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Good cheap Athon type makey-uppy?

  • 03-08-2001 1:14pm
    #1
    Gerry
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,457 ✭✭✭


    Good and reasonably priced motherboard:

    Iwill KK266R. The abit kt7a-raid is possibly cheaper, but the iwill is more "solid", while also being far superior for overclocking, if you should so wish. www.overclockers.co.uk normally have them, right now their motherboards section appears to be missing the iwill board, I think they may be having supply difficulties.

    Its worth paying more for a good board, as athlon systems are a lot more picky, to say the least.

    The cpu's are cheaper than intels, a 1ghz tbird will set you back around £95 sterling from ocuk. A 1.4ghz cpu is not much more expensive. The cpus's overclock extremely well, there is a fair chance that a 1 ghz tbird will run at 1.4ghz or above. The one caveat is these cpu's run extremely hot, giving off around twice the heat of an equivalently clocked pentium III. So you need a good heatsink for your cpu, I'd say the TaiSol CGK760092 from ocuk is good value.

    As for memory, the boards will take pc100 sdram or pc133 sdram if you are running a 100fsb chip, and pc133 sdram if you are running a 133fsb chip.

    The newer boards support ddr ram, they offer a performance boost of between 10-20%, however the ram is still not as cheap.

    The iwill board I mentioned above takes sdram, if you are going for ddr the board to get is the epox EP-8K7A.


Comments

  • #2
    Fand
    Closed Accounts Posts: 258 ✭✭Fand


    I'm thinking of trying an Athlon setup - up to now I've been loyal to Intel, seeing as they employ half the country, but that's looking a bit shaky now.

    What's a good and reasonably priced motherboard? What's the deal with Athlon CPUs? What about memory - do they take SDRAM or some exotic stuff from, umm, Athlone or somewhere?


  • #3
    Samson
    Users Awaiting Email Confirmation Posts: 3,129 ✭✭✭Samson


    I use an Asus A7V mobo and it's great for overclocking (FSB and clock multiplier through BIOS).
    It is very stable too.

    If you consider Overclockers UK you should buy a CPU/mobo/cooler bundle

    EG:Abit KT7A motherboard
    AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1GHz (multiplier unlocked, great overclocking potential)
    ThermoEngine V60-4210 CPU cooler
    Price: £199.40 Sterling

    Buy big items (case, monitor) locally as the cost of postage would cancel out any savings to be made buying from UK.


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