I am scanning ads for new PC systems as I feel the urge to upgrade coming on... (now, if I can only convince my wife that we could use a new computer... :D )

A couple of questions:

1. What's the difference between DDR RAM and PC800 RAM?

2. What's the difference between the Intel 845 & Intel 850 chipset?

3. (Alright, 3 questions ;) ) Is a GEForce2 MX any good, or should I go for something else. I read somewhere a long time ago in a gslaxy far, far away (cue Star Wars Theme) that MX cards are essentially watered-down versions of the full-blown cards.

Thanks in advance.

I think you can read about that on www.intel.com

Stay Away from anything less than a GeForce3 card.

DDR Memory is cheaper than the Rambus Equivelent and darn near as fast. Most people are going away from the Rambus proprietary memory.

The Intel 845 chipset is a decent and proven P4 chipset. Don't know much about the 850...what I have heard was not great.

Thanks for the quick replies.
Err... what's a chipset? [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]

<font color="lightblue">A set of chips. </font>

3. (Alright, 3 questions ;) ) Is a GEForce2 MX any good, or should I go for something else. I read somewhere a long time ago in a gslaxy far, far away (cue Star Wars Theme) that MX cards are essentially watered-down versions of the full-blown cards.[/QB][/QUOTE]

Like somebody said before, dont get anything less than a geforce 3 right now.
Look here to see a break down on the capabilities of the current cards
its in a graph so its easy to understand
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1619&p=7

As stated before: dont get anything less than a Geforce 3 ti 500. the Geforce 3 ti 200 may be easier to find and easier on the wallet but the frames it puts out are far inferior to the ti 500.

They are trying to phase out the Geforce 3 line in favour of the Geforce 4.

the Geforce 4 MX 440 and MX 460 put out about a quarter of the fame rates than the Geforce 3 ti 500. If you want to truly Future Proof your system you will want to go for the Geforce 4 ti 4600. Its the meanest most feature rich card on the market. It has dual diplay support and more features than I can list.

Read this to learn more.
http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic...522/index.html

If youre going to buy a Geforce 2 get an ULTRA or GTS. They both compare favourably as far as frame rates go with the Geforce 3 cards though with fewer features and older technology. You wont be Future Proofing your system with one of these cards though. Pay more for the Geforce 4 ti 4600 and know that youve got the best card on the market, and one that wont be obsolete in 5 years.

In answer to slackerboys question: NO, the Geforce 2 mx is an old moldy piece of crap compared to the newer cards. Dont waste your time or money on it unless youre looking for a really cheap solution for a video card. Its not much better than the TNT2 M64 (which is what the large majority of gamers play online with, very surprising but true, thats why its really the standard for 32 meg cards or better).

DDR ram isnt as fast as PC800 but its one hell of a lot less expensive. I cant see the logic of paying through the nose for Rambus RAM

PC2100 233mhz FSB ram works just fine for me for a hell of a lot less cash. Learn more here : http://www.pcmech.com/memory.htm

I havent really looked at the difference between the 845 and the 850 chipsets. Personally I would never but an Intel CPU. AMD makes faster processors at half of the price. Why is AMD so much cheaper??? Because they dont spend billions of dollars on TV advertising. When you buy Intel you arent paying fora better processor--you're paying for the commercials. AMD Architicture is much quicker even if the actual clock speed is a little slower. Its what is done during the clock cycles that count. AMD does more per clock cycle.

