Questions for hardware parts wizards...

[D*Ranged]

Good news. I might get the upgrade I wanted, as well as slight budget addition. (up to NZ$600)
This won't get me all the flash computer parts, but will sort out the essentials at least (Mobo, CPU, RAM).

But enough rant. Here are the questions relating to Hardware parts.
1. I realise that nFORCE 2 is a mobo - incorporated Graphics, but is it better than what I got now? (64MB GeForce v6600, 3 years old and I don't know its exact nature) And will it do the job for gaming provided its not very demanding?
2. Will Dolby APU (Incorporated in Mobo) 5.1 be better than my old SB Live!Value?
3. I plan for 350W PS. Will that be sufficient for 2 HDD, 1 Floppy and one CD writer?
4. I still can't make up my mind on WIndows OS. Toss - up between 2000 and XP Pro. I know XP is gonna be more recent and better, and I heard that WIndows 2000 won't be very game-friendly. Is this true?
5. Okay, now laugh at me for all you like...but will MS Office XP run in WIn XP ONLY?
6. Best anti-Virus? Norton? McAfee? anything else?
7. Last Question. I heard that AMD chips can be more fragile. So I plan to have another Fan attached to my Mobo (If I happen to buy AMD). Will that do to cool off my CPU sufficiently?

Thanks in Advance.

P.S. Oh, and my old mobo, it still hasn't been sorted out yet but the same tutor that helped me agreed to have a look at it for me (I have to bring it down myself...)

[ 08-20-2003, 12:22 AM: Message edited by: D*Ranged ]

[Faceman]

1. on-board VGA is NEVER better than a real graphics board. Will it do the job for gaming provided its not very demanding? I'm not familiar with this special Mobo ut generally onbaord chips lack 3D acceleration. I'd advise you to get an old Gforce 4200Ti (about 100$) or a new Gforce5200 (which is kinda lame though however sufficient for most games and apps)

2. Creative rocks! Again onboard solutions are often poor in quality and the SB LIVE is a nice piece. I used my old SB16 (first inst on 386SX 20MHz) up until my P200 and (I still got that machine) it is still working great (after >10 years). You should consider deactivating the onboard chip (BIOS utility)and installing your old SB Live.

3.Probably

4.Win2K is not very game friendly WinXP is a big lollipop-coloured mess. If you manage to remove all these bubble-themes from XP it is not that much different from Win2K in reliability and works better for the home user.

5. No. Office XP will run on WinXP, Win2K and AFAIK also on older OSs like the horrid WinME for example.

6. Norton, McAfee, Sophos if you like it simple. Check out a recent test in some magazine to certify who is riding at the top right now.

7. AMD chips are more likely to overheat (as intel chips reduce tact frequence if they do) and with the old Palomino core (e.g. Athlon XP 2000+) you can actually physically damage the chip if you for example mount the cooler incorrectly. MB-fans are for chipset cooling, CPU can only be cooled by the CPU-cooler and by reducing the whole system temperature -> case-fans.

[andrewas]

1) The Nforce 2 integrated graphics is a Geforce4 MX. Its adequate for gaming, but you will want to upgrade it before to long.

2) The onboard sound is pretty nice, but since my hearing sucks I never pay to much attention to soundcard specs. But if you have a 5.1 speaker system it may be worth using. If you dont, creative are very good.

3) Itll be fine, probably. My 350 has troubles, but I think its defective. Anyway, youll be running without a serperate graphics card so your demand will be lower.

4) Go for XP. It may look crappy in its default setting, but it takes all of 30 seconds to remove all that, and win2K dosent have the same level of games support.

5) Ive run it on win98.

6) Define 'best'. Percentage detection varies as new pattern files are released, and anyway you'll be hard pressed to find an independant test that marks one significantly above another, among the top few at least. I would go with norton.

7) The cooler that comes with the AMD *should* be sufficient to cool the chip if the case is well ventilated.

[D*Ranged]

Originally posted by andrewas: 6) Define 'best'. Percentage detection varies as new pattern files are released, and anyway you'll be hard pressed to find an independant test that marks one significantly above another, among the top few at least. I would go with norton. 7) The cooler that comes with the AMD *should* be sufficient to cool the chip if the case is well ventilated.

Well...just the antivirus that does the job it was designed to do without much hassle the most. Guess I'd go for Norton.

So if I were to get AMD chip, place my case in a well-ventilated place, and clean the mobo up regularly and pray it all works out.


Thank you.