A good choice??

[gonzo0815]

Re: A good choice??

Well, SIS has done the SB integration since the SIS735, only the request for flexibility of features has lead them to reintroduce it.
It is just way cheaper to have only one silicon chip to be packed into a housing.
If there are a few transistors more or less on this chip does not cost that much extra.

[Rainbow]

Re: A good choice??

SiS730 and SiS630 are older.

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

Well, SIS has done the SB integration since the SIS735, only the request for flexibility of features has lead them to reintroduce it.
It is just way cheaper to have only one silicon chip to be packed into a housing.
If there are a few transistors more or less on this chip does not cost that much extra.

I'm not sure.... but I notice that one silicon chipsets only exist for the AMD based motherboards because the memory controller is integrated into the CPU?? In the past I have only dealt with Intel based PCs with VIA, SiS and Intel chipsets, in which all have a northbridge and southbridge.

Now, about the PC, I just remembered that i'm on a $250-$300 budget.

So now I am limited to the Asus M2N8-VMX motherboard. My system will be as follows.

AMD Sempron 3000+ AM2 - $37
Asus M2N8-VMX Motherboard (Geforce 6100 GPU+ nForce 405 [MCP61S] chipset) - $65
512MB Kingston ValueRAM DDRII 667MHz RAM - $30
160GB Seagate SATAII HDD - $65

Total: $197

What i am not sure about right now is the CPU.

Is there a big difference between an AMD Sempron 3000+ and an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ performance wise?? I'm not sure if it would be worth spending the extra $10AUD for an AMD 64 CPU.

Also, I am planning to buy a new case for this PC since my old case is quite old now.

I am looking at the Cooler Master Elite RC330 w/350W PSU.... it's going to cost me an additional $79. My concern isn't the case, but the PSU.
I know that Cooler Master makes PSUs, but are thier PSUs good or bad compared to Thermaltake ones??.

I still have to look for a Linux version that will suit me. I need something that is free, popular and easy to use.
I currently use Fedora Core 5 on my PIII system, it is quite OK, but i am not sure if it will support a 64 bit CPU or not.

Thanks.

[shadow]

Re: A good choice??

It is not easy to find a site that benchmarked the Sempron against Athlon 64. However I would say that for $10 more, that extra cache that you would gain is well worth the price.

I really have no idea about the Cooler Master power supply. I would like to know myself actually!

A very popular Linux distribution at the moment seems to be Ubuntu. It has a lot of support and from what I have read, it is very good.

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

Thanks Shadow. I guess i'll just spend the extra $15 or so on an Athlon 64 3000+ CPU.
In regards to Linux, I'll try Ubuntu.

[tazwegion]

Re: A good choice??

Ubuntu is great! I use it myself

There's also a 'different flavour' called Kubuntu which utilises the KDE GUI IIRC (Ubuntu has the Gnome GUI)... I haven't tried the KDE version so I can't comment any further on it

FWIW go the A64... extra cache means better mathematical power/grunt, I'm sure it'll come in handy for you (especially gaming IMHO)

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

I have one other question to ask.

Today, the store has the Asus M2V motherboard available. It is based on the VIA K8T890 chipset w/VIA VT8237A southbridge.
It has 4 PCI slots (exactly what I need) , a PCIe X16 slot and a PCIe X1 slot. It also has e-SATA, 1x SATA II port + 2X SATA ports.... best of all it has 2X IDE ports. It supports Dual channel DDRII 800 and is ATX form factor.

The functions of the board suit me perfectly. But how are VIA chipsets these days?? are they good now or are they still slow and filled with issues like the Apollo PRO AGP set series back in 1999?? Or have the improved vastly since those days??

The Asus M2V suits me perfectly because I can re-use my 40GB IDE HDD, it also has PCIe X16, DDRII and it has 4PCI slots which is what I need. It only costs $79AUD compared to $90 for the M2N.




Thanks.

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

Actually, i'm going to rethink the idea of the VIA chipset based motherboard. I need 2x PCIe X1 slots for the future times when they become more popular.
My only problem is the hard drive. I have an IDE hard drive.... if only, there was some way to turn my IDE drive into a SATA one, i'd be fine with the Asus M2N.
The Asus M2N supports RAID 5 and JBOD.... which is a nice feature to have, it also uses the ultra powerful Nvidia MCP430 chipset.

[shadow]

Re: A good choice??

It is possible to purchase a IDE to SATA adapter.

http://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/...SATA+Converter

Looks like it will set you back at least $15.
You can also purchase a PCI card with two IDE ports and use that instead. Thou I think that would be rather inconvenient. The PCI IDE card should set you back around the same amount as the adapter.

[tazwegion]

Re: A good choice??

