Building a new PC...group effort! =)

While I am waiting for some responses regarding the motherboard, I figured I'd give you guys the name of and a link to the Case I'll be getting for my new PC. You guys helped me choose the hardware, so go ahead and check this out so you know what its going to look like from the outside.

Here is a link to a picture of the computer case I'll be getting:

http://www.a-top.com/827/827bkw.jpg

Here is a link to the pretty looking Vantec Nexus Multi-Functional Panel I plan on getting:

http://www.directron.com/nxp101.html

I'll be getting both the case and the Vantec Nexus Mulit-Functional Panel from a different source which offers a better warranty. (I never buy PC stuff over the internet.)

I'm planning on getting the Vantec Mulit-Functional Panel mainly for its digital temperature display and its fan speed control. I feel more comfortable knowing exactly what temperature my computer is at all times, plus the ability to manually speed up the fans or take other necessary precautions to keep the computer as cold as possible.

I'll probably be using blue florescent lights with the case, like the ones in the picture. I'll also be buying a $55 dollar surge suppressor. The power goes out quite frequently where I live.

If anyone has any further suggestions and/or comments, please post! =) Please respond regarding the motherboard too. I'm waiting for suggestions and/or solutions from you all. Thanks for reading/posting!

P.S. I'll check the forum again after I download a Windows update.

 

All nForce 2 based boards should be able to support an Athlon 2800+ and DDR 333 and DDR 400.

Do you know what beand the card was they say they can get, chances are it has the MCP on it but if you can give the brand either Big B or myself should be able to verify if it does or not.

 

PC3500 is faster than any chipset can do---at stock speeds. The only way you'll take advantage of the PC3500 (DDR433---I believe) is to overclock the FSB.

Many companies may not have the support listed on the motherboard's page. You may want to see the BIOS updates to see if additional speed ratings work. All motherboards that support the 333MHz FSB Athlons should work with the 2800+.

You must be getting a back up battery with a surge protector in it---which is a good idea in your situation. Many come with a data link cable to the USB or serial ports on your PC, so it can turn the PC off if the battery gets too low.

For the motherboard, what one(s) are you considering?

That Vantec panel looks pretty sweet. I've considered picking one up, but haven't yet. Might look sweet with one of my machines.

 

I didn't see any suggestions =P What would you guys do? I told you the four things I want for my motherboard:

1) nForce 2 chipset
2) SoundStorm sound card
3) Athlon AMD 2800+
4) Two Corsair XMS3500 512RAM chips

Is there a single motherboard out there that can use the Athlon AMD 2800+ and the XMS3500 RAM? (I'm willing to put the nForce 2 chipset and the soundstorm sound card away if necessary.)
---If there isn't, and overclocking wouldn't be a good idea if I want my PC to last a long time, then is there a motherboard that can do just the:

1) nForce 2 chipset
2) Athlon AMD 2800+
3) SoundStorm sound card (If you can't find one with this sound card, I'll just buy one seperate.)
4) Two Corsair XMS3200 512RAM chips (Instead of the XMS3500)

Or would you recommend I just overclock the FSB and go ahead with the XMS3500 RAM? If its going to be safe and wouldn't decrease the life span of my motherboard or especially other computer hardware, then I would rather overclock instead of settling for the XMS3200. ---I'll be going all out on cooling. Overheating will not be an issue in my PC even with an overclocked motherboard. I'm only concerned about other issues that might come as a result of my overclocking the motherboard.

I want to know what you would do in my situation regarding the motherboard, assuming you wanted the same four things.

"You may want to see the BIOS updates to see if additional speed ratings work." ---I don't understand; please explain this.

As always, thanks!

 

Any DDR based motherboard can use the PC3500 fine. Will it natively run at that speed? No.

For motherboard suggestions, I'd look at the Abit NF7-S.

For the motherboard speed ratings, check into any motherboard company you're intrested in, look at their nForce 2 motherboards and follow the links to the BIOS updates section. They'll list the fixes and upates with each BIOS update. They are cumulative, so each new one contains any fixes of the previous ones.

 

I clearly need to be educated more about motherboards. How exactly do you tell whether or not a certain motherboard can handle your CPU? How do you tell exactly how fast ram it can use? What about 3500 speed ram has anything to do with bus speed? ...etc:


"CPU
Supports AMD-K7 Duron/Athlon/Athlon XP Socket A with 200/266/333MHz FSB Processors"

- With this information alone, what can you tell me? What does my knowing this motherboard can handle 333MHz FSB tell me? Does the Athlon AMD 2800+ use 333MHz FSB?