My AMD 1600+xp (1.4 Ghz) has been side by side with an Intel 1.8 Ghz and smoked it in several tests and benchmarks. Its not even funny considering my sucker of a friend paid 3 times as much for his CPU. I tried to tell him, and he wouldnt listen. He went by the commercials and reputation and now that hes actually seen how big the performance difference is he swears he will never buy Intel again. He knows now that he got robbed. BTW its for sale [img]smile.gif[/img]

Oh yeah one more thing along those lines. Dont bother buying a P4 that supports SDRAM. It works but it defeats the purpose of buying a superfast CPU. Get Ram that can keep up with the FSB speed to processor was intended for. RAMBUS ram is extremely fast:super duper fast. But I dont think its worth the price. Like 4 to 8 times the price of DDR SDRAM. If you have a buttload of money to blow, go for it. Otherwise.... dont bother.

theres my 2c [img]smile.gif[/img]

<font color="#66ff99">LOL EarthDog [img]smile.gif[/img] Your Intel bias is showing. But what you said is essentially correct. As for the GeForce 3 card [img]smile.gif[/img] Im running Morrowwind with maxed settings for graphics at 1600x1200 and it is smooth as silk, and all the nifty keen water effects and stuff look awesom. So Either get a GeForce3 or a GeForce4 full version, don't hamstring your self with the MX versions.

As for the AMD Processor, lots of people love them, but I know a lot who are switching back to intel just to avoid the occasional odd incompatibility....You cannot go wrong with intel, but you will pay a bit more...some times a lot. </font>

Errr, thanks for your replies, especially Earthdog's. I think I understood only half of it... I think.

My current system is about 30+ months old. Here are the key system specs:

Pentium 3 500 MHz
256 MB SDRAM (2 x 128 MB sticks)
Creative Labs 3D Blaster Riva TNT2 Ultra
Soundblaster Live! Value sound card
17" monitor
12GB HDD

As you can see, it's nothing compared to the systems that are available these days. It still serves well though, although I've had to replace the power supply and CD-ROM drive.

I was looking at Dell but, as you suggest, if I go for AMD then I'll probably have to go to those smaller vendors who assemble PCs from pre-bought components. I'm a bit nervous about the professionalism of these chaps as (I assume) that big names like Dell would do a better job.

Besides RPGs, I'm also into flight sims. These obviously need a good graphics card, although what the TNT2 Ultra is good enough for my games. I don't have much free time anyway, and RPGs take up so much time to complete.

That said, I'll probably go for a GEForce 3, probably a Ti 200 or 500 if I can afford it. A GEForce4 would probably be too expensive at this point in time. I make it a point not to be an "early adopter" - things are cheaper this way!

BTW, what's with the "Ti" label? I understand it satnds for Titanium, but what's the diff b/w a Ti and non-Ti card (if there is one)?

I only get top of the line stuff when it comes to buying things like that, OH and I loved the "set of chips" answer [img]tongue.gif[/img] that really cracked me up and made my day

BTW: when I saw this question it looked like Techi O, and i was thinking: "hmm Techi... maybe he means Tekki, the newest Capcom game about Giant Robots during world war II, err or as they call them "Vertical Tanks" And O stands for Oratariotangram which is just a fancy japanese catch phraise related to robots in general, (Examples: Bangai-O, Gangai-O, Big-O, Gundam O, Virtual On Oratariotangram ect...)

[img]tongue.gif[/img] Well that caught me off guard completley hehe, i was getting ready for my giant robot ranting mode to kick in and now its all going like "phuptubptubptubptupbtpbuptbputbpt..."

Hayashi, If youre looking at buying a new computer I think you will get out if it much cheaper if you built it yourself. I know many people that have bought new Dell computers and were VERY unhappy with them. I know a few who bought them and were happy. Memnoch bought a Dell and seems to be happy with it.

I used to work for Hewlett-Packard building their units. Now HP has merged with Compaq and I used to be a Compaq salesman. Personlly I think they are both CRAP. The HP monster servers are AWESOME. Most people dont have $150,000 to spend on a computer though. Those would be the only HP id be interested in. They have 128 6 gig mirrored hard drives. All that basicly means is that if one of the hard drives fails the ones next to it will still be able to read it. Those 6 gig hard drive are worth $1,000 EACH.

If you want a new computer build it yourself and you'll get EXACTLY what you want/need for about a third or half the price.