Yeah Abit used to include those IDE->SATA converters with their Nf7-S Rev 2.0 motherboard bundles, IIRC it was called a parallel-to-serial adapter

It was good to speed up the optical drive, otherwise I hardly used it

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

I could save $24 if I went with the Asus M2V because it only costs $79 and I wont need a $12AUD IDE > SATA converter.
I read some reviews on the M2V, and it seems very fast and good. Only thing is that it uses 2x SATA I and only has 1x SATAII port.... not a big issue though.... I'm currently using an Intel DP965LTCK motherboard with a Seagate 200GB SATAI HDD and it runs Windows Vista fine.

But the biggest thing that stopping me from the M2V is that i'm unsure if it has MultiLayer Ceramic Capacitorss on the other side of the PCB (directly under the chipset)??
I am planning to mount a larger Chipset cooler, but if there are MLCCs in the way, i cant do that otherwise they will break.
Another major issue is that I have broken MLCCs off the underside of motherboards, they are a real pain to resolder.

*OFF TOPIC*

Does anyone know if nvidia based boards have MLCCs on the other side of the board, directly underneath a chipset.
The Asus M2V runs the VIA K8T890 chipset and i'd really like to know if anyone owns a board with a similar chipset and knows if there are MLCCs on the other side of the PCB, directly under the chipset??

Thanks.

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

Oh.... I looked through my pile of spare hardware equipment and in the very bottom of the box, there's an ECS 661FX-M motherboard inside a static bag and inside a motherboard box.
This was the board I used before I upgraded to a Gigabyte GA-8i848P-G motherboard.... I totally forgot about it....
The ECS 661FX-M motherboard has 2X SATA ports, 2X IDE ports and a SiS 661FX chipset w/onboard LAN, audio and graphics.
I also tested it out with a Celeron 2GHz CPU + 512MB Kingmax DDRRAM and it POSTS!!
"Operating System not found" is whats displayed.... obviously because I haven't connected a Hard Drive yet.

Would this motherboard be suitable for a cheap Linux box??
I could save hundreds here.... by buying a second hand P4 socket 478 CPU off ebay. I'm only concerned that Intel CPUs may not be compatible with Linux.

[WNG]

Re: A good choice??

That should run Linux just fine. Even the 2.0 GHz Celery will do.

I'm running Ubuntu 7.04 on a Tualatin 1.1 GHz Celery and Intel motherboard, 512 MB SDRAM, and it's fast enough.

[Spacedye69]

Re: A good choice??

I run OpenSuse, Centos, and Fedora on a mix of P3 and P4 from 450mhz to 1.7ghz. Even with KDE, none of them are slow. I would keep 512 as a min on memory running X11.

[linuxguru]

Re: A good choice??

1) On a K8 board, the MLCCs below the NB/SB are probably not an issue - there's usually a metal plate below the board on which the HSF receptacle is mounted. That will give you enough stand-off to prevent the NB MLCCs from touching any surface.

2) Various distros using various versions of the Linux kernel exist, including a few router-centric distros that can run on a 486 with 4MB of RAM and 16 MB of Hard Disk. A 2 GHz Celeron with 512 MB is plenty - I used a 2.6 GHz Northwood Celeron with 256 MB SDRAM as my primary build machine for a long time until I got a DDR board to replace it, and I replaced the Celeron with a Northwood 2.66 P4 only two days ago.

3) The Via K8T890 is an excellent chipset - I have a S939 board with one of its predecessors, the K8T800 Pro, and it's been very stable and reliable with an Athlon-64 3000+. The eventual upgrade for this system will include an Opteron 165 or 175, after some serious blood has been spilt in the next round of the Intel-AMD price war.

[starfury1]

Re: A good choice??

DEll is going to put Ubuntu on there PC's in the USA soon
(as an option I suppose) from what I read in APC so hopefully this will add to the release by it being more polished and user Friendly for beginners

Linux I have had a play with but would only give myself noob status on it.

Its something well worth exploring considering the cost of M$ windows especially since you are trying to put together a box on a tight budget.

I would also recheck prices on on CPU's before you buy as they have fallen a bit and you may get a few more bangs for your buck.

last I looked (now) AMD 64 X2 6000 bit over $200 AU AMD 64 X2 3800 $85 (am2)

thats a retail price form one mob in Sydney, if you can get through wholesale so much the better


Thats Australian people so for our cousins in the USA they may look high
(and maybe some what, doing an exchange rate US AU never equals what they charge here)

used static ice

anyway good luck with it Stevo

Keeps us posted on how it goes, Cheers

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

Well in regards to the Linux project, luck struck me yesterday when I found an ECS 661FX-M motherboard inside a box.... it was sitting in the spare parts section of my place.

I remembered that I resoldered an MLCC directly under the NB that came off the board...... At least it works though.

