17 or 19 inch monitor and a decent speaker set-up and you're laughin'. Increase the bus speed of your motherboard to 75Mhz - that will bring your celery up to a rock-solid 488Mhz. Nice.

Teeth.

tHE vAGGABOND

kewl

now, how much will you charge to do all that for me

plus - gis the URL of a good site where all these goddies can be bought

Cellery Versus AMD

Voodoo 3 Versus TNT 2 (and the wait for it) have voodoo 2 prices dropped btw (2 voodoos would be nice)

mad, the loans approved and all I am ready to spend, spend, spend

---

The Vaggabond of the Western World
Electric Mayhem
www.planet-tribes.com/em
The Real UK Tribes Champs

Scarab

http://www.scan.co.uk
http://www.memax.co.uk

I think both deliver to Ireland.

tHE vAGGABOND

fuk me - I did not realise it could be so cheap

fully loaded PIII 500 for a shade over a grand

tHE vAGGABOND

my only issue is that I do not want software.

Red Hat 6 arrived this morning
I have win 95 and 98
I have office pro 97

the money saved their is the difference between a 15" monitor and a 21" monitor

Scarab

Well then buy off scan or memax, they will just send you over your board and and cpu and bits and u put them all together and make it go. No software.

ChungKing

Foreign correspondent in germany adds:

21" monitor bwaahahahahahahaha

droool

I lurve mine

Brit

Alternatively, go for an IBM Thinkpad - one of the late 1980's models. Only weigh about 18 Kg's and have a wonderfully crisp 9" screen. Lovely

--Brit--

WhiteWashMan

i work for ibm and i wouldnt touch one of our puters with a barge pole

WhiteWashMan

or just order one offa dell

the p11's are well cheap and come with 17" monitor and dvd and all sorts of nice things.

only problem is that 2d gc is built onto mobo so no changing there

Lucifa

Yer Scan are good, I've used a bit.

If you getting a Celeron then get the new 466 and remember you'll need a socket370 mobo cos they don't do Slot1 one's (?). Bad for upgrading to P3 or whatever later on, but nice for the moment.
And yer don't get that V3 - nothing new here - crap. TNT2 all the way (I 'might' be getting one tomorrow so I'll tell you all about if I do).
**** the ZipDrive...just get a CDR and you're sorted (I can recommend the Yamaha 4416s).
And you can afford it get a Illyama Pro 19. They absolutely rock (mate's got one). 17 is old hat...19 rocks

Dr_Teeth

Don't get a 466, you can't over-clock them for ****.

466 uses a multiplier of 7, so with your FSB speed upped to 75Mhz you're clocking at 525Mhz, which Celeron's can't handle (without installing a freezer ). A 433 on the other hand uses a 6.5 multiplier, which on a 75Mhz bus is 488Mhz - grand and stable, and of course, faster than the non-OCed 466 at a cheaper price.

The new celerons are socket-370, but you can get a 10 quid adapter which lets them plug into a standard slot-1 mobo (the two motherboards I mentioned are the current best slot-1 BX boards on the market)

Zip drives are cool, burning CDs is far too much hassle when all you want to do is give q3test to a mate of yours, or cart 50MB of Tribes demos home from work.

The Vision Master Pro 450 is the monitor I'm going for as soon as I have 600 quid.

Teeth.

[This message has been edited by Dr_Teeth (edited 13-05-99).]

clanless_Coyote

Teeth.... you need to get out more

Thats what the yanks would call TMI, too much information

Regards,
[clanless]Coyote
"Abandon All Hope!"

Dr_Teeth

Yup, scan are good, myself, Ehldas and others have done a few grands worth of business with them over the years.

K6-3 v Celeron:

At the same clock-speed, running software that has been wel optimised for 3D-now (such as Q2) there's no difference between them. However - Tribes isn't 3D-now, and the celeron is roughly half the cost of the K6-3 currently. And you can over clock the celeron too.

V3 v TNT2:

If you have a fast Intel chip (celeron 400 or faster) the TNT2 is the way to go. Better drivers, better features, and damn fast too. Go for the 'Ultra' versions of the various cards, they should cost around 180 quid. Don't bother with V2 SLI - a V3 3000 or an Ultra TNT2 saves you two PCI slots and both are faster with better features.

