Author: John C.
Date: 17:30:25 12/04/02
Go up one level in this thread
On December 04, 2002 at 16:42:44, Aaron Gordon wrote: >I spent a few minutes putting together a decent value system thats pretty fast >and has quite a few high quality, name brand items.. All the items are listed >off www.pricewatch.com, check this out.. > >AthlonXP 2100+ ------- $87 1900 or 2000 is good for overclockers, modify the L1 bridges >Epox 8K3A ------------ $67 The other Epox board, the one with the number 5 in it, maybe an H, is better for overclocking, apparently. I have a KT400 mobo, but it isn't really faster. >256mb PC2100 --------- $48 You should get the faster ram instead, if you can afford it, it isn't much more costly. >17" Dell monitor ----- $79 I can find them discarded in the urban core for free, especially 15 and 14" monitors. >Maxtor 60GB HD ------- $72 See eBay for better prices. >3Com 3c905B ---------- $16 >Mid-Tower ATX + 400w - $22 You are going to have to spend more than that for a decent p/s, no point in being stingy here, in N. America, the best available is the Antec TruePower as it is quieter. In Europe there are two quieter brands, and one outrageously expensive, quietest brand, see tomshardware.com for all of this info. >Geforce4 MX440 64mb -- $50 eBay has really nice deals for the more expensive ones too! >Aopen 48x12x50 CDRW -- $47 I had read that John Dvorak wrote that the engineers in the know recommend slower speeds, and particularly the Plextor 32x 10x 32x (I can't remember the numbers exactly, but they are low) is engineered extremely solidly. These faster speeds can really chew up a drive or disk, explosions...so I heard. >Large heatsink/fan --- $6 I saw frostytech.com as being a bit more interesting than the little review sites. You'll need a copper based heatsink, and I know that you can't get them that cheap. Avoid the eBay sellers of Thermoengine designed heatsinks, they don't know how to label, advise or service customers. Still, I love the thermoengine licensed designs and only lower costs/high production runs can explain the popularity of the volcano 7 or 9. Coolermaster's heat-pipe designed heatsinks are interesting, but you can't place them on some motherboards due to capacitors being too close to the socket. Look at closer to $40-50 though frostytech mentions one or two great cheapos. Arctic Silver 3 between the heatsink and the CPU: The only reason I can see why AMD doesn't recommend this is because ArcticSilver is too small to get ISO 900x certification. AMD's main complaint is that greases are electrically conductive, but AS# is not e-conductive. However, you are going to have to clean the base with xylene before you apply the grease sparingly. >Total: $494 > >Would be cheaper AND faster than the Gateway system, has a good network so you >don't need to fiddle with drivers (windows will automatically install the >3c905), the heatsink/fan is pretty large (3" tall, 2x2" wide, comes w/ 60mm 7k >rpm fan), motherboard can support an 2800+ Athlon XP easily as well incase you >want to upgrade later. Video card is fast enough to do what you need to do >(unless you're a professional gamer going to tournaments often or like playing >games in 1280x1024x32 w/ FSAA). If you do it yourself you save a ton of money :)
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.