Well, I have overchecked the board and it does indeed POST and the onboard LAN/Video/Sound are all perfect. The caps on the board are OST RLX??

For now I only have a motherboard.... theres a long way to go from here.
I need an Intel socket 478 CPU.... probably a Celeron D or a P4. I know that some stores around here still stock brand new S478 Celeron D's for about $70 (2.53GHz) so i'm in luck there.

As for the RAM.... heres where the issues fall out. I found that the old fashioned DDRI PC3200 RAM is twice as expensive as DDRII.

For a 512MB chip of DDR400, it costs $55, but for a 512MB chip of DDRII RAM, it only costs $25.

The hard drive is another concern. What brand is better??; Western Digital, Maxtor, Samsung or Seagate?? I have used Seagate with no issues at all for the past 5 years, but I heard their products aren't as good anymore. 160GB should be able to fit Linux and Windows on a dual boot environment??

Then there's the ATX case. I can't even find a decent quality case around the shops here. All they stock are generic cases.... the best one they have is a case made by USIcase?? called the Atrix. It's very nice with the LCD display in the front.... and a USIcase 550W PSU.... But the $100 price tag tells another story about the PSU and case quality.

I also looked for PSUs and the most expensive PSU they stock in the stores around here are EZcool 550W for $55.... it weighs about 500G so I highly doubt the 500W output.
I may even need a new graphics card to go with this system. The onboard SiS661FX graphics aren't too good, i don't think.

But....I can't get around to this project until mid-week or until the pain in my mouth goes away.... for anyone who doesn't know.... I had all 4 Wisdom teeth removed on Friday afternoon.

But.... i'll definitely keep updating the news on this project.

Thanks.

[starfury1]

Re: A good choice??

This tends to be the trouble with ram...once its superseded it tends to go up in price not down and then gets rare as to find new
bit the same with cpu's and video cards

Yeah I think any on board video is passable at best but probably not going to be any real use for game play....most review and comments I find are to this effect.

PSU and cases I suppose its a case of you get what you pay for if you go for decent made one but no names are probably going to be crap...you would probably do better to source each separately if you want some measure of quality

You maybe stuck having to get one online......if the shops around you only sell crap
or travel further a field

Hard drives well I think they have all had a dude model or range...so thats a bit of a hard one.... I have WD's and a Seagate youngest one is a WD 250GB JB about a year old

the others are 2~4 years old and still chugging along

But as you said newer ones may not be as good.....maybe a 160GB Seagate which is a bit older might be the go...thats if you can find one ...I haven't noticed 160GB lately

I think you not only have to look at brand but the model and capacity.
Here is were google comes in handy...I google what ever it is I am interested in buying and type "faulty" or "problem" "not working" "crash"etc and see how many hits I get
Bare in mind though those that are working OK are not going to post this and there will always be hits on whatever mostly.

I have been looking at samsung lately and I find some say ok other say not so yeah its gets hard...they always seem to get OK or very good reviews...depending

All I can say is that all mine bar 1 10GB are still running although the 40 Gb WD maybe suspect.

Storage review might be worth a look see

I guess the price has come down so much that maybe the quality has too....maybe pick a Seagate cause there got 5 years I think warranty

That sounds like it was quite a painful ordeal with the teeth mate
Hope it all heal up quickly for you...nothing worse then a sore mouth
after a dentist has been in there with pliers....

Cheers mate and do keep us posted on how you go

[tazwegion]

Re: A good choice??

Would this motherboard be suitable for a cheap Linux box??
I could save hundreds here.... by buying a second hand P4 socket 478 CPU off ebay. I'm only concerned that Intel CPUs may not be compatible with Linux.

Linux doesn't discriminate against processor styles, FWIW I've been using a linux (2.6 kernel) distro on a Cyrix-233 MXII based system for over 12 months without issue

Samsung, Seagate & Western Digital are the go! Samsung spinpoint series are really impressive units, I'm still not fond of (never have been) Maxtor

But....I can't get around to this project until mid-week or until the pain in my mouth goes away.... for anyone who doesn't know.... I had all 4 Wisdom teeth removed on Friday afternoon.

Suck it up and get some Nurofen Plus (ibuprofen + codiene)! I had a molar pulled Tuesday that punctured my sinus region... so I can sympathise with your discomfort

[stevo1210]

Re: A good choice??

Suck it up and get some Nurofen Plus (ibuprofen + codiene)! I had a molar pulled Tuesday that punctured my sinus region... so I can sympathise with your discomfort

I can't have Nurofen because it has Codiene.
I don't react very well to codeine. I was prescribed Panediene Forte (i think thats how it's spelt), it has codeine and i start going dizzy once i take it.
Now i'm on the old fashioned Panadol tablets.... I can handle them....