"Chipset
NVIDIA nForce2 SPP Northbridge
NVIDIA nForce2 MCP-T Southbridge
Integrated 128-bit memory controller
Accelerated Graphics Port connector supports AGP 8X/4X ( 0.8V/1.5V )"

- What does this tell me? Northbridge, Southbridge? A controller? I already have one for my TV...


"Memory
Supports 3 184-pin DIMM sockets
Supports 3 DIMM DDR 200/266/333 ( Max. 3GB )
Supports 2 DIMM DDR 400 ( Max. 2GB )"

- This tells me what speed memory I can use? How? What is DIMM? 200, 333, 26, 400?? What is this?


"Audio
6-Channel AC 97 CODEC on board
Professional Digital Audio Interface supporting 24-bit S/P DIF OUT
Supports real time AC-3 Encode by SoundstormTM Technology"

- This is the sound card, right? Soundstorm, got it. Break it down for me...


"LAN
On board Realtek 8201BL physical layer interface
10/100 Mb operation support ACPI and Wake on LAN"

- Translation? Uhh...


"System BIOS
SOFT MENUTM technology, can easily set the processor parameters
Award PnP ( Plug and Play ) BIOS supports APM and DMI ( Desktop Management Interface )
Supports ACPI ( Advanced Configuration Power Interface )
Write-Protect Anti-Virus function by AWARD BIOS"

- This is my BIOS, right? What does all the other text mean? APM, DMI? "ACPI ( Advanced Configuration Power Interface..."--huh??




I apologize for my ignorance. Frankly, I got tired of my own ignorance so I figured I'd post this in hope of an enlightenment.

 

Big B, I'm assuming you would stay with the XMS3500 and just overclock the motherboard then? Would overclocking the motherboard allow it to "natively run at that speed"? I'm curious why you suggested that motherboard. Until I have a thorough response to my previous post, the link you sent me won't be very much help. I don't know how to translate its capabilities using that information.


Motherboard:

Abit NF7-S



Common Hardware and Software:

AMD 2600+ Athlon Processor 333MHz FSB

NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 (Drivers - v.40.72 WHQL)

Seagate 40GB ATA-100 7200RPM Hard Drive

On board sound

WinXP Professional w/ SP1

DirectX 8.1

NVIDIA Unified Driver Package v2.0


If I overclock it, will it "natively" work with the Athlon 2800+, 128MB video card, 3500ram, 8MB 80GB hard drive?

I appreciate your recommendation. I just want to know what facts about this motherboard you admire so much that you recommend it.

Readers & posters please respond to last 3-4 posts. Thanks all!

 

The new AMD chips including the 2800+ run at the 333Mhz FSB , so knowing the board supports a 333mhz fsb you are able to run the 2800+ and future chips based on AMD's current design at optimum levels.

The NVIDIA nForce2 MCP-T Southbridge ( That feature is the SoundStorm chipset). If it's on the motherboard your looking at you should be fine. For a recommendation though I'd say if you can get it I'd go for the Asus A7N8X Deluxe board.

If the 3500 memory isn't much more than 3200 I'd go that way, it'll run at DDR 400 with the shipping FSB speed. That way you have a bit of leeway if you decide to upgrade if and when boards supporting 3500 memory have been shipping, or if you decide to overclock you'll hopefully have the added stability ram clocked at that speed should provide.

 

How much of an overclock you get will determine if you can hit that speed. You may have to phyically unlock the CPU so you can lower the multiplier in order to jack the FSB up enough to reach 216MHz (x2 for 433MHz=PC3500)

The memory runs at 433MHz. There is no AMD CPU or chipset for them that has a FSB or memory faster than 400MHz as per specification of the chipset. If you want overclocking and are serious about it, the Epox 8RDA+ is the way you wanna go. The Abit NF7-S is nice, but people haven't been doing that great in overclocking it past 190MHz FSB (x2=380). You could probably get around this by running the FSB and memory asynchronously at 333/400 respectively. Overclocking that wouldn't be too tough to reach the speed you want.

Everything else looks good to work with it overclocked or not.

 

Thank you guys for your recent posts. Unfortunately I have no idea what to do with them. Your recommendations are great, I just need to know more about your recommendations. Why do you recommend that particular board? Whats special about it? What can it handle compared to its competitors. Did you choose it because its the best deal for the money, or because its in your opinion the best performance? These are amoung the questions I need answered. I could, and have just looked the motherboard up under google. Its doesn't help when I don't know what I'm looking at. There is a lot of termonology and specifications I don't have an understanding for. Only one of the questions on a previous post of mine was answered so far ---the one before the one before this one; two posts above this post. I realize you are all being very generous in even responding, however, I really can't think of a more efficient way of learning than by interacting over a forum with educated individuals like yourselves. Please allow me to pick your brains on this one. There are two ways in which I can finally decide which motherboard is right for me as a result of your generous posts. 1) You explain in great detail pretty much everything there is to know about motherboards, in your own words (rather than words from a book or internet site which tend to be overly wordy and/or harder to understand). Or, 2) You give me thorough opinionative responses regarding which motherboard you would choose in my situation. Included in the response I'd have to know for what reasons you would prefer this motherboard. All its capabilities, from overclocking to extra features and high performance. Pretend you had up to $500 dollars on a motherboard. If you intended on using all the hardware we've already talked about, which motherboard would you get, and why?