Teeth.

Dr_Teeth

hmm posted twice for some reason..

Teeth.

[This message has been edited by Dr_Teeth (edited 13-05-99).]

Shinji

Don't touch the V3 with a bargepole mate... It's 16-bit rendering only, and while that may not seem THAT important, give it 3 months and you'll regret not buying a 32-bit capable card.

I'm no fan of the celery, but other people seem to like them, and they're cheap.

Used to be, putting your own machine together was the cheapest option... However, Gateway 2000 have become very cheap recently, you may wish to examine some of their deals on their website.

Mata ne!
Rob

OSiriS

Teeth, shouldn't that be Midi-tower, mini-towers are waaay too small

Coyote

Get a 466 Celeron and they do overclock well to 525 www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/reviews/cpu/celeron_466/
get a slcoked convert to change the 466 from socket370 to a slot1 and if you want get a duel Celeron (that is what i am doing) with just a good fan over the chip the heat is no problem, the Celeron at 525 is faster that all other chips excludening the P3 500 but why pay $500 for it when you can get a Celeron for $150, so save your money and get one and build it your self if you know how



[This message has been edited by Coyote (edited 14-05-99).]

Dr_Teeth

Muppet. Read the article more carefully.

You also can't use celerons in dual systems unless you buy special dual converter cards, or get out the soldering iron. Why would you run dual anyways? It's useless for games..

"That 7x multiplier is tough to work with as it is, and another trend is developing with these new PPGA processors we've seen lately: No overclockability.

It's not due to any engineering feat on Intel's part (we've been assured by employees in the know) but for whatever reason both the PPGA Celeron 433 and PPGA Celeron 466 CPUs we've tested are completely unstable and virtually unworkable when overclocked to any degree above their stock levels.

At least with the 433 we were able to stabilize it at a speed of 488MHz (6.5 x 75MHz) which ran well during our endurance testing. But today's PPGA 466 was an absolute beast as it failed each time we tried to utilize it at any front side bus speed above its stock level of 66MHz.

Sharky Extreme's staff has begun opening dialogues with engineers on the cooling side of the industry as to how and or why the PPGA design is becoming so un-overclocking friendly as the MHz levels rise. Most have agreed that the PPGA design does have some inherent downfalls for high speed stability that are linked to the build up of heat via a thin boundary level of hot air that remains perpetually trapped on the underside of the chip when running (in the void left by the Socket370 holding bracket's plastic surrounding walls).

However, when Sharky Extreme took measures to cool our eval Celeron 466 CPU to levels that approached 10 degrees F, the results were still the same: Failure."

Basically, unless you use a kryo unit, you can't get above 500 stably. Both the core of the chip, and more importantly the cache memory, are simply not designed to run that fast.

Teeth.

tHE vAGGABOND

BTW those ppl on this side of the irish sea would be mad to buy off those english site at the mo. The rate of exchange is like 82p at the moment. The PC's are really cheap but by the time you convert your 1000 odd to sterling and add postage and stuff you can add 400 odd quid to the cost and PC's over here arent that expensive

---

The Vaggabond of the Western World
Electric Mayhem
www.planet-tribes.com/em
The Real UK Tribes Champs

SS 01 Ripper

no no..you guys are going about this all wrong.

I've bought several PC things over at PC World in Blanchardstown. They're the best...because:
- saved 20 pounds on a Scanner (price said 140, sold for 120 for some unknown reason)
- saved 5 pounds (not much but hey) for Epson Stylus 600 printer (for same unknown reason)
- saved 50 pounds on a Sony re-writable CD Burner (reason: unknown)
- got a free 15" Monitor with my new PC (wrong price was quoted..they told me it included the monitor when it was excluding the monitor .. and I even asked if the price had dropped since last time I had asked it was some 150-200 pounds more)...so
if you want a good deal on anything related to PCs..go there..not only do they promise the lowest prices in everything they sell in Ireland..but then they (at least a lot of times) screw up with the prices they have already!

tHE vAGGABOND

are you a fuppin shareholder or summat

in tribes speak ripper *no* or even *you idiot*

who uses 15" monitors, epsom printers ect.....

no me still going for the buy the mobo and chip in a full tower and do the rest myself option at the mo

SS 01 Ripper

gack..
i'm putting the 15" on the ol 200 MMX while I have my Sony 17" on the 500...

besides...Epsons work well for me. I'm not running a printing shop !

