Komplett pc parts - your opinion....

DJB

Hi,

Just looking on putting together a good new system and wanted the opinion of some experts in this field. Are all these parts compatible and what do you think of the price?

I would appreciate any response. Thanks.

Goto http://www.komplett.ie/k/k.asp?action=ShoppingCartMulti

and paste this into the quick order box to see my potential system:

109579 1
112520 1
107345 1
109496 1
112330 1
111085 1
108032 2
110949 1

Cheers

zAbbo

or for the lazy tech users:

CPU: AMD Athlon XP2000+ 1.66 GHz 266 MHz bus

Mobo: Asus A7S333 Motherboard for Socket A DDR
SIS745, ATA/100, ATX, sound

HDD: Seagate Barracuda IV 60GB IDE 7200RPM

RAM: TwinMOS DDR-DIMM 256MB CL2.5
PC2100 184-P for DDR-PC266mhz 20-49

GFX: Gainward AGP GeForce2 MX-200 64MB

FDD: NEC Floppy Drive 3,5" 1,44MB

Case: Chieftec Matrix Midi Tower w/Door, Blue

CD :Samsung CD recorder IDE 40X/12X/40X


Me wonders whos gonna put this together as well :rolleyes:

Winters

Nice setup..one question... why the blue case?
Are 2x 256MB Ram cheaper then the one strip of 512? strange how that happens. Also ... ill build it if ya want

Gerry

If you will be playing games on this machine, go and get a geforce4 ti4200, otherwise the spec is fine.
Are all these parts compatible is not something anyone can answer definitively unless they have built a more or less identical machine, however I wouldn't forsee any major problems. Having built a machine with the sis 745 chipset, I would say that the chipset drivers can be a little finicky to install, but once installed its fast and stable.

Winters - Theres still a premium for higher density ram, its not like hard drives, where the price per mb decreases with the size of the drive up to a point.

Slutmonkey57b

Gerry's right, drop the MX-200 unless it's budget-critical, it's going to frustrate you 6 months down the line.
Also wot no soundcard? Personally I've had nothing but bad experiences with onboard sound. I think you could probably drop the spec of the chip to a cheaper one, bump up to a GF Ti4200 and actually get more bang for your money as a result. Bear in mind your processer still spends half its life doing nothing, even at 1.2Ghz.

Mutz

Yep.. the above 2 lads are Right:

gf2 MX 200 is a heap. I Have one, which i got last september and am starting to kick myself now.

DJB

I added a sound card:

Creative Soundcard PCI SB 4.1 Digital (sku 108845)

Not too worried about the graphics card at the mo. Can upgrade at a later date if I needs to. I have a budget of 1000 Euro and I have some of the parts already like:

17" Monitor
Wireless Mouse
Keyboard
3Com Networking
Speakers

The machine I have at the moment I am selling for 1000 Euro so want to replace it with a better machine.

Current total incl VAT is 891,40 Euro.

Not a bad total for this price? You think?

Thanks

Gerry

Erm, seriously if you are going to be playing any games for more than 5 minutes at a time on the machine, get rid of that gf2 200mx. Its not "average" or "okay" or "I'll upgrade it later". Its a piece of ****. You will be wasting the power of that cpu. Drop the speed of the chip to an 1800xp, you can clock it up later if you think you will actually notice the difference between a 1800+ and a 2000+. Then get a decent gfx card. If you will not be using the machine for games please ignore the above.

irishguy

the spec is fine except the graphics cars i have the gforce 4 ti 4200 and it is brillent the pic quality is unreal and personaly i would go for a 120gig deskstar because i just use up space on my h/d so fast.also i would recomend you getting the ram off www.crucial.com and the rest off overclockers.co.uk it will work out cheaper even with the currency difference and the extra delivery cost.komplet.ie it great if u are only buying 1 or 2 things but you can get it cheaper else where

DJB

Ok here is what I revised to from the advise above:

112520 Samsung CD recorder IDE 40X/12X/40X
109496 NEC Floppy Drive 3,5" 1,44MB FD1231H
112330 Chieftec Matrix Midi Tower w/Door, Blue
111085 Asus A7S333 Motherboard for Socket A DDR
108032 TwinMOS DDR-DIMM 256MB CL2.5
110949 Seagate Barracuda IV 60GB IDE 7200RPM
111874 Abit AGP Siluro Geforce4 Ti4200 64MB
108607 AMD Athlon XP1800+ 1.53 GHz 266 MHz bus

And all at a price of 939,25 inc. VAT


What you think now????

Thanks for the advice so far!!