HP and Compaq both offer "IMPRESSIVE SOFTWARE PACKAGES"

95% OF THE SOFWARE IS CRAP THAT YOU WILL NEVER USE. I wouldnt want to use HP's cd buring software. I prefer Nero. Its lots better. So why pay for software that you have no use for???? You might get 20 programs but the only one youll use is WINDOWS.

I know someone who bought an HP Pavillion 750. When she couldnt figure out how to get the cd burner to actually burn a disc I went over to check it out and see what was wrong with it. Shed been telling me it kept getting "buffer underrun errors" and the burn would fail.

When I got there I hit control alt delete and found, no BS, 37 processes open and running. 33 of them were programs installed by the Recovery cd. She had added 4 of them on her own. She had only ever used 2 of the ones that came with the software package. I uninstalled about 25 of the programs and changed the preferences on the others so that she only had 7 programs opening on bootup. Then I expalained to her that she needed to conrtol alt delete everything but EXPLORER and SYSTRAY befor she attempted to burn a disk.

She hasnt had a single problem since then.

Buy the parts you want to go in it and build your own computer. Compare the prices for parts with the prices of the pre-built units and you will see (amazingly) how much money you can save.

This is my unit:
AMD 1600+xp
ASUS A7A266-E (supports both SD and DDR RAM)
Pioneer 16x DVD ROM
Panasonic 50x cd rom and Floppy
640 meg of DDR RAM (2x256, 1x128) PC2100 233 mhzFSB
TV Tuner card
Decoder card for the DVD player
scroll mouse, keyboard
Creative Vibra 128 sound card
1300 watt speaker system with sub woofer
17 inch monitor
TNT2 m64 video card (for now, look out Geforce 4 Ti 4600 [img]smile.gif[/img] )
Desk and leather computer chair.

I built this for about $1500 Australian. Call it $750 US.
Comparative systems run NO less than $3100 or about $1500 US. And you wont get the desk and really nice chair in the deal either.

Its far cheaper to buy the parts and even pay someone $50 to assemble it than it is to buy a pre-built unit. If you build it yourself youll laugh your ass off every time you see an advertisement for a unit like yours at twice the price. If you buy a unit that someone else built youll fell like crying when you see who much money you could have saved if you had simply bought the parts and done it yourself.

And dont fall for the WARRANTEE sales routine. Any parts you buy will have at least a years warrantee.

I can build TWO computers for the price of ONE Dell HP or Compaq.

Stay away from Compaq... IMHO they are the absolute worst. Id sell ya one if I was on the clock, but if I werent on the clock Id tell you to get something else.

BUILD BUD.

Earthdog
Many thanks for your responses. Unfortunately I lack the courage, expertise & time to assemble my own rig. But I take your point - even if I buy from Dell (supposedly cutting out the middleman) I suppose I could tailor make a rig for about the same price, if not less.

My concerns about putting togther my own rig are:
- motherboard. What would work with the CPU I decide to get?
- power supply. Don't want to fry the internals when I first switch on the power. Plus, would it be adequate for what's in the rig?
- how to choose components that are reliable but inexpensive (doesn't have to be top of the line). When I went shopping after my CD-ROM died, I was bewildered by the number of choices available.
- cooling. I live in the tropics, and heat buildup in the internals is a real issue. I don't want to put up my own rig and have the whole thing heat up more than if someone else did it.

I suppose I'll consider having a custom-made rig. The only snag is finding a reliable vendor who can do the job properly.

BTW, if your earlier post you mentioned RAMBUS. What is that? I gather that DDR RAM and PC800 RAM are different types of RAM technologies, with one cheaper & the other faster. Is PC800=RAMBUS?

