Another New Day, Another Question from Me :)

[Cheesebury]

nice IP schiz

[SchizoidMan]

Yeah - USA variety. All my stuff goes out to New York and then comes back again!

Unless I dial-up locally to avoid the proxy server's logger http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/teeth.gif

[Taulath]

Hehehe.
Whilst you're all downloading the new client, ponder this one for me.
I'm currectly saving up to buy a new system for myself. It'll be useful for Uni and a slight improvement over the P90 with 1mb graphics we have at home for familly use (Gets 9 fps in quake2 - I haven't even considered Multiplayer http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/frown.gif)
Well - I'm planning something around the following :-
ATX - Naturally
8.4 gig HDD
40x cdrom
Banshee voodoo2/riva TNT (16mb in both cases)
SB PCI 62/128 sound (Live's just a little to expensive)
128mb RAM
...
Ok - Looks like it will be a good system when it's made (I'm building myself :})
The one question I have is quite a big one..
AMD K6-2 or Celery????
I'll go for 400mHz either way, and P2/P3 are too expensive. Now to start with I thought the AMD would be better due to 3D-Now! instructions, But apparantly the celery is great now it has L2 cache. Hmm - Tricky one. All I want is good performance for the least cash! Also - If celery is the way to go - Should I opt for slot 1 or socket 370?
I'm not too bothered about upgradeablity coz by the time I can afford a new chip It'll probably be a whole new design of connection.
Well - Post what you think - It'll give you something to do other than add to your pron and MP3 collections anyway http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/smile.gif Just tell respective bosses theres a future IT employee in distress http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/tongue.gif

[Cheesebury]

right well go for the celery cos it's far better, thats about it really, I have had both AMD and Intel chips in the last few months and intel just whips AMD silly. Anyway the slot 1/socket 370 thing isn't much of an issue cos you'll be very lucky to find slot one chips anywhere but if you do go for them cos you can add extra fans a whole lot easier if you plan to overclock. If you don't plan to overclock then it doesn't really matter. And if you do want a slot 1 motherboard so you can take a PIII later you could get a socket to slot converter but as you say by the time you come to replaceing the chip motherboards will have moved on a generation or two so I wouldn't worry.


(oh yeah and about the vid card, you could get a V3 or TNT2 in a few weeks time http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/smile.gif)

[Scarab]

Yeah - Exactly what he said. I'd never get anything but intel. Make sure the PSU in yer case is at least 250watts as my 200 is struggling so I gotta get a new one. Thought about a DVD player? Check the for sale bit on the q2central board as loadsa ppl should be selling stuff esp v2's and theyre good ppl. Get an Asus P2B board, I got one and it luverly, very clockable I got my PII400 running at 4x112 and quite cheap. Soundcard ya may as well just get aan AWE64 2nd hand. Ive not noticed any diff from the SB16up until the Live.

Think thats it

[SchizoidMan]

Here's my view:

Get an Abit motherboard (BH6 has 5 pci slots) because it has a menu driven system for setting clock speed, and cpu voltages.

Then get a retail Celery 400 (slot1 - pref, so be quick before they die out). Insert in Abit MoBo, adjust bus speed to 75 instead of 66 and the celery will then run all day and night at 450, with no stress at all.

You've then got a machine which is faster in most games than a PII 450 (due to faster L2 cache)

I've got a C300a O/C to 464, and it's fast, very fast. It cost me £60, yours will cost you £100ish, but it's still 1/3 the price of a real PII. You can't get the 300a now http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/frown.gif

If you do this, I promise you won't regret it. AMD and are well and good, but for pure FPU muscle on a budget, you can't beat an o/c celery.

As for a video card it's really simple: DO NOT BUY A BANSHEE!!!!!!!! Voodoo 3's are in the stores right now. A V3 2000 will blow away a Banshee for £20 more - you get double the performance. A V3 3000 is even better, and comes with Unreal and Unreal Tournament voucher (if you were going to buy that), so it's £149 - £35 that UT would have cost you.

If you can wait for the vid card, give it a month or so and see how the TNT2 performs when production units actually ship. If it does end up beating the V3 performance-wise, the image quality will be better, so get one of those.

Couple of other points:

1. Make sure you get PC100 Ram (but you knew that anyway)

2. I can give you a link to a place that do the SBLive value OEM for £44 plus shipping http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/smile.gif - worth considering.....

OK here endeth the lesson http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/teeth.gif

[Taulath]

Heh - Thanks a lot evry1. Hmm - I can easily see myself overstreching my self imposed £700 budget, But it'll be worth it! I did consider DVD but with the prices I have seen It's a bit prohibitive. I think CCL and Micro Direct are the cheapest component supplyers around - About £100 for 128 PC100 ram, 105 for 8.4 gig HDD etc... Very nice http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/smile.gif
I'll probably have 100's more questions as I dream more and more about my nice new PC (**Drools**) http://www.wireplay.co.uk/ubb/tongue.gif
Hmm... I Hope I'm as helpful to whinging prospective student types when I'm in full time employment - Thanx a lot m8's

[SchizoidMan]

Just one other tip: (I went through the same excercise myself a couple of months ago)

If you can find one supplier who will do all the bits for you, you can easily save £50 overall in postage charges, if you were to buy one thing here, one thing there, just cos they were £3 cheaper on the face of it. It's too easy to forget how much shipping comes to.

[J]

Hey Taulath it's J upstairs stop chatting and get on with some bloody work!

[Taulath]

Eek!!!!!!!!
**Presses alt-tab and pretends to check e-mails and so on...**