Coyote

First do not call people a Muppet when you do not know them, it was 4:19am i was board and not fulley awake or asleep, ok not the full info.

The Chip: 466 Celeron with L2 cache cash at full speed.
www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/reviews/cpu/celeron_466/





what you need to get your celeron to work duel: RA7UJ Socket 370 to Slot 1 Adaptors
with Jumper Settings for Optional Dual Processor

The cooling Fans: Net-N-Dude Glacier 4500C+Arctic Cap
www.net-n-dude.com/
Info:
info on overclocking a celeron.
www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/celeron_oc/

The Mother Board:
"EPOX EP-KP6-BS" or
"EPOX EP-BMX-S
w/ Onboard SCSI"

info on Duel Celeron.
www.firingsquad.com/hardware/dualceleron/default.asp
www5.tomshardware.com/releases/99q2/990510/index.html



info on overclocking:
http://www.tomshardware.com/overclock.html

so hope that helps and i am NOT a Muppet and i do know what i am doing.

[This message has been edited by Coyote (edited 14-05-99).]

tHE vAGGABOND

good man coyotee, show that toothy git what for

ps: must ahve taken you ages to sort all those url's

---

The Vaggabond of the Western World
Electric Mayhem
www.planet-tribes.com/em
www.tribesplayers.co.uk

gandalf

Hmmmm Vagga,

Don't know if Dell are still selling from their factory outlet to Ireland but myself and quite a few of the lads bought before xmas (well end of November and got ourselves systems for around £400.00 less than the new price).

My current system is a PII450, 128MB, 10GB HDD, 17" Monitor, 56k Winmodem(replaced ), 32x CD-Rom, Turtle Beach Soundcard (v.nice), Speakers, 8MB Graphics Card, Windoze 98 & Office SBE all for £1250 inc Vat in November.

I'll probally be going to the Tribes night in the nethouse so I can give ya details there.
Right I'm back off to hack the ****e outta Q3Test

Gandalf.

Coyote

Part Two: What other things do you need?

but the way your probley thinking why do i need Duel Celerons well Teath is right no game uses multi-thered prosersing (sorry about the spelling am Dislext) and windows 9X does not spurt Duel prosers so why get them well win 2000 will be out in 4 to 5 months (i have a copy and it's not bad) and it does spourt Duel prosersers, here is the thing if you have a game and you Celeron is not just running the game it's running
win XX and the game, the modem and what ever is left int he backround (you do have a Viris guard) well think that your Duel is able to do the small tasks that slow one prosers down even if you have a PIII 500 it has to do more work that the Duel Celeron why coes one Celeron is running the game and one is running winZZZZ

now you should get the best ram you can and the most you can you should get 100mhz ram at the least and 133mhz whould be a good idey for fucher MB upgrades, 128 should be the least you get.

What type of Card do you need: TNT2 or V3
the TNT is the better card if you have the system for it, with 32bit for fucher games and and a lager texter size with 34mb ram on the board the TNT2 is the way to go if you have a good system the V3 2000 is not bad for people with out agp slots and not to high a spc system and with it just 99 quid there not bad.
info for Hercules Dynamite TNT2 Ultra
looks the best to me so far
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/dynamiteultra/default.asp
info on Q3 card tests FPS wouth the look even if your not buying one
www6.tomshardware.com/releases/99q2/9905111/index.html


[This message has been edited by Coyote (edited 14-05-99).]

WhiteWashMan

yeah i agree with gandy.
i got the same one but with 14 gig hd and a dvd card and one or two extras for 1400.
and they dekliver it to your door
and its got a 3 year warrenty
and you can flog of yoour winmodem to some git for 60 quid (like i did )

which reminds me. anyone know how to over clock the bugger?

Brit

/me looks at SS 01 Ripper in utter disbelief..

You come on here and actually support PC World?? The biggest rip off merchants this side of a merchant who rips people off??

Arghghhgh...

BUILD it yourself. Save time, money, don't get and crud software you don't need, and actually learn something