Hardware change - seeking advice.

I'm thinking of changing my puter and I'd like people with some hardware knowledge to tell me what do you think about the set I'd like to put together (mostly whether all the components are roughly the same level so that I won't spend money on something that'll just slow down to fit the rest).

Set:
AMD Athlon 1GHz
Shuttle AK312 motherboard
256MB DDR
Winfast Geforce 2 64MB Titanium


It's not all since I'll transfer some parts from my current puter (like HDD, sound, modem).

A few additional questions:

1. Which is better: Athlon or Celeron II? I saw some benchmark results which showed possible supremacy of celeron II.

2. Out of AMDs is it worth it to buy Athlon or is Duron roughly the same?

3. Which manufacturer produces the best GeForce2 video cards (besides ASUS). I heard that Winfast and Inno3d are very good - is it true? And what about others? Are there some manufacturers I should stay away from?

 

CeleronII over Athlon??? No way. Athlon all the way. The differences between various GF producers is very small if you are looking at the same brand i.e. we are not comparing MX and normal models or the Titanium ones. I suggest you look it up yourself. I'm very fond of my pixelview. Durons are good but the're alot worse than Athlons.

 

Watch me pretend to understand a word that just came out of your mouths. :grin:

 

Lol
What Etalis hears:
Gooble douka jibby cumputer jibby damma oovum

 

I know it sounds as if I were on crack but look here

http://www.sysopt.com

My search results are here

There are benchmark results on this site and I chose to compare Athlon Thunderbird and Celeron II. I checked the results people got using SiSoft Sandra and 3dMark 2001benchmarks and in both cases in the results it showed that Celeron II 1.2GHz got better score than Athlon Thunderbird 1.5GHz. I mean wtf? Of course people who sent in their results have different configurations and there is a question to what degree one can trust Benchmark tests but this shouldn't happen anyway.

 

That's why we never used just one benchmark when setting up graphic arrays...:smile:

 

Sorry bud, but I can't believe benchmarks that do tests that are supposed to show celeronII over the athlon/thunderbird while graphic card configurations vary dramatically. Everyone knows that 3D mark is all about your graphics card, not the proc. So if you wanna know the truth, you better look at tests that deal with only the proccessors. check it out here

 

Why not get a Pentium IV? Basically, the diff. between Pent 4 and Athlon is Athlon has an onboard cache where it can store read files where the Pentium has to constantly reread them. But the Pentium is better than the Athlon for gaming.

Basically, an Athlon 1 gig is equal to a Pentium 1.4 gig. Roughly.

I have a pentium 4, 1.5 gig proc., 60 gig hard drive, 256 megs of RAM, 32 MB 3-D graphics card, and I have YET to find a game that will slow it down.

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Voted "World's Prettiest Lips and Freshest Meat, 2001" by Criton


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: retard on 2002-01-03 08:24 ]</font>

 

Your name fits well if you think that.

 

He he he. Well, actually, my dad just bought an Athlon processor and that's what the computer guy told him. Is that not true, Saint P?

 

let me guess the "computer guy" was the store salesman right?..... i thought so, don't ask them anything, just go ito the store with a list of what you want, give it to them and say "give me these and go away"

 

No, it wasn't a computer store. It was a local guy who specializes in building custom shit. So I guess he fed my dad a load of bs, huh?

 

I have the pIV. The athlon is cheaper and faster but does that make it better?

yes

and the RAM is cheaper too.

Not that I'm unhappy with the chip, it does everything I ask of it and then some. Athlon would have just been a better solution.

 

well i'm actually using an athlon and i've never had a problem with it now my sound card on the other hand....... basically talk to someone how knows about what you want to do with your pc and make sure it's all compatible....... learn't that the hard way
btw don't ask me, i don't know shit, i got my mates to get research what i needed for what i wanted to do
*edit* however much ram you've got/getting,.... get more
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people are idiots!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: mrnobodie on 2002-01-03 09:32 ]</font>

 

Why don't I get a P4 - let me think... right because the cheapest (1.4G)P4 costs 50$ more than Athlon 1GHz. Then you yourself say that A1GHz is roughly equal to P4 1.4GHz thus even if I could spend more money on it I'd rather buy a better Athlon.

Another thing is that I read somewhere in this forum that P4 has 2D graphics handling screwed - unless it was said by an AMD salesman I'd rather avoid P4.


One more thing - what is this QuantiSpeed Architecture Athlon XP has? And what does the XP stand for?

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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Dragoon on 2002-01-03 13:40 ]</font>

 

XP = eXtra Performance.
Cheap marketing trick by AMD. Also be advised that the cpu speeds are lower than the "+" rating the processors have. An Athlon XP 1500+, for instance, runs on like 1300 MHz. It's still the best bang for the buck, though. You still get more performance on the dollar with AMD. Also if you want a cheap solution check out the mainboards with NVidia NForce chipset: it has the equivalent of a Geforce 2 MX on board, and 5.1/AC3 sound and a built-in network card as well. If you're looking to milk your money... that's probably the way to go.

 

Thanks for all answers. Calis this XP shortcut isn't actually the most stupid thing I've seen so far. It's actually far behind labels like "Internet ready', "Windows ME ready' and such. I'd rather not buy a motherboard with integrated graphic/sound/network systems since I don't have network access, I'd like some faster graphic card, I already have a decent (IMO) sound card and most of all when I see motherboards with such integrated systems I seem to see a big red "malfunction warning" sign on them.


Anyway the system I'd like to buy would cost me around 600$ and there is going to be GeForce 4 in summer which may cause prices of older GFs to drop also it'll be AGPx8 so there should be newer motherboards which will have this standard thus I'm going to wait (another important reason is that I don't quite have those 600$ gathered and burning a hole in my pocket). In the meantime I think I'll buy Celeron II 800MHz (perhaps even some GF2 MX) which costs 70$ and should give my puter a nice power kick for these few months till late summer or autumn. Perhaps then I'll be able to buy even Athlon 1.6GHz and (though I highly doubt it) GeForce3.

Oh yeah two more questions. This 800MHz Celeron II's power is comparable to which P III processor? Also how far is my 32MB Matrox G400 behind GeForce 2 MX?

 

No comment. Friend, I don't want to insult you about the celeron, so I'll just say no comment.

 

Actually, from what I've heard, the NForce is supposed to be pretty damn good. If I were going to get an integrated M/B, then I'd definitely get the NForce. Cheap, and pretty decent specs. It's just stuck with the unfortunate stigma that integrated M/B's have.

Durons are oh, so much better than Celerons. Celerons are the worst chip out at the moment. As for your video card question, get a GF2 MX - relatively cheap, and good reliable performance. Unless you are planning on running Tribes 2, it should be more than enough for most of your graphical needs.

 

I know, Jinxed I know but it's not my fault. I can't put Duron or Athlon on my Intel board and buying new board and processor while leaving my old graphic card would be pointless thus I'd have to buy a whole new puter which I decided (read as: was forced to) to postpone. Also PIII is too expensive since I want to buy this new system in a few months thus I don't want to make large investments. I just want something that'll let me survive these few months - my Celeron 400 is just way too weak.