The MSI K7N2 is the motherboard the computer sales person has recommended.

The Abit NF7-S and the Epox 8RDA+ are the motherboards that Big B has recommended.

The Asus A7N8X Deluxe is the motherboard that syngod has recommended.

I get that the Epox 8RDA+ is the best recommendation for overlocking. But can it use all the other hardware I talked about? Exactly how high can I expect it to be able to overclock? Will this motherboard be able to fully take advantage of PC3500 ram when overclocked?? Should I even consider overclocking? What are the pros and cons to overclocking?? Is the only con to overclicking the fact that things get hotter? Would overclocking make my PC unstable, or crash a lot?? I can't handle a PC that crashes a lot, thats exactly what I am trying to avoid. Please compare these motherboards, using pros and cons. Like I said, reading the reviews are doing nothing for me. I really don't have any idea what the reviews are talking about most the time--- when talking about motherboards. I wish I could just flip a coin and trust one of your opinions and just buy one of those three motherboards and remain as ignorant about it as I am, but I feel that the motherboard is perhaps the most important hardware in a PC. To sum it all up, I just need more information from you. Just two or three more lengthy and informative posts like the ones towards the beggining of the thread should be sufficient. I've got to narrow it down and choose the motherboard I'll be purchasing this Saturday, (two days from now.)

If it weren't for you guys I'd still be stuck on the sound card. Thanks for all your help. Once we figure out what motherboard I'm getting, I'll start a new thread and pick your brains about something else =P

 

I reccomend the Asus mainly for the same reason I bought that chipset. It's loaded with features, and Asus is great at providing bios updates/support for their products.

Also if you do plan to go with a 9700 Pro it's one of the few boards I've heard about that can run it straight out of the box with no problem.

Basically though all nForce boards are going to give you great performance it's basically upto the features you need and if your willing to pay a bit more for an established brand with a solid reputation.

 

Btw is the board your looking at the MSI K7N2 or the K7N2-L?

The K7N2-L is marketed as having full MCP-T support so if it's without the -L I don't think you'll have Soundstorm on board.

 

Firing Squad has a review up of the K7N2 and MSI has chopped quite a few features off of it's -L model.

 

Then all motherboards with the nForce 2 chipset have exactly the same speed and performance? The only difference is the features such as the sound card. Compatibility is the same no matter what? What about overclocking? Would you recommend I do that? Would it enable me to fully use the PC3500 ram? What are the pros and cons to overclocking? What are the pros and cons to those three motherboards comparitively?

 

They don't all have the same speed and performance although they should all be fairly similar, and all the boards should be rock solid.

Asus, Abit, and Epox are the boards you probably want if you really want to overclock. MSI's board doesn't seem to perform as well as these boards but it's not a huge difference and probably won't be noticeable.

I'd say the best thing to do is base your decision on features you'd like and name brand. For a good source of nforce info you might also want to check out nForcersHQ and read the msg boards related to each card. Might help to see a few more opinions on each card.

 

"Well looks like I got caught napping (not that, thats anything out of the ordinary). I see over at xbit labs that Western Digital is going to launch a 10,000rpm SATA drive on Feb. 11, 2003. Remember, thats the day after AMD launches the Barton, which im sure we are all looking forward to. " --forum

Wow there is going to be a new 10,000RPM hard drive being released next Tuesday? Any idea how much it will cost? Can you confirm its release on Tuesday? Will that be the day I can expect to see it on shelves all over? Or is it the day they just start shipping them out? If I can pick one up sometime next week I'll do that. When you think they'll be in Best Buy or Circuit City?



I still don't know whether or not I'm going to plan on overclocking. Do you guys think I should overclock? Would you? What are the pros and cons to overclocking? As far as I know, the only negative thing about overclocking is things get hotter. I read somewhere things are more unstable when overclocked, but what does that mean? Does it mean the computer will crash more often?? Help me out here. If I'm going to overclock then I'll get the best motherboard for overclocking and I'll stay with the PC3500RAM sticks. If I'm not going to overclock then I'll switch back to the PC3200RAM sticks since I won't be able to use the RAM at a faster speed than 3200 anyway.