DJB

Ok here is what I revised to from the advise above:

112520 Samsung CD recorder IDE 40X/12X/40X
109496 NEC Floppy Drive 3,5" 1,44MB FD1231H
112330 Chieftec Matrix Midi Tower w/Door, Blue
111085 Asus A7S333 Motherboard for Socket A DDR
108032 TwinMOS DDR-DIMM 256MB CL2.5
110949 Seagate Barracuda IV 60GB IDE 7200RPM
111874 Abit AGP Siluro Geforce4 Ti4200 64MB
108607 AMD Athlon XP1800+ 1.53 GHz 266 MHz bus

And all at a price of 939.25 inc. VAT


What you think now????

Thanks for the advice so far!!

preytec

108935 MSI K7N420 PRO Mainboard. Socket A, DDR
110981 Plextor Combo IDE 20x/10x/40x +12x DVD
110949 Seagate Barracuda IV 60GB IDE 7200RPM
108607 AMD Athlon XP1800+ 1.53 GHz 266 MHz bus
108032 TwinMOS DDR-DIMM 256MB CL2.5
112330 Chieftec Matrix Midi Tower w/Door, Blue
109496 NEC Floppy Drive 3,5" 1,44MB FD1231H

if you get this mobo you can save money on a Gcard till the R300 comes out (ETA: xmass)
note: 1800 is the max for this mobo
plextor? why not? you can spend the money you saved
you won't be happy with a samsung if your going to copie any games
plus 40x speed cdr's???? they cost alot, alot more than 24x, besides you'll find that it's best to burn at 6x speed anyway
see these forums for more info on burnners

zAbbo

Isnt that a mobo for 2700 DDR when the RAM is 2100,

Also DJB you should post what you you require the machine to do, i doubt if you need a top of the range graphics card for web development. You could also look into having a redundant hard drive for backup purposes, or at least a second drive.

Gerry

Well presumably you changed the graphics card because you are going to be playing games. If you are only going to be playing games rarely, the previous gf2 mx200 was fine, I dont' want you wasting your money

preytec, you aren't making a whole lot of sense.

I don't see much sense either in buying a motherboard which can only take up to an 1800xp ( though I suspect more with a bios upgrade ). Thats hardly very upgradeable.

Combo drives don't make sense any more, unless your case has only 1 5.25" drive bay. I bought a pioneer dvd106s 16x slot in dvd drive, and the lg 40x12x40 cdrw drive for €160 all in from komplett. The combo drive you suggested is twice as slow at writing cd's, and a bit slower at reading dvd's. It also costs 80 euro more than separate drives. Now where is the sense in that?
As for the cdr's, well I'm not going to pay extra for 40x cdrs either, but the lg drive burns my cheapo cdrs at between 24x and 32x ( haven't burned a full 650 or 700mb cd yet). I'll just keep buying cheapo cdr's, and eventually the cheapo cdr's will improve to the point where they work at 40x.

You should also back up your statement about it being best to burn cd's at 6x. Why is that? If a 40x burner can burn at 6x, it should burn the exact same thing at 40x or you send it back to the shop. I've already mentioned the cdr discs, perhaps you are referring to the drive burning too fast for the cd. From what I've seen and read, the modern drives are able to guage the quality of a cdr pretty well, and are able to usually burn at a reliable speed. The main work in copying games is reading it off the original cd. Various copy protection schemes are used to try and fool the drive, and it is sometimes a good idea to slow the drive down so it can read the bad sectors, subchannel data etc.

However, once the image has been read from the cd successfully, it doesn't matter what speed you burn it at, its just another iso image.

Bazh, good point about the ram. The board is capable of taking pc2700, however it also has settings to run at pc2100, if you want the absolute max performance its worth seeing how much extra pc2700 is.

Slutmonkey57b

The SB 4.1 again will hamper your games playing unless you turn the sound settings in your games way down (or off) coz the game will be throwing more channels and sound than the card can handle. A fine card provided you don't want it to do anything.

preytec

gerry, i know what your saying, but think about it, he wants a 1800, ok
the next time he'll get a upgrade, he'll jump to a 3000 or more
now name one mobo that can take that thats out now
i can't see him getting a better mobo and in a few weeks spending more money on a 2000xp cpu on top of what he's just spent
as for the plextor and cd burnning,
plextor, they are by far the best, tried and tested, the only one that comes near to them is yamaha, but that still made coasters of may a cdr in the pc format tests
burnning, safedisc 2.5 is very hard to copie, and even if you do make a working copie, that dosn't meen that all drives can read it, i've seen ppl crying that they can't do this or that after getting a burnner, if you ask me, thats a wast of money. also burnning at speeds faster than 6x will result in a loss of data, that might be fine if you don't care, but it's not recommend, if your going to do it, do it right 1st time