The PC800 is a Rambus type chip. It has better memory bandwidth than the DDR does. PC1066 just came out, but it's harder to come by. The only company making it right now is Kingston. If you go the DDR route, the best you can get is DDR333. Unfortunately, Intel doesn't have any chipset that can take advantage of the full 333x2 memory bandwidth. If you decide to overclock you will be able to use it though. Try and find memory with the lowest latency possible. CAS 2.5 is average, but if you can find 2.0 then you will notice a definite difference. The 850 chipset is the Intel chipset that uses the Rambus memory chips, and the 845 chipset either uses DDR or SDRAM. DON'T get SDRAM for your P4. If you don't presently have a P4 and have to buy that as well, be sure you get one of the Northwood P4's. They are designated by an "A" at the end of their name. For a budget, the 1.6A P4 is a great chip to get because on the average you can overclock it to 2.4 Ghz. with stock air cooling.

As far as video cards go, all I can say is don't get any MX series card. They all pretty much blow. The GF3 Ti series is good, but if I were you I'd go with the GF4 Ti 4200 for the cost. Either that or the ATI Radeon 8500. They are both significantly more advanced and are pretty inexpensive. You can find the 8500 for around $100.00 and the 4200 for under $150.00.

Honestly if I were you I'd wait a couple of months. There is some really cool stuff coming out in the near future and it will significantly drop prices on the stuff you are currently looking at. It seems like you are an Intel fan, so that being the case, wait until the new 533 mhz bus architecture works its way down to some of the slower chips. Look for the "E" designation after the end of the chipset number. That will mean it supports the new bus speed. Also, we are on the verge of a whole new slew of graphics cards. We have the Nvidia NV 30 and NV 25 coming out soon, and we also have the ATI R300 and R250 coming out soon. Those will both dramaticall effect prices on current equipment and they will offer newer faster alternatives.

If you must buy now and you are on a budget, I'd get a P4 1.6A Northwood with an Abit or Asus MB running the 845E chipset. I would get at least 512 mb of DDR333 made by either Samsung, Corsair, or Crucial. For video I would go with the GF4 Ti 4200. Just do me a favor and DON'T get an MX card.

If you want the best prices on hardware you can get, check out Newegg.com. They sell the new stuff for about as cheap as you can get it.

Hayashi,

You need to start by deciding what brand of CPU you want and that will eliminate half of the confusion about motherboards. Personally I buy AMD processors. All the new AMD processors are socket A.

From there I recommend buying the latest magazines that have motherboard reviews. I bought one about 8 months ago and read all the reviews and even though MSI and Soltek made the two fastest for my CPU I decided on the ASUS A7A266-E. The reason for this was that when I got to where I could afford DDR SDRAM I wouldnt have to get ANOTHER mainboard since is supports both types of SDRAM.

The MSI board I read the review on was the fastest on the market according the the magazine, but It was a little out of my price range and also the convenience wasnt there (didnt have the two types of ram support). Soltek ran a very close second but the drawback to it was that it only had 3 PCI slots.. that doesnt let you plug in many add-ons.

As far as cooling goes you can go to the website of the CPU or mainboard manufacturer and they will tell you the brands of fans and heatsinks that theyve tested and approved for a particular chip or board. I think the one I got was a CoolerMaster, but I wont swear to that. The one I got can handle up to (maybe even higher) 1.8 Ghz. A good knowledgable salesman will also be able to tell you which ones would be good for your new processor.

If youve recently bought a cd-rom then thats one thing you dont need to replace. I wouldnt replace the floppy either unless its going bad.

Use as many parts of your old system as you can---and save money not having to buy them. If were you though, Id lose the old SD RAM and get DDR RAM (and a board that supports it). Maybe youve got a little brother or sister that would like to have some of your old parts that you cant use ;)

And as I recommended before, buy the parts and pay someone at a computer shop to put it all together for you, youll still come out cheaper in the long run. Hope all this helps bud [img]smile.gif[/img]

Earthdog, you're right, it is cheaper to build your own - but only if you have some idea of what your doing! My first attempt was not trouble-free, took me a month to get the thing working! I saved a lot of cash (the whole kit & caboodle cost me around £500 for a PC that would have cost me £1500 to buy) but ended up with a month of tinkering and a headache, after which I was left with a feeling of smug satisfaction, so it wasn't all bad! I'm no techie genius, but I am a very practical 'hands on' person.