I think I'll copy and paste this post and create a new thread. This thread has seemed to die down a bit. Thank you syngod for the links you sent.

 

SirDeity: you seem very very concern with whether you should overclock or not and the performance of everything you buy, you were talking about buying pc3500 RAM if you decided to overclock. I have just seen pc3700 RAM, I do not know if corsair makes that kind of RAM but it exists and should be available in usa as it is in canada, I assume computer parts get on the market in usa before canada.

For the overclocking, I'll tell you what I feel about it, even though I do not oveclock because in my opinion, overclocking YES will improve your score in benchmark testing, but, I do not see the point in overclocking an already very powerful cpu, but that'S just me. I also believe that when playing games, the video card plays the major role in performance, for instance, I have a Athlon XP 2000+ with a gf2 mx400, my friend has the same card with a Athlon XP 1600+, but his score in 3dmark is still higher than mine, so clearly, the cpu does not make that much difference when you already have a performing cpu.

Overclocking will definitely reduce the life span of your parts because they are not made to run at those speeds, it's as if you were trying to drive a honda civic 200mph, it is simply not made to do it, you may do it for a while with heavy modifications, but it won'T last 10 years. it's the same with computers, now I've never done it and do not know how much it alters the life of the parts but it certainly does. as for stability, the idea is to overclock as much as you can without creating instability, that'S why it takes time, you cannot do it in 2 or 3 hours. you test at a certain speed, do some tests, play some games, leave it like that fopr a day, then move on to the next level. If you try to overclock too much, now you can really damage permanently the cpu or even other parts. those are the risks, some people have had great success in overclocking, some people not, you also cannot assume that two identical systems made with the exact same parts will perform exactly the same way or overclock as much as the other. anyways, let'S say you drive your fsb at 360 and someone with the same specs drives it at 365, you will absolutely not visually see the difference, you will have to run benchmarks to notice it, but again, in my opinion, if you cannot tell the difference by yourself, it is pointless. now tell that to overclocker-enthusiasts and they will have an opposite opinion, because it really is up to you. in my opinion, it'S good to overclock IF you do not have the money to buy more performant parts but still want the performance AND if you want to take the risk, but I do no think that applies to you because you want the best right off the bat.

f you still want to overclock, you may buy cheap parts and experiment with them, as it is the absolute best way to learn, and if something goes wrong, well it does not really matter since it was not that expensive, you don'T have to experiment with a p4, you can just experiment with a celeron which I believe were known for their ability of being easy to overclock.

well you wanted pros and cons, an opinion, that is what I think, but hey ! the hardware still permits it so if you wanna try to overclock, go ahead ! I never said I would never do it

 

The new WD HD's from what I've heard will be fairly expensive.

A launch could mean so many things, but it'll probably ship on Tue. and show up in stores a week or two later. I may be wrong on this though as quite a few companies paper launch products and nothing is seen on store shelves for 5-6 months.

 

THANK YOU HARRACK! I love those lengthy posts!

As most of you have probably realized, I am a very impatient person when it comes to obtaining information and/or knowledge. This in combination with a sketchy deadline has been the reason for my consistant abundance of questioning. Thank you for your willingness to aid me in this manner.

For the first time I seem to be struggling to find new questions to ask you. The only one I can think of, is to request a more specific opinionative recommendation for the best nForce2 chipset motherboard that has a speed sufficient to handle PC3200 (since thats the highest possible without overclocking.) I've already ruled out the idea of overclocking, thanks to harracks thorough post. So, without worrying about overclocking, which motherboard would you recommend for the best PC which would be used for college and especially for gaming. I read above the only thing left to consider are the features they include. Well, the more the better...

I've already got 2 recommendations based on the assumption that I might overclock. If I don't plan on overclocking, which motherboards would you consider?

P.S. It has to be sufficient for two PC3200RAM sticks and the other hardware I listed at the start of this thread.



Thanks everyone!

 

I was just doing more research on motherboards. I was reading the one about the nForce2 chipset. In one of the paragraphs it says this:


"The new 128-bit memory controllers also have a few more upgrades including an increase in memory bandwidth from 4.2 GB/s to 6.4 GB/s. Also, the amount of supported memory in the nForce2 has doubled from 1.5 GB to 3.0 GB. "

I'm curious, why does the chipset support 3.0GB of memory if there is no possible way for anyone to actually USE 3.0GB of memory? Or can they? I'm thinking maybe the only scenerio in which more than 512MB-1.0GB of memory can be used is in the case of a large network or server. Am I correct?

In what case(s) would more than 512MB/1.0GB of memory be needed?