However, once the image has been read from the cd successfully, it doesn't matter what speed you burn it at, its just another iso image

well why do you think they don't make 100 speed cd-rw drives for home pc's???

eventually the cheapo cdr's will improve to the point where they work at 40x.

by that time eveyone will have dvd-rw's, and thats not that far away
when you getting anything, computers, runners, a dog, anything ask yourself what do you want it for, for how long do you want it, and what way is the market going
i don't think ppl know just how powerfull a 1800xp is
my m8 has a 2000xp all the extras gf3 ti, t1...etc
whats he do with it??? not-a-thing, plays games, thats it, the dam computer thinks its on holidays, now do you think thats money well spent? so ppl saying things like "don't get that coz you can't upgrade or it's not as fast as this" so what? the next time your upgrading will be a year or 2, no point in paying out big bucks just to show off your score in 3Dmark, or say that you can go this speed, but can't do jack.
think about it

flamegrill

Heres a system i got from komplett for my GF about 2 weeks ago. There is no case included. and all for a nice price.

One thing thou, make sure you get a case fan and a good heat sink/fan combo. i've had awfull probs with over heating, but its because the case i got was poo :P

1 110170 Abit KR7A-133 Motherboard Socket A (DDR) Pcs 1,00 1,00 0,00
VIAKT266A, ATA/133, ATX 266MHz FSB
2 109024 IBM Deskstar 80GB IDE 7200RPM Pcs 1,00 1,00 0,00
ATA/100 Hard Driv 120GXP /IC35L080AVVA07
3 110286 Gainward AGP GeForce4 MX420 64MB SDR Pcs 1,00 1,00 0,00
"MX450TV" TV-Out, Retail
4 105276 DDR-DIMM PC2100 256MB DDR CL2.5 Pcs 1,00 1,00 0,00
Generic Memory 184-Pins
5 108215 Creative SB Live! Player 5.1 MP 1 Set 1,00 1,00 0,00
Soundcard w/Wavetable, Bulk w/drivers
6 108575 Microsoft Intelli Mouse Explorer v. 3.0 Pcs 1,00 1,00 0,00
Mouse PS/2 & USB Retail
7 108052 Cooler Master CPU-Fan Socket A/7/FCPGA Pcs 1,00 1,00 0,00
DP5-6I31C, Up to 1,4GHz and AMD XP1900+
8 103358 EKL case fan 80x80x25mm Pcs 1,00 1,00 0,00
with 5.25" power plug
10 109964 Plextor CD recorder IDE 40x/12x/40x Pcs 1,00 1,00 0,00
Internal Bulk Plexwriter
11 111010 AMD Athlon XP2100+ 1.733 GHz 266 MHz bus Pcs 1,00 1,00 0,00
Socket A (Palomino) Processor OEM
Invoice/Amount: EUR 898,11

Gerry

Originally posted by preytec
gerry, i know what your saying, but think about it, he wants a 1800, ok
the next time he'll get a upgrade, he'll jump to a 3000 or more
now name one mobo that can take that thats out now
i can't see him getting a better mobo and in a few weeks spending more money on a 2000xp cpu on top of what he's just spent
as for the plextor and cd burnning,
plextor, they are by far the best, tried and tested, the only one that comes near to them is yamaha, but that still made coasters of may a cdr in the pc format tests

I wasn't suggesting he get a faster cpu right now, its just that most other current motherboards support the thoroughbred, which will be released at speeds of 2400, 2600, 2800 etc. Its possible the barton will run on current motherboards as well.

Originally posted by preytec

well why do you think they don't make 100 speed cd-rw drives for home pc's???

I was talking about within the limitations of the the media.

Originally posted by preytec

i don't think ppl know just how powerfull a 1800xp is
my m8 has a 2000xp all the extras gf3 ti, t1...etc
whats he do with it??? not-a-thing, plays games, thats it, the dam computer thinks its on holidays, now do you think thats money well spent? so ppl saying things like "don't get that coz you can't upgrade or it's not as fast as this" so what? the next time your upgrading will be a year or 2, no point in paying out big bucks just to show off your score in 3Dmark, or say that you can go this speed, but can't do jack.
think about it

Good point, I think most cpu power these days is wasted. The only apps most people run which can make use of that power are games, and then only if they have removed the graphics card as a bottleneck.

However, I think you are being a bit unreasonable. You should choose whatever offers the most value, and if an extra 10 euro on a motherboard lets you upgrade your cpu significantly, I think thats worthwhile.

Also not much point tarring everyone with the same brush, I've had my machine for 2 1/2 years. Now there have been incremental upgrades along the way, but the mobo and cpu are still the same, and only now do I feel like upgrading. I'm upgrading the cpu at the moment, keeping the mobo.